Every Man Dies Alone (67 page)

Chaplain Friedrich Lorenz, who worked tirelessly in the prison, was a man in his prime, which is to say around forty, very tall, narrowchested, forever coughing, a man marked by tuberculosis but who ignored his illness because his work left him no time to attend to and remedy his health. A pair of dark sideburns framed his pale face with its dark bespectacled eyes and fine sharp nose, but he was clean-shaven about the mouth, which was large and thin-lipped, and about his firm round chin.

This was the man for whom hundreds of inmates waited every day—their only friend in the building, and moreover a bridge to the world outside, to whom they could tell their fears and tribulations and who did all in his power to help them—far more, at any rate, than he was officially allowed to do. He went tirelessly from cell to cell, never desensitized to the sufferings of others, always oblivious to his own, and perfectly fearless where his own person was concerned. He was a true shepherd, never asking after the faith of the men and women coming to him for help, happy to pray with them when that was what they wanted, a brother to all.

Chaplain Friedrich Lorenz is standing before the director’s desk, sweat beading on his brow, two hectic splotches of red on his cheeks, but he says perfectly calmly, “This is the seventh case of death by neglect in the past two weeks.”

“It says pneumonia on the death certificate,” replies the director, not bothering to look up from whatever he is writing.

“The doctor is falling down in his duty,” says the chaplain stubbornly, rapping gently on the desk with his knuckles, as though asking to be let in. “It hurts me to have to say so, but the doctor is drinking too much. He is neglecting his patients.”

“Oh, the doctor’s fine,” the director replies casually, and goes on writing. He refuses to admit the chaplain. “I wish you were doing as good a job. Tell me, did you slip No. 397 a secret communication or didn’t you?”

Finally, their eyes meet, those of the ruddy-faced director, with his face full of dueling scars, and those of the cleric burning with fever.

“It’s the seventh case in two weeks,” insists Chaplain Lorenz. “The prison needs a new doctor.”

“I just asked you a question, Chaplain. Would you have the kindness to give me an answer?”

“Yes, I took No. 397 a letter, but no secret communication. It was a letter from his wife, telling him that his third son was not dead, as feared, but a prisoner of war. He has already lost two sons, and thought his third was also dead.”

“You always seem to find some justification to violate prison regulations, Chaplain. But I’m not going to stand for it much longer.”

“I request that the doctor be replaced,” repeats the chaplain, rapping softly on the desk.

“Bah, nonsense!” the red-faced director suddenly explodes. “Don’t bother me with your idiotic chatter! The doctor’s a good doctor; he’s staying! As for you, you should see to it that you obey prison rules occasionally, otherwise something will happen to you.”

“What could happen to me?” asks the chaplain. “I can die. I shall die. Very soon. But I’m asking you to replace the prison doctor.”

“You’re a fool, Chaplain,” said the director coldly. “I’m assuming your illness has affected your mental powers. If you weren’t such a harmless idiot—as I say, a bloody fool!—you’d have been strung up long ago! You’re lucky I feel pity for you!”

“You should try a little pity on your prisoners,” the chaplain replied, just as coldly. “And get hold of a decent doctor.”

“Close the door when you go, Chaplain.”

“Do I have your word that you’ll get a new doctor?”

“No, goddamnit, no! Go to hell!”

Then the director lost his temper after all, jumped up behind his desk and took two steps toward the chaplain. “Do you want me to throw you out by force? Is that what you want?”

“I don’t think the prisoners working in your outer office would like that. It might destroy the last vestiges of authority you have over them. But do as you please, director!”

“Idiot!” said the director, but the chaplain’s threat had cooled his blood sufficiently for him to sit down again. “Now get lost. I’ve got work to do.”

“The most urgent work you have is the recruiting of a new doctor.”

“Do you suppose your pigheadedness makes the least difference? It’s quite the opposite! I’m keeping the doctor if it’s the last thing I do.”

“I can remember a day,” the chaplain said, “when you yourself weren’t quite so satisfied with the present doctor. It was night, and it was raining hard. You had called for other doctors, but they didn’t come. Your six-year-old son Berthold had a middle ear infection and was howling with pain. His life was in danger. In answer to your pleas, I got the prison doctor. He was drunk. When he saw the dying child, he lost whatever composure he had. He looked at his shaking hands, which made any surgical incision impossible, and he burst into tears.”

“The filthy drunk!” murmured the director, with abruptly darkened brow.

“Your Berthold’s life was saved by the intervention of another doctor. But what happened then could happen again at any time. You are proud not to be a Christian, Director, but I tell you: God is not mocked!”

Reluctantly, without looking up, the director said, “All right, Chaplain, you can go now.”

“And the doctor?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, Director. Many people will thank you.”

The man of God walked through the prison, a bizarre figure in his worn black surplice out at elbows, his tattered black pants, his thick-soled boots, and his crooked black tie. Some of the warders greeted him; others turned away ostentatiously at his approach, only to peer after him suspiciously once he had gone. But all the prisoners who were busy in the corridors looked at him—they weren’t allowed to greet him—with gratitude.

The man of God passes through many iron doors and down flights of iron steps, holding onto iron banisters. Hearing sobbing from a cell, he stops a moment, only to shake his head and quickly go on. He walks down an iron corridor, and on either side of him are the open doors of darkened cells, punishment cells, but there is a light on in the room in front of him. The chaplain stops and looks inside.

In an ugly, dirty room a fat man with a glowering gray face is staring at seven men, who are completely naked and trembling pathetically with cold under the eyes of two warders.

“Well, my beauties!” growls the man. “What are you shaking like that for? Cold? Ach, come on, you don’t know what cold is—you wait till you’re in the basement, on bread and water, lying on bare cement…”

He stops. He has seen the quiet, observant shape in the doorway.

“Senior Warder,” he orders crossly, “take them away! They’re all healthy, and up to solitary. Here’s your authorization.”

He scribbles a signature under a list of names and hands it to the official.

The prisoners file past the chaplain, not without directing pitiful, anxious glances at him.

The chaplain waits for the last of them to pass, and only then does he enter the room and say, “I hear No. 352 is dead as well. And I’d asked you…”

“What can I do, Chaplain? I sat with the man myself for two hours, making cold compresses for him.”

“In that case I must have been asleep. I had the impression I’d been up all night with him. And there was nothing wrong with his lungs, either; it was No. 357 who had pneumonia. Hergesell in 352 had a fractured skull.”

“We should change places if you’re such an expert,” the chubby man said sarcastically. “I’ll be the God bloke.”

“My only worry is you’d be an even worse chaplain than you are a doctor.”

The doctor laughed. “I love it when you get fresh with me, padre. Wouldn’t you like me to check out your lungs some time?”

The chaplain persisted, “No, I’ll leave that to another doctor.”

“I don’t need to look at you to tell you that you won’t last another three months,” the doctor went on maliciously. “I know you’ve been spitting blood since May—you won’t have long to wait till your first hemorrhage.”

The chaplain might have turned a shade paler at this cruel news, but his voice didn’t shake as he said, “And how long till the prisoners you just showed into solitary in the blackout cell have their first hemorrhage, Medical Councillor?”

“The prisoners are all healthy and up to solitary—according to medical evidence.”

“They were never even examined.”

“Are you commenting on the way I do my job? I warn you! I know more about you than you think!”

“And with my first hemorrhage your knowledge becomes worthless! By the way, it’s already behind me…”

“What? What have you got behind you?”

“My first hemorrhage—it was three or four days ago.”

The doctor stood up a little stiffly. “Well, come along then, padre, I’ll examine you upstairs in my office. I’ll see that you get sick leave right away. We’ll write Switzerland on the application, and while they’re making up their minds on that you can go to Thuringia.”

The chaplain, with the half-drunk doctor clutching his arm, stood there immobile. “And what happens in the meantime to the men in solitary? Two of them are certainly in no condition to endure the damp, the cold, and the hunger, and all seven will receive permanent harm.”

The doctor replied, “Sixty percent of the people here will be executed. At least thirty-five of the remaining forty will be sentenced to long periods in jail. What do a couple of months matter either way?”

“If that’s the way you think, you have no right to call yourself a doctor. I call on you to renounce your profession!”

“My successor’s not going to think any differently! So why bother?” The medical councillor laughed. “Come on, chaplain, let me examine you. You know I’ve got a soft spot for you, even though you’re forever agitating against me. You’re a complete Quixote!”

“I have just come from agitating against you. I asked the director to have you replaced, and got at least half-consent from him.”

The doctor started laughing. He clapped the chaplain on the back, and exclaimed, “Oh, padre, you are priceless, and I am deeply in your debt! If I am indeed replaced, it’ll mean that they kick me upstairs, and I’ll become senior medical councillor and won’t have to do any more work. I can never thank you enough, padre!”

“Why don’t you show your gratitude then by taking Kraus and little Wendt out of solitary? They’ll never survive it. Your negligence has contributed to seven deaths in the last fortnight.”

“Ooh, you do flatter me! But I find it impossible to turn you down. I’ll fetch them out tonight. If I did it right away, just after signing them in, it would look a little too much like vacillation. Wouldn’t you say, padre?”

Chapter 59

TRUDEL HERGESELL, NÉE BAUMANN

The transfer to remand prison had parted Trudel Hergesell from Anna Quangel. It was hard for Trudel to do without her “Mother.” She had long since forgotten that Anna was responsible for her arrest, or rather, she hadn’t forgotten it, but forgiven it. More, she had understood that really there was nothing to forgive. No one could stand up to those interrogations—those wily inspectors could twist the most harmless incidentals into something that would cost you your neck.

Now that Trudel was without her mother, she had no one to talk to. She could only be silent about her former happiness, about her fears for Karli that were now consuming her. Her new cell mate was an elderly, wizened woman—the two of them had detested each other from the moment they saw each other, and this woman was forever whispering to the warders and overseers. When the chaplain was in the cell, she made sure she caught every word.

It was through the chaplain that Trudel had managed to get some news of her Karli, while Frau Hänsel, her cell mate, was paying a call on the administration—no doubt to plunge some other poor woman into misfortune with her relentless tale-bearing. The chaplain had told Trudel that her husband was in the same prison; he was sick, in and out of consciousness, but Lorenz was at least able to bring her a greeting from him.

From that time forth, Trudel had lived for visits from the chaplain. Even when Frau Hänsel was in attendance, the reverend was able to smuggle her some news, one way or another. Often they would sit close together under the window on two stools, and Chaplain Lorenz would read some verses from the New Testament while Frau Hänsel stood by the opposite wall, her sharp eyes fixed on the pair of them.

For Trudel the Bible was something completely new. She was a product of Hitler’s educational system, and she had encountered no religion from that, and had never felt a religious urge in herself either. She had no sense of God. God for her was an exclamation: “Oh my God!” and so forth. One might as well exclaim “Great Scott!”—there was no real difference.

Even now that she was learning about the life of Christ from the Gospel according to Matthew, she told the chaplain that the term Son of God meant nothing to her. But Father Lorenz had merely smiled and said that didn’t matter for now. She was to concentrate on the way Jesus Christ had lived his life here on earth, and on how he had loved mankind, including even his enemies. She should interpret the “miracles” in any way that made sense to her, even as beautiful fairytales, but she should take account of the fact that a man had once lived in such a way that even two thousand years later, his influence was still unforgotten, an enduring proof of the fact that love was stronger than hate.