by Elly Welt
He could picture the signs—and himself, so young, so thin—emaciated, really—in the Biology Lab, leaning into his microscope and puffing away on those dreadful cigarettes they rolled from tobacco grown in the greenhouse and cured in the basement of the Institute, each scientist with his own nauseating recipe. One could not buy tobacco in Berlin during those last years of the war. The Chief, who was director of the entire operation, cured his leaf with prune juice and extract of dried figs. All Josef’s co-workers in the lab were able to do the tedious sorting of the fruit flies and smoke simultaneously because of his famous little invention, a metal cigarette holder attached at mouth level to the body of the binocular lenses. He could not breathe. A recrudescence of his phobic symptoms. Josef’s noisy lungs had lost all compliance. He began to sweat profusely, and the incipient tears let go and rolled freely down his face.
“Dr Duncan here.” Elizabeth’s warm voice brought him to, but he could not answer her immediately. He mopped his face with a handkerchief, took a shallow breath, and exhaled.
“Hello?” she said.
“Elizabeth.” His voice was hoarse and shaking. “How are you?”
“Josef? Is that you? I can hardly hear you. Can you talk a little louder?”
“Yes.” He was calmer. “Can you hear me now?”
“Yes, yes, that’s better. How good to hear your voice. Just last night John and I were lamenting that we haven’t seen you since you came down. We saw more of you when you were in Montréal. How have you been?”
“Just fine, thank you. And how is your family? John? The boys?”
“We’re plugging along. What can I do for you?”
“I wonder if you might have time to see me today?”
“Of course. What’s the problem?”
“My blood pressure has been a little high.”
She hesitated before answering. “You know I’m always happy to see you, but you should go to a good internist. I hardly think you need a doctor who takes care of all the young ones around here.”
“Elizabeth, I . . . I want to talk to you.”
“Of course, my dear. Your blood pressure. How high is it?”
“Fairly high.”
“How high?”
“Right now it’s about two hundred over one hundred and ten.”
“How long has that been going on?”
“Three quarters of a year or so.”
“That high?”
“It’s usually around one seventy over just below a hundred.”
“Did it go up all at once?”
“I think so. I checked it one day last spring—in Montréal. It was up, and it hasn’t come down since.”
“What are you taking?”
“Nothing.”
“Not even a diuretic?”
“No.”
“Good God, Seff, there are more efficient ways to commit suicide.” Josef was silent.
“Can you come over to Student Health in about an hour? Around ten?”
“Ten. Yes, that would be fine. And thank you.”
He hung up and, feeling calmer, began to compose the letter of resignation. The facts were simple. He was not competent; therefore, he could not work. But how much detail must he convey? They would be displeased no matter what he said, so he might as well keep it brief. He pivoted his chair to face the typewriter on the small table beside his desk, inserted the University of Iowa letterhead, and glanced up at the wall calendar: Tuesday, October tenth.
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
IOWA CITY, IOWA 52242
Department of Anesthesiology
October 10, 1967
George M. Jenkins, M.D., Head Department of Anesthesiology
Dear Dr Jenkins:
I resign, for reasons of health, effective immediately.
Yours truly,
Josef L. Bernhardt, M.D.
It was thin. Joseph did not want Jenkins to think he meant to be rude, for he did not. But what more should one say? Some “deeply regrets,” or “sincerely sorrys”? That had never been his style. His high school composition teacher had always complained that although Josef’s essays were mechanically correct and to the point, they lacked embellishment. His papers were forever decorated in red ink with “embellish” or “invent.” The Nazis were quite good at that kind of thing, at taking a so-called fact, usually an invalid premise, and building it to a conclusion with loaded language.
Biological science has shown that only the pure race will survive and that mixed-bloods inherit only the worst characteristics of their ancestors. Therefore, the bastardizing of pure German Aryan blood with degenerate Jew-infested blood has to be outlawed.
In math he could invent—elegant proofs. Out of the depths of his memory emerged the image of his high school math professor, a very old man, retired from the University of Berlin, called back to teach at the Collège Français de Berlin because of the shortage of teachers in Germany during the war.
With this recollection, Josef’s symptoms once again returned: shallow, fast inhalations through his mouth; he was unable to exhale. He tried to think of anything else: the mechanics of the remainder of the day; the walk to the bank so he could empty his safety box, destroy some memorabilia of no concern to Tatiana, and send the rest of the money to her in Berlin. The bank would seal the box and their joint accounts as soon as they read his obituary. He had a little tuft of white hair above each ear. He was the most marvelous and exciting teacher. He saved Josef’s life. The other classes were so boring. Josef jumped to his feet, put his hands firmly on his desk, and bent over, hunching his back, mouth open, straining his neck and abdominal muscles, trying to pull the air out of his noisy lungs until, finally, the chest constrictions eased and his breathing became easier. Drenched with sweat, exhausted, Josef dropped in his chair and, elbows on desk, rested his face in his hands. Bronchodilators would raise his blood pressure, and he didn’t want to have a stroke or a heart attack unless he could be assured it would kill him. He could breathe now and felt calm enough to sign his letter and type the envelope.
He knew Jenkins would be outraged by his resignation. Josef had been on the job a little over two weeks after over a year of intensive manipulation on the part of Jenkins and Carlos Borbon to get the Bernhardts’ residents’ visas and to secure a position for Tatiana in Biochemistry, which, after all their effort, she refused. He’d wanted to stop the damn thing after the first delays, begged Carlos to stop pushing it. And Tatiana never had wanted to go to Iowa. Her family was alive in Berlin. All she ever wanted, she said over and over, was to return to Berlin.
He inserted the envelope into the typewriter. There was a knock on his office door. Carlos. Josef grimaced as he removed the envelope and shoved it and the letter into the center drawer of his desk. A second knock; the door opened and Carlos Borbon, in wrinkled surgical greens, unshaven, his mask dangling, entered the office, stood by the door, and stared critically at Josef.
“You can come in, Charley, if you’ll stop examining me.”
“I’ve just got a minute. Do you have a cigarette?”
Josef recovered the pack of Camels from the waste-basket.
Carlos raised an eyebrow. “You file them in the trash can?”
“I stopped smoking.” Josef handed him the pack and ashtray. “Keep them.”
“I heard you’re sick.” Carlos leaned over and retrieved the lighter he kept tucked in his left sock. “What’s wrong?”
“I suppose it’s just an advanced case of la grippe. I’ll be all right.” Annoyed by his friend’s scrutiny, Josef swiveled his chair to face the window, and, looking out, was shocked to discover that it was one of those rare and brilliant October days, the yellow oak, the red maple against emerald lawn and deep sky.
Carlos lit up and inhaled deeply. “Surgeon said you blew up at his resident this morning.”
“That has nothing to do with it.” The day reminded him of an image in a poem by some American author: white geese against g
reen lawn—and apples. Elizabeth had sent him the anthology when he was interning in Montréal: When you can understand the metaphors, then you’ll know you know English, she had written. It was “Requiem for . . .” No, that didn’t ring a bell. It was a little elegy, a condolence letter for the death of a child, and he was annoyed he couldn’t remember it. He had always prided himself on his memory. He would have to ask Elizabeth.
“In the five years I worked with you at McGill, I never knew you to miss a day. You’re the only person I know who’s more obsessive and compulsive about work than I am.”
Josef sighed and turned to face his friend. “Did it ever occur to you to mind your own business?”
“This is my business. If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t be here.”
“Look, Charley, I was going to write you a note. I . . . I can’t make it to dinner tonight. Tell Matsumoto I’m sorry to miss him.”
“He’ll be sorry too. He’s just had a break-through on that pituitary hormone. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s nominated for the Nobel prize.” Carlos snuffed out his cigarette, took the pack of Camels and his lighter from Josef’s desk, shoved them into his left sock, and stood. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “You’re one of the few people Matsumoto enjoys talking to.”
“I’ve enjoyed talking with him, and always with you. Those Tuesday night dinners—in Montréal and now here—were the one thing I did look forward to.” He choked on the words. The tears were rising again, and Josef, mortified by his loss of control, jumped to his feet and walked to the window. His lips were quivering; he leaned his forehead against the cool glass to recover himself.
Carlos strode to the window and tried to put an arm around him, but Josef shrugged him away.
“Why don’t you let me find a bed for you, and we’ll give you a thorough going over.”
Josef shook his head. “I’m going to see Elizabeth. I’ll be all right.”
“Elizabeth! You need an internist, not somebody who takes care of the healthy young kids around here.”
“She’s a good physician.”
“That’s not the point, Seff. She sees nothing but students who’ve caught a dose of the clap or—” He stopped mid-sentence. “What time are you seeing her?”
“Ten.”
“Over in Student Health?”
Josef turned from the window to say, “Never mind where. Don’t call her. I mean that.”
“This move has been too much for you,” Carlos said. “First the hassle over the visa, and then we didn’t give you time to unpack and settle before digging in.” Carlos looked around the cluttered office at the cardboard cartons. “Maybe I shouldn’t have hounded you so to come down here—especially after that damned visa came a year late. I suppose you worked in Montréal right up to the last minute?”
“Yes.”
“You need a rest. Do you have the time?”
Josef looked at his wristwatch. “Nine thirty.”
“I’ve got to go.” Carlos strode to the door, stopped, and faced Josef. “Isn’t there anything I can do for you?”
Josef turned again to the window. “You’ve done quite enough already.”
“I’ll drop by after surgery.”
“I won’t be here.”
“Then I’ll call you later this afternoon.” Carlos left, closing the office door behind him.
Forehead pressed against the cool glass, eyes closed against the beauty of the October day, Josef, on the verge of tears, laboring for each breath, felt that he was drowning. Why had he told that intrusive bastard he was going to see Elizabeth? And the visa, it was not one year late. It was twenty-two years too late. He pushed himself away from the window. There was just enough time to hand in his resignation and pick up the succinylcholine before meeting Elizabeth at ten. It was a punishing death, a suffocating death, but the insurance companies would not be able to prove suicide. The heart continues to pump the blood, but all voluntary functions stop—he would have to take enough for five minutes or so—one cannot breathe or even blink, so if the eyes are open, they remain open, or if they are closed, they remain so. He would lie down, and he must remember to close his eyes. The corpse looks as though it suffered a heart attack or a stroke. The autopsy, of course, would disprove this. It was not a bad idea to take a little tranquilizer or barbiturate to control vomiting and to throw them off the track. But the succinylcholine they would never find. It gets broken down by metabolism into normal constituents of the blood or serum, even after death. He would put it into enteric-coated capsules that don’t get dissolved in the stomach but in the guts.
PART II
1943–1944
Berlin
CHAPTER TWO
First Day
THERE WAS A MODEST BRASS plaque on the stone gatepost:
KAISER WILHELM INSTITUTE
FOR
NEURO-PHYSIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
BERLIN-HAGEN MCMXXVIII
Beneath it was a wooden placard, white with black stenciling:
FORBIDDEN: TO ENTER
Authorized Personnel Only
There were no guards. I walked through the open gates, stepped onto the lawn, and, shielded from the road by the stone wall, shrugged the rucksack off my shoulders onto the grass, unbuttoned my ski jacket, and searched through my pockets for the necktie. I promised Mother I would wear it—and a suit and clean white shirt—if she would promise not to get up with me. I had to beg her not to get up with me that morning of my first day. My commute, on two trains and a bus, to the northeasternmost border of Berlin would take two hours. Hers was only one, and she needed the extra hour of rest. Mother peeled potatoes each day for the glory of the Third Reich in a factory midtown. Her chosen profession, medicine, was taken from her in 1938, but in September 1942 it was replaced with the new one. Adolf Hitler was so kind as to provide her with a potato peeler.
The tie was stuffed somewhere in the pockets of my knickerbocker suit along with all the other junk I carried: screwdriver, pliers, one ocular from Mother’s microscope, a stub of pencil, a fountain pen, or so. I found it, a narrow striped thing, in the pocket of my knickers, wadded together with the paper my father had given me with the names of the Director of the Institute and of his secretary. I held the names between my teeth, slid the neck-tie under the collar of my white shirt, and tied a small knot.
As I swung the canvas rucksack onto my back, I was hit by the fumes of the salami Mother had put there the night before. I was to deliver it to my uncle and aunt—her brother and his wife—on the way home that evening. They both had to wear the yellow star and, therefore, had difficulty shopping. The salami was from Italy and stank of garlic.
I walked around the circular drive, past a flagpole that, curiously, flew no Nazi flag, to the main building, which was in the shape of a Y. The central rectangle was six stories but the two wings, which made the prongs of the Y, were only two stories. This main building was not far from the gate at the northeastern end of the Institute’s huge and beautiful grounds, acres of grass and trees and April flowers: tulips, daffodils, violets, and the like.
There were no guards at the double-door entrance, either. The only sentries were a swarm of troublesome fruit flies who seemed determined to enter with me. I shooed them away with wild wavings of my arms, but despite my precaution, some of the little fellows sneaked in anyway.
It was twenty to eight in the morning, and except for the fruit flies, I was alone in the lobby. My father had told me that work began at eight and that I was to report to the Director’s secretary, Sonja Press, before that time. There was an unattended Information Desk to one side. Directly behind it was a sign forbidding smoking: NO SMOKING.
And there were other signs around the lobby walls:
CAUTION: DANGER OF FIRE AND EXPLOSION:
DO NOT SMOKE
FORBIDDEN: TO SMOKE
DANGER: SHHHH: THE ENEMY IS LISTENING
NO SMOKING
I thought it strange that there was no picture of Adolf Hitler, nor was t
here a directory with the location, for example, of the Director or his secretary—only the signs warning one not to smoke and not to talk. And it made no sense that there was music. From a room opening off the lobby, I could hear a pianist, superb, practicing a Bach toccata, the same phrases over and over and over.
I sat on the edge of a leather chair near the Information Desk to wait for someone I could ask. It was quite warm; the lobby was actually heated. I unbuttoned my ski jacket partway and sat there involuntarily inhaling the Italian garlic salami in my rucksack, its smell permeating my clothes, my skin. Shortly before eight, people began to walk through the lobby, some from the main entrance and others from interior hallways. There were many young women—girls, really. The men, mostly middle-aged and older, wore either white lab coats, everyday clothes, or the uniform of the Luftwaffe. I could not tell the scientists from the workers. At times the lobby was full. Altogether two hundred or so people passed through, almost all smoking cigarettes or pipes. They smoked and chattered to each other.
No one paid any attention to me. I looked younger than my sixteen and a half years because I was so thin, and I looked down at the floor most of the time. The chronic disease—mixed-blood—I had suffered for ten years, since 1933, had made me abnormally shy.
By nine, the flow of people stopped, the pianist had moved on in the toccata to other phrases, and I was already more than an hour late. I knew I must ask the next person passing where to find the Director’s office. I did not like to talk much, so to avoid actually speaking to anyone, I took a school tablet from my rucksack and wrote the secretary’s name in large printed letters: SONJA PRESS.
The next person passing was a tall, thin officer, an Obersturm-bannführer, in the black uniform of the S.S. He walked with an awkward, shuffling gait, his arms held away from his body like a primate; he was pale and seemed ill. I looked at the floor. He looked down also. Then a man in a white lab coat, most likely a scientist, came into the lobby from a hallway. He was smoking a cigarette. I stood and held up the tablet. He read the large print: SONJA PRESS. He asked me in a very loud voice, “Young man, are you deaf?”