My Bridges of Hope (23 page)

It is 5:10, and Andy has not come. Normally he is very punctual. Five-thirty, and no Andy. Five forty-five comes and goes without Andy's appearance. I start to change into my ordinary clothes, all the while keeping an eye on the entrance to our room. Mommy is my official lookout. At six o'clock she advises me to go upstairs and find out what has happened to Andy. I categorically refuse. I know Andy is angry with me, and this is his way of punishing me. There is no point in swallowing my pride. I am not going to beg for forgiveness. I am sorry to have hurt his feelings. I am sorry to miss
Der Fledermaus.
And I am very sorry for not having had a chance to show off my fancy clothes. But to go to Andy's room and risk being snubbed in front of all the gang members? Never.

Around eight o'clock several of the gang members usually call. Tonight not one comes to visit. What's going on? If Andy was home,
they would know I was home. Perhaps Andy is not at home. Where is he, then? Did he go to the opera by himself? Or, perhaps, with someone else? Would he do such a thing? It's not like him.

All evening no one comes, not even Peter. I am miserable.

“Why don't you go upstairs and investigate?” Mommy keeps urging. “I don't understand your mulish stubbornness.”

Mommy does not know about the afternoon incident in the park. How can I expect her to understand my reluctance to humiliate myself in front of Andy and his friends?

In the morning Peter comes to visit. His behavior is strangely reserved. After some small talk he suddenly blurts out: “Elli, I'm sorry to tell you, but Andy is very ill.”

“Andy? What are you talking about?”

“Late afternoon he came back from somewhere downcast and did not speak to anyone. Later in the evening he became agitated and confused. He started to talk irrationally. Then he began to shout. When we tried to calm him, he turned on us. He became violent. He threatened to kill Tommy, then tackled him and
began to strangle him. It took four of us to pull him off and hold him while someone called the house police. The police called for an ambulance. He was so violent that he broke a male attendant's finger. The police had to tie him up. He was taken to a sanatorium in the Vienna woods. We all spent the night in the nearby woods and went to see him early this morning. He is asking for you. The boys sent me to give you the message and ask you to go see him.”

Oh, God. My dear God.

“Where is he? Which sanatorium?”

“It's a state institution, in Semmering. About an hour's ride by bus from the Danube Canal terminal. Visiting hours begin at two o'clock. We are all going. Do you want to come along? He keeps asking for you.”

“I'm so sorry. Andy and I had a misunderstanding yesterday.”

“We all know about that. For days he was very nervous about talking to you. We all knew he was going to ask you to marry him. We all told him it was a hopeless case, but he wouldn't listen. He worked himself into a state.”

“I am very sorry. I had no idea. ...”

“Don't blame yourself. It's not your fault.
Do you think you want to come to the hospital? You don't have to. I can tell him you felt it was better that you saw him after he came out of the hospital.”

“How is he? Is he rational?”

“Now he is less agitated and less confused. I think he is sedated. But he keeps repeating that he must talk to you.”

“Thank you, Peter. I think I should go. Will you please call for me?”

Shortly after Peter leaves, Tommy comes to thank me for agreeing to go visit his brother.

“You're simply wonderful for doing this. It's a great
mitzvah.”
I reject his accolades, and Tommy refuses to listen to my self-recriminations.

A few minutes later Leslie, the oldest brother, comes to warn me: “You should be prepared for a great change in my brother. He may be abusive. Please, think it over. You may not want to be exposed to this.”

I thank Leslie for his concern. “I must go to see him. I'll be okay.”

In the bus my stomach shrinks to a tiny, hard ball. I do not know what to expect. The gentle, soft-spoken, intelligent young man is in
a mental ward for the violent. I cannot grasp it. I have a crushing sense of sadness and an overwhelming desire to do something to help Andy.

The bus stops in front of a sprawling yellow building with black wrought-iron gates. We walk on impeccably white gravel paths through a well-tended garden, up wide, stone stairs to the black metal doors. They are locked. We have to ring a bell, then another. A little window in the middle of the door opens. A face appears. Then the portal opens, and the cool, shadowy interior receives us silently. Locks click, and the gate shuts behind us.

“Second floor,” the attendant replies to our inquiry. “To the right. To the end of the corridor.”

White-clad attendants slip past soundlessly. We approach a narrow metal door with peeling white paint. Again we must press a doorbell, which prompts the opening of a peephole in the door, the flicker of an eye. We slip our visitors' passes into a slot under the peephole and are admitted to a small corridor. The lock clicks behind us, and we are facing another metal door with peeling white paint, bell, peephole, and attendant. Finally we
enter a spacious room. The walls are lined with rows of mesh cages.

My legs are leaden. Tommy touches my arm: “This way, Elli.” I allow myself to be led to the cage next to the last on the left wall. In the cage lies a human creature in a dark blue hospital uniform, with hair cropped to the scalp and two enormous dark eyes fixed on the ceiling in an unflinching gaze.

“Andy?” A faint flicker. A smile? No. A frightened shadow of a grin.

“He has recognized you,” Leslie whispers. The frightened grin remains fixed, but the eyes continue their one-track stare. My God. Is this really Andy?

I place my palm against the metal mesh. “Andy? Andy?”

The eyes open wider. They become two black pools. The grin fades, and slowly a hand reaches toward the metal mesh and sweeps lightly the spot where my palm is flattened. Then the hand drops, and the eyes close. The face becomes the face of a corpse, drained of color and life.

I turn around to face the others. “He is tired. He is very tired”. Their faces all have
the same expression of bewilderment. “I think we should speak to a doctor or something. To find out why is he so . . . so tired.”

Leslie speaks German best. “I will find a doctor,” he volunteers. “Wait for me here.”

We all move away from Andy's cage, as if afraid to wake him with our presence. The heavy silence turns each minute into an eternity. Finally Leslie returns.

“A nurse told me he received treatment this morning. An electric shock, or something. The treatment is draining.”

I tiptoe to the mesh. Andy lies in a stupor, and the metal grating casts a curious shadow on his inert features. Please, God, is he dead? Will he ever be himself again?

“I think we should leave now. He is going to sleep.” Leslie is in charge, and we are grateful. We need a guiding hand to cope with this shocking, incomprehensible reality.

We pass through a series of doors and locks on our way out of the building. The sun is shining, but the dark gloom of the hospital seems to follow us like a cloud all the way back to the colorful, noisy excitement of the Rothschild Hospital, our home.

Vienna, July—August 1949

To my surprise, the tall, thin doctor directs his words to me:
“Fräulein,
we have a problem. Mr. Stein refuses to eat. He closes his lips tight when the sisters attempt to feed him. This is very serious. One sister found out that he will eat only if Elli feeds him.”

Now I understand why the doctor is talking directly to me. “You must be Elli. He speaks your name often.
Fräulein,
can you come to feed him?”

“Yes, I can come.”

“But there is a little problem. Mr. Stein wants you to prepare the food. He will eat only the food that you cook. Is that a possibility? Can you bring the cooked food here, every noon?”

“I don't know how to cook. But my mother will do it, I'm sure. And I can bring it here. I can feed him. No problem.”

Mommy instantly agrees to do the cooking. On a small hot plate we received from a former neighbor, she makes potato, bean, or pea soup, pastas, and omelettes. I balance the pots and pans so as not to spill the food on the bumpy ride in the streetcar. The most difficult task is spoon-feeding Andy.

On the days when he receives treatment, his eyes do not focus, and he cannot open and close his mouth properly, so the food drips down the side of his face. It's painfully embarrassing. I must be more careful, concentrate better, I say to myself. In time, I learn to feed him without a mishap. On the days when he does not receive treatment, Andy eats with obvious appetite, able to swallow without a mess.

The treatments have a dramatic effect. They are electric shocks, administered directly to the brain. Daily I watch him get better and better. His eyes become more focused, and he starts to speak clearly. His hair begins to grow.

“Each shock is a minor death,” Andy describes the treatment as his intellectual powers return. “I find it quite unbearable . . . the thought of dying . . . voluntarily. Each
time ... in my mind I compose a last testament, I instruct my eyes to soak up the sights of this world, for the last time.” Andy speaks clearly, like a robot, in succinct, monotonous phrases.

“I detest the operating room . . . lying flat on my back . . . hands strapped to my side . . . the ritual of death,” he intones. “The convulsions . . . the sensation of strangling ... it lasts an eternity.”

“I close my eyes,” the singsong recitation goes on, “and make believe . . . I'm in the gas chamber . . . together with my parents . . . my mother ... my father . . . little Anika ... suffocating . . . suffocating . . . slowly.” Andy's eyes are riveted on mine as he speaks, and I shudder. “Now I ... I know . . . how they died.”

Each day after we finish lunch, Andy repeats his incantation about the shock treatments. At first this is his only means of communication. With the passage of time, Andy becomes clinical in his description, less robotlike, and even able to evaluate the results.

My visits to the hospital become routine. Andy is allotted more and more freedom of movement. Eventually he waits for me near
the entrance, and his face lights up like a bulb when he sees me. He is no longer in the triple-locked ward for the dangerously insane. He is in an open ward now—no locks, no attendants. I no longer have to feed him, but he still insists on eating only the food I bring him. We sit at a table until he finishes his lunch, then take long strolls in the yard, or sit under the ancient oak trees in the far corner of the garden.

During these beautiful summer afternoons I get to know Andy as I have never known him before. He is relaxed, and his discourse is less intense, less angry, more introspective. He displays a delightful sense of humor, even a sense of fun. We laugh at his quips, and my heart leaps with joy. He tells tales of his childhood without pathos or bitterness. I grow to like him. I like his proud bearing, his aristocratic features, his dark, wavy hair. Most of all, I like his magnificent dark eyes, which sparkle with obvious delight as he looks at me. And make me blush.

I must admit, I now look forward to the daily visits. Instead of trepidation, I approach the wrought-iron gates with suppressed
excitement. Is it because of my share in Andy's dramatic improvement? Or is it something else?

I wonder: Would I reject his marriage proposal now? Although he admits that he asked the boys to stay away during my visits, he never makes reference to that fateful afternoon.

Is it because the memory is still too painful? I wish he would bring it up. It would give me a second chance to explain, to heal the hurt I inflicted.

My share in nursing him to health has created a bond between us. I believe Andy's attachment for me has deepened during these six weeks, and I am profoundly moved. I find myself thinking of him with great tenderness. Is this love?

On Sundays when all of us go to the hospital together, it's like old times. All the fun we used to have on our outings is now telescoped in the hospital visit. We have picnics in the hospital garden, play games, and laugh at impromptu jokes, giving free vent to our newfound optimism. The dramatic improvement in Andy's condition has released massive tensions.

Andy himself, although he is the reason for
our good humor, barely joins in the frolicking. He is not the same Andy with the ever-brightening humor I meet every day when there are only the two of us. In the company of his closest comrades he is reserved and taciturn; he seems an outsider.

I am concerned by this change in Andy's mood. Is it due to his possessive feelings toward me? I am concerned and flattered at the same time.

I cannot discuss my concern with Mommy. She had warned me “not to encourage Andy's advances,” and I am sure now she would advise me to stop seeing him. How could I listen to Mommy? How could I turn my back on Andy when he needs me?

I turn to Peter for help. From our first meeting in Bratislava I felt there was a special kinship between us, and I believe, if not for Andy's intense advances early on, Peter and I would have evolved a closer relationship. Although I do not disclose my inner turmoil, Peter senses my dilemma.

Evenings we go on long walks or sit in the park while Peter listens with great empathy and offers his unconditional support. Like a
substitute brother, Peter's understanding and support restores my equilibrium and helps sort out my feelings.

After a while our talks shift away from Andy to other matters. There is so much to talk about. In Israel the course of events continues to ebb and flow. Although the fighting seems to have quieted somewhat, the war with the Arab nations is not over. There is a cease-fire, but no true peace. Friends who left on previous transports are in the army. The threat of a full-scale renewal of hostilities hangs above us as if we lived in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, or Haifa.