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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
part 4
You know you’ve reached a new level of mental exhaustion when you stop fearing for the lives of your own children. My suicidal ideations have tapered off. I’ve stopped thinking of creative and stealthy ways of ending my own life. I have heard of Wehrmacht officers and reconnaissance pilots keeping potassium cyanide capsules on hand to avoid a potentially torturous death in the hands of their captors. Technically, I could procure one for myself. I suspected that if the Gestapo came for me, neither Koch nor Mezger would rise to my defense, despite their promises to keep me out of harm’s way.
Two days after my visit to Mezger’s house, Hamburger ambushed me in the hallway of the clinic and squeezed my shoulder.
“Well done, Asperger.”
“What did I do?”
“I’m glad to see you’re getting so chummy with the Gestapo.”
By God, it’s not easy to keep secrets around here. My encounters with the agents did not go unnoticed. I swear, the clinic must have its own spies.
“Isn’t that what you wanted?” I asked. “For the past five years you’ve been telling me to build cordial rapport with the police.”
“And finally, you took my advice to heart! Look at you, rubbing elbows with all the right people. You want the boys from the Hotel Metropole on your side. Like it or not, they are here to stay. Not for a thousand years, perhaps, but for the next ten. You’re learning the rules of the game, Asperger.”
I was not sure what my superior was trying to insinuate. Did he know of the falsified diagnoses I had been writing? Was it his cryptic way of telling me that he approved of my actions?
Hamburger yawned and rubbed the back of his neck. “Forgive me, I didn’t get much sleep. Before I forget, there’s a work-related matter to discuss. The two autistics in your care, Gerhard and Friederich.”
“What about them?”
“I think you’ve done enough work with them. It’s time to move them to another facility. Don’t you think?”
I might have stopped worrying about my own children, but my patients were a different story. I was not ready to give them up without a fight.
“Not quite. I’m only starting to make progress. It would be a shame to throw away all my hard work.”
“There’s always more hard work to be done. I don’t need to tell you what to do, Asperger. See that they are moved out of the clinic by the end of this week. I have a new batch of lab mice for you to play with. There’s an epileptic and a juvenile schizophrenic among them. It’s good to change things up a little. When you work with the same patients, you stagnate. And in our line of work, stagnation is pretty much a kiss of death.”
He gave my shoulder one more squeeze and produced another yawn, showing the decay on his back teeth. Seriously, such ugly teeth should be outlawed. I pitied anyone who came in contact with him, from clinicians to nurses to patients. Men with such rotten mouths should be banned from the Volk.
“I’ll think of something,” I replied, hiding my revulsion expertly. “I’ll make the boys go away.”
“Of course, you will. By next week, you won’t remember their names.”
The same night I returned to the house in Landstraße near St. Mark’s Cemetery. Apparently, Mezger was off duty that night, as I spotted his car in the driveway. The lights were on. I saw Frau’s pregnant silhouette floating in front of the window on the second floor. She must have been putting the children to sleep. As much as it pained me to disturb this fragile illusion of domestic bliss, I rang the doorbell. The cheerful Slavic maid appeared and greeted me as she would an old friend.
“Good evening, Doctor! Will you have some room for schnitzel? It’s still warm. Herr Mezger is finishing supper. Surely, he’d love your company.”
The man of the house appeared, wearing a wool sweater and slippers. There were breadcrumbs and greasy stains on the collar of his shirt.
“It looks like our paths won’t part any time soon,” I said to him. “We’re stuck with each other.”
Jana gave her master a quizzical look. “Do you want me to leave? I can help Frau tuck the children in.”
“No,” Mezger replied softly, “you can stay. You already know our family secrets.”
“And I’m good at keeping them,” the girl added boastfully.
“We all have secrets, Jana. Dr. Asperger is almost a friend. I’m much indebted to him.”
“You certainly are,” I replied. “And I’m here to collect the debt. Your wife mentioned that you had an acquaintance in Italy. A young man, a former medical student?”
My question made the Gestapo agent tense up. He could guess where the conversation was going, and he did not like it. “It’s been a few years. Last I heard, he was settled somewhere in the north.”
Mezger was deliberately keeping things vague. North of Italy could mean anything, from Bolzano, to Turin, to Bologna. I was not going to let his vagueness deter me.
“Excellent. Not too far from the border. I have two boys I need you to take across. They won’t fit in your personal car. You’ll need to borrow your work vehicle.”
I saw the color draining from Mezger’s face, shade by shade. Within seconds, it went from red, to pale pink, to waxy grey. “My... work vehicle?”
“Yes, the one you use for transporting your victims — I mean, enemies of the Reich. Your Mercedes 260D sedan looks more than suitable for the mission. You’ll put the boys in the back and drive them across the border and drop them off at the first settlement. Tarviso is one option.”
“You speak in riddles, Doctor. Who are these children anyway?”
“You don’t need to know. Let’s just say, our current medical establishment cannot meet their needs. Your old friend, the former medical student, will know what to do with them. I’m sure he’s retained some of his knowledge, as you have retained his coordinates. Tell him you’re sending him marzipans, to honor an old friendship. He’ll understand the message.”
Mezger was clearly shocked and frightened by how much I knew about his family and how swiftly I managed to put together a plan. “You’re mad, Doctor.”
“We live in a mad world, Herr Mezger.”
“I’d be putting my neck on the line.”
“As I have done for you and some of your colleagues who shall not be named. I have friendly connections at the Imperial Hotel. We all need favors now and then. Collaboration goes both ways.”
Mezger pulled a loose wool thread from his sweater.
“Perhaps, I can send Leina as well,” he murmured in a tone of resignation. “I know we have that paper from you, but I think Italy is a better place for her to be. They’re more lenient to children who are... atypical. I’d sleep better at night.”
Color started returning to his face. Clearly, my scheme was growing on him.
“Good thinking,” I said. “I was going to suggest that myself, but you beat me to it. So glad we see eye to eye. You can tell your coworkers that she died of diphtheria. It will take me two seconds to issue a death certificate. You can even create a grave. You live next to a cemetery. How convenient is that?”
“Yes, yes,” Mezger whispered, his enthusiasm swelling by the second. “I better tell my wife to start packing Leina’s things. Jana, you start packing too.”
The Slav girl, who had been in the room all that time, listening to our conversation with great interest, was shaken. “Why me? What do I have to do with this?”
“The children will need someone to supervise them in Italy, and you’re the only one I can think of. You’ll have to stay there for a while. Our friend cannot handle all three on his own.”
She shook her head, causing the blonde braids to toss about her bosom. “You cannot send me away!”
“Jana, you’re my slave. I can have you for dinner if I want to. Luckily for you, I’ve grown fond of you. We’ve pulled you out of communist claws and shown you civilization.”
“But I love this country,” the girl sobbed.
“You’ll love Italy, too.”
“But the Führer—”
“Italy has its own Führer.”
“I can’t even pronounce his name. Masso... Musso...”
“Mussolini. He’s Hitler’s friend.”
“Like Dr. Asperger is your friend?”
“Something like that.”
“I don’t even speak Italian.”
“You didn’t speak German either, when you first came here. Look at you now! So much potential. You’ll learn Italian. And our friend, whom you’ll be meeting, is very nice and handsome. With a sharp jawline like his, he could be in films. Who knows? Maybe you’ll talk him out of the priesthood. I know you had your heart set on marrying a German, and he is one. Just not on German territory. Things don’t always go according to plan.”
“This is all making me very, very sad.”
Mezger pulled out a handkerchief and gave it to Jana. “Listen to me, child. This is important. Vienna isn’t this safe oasis you imagine it to be. You don’t want to be here when our enemies come. And they will come!”
The girl gasped and dropped the snotty handkerchief. “How can you say such horrible things, Herr Mezger? Surely, you don’t mean them.”
“I wish it weren’t true, dear girl, but we’re going to lose. It’s not looking good for the Reich. Our troops were humiliated at Stalingrad. The leaders are starting to realize that. If Russians march into Vienna and find you here, they will grab you and take you back. They’ll punish you in the most gruesome ways. Is that what you want?”
“I’d rather kill myself.”
“I believe you. That’s why I want you out of Vienna. Start packing.”
The girl went into the room, wailing softly, mourning her Aryan dream.
So, the cat was out of the bag. Mezger just confirmed what so many had been suspecting for months: Germans had made fools of themselves at Stalingrad. I should know! My own younger brother had died there. Of course, the press tried to downplay the defeat as a temporary setback, but the insiders knew things were not looking good.
That night Friedrich, Gerhard and Leina stopped existing on paper. I issued three death certificates, citing pneumonia for the boys and diphtheria for the girl. By six o’clock in the morning, they were on the road to Italy, stuffed in the back of the black Mercedes. By nightfall, a fresh grave appeared at the cemetery in the same plot where the Mezger ancestors were buried. Take a moment to applaud our efficiency. I could not be prouder of my part in this operation.
When I returned to the clinic, I had new “lab mice” waiting for me: two epileptics and one nonverbal autistic psychopath, mislabeled as schizophrenic. The last part was downright ridiculous. You never diagnose an eight-year old with schizophrenia, even if he claims to see things and hear voices. I’d like a few words with the doctor who wrote “schizophrenia” in the child’s medical chart. Charlatans like that are a disgrace to the medical establishment.
That vexing bit aside, Hamburger was a man of his word. I had fresh material to work with. I was eager to get to know my new patients to see if any of them could be salvaged. The boy labeled as schizophrenic was showing some musical talent. He claimed angels were singing into his ears. How endearing is that? I could not let him perish. I was thankful he had ended up in my care.
At the end of the day, Hamburger came by to see me. When he had some important matter to discuss, he always stopped by my office instead of summoning me to his.
“I know what you’ve been up to, and I don’t mind it one bit,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that others won’t, so I’d keep it quiet. I think you found a clever workaround. If other countries are willing to absorb our biological waste, I won’t stand in the way. There’s no explicit law against dumping it outside the Reich. Soon, Italian monasteries will be filled with German retards. I’m all for it. I don’t want those little morons to die. They don’t deserve such a grisly fate. Does that shock you? I’m not some sort of monster.”
No, he was not a monster. I was starting to come to that realization. Hamburger had made sure the boy who heard angels’ voices was brought to me, of all clinicians, because he knew I would not throw that child to the wolves. Despite his spiteful language and arrogant demeanor, Hamburger had his own stealthy part in the scheme. The epiphany had such an impact on my nervous system, that I became lightheaded and fainted.
When I regained consciousness, my glasses were still firmly planted on my nose. Good thing, I did not fall on my face. Apparently, I slipped under my desk. One nurse was checking my pulse, another one was fanning me with a folder. Hamburger brought me supper and advised me to spend the night at the clinic. He seemed very concerned for my well-being. He could not run the clinic without me.
The next day I received orders to serve as a military doctor for the Wehrmacht. The plan was to undergo nine months of training and then join the 392nd Infantry Division in Croatia by the end of the year. The division’s mission was to keep order on the occupied territories of Yugoslavia. There was too much partisan activity.
I wasn’t sure what the ultimate plan was, or if there was one at all. I was certainly no military strategist, but it felt like someone above was shifting the chess figures across the board without any purpose. The Führer was feeling mighty stupid, I imagined, with his ardent followers catching on. The army must have been desperate for doctors, since pediatricians were being pulled from their clinics. Hamburger would not be happy to lose me, but it was not up to him. It would be interesting to work with adult men for a change and get a feel for their collective morale and vision for the future. I could make them talk candidly.
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Copyright © 2025 by Marina J. Neary