Where Madness Lies

by Sylvia True

  Arnold paced in the waiting area, combing his hand through his hair.

  The door to the operating room finally opened and a surgeon approached. His gown was covered in blood. He pulled off his mask and gloves and shook Arnold’s hand.

  “Dr. Schmitt,” the surgeon said.

  “Nice to meet you,” Arnold replied.

  Inga felt like screaming. This was no time for introductions.

  Schmitt caressed his chin. “It was the placenta,” he said. “It was torn completely from the uterine wall. We see this in about one percent of pregnancies. We have no real idea why this happens.” He gave a compassionate shrug. “I think in the case of this young woman, she was undernourished and weak.”

  “The placenta?” Inga asked. “What are you talking about?”

  Schmitt eyed Inga warily and continued talking to Arnold. “She is very weak. She has lost a lot of blood. If she can make it through the night, I think she will survive.”

  “What do you mean, think?” Inga shouted. “She must.”

  Schmitt spoke to Arnold. “We will try our best to keep her stable.”

  “Of course,” Arnold mumbled.

  Inga pushed in front of him. “She was pregnant?”

  “You didn’t know?” Schmitt asked.

  “Is there a baby?”

  The surgeon glanced upward. “Yes. She is very small. Two kilograms. Possibly only five months along.”

  “Oh dear God,” Inga cried. “But how?”

  The surgeon sidestepped her, trying to engage with Arnold. “We are doing all we can for the mother and the child.” He took a long breath. “But I am not an obstetrician or pediatrician. This was an emergency surgery, a completely unexpected caesarian section. We had no idea the patient was even pregnant when she first came in. I can say this: The baby is grossly underweight. Taking into account the complications of the pregnancy, and the illness of the mother…” He sighed again. “The patient is schizophrenic? From Sonnenstein? That’s what I was told.”

  “Correct,” Arnold said.

  “She is not schizophrenic,” Inga interjected.

  “I read the report that was given to me—that is all,” said Schmitt. “If the child should survive—” He hesitated. “Let’s not to worry about all of that now.”

  “Worry about what?” Inga asked. She wanted to grab this man and shake him.

  “Children born in such circumstances, when the mother is mentally unfit. They are often… you know.”

  “I do not know,” she said.

  “Look, it really doesn’t matter at the moment. Let us first make sure the patient survives.”

  “Tell me about the children,” Inga insisted.

  “Rigmor is unmarried and has schizophrenia. The child will be a ward of the state. There are homes for them.” He looked at the floor.

  “I have heard of such places.” Inga covered her mouth.

  Schmitt turned to Arnold. “We are doing our best,” he said, and then walked back into the operating room.

  Thirty minutes later, a nurse came out and told them that Rigmor would be asleep for the rest of the night, and it would help no one if they stayed sitting in this uncomfortable waiting area.

  Arnold escorted Inga to the Bulow Palais Hotel in the middle of Dresden. He sat with her in the lobby, wearing his bloodstained blazer. He asked Inga if she’d like to call Frieda or Klaus.

  “Only Fred,” she said. Thankfully, he was home and told her he would drive to Dresden first thing in the morning.

  “Can you bear the night alone?” Fred asked Inga.

  “It is not I who has to bear anything. It is Rigmor,” she cried.

  Arnold brought Inga a glass of sherry.

  “How?” she asked him.

  “I can only think of one man who would have.” His face turned a bright red.

  “Bohm?” she asked.

  Arnold nodded.

  * * *

  Arnold left Inga at the hotel and returned to Sonnenstein. At two in the morning, he changed into his pajamas and crawled into bed. He had never felt so weary, yet he couldn’t sleep. Over and over, his mind returned to the same image—Bohm touching Rigmor’s hair.

  At seven in the morning Arnold walked to Bohm’s office and stood outside the door. At twenty past seven, Bohm and his secretary, Stefan, strode down the corridor. Arnold grew tense. It would take all of his control not to punch this man.

  “She could have died,” Arnold barked. “Did you know that?” He took a step toward Bohm.

  “Calm down, man.” Bohm held a hand in front of his face. “Perhaps we need a drink.”

  “You have a busy morning, sir,” Stefan told Bohm. “I think it would be wise if Dr. Richter came back a bit later. Perhaps after he’s had some time for his nerves to settle.”

  “I am perfectly settled,” Arnold shouted.

  “Let us be,” Bohm told Stefan. He unlocked his door and nodded for Arnold to go ahead.

  Arnold walked in but didn’t sit.

  Bohm opened the curtains, careful not to knock over any of his plants. Then he walked to his desk, where he retrieved two cigars, and tried to hand one to Arnold, who once again refused.

  Bohm struck a match. “Do you think this sudden illness of Rigmor’s has anything to do with the sleeping treatment?”

  “She was pregnant,” said Arnold seething. “Five or six months along. Around the time when you began treating her.”

  Bohm laughed. “You can’t be thinking that I had something to do with it.”

  “I saw you with her. I saw how you touched her.”

  “Get ahold of yourself, man.” He puffed his cigar. “If it wasn’t so amusing, I would have you taken off the premises.”

  Nothing about this was amusing. The fact that Bohm took it in so lightly, or at least pretended to, convinced Arnold that the director was guilty.

  He marched around the desk and aimed his fist straight at Bohm’s nose. The cigar flew into the air and landed on the desk. A piece of paper caught fire.

  “Stefan,” Bohm yelled.

  Stefan ran into the room, took off his jacket and smothered the flame.

  Arnold raced out. He had never hit a man before. He didn’t have siblings to tussle with, and his father had never laid a finger on him. His mother wouldn’t have tolerated it.

  Once outside, he made straight for the road that led to Dresden. Of course he would be fired, but that seemed inconsequential in the scheme of things. All that mattered was Rigmor.

  He walked a good half-hour before a car slowed alongside him. Arnold needed to be alone. He was ready to thank the driver for his generosity when he saw that it was Fred.

  “You look as if you could use some company.”

  Arnold got in and focused on the road in front of him. If he turned, if he glanced at Fred, if he saw even the tiniest bit of compassion, Arnold was afraid he would start sobbing and not be able to stop.

  * * *

  Inga had been up most of the night. By eight in the morning, when Fred still hadn’t arrived, she hired a car to take her to the hospital, where a tired-looking woman sat behind the reception desk.

  “I need to see my sister,” Inga told her. “Rigmor Blumenthal.”

  The woman looked through her leather binder. “Maternity ward. Second floor.”

  Inga let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Rigmor wasn’t in the morgue.

  Inga pushed aside the swinging doors and walked straight to the main desk on the maternity ward. “I must know the condition of my sister, Rigmor.”

  The nurse placed her hands on the wooden armrests and pushed herself up. “We ask that you keep your voice down. There are women trying to rest.”

  Inga replied by waving her hand for the nurse to hurry. Behind a blue curtain, Rigmor slept on her side.

  “Shouldn’t she be on her back?” Inga asked.

  The nurse had a gentle manner. “She is asleep, and seems peaceful. My suggestion is to leave her for the moment. Rest is what
she needs now.”

  Inga caressed Rigmor’s forehead, and then followed the nurse back to her desk.

  “And the baby?” Inga whispered, expecting to learn she had died in the night.

  “She just fell asleep,” the nurse answered. “She seems to have her night and day mixed up. That is often the case with new ones.”

  “Is she terribly weak?” Inga whispered.

  The nurse inclined her head. “She is a small thing, but I would not say weak. She has the cry of a baby with strong lungs.”

  “But she is only five or six months—that does not make babies weak?”

  The nurse smiled. “Yes, it would do that. But your sister’s child was not preterm.”

  “I’m afraid there is some sort of mix up,” Inga said.

  “There was only one baby delivered last night.”

  “Yes, and Dr. Schmitt said the baby was very early and frail. He did not think she would survive.”

  “She is small, and there was some confusion about how far along the child was, but after she was examined, it was clear that she was full-term and is a healthy little bunny.” The nurse smiled. “The mother is undernourished, and from the papers I received, suffers from a major mental illness. That is surely the cause of the low birth weight.”

  “The mental illness?” Inga asked, feeling off-balance. The baby was full-term. How could that be?

  “The mental illness and the lack of good nutrition. A combination.”

  “But the baby.” Inga stopped and calculated. The baby was not Bohm’s. It was Arnold’s. He did not have faulty machinery, as he had claimed. “The baby will live?”

  “I believe so,” the nurse said.

  Inga thanked her and left the ward. Her legs felt weak. She walked to the end of a corridor, where she found a chair inside a small alcove. It couldn’t be. For all of the precaution Inga had taken not to have a child, and then for Rigmor, who was so ill, to give birth? She took a deep breath, and tried to slow her thoughts. It was Arnold’s, not Bohm’s. That was a good thing. One good thing. She took another breath. Yes, better it be Arnold’s. He did have a kind disposition. Although full-term would mean the baby might live, and the poor dear child…what a life would it have?

  Inga covered her mouth when she recalled hearing about a child born with microcephaly, a small brain. The baby had been taken from its mother and brought to a home where it had undergone a horrible surgery and died. The baby was returned to the parents without its brain.

  There was no tolerance for weak or sick babies, and though Rigmor’s baby was not sick—the fact that she was small, that her mother was ill, and Jewish, and her father, German, that the Nuremberg laws prohibited sex or marriage between Jews and Aryans, that obsession of race gripped the country—all of those factors would dictate that the baby would be viewed as a Mischling, a mixed-breed. Defective. She would be taken in a matter of days. Perhaps even today. They would place her in a decrepit home for idiot children and leave her to cry alone in a metal crib.

  Inga paced.

  The circumstances could not have been worse. And there was Rigmor to consider. If she woke, if she saw the baby, fell in love with the tiny thing, and then had to separate from her, she would not survive the heartbreak. It was all too awful.

  Inga walked to the main lobby, arriving just as Arnold and Fred strode in. She ran to Fred.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  “Rigmor has made it through the night.”

  “Thank God,” Arnold replied.

  “Go to her,” Inga snapped. “Second floor. Maternity ward.”

  Arnold obeyed.

  Fred put an arm around Inga’s waist and walked her to one of the sofas. “Why the icy treatment for Arnold?” he asked.

  The words raced out as Inga explained that Arnold was the father and now the baby was about to be carted to some horrible institution where she would be shown no love.

  “So then Arnold is not a homosexual.” Fred took out a cigar.

  “This is no time to smoke,” Inga told him.

  “It is the perfect time.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “This is certainly not the first nor the last time that an unwanted baby was born,” Fred answered.

  “These things are manageable. I will make inquiries with the head of the hospital, and we will see to it that the baby gets placed in a good home.”

  “No one will take a baby from a mentally ill, unwed Jewish mother.”

  “Perhaps not in this country. But my sister is in Basel. She can keep the child for a time while we find a suitable home. You needn’t say the mother was mentally ill. You could even say she died in childbirth and she wasn’t married. It’s common enough.”

  “But we cannot wait. Surely they will take the baby soon. And on top of that, I don’t want Rigmor to see the baby and then have to say goodbye. It would finish her. As if she hasn’t endured enough.” Inga took a handkerchief from her handbag and blew her nose.

  Fred rubbed her back. “We can leave today. We will hire a nurse, who we can pay handsomely. I will find the director and phone my sister.”

  “What if it won’t be allowed?”

  “There are ways. I do have some money. You needn’t worry. It will be one less thing for the hospital to concern themselves with. They will be glad to have this situation so easily resolved for them.”

  “This is just too horrid,” Inga cried.

  Fred took a long pull on his cigar, blew the smoke upward, and reached for her hand. “You have been through a lot. I suggest you go to the dining hall, get a cup of tea, freshen your face, and by that time most of the details will be ironed out.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder for a moment. “You are a good man,” she whispered.

  He patted her knee. “And you are a good woman.”

  She went to get a cup of tea, but she did not wash her face, or put on another coat of lipstick. Instead she sought out Arnold, who sat on a chair next to Rigmor’s bed.

  “I must accompany Fred on a business trip,” Inga told Arnold.

  He didn’t reply.

  “Did you hear me?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he muttered. “I will watch over her.”

  “Do not leave her alone for one moment.” She approached the bed and caressed Rigmor’s hair.

  “I will be here,” he said.

  Inga lowered her head. In a few seconds she would tell this man a lie that might very well keep him from knowing his only progeny, a lie that would likely ensure he would never have the chance to be a father. But there was little choice, and perhaps Inga was doing him a great favor, saving him from monumental worry and distress.

  “The baby died,” she finally whispered. “I will have her cremated.”

  Arnold gasped.

  “It’s probably best this way,” Inga said. “Perhaps Rigmor was unaware she was pregnant. I would suggest not bringing up the matter.” She kissed Rigmor’s cheek. “Goodbye my darling,” she said, and was about to hurry off, but then she stopped and rested a hand on Arnold’s shoulder. “She must always be protected.”

  Arnold nodded.

  Fred had been more efficient than Inga thought possible. He met with the director of the hospital, who agreed that taking the baby out of the country was best. Inga did not ask if money was exchanged. The director knew of a young nurse, Brigitta, who needed financial aid to help her sick mother. She would travel with them and stay with the baby as long as she was needed. As far as the other staff at the hospital, aside from the head maternity nurse, everyone would be told the baby died. Fred had offered money to the head nurse for her assistance, but she refused. The baby’s wellbeing was all that mattered to her and if that meant peddling a few lies, that was perfectly acceptable.

  Brigitta was to meet them at the back of the building where there was a door used by the deliverymen. Inga and Fred waited outside.

  “What if she is stopped?” Inga asked.

  “She is a nurse. She will n
ot be stopped.”

  “Yes, but she is carrying a baby. It might look…”

  Just then the door opened, and a nurse wearing a white hat and black cape hurried out with a basket that looked as if it might contain two loaves of bread.

  Fred waved a hand. The nurse scurried over. Inga glanced down at the light gray blanket covering the basket. She noticed a ripple of movement—a gentle ocean wave.

  “Come,” Fred said, and led the way to the car.

  Brigitta slid into the back and carefully extracted the baby, a tiny thing with a bright red face.

  “What is her name?” Brigitta asked, after they began their journey to Switzerland.

  “Lisbet,” Inga answered, not sure why that name popped out. She wiped her forehead. The car was suffocating, the heat turned up because Brigitta insisted that was best for the baby.

  Inga leaned her head against the window and watched the green hills blur. That her dear sister, already so weak and vulnerable, gave birth to a child, who more than likely would suffer from mental illness one day, and that Arnold was the cause—it all seemed so impossible. And of course it had not escaped Inga’s thoughts that she was the root of this tragedy. It was almost too difficult to bear. She closed her eyes and felt a steely, cool hatred. Not for Arnold, or Frieda or the baby. But for herself.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lisbet

  Glen Grove, Illinois 1984

  At Lisbet’s home, Inga took her case to the cellar, or basement, as it was called in the States. Although it was colder than the rest of the house, the light from the high-set windows was adequate, and Inga had the luxury of a private bathroom.

  On Christmas Eve, Inga sat at the table next to Lisbet. Robert, her eldest grandson, sat next to his girlfriend, across from Inga. Gerald sat at the head of the table. Inga folded her hands on her lap and pressed her fingers together. She was here to see Lisbet and Robert, to wish them a happy Christmas, and to persuade Lisbet to visit Sabine. She would not argue with Gerald regardless of how he provoked her and she would remember what Sabine had said, about Lisbet liking to compete. That notion would help Inga not worry so much about her daughter.

  Inga wore a silk blouse instead of a cotton one, and her pearl necklace. Lisbet laid out her best china, although only four plates remained of the twelve Inga had bought. The fifth, nonmatching plate, which Lisbet used for herself, was smaller, lighter and cheaper. Inga wondered what had happened to the others. Had they all been broken?