By Blood (12 page)

Her mother’s eyes moistened and slowly overflowed, and finally one pendulous tear fell to the edge of her blouse. She looked down at the perfectly round spot in the white of the silk.

You’ll bring me a tissue, dear?

Thank you, darling, her mother said, after dabbing at her wet spot, then handing her daughter the crumpled tissue for disposal.

But you still haven’t told me what he said.

Her mother sighed. You see, sweetheart, at that moment I wasn’t sure I wanted him to go on. There we were, our little family, you being the delight that you were. And I wasn’t sure … but yes, I did ask him to go on.

So here is the whole story, dear. As quickly as I can tell it. The Church took in all sorts of children during the war, not all of them Catholic. While they were under the Church’s protection, most of them were baptized—they considered it a religious duty, evidently, though to me it seemed highly impertinent … Well. Never mind that.

In any case, she went on, all of the Jewish babies were baptized—immediately. And when the war ended, the Church was afraid their families would come looking for them. Some archbishop had made the decision: The Jewish children were not going back, even if their parents came for them.

So I was stolen! said the patient, already looking toward the end of the story.

Will you wait, dear! You wanted the whole story, and here it is. The Jewish children were not going back, even if their parents came for them. And especially if it was only aunts and uncles or distant relations looking for them. Or worse, there were community organizations and religious congregations—synagogues—looking for the Jewish children who had been given to the Church for protection. And they wanted them back, to send them to Palestine. You can understand how that wouldn’t necessarily be in the best interests of the children, giving them to organizations that would send them into Palestine, a contested zone. You know, the British were trying to keep the Jews out, to please the Arabs; and there were bombings, and terrorist actions. Certainly no place for an infant. You can understand why the Church wouldn’t want the babies to go there, can’t you? The archbishop said if by chance a child had not been baptized for some reason, it could go back. But no baptized Jewish child was to be given back. Period.

So I
was
stolen! said the patient. My mother probably died in a concentration camp, and the damn Catholic Church stole me away before any of my relatives could find me!

No, no. Father told me you were … given up in a displaced-persons camp. A D.P. camp, they called it. So this had to be after the war, after the camps were freed. So whatever happened, your birth mother didn’t die there, in a …

Concentration camp. Can’t you even say it? Concentration camp! But is it supposed to be some kind of relief—that she didn’t die in one?

Yes, dear. I would think so. Some relief. Your mother survived the war, she was in a displaced-persons camp, probably having great difficulties, and she gave you up to the Church so you would have a better life. You weren’t stolen. Father promised me you weren’t one of the stolen babies. At that time, no one was trying to get you back.

At that time? You mean someone came for me later?

No, darling. No one ever came for you.

And then her mother looked away.

I can’t describe it, the patient said to the doctor. The emptiness I suddenly felt. The sense of being abandoned—it’s always there. Part of being adopted is the knowledge that you were given away by someone. Abandonment is always in the background, a sort of platform that all the other feelings are stacked on. But now … It wasn’t a feeling but an actual fact. My mother dropped me off at the church and never came back. No one … no one ever came for me.

So I was abandoned, I said to Mother.

Surrendered
, dear, she said.

Then she sat quietly, only gazing off through the window. Jim Bracket had turned off his porch light, and now the world outside the room was completely black. The wind was down, and the leaves only trembled a little now and then. I felt as if a blanket had been thrown over my head and I’d already breathed in all the air that was under it. I thought I might faint—although I’ve never fainted in the whole of my life. But now I suddenly understood how women really might just wilt and fall down.

But then I realized there was still more to the story.

But how did I get from Grandfather to you? I asked Mother. You still haven’t told me that.

Mother looked at me. She was so unhappy. It was all the unhappiness I was ever afraid of giving her by asking about my adoption.

Darling, she said. This part is the hardest, I think.

Go on, I said.

You see, Grandfather thought he was taking in a Catholic child. He had not been told about the baptized babies—

And when he found out I was Jewish he—

He asked if Father and I would take you.

He junked me!

Darling, no—

He wanted some Aryan and got a dirty Jew! God. What a joke!

Sweetheart. Why would you say something like that?

But why give me to you? Why in the world give me to you and not to some charity, some—

Father said his father put it this way: If you’re so happy not being a Catholic, how about going all the way and being Jewish?

So it was all about their feud. Father took me to get back at his father!

No, dear.

He wanted to prove a point, so he took me. He didn’t want me. You didn’t want me. It was all just payback, wasn’t it?

Oh, dear darling. You must not see it that way. In any case, what does any of that matter? As I said, the moment you came into our lives, all that fell away.

But you can’t stop knowing something, can you?

That’s right, dear. That’s right. But not talking about something helps you forget, a little, then a little more as time goes by. She looked off into the dark. That’s why I never wished to tell any of all this.

She’d barely finished her sentence when we heard the keys in the front door.

Mother fixed her eyes on me. And for some few seconds, we seemed so close to each other, both of us together, afraid, because now what would we do? Tell Father? Lizabeth? Make this story a regular part of our lives? The keys went on jangling, the dead bolt clacked open, and we still looked at each other, alone in our little private world for a little while more. The door blew open. We’re home! Father’s voice boomed out across the house.

Mother stood, came toward me, bent down, and I thought she might kiss me. Then her mouth went to my ear, and she shout-whispered:
You will not tell Father!

She went into the kitchen. Hello, darling, she sang out. Show me what you and Lizabeth bought today.

Make us martinis! Father called out.

Lizabeth came into the den, gave a quick hello, flipped on the TV.

Mind? she asked.

Okay, I said.

A screaming commercial came on, music, blaring. From the kitchen came the sound of packages being opened, the
tink
of glasses being taken from the shelf, the fridge opening and closing, the happy sound of ice cubes crackling open from the tray. Everything around me was swirling into normal. Lizabeth, Mother, Father—their lives would just go on as they always had. Shopping trips, Sunday evenings by the TV, yet another round of martinis. But I sat there in the den, unable to move, as if I was already in my other life. Me, with my eyes gone dark and my dirty blond hair—dirty! All I could think was: I’m a Jew, I’m a Jew, I’m a Jew.

The patient fell silent, and then doctor and client shifted in their seats, as if returning to the present. A thin shaft of light from under our adjoining door sent a ray across the carpet of my dark office; and every time Dr. Schussler crossed her legs, as she was doing now, she cast jagged shadows across the floor. The silence, the play of shadows, went on for some long seconds; when suddenly the patient said:

Are
you
… possibly … Jewish?

The doctor took in a breath.

I know … it’s not usual … but … the patient tried again. Mother told me, and suddenly I need to know who I’m talking to. What do they think about Jews? Like my grandfather. Hating Jews. And Mother, who thinks it’s so vile that she has to hide it from the neighbors and the ladies at the club. Or maybe someone I’m talking to is Jewish. So I don’t have to worry about being hated.

I could all but see the standard therapeutic expression installing itself on Dr. Schussler’s face, the slightly shy, apologetic, but altogether forbidding smile that says unequivocally: I am not going to tell you.

You’re German, the patient said, or at least you speak German. It meant nothing to me before: where you came from, even who you were—are. But now. With all this. So you’re German. And if you’re not Jewish …

That smile: I could feel the steel of it through the wall.

It would help if you were Jewish, the patient said.

The jagged shadows played across the floor.

You see, I don’t know any Jewish people, the patient pressed on. I’ve met Jews, of course, but I’ve never been close to one. I have no idea what it means to say, I’m a Jew.

From the Hotel Palace across the way came the forlorn wail of the doorman’s taxi whistle.

It would help if I could talk to you about what it means to be Jewish.

Dr. Schussler fell back against the cushion of her chair.

Ach!
she breathed. Who I am is not important. We are here to discuss who you are.

The doctor stood.

Oh, God, said the patient. It’s time for me to go, isn’t it?

(Well past time, I saw by the glow of my watch dial.)

The patient remained seated. I don’t want to go out there.

The taxi whistle called again.

She laughed. Please don’t make me go.

She withdrew a tissue from the box.

Call me if you need to, the therapist said.

The patient stood. Then she paused in the doorway. There was a rustle of fabric.

Please don’t hug me, she said. What is this hugging thing you’ve gotten into? It’s weird, this hugging.

Then she left, slamming the door behind her.

Dr. Schussler immediately lit a cigarette, picked up the phone, dialed. This is Dr. Schussler again, she said after a time. Have you given Dr. Gurevitch my last message? Yes. I see. But—I understand. Please say it is urgent. Yes, the same message. Patient three.

Now came disaster. All through the patient’s session, something had teased at the back of my throat. By evening, it was a hot scratch. Whatever it was then invaded my nasal passages—a mere cold, I hoped. But the next night I awoke shivering: a hundred and two, said the thermometer I always kept with me when traveling (one never knows when affliction will come upon one). An hour later, the bed was soaked, and again I lay shivering under my wet sheets. One hundred and three, said the thermometer.

Morning found me aching in every joint. The
San Francisco Chronicle
(which I stole from my neighbor’s doorstep) said some dreaded Asian flu had descended upon the population. And it was clear that I had been claimed as one of its victims.

Five days remained before the patient’s next session: I was determined to attend, no matter how ill I might be. But then came sneezing, then coughing; and along with these symptoms—noisy, irrepressible symptoms!—came panic. The sound machine was no match for such explosive sneezes, such exclamatory coughs. If I should go to the office—at any hour—I would be discovered.

Wednesday came, and I was desolate. The flu had not relented; my cough was thunderous. There was no recourse but to stay home, in my miserable cottage, watching the rain that dripped daily from a soaked, leaden sky. There I thought of nothing but the patient, the convoluted emotions she must be experiencing, the torments of being cast into one identity—
Catholic! Father hates Catholics!
—then another—
Jewish! Grandfather hates Jews!
(What relief I felt that I myself had not succumbed to my own family’s suspicion of Jews!) The utter cruelty of the Catholic Church, stealing the Jewish babies it had taken under its protection. Then the double-dealing of her grandfather, his prejudices, his despicable desire for a “pure Aryan” child. The patient as an Oedipal object traded between father and son. At every turn, someone to reject her, hate her, abandon her. And only two sessions remaining before the Christmas break—two castrated, fifty-minute hours—and nothing but the therapist’s skills to rescue the patient from the landslide that had fallen upon her.

Then, no sooner did I think of the therapist’s skills than a frightening thought threaded its way through my consciousness. I could not stop hearing the end of the session—or rather, what had happened after the session’s official closing. I recalled Dr. Schussler’s haste in reaching for the telephone, her words rushing forth, a quaver in her voice, so uncharacteristic of her usual Teutonic control. Gurevitch: She was trying to reach that Dr. Gurevitch. It was “urgent,” she said. And, in a terrifying instant, the other moments in which I had heard “Gurevitch” stood before me, each a signpost marking the next step to hell.

For I knew in that moment that Schussler was seeking “consultation.” Each call had been made after a difficult session with the patient; each was more insistent than the last. The doctor was in trouble. She could not handle the patient who lay before her, heart open on the table. She could not guide my dear patient’s journey, and she knew it.
Consultation
. But it doesn’t matter what those therapists, analysts, counselors, doctors, psychiatrists call it; they need some other doctor to save them from the mess they have created for themselves. What they are seeking is help.

I knew about such things. One of my own dear practitioners revealed to me that she had been seeking consultation on my case, explaining she had overidentified with me, her personal “issues” clouding “our work.” Her father also had committed suicide, she felt compelled to tell me. Thank you very much—
bitch
(I thought; I was twenty-five and still said such things). Why tell me? Why not just bear your own travails silently? I quit that therapist, but not before asking if she should not pay me for the insights I had given her.

Now I realized that Dr. Schussler could indeed be as incompetent as my former therapist—and what fear for my dear patient descended upon me! The patient’s passage (and mine) was made more perilous than ever, since we could not rely upon the person who made the desperate calls to Gurevitch. Once more I asked myself: Who was this Dr. Dora Schussler, this clinician who had presumed to force the issue of adoption and then found herself so unprepared for its aftermath?

Everything I thought I knew about Dr. Schussler suddenly vanished. The particular place in my mind in which I had carried her image all these months—empty. Most likely she was not sixty, not mature, not experienced. That limp: A person may develop a limp at any age. She could be thirty. That bun I had always presumed: a fantasy. She might have straight long hair, parted down the middle, playing over her shoulders, like many women today.

I was unmoored, for I was forced to revise my entire narrative—backward, a backward revision—which put in doubt all I had imagined to have come before. Must I now see all the therapy sessions with a different Dora Schussler; call her (in my mind) not “doctor” but “Dora”; see a short skirt barely covering those legs she crosses as she smokes? Could Dora be—this thought terrified me—could she be the sort I would have followed across Union Square?