“But it’s not radiation poisoning.”
“Radiation poisoning?” Gustav said, surprised. “Why would you think such a thing? Where would he be exposed to radiation? Do you think the Soviets are exploding bombs? That would be news.”
“What about the lesions on his legs?”
“Rat bites,” he said, matter of fact. “He said they were forced to work in wet conditions. It’s easy to infect a puncture in the skin.”
“The wet conditions were pitchblende waste. Uranium. They’d be radioactive.”
Gustav looked up. “You’re sure about this? Where? You should go to the authorities with such information.”
“Yes, but first let’s get him well. If it is radiation-”
Gustav shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. Everything depends on the exposure-how much, how far away you are. A bomb, of course, death. But other exposures, a matter of weeks, no more. A big exposure, you vomit the first week, less than that the second week, and so on, but almost never more than four. He’s been sick longer than that. So poisoning, no.” He stopped. “Of course, a continued exposure, even a low dose, can lead to cancer. Maybe the case here, I can’t say.”
“What would that mean?”
“Lung cancer? There is no cure for lung cancer.”
“It’s the lungs?”
Gustav nodded. “That’s why I think tuberculosis. He hasn’t been coughing blood. Yet. Otherwise, the signs are there. But I need-”
“An X-ray, I know. So where can we get one?”
“A hospital. But without papers? An escaped prisoner? We are obliged to hand such a person over.”
Alex started to say something, then stopped, pressing the edge of the desk to stay calm. The only doctor they could see.
“And if it is TB? What do we do?”
“Do? Well, in the old days, a sanitarium. Lots of eggs and mountain air. Like Thomas Mann.” A nod to Alex, as if this were a writer’s joke. “Now streptomycin. If you could get it. It’s effective. They’ve only been making it since ’44 but the results with tuberculosis are good.”
“Can you get some? At the hospital?”
“In Berlin? My friend, even penicillin is difficult. We keep asking for more. Streptomycin?”
“So where-?”
“The Americans would have it. Their hospital, down in Dahlem. But that’s only for the military. If you really want to do this, start this treatment, you have to get him to the West.”
“The West?”
“Herr Meier, the Russians think aspirin is a miracle drug. There is nothing over there. The American hospital won’t treat civilians. You have to take him west. The hospitals there-”
“Now? Through the blockade.”
“Yes, thanks to your new friends.” He raised his eyebrows. “Erich told me, you’re a guest of the Soviets. And what will they think, your hosts, of you helping a fugitive?”
Alex looked at him. “Who would tell them? And implicate himself?”
Mutter said nothing, turning this over.
“And meanwhile he’s sick. He’s family.”
“Not yours.”
“No, yours.”
“Let me say again. I can’t help him and neither will the Soviets. You need to get him west.” He looked over, almost pleased. “An interesting dilemma for you.”
“There must be something you could give him. He’s shivering. Even I can hear it when he talks, all the congestion, maybe it’s pleurisy, pneumonia, I don’t know. You’re the doctor.” He stopped. “He won’t have to wait for TB to get him if he doesn’t get through this.”
“You understand, it’s illegal, what you’re asking.”
“You’re a doctor.”
“Now you sound like the Americans. A doctor should answer to a higher authority. What authority, an oath? The conscience? Then everything breaks down.”
“Everything has,” Alex said quietly.
Mutter looked up. “All great humanitarians, the Americans. When it’s someone else on trial. What would they have done, do you think?”
“I didn’t come here to put anyone on trial. I just want medicine for Erich. He’s sick. You’re a doctor.”
Mutter turned away, hesitating, then went over to the dispensary bureau. “Wait a minute,” he said, rummaging through the drawer. He came back with a tube and a handful of vials and small bottles. “For the legs,” he said, handing Alex the tube of salve. “Once a day only. These twice, once before food, yes? It’s not much, but it should help. Believe it or not, rest and liquids are even more important. The old remedies. Of course, this does nothing for whatever’s really wrong. Working in mines-the dust, think of the damage. The conditions were harsh?”
Alex nodded.
“Well, I don’t put anything past the Russians.”
“No.”
He glanced up, catching Alex’s expression. “Or the Germans? Is that what you were going to say? You don’t come to judge, but you do. Such terrible people. So now we’re all guilty. Do you include yourself?”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
“No? Why, because you already know? Someone not even here? How can I tell you what it was like? What we had to do? I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Start with my parents. They were-what? Racial impurities? Now they’re nothing. Smoke. Start with them.”
“And you blame me for that?”
“Who do you blame? I’d like to know. Or do you think it happened all by itself?”
For a minute neither said anything, then Alex held up one of the bottles.
“Thank you for this. I won’t say where we got it.”
Mutter half turned, waving his hand in dismissal, no longer meeting Alex’s eyes. “He needs antibiotics,” he said quietly. “Streptomycin. Get him to the West.”
Alex fed him soup and more tea and put him to bed, under the covers.
“But it’s your-”
“I’ll take the couch. We can switch when you’re better.” He held Erich’s head up, spooning him medicine. “Gustav said this would bring the fever down.”
When Erich lay back his face became Fritz’s, the same tall forehead and high cheeks, so that for a second Alex felt he was nursing the old man, some odd transference. Not blustering for once, eyes half closed, a child’s trust. Alex lifted the edge of the sheet and started spreading the salve on Erich’s leg. “Gustav said these were rat bites. Yes?”
“In the barracks. At night. They waited for you to go to sleep.” He reached over to Alex’s arm. “I won’t go back there.”
“No.”
“But if they come?”
“They won’t. Go to sleep. I’m just outside.”
But what if they did? Alex walked through the apartment. A good view of the street from the windows. An armoire, big enough to hide in, if this were a French farce. The back door out the kitchen led to service stairs, a utility closet on the next landing, not locked, something Erich could reach in seconds. Alex looked up-presumably the stairs went all the way to the roof. But why would anyone come, unless they’d been told, in which case they’d search everywhere and there’d be no real escape. The only way to be safe was to be nonexistent, unseen, unheard. Alex scoured the apartment for listening bugs-lightbulb sockets, behind the watercolor of a Wilhelmine street scene, the telephone mouthpiece. Nothing. A trusted guest of the Soviet Military Administration.
Erich was asleep when Alex left for the reception at Aufbau Verlag. A table with coffee and cakes had been set out in the boardroom, the staff crowded around it, curious and deferential. The art director showed him mock-ups of the jackets for his books. There was a polite joke about the author’s photo, now a good ten years old. Aaron Stein, after a public toast, introduced him to smaller groups, department by department, then led him into his office.
“I know, I should give them up,” he said, offering Alex a cigarette. “Helga says they’ll kill me. Well, something will.” A cultured, almost elegant voice that reminded Alex of his mother. Someone who’d been to school, who could play the piano.