Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

At last they sat facing one another, and Dr Hellstiedl had abandoned his search for the index card.

‘An interesting case. A most interesting case. Although of course all cases are fundamentally… One is inclined only to take the most spectacular… Did you know that in London they used to take the whole family to see the mentally ill as if going to the theatre? A spectacle, in fact. The asylum was called Bedlam. Bethlehem. Suffer little children to come unto me. A very interesting case, our Ahasuerus.’

‘Ahasuerus?’

‘I shouldn’t allow the giving of nicknames to the patients. I tell the nurses off and then do it myself. Only human, I fear. But these nicknames are often very appropriate. Insights are not always expressed in intelligent terms. Perhaps it’s wrong of us to give our children names when they are born. We might be better off waiting until we know them better.’

‘François,’ thought Chanele. ‘Shmul.’

‘Ahasuerus.’ Dr Hellstiedl ploughed through the chaos on his desk. ‘He already had the name when I inherited the institution from my predecessor… It probably wasn’t a nurse who came up with it. They’re more inclined to think of simple… We have an inmate that they call “Fox”. One woman is called “the queen”. But “Ahasuerus”… The eternal Jew. An intellectual reference. He lives and would like to be dead.’

‘Dead?’

‘Of course. How stupid of me. You don’t even know… So: Ahasuerus. You will forgive me if I don’t further explain… Although of course… Your name is Meijer, isn’t it?’

‘Hanna Meijer.’

‘With e-i-j, of course. Unusual spelling. I should…’ Suddenly he tapped his temple, so clumsily that he knocked off his glasses and had to look for them again amongst his papers, and said, ‘How stupid of me! You grew up with foster parents… didn’t you? And you’ve taken their name? So why am I looking under…? There isn’t going to be a card for “Ahasuerus”. And right now the correct name isn’t coming to…’

‘Are you sure it’s him?’

‘We assume so. The dates tally. But we have no precise details left from those days. Our French colleagues were here in those days, and my predecessor… A most excellent specialist, but unfortunately also very rigorous. Well, there is nothing to be done about that now.’ Dr Hellstiedl sat down at his desk again. ‘To answer your question; we assume that it’s him. And of course we hope that his encounter with you… I’m no devotee of shock therapy, by no means, but if such a shock is of a purely emotional kind… So I would ask you not to say anything at first. Just don’t say a thing. Sit down with him and let him… Perhaps there are some outward signs that… Such cases are sometimes basically frozen in an experience, and their memory has remained correspondingly fresh. As if time had stood still, if you know what I mean. We know very little about these mechanisms. One would need to… Let’s do it like this: I will take you to the section — all men from whom we expect no progress — and let you go in on your own. Don’t worry. There are no aggressive or dangerous patients in there.’

‘So I’ll be alone when…?’ Chanele said, and her mouth was dry. ‘How will I recognise him?’

‘He’ll probably be lying on the floor. He often does that. Sometimes he lies there motionless for hours. We used to try and get him out of that compulsive state. Forced him onto a chair and even tied him to it. My predecessor… I gave instructions for him to be left alone. He doesn’t do anyone any harm, and perhaps…’ With a gesture of resignation he pointed to a crowded shelf. ‘We have so many books, and we know so little.’

‘He lies on the floor?’ Nothing was as Chanele had imagined.

‘Sometimes for hours at a time. Then in between he’s quite unremarkable again. Hides in his corner and watches the others. They recognise him by his white doctor’s coat. One of these modern things. I gave it to him. I let him talk me into it once, because lots of colleagues in Berlin… But I’ll have to get used to it now. He’s happier when he wears something white. He says that’s how it has to be.’

‘Why?’

Dr Hellstiedl spread his arms wide, a movement that made Chanele think of Salomon. ‘Ask him!’ he said. ‘It’s almost always possible to talk to him. When he’s on his feet he even talks to the other inmates. Tells them he will soon be a father.’

‘A father?’

Dr Hellstiedl nodded and shrugged at the same time. ‘“In case it’s a boy”, he’s invited me. To that party that the Jews have at a circumcision. But if that’s the case, as we suspect, Frau Meijer…? If that’s the case there will be no circumcision. Because you are not a boy.’ Dr Hellstiedl rose to his feet. ‘Let us postpone it no longer,’ he said. ‘Come, Frau Meijer, I will take you to your father.’

They walked — thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight — along a corridor on whose walls red tiles framed non-existent windows, turned — seventy-four, seventy-five, seventy-six — into a second corridor so similar to the first that Chanele almost expected to meet herself waiting there, left the building through a back door and crossed a deserted courtyard, followed — one hundred and twenty-one, one hundred and twenty-two, one hundred and twenty-three — a narrow gravel path that crunched under their shoes, and then, through a side entrance that Dr Hellstiedl had to open with an outsize key, entered the old castle — one hundred and seventy-three, one hundred and seventy-four, one hundred and seventy-five — through two rooms in which decommissioned plank beds were stacked into towers, reached a staircase, once the magnificent entrance to the castle, climbed up one curved flight of stairs and then another — two hundred and twenty-six, two hundred and twenty-seven, two hundred and twenty-eight — then Dr Hellstiedl unbolted a grille, pointed to an open door and said to Chanele, ‘So, do you dare?’

Two hundred and forty-seven.

Two hundred and forty-seven is the gematria of moyreh.

Moyreh means fear.

‘Frau Meijer?’

If you don’t speak, your voice can’t fail. Chanele nodded. And went inside.

The room was high and bright. Over the windows were curtains of dirty tulle, which did little to keep out the harsh sunlight. The crossed bars of the grille appeared as dark lines on the pale fabric. Protruding from the ceiling was a big iron hook, from which a chandelier would once have hung, and on the walls the remains of stucco ornaments in the form of woven wreaths could be discerned. The floor was covered with roughly planed boards that creaked when someone walked over them. Hanging in the air was the smell of sweat and old clothes.

There were about fifteen or twenty men. Most of them sat at a long table with benches lined up beside it, the others stood around somewhere in the room, singly or in groups. One man had put a broom handle over his shoulder like a rifle, and was marching repeatedly from one wall to the other in a military goosestep, performing a ragged turn every time he got to the end. Without the disturbance of his movement, the atmosphere would not have been much different from men’s shul at the start of prayers.

None of the men were lying on the floor, and Chanele couldn’t see anyone in a white overall.

The patients weren’t dressed identically. A few of them wore quite proper suits, as if they had been invited to an official gathering, others, like poor relatives, only peasant trousers and coarse shirts. Some of the patients’ clothing had bizarre features, as with the marching man who had fastened several spoons as medals to his jacket. Another wore a tatty tailcoat over his bare chest.