The waiter set before the doctor a glass of warm boiled water and the flesh of a Nile perch, cleaned from the bone and rearranged on the plate in the shape of a smaller fish. The water was pink from the three spoonfuls of vinegar that had been stirred into it, the day's first weapon in his battle with arthritis. The German leaned forward. His high hooked nose hung over the table like a chimney over a fireplace as he widened his nostrils and smelled the fish.