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But some of the words that were in his vocabulary…! When this speech went out, a lot of Party Bonzen would hate him. But a lot of ordinary people would love him. Which counted for more? Till Heinz Buckliger took over, the answer would have been obvious. It wasn't any more.
And whatwould Buckliger himself think of Stolle's speech? That might be the most interesting question of them all.
Esther Stutzman looked up from the billing to see a woman and a little boy come into Dr. Dambach's waiting room. "Good morning,Frau Klein," she said. "Good morning, Eduard. How are you today?"
"I'mall right," said Eduard, who was just in for a checkup.
Maria Klein let out a long sigh. "I'm not so well,Frau Stutzman," she said. In public, they didn't let on how well they knew each other away from the pediatrician's office. But she didn't look good; makeup couldn't hide the dark circles under her eyes, and their whites were tracked with red. "Richard and I have decided to take Paul to a Reichs Mercy Center."
"I'm so sorry," Esther whispered.
"He'll be better," Eduard said. "He'll be happy after that. He's not happy now."
His mother winced and turned away for a moment. It wasn't that Eduard was wrong, for he wasn't. From everything Esther had unwillingly learned, Tay-Sachs disease was a slow descent into hell, made all the worse because the children who suffered from it were too little to understand what was happening to them. But that made it no easier for parents to let go of children who had it. How could you not love a child, even if-or maybe especially because-something was wrong with it?
"He was such a sweet baby," Maria whispered. "He still is, as much as he can be. But he-" She turned away again, and fished a tissue out of her purse. "I don't want Eduard to see me like this," she said, dabbing at her eyes.
"I see you, Mommy." To Eduard, none of this meant much. He was the lucky one. "And Paul will be all better. You and Daddy said so."
"Yes, sweetheart. He'll be just fine," Maria said. "Why don't you go sit down and look at a picture book till it's time to see the doctor?"
Eduard went. The book he picked up was Trust No Fox in the Green Meadow and No Jew on His Oath. It had been in the waiting room since before Esther started working for Dr. Dambach. The pediatrician took the book for granted. Why shouldn't he? It had been a children's favorite and a Party favorite for seventy-five years. Eduard opened it. He smiled as he swallowed a dose of cheerful, colorful poison.
Maria Klein saw what her son was looking at. The most she could do was exchange a rueful glance with Esther. If she'd come in for an afternoon appointment today, when Irma Ritter sat behind the counter, she couldn't even have done that.
So much Eduard will have to unlearn when he gets older,Esther thought sadly. Gottlieb and A
Maria sat down by Eduard. He held the book up to her. "Look, Mommy! It's fu
She made herself look. She had to know what was in there. When she was Eduard's age, she'd probably thought it was fu
A woman came out of one of the examination rooms carrying a wailing toddler who'd just had a tetanus shot. "She may be cranky and feverish for a day or two, and the injection site will be sore," Dr. Dambach told her. "A pain-relieving syrup will help. If the discomfort seems severe, bring her back in, and I'll look at her." How many times had he made that speech?
"Thank you, Doctor," the woman said. The toddler didn't seem grateful.
"Frau Klein, you can take your boy back in there now," Esther called. Poor Maria got no relief, for Eduard carried Streicher's book into the examining room with him. When he laughed at the anti-Semitic book, that had to be one more lash for her, especially since her other son was dying of a disease commonest among Jews.
Dr. Dambach had patients waiting in the other examining rooms. It was a while before he could get to Maria and Eduard. Once he went in there, he spent a good long while with the Kleins. Esther knew he was thorough. If he hadn't been, he wouldn't have noticed discrepancies in their genealogy. Usually, though, that thoroughness worked for him and for his patients.
When he came out with Maria and her son, he had one hand on the boy's shoulder and the other on hers. "This one here is in the best of health,Frau Klein," he said. "He'll drive you crazy for years to come."
"Crazy!" Eduard said enthusiastically. He crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue.
The pediatrician ignored him, which wasn't easy. Dambach went on talking to Maria Klein: "And I think you are doing the right thing in the other case. The procedure is very fast. It is absolutely painless. And it does relieve needless suffering."
"Paul's, yes," she answered. "What about mine, and my husband's?"
"Things are not always as simple as we wish they would be," Dr. Dambach said with a sigh. "You have the suffering of doing this, yes, but you escape the suffering of watching his inevitable downhill course over the coming months, perhaps even over a couple of years. Which counts for more?"
"I don't know," Maria whispered. "Do you?"
The pediatrician shrugged. He was basically an honest man. Now that the Kleins had been released, he showed no antagonism toward them. He'd done what he thought he had to do in reporting the discrepancy in their pedigree to the authorities. If the authorities turned out not to care, he didn't seem to, either.
Maria went on, "And it's also hard knowing that there's a fifty-fifty chance Eduard carries this horrible-thing inside him."
"Don't let that worry you," Dr. Dambach said. "In most populations, this gene is very rare. Even if he does carry it, the odds that he will marry another carrier are also very slim. There is hardly any chance he would father another baby with this disease."
Maria Klein didn't answer. Like all surviving Jews, she was practiced in the art of deception, so she didn't even look towards Esther. Esther didn't look her way, either, but kept on with the billing as she and Eduard walked out. But she knew, and Maria knew, in fifteen or twenty years Eduard would probably marry a girl who was a Jew. And in how many of those girls did the Tay-Sachs gene lurk?
The Kleins left the waiting room. Esther called in the next patients. But she had trouble keeping her mind on her work. If Jews kept marrying Jews, would disease finish what the Nazis hadn't quite been able to? But if Jews didn't marry Jews, wouldn't the faith perish because they couldn't tell their partners what they were?
Was there a way out? For the life of her, Esther couldn't see one.
Susa
"It's probably the most important source, yes, but it's far from the only one," she answered. Again, the question reminded her how Shakespeare was a more vital presence in modern Germany than in England. His Troilus and Cressida was rarely produced or even read in English.
A few more questions about the material followed. Students started drifting out the door. Others-not so many-came up to the lectern to ask questions of less general interest, to pump her on what the next essay topic would be, or to complain about the grades they'd got on the last one.