Hospital of the Transfiguration

by Stanisław Lem

  “Who is it?” Stefan moved his lips voicelessly.

  But his whisper was drowned by the poet’s questions: “Who? Which patients?”

  Stefan raised himself from the bed, fighting sleep.

  “Young Pościk, who worked at the substation. He came over from the forest and is waiting downstairs.” Rygier was sobering up. “He’s taking everyone who didn’t get luminal from the old man. Do you want to go or not?”

  “With the lunatics? Now?” the poet asked, getting out of the chair. His hands were shaking.

  “Should I go?” he said, turning to Stefan.

  “I can’t give you any advice on this.”

  “After curfew, with the lunatics,” Sekułowski calculated half aloud. “No!” he said decisively, but when Rygier reached the doorway, he shouted, “Wait!”

  “Make up your mind! He can’t wait. It’s two hours through the woods!”

  “But who is he?”

  Sekułowski was plainly asking questions to stall for time. His hand was on the knot of the belt around his coat.

  “He’s a partisan! He just got here and had an argument with Pajączkowski about the way those patients were doped on luminal.”

  “Is he reliable?”

  “How should I know? Are you coming or not?”

  “Is the priest going?”

  “No. Well?”

  Sekułowski said nothing. Rygier shrugged and left, slamming the door. The poet took a step to follow, then stopped.

  “Maybe I should go,” he said helplessly.

  Stefan’s head dropped back on the pillow. He murmured something.

  He could hear the poet pacing and talking, but could make no sense of the words. A paralyzing somnolence rose within him.

  “Lie down,” he said, and fell asleep almost immediately.

  A bright light woke him. A rod of some kind was digging into his shoulder. He opened his eyes and lay motionless. He had drawn the blinds the night before and the room was dark. Several tall people were standing at his bed. Groggy with sleep, he shielded his eyes: one of the men was shining a powerful flashlight in his face.

  “Wer bist du?” Who are you?

  “He’s all right. He’s a doctor,” another voice, somehow familiar, said in German. Stefan gave a start. There were three Germans in dark raincoats, automatics slung over their shoulders. The door to the hall was open. He. heard the heavy tread of hobnailed boots outside.

  Sekułowski was standing in the comer. Stefan noticed him only when the German shined the light in that direction.

  “Is he a doctor too?”

  Sekułowski replied in rapid German, his voice breaking. They left one by one. Hutka stood in the door. He left a young soldier in command, ordering him to bring the doctors downstairs. They took the rear staircase. In the pharmacy they saw Pajączkowski, Nosilewska, Rygier, Staszek, the dean, Kauters, and the priest, all guarded by another soldier in a black uniform. The soldier escorting Stefan and the poet entered, closed the door, and took a long look at them. The director stood near the window with his back to the others, his shoulders hunched. Nosilewska sat on a metal stool, Rygier and Staszek in chairs. The day was cloudy but bright, the white of the clouds showing through the rusty leaves. A soldier blocked the door. He was a peasant with a dark, flat face and a crooked jaw. He breathed more and more heavily, and finally shouted in Ukrainian, “Well, doctors, what about you? The Ukraine lives, but you’re finished!”

  “Please do your duty, as we have done ours, but do not speak to us,” said Pajpak in Polish, his voice surprisingly strong. He turned nimbly, drew himself up, and looked at the Ukrainian with his dark eyes.

  “You!” murmured the soldier, raising his lumpy fist. The door flung open and hit the soldier in the back.

  “What are you doing here?” growled Hutka in German. “Out!” He was wearing his helmet and held his automatic in his left hand, as if about to hit somebody with it.

  “Silence!” he shouted, though no one had spoken. “Stay here until you get further orders. No one leaves. I repeat: if we find a single patient hidden, you all pay.”

  He looked at them with his watery eyes and turned away. Sekułowski called out hoarsely, “Herr… Herr Offizier!”

  “What now?” snarled Hutka. His dark brown face showed under his helmet. His hand rested on the doorknob.

  “Some patients have been hidden in the living quarters.”

  “What!? What!?”

  Hutka rushed toward Sekułowski, grabbed him by the collar, and shook him.

  “Where are they, you bastards?”

  Sekułowski began to groan and tremble. Hutka called in the duty officer and told him to search all the apartments. The poet, still held by his coat collar, whined rapidly in Polish, “I didn’t want all of us to be—” His sleeves were pulled so tightly that he could not move his arms.

  “Herr Obersturmführer,” shouted Staszek, deathly pale, “he’s not a doctor, he’s a patient, a mental case!”

  Someone sighed. Hutka was stupefied.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” the German retorted. “What’s the meaning of this, swine of a doctor?”

  Staszek, in his poor German, repeated that Sekułowski was a patient.

  Niezgłoba slouched toward the window. Hutka looked around at them, beginning to understand. His nostrils flared. “What bastards these swine are, what liars!” he wailed, pressing Sekułowski against the wall. The bottle of bromine on the edge of the table teetered and fell, shattering and splashing its contents over the linoleum.

  “Well, we will straighten everything out. Let me see your papers!”

  A Ukrainian—apparently a senior aide, because he wore two silver stripes on his epaulets—was called in from the hall to help translate the papers. Everyone except Nosilewska had them. A guard accompanied her upstairs while Hutka stood before Kauters, examining his papers at great length and seeming to calm down.

  “Ah,” said the German. “Volksdeutsch, are you? Excellent. Why did you get mixed up in this Polish swindle?”

  Kauters explained that he had known nothing about it. He spoke harsh but correct German.

  Nosilewska came back with her Medical Association identity card. Hutka waved her away and turned to Sekułowski, who was still standing by the cabinet against the wall.

  “Komm.”

  “Herr Offizier… I’m not ill. I’m thoroughly well.”

  “Are you a doctor?”

  “Yes—I mean, no, but I really can’t—I’ll…”

  “Komm.”

  Hutka was now completely calm—too calm. He stood still, nearly smiling, his raincoat rustling with every movement. He signaled with his index finger, as one would to a child: “Komm.”

  Sekułowski took a step and fell to his knees.

  “Mercy! Please! I want to live. I’m not insane.”

  “Enough!” Hutka roared. “Traitor! You betrayed your poor, crazy brothers.”

  Two shots rang out behind the building. The windowpanes rattled and the instruments on the shelves trembled.

  Sekułowski, wrapped in the folds of his doctor’s coat, fell at the German’s boots.

  “Franke!” Hutka called out.

  Another German came in and jerked Sekułowski by the shoulders so powerfully that the poet, tall and fat though he was, snapped upright like a rag doll.

  “My mother was German!” he squealed in a falsetto as he was dragged to the door. He grabbed frantically for a handhold, squirming and gripping the doorframe but not daring to defend himself against the blows. Franke raised his rifle butt and methodically smashed Sekułowski’s fingers.

  “Have mercy!” howled Sekułowski in German, and then “Mother of God!” in Polish. Fat tears rolled down his face.

  The German lost his temper. Sekułowski now had hold of the doorknob. Franke took him around the waist, leaned into him, tensed, and pushed with all his might. They flew into the corridor, Sekułowski falling to the stone floor with a thud. The German reached back to clos
e the door, giving the doctors a last glance at his flushed, sweaty face.

  “Disgusting!” he said and slammed the door.

  A large clump of bushes blocked the pharmacy window. Further on, beyond scattered trees, a blank wall rose. The cries of patients and the rasping voices of the Germans were distinct, though muffled. The crack of rifle shots seemed louder, somehow solidified. First there was a thick volley, then a sound like soft bags falling. Then silence.

  A strident voice called in German: “Twenty more!”

  Shots trilled off the wall. Sharp, melancholy whistles marked the occasional ricochet. At one point an automatic rifle barked, but generally it was small arms. Another silence was followed by the scraping of many feet and the now monotonous cry: “Twenty more!”

  Two or three pistol shots, high-pitched and terse, sounded like corks coming out of bottles.

  One inhuman penetrating scream rang out. There was a sound of crying from above, as if coming from the second floor. It went on for a long time.

  The doctors sat motionless, their eyes glued to the nearest objects. Stefan felt stuporous. At first he had tried to cling to something: perhaps Hutka, who made the decisions, might somehow… there was life even in death… but a German shout interrupted his last reflection. There was a crashing of broken branches, red leaves fluttered outside the window, and breathy sobbing and the sound of boots on gravel were heard quite close by.

  A shot rang out like thunder. A scream rose and collapsed.

  Fast-moving clouds, their shapes changing constantly, filled the fragment of visible sky. The shooting stopped after ten. A strange sense of torpor set in. A quarter of an hour later the automatic rifles chattered again, the ensuing silence filled with the howling of the sick and the raucous voices of the Germans.

  At noon the doctors heard heavy footsteps moving around the building; a dog barked and a woman squealed briefly. The door suddenly opened and the Ukrainian soldier came in.

  “Everyone out! Fast!” he shouted in Ukrainian from the doorway. A German helmet appeared behind him.

  “Everyone out!” he repeated, shouting at the top of his lungs. Dust and sweat were mixed on his face; his eyes looked drunken, trembling.

  The doctors filed out. Stefan found himself next to Nosilewska. The corridor was empty except for a heap of crumpled bedding right outside the door. Long black streaks on the floor led to the stairs. A great mass lay propped against the radiator at the bend in the corridor: a corpse bent double, a black icicle protruding from its smashed skull. A gnarled yellow heel stuck out from under the cherry-colored robe. Everybody stepped over it except the German bringing up the rear, who kicked the foot with his boot. The shapes walking ahead of Stefan danced before his eyes. He took hold of Nosilewska’s shoulder. He was still holding on when they reached the library.

  Piles of books had been thrown to the floor from the two bookcases nearest the door. The pages fluttered as the doctors stepped over them on the way in. Two Germans waiting by the door entered last. They sat down on the comfortable sofa, upholstered in red plush.

  Everything seemed to waver in Stefan’s eyes. The room throbbed and turned gray, then collapsed like a burst blister. He fainted for the first time in his life.

  When he came to, he realized that he was lying on something warm. His head rested on Nosilewska’s knees; Pajpak was holding his legs up.

  “What happened to the nurses?” Stefan asked distractedly.

  “They were all sent to Bierzyniec this morning.”

  “What about us?”

  No one answered. Stefan stood up, staggered, but felt that he would not faint again. Steps approached from outside; a soldier came in.

  “Ist der Professor Lonkoski hier?” he asked.

  There was silence. At last Rygier whispered, “Dean. Your Excellency.”

  The dean, slumped in his chair when he heard the German’s call, slowly straightened. His large, heavy, expressionless eyes moved slowly from face to face. He grasped the arms of the chair, raised himself up with an effort, and reached into the upper pocket of his coat. He felt for something with a movement of his flattened hand. The priest, in his black cassock, stepped toward him, but the dean gestured categorically and walked to the door.

  “Kommen Sie, bitte,” said the German, and graciously allowed him to go first.

  The rest sat in silence until two shots roared thunderously in a closed space very nearby. Even the Germans, talking as they sat on the couch, fell silent. Kauters, bathed in sweat, stretched his Egyptian profile into a notched line and wrung his hands until his joints cracked. Rygier twisted his mouth childishly and bit his lip. Only Nosilewska—bent forward, elbows on her knees, her chin resting on her fists—seemed calm. Calm and beautiful.

  Stefan felt something swelling in his stomach, his whole body seemed enormous and slick with sweat, a hideous trembling crept over his skin, but he thought that Nosilewska would be beautiful even in death, and he took a perverse satisfaction in the thought.

  “It seems that… that we, too…” Rygier whispered to Staszek.

  All of them sat on the red chairs except the priest, who stood between two bookcases in the darkest corner, Stefan rushed over to him.

  The priest was whispering.

  “They’re killing…” said Stefan.

  “Pater noster, qui est in coelis,” whispered the priest.

  “Father, it’s not true!”

  “Sanctificetur nomen Tuum.”

  “You’re wrong, Father, it’s a lie,” Stefan whispered. “There’s nothing there, nothing! I understood it when I fainted. This room, and us, everything, it’s only our blood. When that stops flowing and the heart stops beating, even heaven dies! Do you hear me, Father?”

  Stefan pulled at his cassock.

  “Fiat voluntas Tua,” whispered the priest.

  “There’s nothing, no color, no smell, not even darkness…”

  “It is this world that does not exist,” the priest said quietly, his ugly, pained face looking back at Stefan.

  The Germans burst out laughing. Kauters suddenly stood up and went over to them. “Excuse me,” he said in German, “but Herr Obersturmführer took my papers away. Would you happen to know whether…?”

  “Be patient,” answered a stout, wide-shouldered German with red-veined cheeks. He turned back to his comrade and spoke. “You know, the houses were already on fire and I thought everyone inside was dead. All of a sudden this woman comes running out through the flames, heading right for the woods. She’s running like a madwoman, holding onto a goose. Unbelievable! Fritz wanted to take her out, but he was laughing so hard he couldn’t shoot straight.”

  They both laughed. Kauters stood motionless in front of them, then suddenly his face twisted up strangely and he forced out a reedy “ha ha ha!”

  The storyteller’s expression darkened.

  “What are you laughing at, doctor?” he asked. “There’s nothing for you to laugh at.”

  White spots appeared on Kauters’s cheeks.

  “I…” he croaked. “I am German!”

  The German looked up at him carefully.

  “Are you now? Well in that case go ahead and laugh.”

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway, powerful and hard, instantly recognizable as German.

  “Father, do you believe?” Stefan asked with his last ounce of strength.

  “I believe.”

  A tall officer they had not seen before came in. His uniform fit as if it had been painted on, and a dull sparkle showed on his epaulets. His bare head was long, with a noble forehead and chestnut hair speckled with gray. Light flashed in his steel-rimmed glasses when he looked at them. The surgeon approached him, tensed, and held out his hand.

  “Von Kauters.”

  “Thiessdorff.”

  “Herr Doktor, what has happened to our dean?” Kauters asked.

  “Don’t worry about him. I’ll take him to Bieschinetz in my car. He’s packing his things now.”

  “Really
?” Kauters exclaimed.

  The German blushed and shook his head. “Mein Herr!” Then he smiled and said abruptly, “You must believe what I say.

  “Why are we being held here?”

  “Come now. You were in real trouble before, but Hutka has calmed down now. You’re under guard so our Ukrainians can’t do you any harm. They go for blood like hounds, you know.”

  “Really?” asked Kauters, amazed.

  “Oh yes, they’re like falcons: you have to feed them raw meat,” the German psychiatrist said with a laugh.

  The priest came over and spoke in broken German. “Herr Doktor, how has this come about? Man and doctor and patient, the people who have been shot. Death!”

  At first it seemed the German would turn away or raise a hand to shield himself from this black-clad interference, but he suddenly brightened.

  “Every nation,” he answered, his voice deep, “is like an organism. Sometimes the body’s sick cells have to be excised. This was such an excision.”

  He looked over the priest’s shoulder at Nosilewska. His nostrils flared.

  “Aber Gott, Gott,” the priest repeated.

  Nosilewska sat silent and motionless, and the German spoke more loudly as he looked at her. “Let me explain it to you another way. In the days of Caesar Augustus there was a Roman viceroy in Galilee who reigned over the Jews. His name was Pontius Pilate…”

  The German’s eyes were burning,

  “Stefan,” Nosilewska said in Polish, “please tell him to let me go. I don’t need anyone’s protection and I can’t stay here any longer, because…” She broke off.

  Stefan, deeply moved—it was the first time she had called him by his first name—went over to Thiessdorff. The German bowed politely.

  Stefan asked if they could leave.

  “Do you want to leave? All of you?”

  “Frau Doktor Nosilewska,” said Stefan, rather helplessly.

  “Oh, yes. Yes, of course. Once again, you must be patient.”

  The German kept his word. They were released at dusk. The building was silent, dark, and empty. Stefan went to his room to pack a few things. When he turned on the light, he saw Sekułowski’s notebook on the table and threw it into his open suitcase. Then he saw the sculpture next to it. He felt sick when he realized that its creator was somewhere quite near, buried under dozens of bodies in the grave that had been dug that morning.