"WHEN HALF an hour had passed, he knew that he would never see his daughter again. She had opened the door by herself, turned to give him one last look, and then entered the office of the elderly man. But Josephine, his twelve-year-old daughter, would never come out again. He was sure. She would never look at him again, smiling and beaming all over when he took her to her bed. She would never again turn off her colorful lamp as she fell asleep. And she would never again wake up from her terrifying screams in the night.
This certainty hit him with the sudden force of a violent collision. When he stood up, his body wanted to remain seated in the rickety plastic chair. He wouldn't have been surprised at all if his legs didn't hold him. If he fell down and lay on the worn parquet floor of the waiting room. Right between the burly woman with psoriasis and the table with the old magazines. He wasn't lucky enough to faint, though. He continued to remain conscious.
The examination of patients is not done according to the order of priority, but according to the urgency of their condition. The sign on the white leather door leading to the allergist's office blurred before his eyes. Doctor Grolke was a family friend and doctor number twenty-two. Victor Larentz had made an entire list. The previous twenty-one doctors had failed to find anything. Absolutely nothing."
