It was only a short walk from Trak Square to the park, and that was where she went. For a while she wandered along the pathways. She reached a playground with a sand-pit, and three climbing frames covered with screeching kids. She stopped for a moment. One boy captured her attention. He was perhaps twelve years old, blonde and frenetically active. He was crawling about the sand-pit with the other children, but what made him conspicuously different was the large cork tyre that permanently confined his entire trunk. He was running about as fast as the others, however, which meant that the cork was light, even if very bulky. He noticed Rosie's stare. He ran up to her and his eyes were pleading. "Help me out of this ring," he begged her sadly. „Why are you wearing the ring?" she asked. "My parents abuse me," he said and tears welled up in his eyes. Rosie was outraged. "How could someone torture a kid like that?" She bent down to him. "Of course I'll help you," she assured him and tried to break a piece of the cork off. But the cork was very solid. "Leave that kid alone!" she heard a voice behind her. "You don't understand!" She looked round. Standing there was a large father. "Unfortunately this cork corset is not just some instrument of punishment, " said the father after listening to Rosie's reproaches, "even though I have to admit it gave me and my wife a certain amount of emotional satisfaction. The main reason, however, is serious from both the medical and social point of view. I regret that the matter is delicate and so I cannot share it with you." Rosie begged him to trust her, and promised not to utter a word about it to anyone. She explained that she had studied nursing, and that it made no difference that she was not currently employed in the health service, since she had so much experience of confidential medical reports and had seen so many people's troubles that her reliability was total. "Oh, well," said the father, "when you are as you say a competent person I can probably reveal it to you. But you have to swear..." She swore she would never say a word to anyone. "Well then. From early childhood my son has suffered from a strange deviation." "I'm listening," Rosie urged him, with excitement. He leaned closer to her and whispered: "He grabs his private parts all the time." He straightened up and towered over her. "But thanks to this cork ring he can't reach down there anymore." "Oh, I see," murmured Rosie quietly, "young boys tend to do that from time to time. But surely that's not a reason to cripple him?" „You haven't understood," the father smiled painfully, „ He holds on to it all the time, you see. It's not a matter of him just grabbing it every so often and us giving him a smack and him leaving off. He holds onto it day and night. And in any kind of situation. At home when he's asleep. When he's out in the street. When he's called up to the blackboard at school. Even when he's playing football in the gym! We were always being summoned to talk to his teachers. Just imagine the disgrace. Disgust and embarrassment from the women teachers. Whisperings among the neighbours. Ironical looks on the faces of our friends with children. He wouldn't even stop when we photographed the whole family for the family album! We couldn't watch him all the time! Now we have a picture our Thomas defaces so blatantly. Everyone notices him immediately. And not only in the photo. We can't go anywhere with him, we're ashamed in front of our relatives, and everyone looks at us as if we were scum. The social worker even asked him if we hadn't been ill-treating him in some way. Now we look like a family of deviants who sexually abuse the child!" He almost shouted the last sentence. His face twisted in anguish. Rosie could see that this painful problem probably drags for a long time. "But why is he doing it?" she asked. „I wish I knew", the father sighed,„ the psychologist gave us some sort of complicated explanation, and they did tests on him, but I don't believe they have any idea what's at the bottom of it. That tyre has turned out to be the only solution. Everybody still notices him, of course, but at least he can't disgrace himself. It all drove my poor wife to a breakdown." „It's sad," said Rosie. „But I still think you could have held out. He's only a small boy, after all, just beginning to discover his sexuality. He seems to have a subconscious desire for a woman. Perhaps he already wants to put his sexual instincts into practice in some way. I would say that when he's a little older he'll have an interest in getting rid of the habit for himself, since he'll want to be attractive to women, and he won't have too much chance of fascinating any with a handicap like that." „He won't fascinate any," said his father grimly, „ and what's more he already has masses of pimples. And he stammers horribly when he talks to girls. I saw him, he's already tried to chat one up. He was just trying it on - he squeezed his genitals, pimples everywhere, stammered and went red. She ran off! I was ashamed for him. When I was young I was completely different!" he concluded with disgust. „Do you have any other children?" asked Rosie. „A daughter," he said despondently. „And your daughter..." she wanted to ask if his daughter had also held on to her genitals, but she changed her mind. „How old is she...?" „Nearly sixteen." „I would never have guessed you had such a grown-up daughter!" she was trying to flatter him a little, to cheer him up. „Thank you, but there's no need to flatter me." „It's not flattery. You really do look young," she lied, „Can I ask what you do?" „I'm a teacher. I teach biology," he replied. „How interesting!" she exclaimed, „So you're a teacher! Now I really don't understand why you're so worried about your son! Surely you must understand him better than most fathers could! When we were children, all of us had to cope with our growing sexuality!" The biologist remained silent. „I haven't actually told you everything," he remarked after a moment. „Once he only used to hang on to his genitals, usually with his left hand. He used his right for writing, eating and so on. But then, about a year ago, there was a major deterioration in his condition." He gave an epic sigh. She said nothing. „"A year ago he virtually stopped using his right hand, as well, because he discovered that scratching the rear part of his body gave him pleasure. I hope I don't have to explain to you what part of his back I have in mind, right? So ever since he stretched himself there all the time and when his hand became tired he just left his finger stuck in there. And it didn't matter whether he walked or ran; he kept his fingers tucked in. But I'm sure I don't need to go into detail with you, dear lady, about exactly where..." „ No, you don't have to," Rosie assured him. The boy's case interested her more and more. „The worst thing is that he always had a blissful expression on his face . He looked as if were in a dream, both hands in his trousers, absolutely ghastly..." „Hmm, definitely a very problematic boy..." Meanwhile, the boy was jumping into the sand-pit. He wasn't afraid of jumping almost head first, because he always landed on the safety cushion of the cork tyre. The children around him were much younger, about six years old. It occurred to her that his contemporaries probably didn't accept him because of the tyre. „It's time for us to run," said the father, looking at his watch. He called the boy, who dawdled up unwillingly. „I hope you didn't find our story too tiresome," said the father and stroked the boy's head. The boy stuck his tongue out. „Pleasure to have met you. My name is Pardek," the father held out his hand. „Shetkova, good luck", said Rosie. They parted and went their separate ways. After a while the playground gradually emptied. Then it was veiled by the merciful shadows of evening.