The Traitor Blitz

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  "Herr Vandenberg," I said. "I researched that story while I was still under contract to Blitz. Blitz paid for it. A Blitz photographer worked with me. We were in New York together. Blitz has all rights to the story. So it's impossible."

  "Yes, he said," "and that's why you're to go on writing."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You can't tell me that the thought that Blitz had all rights to your story and that therefore you can't sell it elsewhere never occurred to me."

  "No," I said slowly.

  "But you thought—"

  "I thought—I don't know—I thought—"

  "Well, there you are," Vandenberg said. He smiled. "So why make a fuss? Do you want a bigger advance?"

  "No... only... I don't know how you can get the rights from Blitz. They don't want the story to appear. Under any circumstances."

  "And I want it to appear, under all circumstances. Now listen to me. I don't want you to give the legal aspect a thought. Write your story as fast as you can. I'll get permission to publish from Herford, either by mutual agreement or in court."

  "And if you lose the case?"

  "I won't lose it."

  "Herr Vandenberg, if you know what the story's about, then you must also know with whom you're going to conflict, besides, Herford."

  "I know."

  "And you're not afraid?"

  "That's something I've never been in my entire life," said Joachim Vandenberg.

  I must say, I was impressed. He said it so calmly, smiling, and I believed him. Then he added, still calm and smiling, "But I'm going to have the decency to tell you why I'm so confident about it. You see, I know a thing or two about Herford and his colleagues, the ones who want to keep your story from seeing the light of day." He shrugged. "So there it is. Take it or leave it. I doubt if you'll get an offer from anyone else. I am ninety-nine percent sure that I can publish the story, but I'm only human. If I'm unlucky, I'll have to cancel the contract. But if that happens, you can forget about the story for good. Because then it really is unpublishable. But I doubt that will happen. Does that satisfy you?"

  I said, "Yes."

  After that we talked about the contract and Vandenberg really did write everything down and both of us signed. Then he copied the whole thing out again and we signed again. Thus each of us had a copy. It was past midnight when I left.

  I was waiting next morning in front of the bank on which the check was drawn, for it to open. I was the first at the teller's booth. I handed in the check, signed on the back with a false name, as Vandenberg had suggested. A little later, after the teller had verified the check, the money was paid out to me. I had to sit down on a leather armchair in the lobby because I suddenly felt weak in the knees. I had money. I had a publisher. I was lucky again. Yes, I thought, from now on I'll be lucky!

  11

  "Something wonderful has happened," said FrSulein Louise. She looked happy, almost ecstatic, as she walked beside me through the hospital park. She was wearing her old boots, her old black coat, a shawl, a little black hat on her white hair, and black woolen gloves. A light snow had fallen and glittered on the ground. The trees in the park were black, the air was very clear

  and sharp. Fr&ulein Louise had asked me to go out in the park with her. She was allowed to do that. She had in the meantime become a trusted patient; besides, I had been told she had been given something to do. "Something wonderful?" I said. "What?"

  For some inexplicable reason I still felt drawn to Fr&ulein Louise, and in spite of the fact that my last visit had revealed nothing, here I was again, a week later.

  "Right away, right away!" said Fr&ulein Louise. "I've got to tell it chronologically, Herr Roland. Isn't the park beautiful?"

  "Beautiful," I said.

  This time I had come by plane. It was eleven o'clock in the morning.

  "The Herr Professor thinks it is, too," she said, striding along vigorously beside me.

  "What Herr Professor?"

  "His name is Leglund. Oh, Herr Roland, what a wonderful man!" She lowered her voice confidentially. "You know what? He has been blessed with the power to live in the other world in his lifetimel"

  "Aha!"

  "Yes. He is an old man, will be seventy-six on his next birthday. He's not very strong and he doesn't see well; his legs give out on him every now and then. His daughter was here a few days ago. She's married and lives in Baden Baden. The Hen-Professor introduced us and told her that we get along so well. That made me very proud, because the Herr Professor was a famous doctor once—a psychiatrist, Herr Roland—and I can talk so beautifully to him. He's different from all the others here. He's a truly good man; I could see that at once, the first time I met him. It may sound stupid and overweening for me to say this, but I really believe that Herr Professor Leglund is one of the blessed."

  "What do you mean?" Big black birds flew cawing above us and away.

  "The Herr Professor understands me when I speak my thoughts aloud. He knows that human existence is many-faceted, and that here on earth we experience only a poor little example of the infinite universe. He is so clever. Some of the things he tells me I can't even understand!"

  "For instance?"

  "Well, when he talks about an ego, and a superego." Fraulein Louise laughed. "I'm only an ignorant woman, but such a great

  man speaks to me, such a blessed man who knows all about that other life, that magnificent life that awaits us."

  As we walked along the path, Fr&ulein Louise went on eulogizing Professor Leglund. He loved the park, I found out, and he liked the pond best. Formerly he had always gone there alone, but now he couldn't anymore. "He's too unsteady on his feet, you see—" So Fraulein Louise had offered to take the old man out for a walk every afternoon, to his beloved pond. The doctors, the employees, but above all the professor's daughter were delighted. At last somebody was willing to do something for the old man!

  "The daughter gives me money for taking the Herr Professor for a walk," Fraulein Louise explained. "Isn't that wonderful? My money disappeared, didn't it? Well, now the professor's daughter is bringing it back to me. And you know what? I'm saving every bit of it. The professor has a birthday in March, and I'm going to buy him a beautiful present. Look, there's the pond."

  It was a quite large body of water, with dead leaves floating on it. A narrow plank bridge led to a small island in the middle. Fraulein Louise walked quickly across it, ahead of me. The little island was overgrown with bushes, and at the top there was a bench. "This is the Herr Professor's favorite spot," she said. "He's always happy here. We take most of our walks to this island and have such good talks here." She was looking straight at me with sparkling eyes.

  "What is it, Fraulein Louise?"

  "Yesterday afternoon the Herr Professor wasn't feeling well so I came by myself, around four, maybe later. It was already getting dark. And such a marvelous thing happened to me, Hen-Roland." She grasped my arm and spoke very intensely. "But I don't want anybody but you to know about it. You mustn't tell a living soul! Because they told me not to talk about it. If I did, I would have to atone for it."

  "Who told you not to tell anyone?" I asked, and could feel my heart beating faster.

  "Well...my friends, of course," she said "You see, Hen-Roland, only the dead are faithful."

  Louise—

  "Louise—" Louise—

  Fraulein Louise could hear voices, wafted to her from far away, then coming clearer. She was standing on the little island, between the bushes, looking out into the twilight.

  "Greetings, Little Mother—" That's the Russian, thought Fraulein Louise, and was filled with a feeling of bliss. Her friends! Her friends! She couldn't see them, but she could hear them. Her friends had returned.

  "Oh, how marvelous!" whispered Fraulein Louise, "and I greet you, too, all of you, all of you loved ones. And I thank you for coming back to me."

  "Yes, we are with you again, Louise." And that's the Frenchman, thought Fraulein Louise.

  "We had
to come back." The voice of the Pole. "Because Louise belongs to us. She must trust us." -

  "Us...."

  "Us...."

  "Us... ."

  Three voices said it—the American, the Dutchman, and the SS leader.

  "I trust you," whispered Fraulein Louise, "not the doctors here."

  "And that's right." The voice of the Czech. "The doctors here mean well, but they are only living creatures. They can't see things clearly. All they see is limited, in spite of their good intentions."

  The voice of the Jehovah's Witness: "We have a loftier vision. Louise must join us. And she should obey us."

  "Obey us—"

  "Obey us—"

  "Obey us—"

  "And that's what I want to do," said Fraulein Louise, tears in

  her eyes. "There's nothing else I want to do, my dear friends."

  The voice of the Frenchman: "We pity the poor doctors here. Their knowledge is so limited."

  The voice of the student: "You don't belong here, Louise."

  "I know, I know," said Fraulein Louise, and her heart beat fast as she heard the voice of her favorite, who now went on speaking.

  "You belong to us, Louise. You are one of the chosen."

  "Chosen? I?" stammered Fraulein Louise.

  "Yes." The voice of the student again. "You are one of us and soon you will be with us, completely!"

  The voice of the Dutchman: "Louise should listen to us. We stand closest to the godly creatures. Therefore she should believe us and follow us... and not the earthly creatures."

  The voice of the Russian: "Little Mother must believe that what we do is right, and that what we did was right."

  The voice of the Ukrainian: "Louise has experienced dreadful things "

  "... and it seems to her that everything has come to a dreadful end," the voice of the Norwegian went on. "But it only seems so to the living. In reality everything turned out well."

  "It did? Really? But—" Fraulein Louise couldn't go on.

  "And if things went wrong for Louise, then only because she allowed herself to be misled by false friends," said the voice of the American.

  "False friends," said Fraulein Louise with a deep sigh. "Yes, that was it. False friends—"

  "You are still confused." The voice of the student. "Where we are, everything is clear. When you are with us you will see that everything turned out right "

  13

  "So that's what my friends told me," said Fraulein Louise, standing beside me on the little island in the middle of the pond. "We went on talking for a long time, until it was quite dark and I had to go back to the house. But they're here again, Herr Roland."

  "Yes," I said. "And that must be a great joy to you." I felt happy and sad at the same time—happy because now I could expect Fr&ulein Louise to recall everything she had experienced and tell me about it, sad because it was now quite clear that she had reverted to her former schizophrenic condition.

  A bell rang in the main house. "That means lunch," said Fraulein Louise. "IVe got to go back." She was already crossing the narrow plank bridge. I followed her. We walked quickly through the park. The pond wasn't far from the clinic.

  Fraulein Louise said good-bye to me at the entrance to the private sector. She opened the door with the handle outside and showed me how it could be opened on the inside also, by turning a small knob. "Whoever knows that can always get out," she said, with a short laugh. "The poor, deranged people we have here sometimes don't know that the knob can be turned. They just shake it and can't open the door. But I can go back and forth as I please. They've let me do that for quite a long time now." The bell rang again. "I must go to the dining hall, Herr Roland," she said. "They don't like us to be late, and after lunch there's a rest period."

  "I have to leave, too."

  "But come again soon, please. Because very soon now I'm going to have a lot of important things to tell you."

  "I'll come again in a few days," I told her. Then we said good-bye, and she walked down the corridor of the private sector, happy and graceful suddenly, like a young girl. She turned around every now and then and waved until she was out of sight.

  I told myself that it was my duty, and with a heavy heart went to Dr. Erkner's office. A few people were waiting outside. Before I had a chance to sit down, the door to the office opened and a young doctor came out. He had long blond hair with a beard. "You want to see Dr. Erkner?"

  He had an arrogant voice—everything about him was arrogant, vigorous and overbearing. He was tall and slender, had blue eyes, and wore gold-rimmed glasses. I said, "Yes."

  "Dr. Erkner is very busy, as you can see." He gestured in the direction of the people waiting. "Can I help you? What do you want to see him about?"

  A doctor is a doctor, I thought, and said, "It concerns one of your patients in the private sector."

  "I am in charge of the private sector," said the long-haired doctor. He had a rasping voice. "Germela. Doctor Germela." He took my arm and led me to a window niche. "To what patient are you referring? You can talk to me. I am responsible for that department."

  An exaggeration, I couldn't help thinking. The man couldn't be older than I. He was probably on duty in the private sector at this time, nothing more than that. But he was a doctor.

  I controlled my aversion to the man and told him what I had just experienced with Fr&ulein Louise. He listened, nodding every now and then and smiling, a smile that was more like a sneer. In the end he was looking out of the window, at the park. Once or twice he hummed.

  "Is that all?" he asked when I had finished.

  "Yes. I'd say it was enough."

  "Dear Herr Roland," said Dr. Germela, "I also think it's enough, although we see things differently."

  "So how do you see it?"

  "Well," he said, "no offense intended, dear Herr Roland, and with all due respect for your concern about Fraulein Gottschalk, but don't you think we know better than you how to treat our patients and judge their condition?"

  "I only wanted to let you know—"

  "Don't you believe that every one of us should attend to his own field of activity? I don't try to write for illustrated magazines, ha-ha-ha! So my suggestion is that you don't try to do our work. Leave Fr&ulein Gottschalk to us. She is one of our best patients."

  "Best patients?" I was furious. "What about the voices she hears?"

  He answered sharply. "Now listen to me, dear Herr Roland. You've been here quite a few times. You are a reporter. You question Fraulein Gottschalk about her past because you want to know more about it—"

  "That isn't true!"

  "—and confuse her and provoke hallucinations that left her long ago, and cause them to reappear." Germela had no intention of letting me interrupt him. "And when the patient is sufficiently aroused to think the wrong thing, you come to me, all excited about it, and tell me that her condition is worse!"

  "Now look here," I began, but there was no stopping him.

  "Fraulein Gottschalk has adapted splendidly," he went on, "and is well integrated in our therapeutic community; there can be no question whatsoever of a relapse!"

  The young idiot! I thought, and then I had to think of what Fraulein Louise's friends had told her about the well-meaning but fortunately limited doctors, and was filled with admiration for her mind, which could absorb and produce such knowledge through her friends and their voices. I said rudely, "What do you mean, 'therapeutic community?"

  Germela ran his fingers through his long blond hair in a desperate gesture, as if he thought I was an idiot, too. "Seriously speaking now, Herr Roland," he said, "haven't you ever heard anything about the democracy of psychiatry?"

  "No."

  "Well, that surprises me. A man versed in public opinion, of all people! It is a reform that was long overdue. Patients, personnel, and doctors form a democratic community in which everyone has the same rights, duties, and responsibilities. We doctors have to get used to the fact that we don't have more rights than our patients. Tha
t's perfectly understandable, don't you agree?"

  I said nothing.

  "You don't agree?"

  I shrugged.

  "I see you don't. Well, there are quite a few people around who don't agree, either. That's why the younger generation has to start the ball rolling. I see it all the time. The times change, Herr Roland. You know what we're contemplating in this clinic? A patients' parliament, in which everyone has a voice and equal influence, and decisions are made by a majority—by patients, head doctor, nursing personnel, and the last cleaning woman in the place." I shuddered, I hope imperceptibly. Blitz hadn't been all that backward, I thought.

  "Yes," said Dr. Germela, who misunderstood my silence. "That impresses you, doesn't it? We've living in the twentieth century, Herr Roland. A new era with new methods! We must have the courage to put ourselves on the same level as our patients. Of course there are some who don't want to go along with this, in this clinic, too, as I just said. But well convince them, you'll see!" He patted me on the shoulder. "Don't worry. You have no idea how well Fraulein Gottschalk is doing with all these innovations: for instance; this old gendeman she's looking after."

  "Professor Leglund?"

  "Yes. Leglund. You can't imagine how he helps her and how she helps him, and us, with her participation."

  What he said made me feel sick, but it was beginning to make an impression. After all, he wasn't telling me fairy tales. Perhaps I really was old-fashioned and they were practicing new methods here which were beneficial.

  "You mean because she looks after him?"

  "Exactly. Professor Leglund was a famous psychiatrist. In Breslau. Demented now. Absolutely demented. Thinks we're still living under the Kaiser. Has no idea where he is. Gets time and space all mixed up. Remembers only scraps of his scientific knowledge. If we'd let him walk alone to his beloved pond, he's never find his way back. And when you take him there he thinks twenty years have passed on his way back. And Fraulein Gottschalk looks after this unfortunate, pitiful ruin of what was once a great mind, and it's not only the walks. It's what they talk about, her admiration and sympathy for him, her blithe spirit and courage and optimism, that help the patient. The sick woman takes the hand of the sick man—a beautiful picture, isn't it?"