2
The information desk was manned by a nurse who was wearing a long pullover, despite the heat. She was pale, which accentuated her flaming red hair, pulled tightly into a bun. She smiled sweet-and-sourly and told me not to worry needlessly and to refrain from further inquiries. I had run all the way to the hospital and was now standing in front of her, drenched in sweat, red-faced and completely out of breath. Elias was in surgery.
I sat down in the waiting room. A radio was on in the background. I translated the news simultaneously into English, the ads into French. In Kabul there had been an explosion, in Gaza shots were fired, and in Portugal the forests were burning. The chancellor was on a state visit. I flipped through an old issue of Vogue and waited in fashion. Handbags. Jewelry. Eye shadow. Whatever. I read about last November’s trends: fur and floral prints. I tore out the first page, folded it, and put it into my bag. Then I tore page three out, folded it, and put it into my bag. Page five got torn out as well, folded and put into my bag. By page 107 my bag was full.
A doctor approached, smiling. He was tall and broad-shouldered. Hair brushed back neatly. As a greeting he folded my hand into his and held it just a bit too long. His eyes were brown and very alert. The smell of disinfectant, decay, and old people engulfed me. I gasped for air. The doctor put his hand on my arm and I was surprised by the intrusiveness of the gesture. He said something, but I didn’t hear him and had to ask again.
“Do you speak German?” he asked slowly, over-enunciating each word.
“Of course,” I answered.
“My name is Weiss. Resident Physician Weiss. Are you a family member of Elias Angermann?”
“I’m his girlfriend.”
“Then I guess I’m not really supposed to speak with you.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem, should it?”
He reflected for a moment. The decision seemed not to come easily. Finally he nodded and said, “Oh well. What is your name?”
“Maria Kogan.”
He regarded me from head to toe. “I’m not sure I would pronounce your last name correctly. Can I call you Maria?”
“No.”
He shrugged. His voice growing louder with each syllable, he explained that a nail had been inserted into Elias’s femur. An intramedullary fixation. That they had nailed metal plates to the thighbone and that Elias had lost a lot of blood. I noticed splatters of blood on his lab coat and wondered whether they had come from Elias or a patient before. I nodded and opened the door of the anesthetic recovery room. The recovery would be a long one, the doctor’s voice reverberated behind me. The room was empty, save a bed that was fenced in by monitors, tubes, and a single chair. The curtains were closed. I opened them just a little, so that a sliver of light sliced across the floor. I lay my hand on the bedrails. Elias’s face was wan, as if every last drop of blood had drained from his body. A thin white crust caked his lips. He murmured my name and looked past me. A surgical drain emerged from his thigh.
I bent down and the smell of cold sweat reached my nose. I kissed his forehead and stroked his hair. He moaned. I extended my hand to touch his, but then I saw the IV drip in the back of his hand, hesitated, and withdrew.
“I’m not doing so well,” Elias said so quietly that he couldn’t possibly have meant for me to hear it, and suddenly a memory came back to mind, of him remarking that there are only two schools: old school and the Frankfurt School.
I stayed until late. Feverish Elias hoisted his head from side to side. At times an “Are you still there?” punctured his restless sleep.
That evening I made myself an instant soup and called his parents. Nobody picked up. I thought about calling Elke on her cellphone, but I already heard myself leaving a voicemail. “Hi, it’s Masha. Hey.” I paused and bit my lip. “Elias slipped while playing soccer. He broke his thighbone. He’s in the hospital.” The sentences came out labored. It had been a decade since I’d struggled so much to speak German. Elke called back in the middle of the night. Was it bad? No, I assured her. She said she couldn’t leave the restaurant. Every night it’s busy. I told her that I’m here. Elke said she’d try to come as soon as possible. I told her not to worry, I’m here.
I packed a bag for Elias. I folded his underwear, T-shirts, and the sole pair of pajamas in his possession. Then I added his overnight bag, his camera, a sketchbook, and charcoal pencils.
His roommates were watching afternoon talk shows. TV sounds blended in with snippets of conversation and laughter, the rustling of candy wrappers and magazines, the squeaking of shoes, and the wheels of food trolleys in the hallway.
Elias was lying in the middle, his bed flanked by two other beds. Beside every bed was a little nightstand. His neighbors’ tables were piled high with chocolate bars, open packs of cookies, bags of gummi bears, Sudoku books, cigarettes, and magazines. I said hello to everyone in the room, but nobody paid attention to me.
Elias lay pale and dull-eyed in his hospital bed. I put on a smile and approached him. I sat the bag down next to his table and listed out what I had brought. Like Christmas, Elias joked, exhausted.
Elias spent most of the time sleeping, dazed by medication. Only breathing in and out. I sat next to his bed, peeled sour apples, pears, and a mango. The mango juice stuck to my fingers. I drank coffee and disappeared into the bathroom, where I splashed cold water onto my face to fend off tears and a headache. The morning and the afternoon passed. The sun set excruciatingly slowly. Outside the shadows got longer and Elias’s hand rested in mine.
By the next morning, he was already taking photos of the room, of his wound, and of me, who wasn’t able to look at his wound. The roommates also wanted to get some camera time. They were done playing cards and now forced us into conversation. He wouldn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to get his picture taken by a professional, Heinz said, when he learned that Elias studied photography.
Heinz had served in World War II and Rainer was a locksmith. There were some things they would do differently today. Though not much, of course, not much. The person in the bed to the left of Elias cleared his throat and said he had to pay me a compliment. That my German is better than that of any Russian Germans he’s met at the social services office. I had hardly said anything yet. Heinz started talking about his time as a prisoner of war—until Elias asked him to please be quiet. Then Elias asked me to be quiet as well.
It was hot and humid. The asphalt reflected the heat and even at night the streets didn’t cool. I got off my bike in front of the hospital and wiped the sweat off my forehead. The bicycle rack was filled to capacity, so I pushed my bike a bit. Then I spotted a free rack after all and squeezed it in. The green bike on the left fell and I laboriously brought it back to an upright position.
The hospital was an elongated low-rise with a stone facade that stood in the middle of a residential area—an edifice completely devoid of architectural ambition and solely intended to best serve its medical purpose. The resident physician who had removed Elias’s surgical drain the day before sat in front of the entrance to the orthopedic ward and smoked. He had dark circles under his eyes and unkempt hair. I had seen him yesterday afternoon in the hospital and he looked as if he had worked through the night. He nodded toward me and I slowed until I waveringly stopped right in front of him. He held out his cigarette pack, light blue with Arabic letters. I offered him a croissant. He breathed out smoke and reached into my bag. The skin of his hand was cragged, his nails had yellowed from the tobacco.
“Did you switch to filtered cigarettes recently?”
“Not really. Those are from a patient.” He looked down at the pack, turning it over a couple of times and running his thumb over the Arabic letters as if he’d just noticed them for the first time.
“I can’t read it,” he said.
I translated the text for him.
He sighed, never taking his eyes off the pack.
“The patient died yesterday afternoon. We’re finishing off his last cigarettes.”
I choked on the smoke and had to cough.
He turned the pack over a couple of times more, then put it back into his pocket. He took a bite of the croissant, crumbs falling onto his lab coat like dandruff. He alternated between looking at me and the croissant. “You’re with Mr. Angermann, right?”
I nodded.
“He had a spot this morning.”
“Excuse me?”
“A spot.”
“On his lung?”
“What makes you think that?” The doctor laughed out loud. “No, around his surgical scar. A little spot, not uncommon. Don’t worry.”
He gave me a friendly pat on the back and disappeared into the building.
In the evening, Elias’s scar was weeping. The pus gave off a sweet, biting odor that reminded me of the Soviet perfume Warszawinka and triggered a gag reflex. Elias’s camera was lying on the nightstand. He was facing the wall, feverish. We had rung for the nurse, but she took her time and then appeared in the room so suddenly that at first I thought she was a ghost. Wearing a short lab coat, the nurse exposed her teeth. Her yellowish incisor was decorated with a blue rhinestone. Not to be taken seriously. She stood there with her hands on her hips and her head thrown back. Her eyes had a fundamentalist glow to them. In a quick, deep voice she said that Elias should get up now. I didn’t think that was a good idea. But when she loudly pointed out that I didn’t know what I was talking about, I had to agree. Although I kept that bit to myself.
The nurse jockeyed Elias out of the bed: “Come on, young man. Get up!”
Elias bit his lip and stood. I saw the pain in his face and yelled at the nurse. My words sounded shrill.
“It’s for his own good!” she yelled back.
When Elias took a step forward he moaned with pain, but remained standing. He stood and suffered and the nurse nodded encouragingly. “Go ahead, go ahead.”
Elias took another step, this time no sound escaped him. His face was white as a sheet.
“Can’t you see that he’s in pain?”
“Pain is a part of life. Believe me, I’ve been working here twenty years!”
“Twenty years too long!”
“Masha, it’s OK!” Elias’s forehead shone with little pearls of sweat, his breathing fast and irregular. He took a wavering step toward the bed, looking for something to hold on to, and with an audible gasp he clasped the bedpost with both hands. I pushed him onto the bed. Elias gave in to my movements and allowed me to sit him up. I laid my hand on his cheek, which was rough and hot. His eyes were filled with tears. As were mine.
I stood in front of Elias, ready for anything. But Elias pulled me down toward him onto the bed and feebly told the nurse: “Please leave.”
“That’s a first.” The woman stormed out, slamming the door shut behind her.
Elias put his head on my shoulder and I helped him to lie down. He got into a fetal position and turned to face the wall. Shortly after, his whole body started shivering. I stroked his hair, but he didn’t react. I ran into the hallway and dragged the next nurse who passed by into the room. She removed the dressing from Elias’s wound and quickly closed the curtains that separated his bed from the others, even though the other beds were empty. The wound looked bad.
Elias was sent to the radiology ward. When he was brought back, he was convulsing with pain. The doctors were waiting for the lab results. Finally, the senior physician came in, a short bald guy with a paunch. He was followed by a dozen medical students, because this turned out to be a teaching hospital. The senior physician examined the wound, furrowing his brow. Afterward the students hunkered over Elias. Some assumed a disgusted expression, others pushed their colleagues aside to get a better look. I stood in the corner and refused to look at both Elias and the wound. I could smell it.
Elias, pale and no longer responsive, was wheeled back into the operating theater early in the morning. His parents had left home before dawn. Now we were all waiting in the cafeteria: his father with his large-pored nose and brutish face, his mother, chubby cheeks and robust arms. Both sat silently in front of full mugs and homemade sandwiches.
Horst read Der Spiegel while Elke and I looked out the window. The sky was dreary. The weather had turned windy and rainy overnight. The father and mother took turns covertly examining me. I looked at their faces and was reminded of Elias’s childhood pictures: first day at school, Elias in front of the Christmas tree, at his civic initiation ceremony—a pale and shy child. When they both happened to be looking at me at the same time, I suddenly felt embarrassed about my clothes, for having put on makeup and for wearing heels—despite the fact that I had spent the night at the hospital and that it hadn’t been this morning when I’d put on the makeup, but the morning before. Elke cleared her throat and checked her watch, Horst nervously rustled the magazine.
The window where we were sitting was facing the narrow and empty street. A gray bundle in the middle of the road caught my eye. At first I thought it was just a plastic bag, but plastic bags are rarely gray. Then I thought it was a stuffed animal. I excused myself, setting my mug on the table a little too loudly, and said I had to use the restroom. In the restroom the mirror reflected a rather unpleasant image: my nose was shiny, which made it look bigger and bumpier than usual. My mascara was smudged. The doctor couldn’t tell how long the surgery would take.
I was standing out on the street and kept my breathing low to calm myself. The wind was icy and my hands shivered. For a while I monitored my breathing, then I spotted the animal. A rabbit. And it was alive. At least its ribcage rose and fell in irregular intervals. I knew only two prayers: the Lord’s Prayer and Shema Yisrael. The Lord’s Prayer was useless and Shema Yisrael by itself wouldn’t be sufficient. I would bargain with God. Elias versus the rabbit. HE should let the rabbit die and not Elias. I deeply regretted not being religious and not having anything more impressive up my sleeve than “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. These words which I command you today shall be on your heart.” I swayed in prayer as I had seen the Orthodox Jews do on one of the public channels. Not Elias. Please not him. Not him. Not him. I would bury the rabbit and recite the rabbit kaddish by heart.
I told God that HE could kill the rabbit right away. The rabbit kept breathing, no car in sight. I carefully lifted the rabbit. It didn’t have any exterior wounds, but its ears hung limply, its fur full of street dust and its red eyes as good as dead (insofar as death can be predicted from red eye color). And what if it wasn’t hurt? What if it was just lying down for a quick rest?
I put the rabbit back down and once again recited the Shema Yisrael. On the right a small GM Opel passed by. Elias’s parents were watching me from the cafeteria window. Panic rose inside me, I searched for a stone. The thought “There are no stones here” passed through my head. But Elias’s life was at stake. I walked along the street and next to the bus stop there was a stone. A good sign. I climbed over the guard rail and took the first stone that I found.
When I returned, the animal had remained persistently alive. How do you explain faith to a rabbit? I bent down to pat its head—it was soft and wet and didn’t react to my touch. My hand shook. I stood up, took aim. The stone hit the ground next to the rabbit’s head. Again I lifted the stone and had the distinct feeling that the rabbit was staring at me. I asked it for forgiveness and once more let go of the stone. This time I hit the mark and its skull burst. The brain mass leaked and mixed with blood and bone splinters. I turned away and suppressed a rising sickness.
As I returned to the cafeteria and to Elias’s parents, I tried to tread lightly and not to let my heels clatter too loudly on the marble steps. My hands were red from the cold.
The surgery had been successful, Resident Physician Weiss informed us. He stood there bow-legged and grinning, shaking Horst’s and Elke’s hands. I stood by their side, looking at Elias. He lay motionless in his bed. An even longer piece of metal protruded from his thigh. In three weeks, approximately, he would be allowed to return home. He could then continue the treatment as an outpatient. The rain pattered against the window and out on the street. Pedestrians under umbrellas were trying to outrun the weather.