Alphabet House (16 page)

James was the only one who didn’t have a bell-cord over his bed. His placing in the middle of a six-man ward was merely temporary. It was a depressing situation. If he tried to foil their plans he would end up like Bryan. And right now he had trouble enough just remaining conscious.

The help would have to come from without. He’d have to see to that.

But if the makeshift rope were discovered, investigations would be put into effect immediately and Red-Eye’s prophecy brought to fulfilment in all its horror. Only Sister Petra could avert a complete catastrophe and cast suspicion in the right direction.

But Petra no longer came every day.

That day it began growing dark already in the middle of the afternoon, as if symbolizing Bryan’s vanishing existence.

Petra entered the ward quite without warning. Kröner was clearly taken by surprise when the ceiling light was switched on.
She filled her jug with tap water from the washbasin and walked past every bed, filling up the glasses on the bed tables.

When she reached James he tried to force himself up in bed for a moment. ‘My goodness,
Herr
Peuckert!’ she exclaimed, pressing him back gently. James positioned his head so that her head blocked the others’ vision. But the words wouldn’t come. His desperate eyes and uncontrolled movements were new to her and incomprehensible.

So she fetched the senior nursing officer.

This person of authority, who was seldom caught displaying signs of sensitivity either to the staff or patients, studied James attentively. Bending over him, her face shone with realisation. Shaking her head indulgently, she scurried past the anxious Petra and over to the window, where she drew the curtain a trifle over the anti-bomb shutters. Thus a tiny patch of greyish light that had been dancing on James’ cheek was extinguished. Feeling momentarily pleased with herself after this little operation, the head nurse turned to Bryan and patted him surprisingly hard on the cheek.

Bryan grunted distantly and drew his head away from the direction of the blow. ‘He’ll wake up soon,’ she said, heading out of the room without looking to see if Petra was following. ‘About time, too!’ were her final words.

Petra bent over James and stroked his hair gently. He emitted a faint, unintelligible whisper. Petra’s eyes smiled. The whistling sounds made her lips part with delight.

Then the senior nursing officer called for her.

The following seconds seemed like infinity.

‘Well, buddy,’ Lankau smiled at Calendar Man. ‘Now we’re going to have some fun. Come over here!’ he called, tightening the sheet around his victim’s neck so the knot covered the pulsating carotid artery as planned. It would be a short, efficient fall, designed to break the neck.

The malingerers knew what they were doing. James lay in his bed hyperventilating while Calendar Man grinned like a
child at play. He raised Bryan up onto his shoulder as instructed by Lankau. He patted Bryan’s naked buttocks and wriggled with glee while the broad-faced man laughed and flung open the window behind Bryan’s bed. The other malingerers merely looked on languidly.

Calendar Man’s pats, grunts and rough movements made Bryan open his eyes. Bewildered by his position and the cold, hard edge of the windowsill beneath him, he raised his head and began squealing senselessly like a stuck pig.

‘Take hold of his arms, damn it!’ sputtered Kröner, jumping out of bed and striking Bryan a hard blow on the shoulder. Calendar Man suddenly stopped and let go, confused about the abrupt, serious turn the game had taken. He twisted around and began to whine, slapping the back of his hand feebly and reluctantly against Lankau and Kröner’s bodies as the two stood on either side of Bryan, struggling with him. The despairing figure now had one leg out of the window, the other hooked firmly over the windowsill.

The Postman didn’t move from his bed, but the skinny man shot up and ran with all his hate and fury headfirst into Bryan’s diaphragm. The effect was unintentional. With a roar, Bryan jerked forward so violently that it sounded like a hammer blow when his forehead struck the top of the puny man’s head. Dieter Schmidt toppled over without a sound.

‘Stop!’ shouted the Postman, and ordered the malingerers back to their beds. He had heard the running footsteps in the corridor before they had.

The two porters came to an abrupt halt when they found Bryan on the floor. Madness radiated from his eyes and his groans were half-stifled on account of the tight sheet.

‘He’s completely out of his mind! You hold him down,’ one of them admonished, as he closed the window. ‘I’ll fetch the straitjacket.’

But then the air-raid sirens started wailing.

The evacuation to the cellar took place in great haste, giving the porters other things to think about. As the days passed Bryan became more and more convinced they had never reported the episode, and thanked God they hadn’t got as far as putting him in a straitjacket. Then he would have been an easy victim.

The bombardment of Freiburg had not caused any damage in the immediate vicinity.

Some small barrack buildings were being erected over by the square, presumably to relieve pressure on the wards. Any thoughts of escaping by that route were thereby eliminated. Moreover, all the fences sported porcelain insulators and warning signs. But apart from that, and the strained expressions on the nursing staff’s faces, things were pretty much as usual for everyone. Except for Bryan himself.

He didn’t sleep the next two days and nights. Despite his terrible experience and the complications following the recent shock treatment he felt strong and determined. Even though the malingerers kept a constant eye on him and spoke to him nastily and threateningly, Bryan felt neither anxious nor helpless in the midst of a hopeless situation.

Red-Eye smiled at him sympathetically and kindly as he lay on his side in the adjacent bed hour after hour, watching him with a combination of curiosity and merriment. When Bryan tried to recall the episode it seemed to him it had been Red-Eye who had stepped in and saved his life. The echo of the man’s cries still rang in the back of his head.

It was the second time that Red-Eye had come to his rescue. During the ward round Bryan noted his name. Peter Stich. Bryan smiled back at him as though they were bound by a mutually comforting and promising alliance.

Little Petra looked in on James constantly. Bryan rarely caught his eye and had the feeling he wasn’t well. And yet Petra seemed
quite satisfied.

On the ward round the following day the doctors talked at the foot of James’ bed for some time. Afterwards he was taken to a room a bit further down the hall for some rounds of consultation and examination.

That evening the army surgeon performed the unusual act of giving James a warm handshake. Petra stood beside him, tripping almost playfully and smiling shyly with folded arms. They spoke to him in a normal fashion and although he didn’t reply, he looked them in the eye as if he understood.

Bryan was glad to see this development. His confidence that James could soon be included in an escape plan began to grow.

On the following evening the malingerers’ discussion was orderly and officious. Even the Postman offered his opinions dispassionately as he lay staring up at the ceiling. To Bryan it seemed he was making fun of the others. Bryan assumed they were leaving the Postman in peace because of his mental illness and brutish behaviour. Every time Bryan looked at James, he seemed to be expressing displeasure.

Bryan didn’t attach any particular importance to it.

One of the new nurses switched on the light, immediately causing the room’s inhabitants to stop whispering. Thereafter she held the door open for a new officer, followed by Army Surgeon Thieringer, who was smiling broadly. The young officer spoke briefly to the ward’s patients and shook both the nurses’ and Thieringer’s hands. Then he clicked his heels and
heil
ed respectfully, whereupon they all left the room again.

The episode apparently made an impression on the malingerers, who went on whispering quietly, the sound of which, surprisingly, almost lulled Bryan to sleep.

The young officer had arrived at the same time as him. Now he’d apparently recovered sufficiently to be sent back to the battlefield, more alive than dead, more well than sick. A good example to all of them.

His thoughts merged and the voices gradually disappeared. All of Bryan’s lifelines had been severed. The bell-cord above him had been torn off. James had no cord at all. The young officer
heil
ed a final time at the threshold of dreamland.

And then Bryan fell asleep.

Every metallic sound contains its own message. When a wing is ripped off a B-17 bomber it sounds different from when the fuselage splits open. A heavy hammer on a small nail sounds different from a small hammer on a large nail. The sound is transmitted in its entirety to the metal and tells its story in the resulting sound. But this sound was difficult to decipher. It was metallic and melodic, but new. Bryan’s eyelids were so heavy that he had to do without an answer a bit longer. A whitish glow told him it was daytime again and he had survived the night. The room seemed different.

As the mysterious, sharp sound gradually acquired character, Bryan began imagining a pumping, clattering science-fiction machine. Like an H.G. Wells invention or one of the diabolical cosmic machines he had inspected with boyish curiosity in travelling entertainers’ caravans and market squares for the price of a single penny.

Bryan opened his eyes. The room seemed unfamiliar.

There was one bed beside his, the only other one in the room. On the edge of the other bed hung a glass bottle connected to a rubber tube through which small yellowish-white drops trickled constantly. The bottle was a quarter full. Someone was breathing irregularly under the blanket. He didn’t recognise the face that was half-covered by a mask.

The oxygen flask that was connected to the mask stood on the other side of the bed. A kind of ventilator fan emitted regular puffs of warmish, damp air from a green-painted shelf above the bed. Its blade was crooked. This was where the unfamiliar metallic sounds were coming from.

The entire room seemed to be separated from the reality of the rest of the hospital, devoid of the vile odours, noises and insane behaviour.

Bryan looked around. The two of them were alone in the room. A carpet lay on the floor. Unlike the rest of the hospital, the walls were draped with pictures. Engravings with religious motifs contrasted with framed photographs of pretentious young specimens of the Third Reich in imaginative, proud poses.

The transfer to the new location was a mystery to Bryan. Obviously they’d given him the bed of the newly discharged officer. But why him? Had they suspected something and removed him from his oppressors? Or did they intend to place him under special observation?

The room lay opposite the one he’d come from. He recognised the nursing staff.

Sister Petra’s face revealed nothing that could make him uneasy. She was happy and attentive as usual, smiling and patting his cheek and chattering endlessly in a respectful and cheerful tone that could indicate they deemed him well on the way to recovery. Bryan made a decision. She should see signs of progress. This would give him increased mobility.

But it mustn’t happen too suddenly.

On one of his visits to the lavatory another new world opened to him. The corridor that also led past the room in which James lay was about ten feet wide. There wasn’t much distance between the doors, suggesting there were only a few beds in each room. Their room was the one nearest the end of the building. After this there was a small room and then a two-man room. Further down came the examination room, the lavatories and the shower. This was the extent of his world. He didn’t go all the way to the end of the corridor. On the other side of the hallway was yet another room the size of the one in which James lay.

A time-honoured allocation of roles was apparently taking place in the ward Bryan had left. Kröner had reassumed his role of volunteer orderly and no one seemed to protest. He could thereby walk freely about in all the rooms as though it were his job.

Bryan would have preferred it if it had been someone else.

Petra Wagner was distantly related to
Gauleiter
Wagner in Baden. A fact she had never needed to reveal since it was such a common surname.

In the time she’d been stationed there she’d grown fond of the district and Schwarzwald. She had accommodated herself at the clinic, even though the brusque, militant tone was alien to her at first. The few friends the hard work permitted her were all at the hospital, and thanks to the peaceful hours in the nurses’ block with lacemaking and girlish gossip, she seldom felt the grim presence of war.

Unlike herself, nearly all her girlfriends were distressed over sweethearts in the war or grieving over dead or missing or injured loved ones. They lived with the accompanying hate and fear. But although Petra displayed no outward signs of grief, this didn’t mean she didn’t have a life. It was just different.

Many atrocities took place at the hospital that upset Petra. Experiments with new types of medicine, hasty decisions, strange diagnoses and undisguised favouritism. There was only one kind of order in a military hospital, and that was military rank and the military code. And even though it plagued her, the execution of deserters and malingerers and the sporadic mercy killings were an integral part of that order. A reality with which she had hitherto avoided any direct confrontation, even though at one point she had nursed one of the wretched victims of this system.

Petra was still astonished that the patient they’d called the Siamese twin had been able to get away with his simulating for such a long time. She had never once suspected him as he wandered around like a little monkey, holding his twin by the hand. Since then, this disclosure and the episode with the pills had made her view her surroundings with new eyes.

The ward was for the mentally disturbed. Most of them were seriously ill and presumably would never recover. The oppressive shock treatment sessions seemed haphazard, and their effect
questionable. The few patients who had been discharged since her arrival faced an uncertain fate. They were weak, their reactions sluggish and their treatment incomplete. In reality, they were much too vulnerable to be discharged. She knew the army surgeon was of the same opinion, but they had to respect the fact that new arrivals needed their beds.

And soon they were going to discharge several in her section.

Some of the patients didn’t react when spoken to, like Werner Fricke who went around in his own world and understood nothing but his calendar. Not even the renowned Arno von der Leyen appeared to understand what she said, but Gerhart Peuckert understood everything. She was sure of this, even though she had yet to make contact with him.

Many of the symptoms Gerhart Peuckert displayed could not be explained solely by the ravages of shell shock. Some of his reactions were reminiscent of the suffering she had confronted in the medical ward. His physical condition appeared unduly weak and feeble in relation to the others, and he displayed irrational reactions as if he were in allergic shock. The doctors dismissed it, which worried her even more and made her feel powerless.

He was the most handsome man she had ever seen. She couldn’t believe he was the kind of fiend described in his file. Either it was exaggerated, or his papers had been exchanged with someone else’s.

That much she knew about human nature.

Nevertheless, she was unable to understand what had made Peuckert inflict such severe wounds on himself. The many bruises and the enormous loss of blood aroused her suspicions. But the human mechanism of self-torture could be inscrutable. Angst had deep roots and provided its own kind of sustenance when one least expected it. She had seen it so often. How someone could almost bite off his own tongue as Arno von der Leyen had done seemed incomprehensible. Yet things like this happened. So why not Gerhart? It was comforting though that he’d been a bit better recently, even if he was still weak.

When he reacted to her tenderness with his first attempts to form words, she decided to try to dispel Gerhart Peuckert’s anxiety so he wouldn’t suffer the same fate as so many others.

If it were up to her, he would stay in the hospital until the war ended. Munich, Karlsruhe, Mannheim and dozens of other German cities were now under intense bombardment. Nancy had been occupied. Even Freiburg had been attacked. The Americans were pushing forward; the Allies were assembled on German territory. And when it was all over she hoped Gerhart Peuckert would still be alive.

Both for his sake and her own.

‘New directives from Berlin. The
Wehrmacht
medical authorities’ supreme command has finally summarized the conclusions of their hearing in August.’ The sleeves of Army Surgeon Manfried Thieringer’s white coat were folded up to expose his slender wrists. ‘They are demanding tighter control with regard to simulating,’ he continued. ‘The reserve hospital in Ensen has already reacted by discharging all debatable cases for service at the front.’ He looked slowly around the little room. It had been his decision to use the old conference room for treating patients as the pressure on the wards became too great. The barrack buildings could no longer keep up with demand. The fighting on the Eastern Front and the latest battle at Aachen had given them much too much to do. But now it would be possible to get back to normal again.

The directive from Berlin would make more room.

Dr Holst’s eyes looked small behind his thick glasses. ‘The reserve hospital in Ensen basically treats only war neurotics. Why does this concern us?’

‘It concerns us, Dr Holst, because if we don’t do as they do, our results will seem poor in comparison. Then they’ll ask us to give the remaining ones a lethal injection or massive quantities of their beloved chloral hydrate, carbromal and barbital. And after that we can report for service at the front, can’t we?’ Thieringer scrutinized his lieutenant surgeon. ‘Do you realise how privileged we
are, Dr Holst? If Goebbels’ wife hadn’t begged her husband to see that the hospitals treated their patients better, our most important task today would be liquidating the mentally ill. More mercy killings, right? “Cause of death: influenza.” Can you see it? At least now the only ones who give us problems are the few crybabies who land in the basement.’ He shook his head. ‘Nope, we’ll do what’s expected of us. We’ll start to discharge gradually. Otherwise that’ll be the end of the experiments at the Alphabet House, Dr Holst. No more of your dubious chlorine-preparation trials and that sort of thing. No more measuring the effects of different types of shock treatment. It’s all over with our relatively comfortable life here!’ Dr Holst looked down. ‘No, we were lucky
Frau
Goebbels got her husband to protect our elite soldiers. That gave us something to work with, didn’t it? So we could help maintain the German people’s illusion of the infallibility of the SS Corps!’

Manfried Thieringer looked over at Petra and the other nurses on the ward. Until now he hadn’t deigned to cast them a glance. But this look meant they should pay attention to his closing remarks. He seized a pile of case files.

‘This means we must cut down on the dosages in ward IX. All insulin therapy is to cease from today. We’ll take Wilfried Kröner and Dieter Schmidt completely off chemo-psychotherapy by December. I think we can soon give up on Werner Fricke. We won’t make him much more sensible. He’s from a well-to-do family, isn’t he?’ No one answered. The army surgeon kept turning the pages. ‘We’ll have to keep Gerhart Peuckert under observation a little while longer, but he seems to be recovering.’ Petra clasped her hands together.

‘And then of course there’s Arno von der Leyen,’ he continued. ‘We’ve been told he’s to receive an important visit from Berlin around Christmas. We’ll need to concentrate all our efforts on his convalescence. I’ve heard rumours that he attempted suicide. Can anyone here confirm this?’

The nurses looked at one another and shook their heads in silence.

‘Under no circumstances can we take any chances. I’ve been allocated two patients about to be discharged from the medical ward who will be receiving finishing treatment in this section. They’ll be able to stand guard and make sure there are no more suicide attempts. We can keep them for three months. That ought to be sufficient, don’t you think?’

‘Are they to stand guard around the clock?’ As usual, the senior nursing officer wanted to make sure her staff weren’t forced to take on any further night watches.

Thieringer shook his head. ‘Devers and Leyen are to sleep at night. You must see to that.’

‘What about Arno von der Leyen’s roommate?’ Dr Holst queried, uncertainly.

‘
Gruppenführer
Devers is unlikely to recover. The gas has done too much damage to his lungs and brain. We have to do our best, but he must continue getting the full dose. He has powerful friends, understand?’

‘Is he the right person? To share a room with von der Leyen, I mean? I just thought…’ Dr Holst scarcely knew how to put it. Thieringer’s look made him shift in his chair. ‘He just lies there…’

‘Yes, I think it’s an excellent idea. By the way, I must emphasize that neither Horst Lankau nor any of the other patients from ward three are to enter Arno von der Leyen and
Gruppenführer
Devers’ room.’

‘Wilfried gives us a hand with several jobs. Does this also apply to him?’ wondered Sister Lili.

‘Kröner?’ Manfried Thieringer stuck out his lower lip and shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think it should. He’s showing good progress. On the other hand, I don’t think
Standartenführer
Lankau’s behavioural pattern is improving. He seems unstable. We must do our best to make sure he is kept calm and doesn’t disturb his fellow patients until we discharge him.’

Since Gerhart Peuckert’s situation had already been discussed, Petra had only a single question: ‘How are we to treat
Gruppenführer
Devers’ guest, professor? Can we give her something to eat, since she comes so often?’

‘How often is that?’

‘Several times a week. Almost every day, I think.’

‘You can give her the option, yes. Ask her. She could be a diversion for Arno von der Leyen.’ Looking pleased, he glanced at his subordinate. ‘Yes, that would be an excellent idea. I’ll speak to her about it myself when I meet her.’

Petra had envied
Gruppenführer
Devers’ wife from the first time she saw her. Not for her physiognomy or because life for her appeared relatively undemanding, but solely because of her clothing. Whenever
Frau
Devers walked past, upright and proud, she nodded amiably. Sister Petra only had eyes for her stockings and dress. ‘Bamberg silk, all of it,’ she told the other nurses when they were up in their rooms. None of them had ever worn anything like that.

Petra had managed to briefly touch Gisela Devers’ dress as she sat reading beside her husband’s bed. The material was wonderfully smooth, almost cool.

Arno von der Leyen was looking at
Gruppenführer
Devers’ wife constantly. Petra had noticed that. Secretly she thanked God that Gerhart didn’t have the same scenery.

The two newly appointed guards were pale-looking young ones. Like so many others, their eyes reflected great affliction. Their freshly ironed SS
Rottenführer
uniforms were sparklingly new, but their badges and insignia were worn and bore witness to quite an amount of active duty. The badges for their division consisted of two crossed hand grenades. Petra had seen them before. They were scarcely becoming.

Gisela Devers’ presence made the two young guards stand at attention and look alert. She was the elegant wife of a superior officer in the SS and the only relative in that section of the hospital to have been cleared for visiting.

But as soon as she had walked past them, they began chatting together, smiling. They treated all the others with indifference, including the doctors. They knew their job and carried it out efficiently, without grumbling. As long as they did so, they were safe. Rather eighteen hours on duty every single day than just one hour at the front.

Petra had to agree with Thieringer. Horst Lankau was not the same as before. His ruddy, weather-beaten and jovial broad face was no longer smiling. The other patients seemed to be afraid of him. The army surgeon had also been right about his having been in Devers’ and ward hero Arno von der Leyen’s room a number of times without having had any business there.

After Lankau had been forbidden to leave his room, his fury knew no bounds. His protests became surprisingly colourful and graphic until he was finally given a shot to calm down.

Since then he had regained some of his previous charm.

Thus a great deal had taken place. Wilfried Kröner was getting much better and he now wandered freely around the entire Alphabet House. To everyone’s great amusement he carried the laundry down to the basement and pushed the canteen trolleys around on all the floors. Apart from his muscle spasms that mostly caused incontinence and occasional speech-impeding twitches, his behaviour seemed to indicate the treatment was basically drawing to a close.

The strange Peter Stich, with his sardonic smile, had quit staring up into the shower when he took a bath. Instead he’d begun picking his nose so violently that it looked as if he thought it would relieve the headaches from which he clearly suffered. Sometimes blood poured out of him during fits like this. Petra hated it. It made a mess and put the nursing aides in a bad mood. There was also the squelching sound of the vehement digging in his nostrils.

It made her nauseous.

The guards had acquired another object of their vigilance. An
obergruppenführer
with a nervous breakdown had been admitted to the room next to Arno von der Leyen. Even though the porters described him in detail, no one apart from a couple of the doctors and Manfried Thieringer knew the general’s true identity. Petra knew only that he was a well-groomed, middle-aged gentleman who seemed completely out of his mind.