“Hand me the syringe, Nurse. Just a little stick, Danzig Kid, and it will all be over.”
“You know, Doctor,” the nun said, “had you not better check with Dr. Sauerbrucher to see if this is what he wants you to do?”
“Nurse, this is an emergency. Sauerbrucher is sleeping in his comfortable bed and won’t like to be disturbed. I know what I am doing.”
“Still, doctor, this boy was greeted personally by the Führer this evening,” she said. “If anything goes wrong . . .”
“The Führer? Where?” He pointed the syringe towards the ceiling and thought for a few seconds. What if his hand did slip and caused a paralysis as he struck nerve roots? The nun was right. One hour or so would make no difference. Then he could ask the professor if he thought a spinal tap was needed.
The doctor replaced the syringe on the metal tray, sponged off the little boy’s back, and covered his naked body with the starched white bed sheet.
“Very well then. Finish sponging him down, then give him aspirin and phenobarbital so he doesn’t start convulsing.” The physician tried in vain to become an authoritative person, but now the nun and Hitler were in charge.
After the doctor left, Jonas finally filled the glass jar and, with grateful eyes, handed it to the nun. He no longer hated her, and when she wiped his head with a wet cloth he liked her even better. She no longer screamed, but gently brushed her hands through his brown hair.
“Go to sleep, my little boy. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
Jonas wondered how someone one minute can be so mean and the next be so kind. Grown-ups are funny sorts of people.
Nuns.
Spit three times if you see two nuns walking together, he was taught. He feared them more than a pit of vipers. But this nun was nice after all.
In the morning when Jonas awoke he thought for a minute that he was in his own bed in Danzig. Had everything – seeing Hitler and the close call with the long syringe – been just a bad dream, a nightmare?
A young, fresh-looking nurse entered the room, arriving with a tray of applesauce and rice and some warm tea. “My name is Nurse Herta,” she said cheerfully. “We have to give you a quick sponge bath, change your sheets, and make everything look fresh and clean for the professor.”
“Are my mother and father coming soon?” Jonas asked in an anxious voice.
“In the afternoon, when we have visiting hours.”
Herta placed a clean towel on the night table, along with a metal tongue depressor, a flashlight, a round headlight, an ophthalmoscope, and ear scopes.
“You sit on the bed here, Jonas, and I will tell you a story while we wait for the professor.”
Jonas felt his heart racing under his night shirt. Why would his mother and father put him through all this torture? And Uncle Herman and Fräulein had allowed it, too. When he got stronger he would definitely run away and never see his parents again, and then they really would be sorry, he thought.
The door of the room opened briskly and three doctors and two nurses entered, chattering. The tallest of the men was the famous Professor Sauerbrucher. He had a lean body with a kind, narrow face and gray hair.
“I’m Dr. Sauerbrucher,” he gently said. He sat down on the side of the bed and took one of Jonas’ sweaty hands into his own
“You have had a bad time, but don’t worry, soon we’ll make you better and you will go back home to your beautiful city. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”
Jonas nodded.
“Do you have a dog?”
“Yes.”
“And his name?”
“Astor.”
“Astor, what an unusual name. I bet he misses you.”
“Yes, I miss him too. He protects me.”
“You don’t look like the type of young man who needs protection.” The doctor laughed as he picked up Jonas’ chart. “Were you excited when you met the Führer?”
“Yes. He shook my hands.”
“Your picture is on the front page of all the newspapers,” the professor said.
He showed him the front page of the Berlin Daily where Jonas was standing with Lucia and Brand as Hitler bent down to greet him. It had been paper-clipped to Jonas’ records.
“You are a famous young boy. So tell me, does Astor sleep in your bed?”
“No, only if I am sick; otherwise, he stays in the room. He is a German shepherd.” Jonas liked this doctor.
“Ah, I, too have one. His name is Bruno.”
Jonas began to giggle.
“What is funny, Jonas?” the doctor asked.
“Bruno is the name of my new chauffeur in Danzig, and he looks like a German shepherd.” Karl-Heinz had been terminated because Lucia could not rid herself of the image of his carrying a rifle into her boy’s bedroom to shoot their beloved Astor. “He is a friend of Fräulein Marlow, and he is also the leader of German Youth Scouts,” Jonas added.
Dr. Sauerbrucher continued asking Jonas hundreds of questions, always interrupting him with a pleasantry as the other doctors stood by in silence and in admiration as they observed a real master at the work of doctoring.
While he was asking all the questions Doctor Sauerbrucher’s long gentle fingers examined Jonas’ neck and armpits, which made Jonas giggle, looking for swollen glands. The doctor pounded on his chest, then moved his hands to his belly, which caused Jonas to break out in spontaneous laughter. His laughter was so infectious that all the others in the room could not restrain themselves.
From Sauerbrucher’s long white coat’s side pocket, he produced a small piece of wood in the shape of a cylinder with a finely carved caduceus, the staff with two entwined snakes topped with wings that is the physician’s insignia. He placed one end of the cylinder over Jonas’ chest and bent his ear to the other. When he was finished, the professor placed his ear over Jonas’ chest and told him to breathe in and out.
“Do you like this instrument?” he asked Jonas.
“Yes.”
“Then you can hold onto it for a while and see if you can hear your dog’s heart with it.”
“We have to do some more tests, Jonas,” he said in an encouraging voice, “but don’t worry. There will be no more needles. We have enough blood.” The doctor left the room trailed by a cloud of floating assistants.
The young pretty nurse wheeled him down the corridor to the x-ray suite where Dr. Sauerbrucher was waiting for him in a darkened room behind a screen and wearing a steel apron. For a moment Dr. Sauerbrucher looked like the butcher about to chop the side of a beef as Jonas once saw at the Jewish market in Danzig.
“Now take everything off, Jonas. Stand against the screen and I will move this screen up and down your body so I can see all your insides.”
“What are you looking for?” Jonas asked.
“You are a curious one. Some day perhaps you will become a doctor. This is a fluoroscope and I can see your lungs move, your heart beat, and all your secrets. I bet you have lots of those. But I promise, whatever is written on your heart, I won’t tell anyone. Your secrets will forever stay with me,” he laughed. This struck Jonas with a knowing chord.
Jonas felt his heart race thinking of his Fräulein and his bathtub, as the doctor smiled gently, observing the rapid beat of the young boy’s heart.
“Now Jonas, I see that your heart is very strong and healthy and that it is going to beat for a very long time for you. Next we will go get some x-rays of your intestines. But first you will have to swallow some white-like chalk. It is called barium and it tastes not too bad if you swallow quickly and make believe it is cold ice.”
After Jonas was wheeled into another room, he had to swallow the white chalky material that did not taste anything like lemon ices.
He wanted to vomit but the nice doctor kept encouraging him to swallow quickly.
The nurse helped Jonas to step up to the steel table and told him to lie there and not move. “You are a wonderfully brave young man,” the doctor told him.
Each day fo
r the next seven days, Lucia and Brand and the governess came to visit Jonas. All the tests were finally completed, and his temperature did not rise any longer. Throughout his hospital stay Jonas heard words like leukemia, blood diseases, rheumatic fever, and cancer. At the end of the second week, the nurse-nun brought in all his clothes and said to him, “Now you can run away. We are releasing you. You can go home.” She shook his hand and said, “You are a good, brave boy. May God keep you always well.”
Jonas remembered something about her once having called him a Jewish devil, but that seemed long ago. He must have been mistaken.
He was escorted to the professor’s office, where Lucia and Brand were waiting. On the wall were dozens of pictures of famous men and women who came to consult with Dr. Sauerbrucher.
He rose from his chair and proffered a long thin hand to Jonas and said, “You see all those pictures on the wall, young man? Well, I want you to promise to send one to me and in exchange I will give you a present. Here is the stethoscope that seemed to fascinate you so. Someday you might use it for your patients.”
Jonas took the stethoscope into his hand, bowed and said, “Thank you, Doctor, for making me feel better.”
Sauerbrucher for an instant was taken aback, and said, “Those are the nicest words I have heard in a long time.” He turned to Brand and Lucia and said, “Your son is a real gentleman.”
He continued, “All the tests show no leukemia or anything else serious. I suspect the young man is suffering from a form of undulant fever that will get better in time without any treatment, like most things in medicine.”
Lucia and Brand were overwhelmed with happiness, shook hands with Dr. Sauerbrucher and hugged Jonas. The following morning they departed on the first train for Danzig.
Jonas bounded out of the limousine and ran into the house where Astor jumped on him, bathing his face with his huge tongue. The large entrance hall was decorated with balloons and colorful welcome signs. They were greeted by the entire staff, including the cook, the chauffeur, and the chambermaid, with a loud round of applause.
Uncle Herman suddenly appeared from the library, dressed like a nurse, two balloons pushing out his chest, and he carried a huge cardboard thermometer in one hand and a long rubber stethoscope in the other. He hobbled over to Jonas and said in a high voice, “Doctor Sauerbrucher called and said to check your temperature.” He gathered Jonas up in his arms like a sack of potatoes and pressed him against the balloons, breasts on parade, which popped loudly and delighted everyone except Astor.
The governess watched the clowning around and whispered to Bruno, “Disgusting! What they teach that boy.”
Inside the library, the scene was not so jovial. The Rabbi and Metchnik were waiting grimly. They greeted Jonas warmly and then waited for the boy and the governess to leave.
“You two look like you lost your best friend,” Brand said.
“It was a disgrace and humiliation for all eight thousand Jews in Danzig,” the Rabbi said. “Here. Look at that.”
The headlines: Jewish Lad from Danzig Greeted by the New Chancellor of Germany. The picture clearly showed Lucia and Brand smiling as Hitler shook hands with Jonas.
“You should have pulled Jonas away from that madman. You give the impression that good Jewish Danzigers welcome Hitler!”
“What was I supposed to have done?” Brand said, more than a little annoyed. “It all happened so quickly. We were thinking only of Jonas and getting him to the doctor. Any aggressive move on my part and the SS would have enjoyed bashing my head in and arresting us all. And that, I assure you, would not have appeared in the Danziger Daily.”
“Listen Rabbi, Brand is a good Jew, like the rest of our family,” Uncle Herman said. “I know these bastards. They might not have done anything on the spot, but one day they’d arrange a little accident – the Duesenberg gets blown up, or Astor is found dead, or even more to the point, my nephew disappears, possibly forever! If you really want to protest, get your Rabbi from New York to help you, and all those rich Jews and their beloved new President Roosevelt to protest. They are scared to death to say anything in America, and you expect one Jew in Europe, surrounded by the SS, to stand up to the new leader of Germany?”
“Brand is no ordinary man,” the Rabbi said. “He is one of the very industrialists who sell them coal.”
Brand sat silently in his large armchair listening as he was being scolded by the Rabbi. He looked at Metchnik, whose stern eyes were lowered.
“Rabbi, you are right,” Brand said. He knew it was best to end the conversation as quickly as possible. It had advanced beyond reason. The subject was too inflammatory.
Later that same day, Max Schiller called Brand and said, “You don’t have to worry about future business with the new regime. The Reichstag is delighted with the priceless publicity you have given them.”
“Life is fair.” Brand remembered those words of Metchnik from long ago. He was recovering from the bullet wound he had received in his right arm on the field as the Russians attacked Warsaw. His men had abandoned him and Metchnik found him. He was lying in a four-poster bed in the guest bedroom of their estate. The walls were covered with blue velvet, and there were the largest curtains he had ever seen on the largest windows.
“You were saved for a reason,” Metchnik told him as he sat at his bedside. “All your men were either killed or captured by the Russians. You showed courage and knew how to survive. The war is over. The Red Army has been stopped at the gates of Warsaw, and you don’t have to be a soldier anymore. But you must return to your regiment in Warsaw, and I will give you a letter testifying that you did not desert your men and were wounded. Otherwise, they will incarcerate you, put you on trial for deserting, and have you shot, especially since by now the survivors are blaming you for their blunders and they will tell that you are a Jew.” Still, Brand knew it was his blunder.
It was a major error to lead his cavalry into an open field surrounded by trees during the day. He should have sent out a scout, but the men were so anxious to return to Warsaw that he did not use logic.
Now he was again faced with a threat to his life and his family. The right decision had to be made. This time another mistake could be the end of everything.
It was that quiet look on the old gentleman’s face that made Brand stop for a moment to reflect on the words of the Rabbi. It was that same look he had seen on Metchnik’s face as he sat by his bedside. Metchnik was a wise man, experienced in life. He was telling him to prepare for the worst.
Chapter Ten
THE PRINCE FELT TOO UNSETTLED to stay in Danzig for long, so once Jonas was safely home, he moved to Paris to think things through. His shotgun wound had healed nicely, and he had received a personal letter from Rudolph Hess soon after apologizing for the Marienbad ruffians. They had meant, Hess reassured him, merely to scare the party and not to harm anyone. But in a recent letter, Hess had also informed the Prince that it would be best to end the relationship with the American, as the new leader was drafting plans to make political prisoners of all the homosexuals, gypsies, and cocaine dealers.
“The new Germany will not tolerate deviants! Understood? For your safety, send the boy back to Ohio. I can only do so much for so long. Burn this letter. My dear friend, I care for you too much to have anything happen.”
The following day he and Bill took a large parlor car on the Orient Express from Budapest to Paris.
“Paris is the most beautiful city in the world,” the Prince said. “You will see none of the horror scenes of Berlin. Germany and Danzig are finished.”
They arrived at the Gare St. Lazare in the early evening and stayed at Le Hotel on the Left Bank. “This is where Oscar Wilde stayed and where he died,” the Prince explained. “I usually stay at the Ritz, but I thought this would be more romantic.”
The suite was decorated in the Victorian style, massive furniture everywhere. There was a huge feather bed and red couches with blue down pillows. A bouquet of pristine peonies was on
a small round table in the center of the room, along with a bottle of Moët and two very tall glasses.
“L’avenir est a nous,” the Prince said. “The future is ours.” They toasted, but Bill saw a melancholy in the Prince’s eyes that he had never seen before.
They walked down the Rue de Seine and bought a baguette and ripe, delicious camembert from a cart bedecked with flowers, and then they sat on a bench in the Tuilleries, facing the pond, surrounded by thousands of red and yellow flowers. At night they went to the Casino Royale and heard the fabulous American expatriate Josephine Baker. Then they drank Pernod at the Café Aux Deux Magots. Everywhere there was art and romance and wonderful smells: flowers, good bread, cheese, wine. At night, they walked the narrow cobbled streets lined with brash but often beautiful prostitutes, who eagerly offered themselves, at a not unreasonable price, to the handsome men. Young lovers dotted the quais, while pretty girls sold flowers from the shadows.
“Everything is there for the free soul,” the Prince observed with Bill as they drank coffee one morning in the Dome at Montparnasse. It was already early September and the city felt as fresh as baby’s breath.
“Here is where many of your expatriates come, even more important than Josephine Baker. There in the corner, that fat woman with the masculine haircut? That’s Gertrude Stein.”
Bill looked. “Who’s the man with her?”
The Prince roared. “Oh, my American ingénue, will you never learn? That man is named Alice.” Bill rolled his eyes.
The Prince decided the moment had come. Pretending to be casual, he said, “I prefer the Dome to the Café Romaniche. Perhaps you would like to stay here instead of returning with me to Danzig?”
Bill seized on his companion’s meaning immediately. They had discussed their future in the way soap circles a drain. Bill knew his family was expecting him to return sometime that fall, the clock on his year of peripatetic indulgence having run out. Instead, he had succeeded in putting them off. A wealthy patron, he said, had “offered” to sponsor him in a course of advanced architectural study at the university in Danzig, and Bill had accepted. He had managed to buy himself another year. He took the Prince’s slender fingers into his large palm.
Twilight in Danzig Page 13