“From misery!” she had shouted. “From this awful city!”
When she started screaming as blood began leaking out of Leo’s nose like a harbinger of death, the same nurse who had ensured Agatha’s ample assets were covered gave her a pill to make her sleep, which she did, on the floor beside Leo until noon the following day.
It was not until eighteen hours after the assault by Pohl’s hand that Hani and Max were notified by Agatha—still in her revealing dress and doctor’s coat, makeup smeared across her face like watercolor—that their only son was in the hospital on Zhizaoju Road, barely holding on to life. The grief-stricken Hartmanns stayed by Leo’s side as much as possible, but because their money in Vienna was still frozen, or had disappeared, they had no choice but to depart for their jobs every day. And when they left, Agatha discreetly appeared.
It was on the thirtieth day in his hospital bed that Leo finally opened his one good eye. He tried to move up in bed, to lift his hands to his face, but his body felt shattered, no longer one continuous line of oxygen and carbon, but thousands of pieces held precariously together by bandages and gauze.
“Agatha,” he said, but no sound came out of his mouth.
He stayed still, closing his eye again for several minutes. When he opened it, he saw a nurse was in his room, and deciphered that he was in a hospital.
“You are in the Bethel Hospital,” she said to him, her face full of relief. “Can you see me?”
“Yes,” Leo whispered when she removed a tube from his mouth, this time hearing his weak voice.
“Good. You’ve given us quite a scare, especially with your eyes,” she said, coming closer to him. “You’ve been here a month, you know.” She put her small hand on his bandaged one. “Your friend, she is still here watching over you,” the kindly nurse said motioning to the hallway, but Leo couldn’t turn his head to follow. “She is a German, but her Chinese is very good. She can even scream in our language.”
“What happened to my other eye?” said Leo, when the nurse started to inspect his face again. He was sure she meant Agatha, but feeling so much physical pain, and so suddenly, he could only think of himself.
“We’ll have to find out,” she replied. “Right now it’s bandaged. I’ll call in a doctor who can take the dressing off. Perhaps.”
The senior doctor tending to Leo did take off his bandages, wanting to run a series of tests to see if Leo had any vision left on his right side.
“May I have a mirror?” Leo asked him when his face was uncovered.
“First tell me if you can see anything at all,” said the Chinese doctor, Dr. Zhou, in accented British English. “Open your eye, very slowly.”
“Is it open?” Leo asked, skeptically, feeling as if his skin was breaking apart.
“It is,” the doctor said, leaning in and looking closely. “Can you see anything?”
“Nothing,” said Leo, his throat constricting over the word. “Some dim gray light.”
“And the other eye?” asked the doctor, with a strong headlight focused on Leo’s face.
“I can see . . . my left eye seems fine.” Leo moved his hand up slowly, only making it to his neck, but the doctor stopped him.
“We’ve been without you for a month. Don’t try to stretch too much, not just yet. Take it very easy but let’s not give up hope yet about your right eye,” he said. “Your vision may get better over time. The rest of you certainly will. But, to be very honest,” he said, motioning to Leo’s face, “it isn’t very pretty to look at now. And then we must talk about your worst-case scenario, which is that your sight may be compromised.”
“Blind,” said Leo, the word sticking dryly in his throat.
“Yes, you may be blind in your right eye for the rest of your life,” said Dr. Zhou. “But luckily we have two eyes, and you will learn to see with just one.”
“Could I see my face now?” asked Leo, not feeling like he could believe what the doctor said until he saw his reflection. Dr. Zhou first ran a series of tests, but when he deemed Leo strong enough, he had a nurse bring a mirror.
“Why should it be today?” she asked him, holding the mirror behind her back. “You just woke up. Maybe tomorrow is the better day.”
“Today is the right day,” said Leo, motioning to her. She positioned the glass for him and looked away as he looked into it.
He wanted to ask her if it was really him, but of course it was. His other eye was still green as springtime, but the rest of his face was unrecognizable. His cheeks were thicker from the bruising, he had a long scab on the side of his mouth, crusted as thick as pie, and a stitched-up wound along his jawline, the black thread looking like it could barely keep his skin together. Leo turned his head slightly and saw that his right ear was bent and the skin just below his neck was covered in fading bruises. Leo had been told about his lung, but he was sure that even without the collapse, he wouldn’t be able to breathe at the sight of himself.
“It will all heal,” said the nurse, trying to comfort him. “Your face, your body. Dr. Zhou says that your eyesight could improve, and even if it doesn’t, at least it’s still in its socket, where it should be. You must focus on the fact that you are alive. We were very worried that there was irreparable brain trauma and that you’d never wake up.”
Leo nodded, trying to be thankful for the outcome. “I hit a German SS officer,” he said, still looking at his eye, which refused to look back at him. “Unfortunately, he hit me harder.”
“Next time,” said the Chinese nurse, “hit a Japanese.”
*
For the first two weeks after he was dismissed from the hospital, Hani didn’t allow anyone in the apartment other than Max and the medical staff. Liwei had given them money to have a nurse help during the day, but he’d also relayed the fact that Agatha was desperate to care for Leo.
“I don’t think so,” Hani had said firmly, assuring Agatha that she would be able to see Leo again in time. And she was, when Leo prevailed on his mother that it could be no other way.
“She is the reason that this happened to you,” said Hani, crying in their apartment on a February morning. “That my beautiful Froschi is . . . is what? Blind?”
“I’m not blind,” said Leo, comforting his mother, who still looked so out of place in her cheap dresses, pacing the cramped, frigid apartment. “I’m partially blind.” Though he was as anxious as his mother was about his state, he tried not to show his unease to his rattled parents, and tried to focus on healing and placating them.