Richard Gordon - THE INVISIBLE VICTORY

The doctor was wizened, bent, white-haired, in a patched white coat with a stethoscope sticking from the pocket. I explained briefly who I was, and what I knew.

'Yes, Frдulein Dieffenbach was delivered safely of a daughter four days ago.' He clasped his bony hands together. 'You knew about her parents? That was terrible, terrible. Dr Dieffenbach was one of our most esteemed practitioners, and did enormous good here in Wuppertal.'

'May I see her?'

'I think that would be inadvisable. She is very, very ill.'

I asked in alarm, 'What's the matter?'

'Puerperal fever,' he told me starkly. 'We try to keep infection down as much as we can, but it is difficult with the sterilizing plant worn out like everything else.'

'You're treating her with sulphonamides?' I asked at once.

'Unfortunately not with the effect I should have hoped,' he replied wearily. 'She may be infected with the staphylococcus-we cannot tell, with our restricted facilities. Culturing pus to identify the infecting germ is a luxury we must forgo. And of course the sulpha drugs don't touch the staphylococcus. I have to use my clinical nose-' He tapped his nostril.

'What about penicillin?'

He sighed. 'Ah! That is not for us Germans.'

'Her life's in danger?'

'That's undeniable. Of course, much depends on her natural strength. But none of us is bursting with health these days.'

'I must see her. I knew her family well before the war. It might put heart into her, to fight the illness off.'

I went up an ill-lit stone staircase in the company of the doctor and the memory of Rosie. Gerda lay in a bed at the end of a small ward, separated from her neighbour by a white screen. She had not changed as much as I had feared. Her hair was two long plaits of pale gold, tied by the nurses with a pair of bows made from bandages. She was flushed with fever, thin, her face lined. Her mouth was a little open, and looked as soft as ever.

'Oh…!' She lay against a pile of pillows staring at me, no expression on her face at all.

I smiled. 'Remember how we went to work together on the Schwebebahn?' I asked in German.

'Herr Elgar…'

She stretched out her hand. I clasped it, hot and damp. I suddenly recalled _Blondie of the Follies._

'You know why I'm here?' she said in a whisper.

I nodded. 'I know all about it. I'm enormously sorry for you.'

'It was something sudden, unexpected. I never thought it could happen to me.' She dropped her eyes, the effort of looking up at me too much. 'I often thought about you during the war, hoping that you were all right. And that American with the big white car…I wondered if he was alive or dead. He had so much money.'

'He's alive, and has even more.'

She made a feeble smile. 'I'm not very well. I have a fever which sometimes complicates this state. But the child is all right, thank God.'

I felt simple astonishment at her affection for the cause of her pitiful state. Then it struck me that a man can never understand such emotions. And that Gerda was one of those women who long for motherhood but are frightened by its means. 'You'll get better soon.'

She made no response. Turning her eyes to me again, she said, 'I'm not a Nazi, you know. I never was. I had to say and do certain things which I was ashamed of. But the alternative…

Mindful of the old doctor in the background, I said, 'You mustn't strain yourself. I'll come and see you again. I'll bring you some chocolate.'

'We'll have so much to talk about, Herr Elgar.' For a second she had a shade of her old vivacity. 'The war was such a pity, such a pity. The Nazis spoiled life for everyone in the world, not only for their own people. I should have gone to England with you, shouldn't I?'

We went downstairs. The doctor remarked, 'Perhaps we should try Ehrlich's intravenous arsenicals?'

'That's useless, useless.' I strode into the gloom of the winter evening, fastening the toggles of my duffle-coat, realizing that I was facing a choice more agonizing than Florey's over the disposal of his meagre, early supplies.

Gerda needed penicillin. It was denied the German population. I could have tried squeezing some from David Mellors, but the drug was scarce, carefully checked in the British and American military hospitals, a serious offence to give away. I had heard recently from Greenparish of some ampoules stolen and fetching enormous prices on the black market. It would be useless asking David, I quickly decided. And unfair, forcing him to choose between the chance of a court-martial and offending an old friend.

I returned to the mess, and sat in my luxuriously furnished bedroom trying to decide where my obligations lay. There were big risks and bigger principles involved. I shied from making up my mind, though I sensed my thoughts were irresistibly carrying me towards resolution. I opened my file of personal letters and took out Rudi's visiting card.

The address was on the north edge of the Elberfeld valley, up one of the long flights of stone steps. I climbed them counting-there were two hundred and sixty-four. At the top was a tall grey house, falling like a cliff on the steep slope. There were more stairs inside, unlit. I had to strike matches to read the number of Rudi's flat on the top floor. I banged a brass knocker fashioned like a Notre Dame gargoyle.

There was silence. Then someone shuffling behind the door. 'Who's there?' demanded a German voice, not Rudi's.

'Herr Elgar. From FIAT. I'm known to Count von Recklinghausen.'

More shuffling, more silence. I waited patiently for several minutes. Bolts were slipped back and the door opened. In the light of a further door standing ajar, I found myself facing a fattish man of about sixty, with a boyish red and white complexion and hair dyed bright blonde. He nodded towards the other door. 'Rudi's through there,' he said sullenly.

I entered a small room crammed with elaborately decorated antique furniture-a dresser with carefully arranged pewter platters, a cabinet of painted crockery, a hefty pear-shaped coffee-pot, the Drцppelminna, a local curio. All indicated that the owner had come down in the world. It was freezing cold, like all German houses, the paraffin stove reeking in the corner clearly newly lit for my reception. Rudi wore a red and black dressing gown of quilted silk over his sportsman's jacket.

'This is a pleasure,' he greeted me in his singsong English. 'Though not an unexpected one.'

'Would you like a cup of coffee? It's real.'

'No thank you. As you suspected, I've come on business. I want to get it over as soon as possible.'

Rudi began to dissertate infuriatingly, 'What do you think of the furniture? It is in the baroque style created by Count von Berg, who was once a big noise in the district. The flat belongs to Hans, who let you in. I'm lucky these disturbed times to find a roof over my head.'

'I've come about penicillin. I want to buy some.'

'To buy? But you of the master race have penicillin enough.'

'It's for a German.'

'I see.' He offered a packet of Lucky Strike, then lit one himself. 'What are you prepared to pay?'

'What's your usual charge?'

'You can have five days' supply for fifty pounds.'

'I haven't got fifty pounds.'

'Then I cannot help you.'

'I could have you imprisoned for these activities, remember.'

'Isn't that an empty threat? You would not dare to implicate yourself. I'm sure you can raise sufficient pound notes or dollars.'

'You know we're not supposed to have any currency except occupation marks.'

'I know that is a regulation often broken.'

There was silence. Rudi continued smoking unconcernedly. 'Your penicillin's stolen, I suppose?' I asked.

'You do me an injustice. It comes from a most respectable source-the kidneys of the Americans. The precious fluid is collected from the big Army hospitals round Frankfurt, the penicillin reclaimed by a chemist from I G Farben here in Wupertal. At first I thought the process utterly revolting, then merely bizarre. It recalls our name for the weak beer during the war-"Hitler's bladder irrigation".'