A Perfect Madness (37 page)

None of the doctors, including Erich,
remained in the examining room for the two hours it took to
ventilate the gassing room and remove the pile of dead bodies. They
would return to the hospital wards to tend to their regular
patients, should there be any. Erich, though, had few to treat in
the East Ward, for which he was glad, and spent his time reading
and talking with Maria. They had become close friends, as he said
to her one late afternoon, and they both agreed that nothing more
than friendship should be expected of the other. She reminded him
that she was very much married and loved Martin, though no letter
had come from him in months.

A letter did come to Maria one Friday
morning, but it was not from Martin. In the simplest of words, she
was informed by the Chancellery that her husband was missing in
action. Erich was with Maria when the news came, holding her until
there were no more tears left to shed, except those in her heart.
They then went to the rose garden by the hospital and sat together
where he held her hand, listening to rambling shattered stories of
who Martin was and all that he meant to her. When the time came for
Erich to return to the examining room, she promised to wait for
him, and they would talk more of Martin. Kissing her lightly on the
forehead, he squeezed Maria’s hand and left to face the remaining
hours of the day in a room full of people whose future no longer
really mattered, at least in a way they would know, because what
there might have been would soon end for all of them.

When he returned to the garden hours
later, the sun was resting low in the sky, lining puffs of clouds
with soft, red streaks that gradually became lost in gray as
evening moved closer. Erich stood in the garden for a brief moment
to look at the moving scene, as he had many times as a child in
Dresden. The changing colors had thrilled him then, quickening his
desire to become the painter his mother hoped he would be and his
father despised. “All life is brief, only a second before God,” she
had told him, “but art is forever.” Perhaps someday, he sighed,
when all was right again, he would trade the white coat for a
handful of brushes and paint such a scene.

Maria had left the moment Erich
disappeared from sight, returning to the East Ward to gather her
things and go first to the apartment and then the church. She knew
no one there, nor did she belong, but she loved its great doors
that swung open wide like two giant hands welcoming all who
entered. She had sat there alone for hours in the dark sanctuary,
asking God’s grace a hundred times to shine on her Martin’s life,
wherever he might be, and bring him home to her. But God’s grace
was nowhere near Martin, as he lay between the old man and his
comrade, rotting in the filth of the outhouse, never to be
found.

Finding Maria not at her apartment,
Erich went to where he knew she would be, in the great Evangelical
Lutheran church, whose twin spires seemed to go beyond heaven to
another world. Saying nothing, he sat down quietly next to her and
waited until she was ready to leave.

Later, he sat again with Maria in her
apartment, holding her at times while she cried, other times
listening to words that made little sense. Never before had Erich
felt someone else’s pain, and he doubted even now that what he was
experiencing might be such an emotion. Yet he had no explanation
for the moment. The closest time to now was when the grandfather he
loved so much was killed in the Great War. But even then it was a
selfish loss, quickly passing when others took his place. His
separation from Julia was a matter of the heart, an explainable
longing shared by all lovers, but there was never the searing pain
he saw in Maria. It seemed to smother her from head to toe,
allowing nothing to escape its crushing weight.

As the night aged, Maria fell asleep
in Erich’s arms, the anguish of Martin’s loss still brushed across
her face. He would stay the evening, sleeping fitfully next to her
soft body, lest she awaken and cry out again for him to hold her.
It was a new and strange experience for him. He had never finished
the night with a woman by his side. Not even with Julia. Their
times together were, for the most part, a precious gentle love
wrapped in brief moments of ecstasy.

Maria was different, though. Away from
the hospital and the starchiness of her nurse’s uniform, she exuded
sex in a fragile way that Julia never could, nor would he have
wanted her to. Even the smell of Maria’s sweat aroused the desire
to take her brutally and uncaring as one animal might another. He
had never experienced such a long night. Vile games came to him in
his mind, the kind psychiatrists since Freud have tried to analyze
and understand and sometimes called a sickness. They would stay
with him until the dawn, as he tried to understand what lay beneath
the terrible urge to use Maria, even though the empathy he felt for
her loss and pain seemed terribly real to him. Had the night been
an hour longer, he would have taken her, Erich knew, she was that
vulnerable.

At first light, ignoring Erich’s
presence next to her, Maria slipped out of bed and went to the
bathroom to bathe. Erich had already left for the hospital when she
returned, deciding to shave and wash in the doctors’ lounge near
the East Ward. When he arrived, Franz was waiting by the nurse’s
station to talk with him.

“
I have been ordered to
Auschwitz much sooner than expected,” he said, looking closely at
Erich’s ragged and unshaven appearance.

Erich noticed Franz’s attention but
said nothing.

“
I must leave this
afternoon,” Franz continued, “and I have asked that you take over
my duties here.”

Surprised by Franz’s gesture, Erich
was both elated and fearful by what else might now be expected of
him. He knew Franz was not the kind to help anyone unless there was
something for him to gain in doing so. That was the way the game
was played throughout the Reich, especially the Health Ministry.
Even those closest to the Chancellery knew their status always
depended on someone else a bit higher and closer to the catbird
seat than they were.

For a moment, Franz looked past Erich
at the empty nurse’s station.

“
Where is Nurse Drossen?
We are expecting more patients than usual this afternoon, and she
will be needed in the examining room.”

“
Her husband was reported
missing in action only yesterday. She is at home or the
church.”

“
Mourning in the church
will do her no good. God hates whiners. Let her mourn among the
crazies, where good will come to all of us by getting rid of them,”
Franz said, staring coldly at Erich for a second, then walking away
towards Dr. Heinze’s office.

Later, Erich returned to Maria’s
apartment to find her staring blankly at a letter from Martin,
which had arrived earlier in the morning. It seemed odd to him
there were no tears in Maria’s eyes, only a frightened look of
utter disbelief, the kind when nothing around you seems real.
Handing the letter to him, Maria pointed to the date—it had been
written months back but was only now reaching her.

“
He is dead. My heart felt
it last night. There is no need to pretend anymore,” Maria said
calmly in a soft voice.

Erich sensed Maria was probably right.
Only a lucky few who were missing in action ever returned to
reclaim their life.

Erich reached out to touch Maria, but
she quickly brushed his hand aside and moved away from
him.

“
What is it you want,
Erich, besides me?”

Erich could find no answer for a
second to Maria’s surprising words and turned to the kitchen stove
as if he were inspecting it.

“
Dr. Kremer knows of your
loss, and in his kind way has ordered you to be on duty this
afternoon in the examining room. There will be many patients to
process.”

“
It is right they should
die, but not my Martin. He was only a simple soldier trying to do
his duty. They are nothing and never will be,” Maria said with
anger, leaving Erich standing by the stove while she went to
dress.

When Maria returned, she was dressed
in a newly cleaned and pressed uniform, with her face covered in
powder as white as the uniform she was wearing, giving her a
ghostlike appearance. Erich’s stunned look made her smile, which
bothered him even more.

“
Don’t you like it? The
crazies will, I’m sure, looking at me, and maybe even laughing one
more time before we kill them,” she said, tracing a wide smile
across her mouth with bright red lipstick. Erich quickly took the
tube of lipstick away from her, placing it in his pocket, and led
her to the bedroom.

“
Go back to bed and end
this dream you are in. Dr. Kremer is leaving for Auschwitz and I
will cover for you for a few days, since I will be in
charge.”

Ignoring Erich’s presence, Maria began
disrobing. As he turned to leave she grabbed his arm, pulling him
towards her.

“
Come to bed with me. Be
my Martin for a little while,” she said, before bursting into loud
sobs, the tears slowly making their way through the heavy powder on
her face, carving small canyons before dripping from her chin. She
looked even more hideous now, standing naked with a face twisted
and smeared in a mixture of watery colored anguish.

Pushing her onto the bed and covering
up her nakedness with a sheet, Erich looked down at the crumbled
human mass before him and said in a commanding voice, “Stay away,
Maria, until you can see the world as it is, not from that of a
lost love.”

As he left then, Maria’s loud sobbing
pierced the air as he shut the door behind him.

When afternoon came, Franz had left
for Auschwitz and Erich moved tentatively to assume charge of the
ongoing T4 Operation taking place in the old prison. He had never
been particularly good at giving orders, and thought himself to be
a poor excuse for authority, directing men to do something they
might otherwise decline to do. Deciding beforehand to simply take
his place alongside the other examining doctors and say nothing, he
nodded to the SS staff to begin what had now come to be called “the
slaughtering line,” a name given to the naked patients waiting much
like steers lined up in a stockyard in preparation for their sudden
and violent death.

Within minutes the room was filled
with the same type of patients as those before, but Erich noticed a
small group of five had been segregated from the others, standing
quietly to themselves while they removed their clothing. When the
greater number had been examined and marked and stamped by the
nurses, the other doctors stepped back, leaving Erich to examine
the remaining five patients who were hurriedly shoved into a line
before him. Erich turned around to look at the doctors, now smoking
and talking among themselves.

“
Why are you stopping?
There are other patients?”

“
We do not want to touch
them. They are crazy Jews. They are to be separated here and
everywhere else,” the oldest and most distinguished of the doctors
replied.

“
Yes, they are for you to
examine, Dr. Heinze has ordered,” another one said
sarcastically.

Erich knew what was happening, he had
heard the rumors. Doctors everywhere were being tested to see if
they were loyal to the greater good of the Reich. Those that failed
would be sent away, without notice to family or anyone else. That
is what had happened to Dr. Schneider months back when the crippled
babies were being euthanized. Now these doctors were watching to
see what he would do, one especially, who was a Gestapo informant.
Any hesitation on his part could be seen as a failure.

Erich summoned the trembling group to
come forward. None in the group had ever shown themselves to
others, as they were doing now, standing naked before so many
staring eyes. All were from the same small crossroads village south
of Brandenberg, working at menial labor because of their slowness
of mind, yet earning their way in life. They were standing before
Erich because like the rest of the patients they had been reported
to the authorities as mentally ill and registered with the Health
Ministry as such. All five had been brought in a separate, smaller
bus from the other patients, with the windows painted over so no
one could see out or in. Strangely, though, they had been sent to
Görden for observation only, not as a part of the larger group.
Erich talked briefly to each about their work but did nothing else.
To touch them would separate him from the other doctors carefully
watching him. He knew, though, the Jews were healthy of mind from
their answers to his questions, and could perform meaningful work
if carefully taught to do so. His examination complete, Erich
ordered them marked and stamped and to be kept separate from the
rest of the waiting patients, before their short trip to the
gassing room. They would be the last to enter the room and the ones
he would see die, gasping for air as others in the room pushed them
away. Erich could not help but watch the irony of the terrible
scene playing out before his eyes. With death but moments away for
all trapped in the room together, separation from Jews was still
necessary for some.

Back in the examining room, Erich gave
a list of those gassed to the older doctor, directing him to write
the necessary letters to the families explaining their loved one’s
fictional death a week earlier than normal. No letters were
necessary for the five Jews, he decided. It would be as if they had
never come to Görden, or even existed.