by Elly Welt
“An embassy official in Paris.”
“By a Jewish man?”
“He was seventeen. His father and ten thousand other Jews had been shipped off in boxcars. His name was Grynszpan.”
“But, Seff—”
“They killed him, of course. Then they burned over a hundred synagogues, destroyed businesses—broken glass all over. The Nazis called it ‘The Week of the Broken Glass,’ a real problem for the insurance companies.”
“Seff—”
“And they arrested twenty thousand Jews. Twenty thousand. And carted them off to God-knows-where.”
“That is just the point! You must admit to me that you see the difference between a drunken mob rioting after a football game—”
“Hockey.”
“After a hockey game and a planned pogrom of the Nazis.”
“You didn’t see their faces. I did. I was walking along Côte Sainte Catherine on my way to the hospital, and I saw the faces of those people shattering the windows. Twisted. My God! Don’t you realize, Eliza, that before the planned ‘spontaneous demonstrations,’ the Brownshirts in Germany had been running amuck—spontaneously—like rabid dogs? They murdered, tortured . . . broken glass. It all began with mobs.”
“Of course, it’s all indefensible, Seff—Montréal or Germany—but the Québecois were terribly ashamed by the next day. That’s the difference!”
“Don’t you think the German people were ashamed the day after Kristallnacht? And what did they do about it? Nothing! Nothing!” Josef was shouting. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” he said quietly, his voice trembling. “I hadn’t meant to give a speech. But I was sickened. And after a night at the hospital patching up the cuts and bruises, I felt ill. I took my blood pressure. It was up and hasn’t come down since. Of course, it could have been up before that. I hadn’t checked it for some time.”
“How had you been feeling before then—say, for the past five years?”
“I was functioning. The only major problem has been with kidney stones—I’m a stone maker. If I drink enough fluids, I’m O.K. But this past summer, this fall, I’ve felt increasingly worse.”
“When’s the last bout you had with kidney stones?”
“Half a year or so ago—in the spring. I checked myself into the hospital, gave myself a shot of Demerol, and was able to pass it.” He shook his head at the memory. “That pain is unbelievable.”
“So I’ve been told. Did that happen after the hockey game episode?”
Josef thought for a moment. “Yes, I think it was after that.”
“Why is it you decided to do something about your health today?”
He shrugged and looked away from her. “I don’t know. I felt quite ill this morning—dizzy, headache—could hardly get out of bed. Thought perhaps I had the flu, but my temperature was normal. I shouldn’t have gone to work. I am not fit.”
“Did you dream last night?”
“No . . . yes. I . . . I rarely dream; that is, I don’t remember my dreams.”
“And last night? Do you remember?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Hmm. Is today anything special? An anniversary, someone’s birthday?”
“Today? October tenth? Tuesday?” His breathing became more labored. He took a deep breath. “No,” he said in a choked whisper. “I can’t think of anything significant.” Josef could not exhale. Bronchospasms again. He turned and bent over the table, back arched, mouth open wide, and tried to force the air out.
Elizabeth asked, calmly, “Does this happen often?”
He shook his head, all the while straining and pushing his neck and abdominal muscles to pull the air out of his lungs. “Once in a while,” he whispered harshly. “But today—heavy.”
“Do you do anything about it?”
“It goes away,” he whispered, relaxing slightly as the constrictions diminished and he was able to take a shaky, quick breath and exhale. Quivering and sweating—but breathing—he turned to her. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“How do you feel right now?”
“Headache.” He covered his eyes with his hand, shaking his head.
“That bad?”
“Not good.”
“Here.” She rummaged in her purse. “Let me give you some aspirin.”
“I’d better not,” he said.
“Nonsense! Take these. You’ll feel better.” Elizabeth took a paper cone from the dispenser above the sink, filled it with water, and gave it to Josef.
He swallowed the two aspirin, crushed the empty cone, and threw it into the wastebasket.
“How’s your sex life?” she asked once more.
“I’m not complaining.”
“Why are you avoiding that question?”
He did not answer.
“Are you and Tanya lovers?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter.”
“How long has that been going on?”
“Lizzy, don’t pull that psychological crap on me. I just want a physical checkup.”
“Since when hasn’t sex been physical? How you could marry a cold soul like Tanya, I’ll never understand.”
“Don’t blame my failure on Tatiana. And I married her to please my mother.”
“Your mother? Did she know her?”
“No. They never met.”
“Then what you are saying makes no sense.”
“Yes, it does, Eliza. Maybe I married her because I wanted someone just like my mother.” He was dressed now—all but his suit jacket and tie.
Elizabeth was on her feet. “Your mother!” She lost all objectivity. “Your mother was the most sympathetic person I have ever known. Your wife is nothing like her. Nothing! And never will be. Do you mistake Tatiana’s coldness for strength and your mother’s strength for coldness?”
Mother. Standing beside her desk, holding the black telephone receiver in one hand, beckoning to Josef, firmly, with the other, a strong motion pulling him to her. She wore a white lab coat over her black dress, and her hair was dark, almost black.
Josef felt uneasy, lightheaded, a throbbing in his ears. He could hear and feel his heart—palpitations—and his entire body was becoming one agonizing itch. “Elizabeth, I’m allergic to aspirin.”
“You are flushed and developing hives. And your breathing—again.”
“You’d better get me some epinephrine: one tenth of a cc of the one-to-thousand solution. No more. I’m very reactive to drugs.”
Elizabeth raced from the room. Josef doubled over with abdominal cramps, unable to breathe, in an acute reaction to the aspirin. His mother lingered in the periphery but was kept at a distance by his physical symptoms. Elizabeth was back with the syringe.
“Don’t give me too much,” he begged.
She injected the Adrenalin subcutaneously in his arm; within seconds he could breathe freely, his cramps relaxed, and he felt the blood rushing to the upper part of his body. He sat on the edge of the examining table. Elizabeth wrapped the cuff around his arm and took his blood pressure. “Two hundred ten over one hundred and twenty,” she reported. “How are you?”
“Better.” He took a deep, trembling breath and was able to exhale. “But now I really have a headache.”
“We have to consider following this up with cortisone.”
“Let’s wait. The emergency is over.” He lay back on the table and closed his eyes. She stood beside him checking his blood pressure until, within five minutes, he opened his eyes. “I’m better,” he whispered.
Tears welled up in Elizabeth’s eyes, overflowed, and ran freely down her face.
Josef winced and turned away. “I’m sorry.”
She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “My dear, I am the one who is sorry.” The telephone buzzed. She answered, “Dr Duncan . . . yes?” She looked at her watch. “Tell him to wait—ten minutes.” She hung up and turned to Josef. “It’s my fault. I pushed you too far. I had no idea the shape you were in. We’ve been so busy, John and I. We should have
made it a point to see you.”
“Elizabeth, please. I’m better. You’ve got patients to see—”
“They can wait! I shouldn’t have insisted you take those aspirin.”
Josef put his hand on her arm. “Listen to me. I’m better. But I’m very tired. Would it disturb you if I rested here for a while?”
“Of course not. Are you sure you’re all right?”
He nodded. “If you’d turn off the overhead light? And you needn’t stay. I’m all right.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“It’s almost eleven thirty. I’ve got some patients to see. But I’ll leave the door open a crack so my nurse and I can stick our heads in to check on you.”
“Not necessary,” he murmured, his eyes closed.
“It’ll make me feel better. Will you shout if you need anything?”
Josef nodded. “Elizabeth, would you mind taking the pastrami with you? I can’t take the smell of garlic just now.”
“Here,” she said, untying his shoes, “let’s take these off.” She covered him with a sheet, leaned over, and kissed his forehead. “I’m going to leave the blood pressure cuff on your arm.”
He nodded.
Elizabeth picked up the grocery bag, her purse and coat, turned off the overhead light, and left the room.
The itching had lessened and was tolerable, the headache bearable. Josef was exhausted and felt he could sleep. But the moment he allowed himself to drift off, his mother, willful as the ghost of Hamlet’s father, appeared again. As before, she was in her office, on the second floor of their house in Gartenfeld. Josef made one last attempt to rally his will, to push her away, but all he succeeded in doing was stiffening his body. He lay on his back, rigid, sweating. Consciously, he began to relax each part of his petrified frame, starting with the smallest toe on his left foot and moving up his trunk. As he did this, his mother marched through his broken defenses. But still—he could breathe. She, in her long white coat, was talking on the telephone to their next-door neighbor, the Bavarian Baron. It must have been 1932 or 1933. She was still in practice and seeing patients that day, and Josef, by the door, was quite young—six or seven. He was not at all afraid of her. He was curious. With a gesture of one hand, his mother summoned him to her. “Josef, Baron von Chiemsee reports that on many days you enter his back garden and climb his apple tree. Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“What do you do there?” She put her arm, protectively, about his shoulders.
“Nothing, Mutti.”
“One never does nothing. You must do something. What is it you do?” She was not being unkind. Her manner was always brusque in those days.
“I think.”
“Baron,” she said into the telephone, “has my son harmed your tree or your garden in any way, or does he disturb you with noise? . . . No? . . . Then what is your complaint?” She hung up in her firm way, not a slam, but a motion with enough force to carry emphatically to the Baron’s ear, then she leaned over and kissed Josef on the forehead. “I would suggest, Butzelman, that you do your thinking someplace other than the Baron’s apple tree.”
When her medical license was revoked, she was forty-one, just the age he was now. Her hair was still dark brown, as was his, and although she pulled it back in a bun, there were always softly curling wisps about her face. He realized now that she was almost pretty, and she looked so young! Why had he always thought of her as being old and plain—and weak? As a young woman she’d had the nerve to defy her parents and go to medical school and defy them again and marry a Gentile. When did her nerve desert her? How long did it take Adolf Hitler to break her down? Mein Kampf.
I understand the infamous spiritual terror which this movement exerts, particularly in the bourgeoise, which is neither morally nor mentally equal to such attacks. At a given sign it unleashes a veritable barrage of lies and slanders against whatever adversary seems most dangerous, until the nerves of the attacked persons break down.
Josef stirred and open his eyes. Wearing a white lab coat now, Elizabeth, flashlight in hand, was checking his blood pressure.
“You can turn on the light,” he said.
She did and returned to his side. “It’s a little lower than when you came in—one eighty over ninety-five.” With a shake of her head, she pulled the stethoscope from her ears and let it drop around her neck.
Josef rubbed his eyes against the light. “I must have dozed off.”
“You slept an hour and a half. It’s after one.”
“Good Lord. I’ve got to get to the bank.” He sat up abruptly, swinging his legs over the side of the table, and found that he had to steady himself by pressing his hands firmly on the table.
“How are you?”
“A little vertigo. But I’m all right.” He shook his head. “I must have really been out.” He yawned and stretched.
“We were in and out of here five or six times, and you didn’t stir.”
“I feel better. Almost rested.” He stood. “I’ll run along. I’ve taken up enough of your time.”
“Please. Don’t go.”
“I’ve got to get to my safety box.”
“You’ve got time.” She pushed him gently backward.
Reluctantly, he leaned against the table.
“Seff, my dear, don’t you know anything about yourself?”
He looked down.
“The aspirin. Didn’t you know you were allergic? Why did you take it?”
The phone buzzed.
“Damn!” she said.
Josef leaned over and picked up his shoes.
“Don’t go.”
The phone buzzed again. “Dr Duncan here . . . Yes . . . Oh, yes.”
Josef, shoes on, lifted his jacket from the hook.
Elizabeth put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Please.”
“Bathroom.” He pointed to the door.
She pointed. “Down the hall—that-a-way.”
Josef threw his suit jacket onto the examining table and left the room. As he started down the hall, he could hear her say, “Just a minute,” and, very softly, “he’s just leaving the room.”
Carlos! Damn it. Josef stopped to listen, but Elizabeth shut the door and he could no longer hear. He hesitated, then ambled down the hallway to the men’s room. He’d known the second he’d revealed that he was seeing Elizabeth that Carlos would call her. And there was nothing Josef could do to stop them from talking about him, to stop Carlos from meddling in his affairs. After the first delay of his resident’s visa by the American Embassy, Josef wanted to give up his move to the U.S. But Carlos kept pushing, insisting, wouldn’t give up. And Josef allowed himself to be carried along like a child, without a will of his own. He shoved open the door: MEN.
The morning surgery would be over, and the noon staff meeting of the Department of Anesthesiology, and, most likely, Carlos had heard from an irate Dr Jenkins of Josef’s resignation. As he stood at the urinal, Josef realized that he would not have to go to any more daily, interminable scheduling meetings—ever again. He breathed a deep, musical sigh of relief. It was easier.
A broad ribbon of sun shone through a south window of the lavatory, illuminating the sink. Josef rolled up his shirt sleeves and ejected three times the green liquid he needed from the soap dispenser, working it into a thick lather. The soap bubbles, like multiple lenses, refracted the sunlight in all directions; he was caught by the ever-moving, ever-changing rainbow of colors he held on his hands—multiple spectrums of all sizes and shapes. He rinsed, splashed cool water onto his face, and, as he patted it dry with a paper towel, looked at himself in the mirror above the sink. Mein Kampf.
The Germans are the highest species of humanity on the earth and will remain so if they care for the purity of their own blood and produce images of the Lord and not cross-breed monstrosities halfway between man and ape.
Josef studied his reflection: his father’s facial shape, the strong nose, the chin cleft almost
in half. But his dark eyes, large and set wide apart, his curly brown hair—they were his mother’s.
He blotted his hands carefully with two paper towels; his skin was sensitive, and his hands often red and sore from scrubbing up. But he would not have to scrub up again—ever. He completed the drying under the electric blower, then walked swiftly out the door and down the hallway.
Elizabeth, sitting at the little desk, smoked a cigarette and still talked on the telephone. She looked up when Josef entered and raised an index finger to indicate she was almost through. “Yes . . . I agree . . . I will . . . Yes . . . Good idea. Give me that number.” She jotted a number on a prescription pad. “Yes, I’ve got it . . . I’ll call you at about two fifty . . . All right, I’ll make it a point, exactly ten minutes to three.” She hung up.
“En punto?” said Josef.
Elizabeth looked up sharply. “In what?”
“Ten minutes to three en punto. It’s Spanish, and it means ‘on the dot.’”
“Did you know all along I was talking to Carlos?” She jabbed out the cigarette in the ashtray.
Josef nodded. “He’s the most predictable man I’ve ever met. Also the most intrusive. I don’t know how he does it. I had no intention of telling Charley I was coming to see you.”
“If you didn’t want him to know, you wouldn’t have told him.”
“Lizzy, please cut the psychology.”
“I will if you’ll stop calling me Lizzy. You know I hate that.” She frowned. “Seff, he’s very worried about you.”
“Good Lord, I envy him. He’s the only man I’ve ever known who has his life absolutely under his control. That’s why you must call him at exactly two fifty. His driver picks him up at the hospital at exactly two ten; they arrive at the farm at two twenty-five; he drinks a Scotch—only the best unblended malt—and nibbles hors d’oeuvres for twenty minutes while he reads the Wall Street Journal, and at exactly three—en punto—he eats a magnificent dinner prepared by his Spanish housekeeper, Camila: soup, fish, meat—”
Elizabeth took another cigarette and held out the pack to Josef.
“No, thank you. Salad, vegetables, dessert—postre, he calls it.”
“You must really be feeling dreadful. I’ve never known you to refuse cigarettes before.”