Fiction
Memorial Year (Cont.)
by Eric Maroney
Herr Doctor von Gesundheit was a mild mannered, completely bald, bespectacled, older man dressed in a neat pinstriped suit and long white lab coat. Yael spoke to the doctor in rapid German, and the doctor listened intently, without emotion. He asked Yasha some questions when Yael was done, and Yasha wrote his answers down in Hebrew on a pad of the doctor’s stationary, for Yael to translate to the doctor.
"Were you examined by doctors in Poland?" Yael asked for the doctor, and Yasha replied yes and wrote a few names. After Yael translated the note, the doctor said something in German and smiled. "The doctor says that Polish doctors are not fit to be veterinarians. He would like permission to examine your neck."
— I suppose so, Yasha wrote. Yael translated and then the doctor spoke again while getting up from his chair.
"He asks that you kindly remove your tie and unbutton the top button of your shirt," Yael explained. Yasha complied and the doctor’s cold hands probed Yasha’s neck from beneath his jaw to the very top of his shoulders. His deft fingers came to rest on a spot adjacent to Yasha’s Adam’s apple, where he probed with unusual intensity. The doctor finished and returned to his desk. He spoke in German to Yael, and her face drained of color. Yasha wrote — What? What? Many times on the pad, but Yael was too intent on listening to the doctor. When he was done, she turned to Yasha.
"He says he feels a lump to the right of your larynx. He thinks that it is a benign cyst pressing against your vocal chords and esophagus. He said it should be surgically removed immediately. There is a danger that it could block your air passage."
Yasha was about to write something on the pad when there was a knock on the door. The doctor excused himself and Yasha began to write something yet again, this time for Yael exclusively. But he had no time to finish. The doctor was back in the room and faced Yael stiffly, with a measure of professional gravity. She stood up, instinctively knowing what he would say. Kleinberger was dead.
* * *
Although Kleinberger was not a practicing Jew, he was buried according to the full letter of the Law. The Zionists wished to show their enemies among the religious Jews that they did not flout sacred tradition. So Kleinberger was laid on the floor of the lodge, candles were lit around his head, and the Burial Society washed and prepared his body for the grave. A guard sat at his side reciting psalms all through the night. The burial was set for the next day. Telegrams were sent to all corners of Europe, and the leading lights of Zionism come forth to bury one of their grandest figures. By morning, over five hundred mourners followed the body to the Jewish cemetery. Not much of a fuss was made about his monument. No one doubted that when the Jewish state was founded his earthly clay would be disinterred and buried in the land of Israel.
* * *
During Yael’s period of mourning, she remained in her father’s lodge. But every day she came and visited Yasha.
"It’s too bad that you came to visit only to see my father die," she told him. "But from every tragedy, some good can grow. You’ll finally get proper medical care here." Yasha shook his head and thrust a note in her hand.
— I don’t want that Junker swine cutting me open.
"Better than some Polish quack who can’t tell a scalpel from a steak knife," she said, placing a warm hand on Yasha’s shoulder. She was dressed in a black skirt and sweater. A Star of David dangled from a chain around her neck. "And don’t worry about the cost. We will pay for it." Yasha shook his head again and wrote:
— I am NOT a Zionist.
"Every Jew is a Zionist, even if he doesn’t know it yet. Every Jew will either become one or perish." Yasha was about to write something, but she seized his hand with surprising firmness. It was a strong hand, Yasha noted — one that may soon grasp a plow, a shovel, pruning sheers or a rifle, and drain marshes or uncoil barbed wire in a Jewish state.
Yael bent over and kissed Yasha’s hand and then his lips.
* * *
The day after the end of Yael’s mourning period was the day Yasha was scheduled for surgery. They waited in the lounge, holding hands. When the nurse came in for Yasha, Yael kissed him. Just before he left, he turned to look at her. She was already bent over her paperwork — documents that would send her to Palestine.
Yasha was told to remove his clothes and lie on the table. To his surprise, the nurse shaved all the hair from his body and head — even removing his moustache. A thin sheet was laid atop him, ending just at his neck. A bank of bright lights hovered over his head. The nurses moved about, engaged in their tasks. In a few minutes a man with a white mask was leaning over Yasha. From the round glasses and cool, blue Junker eyes he could see it was Herr Doctor von Gesundheit. To Yasha’s surprise, he spoke to him in simple Yiddish sentences.
"You know," he said, arranging the scalpels on the table, "Jews and Germans have much in common. Proud people. Loyal to language and land. But you have no land. A people need land. Otherwise they like men without voices. Such men not men. To be human is to speak. Not to do so makes one not human. So the Jew not human. Not fully." Then he began to speak in German, as if speaking Yiddish fatigued him. "I am the most zealous Zionist around, far more pro-Zionist than most Jews!" and the nurses started to giggle. "I respected Herr Doctor Kleinberger and his like because we have the same goal: to get every blessed Jew out of Germany. Out of Europe! If I had six million marks to spare I would donate them to help the Zionists fulfill their noble goal," he said, and Yasha could tell that beneath the mask he was smiling. The nurses giggled again.
There was silence for a minute and then Yasha noticed that the doctor was singing. At first he thought it was a Yiddish lullaby. The words had the flat cadence of Yiddish spoken in Galicia, but with a certain rounded tone about the vowels which Galician Yiddish failed to express. The nurses laughed at the tune, and then Yasha realized it was a lullaby in the Bavarian dialect sung by a mother duck to her sleepless chicks: Go to sleep, fuzzy ones, go to sleep. The dawn is far away, fuzzy ones, go to sleep. The world is black as pitch, fuzzy ones, go to sleep. The earth is dark as coal, fuzzy ones, go to sleep. Go to sleep... Then a nurse placed a rubber mask over Yasha’s mouth, and after two breaths, the world shrunk to a pinprick of black.