A Perfect Madness (24 page)

Erich gathered the small stack of
medical records, handed them to Maria, then moved quickly past her
to the front of the counter. His only concern now was the paucity
of information in all the files. Each one contained only two pages,
the admitting certificate with an initial diagnosis, and one daily
report page, scribbled on by Maria. There were no doctor’s
summaries and notes, no treatment orders for the nurse to follow,
no lab reports to check, no reference to drugs prescribed, nor any
other details one would expect to find in a patient’s record.
Nothing but two nearly blank pages comprised each patient’s
record.

“
Is this all there is?” he
asked. Clearly frustrated, he slammed the stack hard on the
countertop, causing Maria to back away.

“
Yes, sir. That is all Dr.
Heinze wants until the new medical forms arrive from the Health
Ministry.”

Still angry, Erich motioned for Maria
to follow him as he started down the hall to his right.

“
Tell me, why do you keep
the halls and rooms so dark and gloomy? It would be quite
frightening to me if I were a child. Children love bright and shiny
things around them.”

“
Dr. Heinze ordered the
change. He thought it would be less threatening, keep the children
calm, you know, in such a strange setting.”

Erich said nothing more and entered
the first room with an infant patient, clicking on the ceiling
light as he did. The small child was curled up on her side in a
fetal position, sucking on the stub of an arm that had no hand.
Erich glanced at the admitting report, which noted nothing other
than the child’s name and age: Brigitte Wallenhorst, age
two.

Terror swept the child’s face, as he
gently lifted her from the bed and cradled her in his arms,
speaking softly to her for a moment, then handing her to Maria. As
he did, he felt her twisted and malformed spinal column, causing
the child to draw back in pain. She would never walk, nor be able
to sit up by herself, he knew.

“
She is soiled and should
be changed,” was all Erich could think to say.

“
It’s not time to do so,
Herr Doctor. A rigid cleaning schedule for these children has been
set by the Health Ministry due to rationed supplies—the war, you
know,” Maria responded, putting the child back in the
bed.

“
For God’s sake, this is
supposed to be a hospital. Clean the child.”

Maria said nothing, nor made any move
to touch the child. Instead, she backed away from Erich, standing
near the door as if she were not a part of the medical rounds
taking place.

“
Does this child stay here
alone? Where are her parents?” Erich asked, becoming more demanding
and upset with what was taking place.

“
They have been sent home,
that’s all I know. All of our children are alone.”

“
How could anyone let
their child die alone, if that is what were to happen?” Erich asked
incredulously, moving back to the child’s bed.

“
It is not what I would
do,” Maria said softly.

Erich stood by the side of Brigitte’s
little bed for a second, stroking her soft cheeks with his fingers,
then her tiny forehead and the back of her neck. Soon she closed
her eyes to sleep for a while. He knew what Maria was saying. If
the child were going to die, which she would in time, it would be
easier to explain her death by a simple letter to her parents than
face their questions. Besides, there would be too many eyes to
watch what was happening to their child and the other children
being brought to the hospital by order of the
Chancellery.

“
Where are you from, Nurse
Drossen?” Erich asked, wanting to change the subject and talk about
something more pleasant.

Again surprised by his sudden personal
question, Maria waited a moment before responding.

“
Mainz. My family has
lived there for years.”

“
Any children,
siblings?”

“
None. My husband is away,
stationed somewhere in Czechoslovakia. Why are you asking these
questions? They seem improper.”

Erich said nothing and took Maria
forcibly by her arm, leading her to the side of the infant’s
bed.

“
Tell me, if Brigitte was
your child would you let her die?”

Maria immediately pulled her arm away
from his grip, moving quickly back to the doorway where she had
been standing.

“
I don’t know, but it
would no longer be my choice,” she said nervously, showing some
fear in her voice at Erich’s strange conduct.

“
If it were your choice,
what would you want?” Erich demanded.

“
I don’t know, really.
Death belongs to God, doesn’t it?”

“
That’s too easy of an
answer, Maria. To whom does killing an innocent child really
belong, then?”

Uncertain of his questions and
intentions, Maria remained silent. Erich covered the child’s bare
legs with a small cloth, then left the room. As he did he heard the
sharp click of the light switch as she returned the room to
darkness again. Darkness and death were inseparable, he thought,
walking into the hallway. Even on the brightest of days, death
brings darkness to those around us when we close our eyes for the
last time. No wonder the medieval churches were able to strangle
the minds of the masses in the name of God. No one, least of all
the innocent, could escape the darkness unless granted by the
church. Even today, for those dying, what might elude us in that
mystery, frightens us.

Erich paused for a moment in the
hallway, thinking about the futility of even trying to care for
Brigitte, and then abruptly decided against examining the other
four children at this time. Their medical records were all the
same, empty, and he had no authority to go further in treating the
children than what he was doing now, which was nothing.

The next week a sprinkling of children
were admitted to the hospital to be treated through the compulsory
registration program of “misfits,” as they were now called. But
none came to the East Ward where Erich waited with Maria, for which
he was glad. With little to do, he spent many hours of the day, and
even into the night, in the medical library reading on all that
medicine knew about Down’s syndrome and microcephaly and
malformations of every known kind, of the limbs and head and spinal
column. Even vague explanations of the term “idiocy” were studied.
He would learn far more, so it seemed to him, than in all his years
in medical school. He had gained a vast medical knowledge, far more
than the committee of doctors who would determine the end therapy
to be imposed on all the “misfits” brought to the hospital for
treatment. Perhaps now, he felt, he would be in position to at
least provide some hope to a few of the children. The others would
be lost, as the Health Ministry intended them to be.

Late on a rainy Friday afternoon, as
Erich moved along a row of shelves in the library replacing texts
he had been reading, he noticed an odd assortment of medical
journals and papers from past world conferences on research in
eugenics and other scientific areas. Among them was a publication
he had never seen before, or knew existed, titled
The New German
Physician
. Erich lifted the journal from the shelf and placed
it with the other papers he was taking to study in his apartment.
“I will see what you have to say and what I should be when I am not
so tired,” he said to no one as he left the library to go home
alone in the rain.

When Monday came, Erich arrived
earlier than usual at the East Ward to surprise Maria, who always
reported in ahead of most of the other nurses and would be waiting
for him. When she arrived, he immediately summoned her to follow
him on the morning round, which in the past, had been perfunctorily
carried out at best. This time though, he carefully examined every
inch of the children’s wretchedly deformed bodies, what they looked
like and felt to the hand. Nothing went unnoticed, not even the
tiniest moles, or the shapes of their ears and feet. When he was
through, he could recite from memory all that he had found in
examining each child. All were soiled in one way or another, until
he finally prevailed on Maria to ignore the rigid bathing schedule
and see that the children were kept clean, should the committee
decide to look at them.

In the days that followed, he would
continue to see and examine each child in the morning and
afternoon, looking for the slightest change in their physical
condition, though nothing was being done for them other than to
keep them comfortable. But it was Brigitte with whom he would spend
the most time during his rounds, talking to her softly and calling
her name, while he gently massaged her useless legs. When he was
finished, he would stand at the nurse’s station, carefully entering
in each child’s record the date and time and details of his
examination. Brigitte’s would be the most detailed, noting at
length what he believed to be positive signs of improvement in her
muscle tone, though there were none. At times, his antics seemed
almost theatrical to Maria, as she watched his meticulous attention
to the slightest movement in Brigitte’s legs. Nothing had changed
in the days the child had been with them in the East Ward, nor
would there ever be, she knew, except in Erich’s foolish mind. He
had for some silent reason embarked on a useless quest to heal a
child whose horrific infirmities were frozen in time the day she
entered the world. What he might do when the Health Ministry
committee’s recommendations were placed in Brigitte’s and the other
children’s files bothered her. She could be seen as a part of the
problem, should he take issue with the committee’s findings. Like
her soldier husband, Martin, Maria believed herself to be a good
German, placing duty to the country above all else, and now she was
frightened by Erich’s obsession with trying to heal
Brigitte.

After his last examination of the
children, Erich turned to Maria to ask a question she thought
strange, coming as it did at this time when he should know the
answer.

“
Are there unregistered
children, like we are treating on the other floors?”

“
I don’t know. A few,
maybe. Why do you ask?”

“
I assume then, the Health
Ministry’s committee knows nothing of our children, and will not
examine them?”

“
You should know that they
will. Dr. Heinze was here yesterday, examining your patients,
wanting to know why they had not been registered. He was not
pleased with all that you had written in their records either,
called it a barnyard name,” Maria said, closely watching Erich’s
reaction to her words.

Erich turned pale for a moment,
nervously flipping the edges of the files back and forth before
Maria took them from him, placing them on her desk. He realized
now, with the intervention of Dr. Heinze and the committee, he was
walking a precarious path, surrounded on all sides by uncertainty
and the possibility of personal disaster. Maria watched Erich
closely, feeling little sympathy for him. He was nothing like she
had imagined the son of Dr. Vicktor Schmidt would be. Indeed, he
seemed to her to be the meekest of the meek when compared to the
grandiose aura his father projected. She believed he was afraid of
what was sure to happen in the hospital, as she was, but for a
different reason. And what he would do, or not do, when the time
came to act on the committee’s recommendations, was of no small
concern to her now.

Maria waited for some kind of response
from Erich, but he said nothing. His mind was elsewhere, as if he
were lost in some kind of vegetative state, hearing but unable to
speak. After minutes passed staring in silence at the children’s
files, he took the files from Maria’s desk and opened each one,
carefully reading through all that he had written. He could no
longer pretend as he had been.

After a long pause, he spoke quietly
to her. “There really is nothing for me to do, except keep these
children comfortable, is there?”

Maria only nodded.

“
What are the names of the
consulting doctors, Maria, the ones that will make the final
treatment decision for the children?”

“
I don’t know. The
committee is in Berlin, and is secret,” Maria answered
quickly.

“
That isn’t what I asked,”
Erich said, becoming impatient with Maria’s evasive
manner.

“
The ad hoc committee here
at the hospital is Dr. Brandt and Dr. Heinze and Dr. Catel from
Leipzig. That’s all I have been told.”

His father’s name was missing from the
committee, which surprised Erich. Had he been on the committee, the
door to some kind of redemption would have been kept ajar for a
little while longer by talking with him. But now, he knew, there
was nothing between himself and the infinite depth of a political
ideology veneered with the science of eugenics. Yet he was not
ready to shut his mouth on the truth. Not only would he enlist his
father’s prestige in confronting the committee, he would artfully
defend each child’s medical condition against any prognosis that it
was hopeless. Handing the files back to Maria, he turned to leave
the ward.

“
I will be in the
library,” he said, calmly walking away, leaving Maria
puzzled.