Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  The idea is that Mr Tompkins comes to the door in room 18 and calls out a name in alphabetical order and the student whose name is called goes in to have his details ticked off by the assistant registrar and is then interviewed by Professor Block. This is the final step to being accepted into the Faculty of Medicine. You know, it’s to check you haven’t got two heads and you are who it says you are on the application form. Although, I suppose, in a way, you could say Sarah has two heads although one is in her stomach.

  Well, the letter ‘M’ comes before ‘S’ and Sarah is eventually called in after waiting three hours. She’s pretty tired and her ankles are swollen because she’s been doing her share of getting the house in Carlton ready. They’ve been scrubbing and cleaning and even though Sophie constantly begs Sarah to stop and put her feet up, Sarah’s not the sort to stand by looking on when there’s work to be done. When Mr Tompkins finally calls out Sarah’s name and she gets up, so does Morrie. Tompkins puts up his hand to block Morrie, ‘You can’t come in, sir. Your daughter must go in alone.’

  ‘Miss Maloney, she is not my daughter, I am her friend!’ Morrie pronounces, confident as all get-out. I guess he’s learned to bluff his way in the concentration camp and after being pushed around by experts in refugee camps and probably at Bonegilla as well. Underneath everything, Morrie is a pretty tough character.

  ‘Oh? Is there something I should know?’ the assistant registrar now asks, looking at Sarah’s stomach. You can see he’s not happy as he observes this plainly pregnant girl with the little bloke who’s dressed like Shylock bearing down on him. He’s accustomed to having to deal with meek and mild enrolment students in grey suits or tweed jackets.

  Harmless boys just out of school with their heads still filled with footy results and statistics, smoking cigarettes and playing at being grown-ups.

  Morrie points to the door, ‘Inside we must go, at vunce!’ It appears as if the task of explaining his presence with Sarah is only possible beyond the door of number 18. He moves forward, giving Sarah a bit of a shove in the back to get her going. Tompkins is forced to stand aside and Sarah pushes past him, brushing her big tummy against him, followed by Morrie in his long black coat and hat and clunky boots.

  I forgot to say about the boots. When Morrie came to Australia, he was wearing shoes made of cardboard and not proper leather like ours. They were issued to him in the refugee camp and when they wore out, the bootmaker in Yankalillee couldn’t mend them. So he went and bought a pair of workmen’s hobnailed, steel-capped boots like Tommy’s that would last a little bloke like him about a thousand years. With the long black coat and the big black hat and the Horace the Horse boots, he looks pretty strange even for a reffo. Good thing he’s shaved off his curled-up-to-his-ears moustache when he changed his name or you’d never know what could’ve happened.

  Well, the professor is writing up some notes when the two of them enter and he doesn’t look up until Mr Tompkins clears his throat and says, ‘Miss Sarah Maloney and . . .’ He hasn’t got to ‘S’ yet and doesn’t know Morrie’s name. ‘And her er . . . escort,’ he concludes lamely. Only then does the professor look up. ‘Good God!’ he exclaims.

  Morrie removes his hat and does a bit of a bow, ‘I am Professor Maurice Zukfizzleski, Professor of Surgery, Kraków University 1935, not registered to practise in Australia and name now changed to English, Morrie Suckfizzle pleased ter meetcha, for purpose of becoming Australian.’ He says it all in one breath in the voice he’s been practising that he thinks sounds like the ABC voices he’s heard on the wireless. We have told him a hundred times that his English name is Morrie Suckfizzle and not ‘Morrie Suckfizzle pleased ter meetcha’ but he never gets it right when introducing himself. I think he just likes saying the whole thing because he thinks he’s speaking fair-dinkum Australian.

  Morrie now turns to Sarah, ‘This is Miss Sarah Maloney, my very good friend.’ Morrie turns back to Professor Block and makes another small bow then smiles, ‘We have za honour and za hope, sir, to be your most excellent and diligent students.’

  The professor looks confused and spreads his hands, ‘I don’t understand?’ He points to Sarah, ‘You’re pregnant, young lady!’ ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did I hear you introduced as Miss?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He looks down at the paper in front of him. ‘It doesn’t say you’re pregnant and unmarried in your enrolment form?’

  ‘That wasn’t one of the questions they asked, sir. It only asked if I was single or married, I put single.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He turns to Morrie. ‘One of my students? You are one of my students?’

  ‘Yes, Professor, I have za honour and za privilege.’ Then Morrie asks suddenly, ‘You are Polish, I think?’ Sarah tells later how she doesn’t know how Morrie picked it because the professor had this posh accent, more English than Australian, like on the wireless.

  Professor Block ignores Morrie’s question and looks up at Tompkins, ‘Get me Mr Zuck–’

  ‘Suckfizzle! To suck and to fizzle, Morrie Suckfizzle pleased ter meetcha.’

  ‘Get me Mr Suckfizzle’s papers, please, Mr Tompkins.’ Tompkins goes to his table and shuffles papers about a bit and brings Morrie’s enrolment form over. Attached to the form are his Polish medical papers as well as his immigration and refugee papers. Professor Block looks at the enrolment form. ‘I see, you’re here to re-take your medical degree.’ He starts reading Morrie’s papers then looks up. ‘Very impressive, Professor Zukfizzleski, you taught Surgery but you also have a postgraduate degree in Gynaecology.’

  ‘I specialise in infant and child surgery,’ Morrie explains, surprised at the professor’s observation. ‘You read Polish, Professor?’ Morrie points to his papers, ‘You can read this, no?’

  ‘My mother was Polish, my father German, I speak both,’ Professor Block explains without looking up.

  ‘Ja, I think so the accent, Polish and German, but more Polish and also Jews?’ Morrie pronounces it ‘juice’ like orange juice.

  Block looks slightly annoyed, Morrie’s picked him in one despite his careful English accent. ‘Yes, we are Jewish and arrived in Australia after the Great War, I was eleven. There was no hardship beyond the usual business of settling in a new country and the inevitable anti-Semitism in some parts of the community and, of course, at school.’

  ‘That is good, there has been enough hard times already for everyone,’ Morrie answers in a consoling voice.

  Professor Block puts his elbows on the table and brings the tips of his fingers together and smiles. ‘Professor Suckfizzle, I deeply regret what you’ve been through and admire the courage you show to start all over again.’

  Morrie gives a little shrug, ‘If I mustn’t, I wouldn’t. But I must, so I will do it, that is all.’ Then he adds, ‘I am a doctor, Professor, I do not want to be anything else in my new life.’

  Professor Block smiles, ‘I personally welcome you to the University of Melbourne. I also regret that, with your credentials, you must virtually begin all over again. As for my colleagues, I can’t say how they will regard you as a student, they know the details of the Nuremberg trials of course, but alas, over here the recent history of the Jews in Europe is not a burning issue.’ He sighs. ‘Australia is a long way away from anywhere, we are not always as interested in the Nazi concentration camps as we ought to be.’ ‘Thank you, Professor, I hope to be a good student.’ Professor Block now looks over at Sarah, ‘What have we here, then?’ He looks down at her enrolment form, having already forgotten her name, ‘Sarah Maloney, that’s an Irish name if I’m not mistaken, Catholic, is it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Professor Block nods his head as if her being a Catholic explains everything. ‘And your relationship with Mr Suckfizzle?’ You can see an idea suddenly crosses his mind and he looks at Morrie in some alarm, ‘You’re not ...?’

  Morrie entirely misses the i
mplication but Sarah doesn’t and she flushes, but still manages to say. ‘No, sir, it was a high-school romance, Professor Suckfizzle is a family friend and mentor as well as being my doctor.’

  Professor Block looks relieved, then seems to be thinking. Finally he says, ‘It’s very difficult.’ He looks down at the papers on his desk without appearing to read them. ‘We have no precedent for the admission of a pregnant student and in my time there has only been one third-year student who became pregnant and she, very wisely, chose to discontinue her degree. It may be all right in Arts but not in Medicine.’ He looks up again, this time at Morrie. ‘Mr Suckfizzle, you are, or rather were, a physician and a teacher at a university, do you know of such a precedent? A Polish precedent perhaps? May I take it that, as her mentor, it is you who have encouraged Miss Maloney to take her medical degree?’

  ‘Encouraged yes, that is true,’ Morrie exclaims. ‘Sarah, she will make a very good doctor. But always, since she is small, she wants to be a doctor, this idea is not comink from me! She is making up her own mind.’

  Professor Block looks at Sarah and then at Morrie, ‘Well, you must both understand that I think it highly unlikely that Miss Maloney will be granted permission to study Medicine in her, er . . . present state. Even if I were to agree to it, and I can’t say I do, I would have to seek the advice of the Professorial Board and I cannot think of a single reason why they would consider her case to be exceptional. Quite plainly she is pregnant and that is sufficient to exclude her.’

  ‘Let me ask you a question, please, Professor?’ Morrie doesn’t wait for permission but continues. ‘Za boy who makes her pregnant, if he is a medical student with high marks, the highest marks of all za students for entry, would he be rejected?’

  Professor Block gives a little laugh, ‘I dare say if he were pregnant, otherwise no.’

  ‘So you are judging Sarah’s condition and not her intelligence?’

  Professor Block sighs, ‘I am doing no such thing, Mr Suckfizzle, I am simply applying the rules. Every institution has rules, without rules there would be anarchy, this is likely to be as true of this university as with most public institutions.’

  ‘Rules? There is always rules, this is true.’ Morrie appears to think for a moment, ‘But you ask me if I have for you a precedent, maybe in Poland? So let me ask you, Professor, is not a precedent an example where the rules have been broken so they can be broken anuzzer time?’

  ‘Yes, precisely. Given a strong enough precedent, it can justify changing a rule, hence my question to you.’

  ‘So, do I have such a precedent?’ Morrie spreads his hands and purses his lips, ‘Not exactly, no. But maybe there is something else more important. It is breaking a rule because to keep it is to deny both humanity and justice. Just because it is a rule does not mean it cannot be challenged, cannot be changed. Also, to wait for a precedent is to deny natural justice. Maybe also it is a test of the kind of doctor you are if you have za courage to challenge a bad rule? This I can give you. I have for you such an example. In Auschwitz there is a doctor, Dr Mengele, you will hear more from this name.’

  ‘I’m not sure I know of Mengele? A physician at Auschwitz you say?’ Then he adds, ‘Is it something the medical profession needs to be ashamed of ?’

  ‘Ja, every doctor in za world when they know about this Mengele, they will be ashamed to be a doctor. But never mind to be ashamed. To be ashamed means you still have a conscience, to be ashamed is not so bad; not to be ashamed, that is bad. All my life I am ashamed, you see, in Auschwitz I am the surgeon assistant to this monster,

  Mengele.’

  ‘Monster?’ Professor Block looks curious, ‘Should I know about this?’

  Morrie leans forward, ‘Of course! Every physician should know this. I can tell you now za story. It was not by choice, of course, my wife and my two children have already gone to the right-hand line, to the showers, to the gas chamber. In one hour from when they are coming to that place they are already dead. But I am a doctor, a professor, and so I am put in za left-hand line, the Nazis they make me a ward assistant in the hospital where is working Dr Mengele. The Germans they know already my qualifications so when comes Mengele they are making me his theatre assistant.

  ‘I think maybe I can save lives in this death camp, that is the job for a doctor even in Auschwitz. Soon I know I am wrong. I am working for a malman, a madman, who is doing experiments on twins. It is not medicine, it is not science, it is murder. I am not a murderer, I am a healer, a physician. So after za first time I wait until all have gone away from that operating theatre and I go into za scrubbing-up room and shut za door and cut my wrists.’ Morrie stretches out his arms so that his wrists show beyond the cuffs of his coat and Professor Block sees the two long white vertical scars running down the centre of his arm from the butt of his hands to halfway up to his elbows just like he showed us that time at home.

  ‘But Mengele will not kill a member of the medical profession. “We are healers, scientists, I cannot kill a healer and a scientist, it would be on my conscience forever.”’

  Morrie stops and looks at Professor Block, ‘Dr Mengele, always he is wanting twins. Every prisoner, every Jew and every Gypsy knows that Mengele wants young children who are twins for his experiments. They also know if they find identical twins, one difference, one twin is genius, how you say?’

  ‘A child prodigy?’ the professor suggests.

  ‘Ja, za one twin must be a true genius, a Mozart, nothing less. The uzzer one is not a genius but still identical. If such twins can be found by anyone in za camp then the prisoner who finds them, their life it will be saved in Auschwitz. They will get extra soup and bread and light duties and medical attention, blankets in za winter, a warm coat also, the guards will not beat them, they will survive. To find such a combination is a chance to stay alive. They will have life where there is nothing but the promise of death. It is a rich prize.

  ‘Then one day is coming into the children’s camp twins, but they are sick. So they are coming to me in the children’s huts and to my infirmary because maybe they are infectious. Mengele does not want sick twins in his hospital, where is sent only the healthy twins. I have a small infirmary in the children’s compound. These twins, they are delirious, but mostly from dehydration, though they have a fever, but they are not so sick. They are two boys, Zachariah and Emmanuel Moses, and they are eleven years old. After a few days they are getting better and one morning I am coming in the ward and the one has a piece of, how you say, wastepaper?’

  ‘A scrap of paper?’ Professor Block suggests.

  ‘Ja, scrap of paper, from which I am writing medical reports. The Germans they want reports for everything in za camp and I am maybe throwing away this piece of paper. To save paper we must write on both sides, but one side of this paper is clean. I go to see what it is he is writing and it is music.’

  ‘ “What are you doing?” I ask him.

  ‘ “Composing, Herr Doktor, it is the first movement of a concerto for violin and orchestra,” he says very quietly.

  ‘ “A concerto, you are composing a concerto for violin? Show me.” I put out my hand and he gives me this paper. I know a little bit music, my mother was a teacher of pianoforte and I can read music. What this twin has written on that paper is not for children. “Which one is you?” I ask him.

  ‘ “Emmanuel, Herr Doktor.”

  ‘ “Emmanuel, I will give you some more paper, you will write in my surgery, but do not show this to anyone, you understand?” Then I ask him, “Your twin, Zachariah, he can do this also?”

  ‘ “No, he can only play the piano, some Chopin, Schumann, some others also.”

  ‘I can see from his expression he does not think his brother is a great musician, but he does not want to say so. “And you, what do you play?”

  ‘ “The violin, Herr Doktor. But I am first a composer, then the violin.”

 
‘ “To write down this first movement, how long, Emmanuel?”

  ‘He smiles and touch his head like so,’ Morrie taps his head. “I have it in here, Herr Doktor. I have composed it on za train, I will need three days to write it down.”

  ‘My God, Professor Block! What he shows me is not sad, the music I can see on this page, it will fall lightly under the bow. This boy is composing joyous music in his head when he is coming in za cattle train from Germany to za concentration camp in Poland!

  ‘After three days he give me the first movement. “Emmanuel, you must not tell anyone you are a composer and Zachariah also, he must not tell. You must be stumm!” I take him by the shoulder and look into his eyes, “You understand? If they find out, they will kill you and also your brother.”

  ‘In Auschwitz they have a symphony orchestra. The Kommandant is choosing the best Jewish musicians and when is coming in the cattle trains they are playing at the railhead so everyone is thinking they come to a nice place where is always playing concert music.

  ‘The conductor of the orchestra is a man who is coming from Kraków. I know him from before, but not so good. I take to him the concerto, “Can you look, please, Maestro Pietrowski? Maybe you can play this?”

  ‘ “What is this?” he ask me. “You have done this?”

  ‘ “No please, you tell me what is your opinion, Maestro.” I give him a little bag of salt and some Bayer aspirin, this is very valuable commodity for him in the camp.

  ‘The next day he sends me a message to come to where they are playing the orchestra. I come and the first violinist and the orchestra they are playing this concerto. It is very beautiful, full of laughter and joy.

  ‘ “Professor Zukfizzeski, where are you getting this music?” he ask me again.

  ‘ “I have found it inside the jacket of a young boy who has died of typhus,” I lie to him.