Twilight in Danzig

by Siegfried Kra

  “Jonas, please, let the doctor in the room. Tell Astor to leave. You are very sick. You don’t want to die, do you?”

  Karl-Heinz arrived carrying a long rifle and a net. As sick as Jonas felt, he ordered Astor, “Up, up on the bed!” He then placed his arms around the shepherd, whose body was tense in preparation to attack.

  Jonas had to get to the bathroom as he became more ill. He crawled out of the bed and onto the floor, Astor very closely following behind him.

  “Now we can get him! Shoot the dog!” the doctor ordered. But Jonas kept his arm around the dog, protecting him, until he arrived at the bathroom and vomited all over the floor. The chauffeur then took careful aim at the backside of the dog. Fräulein Marlow stood by, frozen in fear.

  Suddenly, Lucia, Brand, and Uncle Herman came rushing into the room, just as Karl-Heinz was about to pull the trigger.

  “My God, Jonas, my darling, what is going on here! Stop! Stop it now!” Lucia demanded.

  She grabbed the boy off the floor and pulled him into her arms. Brand coaxed a reluctant Astor away and allowed the doctor to come into the bedroom to examine her son.

  “Thank heavens, Frau Kruger, you came back,” the governess said, tilting her chin toward the ceiling in gratitude.

  “We were going to leave in the morning, but I insisted we leave immediately,” Lucia said. She looked at Fräulein Marlow with a masked hatred in her eyes, as if the two women understood each other. Women-talking eyes, some called it.

  Each day for the next month the doctor came, and so did Uncle Herman, who brought another new gift to make Jonas laugh. Once he even brought a goat into the room, wearing a dress. But the boy continued to vomit daily. He lost weight. He complained of head and body aches. His fever caused him to hallucinate and he uttered words such as “God punishing” and “Gerhardt.”

  “I thought at first he was coming down with measles or another childhood disease,” the doctor said after more weeks had passed. “Now, I just don’t know.”

  “We have to take him to Berlin,” Uncle Herman said. “There is a famous doctor there, Sauerbrucher. He may make a proper diagnosis. I know him, and it may take time to arrange, but he owes me a favor.”

  “Berlin is a long way off,” Lucia said. “He is too ill to travel.”

  Doctor Citroen feared now that Jonas was suffering from leukemia, because all of his glands were swollen, as was his spleen, and he agreed that if anyone could diagnose Jonas’ illness, it would be Dr. Sauerbrucher, the distinguished physician at the Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. Precious time may have been lost.

  Brand made all the arrangements for the long and arduous trip. With the help of Max Schiller, they boarded one of those luxurious trains whose carriages contained a bedroom and small living room. They even had a private waiter. The walls were upholstered in blue and cream velvet.

  The morning train to Berlin was crowded with Jewish lawyers, doctors, judges, professors, and others, who had decided it was time to flee Danzig for Warsaw, the first stop. Fräulein Marlow sat next to Jonas in one of the lush chairs by the window, feeling depressed and guilty.

  Jonas liked the train and all the constant attention. He looked outside the window. In the distance, as the train departed from Danzig station, walking hurriedly with a pile of luggage, were Ala and her parents.

  “Look, Mother,” he pointed to the outside. “There’s Ala and her mother and father.”

  He banged his fist against the window, to no avail. “They are leaving for America,” he cried as Brand and Lucia looked on with despair in their eyes.

  Jonas fell asleep as his temperature rose again. Several hours later they arrived at the Warsaw station, where most of the Danzig passengers de-boarded. When Jonas awoke he found a small present wrapped in tissue paper at his side.

  “How is my brave boy feeling?” Lucia asked. She could not get over her feeling of remorse at having been in Marienbad while her son was so ill. She took the incident in the woods as a bad omen, a warning.

  “I’m all right, except for my headaches, and my arms and legs hurt all the time, and I still have my tummy ache.”

  “Ala left you a present, darling,” Lucia said softly.

  He unwrapped the present and saw it was a paperweight similar to the one she had given him on his birthday, the one with the soldier and the princess inside. Now the soldier and princess had grown up to become a king and queen. He shook the glass and watched the snow falling in front of a castle.

  “They went to America,” Jonas said forlornly. “She told me it was a secret, but now it does not matter.” For the rest of the train ride, Lucia and Brand sat quietly at his bedside, while the Fräulein busied herself reading.

  When they arrived in Berlin it was dark, and the station was packed with people and SS men and soldiers. There was a peculiar air of gaiety among these somber looking men of war as they watched with interest the elegant family with their beautiful, self-possessed-looking governess descending from the train. In contrast to Jonas, weary eyed and feeling so ill, the Fräulein felt exhilarated in her natural environment.

  Brand carried his son in his arms to a chauffeured blue Mercedes limousine.

  They arrived at the exclusive Kisserhoff Hotel fifteen minutes later. Inside, there were hundreds of people in formal wear, while the SS, dressed in their black uniforms, stood at attention, rifles and bared bayonets at their sides.

  The crowd was so dense that they could not approach the registration desk. From where Jonas stood, he saw only feet and backs. He looked up toward the thousands of lights. The ceiling was painted in flowing colors, with garlands of naked men and women and pink angels. He turned his young body like a carousel, following the outline of the naked women on the wall as Brand twisted with him. Jonas’ mouth was wide open, his eyes widened in amazement. In the center of the fresco was a large face with a red beard. That must be God, he said to himself. He is watching me carefully.

  Suddenly, the crowd parted like the jaws of a whale and formed a path on either side as a group of men and German shepherds marched into the hotel.

  “What’s going on?” Brand asked the man standing next to him.

  “Did you not hear? Hitler is to become both president and chancellor. Hindenburg is dead.”

  Then came a small man, wearing baggy pants and a raincoat, flanked by Rudolf Hess and a squirrely-looking man, the propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. The crowd applauded. Then they all broke into a frenzy. “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!” shook the great lobby.

  Jonas wondered if he should not join in. He looked toward his governess, whose eyes were absolutely blazing with excitement.

  The man with the mustache and raincoat suddenly stopped in front of where Jonas was standing, squeezing Lucia’s hand.

  “So late,” he laughed, rubbing Jonas’ hands in his. And then those hands ran through Jonas’ hair.

  “A good German boy should be home in bed now.”

  Fräulein curtsied and gave the German leader a radiant smile. Lucia and Brand stood frozen with fear. The child recognized the man with the mustache from all the posters he had seen at the youth meetings. Jonas felt warm and sleepy, wondering if he still was dreaming from the night before, especially when he saw so many Astors in one room.

  Light bulbs flashed, and then there was more applause as Hitler and his entourage entered an elevator. Curious reporters came running up to Jonas asking, “What did he say to you?”

  The concierge, Hans Schneider, personally escorted the Krugers to their suite of rooms, leaving the curious onlookers to wonder about the identities of the elegant man and woman with the beautiful governess and sick-looking child that the new leader of Germany had personally greeted so warmly.

  Chapter Nine

  PRINCE BRANDENBERG WAS the first to see the morning Danzig paper.

  Kruger family in Berlin greeted by the new Chancellor of Germany. Jonas’ picture was on the front page, the hand of Hitler on his head.

  “My God,” the Prince shouted
to Bill, who was reading in the library. “Just what the Nazis wanted. Dammit. They will be lucky if they get out alive, especially when they tell that madman that he greeted a Jewish boy. I better give Rudi Hess a call. Perhaps I should go to Berlin. What do you think, Bill?”

  “From what I have seen of these guys, you’d better watch your step. I would just call your friend,” Bill replied.

  At eight o’clock in the morning, the Mercedes limousine drove Jonas and his parents to the Wilhelm Hospital on the Kammerstrasse.

  “You have to be a brave boy,” Brand explained. “They will put you in a room, but parents are not allowed to be there except during visiting hours.”

  “Can Fräulein Marlow stay with me?” Jonas asked coyly. “She is not a parent.”

  Lucia pulled her son toward her and kissed him. “You are so cute and so smart.”

  “You don’t have to worry about little Jonas. He will draw circles around them,” Brand said as the car smoothly changed lanes. “The apple has not fallen far from the tree. Don’t be smart and start mimicking Hitler, because they will lock you up.”

  “Are you sure we are doing the right thing?” Lucia asked Brand. “They know he is a Jewish boy, and they just dismissed some Jewish doctors from the hospital.”

  “Lucia, dear, he is very sick, and Dr. Sauerbrucher is world famous. Do you think it will make a difference to him that he is going to treat a Jewish child? He will be paid very well, and our friends in Berlin have a lot of influence.”

  “These people here are not impressed with Jewish money,” Lucia said, as bitterly as she had ever said anything. “They only want to get rid of us.”

  “That is enough,” Brand said in Polish, as the car pulled up to the hospital pavilion. “Our driver is one of them. Enough, I say.”

  A pleasant-looking nurse met them in a spacious marble lobby. Swiftly, after Jonas barely had time to kiss his mother and father, he turned his small head with feverish eyes towards his governess who gave him a weak smile as he was escorted to a room located on the second floor. Lucia involuntarily clasped her hand to her open mouth, sobbing, “We may never see him again! My Jonas, my baby!”

  The nurse walked so swiftly that Jonas had to run to keep up with her. He turned his head once more and saw Lucia crying hysterically and realized how serious everything was. But he was a soldier in the youth party and was determined not to cry or be afraid; to be above all brave, never mind his headaches, the vomiting and fever, or the pain in his legs and arms.

  The nurse left Jonas in a small stark room, which contained a bed and white blanket with a swastika embroidered in the center. A picture of Hitler was hanging on one wall, a crucifix on the other wall. Next to the bed was a night table with a large silver tray covered by a white napkin. Jonas picked up the napkin and gasped when he saw four large syringes with long needles lying next to four test tubes and alcohol sponges. He covered the gruesome sight quickly and planned an immediate escape. He was too frightened to be lonely. He tried the door, which was locked, and pushed the only chair in the room next to the window, which was partially open. Outside there was a narrow ledge wide enough to stand on. The ground was not far down. He saw a large lawn in front of him with patients sitting on lounge chairs. Ivy grew down from the ledge. He had learned at the Maccabee Club gymnasium to climb down ropes, and that was what he planned to do. And then he would run from the hospital to the streets, even if everything hurt. In his pants pocket he had some groschens and an Austrian gold coin that Uncle Herman had given him as good luck charms before they left Danzig.

  As he painfully inched himself through the narrow opening and was halfway out on the ledge, he felt a strong pair of hands grab his waist and pull him back into the room. The hands belonged to the largest woman he had ever seen in his life. She wore a triangular hat and carried a large cross around her neck that swung like a pendulum between two huge breasts. She was a nurse, but she was also a nun.

  “For God’s sake, what do you think you are doing?” she yelled at him with a thunderous voice. “Get undressed immediately.” She closed the window and locked it, glaring at him furiously.

  “For the sick child you are supposed to be, you behave like one of those ruffians in the streets.” She threw a white gown at him and said, “Put this gown on, now, and get into bed.”

  Jonas felt too embarrassed and frightened to undress in front of her. He had done that often in front of his governess, but this was so different.

  “Lie on your side,” she spoke in a rough voice. “Pull your legs toward your body, and don’t move.” He felt a greasy thermometer snake into his rectum.

  “Don’t move or I will chain you to the bed.”

  He lay still as a rock, afraid to take a breath, because he pictured his arms and legs being chained to the bedside like a prisoner on Devil’s Island. He squeezed the edge of the bed with his moist hands, pulling his lips tight together to keep from screaming. He was not going to cry in front of her. The nurse kept her large hand firmly on his back as the thermometer remained in place.

  “Five minutes, that’s all it takes; stay still. Otherwise, I will leave it in you for one hour. Make one move and you will be sorry you are still breathing, you little hoodlum.”

  Minutes later a cheerful blond, blue-eyed doctor bounced into the room, as if he were arriving for a birthday party.

  “Well, now, what do we have here? Our visitor from the Free State of Danzig. The ‘Danzig Kid’ we’ll call him. You look like a brave sort, because I am going to draw some blood from your arm and tomorrow the famous Dr. Sauerbrucher will come to examine you. Did you ever have blood drawn before?”

  “No, sir.”

  There was no escaping now, Jonas thought, but he was not going to cry. He thought of Gerhardt at the moment, and wondered if he had been in the hospital with an ugly fat nurse that he hated. Gerhardt had moved away immediately after he’d recovered when his father took a job with a big bank in Hamburg. That episode still made Jonas shiver. Shivering now, he thought that if Astor were here, this happy doctor wouldn’t be smiling.

  Jonas felt a tightness around his arm as a red round rubber tube was placed around it. The nurse pulled out the thermometer from his rectum. The tall doctor kept asking him questions like, “Do you like Schlagball? What about soccer?”

  He told the doctor he liked soccer best because he was small and could run faster than any of his friends. Jonas was afraid the doctor would ask him about Fräulein Marlow and their secrets or discover something wrong with his privates that would reveal all.

  “Just a little stick,” the doctor said. The nun was towering over him like a wrestler ready to put him into a tight hold. The doctor’s face looked like white marble to him, like a statue he had seen at Schopenhauer Park. He tried to focus his thoughts on Fräulein Marlow, and how warm and safe he felt when lying against her soft milky skin. But he was too engrossed to follow that thought-line now. He watched instead with fascination as the long needle entered him. The doctor pulled back on the lever of the syringe, always smiling, showing his perfect white teeth. Jonas wondered if the doctor would be smiling if he had blood drawn from his own vein. The whole process intrigued his imaginative mind. The blood streamed into the syringe.

  “We want to see if your blood is filled with little bugs.” As he said that, Jonas pictured thousands of tiny bugs swimming in his blood, climbing into his nose, his ears, his mouth, into his head. The thought made him feel sick to his stomach. He would have to be careful that the bugs didn’t travel to his mother when she kissed him, or to Fräulein Marlow. He looked over his naked body, checking to see if there were any already on his skin.

  Jonas’ arms began to hurt as he felt pins and needles in his fingers, but he was afraid to tell the doctor as he watched him transfer the blood from the syringe into the test tubes lying on the silver plate. When his arm began to turn blue he could not contain his agony any longer. He cried out, “My arm is hurting so much!”

  “It’s all right, Dan
zig Kid. We have other Jewish children here, but none as brave as you.”

  Jonas did not stop crying and pointed to his arm. “But it hurts so much.”

  The doctor saw the arm was blue and now realized he had forgotten to remove the tourniquet. With one swift movement he released the rubber tube and Jonas held his limp arm at his side as the blood trickled from his puncture site. After the bleeding stopped, the nun said with an angry voice, “Now I will need to change his sheets before the professor comes. You should be more careful, Doctor.” As she scolded the young doctor, he looked as scared as Jonas.

  “Now give a urine sample,” the nun demanded after the doctor left the room.

  “I can’t go,” Jonas protested.

  “You better, or I will force a tube into your little peepee.”

  Now he was certain he had to find a way to escape from this horrible place. Why had his mother and father put him here, Jonas asked himself.

  “Come into the bathroom, you filthy little Jew devil!” she hissed. “Piss into this bottle or I will piss on you.”

  The more she talked the more he became frightened and was unable to fill the bottle. She escorted Jonas back to the bed and placed the bottle at his side.

  “I will be back, and that bottle better be filled.”

  He fell back exhausted on the bed, his body burning.

  The nun returned and saw the boy’s face flushed and his body raging with fever. The young doctor returned. Jonas heard through his crepuscular state, “We better do a spinal tap.”

  Whatever that meant, it sounded terrifying. “He may have meningitis. Bring me the spinal needle,” ordered the doctor.

  They are going to put that long needle into my peepee, Jonas thought, because I did not fill the bottle. He reached for the bottle and placed his small organ into it, straining, but no urine came forth.

  Through the corner of his eye he saw the nun coming toward him with a long needle and sponges on a tray. With her large rugged hands, she arched his back like a boomerang, as he felt a cold solution strike his spine. He was too weak to cry or to resist.