I glanced at Manfred, reflections of trees streaking light and dark across the windscreen, obscuring my view. He leaned forward, unsure what we were doing here as the police station’s sign wasn’t visible from where he sat. I looked away quickly, chewing my cheek. I realised I should have dialled 117 from home, but I hadn’t been confident enough to explain my situation in German to the emergency services.
Anxiety tumbled my gut. Mostly because of Manfred’s potential reaction if I turned him over to the police. I was sure he wouldn’t be happy about that. I resigned myself to driving him to the hospital twenty minutes away in the valley.
That would mean twenty more minutes in the car with him.
As I climbed back into the car Manfred looked at me curiously. I started the engine and drove off without telling him why we had stopped. He didn’t notice the sign for the police station as we pulled away.
‘Manfred, you really need to talk to a medical professional, a psychologist,’ I said.
‘But you are a mother too. You will know the problems families have. You will understand. I was serious before when I said I think you can help.’
‘Is this only to do with your family? Your late wife? Your son?’ I asked gently.
I’d crossed the line, asked the question that had been in my mind since I first saw him in his business suit on the bridge. Why would he be dressed like that on a Sunday?
‘There is a reason we met today, Alice. I realise that now. There is a reason fate chose you to save me on that bridge. We have a connection. I know you feel it.’
I forced my gaze forward for fear of giving a false message with my eyes.
‘I know you’d like to help,’ he said after a moment.
‘I can’t help you, Manfred. I’m not a doctor or a nurse or a person remotely qualified to help you in your situation,’ I lied. ‘I can barely help my own kids when their team loses a game of football.’
As the road curved down towards the valley, I shifted in my seat when I realised our journey would take us over the Tobel Bridge. At the next junction, I took the left fork without saying anything to Manfred, retracing our bus journey back through the other village, a minor detour from the main road to Zug. To avoid the place Manfred had stood and contemplated his demise only hours before. Despite seldom finding myself behind the wheel of our car, I felt I never wanted to set eyes on the Tobel Bridge again.
‘Manfred, you need to talk to someone in your own language. There will be people at the hospital who can help you deal with the conflict going on in your mind and your heart. I cannot help you. I cannot.’
‘You told me you’d thought about taking your life too, once. Do you think you would still do that if your husband and sons didn’t want you to be a part of their lives any more?’
‘No, of course not!’ I said spontaneously, thinking what the hell kind of question is that? ‘I’m not the same person I was when I was a teenager.’
‘But you don’t know until you’ve been there,’ said Manfred, looking away from me to the passing suburbs of Zug.
Why did I suddenly feel he had turned the tables, was interrogating me somehow? Testing me. Making me say things I couldn’t qualify. My agitation increased as I realised he must be playing mind games with himself after a decision he couldn’t unmake.
What would the scenario have been if I had arrived ten minutes later? I put my hand to my mouth.
Manfred put his hand on my arm, and my heart thumped.
‘It’s okay, Alice. It’s okay,’ he said, as though I was the one he had just rescued.
The clicking indicator echoed in the car as I turned towards the hospital. I shook my head, to try to shift the image of a body dressed in Hugo Boss, sprawled under the bridge, from my mind.
I drove past the visitors’ car park and drew up next to an ambulance near the entrance to the emergency unit. I undid my seatbelt and was about to open the door, but Manfred hadn’t moved.
‘Please do this for me, Manfred. Please.’
I felt like I was bargaining with him to humour me. I couldn’t help thinking I no longer had any control of this situation. He sighed, unclicked his seatbelt, opened the door and stood beside the car waiting for me as I took the key and grabbed my wallet from the console.
At the reception, the glass window framing the front desk displayed a disorganised array of notes. Post-its and mini-posters rendered the administrators almost invisible to visitors, furtively encouraging patients to take their emergencies elsewhere.
There was a row of plastic tube chairs lined up against the wall. The waiting area was empty.
‘I don’t need to be here, Alice,’ he said. ‘We’re wasting these hard-working nurses’ time.’
I rolled my eyes, something I did at least once every day with my kids.
‘Did you forget where we’ve just come from?’ I whispered.
His eyes widened, glistening behind his lenses, and his brows furled into an expression of hurt. I took his elbow as an apology and led him to one of the chairs, where he sat down and crossed an ankle over his knee.
The receptionist gave me the silent answer of a horseshoe smile when I asked if she spoke English. I sighed. I had no idea what the word for suicide was in German. I had visions of a macabre series of charades. I tried my halting German.
The nurse looked blankly at me until I mentioned the Töbelbrücke. At that point she meerkatted to attention with a sharp intake of breath. She knew the bridge. It was notorious.
‘This man needs a psychiatrist, a psychologist, someone to talk to.’
The nurse explained that psychiatric help wouldn’t be available on a Sunday, but she was now aware that Manfred genuinely needed care.
As he wasn’t willing to cooperate, she asked me to fill in some details on a form. She slapped a pen down on top of a clipboard, and slid it across the counter. I reluctantly pulled the board towards me. The pen in my hand hovered over the form, my mind in a jumble, trying to comprehend the German words.
‘What’s your name, Manfred? Your surname?’ I asked.
‘Sir…?’ Manfred immediately swapped his belligerence for confusion.
‘Your surname, your family name,’ I repeated.
‘Guggenbuhl,’ he said sullenly.
How the hell do I spell that?
‘I’m sorry,’ I explained to the nurse. ‘It’s difficult for me to do this, as it’s not my mother tongue… I don’t even know this man. Can you help him?’
She sighed, but to my relief took the clipboard away. She asked for my personal details in the event of a police follow-up. She looked at my details on the paper I pushed across the counter.
‘If you have a mobile number, can we have that too?’
I nodded, scribbled down the number, and I was suddenly free to go. The last of my charity had long since expired. I wanted to go home.
Manfred stood up as I made to leave, but I seated him emphatically with a downward motion of my hand, the mistress trying to regain control of her dog.
‘You’re in better hands now,’ I said sympathetically.
Manfred stared at my hands.
‘I think you do know me. You are the key. My Retterin. My saviour.