The Western sector is winning, Bacheran said. “We have the murderer and it’s a she.”
“No, we have him. It’s the money changer with the head wound. A certain Rudolf Doberschütz.”
Part Three
Me…Me…Me…
Elisabeth Kusian
15.
Head nurse Anita was often compared to a mother hen, because she so touchingly took care of her darling little ones, even if they were old mothers themselves or soon to be retirees. She was from Belzig, a small town in Fleming, and had started her studies in 1939 at the Red Cross’s main house, “For Germans abroad” and after a year and a half at the district hospital of Pritzwalk she had taken her exam and been awarded her diploma. But her experience was in the field hospitals on the Eastern front. There, she had to deal with shattered limbs, stomach and lung wounds, injuries caused by explosives, jaundice, dysentery, typhus and six day fever. She had been all the way to the northern tip of the Sea of Azov, to Rostov, and had been a witness to untold suffering. Compared to that, her present job at Robert-Koch Hospital was quite simply paradise.
Still, there were problems here too. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Max Ramolla, the pitiless administrator, made sure of that. She had never come across a man who was so obsessed by order and such a pedant. But, in a sense… the poor guy was to be pitied. That’s way he was and he couldn’t help himself: he had been shot in the head. There was a cavity on the right side of his skull wide enough to hold a rubber eraser.
Ramolla stormed in, threw himself on a chair and let the words gush out. “I’ve had it with Kusian. Patients keep coming to me complaining that she’s milking them and that they never get their money back. That won’t do! That woman has got to go!”
Head nurse Anita smiled sweetly. “We should be a little understanding with Nurse Elisabeth. She’s having a tough time. She’s a war widow with three children.”
“My sister has five children and no husband… she doesn’t go around robbing people.”
“Please, Mrs. Kusian is not a thief.”
“What do you call it when someone borrows something and doesn’t return it…? Isn’t that stealing?”
“It’s stealing food in a sense: it’s dealing with an emergency, keeping children from going hungry.”
“Nonsense, they’re in a home.” Ramolla got up and turned to go. “And I’m sure that all the drugs and medical equipment that have gone missing were stolen by her.”
“That’s just mean spirited talk. She works more than the others and she’s the female patients’ favorite nurse.”
Ramolla lost control of himself, he stamped his feet again and again and Nurse Anita thought he looked like Rumpelstilskin; he yelled and spittle dribbled on his lips. This time he spat out what he really thought: “Of course she steals like a magpie and sells it all to make some money. She wants to be able to rent her own place and fix it for herself and her children. You said so yourself. She’ll do anything for the children. She’s got to go! One rotten apple is enough to ruin the whole cart, you know it!”
Head Nurse Anita opened her arms like a minister blessing his congregation. “I’ll talk to her again and I’ll tell her that we will have to let her go if it happens again. Please, Mr. Ramolla, turn a blind eye to this just one more time. Beneath your rough surface you are a kind hearted man and you…”
“Right.” Ramolla stormed out and banged the door shut behind him.
Anita rolled down the blinds and went over to the filing cabinet to find Elisabeth Kusian’s personnel file. She didn’t sit down to read it: Elisabeth Kusian, nee Richter on May 1914, was born in the small Thuringian town of Bornsheim. She was the last of four children. She had barely known her father, a farm hand, since he had died in 1915 during the first months of the war. Her mother had managed to raise the children through painful work in a factory.
The head nurse sat down, picked up the telephone and had the culprit called.
Ten minutes later Elisabeth Kusian sat perched on the visitor’s stool to the right of the desk. Nurse Anita sighed deeply before speaking. “My dear, you can see that I’m worried about you. It’s obvious something is wrong with you… Are you sick, is something weighing on you, can I help…?
“Thank you but I can manage all right.”
“Yes, because you take morphine. And Pervitin.”
Kusian looked surprised. “How do you know that?”
“I worked in field hospitals like you – no one could have made it without that. And every day more morphine is going missing here. You probably buy your own Pervitin – at a high price. Now…” Her visitor just hung her head and seemed unwilling or incapable of answering, so the Head Nurse flipped through the pages of the file looking for something she could use to start a heart to heart conversation with the ‘poor child’ she thought Nurse Elisabeth was. “You didn’t have a father, but you had a stepfather, right…?”
Kusian reacted violently, as if she had been hit by an ash rod. “A father? No! He was a monster, a horrible man. He took my mother from me and he was always after me, trying to rape me. When I saw him one day washing, naked, in the kitchen, I screamed and ran away. Men, my god!” She started to sob.
Sister Anita got up and stood behind her stroking her hair. What a beautiful woman, she thought. If only she could find a man who would bring her some stability. “Are you so attached to your dead husband that you don’t want to marry again?” she asked tentatively.
Elisabeth shook her head. “No, no, on the contrary.” And she started talking about herself after the Head Nurse sat down again. “My husband was as stingy and cold hearted as my brother in law. You know him, he was just the same. My marriage was nothing but a long nightmare. He was thirteen years older than I was. He was never tender with me, he never understood me. My mother was kinder to her goats than he was to me. He was cold, like ice…”
“You poor thing…”
“There was no money for household expenses. Every day he left two marks on the table and I had to account for them exactly, down to the penny. And if ten pfennigs were missing he would beat me black and blue. You can understand how desperate I was. A few times I tried to take my own life. I turned on the gas, I swallowed pills, I cut my veins… and once I used a length of clothes line to hang myself. From the window, on the cross bars… he arrived at the last minute and cut me down. The worst was when I had my third child. There was a bomb alert and we all had to go down into the cellar. We were barely there when the house next door was hit… the walls shook, the lights went out, there were screams, dust fell… Afterwards they had to take me to the insane asylum. I stayed four days…” All this had spilled out, and now she paused to gather more strength.
Head Nurse Anita got up to get her a glass of water. “But you told me once about the big love of your life… That wasn’t you husband…?”
“No, that was in Dresden, his name was Herbert… 1932, after my time at the Home Economics school, I was a housekeeper in a rich factory owner’s family. Everything was very high class. Herbert was his only son. I was eighteen, he was two years older. We did everything together – we went to the theater, to concerts, to the opera, we traveled. He loved me and wanted to marry me but his mother came between us and she explained to me that I wasn’t good enough for her son, I wasn’t of the right class. She threw me out.” Elisabeth emptied her glass and went on. “That was the end of the dream. No, it never ended, I still have it. But in any case, then I went to Landsberg, Landsberg on the Werthe, and that’s where I met my husband, doctor Wilhelm Kusian, the great surgeon… You know the rest…”
“Your horrible marriage… yes, but your husband was conscripted, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, in 1942. I’d always hoped there would be a miracle. And there was… It was wonderful without him. I was alone with my children, no bickering, no fighting. There was enough money and I could finally have parties. It was a time when people wanted to have a good time before they died for the Führer. God, what fun we had! Or
gies they were. Doctors, officers, everyone came. And I was no wall flower, no more. I was a much courted woman. And when one of them looked like my Herbert from Dresden, well… I didn’t say no. Adultery? God, there was almost nothing left to betray in our marriage, it wasn’t really adultery.”
The Head Nurse acquiesced: “I understand: people thirsted for life, they wanted to live to the fullest before the whole world fell apart and everything vanished.”
“Yes, it was the times. And, in the nick of time everything was over. I had to go and help out in the military hospital… that was hell on earth. So much misery, so much death all around.” Elisabeth Kusian closed her eyes. “I was able to take it until the day a splinter from a Russian grenade ripped open my thighs and my stomach.” She started sobbing again.
“How awful!” Anita took a handkerchief from the pocket of her white uniform and handed it to her so she could dry her tears. “And after 1945, things were not easy either…”
“No, oh no, they weren’t. My dead husband was labeled a war criminal and we had to give up our house. My three children and I lived in one room in Beusselstrasse – can you imagine…! And I couldn’t find any work – I was a ‘Nazi wife’ – nobody wanted a ‘Nazi wife’. And so I pretended my brother in law Walter was my husband and I went to Wirchow hospital: they hired teaching nurses. They took me but I had to give up my children and put them in a home…”
Head Nurse Anita looked at the personnel file. Siegfried was born in 1935, Sieglinde in 1937 and Hedda in 1942. At that point, she smiled as the thought struck her, Dr. Kusian evidently didn’t believe in the final victory anymore. “But there’s always a ray of sunshine in life my dear…God is often a God of wrath but from time to time he does show his love for us humans and he sends us someone who is good for us…”
Kusian shook her head. “Don’t say that! He sent me a man, Hans Boguslawski. How I loved him. I went into hock for him. I wanted to give him everything so he would stay with me. An engineer, he said he was – and then the police came and they arrested him. They caught him in my bed, so to speak, accused him of belonging to a gang of robbers who operated at night. He got five years. But something good came out of this though…” She fell silent.
“You can tell me…” The Head Nurse smiled in encouragement. “It’ll be like a secret in the confessional.”
“It’s not really a secret, but… Well, through Hans I met another man and now he’s everything to me… he’s my baby, my Kurt.”
Anita looked a little worried. “Was he a friend of that … that Boguslawski…?”
“No, he’s the police officer who arrested him.”
“Ah well, that’s a good sign for you.”
“Oh…” Elisabeth sighed again. “He’s my reason for living, I want to shower him with presents – but…” She stopped short.
“But…” Anita smiled. “But he’s married with two children.”
“Three. And he can’t leave his wife.”
The Head Nurse nodded. It was always like that. Then she saw a little yellowing piece of paper clipped on to the file by her predecessor. It scared her. It read: ‘Beware: employee faints whenever she hears bad news.’ Still, what else could she do, she had to discuss her borrowing from the patients and the sums that had been stolen. So she tried to broach the subject in the most tactful and sympathetic way she could. “My dear Elisabeth, I know how you worry and I know all your troubles, but we must talk about the things that Mr. Ramolla has brought to my attention. There have been some complaints against you…”
Kusian jumped up, her neck and face speckled with red blotches that quickly spread over her skin. “No!” she screamed. “That’s nothing but dirty lies. I didn’t steal anything, and if I did take something, it was only because I needed to buy food for my children. And I always paid everything back.”
“I’m sorry, the two of us have to clear this matter completely otherwise…”
“Ramolla wants to throw me to the wolves, I know it!” And then Elisabeth fainted.
One of the head doctors was called in. He wanted to give her an intravenous injection but then he hesitated because she was in such an agitated state. She mumbled incoherently. She seemed to be dreaming or to be in a sort of hypnotic trance, she appeared to be hallucinating. There was only one word the nurses and the doctor could make out. It rang out at the beginning of every sentence like the shot of a starter pistol: “I…I…I…”
16.
Me – Sunday evening, December 17, 1949
I’m totally desperate. In a week it’ll be Christmas and I haven’t got anything for Kurt. The money from the guest is gone, I spent it all on rent and food. And that horrible early morning shift that I have to take. Always have to be out of bed before the others get up and then I’m alone at the breakfast table. This ersatz coffee is awful. But where would I find the money for real coffee?
It’s already ten to five, I have to go.
Quick, comb my hair, quick, a little make up. The bathroom is occupied again. For crying out loud. The Stöhr woman has constant diarrhea. Finally, she’s coming out. And now I have to pretend to be super friendly with her. I can’t very well find another place to live again.
“Good morning, Mrs. Stöhr, you’re up early again?”
“I slept so badly Mrs. Kusian, the storm last night, you know.”
“Well it wasn’t as if the roof was blown off. Sorry, I’ve got to go now Mrs. Stöhr, I’m working the early shift today.”
“And what about tonight, will you be coming back late again?”
“Yes, I’m going to Teltow to visit the children.”
“Well, I wish you a very nice day.”
“Thank you, you too.”
How awful I look! I don’t dare look at myself in the mirror any more. Kurt has only seen me in the evening and mostly by candlelight. Kurt, come to me, take me in your arms. Why isn’t he here, why must I always be alone? I don’t deserve that. I’ve helped thousands of people – and who is helping me? Walter does. But Walter is a terrible jackass. Every dumbass fool managed to make something of himself under Adolf, but this jackass didn’t. Too stupid for words! But I mustn’t get excited. Damn it, now my stomach wound has to hurt again! That’s because Kurt banged too hard. And we did it on the landing, standing up. He needed it so badly. Should I give myself another shot of morphine this morning? How can I get through the day if I don’t?
“Mrs. Kusian, please hurry, I need the bathroom.”
Stöhr’s mother. Another one, on top of all the rest. Let the old cow do it in her pants.
“Yes, I’m almost done.” So I guess I’ll do without the morphine. But where did I put the Pervitin? Here in the culture pouch. Quick, pour it out. Where’s the glass for my toothbrush? Twenty milligrams, that’s enough. Ah! I can breathe better already.
I wait. The Pervitin takes 15 minutes to take full effect. I run down the stairs. Here’s where Kurt took me yesterday. Now I’d like to have his thing in my mouth and blow him. Lieutenant Schultz was the one who taught me and I’ve never met any man who didn’t go wild when I did it. The tongue has to touch certain very precise spots.
Hello people, here comes Head Doctor Elisabeth Kusian. As beautiful as she is efficient. Our female Sauerbruch. Soon they’ll make a movie about me. After all, my mother is a Hungarian countess. When the Russians leave Hungary, we will get everything back and I’ll open my own clinic.
Zoo station: what are all these people standing around for? Why don’t I have a car, I deserve one in my position, why do I have to mix with all the little people who take the S-Bahn. Go away, don’t bother me.
“Excuse me, do you know the man on this photo here?”
“No. Who is he supposed to be?”
“Hermann Seidelmann, a traveling showman from Saxony. His body was found dismembered in the cellar of a bombed out house on Schillerstrasse.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“He was here at Zoo station pretty often…”
/> “I don’t know anything.” I have to go, I have to get to the hospital. I must get my work done while the Pervitin lasts. Nurse Elisabeth here, Nurse Elisabeth there. I know I’m their guardian angel. And I enjoy being an angel. “You are a really good person, Nurse Elisabeth.” Yes, I know I’m a wonderful person.
Here comes the Head Nurse. Has Ramolla turned her against me again? No, I just have to take over for someone.
“Nurse Elisabeth, your help is needed in the operating room, one of the surgical nurses has had an accident.”
Here we go again. I thought I would have time to go and get myself a mince meat bun at the cafeteria.
“Hi, Lisbeth, how are you?”
“Wish it were yesterday.”
“You talk like the guys, you always do.”
“Well, we have the guys in the palm of our hand if we want, right?”
I go to the operating room and help Doctor Carpin. He praises me to high heaven. No wonder: we spent a weekend together in a hotel and I cured him of his impotence. But I’m also really good at what I do, I concentrate, and I’m more reliable than any other nurse. Yes, it’s in my genes. Without my advice, the doctors here would be helpless. They have the title of doctor but I’m the one who sees to it that the patients are treated properly. Without me the whole world would collapse. It would! ‘Your diagnosis was correct of course, Doctor Kusian.’ I’m all wet down there. I must have doctor Carpin. As he washes his hands, I come up behind him and take hold of him where he likes it. “Stop that!” I faint.
I wake up in the nurses’ lounge; I feel absolutely miserable. I’m completely exhausted, there’s only one thing I want: sleep, sleep, sleep. And I’m famished. Anni is sitting there staring at me.
“Go get me something to eat. Don’t worry, apart from that, I’m feeling better.”
I search frantically through my handbag. There must be some Pervitin; I hid it in my powder case. Ten milligrams is enough. I take it before Anni returns. She’s brought me a giant portion of potato salad and four little sausages. I eat it all up.
Cold Angel: Murder in Berlin 1949 Page 13