'What does that mean?' Esther asked.
'I'm not sure. I don't believe I've ever seen anything like it before,' the pediatrician said. 'I don't know if it is connected to the other problem, either. Can you order some food brought here, please? I was going to go out for lunch, but I believe I will stay here and go through my books instead.'
'Of course, Doctor,' Esther Stutzman said. 'Will one of those Italian cheese pies do? The shop is close, and they deliver.'
Dambach nodded. 'That will be fine. I know the place you mean. They promise to get it where it should go in under half an hour, which is all to the good today.'
'I'll take care of it.' Esther made the call. The cheese pie arrived twenty-seven minutes later. She'd heard the owner had fired delivery boys for being late, so she was glad this one showed up on time. She paid for it from the cash drawer, then brought it in to Dr. Dambach.
'Just set it on the desk, please,' he said without looking up from the medical book he was going through. Only his left hand and his mouth gave the food any notice; the rest of his attention was riveted on the book. Esther thought she could have substituted a coffee cake or plain bread without his knowing the difference.
She was eating her own lunch, ready to go home as soon as the afternoon receptionist came in, when Dambach exclaimed in what might as easily have been dismay as triumph. 'What is it, Doctor?' she called.
'I know what Paul Klein has,' Dr. Dambach said.
Esther still couldn't tell how he felt about knowing. She asked, 'Well, what is it, then?'
He came out of the office, a half forgotten slice of the cheese pie still in his left hand. His face said more than his voice had; he looked thoroughly grim. 'It's an obscure syndrome called Tay-Sachs disease, I'm afraid,' he answered. 'Along with the rest of his condition, the red spots on his retinas nail down the diagnosis.'
'I never heard of it,' Esther said.
'I wish I hadn't.' Now the pediatrician sounded as unhappy as he looked.
'Why?' she asked. 'What is it? What does it do?'
'There is an enzyme called Hexosaminidase A. Babies with Tay-Sachs disease are born without the ability to form it. Without it, lipids accumulate abnormally in the cells, and especially in the nerve cells of the brain. The disease destroys brain function a little at a time. I will not speak of symptoms, but eventually the child is blind, mentally retarded, paralyzed, and unresponsive to anything around it.'
'Oh, my God! How horrible!' Esther's stomach did a slow lurch. She wished she hadn't eaten. 'What can you do? Is there a cure?'
'I can do nothing. No one can do anything.' Dr. Dambach's voice was hard and flat. 'There is no cure. All children who have Tay-Sachs disease will die, usually before they turn five. I intend to recommend to the Kleins that they take the baby to a Reichs Mercy Center, to spare it this inevitable suffering. Then I intend to go out and get drunk.'
He couldn't bring himself to come right out and talk about killing a baby, though that was what he meant. The Germans who'd slaughtered Jews hadn't talked straight out about what they were doing, either, though people weren't so shy about it any more. Here, Esther had more sympathy. 'How awful for you,' she said. 'And how much worse for the Kleins! What causes this horrible disease? Could they have done anything to keep the baby from getting it?'
Dr. Dambach shook his head. 'No. Nothing. It's genetic. If both parents carry the recessive, and if the two recessives come together…' He spread his hands. Even that gesture didn't remind him of the cheese pie he was holding. Intent on his own thoughts, he went on, 'We don't see the disease very often these days. I have never seen it before, thank heaven, and I hope I never see it again. The books say it used to be fairly common among the Jews, though, before we cleaned them out… Are you all right,Frau Stutzman?'
'Yes, I think so. This is all just so-so dreadful.' Esther made herself nod. Dambach nodded back, accepting what she'd said. He couldn't know why her heart had skipped a beat. A good thing, too. He couldn't come out and talk about killing a baby, but he took the extermination of the Jews for granted. Why not? He hadn't even been born when it happened.
'Dreadful,ja. A very unfortunate coincidence. Even among the Jews it was not common, you understand, but it was up to a hundred timesmore common among them than it is among Aryans.' Dambach thoughtfully rubbed his chin. 'Did you happen to see on the news a few days ago the story about the Jews found in that village in backwoods Serbia?'
How to answer? Esther saw only one way: casually. 'I sure did. Who would have imagined such a thing, in this day and age?' What she wanted to do was get up and run from the doctor's office. That that would be the worst thing she could possibly do didn't matter. Reason held her in her chair, held a polite smile on her face. Behind the facade, instinct screamed.
Still thoughtful, Dr. Dambach went on, 'Tay-Sachs disease is so rare among Aryans, it almost makes one wonder…'
Ice lived in Esther. 'Don't be silly, Doctor,' she said, keeping up the casual front. 'None ofthem left any more, not in a civilized country.' Pretending she wasn't a Jew was second nature to her; she'd done it almost automatically ever since she learned what she was. But mocking, scorning her true heritage wasn't so easy. She didn't have to do that very often, simply because Jews were so nearly extinct.
'I suppose you're right,' the pediatrician said, and relief flowered like springtime in her. But then he added, 'Still…'
The door to the waiting room opened. In came Irma Ritter, who would work in the afternoon. She was even rounder than Dr. Dambach. Pointing to the slice of cheese pie in his hand, she asked, 'Any more of that left?'
He looked down in surprise. 'I don't know,' he said, sounding foolish. 'Let me go look.' While he did, Esther made her escape-and that was exactly what it felt like.
Alicia Gimpel and her sisters were playing an elaborate game with dolls. Part of it came from an adventure film they'd seen a few weeks before, but that was only the springboard; more came straight from their imaginations. 'Here.' Roxane picked up one of the few male dolls they had. 'He can be the nasty Jew who's trying to cheat the dragons out of their cave.'
'No!' Alicia exclaimed before remembering she wasn't supposed to say anything like that no matter what.
'Why not?' Roxane clouded up. 'You never like any of my ideas. It's not fair.'
'I think Alicia's right this time,' Francesca said. 'He's not ugly enough to be a Jew.'
That wasn't why Alicia had said no, of course. She seized on it gratefully all the same. 'Yes, that is what I meant,' she said. She still didn't like lying to her sisters, but she didn't see what she could do about it, either. She couldn't tell the truth. She could see that.They'll find out soon enough, she thought from the height of her own ten years.
Roxane examined the doll, who was indeed plastic perfection. 'Well, we canpretend he's ugly,' she declared, and made him advance on the cardboard box doing duty for a cave. In a high, squeaky, unnatural voice, she said, 'Here, dragons, I'll give you these beans if you'll move away from here and never come back. They may be magic beans.' She laughed shrilly and whispered, 'And they may not, too.'
Francesca reached into the box and pulled out a stuffed dragon. 'You nasty old Jew, you're trying to fool us. You'd better get out of here or I'll burn your ears off.'
Roxane made the doll retreat. 'I'll figure out another way to get your gold, then-you see if I don't.'
'Oh, no, you won't,' Francesca retorted. 'I'm an Aryan dragon, and I'm too tough for you.'
Alicia got to her feet. 'I don't think I want to play any more.'
'Why not?' Roxane said. 'Things are just getting good.' She looked down at the doll. 'Aren't they?' It responded-she made it respond-with a thoroughly evil chuckle and a, 'That's right,' in the high, squeaky voice she'd used before.
'She's a wet blanket, that's why,' Francesca said. 'She's been a wet blanket for weeks now, and I'm tired of it.'
'Wet blanket! Wet blanket!' Roxane sang, now in her own voice, now in the one she'd invented for the Jew doll.
'I am not!' Alicia said angrily. 'This is a stupid game, that's all.'
Roxane got angry, too. 'You're just saying it's stupid because I'm doing something I thought up all by myself.' She wheeled out the heavy artillery: 'I'm going to tell. Mommy says you can't do things like that.'
