maybe, but still… Go directly to your room and do not pass Go. And he'd gone-not even a murmur of dissent. And he'd stayed quite a while too, hadn't he, quite a while. But now he was out, in front of a town house searching for signs of life. The doctor's, and his own.
His own was doing fine: pulse there if a little unsteady, ribs mending, arthritis bearable, shoulder remarkably numb. The doctor's was another matter. The town house was like the house in the Night Before Christmas. The not-a-creature-was-stirring-not-even-a-mouse house.
Okay, maybe a creature was stirring after all. A cat was stirring. Gray, mangy, and battle-scarred, it slithered past his cane and trudged up to the doorway like a hungover night prowler looking for a bed. One weak meow at the foot of the door, and the door answered, swinging open to let him in. Then it shut again, pronto.
The doctor was up. And so was William, up the front walk to the stoop where he knocked twice and waited.
The cat had gotten much quicker service, he thought after a minute or so, wondering if a good meow wasn't in order. Then, the door swung open and Dr. Morten, a large man in a blue bathrobe, peered out at him and said he already had a subscription to The Watchtower. Not that he was a Jehovah's Witness or anything, just that he had a lot of trouble saying no to people.
Which turned out to be right on the money. After all, when he realized William wasn't a Jehovah's Witness, or a political canvasser, or an encyclopedia salesman, or the man from the Water Department, he still let him in.
'The hospital sent you, you said?'
Dr. Morten had led him to the kitchen. At least, it looked like the kitchen. Underneath the food-encrusted dishes, the coffee-stained cups, and glutinous-looking silverware, he thought there was a kitchen there. Although it didn't exactly smell like a kitchen; it smelled like a cross between a lavatory and a gym.
'Yes,' William said, sitting down at the kitchen table. 'They told me you worked there for years.'
Dr. Morten was filling up yellow bowls, one with water, one with milk, one with food, then another one with water and another one with milk and another one with food. And so on.
'Oh yes,' Dr. Morten said, 'years.'
Now cats began to appear. Lots of cats. From under the table, from behind the refrigerator, from inside the cupboards, from underneath the radiators, it was suddenly raining cats. William, who was in the general vicinity of their food, had a sudden appreciation for what a wildebeest must go through right before the lions snap the life out of him. Or what Mr. Brickman must feel like every moment he spent outside. It wasn't fun being the prey; given a choice you'd rather be the lion.
'So,' Dr. Morten said, 'what can I do for you?' He sat down on the other side of the table; a black cat started playing with the belt of his robe.
William explained. Dead person, concerned parties, investigating, etc.
'Fascinating story,' Dr. Morten said. 'Why are you talking to me?'
'The deceased was registered in a program for Holocaust survivors after the war. Were you around for that?'
'For that and all the rest of them. World War II, Korea, Vietnam. The lot. And you know what I learned-war's war. Just the casualty figures change. And everyone's a casualty. Were you in the war?'
'No.' He'd been drafted at the very end and sent to Army Supply in Fort Dix. While Jean had been smuggling Jews to Argentina, he'd been smuggling Scotch to corporals. So while he'd been in the service, he hadn't been in the war.
'What was his name?' Dr. Morten said, then, 'Stop it, Clarence,' to the cat, who was tugging on his bathrobe like a wife who didn't like being ignored.
'Jean,' William said. 'Jean Goldblum.'
Something happened. A cat leapt across the table, throwing a shadow across Dr. Morten's face. A yellow bowl was knocked over, throwing its milk against the bottom of his bathrobe where it clung like paste.
'Cats…' Dr. Morten said, a little sadly. 'Cats. I moved most of my files downstairs-I was going to write a few case studies when I had the chance. I'll take a look. Goldblum? I don't remember that name, but then there were so many of them. If he was in the program, he'll be there.'
He left William in the kitchen; two cats began fighting, hissing like snakes, spraying each other with spit. Something had happened. A cat had leapt across the table; milk had been spilt; Dr. Morten had said I'll take a look. William rubbed his forehead, eyes closed, trying to figure it out. A cat had leapt, like a shadow…
Dr. Morten returned.
'It took a while, but I found him. He was in the program. Briefly. Jean Goldblum-that's the name, right? Nothing much there. His wife and children were exterminated in Mauthausen. That's it. If he had any other relatives, it doesn't say so. Sorry.' Me too. 'Anything else in the file?' 'Else?' 'I don't know. Anything that caught your attention maybe. Anything I could use.' 'No.' 'It's just that you become curious about a person. You start out just doing a job, but then you become curious.' 'About what?' 'Things. Did you know he was some sort of resistance hero in the war-sure you do, it's probably all in the file. He got a lot of other Jews out.' 'Yes-it mentioned that.' 'I always wondered why he couldn't do the same for them.' 'Them?' 'His wife and children. I mean while he was smuggling everyone else out of there, why didn't he get around to them?' 'Who knows? Maybe they didn't want to leave him behind.' 'Sure. There's other things though.' 'What things?' 'Well, you've got an honest-to-God hero here. Everyone else was trying to save their skin-but him, he's risking his neck to save strangers. Mother Teresa and Jean Goldblum. See-you can utter them in the same breath.' 'So?' 'The thing is,' William continued, 'after the war, Jean wasn't so heroic anymore. From what I can tell-from people who knew him. He didn't help old ladies across the street anymore. He ran them over. He became a detective, and he got a reputation…'
'What kind of reputation?'
'The kind that gets you clients who pay in cash.'
'What's your point?'
'I'm curious why that happens.'
'Why?'
'Yeah. I'm curious why someone turns. I'm interested in the process.'
'Are you asking hypothetically? Because that's the only way I can answer you. Mr. Goldblum was a client of the hospital. There are laws about that.'
'Sure. Hypothetically. Hypothetically why someone who's up for the Nobel Prize ends up blackmailing queers.'
'Hypothetically, you've got someone who grew up by the Golden Rules. Someone who, hypothetically, believed in them. Someone who was confronted with a horrible situation. Someone who still believed in them. Someone who acted on them. Someone who got sent to Mauthausen for acting on them. And the worst part-some- one who lost everything he loved for acting on them. Hypothetically, you've got someone who isn't so fond of the Golden Rules anymore. Someone who, hypothetically speaking, can't wait to get rid of them.'
'Okay, that makes sense.'
'And this kind of person wouldn't exactly be enamored with himself either.'
'Why?' William said, remembering those pictures shot from boot high.
'He survived. They didn't.'
They being one wife and two little tow-headed children.
'We coined a phrase,' Dr. Morten said. 'Survivor's guilt. We couldn't do much about it-but we gave it a name.'
'Why couldn't you do much about it?'
'Why? Imagine yourself strapped in an airplane with your whole family. I mean everyone. Cousins, grandmothers, uncles and aunts, your wife and children. And then you crash. You don't just crash-you know you're crashing for a good ten or fifteen minutes. You feel the ground rushing up to meet you. You have to listen to everyone's cries and prayers and whimpers. You have to look into your children's eyes and see the future that'll never happen. And then, when the moment finally comes, when you finally crash, after you've said your goodbyes and wrapped your arms around your wife and children for the last time-surprise. You don't die. They do-all of them, while you watch them go one by one unable to stop it. But you-you're still there. Now,' Dr. Morten said, 'what do I tell you to make you feel better? What do I tell you to make you stop wishing you'd joined them?'
Yeah, William thought, remembering that little girl, okay, not quite the same thing. But still…
