by Mick Hare
“I started to love you many months ago. When you reached out to me the other night I succumbed to my feelings. But now, after what we have caused, when I see you I feel nothing but guilt. The appalling circumstances of our coming together make it impossible for us to ever be a couple.”
“But…”
It was a hopeless interjection and Sean knew it.
“Being with you Sean, will mean a lifetime condemned to feel permanent guilt, betrayal and regret. I can’t do it. I can’t ever be with you. Being with you reminds me of what I am capable of. You showed to me a side of myself I cannot bear. Your presence will always make me into someone I don’t like. I cannot be with you. If you love me you will go now and not come back.”
Sean did not reply. He replaced his hat upon his head and walked out.
Sean, however, took every opportunity he had to call on Grete. He had not given his word not to come back and he lived every minute of every day in the hope that Grete would emerge from her self-loathing and her loathing of him and accept her true feelings. If he had not been so sure of the feelings between them he would have been less determined. But he was desperate. He had been given a glimpse of a rare chance of love and his certainty and determination surprised even himself.
Whenever Sean visited the apartment in the next few weeks it was rare that they were not interrupted by so-called Aryan or kindereich families who were interested in acquiring the apartment. The authorities had told Grete that she would be required to vacate the premises. This would have happened with or without her husband’s suicide. His suicide was just convenient in hastening the re-acquisition of this property for an Aryan family. Sean helped Grete with her preparations for the family to move to Rome, where she had relatives who had agreed to take her in following the recent tragic events.
Although Grete became less intolerant of his presence he could not move her. She refused to engage with him on any personal issue. It was a gradual process of withering hope which was conducted within Sean’s spirit that eventually eroded his self belief. Ultimately he just gave up. Whatever it was that left him at that point, he knew he would never regain.
On the last day of May 1933 he waved them off from Alexanderplast Station as they headed for a new life in Rome. Sean had considered Rome an odd destination for Grete to choose and had said as much to her. Why not London, or Dublin, or Amsterdam? Better still, why not America – New York or Boston?
“I have relatives in Rome,” Grete had explained. “My aunt Ruth and her two children. Anna and Josef are two years older than me. They are twins, both married with children of their own. Their children will be companions for Lisa and David. They are doing well there. They say that the fascists have no extremes of anti-Semitism. We will be safe in Rome.”
Sean had pulled her into his arms. But his embrace met no warmth. Grete accepted it coldly. Looking away from his eyes Grete had said, “You must not worry about us. I don’t want you to.”
It was as clear a statement as Sean had feared hearing from her in his worst nightmares. Without hesitation he had released his hold and stepped back. He realised he was now actually scared of Grete. He dreaded what she might say next that would live to haunt him.
In the bustling throng of Alexanderplast, Sean watched the three figures, each with their own suitcase, as they disappeared into the crowd along the platform. They seemed so fragile and vulnerable that his heart was breaking. ‘Rome it is then,’ he thought. ‘At least, they will be safe from all of this madness in Italy.’
During the following months Sean walked around like a man in silt. He went about his daily routine but his mind was somewhere else. His feet moved in slow motion and his thoughts floated in a vacuum. He became increasingly disinterested in his work. He hardly ever spoke to Max outside of the topic of work. Max himself had become withdrawn and uncommunicative.
Sean had begun to visit a nearby general practice surgery run by a Jewish doctor. Peter Abramovich had known Raul vaguely but had lost touch when Raul and Grete had converted to Protestantism. Peter’s practice was shrinking, along with his income. A recent law enacted by the new Nazi government dressed up in some title about the restoration of the professions, was in fact about nothing more or less than removing Jews from the Civil Service and other professions. All of Peter’s non-Jewish patients had been re-allocated to other practices and he was now only allowed to treat Jews. The Jews who came to him were often now out of work and, therefore, could rarely pay his fees. Sean asked Peter if he could come and work alongside him sometimes. He saw the worried look on Peter’s face and knew it was because the income from the practice was barely enough to keep Peter’s family in food.
“I don’t want you to pay me,” Sean reassured him. “The Friedrichshain does that. I can’t give that up because I need to complete my studies. But working there nowadays leaves me feeling worthless; dead even. When I come here I get back some old feelings of well-being.”
Peter had agreed and Sean spent many of his off-duty hours there restoring his psychological health. The months and years went by. Sean stuck doggedly to his studies at the Friedrichshain. He found that he was almost able to shut out the evils of the outside world by just concentrating on his patients. But it was working alongside Peter Abramovich that provided him with the only job satisfaction he experienced.
It was to be the Friedrichshain, however, where the life-changing moment occurred. He had not immediately recognised the difficult patient when she began to rant and rave at one of the nurses.
“Get this undesirable away from me. Get your filthy hands off me.”
Drawn by the commotion, Sean had entered the ward to see nurse Hilden attempting to administer a pain relieving injection to the patient.”
“What is the problem here, nurse?” he asked.
Before the nurse could answer the patient screamed at him.
“How dare you speak to this asocial and ignore me? She is a nobody. I am the patient.”
Sean looked at her and said with firm insistence, “Just a moment!” and he drew nurse Hilden aside and repeated his question.
“I don’t know doctor. I think she objects to who I am.”
At the sound of these words Sean felt his blood begin to rise. He recalled how Grete had recounted the words of Frau Schulze.
“Okay nurse. Don’t worry. It’s not your fault. I’ll deal with her from now on.”
“If you say so doctor.”
Sean moved closer to the patient and drew the privacy curtains around the bed. Nurse Hilden had left the syringe in a kidney dish on the bedside table.
“Now madam,” he asked “What seems to be the problem?”
The woman’s manner changed immediately. She smiled up at him.
“At last,” she said. “Someone I can speak to at my own level.”
‘If you knew which Irish bog I grew out of you’d soon change that tune,’ thought Sean.
“I am a true Aryan German. I am the grandmother of an award winning kindereich family. I cannot be left in the hands of undesirables and asocials like that nurse who was in here a minute ago.”
“I’m sorry but I do not understand. What exactly is your problem with nurse Hilden? She is not Jewish as far as I am aware.”
Sean choked on these words but he spoke them in order to draw the patient out.
“Jewish,” she shrieked in horror. “Don’t tell me you still employ Jewish nurses here. It’s against the law.”
“But she is not Jewish. I have just told you that.”
“No! She may not be Jewish but she is undesirable nonetheless. I know her. I knew her mother. I knew her grandmother. They came from the east. They say they are German but they are most likely Poles. A more dysfunctional, asocial, workshy, mentally infirm family you could not meet. They should be purged from the workplace and sterilised.”
It was as she spoke that Sean realised he knew this woman. It was in the turn of her lip as she proclaimed the need to purge the undesirable nurse. That expressio
n! Where had he seen it before? And then it came to him. It was exactly the same expression she had worn when demanding Raul to “Pick that up!” after her terrier had defecated at his feet.
His decision-making was instantaneous and instinctive. He immediately calculated how to assassinate this abomination of a woman who epitomised for him all that was wrong with Germany; the Germany that had caused Raul’s suicide and driven Grete and the children away to Rome.
Reading her notes he saw that she was admitted in order to have several painful cysts removed from her ankle and groin. He also noted that the cysts were the result of extremely poor blood circulation. Her Doctor’s referral suggested suspicion of heart disease. The hospital had not yet run the necessary tests to confirm this prognosis but from the woman’s facial pallor and the swellings and lesions on her legs and ankles Sean suspected that her Doctor had made a pretty accurate guess.
Whilst he examined her ankle and observed faint traces of injection pricks on the skin he estimated the time it would take for her to die and concluded that by the time she entered her final trauma he could be back in his office sitting at his desk.
“Let me reassure you Frau Hahn, you will never be bothered by nurse Hilden again.”
She gave Sean her sweetest smile and thanked him.
Sean lifted the syringe to the light coming in from the street and tapped the cylinder. He made absolutely sure that the top of the cylinder contained a bubble of air and he carefully omitted to expel it from the tube.
Finding a vein on her ankle he located a suitable entry point, one which duplicated a previous injection. He presented the glistening needle to the spot. The oxygen and the fluid hovered at the entrance to her vein.
“How is she?” said a voice. Sean almost dropped the syringe in shock.”
He turned to see Max at the curtain looking inquisitively at him. Sweat ran down Sean’s face and he stepped back from the bed and Frau Hahn. Max came to his side and took the syringe from Sean’s hand. There was something in the movement that told Sean that Max knew.
“Here,” he said. “Let me.”
Max held the cylinder up to the light and studied the liquid. He looked at Sean briefly before expelling the bubble of oxygen with a sharp squirt. He then administered the injection to Frau Hahn.
“There you are, “Max said to Frau Hahn. “The pain will be all gone in a moment. Now, please excuse me. I must go to another patient. I will call back shortly to see how you are.”
With that he opened the privacy curtains and stood aside to allow Sean to walk ahead of him out of the ward. They walked together to the office they shared. Sean was just lowering himself into his chair and waiting for the interrogation he expected from Max when they heard the emergency calls coming from the ward where Frau Hahn was apparently experiencing cardiac arrest. He remained in his chair as Max turned and ran out of the office door towards the unfortunate Frau Hahn. Eventually he jumped up to follow Max.
In the days following the death of Frau Hahn, Sean suffered extremes of emotion. Frau Hahn had been on the point of death at the very moment he had decided to murder her. If Max had not intervened he would have become a murderer, broken his Hippocratic oath, for nothing. His execution of her would have preceded her natural death by mere minutes. At times he experienced intense elation. He felt like a god, the electricity of power pumping through his veins. She was dead and he had willed it. His only regret was that he had not physically carried out the act before Max had come in. His elation was stunted by the fact of not having acted. However, his delight in this demonstration of poetic justice at times overwhelmed him. When he drank he experienced a powerful regret that he had not managed to insert the needle before Max’s intervention. To have done so would have represented his rejection of passivity in the face of overbearing Nazism.
But when he awoke after nights of drinking, if he had slept at all, he was always consumed by guilt. Guilt mixed with relief. He knew he was guilty because in the moment before Max intervened he had decided to commit murder. The fact that he had not become a murderer was purely accidental. In principle he had accepted murder as a legitimate course of action. His mind ached with the contortions his thinking embraced. Was he a murderer or not? The philosophical implications left him dizzy. His face in the mirror as he shaved was a black hole. There was nothing he recognised. What kind of a god celebrates the crushing of an insect? Who was Frau Hahn that she should be the victim of his criminal vengeance? What kind of man was he to break his oath, betray his professional code? And what was his justification for this wilful, murderous intent? Frau Hahn had insulted his friend. His friend had committed suicide. He was in love with his dead friend’s widow.
Was he not as guilty as this arrogant woman? His friend’s widow and her children, the only true friends he had in this increasingly oppressive city, had been driven to move to another country for their very lives’ sake. But Frau Hahn’s insult was not the cause of his friend’s death. Frau Hahn was not a power to be reckoned with in the Nazi scheme of things. The great god Sean had planned to lash out at, an insignificant nobody. It would not have dealt a body blow against Nazism. It would have been a cowardly swipe at the nearest available easy target. It all added up to a story of Sean that he could no longer bear.
Looking back at his time in Berlin, Sean knew that events there had been the driving force in his subsequent actions; actions he came to regret once he had met and married Martha, but by then it was too late for him to go back.
Berlin gradually became a nightmare for Sean. Too many things had gone wrong. Raul’s suicide; Grete’s departure for Rome; the loss of his friendship with Max; the death of Frau Hahn. He was also becoming a marked man. There were several Nazi Party members who had him identified as a troublemaker because of his inability to avoid a confrontation with them as they carried out their bullying behaviour. Most of all he despised Nazism now for making him despise himself and the person he had become. He knew he had to get out of Berlin and Germany and get himself back to Ireland.
One evening at the end of a long day at the Friedrichshain, followed by an additional shift with Peter Abramovich in his surgery, Sean sat down to write a series of letters. The first of these was to the Dean of Medicine at Trinity College, Dublin. He explained the difficulties of practising medicine, even as a student under Nazi rule, and asked to be considered for re-admission to Trinity to complete his studies. Next he wrote to his parents, explaining his plans to them. Then came the letter to Rome. He explained his plans to Grete. It was his intention to detour through Rome on his way back to Ireland and he hoped that he would be able to meet her. Finally he wrote a letter to one Andrew Trubshaw at the Ministry of Defence in London. In this letter he explained that he intended to pass through London on his way back home to Ireland from Berlin and might there be an opportunity to meet and discuss important issues as he passed through?
It was with a mixture of relief and sadness that he closed the door on his apartment for the last time in July 1936 and headed for the Alexanderplast Railway Station to begin his journey home.
The streets were crowded. Hitler was attending the Olympic Stadium today. There was a genuine air of celebration. This new regime, the “enfant terible” of Europe, was starting to believe that the world could accept it. Here were the Americans, the British, the Russians and the Chinese. Forty-nine nations all giving their stamp of approval to the Thousand Year Reich by their attendance. The nations of the world had come to the Nazi party. The newspapers were full of boasting about how the great Aryan sprinters were going to thrill the Fuhrer by humiliating the lowly black American runner with the improbable name of Jesse Owens, who dared to challenge their superiority. Today Hitler would participate in a clear illustration of racial superiority when he presented the Gold medal to an Aryan sprinter.
Before closing his apartment door for the last time he made one last search through the mail that lay on the occasional table by the door. There were letters there for three of the apartment
s, but none for him. His letter to Grete in Rome remained unanswered. He told himself that this feeling of emptiness would leave him when he arrived back in Ireland. His old spirit would return. Germany had worn him down, but Ireland would revitalise him. He was not very good at telling lies, even to himself.