“Don’t give me that shit,” answered the German. Stefan took the book off the shelf and opened it. The hospital population was 186.
“So. You’re sure you’re not lying?”
Stefan’s cheeks felt numb. He couldn’t take his eyes off the German’s sharp chin. His cold, sweaty fingers were clenched into fists. Those washed-out German eyes had seen hundreds of people strip naked at the edges of ditches, making meaningless movements as, understanding nothing, they tried to prepare their living bodies to tumble into the mud. The room spun—only the tall figure with the green cape thrown over his shoulders remained fixed.
“What a disgusting backwater this is,” the German said. “Two days hunting down those swine in the woods. A special committee is coming here. If you hide one single patient, that’s it.” No explicit threat, no gestures, no expression. Yet Stefan still felt numb inside. His lips were dry. He kept licking them.
“Now show me all the buildings.”
“Only doctors are allowed in the wards,” said Stefan, barely above a whisper. “Those are the rules.”
“We make the rules,” said the German. “Enough stalling.”
He pushed past Stefan, staggering him. They walked across the yard at a brisk pace. The German looked around, asking questions. How many beds in a given ward? How many exits? Are the windows barred? How many patients?
Finally, on his way out, he asked how many staff and doctors there were. He stopped at the broadest stretch of lawn and looked both ways, as if taking its dimensions.
“You can sleep easy,” he said when they got back to the vehicle. “Nothing will happen to you. But if we find a bandit here, or a weapon, or anything like that, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”
The vehicle started as the German settled his enormous bulk into the backseat. Only then did Stefan realize two peculiar things: he had seen not a single doctor or nurse, even though they were usually out walking in the evening, and he had no idea who the German was. His cape had covered his insignia. He remembered nothing of his face, just the helmet and dark glasses. The man might as well have been a Martian, Stefan was thinking when the sound of light footsteps ended his reverie.
“What was all that about?” Nosilewska, her eyes more beautiful than usual, stood before him, flushed from excitement and from running. She was not wearing her medical smock. Confused, Stefan explained that he did not know himself—a German had wanted to look around the hospital. Apparently they were scouring the woods for partisans, so he had come here.
He was careful not to mention Pajpak.
Nosilewska had been sent by Rygier and Marglewski, who, though they had watched from an upstairs window as the vehicle left, did not want to come out. Nor had they let her come downstairs earlier: they were playing it safe.
Leaving her rather impolitely, Stefan started back down the path.
He looked at his watch: seven. It would be getting dark soon. The German had spent almost half an hour there. Pajpak should be back soon. Everything seemed strange, alien in the gloom. He looked at the asylum. The dark contours of the buildings rose against clouds which, backlighted by the moon, looked as if they had lamps in them.
He had gone several hundred steps when he heard someone coming toward him through the leaves on the opposite side of the road. It was dark; the clouds obscured the moon. Stefan, guiding himself by sound, crossed the road, and recognized the director only when they were just three steps apart. “There was a German at the hospital, sir,” he began, but broke off.
Pajaczkowski said nothing. Stefan walked beside him, now a little ahead, now slightly behind. They reached the gate and went to Pajpak’s office. “This is it,” the professor finally said, unlocking the door and going in. Although they both knew where the furniture was and the switch, they bumped into each other three times before turning on the light. Then Stefan, who had been burning with questions, stepped back in fear.
Pajaczkowski looked yellow and parched. His pupils were as wide as buttons.
“Professor,” whispered Stefan. And then louder: “Professor.”
Pajaczkowski walked to the cabinet and took out a small bottle with a worn cork
“The whole way there,” he said, “I kept going over what I would say. If he told me the deranged were useless, I was going to appeal to the work of two deranged Germans, Bleuler and Moebius. If he talked about the Nuremberg legislation, I would explain that we were an occupied country and our legal status would not be clarified until a peace treaty was signed. If he demanded that we turn over the incurables, I would say that in medicine there is no such thing as a hopeless case. You never rule out the unknown: that is one of the obligations of a doctor. If he said that this was an enemy country and he was a German, I would remind him that he was a doctor above all else.”
“Please, professor,” whispered Stefan, pleading.
“Yes, I know you don’t want to hear this. When I got there, I don’t know if I said three words. I was slapped in the face.”
“What?” croaked Stefan.
“The Ukrainian on duty told me that Obersturmfuhrer Hutka had gone to the asylum to check on the population and work out the tactical plan. That’s how he put it. I hope you gave false numbers.”
“No, I… I mean, he saw them himself.”
“Yes, I see. Yes, yes.”
Pajpak poured himself some bromine with luminal from a second bottle, drank it, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he asked Stefan to summon all the doctors to the library.
“The dean too?”
“What? Yes. Well, maybe not. No.”
The lights were already on in the library when Stefan entered with Nosilewska and Rygier. Then Kauters, Marglewski, and Staszek appeared. Pajaczkowski waited until they were all seated. Tersely and without the usual digressions he announced that the German and Ukrainian unit that had pacified—in other words, burned and slaughtered—the village of Owsiany planned to exterminate the patients of the asylum. The Germans had organized a labor gang for next morning, since they had learned from experience that mental patients—unlike peasants, who would usually dig their own graves—were incapable of organized tasks. He had learned all he needed to know from his attempt to approach Doctor Thiessdorff.
“Barely had I informed him of the purpose of my call when he slapped me. I wanted to believe that he was outraged at my slanderous suggestion of his intentions, but the Ukrainian duty officer informed me that they had already received orders: they are getting extra ammunition today. This duty officer seemed honest enough, if that word has any meaning under the circumstances.”
Pajaczkowski concluded by explaining the true purpose of Obersturmfuhrer Hutka’s afternoon visit.
“I would like you, ladies and gentlemen, to think all this over, to make certain decisions, and take steps… I am the director, but I am simply… simply not man enough to…”
His voice failed.
“We could release the patients into the woods and let them get away by themselves. There’s a local train to Warsaw at two in the morning,” Stefan began, but stopped when he met dead silence.
Pajpak shrugged. “I thought of that. But it seems unlikely to work. The patients would be rounded up easily. And they would never survive in the forest anyway. It would be the simplest thing, but it’s not a solution.”
“I believe,” said Marglewski, his tone categorical, “that we have to yield to superior force. Like Archimedes. We should leave, just leave the hospital.”
“With the patients?”
“Just leave.”
“In other words, escape. That, of course, is one way out,” the old man said softly, strangely patient. “The Germans can hit me in the face, throw us out of here, do whatever they like. But I am not just the director of this institution. I am a doctor. As are all of you.”
“Nonsense,” Marglewski muttered, resting his chin on his hand.
“Haven’t you tried… any other method?” asked Kauters. Everyone looked at him.
