“And then what?”
“Well …” She still had to work out the details of her plan. “Let’s cross one bridge at a time, shall we?”
“What’s your name?” he asked, obviously reluctant for her to go.
“Elise Hess. And yours?”
“John,” he replied. “John Sterling.”
Frieda was in Charité’s medical supply room, looking for both morphine and phenobarbital. She took a bottle of each down from the shelves.
Elise came in, looking for insulin. “What do you have there?” she said, looking over Frieda’s shoulder. “Mein Gott, that’s enough to kill an ox. What do you need that for?” Her stomach lurched. She grabbed her friend’s arm. “It’s not Dr. Brandt, is it? Has he asked you to … you know …”
“No,” Frieda whispered, her voice shaking. “It’s for Ernst. Ernst has asked me to … help him die.”
“What? You can’t!”
“What choice do I have? If I don’t, he’ll do it himself. Elise, you know that because I’m a nurse, I can do it for him with far less pain than he ever could.”
“No,” Elise insisted. “No. There has to be another way.”
Frieda looked close to death herself, her face drawn. Her eyes were dull and unseeing.
“I need to do something right now,” Elise told her, “but meet me on the roof in ten minutes, all right?”
Frieda gave a reluctant sigh. “All right.”
Satisfied that no one was around, Elise went to the medical records room. But the door was locked. Not just locked but triple padlocked. She said a silent prayer to St. Jude, the patron of lost causes.
Another nurse in gray and white passed. “What happened here?” Elise asked her.
The nurse stopped, frowning. “Another of Dr. Brandt’s rules.”
“But how are we supposed to get to patient files when we need them?”
“There’s a new form—it must be signed by Dr. Brandt before you can be let in. And even then, you’ll be supervised by Nurse Flint.”
“I see,” Elise said. The other nurse walked away. Great, just great, Elise thought, realizing that three iron locks would be impossible to pick. She needed to find out where Dr. Brandt kept the keys.
But first, there was Frieda.
Up on the roof of the hospital, in the harsh midday light, Elise and Frieda shared a cigarette.
“Maybe it really is a work camp,” Elise said, inhaling. “Maybe it’s just for the war, and then, after, he’ll be able to come home …”
She stopped, realizing how inane she sounded.
“I know the propaganda films all show the Germans marching unopposed into Poland.” Frieda frowned. “All the Jews looking happy and healthy in their ghettos. Everyone thrilled to be there, before being shipped off to Madagascar, or whatever final destination they’re talking about this week …” She brushed hot tears from her cheeks. “But do you seriously think that the Nazis, who are willing to murder children—Christian children, Nazi children, for God’s sake—are really going to waste their time and money taking care of Jews?”
Elise was silent, remembering the gas chamber at Hadamar. “No,” she said, dropping her cigarette and crushing it under the heel of her shoe. “No, you’re right.” She crossed herself.
“And Ernst would rather kill himself than die at their hands.”
Elise knew that Frieda would know how to administer the correct dosages of morphine and phenobarbital. Ernst could die in his own bed. With dignity. Without pain.
No! something inside of Elise screamed. No, we haven’t come to that—not yet, at least. Not only was suicide a mortal sin but it would somehow signify that they were lost, that Germany was lost, that their humanity was lost.
“Frieda,” Elise said, thinking fast, “telephone Ernst—have him meet us at the hospital after work.”
“But the curfew laws …”
“He’s just going to have to make sure not to get caught.”
“Bastards took our telephone.”
“Then go!” Elise gestured toward the stairwell. “I’ll cover for you. Bring him back here.”
“What then?”
Elise put her arm around her friend. “I have a plan. Now go!”
Elise and Frieda set Ernst up as a corpse for the day, draped in a sheet to hide him, in Charité’s basement morgue. His instructions were to lie as still as possible, hour after hour, until they came to get him.
When it was finally time, the two nurses had him sit in a wheelchair. They made their way to the back entrance, where Father Licht was waiting in his car. It was late afternoon, with sunshine slanting and burning. A hot breeze had picked up. The air smelled of spilled oil and car exhaust.