The Last Witness (23 page)

He pushed the door closed and then he saw it. Scrawled in the middle of the door was a swastika. The size of his hand, even bigger than that. Neatly drawn. The lines straight, thick and
black. Even the space inside the lines was filled with black. Whoever did it had taken their time. Jack kept staring at it and then he put his hands on his mouth and started gasping for air. He took a breath and couldn’t get it out. He tried again. He couldn’t breathe. He was choking. He slumped against the door frame and cried for help.

New York City, 2038

30

The day of his arrival someone told Eustace that no one else had a name like his. And they were right. He had a room on the second floor of the Jewish Home for the Aged in New York City, even though he was Seventh-day Adventist. His condition had deteriorated to the point where they were talking about putting him in the palliative ward. He had dementia and Parkinson’s and heart disease, and they didn’t give him long, but he had suffered from these ailments for years and was still hanging on. He had always been obese and the single hardest thing for him to do was climb out of bed. He needed help with that. The report said he was anti-social, had a short fuse and would fly into a rage at the slightest provocation. There had already been two incidents. He had attacked a member of the cleaning staff when he objected to the antiseptic she was using, and had to be restrained. It took three men to subdue him. The other time he had thrown his food tray at a nutritionist who was trying to get him to eat. But it’s not his fault, they said. It’s a symptom of the condition. He has to be monitored. The Jewish Home for the Aged was supposed to be a short-term thing until a bed became available elsewhere.

Shirley Rosen was two doors down the hall and she didn’t like Eustace. She found him loud and coarse and overbearing, but that wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was the smell. He stunk. There was a staleness about him, as if he never had the inclination to shower. On more than one occasion, she had heard him screaming at the staff when they were trying to coax him into the bath. He always reeked, so she did her best to stay away from him. Shirley was a hundred and one years old, and at this stage in life she didn’t have time for such things.

Like Eustace.

The nurse was coming in with her daily meds – the regular course of blood thinners, beta blockers and Lactulose. Shirley suffered from chronic constipation and joked that laxatives were her middle name. Today was especially bad. She hadn’t gone for four days and the pressure was so bad she couldn’t eat. It was too painful.

Everyone knew that Eustace and Shirley mixed like oil and water.

The man who came to visit less than a half hour before visiting was over said he was a friend of Shirley’s. He said he knew her from the old neighborhood, but he was a young man in his thirties and never said what neighborhood that was. He told the nurse Shirley might not recognize him at first, but would come around soon enough. He brought a box of cookies. It was a cold day and he was wearing a bulky sweater. He didn’t bother to sign in.

“Hello Shirley, you sweet girl. Remember me?”

She didn’t, but why would she? She had never seen him before in her life.

“How are you?” he said.

“Fine.”

“These are for you,” and he gave her the cookies.

“Thank you.”

He started with small talk about the weather and she kept trying to place him, figuring she must know him from somewhere. But nothing registered. He certainly seemed to know her, however, and he also knew about her problem with Eustace.

“You should give him another chance. He’s not such a bad guy. He just has a lot wrong with him.”

He found it hot in her room, so he rolled up the sleeves of his sweater past the elbows. She could make out the beginning of the snake tattoos on his arms.

“I have a lot wrong with me too,” said Shirley, “and I’m older than he is so I don’t have much pity.”

He laughed. “How about I bring him in and try to get you two to be friends?”

Shirley didn’t like the idea, but didn’t want to be rude. “You’d be wasting your time,” she said.

“Maybe not.”

The man marched into Eustace’s room and Shirley could hear them talking since it was only two doors away, but she didn’t know what they were saying. Still, she knew it would be a waste of time. Eustace was impossible. She had no use for him.

Soon visiting hours would be done for the day, a busy time for the nurses who were near the end of their shift and going over patient files at their station down the hall. Shirley closed her eyes and tried to nap. Sometimes a few minutes here and there were enough to recharge her, and then all of a sudden there he was. Eustace. She knew it was him even before she opened her eyes. It was the smell. There was no mistaking that fetid stench. He was standing over her, beside her bed, a scowl on his face. The man who came to see her – the visitor she couldn’t place – was just inside the door.

Shirley had her mind on Eustace and didn’t notice the man taking out his mini. He tapped the little screen and some names came up. He touched the last one and it was deleted.

Her name.

“You think I’m fat?” Eustace said and Shirley could only look at him stone-faced.

“Excuse me?” she said.

“You think I’m fat and ugly, don’t you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Before Shirley knew what was happening, the door to her room was closed. The man who came to see her, the man who just brought Eustace in, was handing this maniac a pillow.

“Go ahead,” he said. “They can’t hear you now.”

With that, Eustace lowered the pillow onto Shirley’s face so it covered her eyes, her nose and her mouth. Then he leaned over and put all his weight, all his bulk, behind it. Everything he had. He pressed down hard and Shirley couldn’t breathe. There were stifled gasps, and arms and legs trying desperately to do something, but to no avail. Shirley was an old woman flat on her back and he was a big angry man standing over her with seething blood rushing to his face, adrenaline filling his veins. He kept pushing and she kept struggling and the more he pushed the stronger he got. It didn’t take that long. When she finally stopped moving, he eased up on the pillow and took it off. He stared at her dumb-founded.

“What’s the matter with you?” he said. “Say something! Say something!”

He started screaming obscenities at her and the nurses outside in the hallway all stopped what they were doing. Two of them rushed into the room.

“Oh my God!” one of them said.

Eustace was standing there with the pillow in his hands. Shirley motionless on the bed. Her eyes wide open and still. Not breathing. No one else was in the room. The man who came to see Shirley was gone.

31

Jack opened his eyes and saw a woman in a blue smock hovering over him.

“Hello Mr. Fisher. You feeling better?”

“What?”

“You had a little tumble.”

He raised his head and looked around. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital. You’re here for some tests.”

“Hospital?”

“They brought you to emergency a couple hours ago but you’re going to be all right. No worries.”

The nurse wiped his brow with a damp cloth. He heard voices in the background. People were talking about him. Something about his
condition
.

“Why am I in the hospital?” he said. “I’m all right.”

There was a man’s voice.

“Hello Jack.”

It was Lieutenant Hodgson and he had that policewoman with him. They were standing at the foot of the bed, Hodgson a good head taller than she was.

“Hello Mr. Fisher,” she said.

Jack looked at Hodgson. “What are you doing here?”

Only then did Jack realize something was attached to his nose. A tube was feeding him oxygen. He was hooked up to intra-venous and a monitor beside the bed was recording
everything. Hodgson had his notebook and pen with him. He looked at the nurse and then came closer.

“Jack, everybody is worried about you,” he said. “They want to make sure you’re all right.”

“Why? What’s wrong with me?”

The woman officer piped up. “Mr. Fisher? You remember me? Kathy Sottario? NYPD?”

Jack gave her a nod. “You’re the expert interrogator,” he said and she smiled.

“Mr. Fisher?” It was the nurse in the blue smock. “You’ve never had any heart trouble, have you?”

“Me? No. Why?”

“We just want to make sure. That’s why you’re here. Do you recall how you were feeling when you fell?”

Jack remembered the dream with Christine. He got up and went into the hall, but forgot to close his door. He passed Trudy’s room, then turned around and came back.

“I couldn’t breathe,” he said and he mentioned the swastika.

“We saw it,” said Hodgson. “You got that letter and now this.”

“Why would someone do that?” Jack said.

Hodgson shook his head.

“Mr. Fisher, you say you couldn’t breathe,” said the nurse. “Did you experience any pain in your chest by any chance?”

“I don’t know but I couldn’t catch my breath. Is that what caused this?”

“What?” said the nurse.

“The
swastika
?”

He said it like a German.

“The what?” the nurse said.

“Swastika.”

“What?”

Jack looked at Hodgson.

“He found it on the back of his door,” Hodgson told the nurse. “It was from Nazi Germany.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“It may have a lot to do with why Jack is here. It really upset him.”

“Why?”

Jack was hooked up to the monitor and the oxygen was connected to his nose, but Hodgson could still see the exasperation on his face.

“It was a shock to his system,” Hodgson said.

“That’ll do it every time,” said the nurse. “Any shock to your system could do it but it has to be a severe shock.” She spoke over her shoulder to another nurse standing behind her. “He seems to have no history of angina or angina pectoris but he does have a problem with high blood pressure.”

“For a man his age that’s not bad,” the second nurse said.

“Mr. Fisher.” The policewoman again. “The reason Lieutenant Hodgson and I are here is because of what you found on your door. Do you have any idea how it got there?”

Jack shook his head.

“Look, Mr. Fisher,” she said. “I have to ask you a question and it’s not a question I want to ask you but I have to. You understand?”

“What question?”

She and Hodgson exchanged glances. “It isn’t possible that you put it there by any chance, is it?”

Jack looked her in the eye. Even deeper than that. It penetrated.

“What?” he said.

“That you may have put it there yourself?”

“Why would I put a
swastika
on my door?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. To make a point.”

“To make a point? To make what point?”

“I don’t know.”

Jack’s rage started boiling through the surface. “How could you say such a thing!” he said. “And to
me
of all people!”

She put her hands up and said to calm down. He was getting flushed.

“Don’t you understand that a
swastika
means murder and death and torture and millions of innocent people being exterminated like they were fleas? Why would I make a
swastika?
”

She shrugged again, uncomfortable with his outburst.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Fisher. I didn’t realize how strongly you would feel about this.”

“You didn’t realize how strongly I would feel about this? Do you have any idea what the holocaust was all about?”

“You mean the Great Holocaust?”

“No I don’t mean the Great Holocaust! All holocausts are great or they wouldn’t be called holocausts! I’m talking about
the
Holocaust! Six million Jews!”

Jack just glared at her.

“Look,” she said. “I realize a lot of people have suffered at one time or another.”

Hodgson broke in.

“Jack,” he said, “no one came here to argue with you about what people know and don’t know. Kathy is a police officer and a highly respected person on the force. She’s a great cop.”

“An expert interrogator?” Jack said. The sarcasm was thick.

“I’m sorry if I offended you, Mr. Fisher,” she said.

“I think she just apologized to you,” Hodgson said.

Jack made a grudging sigh.

“Look,” said Hodgson, “we don’t know exactly what happened to you yet but whatever it was got triggered by something.” The nurse who was attending Jack agreed. “And when you saw your door I can imagine how you felt.”

“You can?”

“Well …”

“I was dreaming about Christine and it was a crazy dream. It was just the two of us. We were together. At
Auschwitz
.”

“Where?” said the nurse.

Jack was getting really frustrated now.

“Jack, we told you what happened to her,” Hodgson said. “Remember? Christine I mean?”

Jack’s head sank back into the pillow. He opened his eyes wide. Now he remembered. They found her at the bottom of the gorge.

“I never told you something,” he said.

“You never told me what?” said Hodgson.

“She had Tay-Sachs disease.”

“What?”

“It’s a disease. A Jewish disease.”

“What are you talking about?”

Another nurse was coming over.

“Just a minute,” Hodgson told her. “Just a minute.” He leaned over Jack. “What are you talking about?”

“It wears you down. There’s no cure.”

“What do you mean a Jewish disease?”

“Jews have it more than anyone else. Christine … comes from Jews.”

Hodgson brought his face in closer. “Christine had a disease?” he said.

Jack nodded.

“What do you mean it wears you down? How?”

Jack remembered the day he found out about it. It was a bad day. A terrible day. Ralph had phoned and told him and then there was a flurry of calls. Ralph. Bill. Bill’s daughter-in-law Emma, the nurse. She was the one who provided the details.

“She was in her early twenties when she got it,” Jack said. “And it’s all my fault.”