Wojciechowski set up the film, Dr. Ziegler hovered behind him like an annoying hornet you can't shake off. Werner sat on one of the seven chairs in the room. This room too had stone walls and no windows. It didn't take long for them to get the projector to work, and once they did, Dr. Ziegler took a seat. Wojciechowski remained up front, he not only had to view the photographs but he also had to interpret them.
Werner glanced over at Dr. Ziegler. He'd been in this postition many times; seated next to his parents, waiting for the doctors to bring the bad news that got worse with every session. Now he was seated next to an infamous war criminal, a man who called himself a doctor but wasn't really. For the first time he wasn't terrified while waiting for the results. He didn't know why.
The first picture created itself on the projecting foil. Slowly you could start to see a skull. The resolution was so much worse than what Werner was used too, but he could still recognize the altered bone structure that the tumor had caused him. Wojciechowski saw it too. Dr. Ziegler wasn't able to read the picture, but he didn't have to, Wojciechowski read it aloud for them.
"There's not much to see in this picture, the form of the skull is absolutely normal," he started to say, then clicked to the second image, "here as well. If there's anything interresting to say about this photograph, it's that right here," and he pointed at the place with the long wooden stick some teachers still have in their classrooms, "there is a bit of a protrusion, that means a bump Werner, but that doesn't come from tumors, that's simply a birth defect. Not every skull is perfectly shaped, it's much like jaw bones which also can vary." He went to the next image, which he looked at in silence first, examining the details. Werner was mighty confused; why was Wojciechowski lying? The bump in his skull was not a birth defect, it was because of the tumor, which had changed bone structure in the areas of the skull that were close to it. The images obviously showed that, Wojciechowski was a good doctor and a cancer researcher so he must have known what it truely was. Werner's confusion level rose as Wojciechowski began to explain the next picture, claiming there was nothing wrong with the patient. "Here you can see again, the bone structure is normal apart from the birth defect, there are no abnormalties. You said the tumor would be about...here?"
"Ja." Werner answered. "Genau."
"Well, there's nothing there. I'm sorry to dissapoint you. But the good news is, you don't have cancer."
Werner had no idea what to say in response. He didn't know wether to pretend to cry for joy or to laugh and say it had all been a joke. Dr. Ziegler saved him by asking the pole a question.
"How can you be sure? The picture only shows the skull and none of the brain tissue?"
"I don't need to see the brain to tell."
"Why not?"
"If he would have a brain tumor, the bone around it would be different, it would have changed. Cancer is a dangerous disease, it spreads out, it affects other parts of the body, even if those aren't directly infested with cancer cells."
"So the skull would look different?"
"Yes."
"But only in a later stage of cancer, right? I doubt that his whole skull would be deformed when the tumor wasn't fully developped yet?" Dr. Ziegler's question wasn't dumb; he had a point. Wojchiechowski had hoped that he wouldn't pose such a diffecult question, but he'd expected it. The man was a doctor too, after all. Werner sat there in silence, observing the two doctors.
"Of course the skull is more affected the more the tumor grows, and strange deformations wouldn't appear immediatlly, that's correct. But Werner claims to have had cancer since he was sixteen years old, brain cancer is not the type to sit around and wait forever. It's a very invasive form of cancer. He'd be dead by now without some form of treatment."
"So Werner doesn't have cancer?" Dr. Ziegler said. Speaking as if Werner was asleep in a different room, and not sitting directly next to him.
"No, Werner is, thankfully, cancer-free." Wojciechowski replied with a smile. Dr. Ziegler shrugged; it didn't change much for him.
"Don't lie to me again, Werner." He said and stood up. Werner just nodded, unsure of wether to argue that he hadn't been lying or to just let it drop. Wojciechowski smiled at Werner. The smile told him that he knew that the tumor was there, that Werner wasn't lying. So why had Wojchiechowski decided to lie to Dr. Ziegler?