by L. E. Waters
“Time? The sun’s just going down.”
“We go to bed seven o’clock sharp. Every day.”
“I haven’t gone to bed at seven since I was a girl.”
“Once they hand out the sleeping pills, it makes it easy to go to bed so early,” Odelia says as she walks away with Gitta toward the bathroom.
Elfi’s suddenly beside me. “Don’t take the sleeping pills. I never do. I don’t mind the blue pills they give in the morning, but these ones make you feel tired all the time.” She sticks her grey tongue out. “Hide them under your tongue and they won’t poison you.”
Nurse Bathilda emerges and darkens the room somehow. Two male orderlies hold up trays of little white cups. She begins at the edge of the room and hands each patient a cup of pills and a cup full of water.
Most appear to take them, but I watch Elfi perform her trick with a smile on her face. She watches me as I spill the pills into my mouth, and one almost slips down before I can wrangle them safely under my tongue. Once they are trapped there, it’s easy to drink the water. Elfi stares at me as I taste some of the pills dissolving and burning the underside of my tongue.
Nurse Bathilda rips the tag off my shirt and slips the ID tag over my head. She commands, “Everyone into the washroom.”
I bounce up and hurry to the bathroom, spitting out the pills into my hand so I can slip them down the sink drain. Elfi gives me a nod of approval. We seem to be the only ones who rejected the medicine, and I rinse out the bitter taste with a little water from the sink.
By the time I’m locked into my room and attempt to warm my freezing bed, I begin wishing I had taken the pills after all. Can I actually manage to fall asleep with this chill? The last room is locked, and I worry about the fact that we’re all locked in. What if there was a fire? With the bars on the windows, there would be no chance of an escape. Bathilda would have to brave the smoke and blaze to open up each room with her huge ring of keys, and the thought of her risking her life to open even one cage makes my bed colder. My teeth begin chattering, and I hunch into a ball to hold any heat in. I don’t think I can manage to stay here much longer.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
I stand out in the cold, as blank faces stare down at me from behind the bars of the windows. A bitter wind takes my breath away and I turn to see a dark cloud with Hitler’s swastika looming over the hospital. I take cover under the brush beside the building as the swastika cloud opens up in hail, lightning, and freezing rain. The buildings around me catch fire, and the people inside the windows gasp and clutch the bars before they slump to the ground. I hold my knees and cry, unable to help them.
Chapter 3
Relieved that I got through the night, I try to warm myself by the sunny window. A new nurse is on duty, and I prepare myself for another person who hates their job and takes it out on all around them.
“Are you the new patient named Annelie?” Her voice is surprisingly sweet.
“Yes. I came yesterday.”
She rubs her arms. “It’s so cold this morning, isn’t it?”
She’s lucky enough to have a light sweater on.
“Bathilda took my suitcase last night, but I haven’t gotten it back yet. It has my sweater in it.”
“She hasn’t given you your suitcase back yet?” Her light feet drift away and come clicking back. “Is this yours?”
She holds out my softest sweater, the one that Kathrin knitted me for our last birthday. “Yes, thank you.” I’ve never felt anything better on my skin. It warms me immediately.
“I’m Nurse Frieda.” She swipes at a piece of hair curled around the mole beside her eye and then shakes my hand.
Matilda.
“Dear, you are cold.” She looks up. “It’s these high ceilings and drafty windows. I’m always trying to get more blankets here, but Bathilda says it’s not in the budget.”
At least someone is trying to make improvements. I wonder if I can get Mother to bring an extra blanket when she visits again.
Heavier shoes sound down the corridor.
“Dr. Evert, you’re here early.” Frieda looks surprised.
“Hello, Fridric,” Verena singsongs, with a flip of her dress up to her thigh.
He glances in her direction but immediately looks back at us. “Oh, I got an early start this morning and I wanted to check in on Annelie to see how she’s adjusting here.”
Frieda’s eyebrows rise and she turns to me. “How kind of Dr. Evert.”
Dr. Evert looks down at his file, avoiding both our gazes. “Annelie, would you follow me to my office, please?”
Verena glares at me from across the room.
It’s so nice to walk outside once again. I wish I could take my shoes off and feel the grass between my toes, even if it is still wet with frost. We head back inside another building too quickly. This building is not the admittance building.
He turns to me. “This is my real office. The other one is only used for admitting.” He opens the door to a room smaller but somehow less stifling than the other one. With only one tall window, it’s surprising how much light shines in. He sits in a plain old wooden chair that squeaks as he scoots it forward under the simple, table-like desk. He opens a hand toward the only other chair, although there is a comfortable wide bench in the corner of the room. I take a moment to look for any clues to his life outside the office. The most prominent feature in the room is a large painting of a German Shepherd. No photographs of children or a pretty wife. Three dirty coffee mugs lie on his desk. He sees my gaze rest on them and he tucks them away in a drawer of a metal filing cabinet.
“I have a terrible coffee addiction.”
I want to say that we all do since the war, but those are the things that get me in trouble. “I wish they had coffee here instead of tea.”
His eyebrows lift. “They don’t offer coffee to the patients?”
“No, and I was being generous by calling what they pour into our cups tea.”
“I thought that we all had the same food offered.” He scribbles something down on paper.
“Have you seen how thin the patients are here?”
“I’ve always thought their conditions kept them from eating enough. No one’s ever mentioned that the food is disagreeable.”
“They’re afraid of punishment from the nurses.”
He pushes back in his chair. “The nurses?”
“I haven’t witnessed it myself, but a few of the patients were very clear that there have been punishments in the past for complaining.”
“Do you know of any nurses in particular?”
I wanted to tell him of Bathilda, but decided I better be careful. “If I hear any names, I will let you know.”
“Other than the deprivation of coffee and poor food quality, how was your first night here?”
The look on his face is hopeful, and I hate to tell him of more problems.
“Would it be okay if I asked my mother to bring me a woolen blanket from home?”
“I’m sure that would be fine, but you don’t find the blankets here satisfactory?”
“I had trouble sleeping since all we are given is a cotton blanket and all I had to sleep in was my dress.”
“Didn’t you have your clothes from home to wear?”
“Nurse Frieda was so kind to search for my sweater this morning, but Nurse Bathilda took my suitcase away immediately to search it, and I haven’t seen it since.”
His eyebrows pull together. “I will do something about that right away.”
I want to say something good. “The patients on my floor seem very nice. I’m surprised how coherent and talkative they are.”
His face lightens a little. “I had a feeling you would like them. I counsel Gitta and Odelia as well.”
“Gitta is very sweet.”
“She is.” The glisten in his eyes tells me so much.
I sigh and look at the windowsill, where various arti
facts lie.
“That’s some of my collection. You can go look at them if you’d like.”
I walk over to the line of various items: an old hand-carved pipe, a banged-up canteen, a Union fop hat, and an old letter with the words Soldier’s Letter written across the top in big letters.
“From the American Civil War.” I pick up the old pipe to see the teeth marks left on the mouthpiece.
“How did you know?” He gets up to stare at them from beside me. “Not many people around here are interested in that war. I collected these items when I went abroad. I was so drawn to them.”
I study the canteen to see if it could possibly be one of the many I’d relied on and held to my mouth.
“Do these bring back any memories?”
The words perch on the tip of my tongue. I slide the fop hat on, tucking my hair back behind. Will he recognize me now? I check back to his face, wondering if he’s ready for any of it. I don’t see any spark in his deep grey-blue. I remove the cap. “No.” I sit back down and he follows. “But it’s a very nice collection.”
“I have more guns and bayonets at home, but I obviously can’t bring them in here.”
I smile at how close these past life memories are to the surface, giving the person so many hints, yet they can never fully retrieve them.
“What’s your dog’s name?” I point to the German Shepherd over his head.
He twists around like he didn’t know what’s behind him. “How did you know that is my dog?”
I shrug. “It’s the only picture you have in here.”
“Sad, right? That I only have hung a picture of James here?”
“James?”
“Just seemed like a James to me.”
I can’t restrain my smile. “No, that makes perfect sense.”
He furrows his brow a bit at my odd reply. “That tells me I should make more of an effort to bring pictures in of my family.”
I almost ask, ‘Your wife and children?’, but decide I’m not ready for that yet. I lean back on the arms of the wide chair. “The thing that’s the most difficult for me is the lack of things to occupy the mind here. I think the boredom alone could drive anyone mad.”
He folds his fingers in front of him. “The trouble with providing distractions is that so many objects could be used to harm other patients, nurses, or even the patients themselves.”
“Would small books or newspapers be so dangerous? Would a radio that could be nailed to the floor pose a concern? Anything. There is nothing to do but brush each other’s hair for hours.”
He laughs, but then realizes I’m serious. “Well, most floors couldn’t handle such stimulation, but your wing could probably handle some sort of entertainment.” He lifts his pen once again. “I will look into this as well.”
“Thank you.”
He checks up to the clock. “I fear our time’s already up, and I didn’t get to talk much about you.”
“I’m sorry to complain so much.”
“Oh, no, this is all very helpful.” He stands up to let me know I must leave. “I can’t always trust what other patients complain about.” He opens the door. “I was going to bring you back to your floor in time to go to breakfast, but I might as well go with you.”
We sit on a bench outside the dining hall, and Nurse Bathilda leads the line into the hall to wait. Her face falls as soon as she sees Dr. Evert sitting there with me.
“Is there a problem, Doctor?” She studies me. “You usually drop the patients back off to their floor.”
“I decided to bring Annelie here myself.”
“Oh, well. We’re here now, so you can go back to your office.” I can tell she’s nervous by how her eyes dart this way and that.
“Thank you, but I don’t need to be back right away.” He uncrosses his legs. “Shall we go in?”
“Well, we usually wait until the orderlies have cleaned up before we go in.”
He peers through the glass in the door. “Looks cleaned up and empty to me.”
Bathilda checks back to Frieda at the end of the line. “Let’s go in, then.”
He holds the door open, allowing me to go in first, and I can’t control the smile on my face that Bathilda is so pinched right now. How could these doctors not even know what they are feeding us?
Frieda also has a smile on her face.
I sit beside Gitta and Odelia again and Zelda moves her food-stealing tactics to another table. Dr. Evert sits alone in order to best observe. The orderlies bring out our tea, and Dr. Evert motions for them to bring one to him as well. The orderly gives Bathilda a confused look. She responds with a slow nod.
I’m strangely happy that the tea is as cool and as weak as it was yesterday. All the patients watch quietly as Dr. Evert takes his first sip of tea. The grimace that follows immediately causes Bathilda’s face to turn grey.
He pushes the offensive tea away. “Have you ever tried this tea yourself, Nurse?”
Bathilda answers, “I only eat in the nurse’s lounge.”
“The patients don’t get a choice of coffee, like we do?”
Bathilda looks to Frieda, as if she might help her out, but Frieda stays quiet. “I was told that they only serve tea here.”
Another orderly brings out the bread and butter. Dr. Evert puts his hand up to them again. “I’m taking my breakfast here today.”
I almost hear Bathilda’s heart quicken.
It’s the same grey, coarse bread that we had for dinner, and we look on as he spreads the hard, dark butter. Everyone takes a breath as he bites into the stale crust. Only after one chew, he spits the glob back out onto the plate. “This butter is spoiled.” He wipes his mouth out with his handkerchief. “I think sponges would have more taste than this bread has.”
Bathilda tries, “It must be that one butter, Doctor. I’ll find you another one.” She starts for the kitchen, but he stops her.
He gets up, walks over to our table, and looks at our butters. “They all look turned. But why don’t you come and taste them for yourself?”
She freezes. “Me?”
“Yes, I think you should taste what they’re forced to eat.”
“We don’t force them to eat it.”
He turns his hands in the air. “If you don’t give them any other options, then they are forced to eat it.” He takes a knife and spreads the butter on a chunk of my bread. “Eat it.”
She grasps the bread between her two fingers and brings it slowly into her mouth. She chews carefully and swallows as soon as she can. “It is not that terrible.”
“Well then, from now on, I will expect you to take your meals with the patients, if you think that is sufficient.”
Snickers break out around the room and Bathilda silences them with one glare.
“I will do what I can to improve the butter, Doctor.”
“And bread, and tea, and coffee.” I’ve never seen this hard side of him. “Bring out the next plate.”
“We usually let them eat their bread first.” Her face now sets in stone. I don’t think she can take much more of this. It doesn’t seem like anyone talks to her like this.
“I don’t have much more time, and I want to see what the main course is.”
Bathilda nods her head to the orderlies, who reappear in a few moments with bowls. I’m hoping that breakfast and lunch are going to be more substantial than the dinner, but my hopes dissolve in the murky grey muck in the shallow bowl.
Dr. Evert takes a spoon, scoops up the glop, and turns it over to splash back into the bowl. “I’m not even going to put this in my mouth. What is this supposed to be?”
She peers over his shoulder. “Oatmeal, sir.”
“This is not oatmeal.” The spoon hits the rim with a clank. “Nurse Frieda, is this the state of the meals on a day-to-day basis?”
Bathilda fixes her gaze on Frieda, but she straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin. “Unfortunately, Doctor. I’ve reported
the poor quality to many supervisors”—she directs this to Bathilda—”and nothing has come of it.”
“I wish you had told me.”
She only nods solemnly.
He takes my bowl of oatmeal to Bathilda. Her nostrils close slightly as she looks at it.
Dr. Evert rolls a hand to her. “Dig in.”
She spoons the glue into her mouth, and only her pride allows her to swallow. I take tears of the bread and stuff it in my mouth as I watch the show. Zelda’s finished three helpings of oatmeal while everyone’s distracted.
“This is nothing like we are given. Where’s the white bread? The meats? The milk and fruit?”
My stomach growls along with everyone else’s as he lists off what we’ve been wishing for.
“I’m not the one who decides the menu for the patients, Doctor.”
“But I think that is one of your responsibilities as head nurse. You must make sure the patients are cared for and treated humanely.”
Dr. Evert has no idea who he’s talking to—the very person who enjoys making our lives miserable.
A flush now glows on Bathilda’s face, most likely caused from holding her fury in.
“I’m going to speak to the committee and figure out how we can rectify this abuse.” He sighs as he looks over the frail patients, as grey as the food before them. “There must be something we can do.” He directs this last line to me, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Bathilda.
He marches out of the room and leaves the dining room in an uncomfortable silence. Bathilda watches me for far too long, crossing her arms and pacing around me. I finish my bread and tea just as she claps her hands.
“Everyone assemble in the hallway, right away.”
Gitta says under her breath to me, “Did you say something to the doctor?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Oh, no, Annelie. You shouldn’t have done that.”
Each patient hangs their heads low—even Verena, who normally has her eyes to the stars—like dogs who have just had an accident on the rug. What are they all afraid of?
Another loud clap. “Move!” Bathilda commands, and we follow her up to our floor. As soon as the sentries open the gates, she stops Frieda.