Unspeakable Things (5 page)

A
drum roll, a tympani, a clanging together of garbage can lids heralded the start of a new day. Dr. Felix sat in his office on New York’s Upper East Side. He surveyed the loving photographs inscribed to him that beamed down from the walls. Beside him, his little dachshund, Schatzie, sat soberly, her jowls grizzling and quivering as she waited for her master to feed her just one more lump of sugar before the day actually began. “Hush,
mein Liebchen,
” said Felix, reproving the dog, and at the same time stroking the folds of her flesh, so silky, furred with a fringe of black and white hairs. Schatzie licked his hand.

Felix surveyed the crumpled papers he held, papers taken from under Herbert’s mattress, reading and rereading them. “Knight to a2,” he read. “Pawn 3 to d5.” He threw the papers down in frustration. “Aach!” Chess moves! That was all they were! Herbert planning out chess moves, playing against himself, as always. And for that, Felix had risked discovery. He was fed up. And yet, what if this was code? “Hmmm, Schatzie. What do you think?” The dog nuzzled Felix’s hand with a spongy, plush nose.

Every day for the past week, Felix had sat in his office, waiting for the children. And each day, in mounting frustration, he read and reread the papers he had salvaged from Herbert’s cot, trying to find the secrets that lay within the careful handwriting. But it was to no avail. Felix sighed to himself and put the papers back in the little upper drawer of the desk, locking it firmly and putting the key in his pocket again. He offered the dog another sugar lump, and Schatzie, groaning slightly, struggled to her feet and wagged her stump of a tail.

In the examining room and in the entryway that led to it, photographs of children looked down at Felix and his current patients. Their sweet little faces and unblinking dark eyes stared out at the world. “For my beloved Uncle Felix.” “To Felix with all my love,” “Dear Felix, how will I ever forget you?” The words were written again and again over the bottom of the photographs, usually in elegant upward loops, sometimes with a trailing line beneath the sentiments. The handwriting on the pictures was like flowers, decorating the elaborate costumes of the children, the white dresses, the silken curls, the little boys in suits, sailor or otherwise, the girls in white lace dresses with intricate sleeves and wide sashes. All stared soulfully out of the silver frames that guarded them, watching Felix at work every day as he cared for children, the children of America. “The children of America,” thought Felix. But they were in truth very like the children of Europe, for they were, most of them, the same children. Only less elegant, less graceful, less courteous. For these were the children of Europeans in America, those who had managed to survive. And a sorry lot they were.

Felix scratched his bushy head, where the gray hairs sprouted like Struwwelpeter’s. He consulted his watch yet again, taking it out of the pocket where it lay and screwing his monocle to his eye in order to regard it better. He had the impression time stopped here in New York. The apartment was silent, the floors creaked on their own, and pipes hissed. But Felix was lonely. If it were not for Schatzie, he realized, he would have given up long ago. He tried not to think of Marthe, and of what had befallen her. It was his own fault. His father had warned him not to marry a Jew.

Marthe’s father had been a doctor, Felix’s teacher. And Marthe had been beautiful and rich. “Rich,” thought Felix sadly. So he had married the daughter and gotten the father’s practice as well. Until the war: Hitler, and everything had changed. Felix tried not to think about Marthe, but the more he tried not to think of her, the more she came into his mind. Finally, he saw himself pushing her away and leaving Vienna, where he had spent so many happy and lucrative years. Felix, leaving the day after Marthe had been taken, had packed hastily. From the medical practice, he took only the photographs, but there was a special trunk of research equipment, microscope and slides and jars, which he packed and took with him as well.

Scooping up Schatzie, Felix had stood beside the train that was to carry them both away from Europe. Mentally, he made a photograph of himself at that moment. In the foreground, he placed the large trunk. Next to it in the station, Felix himself, a small man, with Schatzie squeezed, unprotesting, under his arm. In his eye, the monocle glared, a manic disk. Felix bit down fiercely on his cigar, and with his free hand, he fingered the gold watch, the one Marthe’s father had given him when he had entered practice with the older physician. Then the train came; the doors opened, and Felix and Schatzie had to be helped in. It was only then that emotion overcame him, misting the monocle, which he removed, putting it into his vest pocket, where it rested beside his stethoscope for the rest of the long journey.

Now in Manhattan, a new life, an empty life. But the doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of the first of the children. It was tonsils; Felix already knew that. “Come, Schatzie.” He sighed, putting the dog down. He went down the long hall to the large carved door, opening it slowly. Schatzie lumbered behind him.
“Guten Morgen,”
Felix said, opening his door to the small patient, who stood solemnly beside its mother.

“Oh, Herr Doktor, we are so grateful!” The mother, upon seeing Felix, immediately began to gush with relief.

“Not at all, dear lady, not at all.” Felix forestalled her with a warning gesture. He moved closer to the little boy, who was just his height. “Well,” demanded Felix suddenly, lifting one bushy eyebrow, “have you been a bad boy, hmm?”

The little boy shrank back, clutching his mother’s hand tightly. “Noooo,” he ventured tentatively.

“No, Uncle Felix,” said Felix, immediately correcting the child. The boy complied. “Good,” said Felix, leading the way into the examining room. “
Komm,
Schatzie,” Schatzie trotted behind obediently. The child and his mother followed.

Felix staggered suddenly. “Ach,” he cried. “Bad child, bad child! What have you done to Uncle Felix?” The boy cringed, but the mother smiled down at him indulgently. “Don’t be afraid, Hans,” her smile seemed to say.

“You see, you are breaking my leg!” cried Felix to the child in a fierce voice. “Now it is I who am sick! Are you going to fix my leg, hmm?” Hans pressed back against his mother, all of his own physical suffering forgotten as he contemplated the figure of this contorted man, sagging to the ground, clutching Hans’s body and gibbering, tongue lolling, as he staggered against him.

“Now you must help Uncle Felix, bad boy,” Felix said. “Ach, ach, how it hurts!” Felix fell on the floor of his examining room, his leg cramped against him. Schatzie nuzzled her master’s prone body, bewildered. She licked him a couple of times. Hans watched this, his round eyes even rounder. “It hurts!” Felix cried. “Now, Hans,” he commanded the boy, “you must help your poor old Uncle Felix.” He stretched out a hand to Hans, who, terrified, refused to take it. “Come, you bad boy,” Felix cried. “It is you who broke my leg. Now you must fix it.” The boy, pushed forward by his mother, tentatively touched Felix’s arm. “Ach!” Felix sprang to his feet, and before the surprised eyes of the child and his mother, he bounded about the room, although still managing to drag one leg behind.

Suddenly, he swooped down upon the boy. “Now open your mouth!” he commanded. “Say ‘Ahh.’ ” Felix set the child upon the examining table, screwed his monocle to his eye, reached for the stethoscope, took out a tongue depressor, and peered down the child’s throat, all in one motion. He appeared to thrust his bushy head all the way into the boy’s gullet.

“ ‘Ahhh,’ ” said the boy, as if his life depended on it. “ ‘Aaah.’ ”

Felix snapped the tongue depressor in two and went for the child’s ears. All this happened so quickly that Hans never thought to utter a sound. Felix threw Schatzie a sugar cube and reached for the stethoscope that dangled around his neck. He took out his gold pocket watch and counted to himself, breathing in a stentorian fashion. “Bad boy, bad boy!” Felix said to himself. Schatzie licked his pant leg.

“Now, Hans,” Felix said briskly when he had finished, “you will be a good boy from now on, hmm?” He bent down and pressed his nose against Hans’s, fixing the child in his gaze. “No more troubles for Mutter, hmm?” Hans, terrified, nodded.

“That’s better,” said Felix, straightening up. “First you will take my medicine. You will be good, and then you will give me a nice picture.
Ja?
A nice picture for my walls.”

Hans looked around him and above, as far as he could see, to the grave and smiling photos of children looking down at him.

“Of course,” Hans’s mother said encouragingly. “Of course you shall have a picture.”

“And you, you must get dressed,” said Felix to the child. “And then you shall sit in my nice room outside with Schatzie and wait for Mutter, hmm?” Felix looked significantly at the far corner of his office, far from the examining table, where a large screen cut off the final third of the room. The ceilings were high, with decorated moldings at the top. Paint was peeling, and the radiators muttered. But the room was nice and warm. Hans wondered vaguely what was behind the screen. Felix snapped his fingers and Schatzie emerged from the corner, wagging her entire fat body. Deftly, Felix pulled a dog candy from out of a sleeve, and with the other, he plucked a lollipop from Hans’s ear. He held the lollipop in the air. “You see, this has been the problem all along!” he declared. “Bad boy, why do you not tell Uncle Felix you hide candy in your ear!”

Hans’s mother clapped her hands with delight, as if to encourage the jollity, and Hans managed a wan, unwilling smile. “Bad boy, bad boy,” chanted Felix, and he gave the child the lollipop.

“Schatzie, come!” he commanded, snapping his fingers once more, and the dog waddled heavily toward the waiting room. “Hans!” The child walked obediently behind the dog, casting reluctant backward glances at his mother as he went. “Mutti will only be a little while,” said Felix. He looked significantly at Hans’s mother, at the screen that hid the couch with the silken cover, and motioned the child out. “Sit, Schatzie! Sit, Hans!”

Hans’s mother was already unbuttoning her coat, fumbling with the too-small buttonholes. “Now, Hans,” warned Felix, “if you are a bad boy, Uncle Felix will know.” He raised his voice suddenly, sharply. “Sit,” he commanded. Both Hans and Schatzie sat on the little sofa outside of the examining room, next to the umbrella stand, their round eyes looking up at Felix as he wagged a reproving finger at them both. Hans put the lollipop in his mouth and tasted it carefully. He put his other arm around the dog.

“The child will be fine, dear woman,” Felix said to Hans’s mother, carefully shutting the large oak door to his office. Hans’s mother made an imploring gesture toward her son, but Felix raised one gnarled hand as if to forestall her words. “Come with me, dear lady, now,” he commanded, leading her behind the screen. “It is only a question of medicine,” he said. “The child will be fine, I assure you.”

After Hans and his mother had left, Felix sat down once again at his big desk to make a few notes for himself. He scribbled hastily, blotted the paper quickly, and unlocked his desk drawer, placing the note inside. Once again he pulled out the papers he had stolen from Herbert’s cot, then held them up to the green-shaded light, as if light would reveal what understanding could not. But he could make no sense of the notes. “P5, k3,” he read. Felix snarled, flinging the notes back into the drawer. He shoved them into the back and locked the desk again.

When the doorbell rang this time, he was quickly remaking the couch at the end of the room. He smoothed the silk cover, plumped up the pillows, and readjusted the Chinese screen that separated his sleeping quarters from his office. He moved Schatzie’s pillow farther away under the window and plumped that as well. “Come!” he said to the dog, patting the pillow. And Schatzie obediently waddled over to her bed, where she settled herself with a grateful groan. But not for long. The old dog struggled to her feet, jowls jiggling as she watched Felix’s departing figure, and followed him, smiling to herself, as he went to answer the door. It was his next patient.

Outside the front door, Maria stood, bundled to her ears, next to her mother. “Aaah!” cried Felix, as if in complete surprise. “And what do we have here, hmm?” He bent down toward the girl and scowled. “Why do you bother Uncle Felix, hmm? Have you been a bad girl again?”

Maria, who had been feeling alternately hot and cold, weak with fever, drew back. Felix looked up at Maria’s mother. “So?” he said.

“She is sick,” Maria’s mother replied. She clutched her neck, drawing her scarf more tightly around herself. “So we must come. I take the morning from my job. Herr Doktor, I implore you!” As Felix ushered them into the front hall, toward the little sofa and the coat stand, Maria’s mother fought back tears. “Aach, I am worried!” Maria, in a swirl of light and sound, hardly noticed this exchange.

“My dear lady,” said Felix skillfully. Maria’s mother pulled herself together. “And your husband?” demanded Felix, changing tone.

Maria’s mother shook her head. “David…,” she began, but did not finish. Both looked quickly toward Maria. But the child stood stiffly in her little coat and shawl about her head, pale and slightly swaying.

“It is secret, hmm?” Felix barked.

Maria’s mother nodded, her own pale face closed. “And now, of course, we have no money,” she added in a low voice.

“Calm yourself, my dearest Ilse,” Felix said in a low, commanding voice. He snapped his fingers, and Schatzie waddled forward. Almost absently, he gave her another sugar lump. “These are difficult times. We must be calm.” He bent down to unwrap the shawl from Maria’s head. “And with me”—he looked up at Maria’s mother—“you know it is never a question of money. How much do you need?” he asked in a low voice. Maria’s mother made a demurring gesture. “We shall see,” murmured Felix, “We shall see.” He straightened himself halfway. “And from David, there is nothing?” Maria’s mother shook her head. “
Ja.
Secret,” muttered Felix, half to himself. “Secret, this David. Nothing.” Maria’s mother stiffened. “Now, now, dear lady,” Felix said authoritatively, “We must be calm. These are difficult times.”