Enemy of the Tzar

by Lester S. Taube

  His usual taxi was waiting; the door held open by the driver from the front seat. Paul stepped inside.

  “Good mornin’, Doc. Another week, eh?”

  “Good morning, Joseph. Yes, another one.”

  In short time, the taxi drew up in front of the Royal Hospital, and Paul got out. The doorman raised the tips of his fingers to his cap.

  “Good morning, Doctor Weiner. Lovely weather today.”

  Paul nodded amiably. “A sunny April, but we will catch it in two or three months.”

  As he strode through the lobby, the elevator starter held up a car for him to enter.

  “Good morning, Doctor Weiner.”

  “Good morning, Ralph.”

  The elevator let him off on the eighth floor, and he entered through a door marked Doctor Paul Weiner, Chief of Cardiology. He greeted his secretary, then went in to his own office, crossed the thick wall-to-wall carpet, took off his hat and coat, and sat in his leather, swivel chair. He glanced over the correspondence, neatly stacked there.

  With a tap on the door, his Deputy Chief of Cardiology, Harold Wetzler, walked in. He was medium-height, slim, about sixty, with smooth, pink skin.

  “Hello, Paul. Have a good weekend?”

  “Fine, thank you, Harold. How was yours?”

  “Enjoyable. How is Hanna? Still toying with becoming a tycoon again?”

  Paul chuckled. “Not if I can help it. But she enjoys her design company. It is actually a form of therapy.”

  “Three years now, isn’t it. She has made a marvelous recovery.”

  When Wetzler had gone, Paul thought of the years that had flown by. Directly after his discharge, he had taken Hanna to Geneva, watched patiently for two more months until she had completely recovered, then had taken her to London.

  Three years. A lifetime.

  The same taxi was waiting at the conclusion of work to take him home. As the butler opened the door to let him in, the phone rang. “I will get it,” he said, handing over his hat, coat and case. He picked up the phone in the vestibule. There were a number of clicks and voices, and then an operator asked for Mrs. Charnoff.

  “One moment,” he said. “Mother,” he called.

  Hanna came in from the kitchen, an apron protecting her fine, silk dress.

  “Oh, you are home.”

  “A phone call for you. It sounds like long distance.”

  “Thank you.” She took up the handset. “Mrs. Charnoff,” she said. She waited for the connection to be made, and then she listened. “Yes, yes, Zelek. It is me,” she said in Russian. She listened again. Then her face turned white as a ghost, and she staggered back. Paul grabbed at her, but she regained control at once and pulled away. “Say it again!” she shouted, her eyes wild. She listened once more, and then she turned to Paul. “He has found Stephen!” she cried, her eyes blinded by tears, her hand pressed tightly against her mouth.

  She was unable to continue, so Paul took the handset. “Uncle Zelek,” he said in German. “This is Paul. Mother is very upset.”

  Zelek sounded half a world away. “I have found Stephen,” he repeated. “I have placed him in a hospital. He is very bad, very bad.”

  Paul passed on the message to Hanna. “Tell him I am coming there at once,” she said, finally able to speak.

  “No, no,” replied Zelek to Hanna’s words. “He must come there. He needs the best of medical care. I have made arrangements for him to leave tomorrow. He will need permission to enter England. Can you get it?”

  “We will get it,” said Paul, flatly.

  Hanna was now able to speak. She gestured for the phone. Paul handed it over, and then bought a chair for her to sit on. She and Zelek spoke for several more minutes, and then she hung up. Her face had regained some color, but her eyes were still wild. “Paul, please get in touch with the Foreign Office. We must have the immigration service allow Stephen into the country.”

  Paul had no doubt of the government’s cooperation, for Hanna and he had contributed heavily to the party in power. He helped her to her feet. “I will attend to everything, Mother. But only after you take a glass of tea.”

  “Tea!” she said, her hands trembling. “I need a Likör.”

  Paul accompanied Hanna to the London Airport two days later. It had taken that long for Stephen to be moved by stages to his final destination. Hanna was holding a large bouquet of red roses, and she was shaking. She tried to control it, but it was beyond her.

  The Member of Parliament they knew had worked wonders. Not only was permission granted for Stephen to enter the country, but Hanna and Paul were allowed to meet the plane directly. Behind them waited an ambulance.

  It was an English plane that landed in mid-afternoon, three hours late. A number of people disembarked, and then an attendant stepped out on the platform, supporting an old, bone-thin man. Hanna let out a cry of disbelief. He was barely able to shuffle down the steps; his hair was sparse and gray, his face broken, and his once proud shoulders were bent like those of a cripple. Even from her position, she could see that many of his teeth were missing.

  When they reached the ground, Hanna thrust the flowers into Paul’s hands and ran over. She clasped Stephen in her arms, supporting him with an infinite tenderness. He was barely as tall as she now. She kissed his seamed, weather beaten face, and her chest shook with sobs.

  She held him by the shoulders and looked directly at him. His eyes were glazed, empty, and without life.

  “Stephen,” she said, her heart breaking. “I am Hanna. Can you understand me?”

  He looked at her blankly, and then he nodded. Mucus was running from his nose. Hanna wiped it off, biting her lip to regain control.

  Paul stepped forward. He moved Hanna gently aside. “Welcome, Stephen Viktorovitch,” he said in Russian. “I am Hanna’s foster son.” He motioned at the ambulance attendants, and they trotted up with a stretcher. They placed Stephen on it, then into the vehicle. Hanna got inside with them, and Paul signaled for the butler, driving Hanna’s Rolls Royce.

  At the hospital, Stephen was rushed to a private suite where a specialist was waiting. Hanna sat in the sitting room while the specialist and Paul examined him, and tests were made.

  “What happened to him?” asked Paul, as he joined Hanna. He was shocked to the core.

  Hanna was back in control again. “Zelek found him by accident. His division was conducting an exercise in Siberia, and some villagers spoke of a hermit named Stephen, living in the forest. Stephen was on the point of death, he said. Apparently, he had slaved for over twenty years in a coal mine, and then had gotten black lung fever. They put him out, to die. As sick as he was, he made a shack in the forest, and then cut firewood for the villagers. About five years ago, he became too feeble to cut and haul by hand any longer. Since then, by all accounts, he has been living on roots and berries, small animals he trapped, and begging when the weather became bad.” She turned her face away. “Zelek did not say as much, but he does not believe Stephen will live for long.”

  Paul covered her hand with his. “We will not let him die, will we, Mother?”

  She gritted her teeth, tears back in her eyes. “Not as long as I have a breath in my body,” she vowed.

  Within an hour of his arrival at the hospital, Stephen was rushed into the intensive care unit, and, soon after, two other physicians were brought in. One was a specialist in lung diseases, the other a professor of nutrition. It was late in the evening when Paul reported.

  “We are administering glucose intravenously and giving him heavy doses of vitamins,” he replied somberly. “The x-rays of his lungs show considerable damage that I am afraid is irreparable, and his EKG reveals the results of awesome fatigue on his heart. All in all, he has used up his body far beyond the limits that most men have. I think what we have here is not only a physiological problem, but also a psychological one. By all rights, he should have collapsed long ago. We will use every means available to build up his strength. Absolute bed rest, the finest nutrient
s, constant care.”

  “Arrange for nursing around the clock,” said Hanna. “I know you will spare nothing in your efforts.” She eyed him closely. “You mentioned psychological help. What do you mean?”

  “He does not demonstrate any response to what is going on about him. He accepts everything that is done for him, but he doesn’t care. I do not detect a mental aberration, but I suspect that he is as scarred emotionally as he is physically.”

  “Do you know of a psychiatrist who is fluent in Russian?” she asked.

  “Not off hand, but I am sure we can locate a qualified one.”

  “Will you wait until he gets some strength?”

  “No, Mother. I suspect that both problems are linked, and that any help we can manage with one will assist strongly the other.”

  For the next few days, Hanna was able to see Stephen only for half an hour in the morning, and the same in the evening. When she entered the room, he looked at her, but there was no recognition, just acceptance. When she spoke, he listened, but he did not respond.

  A Doctor Bulakhovski, a psychiatrist who had immigrated from Russia several years ago, had been located by Paul. After a few sessions with the patient, he discussed the case with Hanna and Paul.

  “Mrs. Charnoff–“he started, in Russian.

  “My real name is Timoshinkov,” said Hanna. “I used Charnoff for personal problems.”

  “Very well. Your husband is suffering from psychomotor retardation. It means that his entire body does not function properly. It is not an uncommon ailment, especially for a person who has been isolated and under great stress for a considerable period of time. Mentally, they dwell within themselves. You, me, the nurses, doctors–we are unreal. We are all figments of his imagination, the same as if you daydreamed of visiting the moon and saw little men with gigantic eyes. You would realize soon enough that they are hallucinations. Mr. Timoshinkov’s reality is that hut in the forest to shelter him from the fierce cold, finding a large number of roots upon which he could gorge himself, or perhaps two large hares in his traps instead of…” his hands moved expressively, “…a mouse.”

  “What can you do for him?” asked Hanna.

  “Time, dear lady, time. One day a single incident might become his reality. Perhaps it may be you. He might bring you into his distant world for a moment, an hour, and then decide that you are not real. In that event, he may never open that door in his head for you again. Or he may someday accept you as reality. From that, perhaps you can teach him that a good meal and music and a lovely ballet is reality. Until then, the crucial action is to keep him alive. If you wish, I will come daily and seek the means to link him to our reality.”

  Hanna was clenching her handkerchief so tightly that her nails were piercing it. “Is he mentally unbalanced?” she asked, a sob in her voice.

  The doctor considered her question for a few seconds. “Yes,” he finally said.

  Hanna sat back in her chair, the room whirling about her. Stephen, Stephen. She could see him striding down the road, his hair blowing in the wind, his shoulders so straight and strong, his blue eyes looking down at her with the love that made her knees weak. Stephen, Stephen. Must it come to this?

  “What can I do, Doctor,” she managed to say.

  He had heard all the details, about the Barlaks, Hershel, Jakob, the flight to Prussia. He leaned forward and took her hands in his. “Love him,” he said softly.

  After ten days of intensive care, Stephen was returned to the suite, a retinue of nurses accompanying him.

  “Doctor Bulakhovski suggested a move to more comfortable surroundings,” said Paul. “So far as intensive care is concerned, we can do as well here.”

  “Are there any changes with his body signs?” she asked.

  “Very little so far, Mother. We must plan on weeks, perhaps months, for possible results.” He looked at her sympathetically. “We will try everything. His body just does not accept nourishment the way it should. It has been conditioned so long to exist on so little that it fights itself. What we hope for is that one day it will let down its guard, accommodate a little more food than it had the day before. At that point, we can make progress.”

  She went into the bedroom. The nurse had just straightened up the covers.

  “Hello, Stephen,” she said, taking a seat by his side. He looked at her, his eyes dull. “I am Hanna. Hanna from Gremai.” She lifted his wasted hand and stroked it. “Do you remember me?” He kept looking at her blankly. His nose was running again. She wiped it with a tissue. She took a book in Russian from her purse. “This is a story of Catherine The Great,” she said. “Do you remember how everyone in Russia loved it? I am going to read it to you.” She read for an hour, his eyes continuing to stare at her. There was a change of nurses, and the new one came over for instructions. “I will stay with him,” said Hanna. “You may rest in the sitting room. I will call if I need you.”

  The nurse nodded, checked the glucose dripping into his arm, and then gave him an injection. “Vitamins,” she explained.

  When she left, Hanna went on with the story. While reading, the nurse walked in. “A phone call for you, Mrs. Timoshinkov. She says she is your assistant.”

  “Please have her contact Doctor Weiner.” As she started to leave, Hanna said, “Also tell everyone that when I am in this room, I will accept no calls.”

  “Very well.”

  Hanna continued her reading.

  She slept on a bed next to Stephen. At each sound of the nurse checking on the glucose, or taking his temperature and his pulse, she woke and watched. When morning came, she greeted him with the same words, “Good morning, Stephen. I am Hanna. Hanna from Gremai,” then she continued reading where she had left off. She stopped only when Paul and the specialists came to examine him, or the hour when Doctor Bulakhovski visited. Then she would start again.

  When she finished the story, she took another book from a stack in the sitting room and started anew.

  At the end of the second week, they began to feed Stephen a soft diet. Most of the food dribbled from his mouth, but, like with an infant, they put it back. Each day he seemed to be taking more. And each morning, Hanna would approach the bed with, “I am Hanna. Hanna from Gremai,” and start reading once more.

  Paul came by at mid-morning of the following Monday. “Can you spare a few minutes, Mother?” he asked. She put down the book. He looked over at Stephen, still staring fixedly off into space. “It may not seem so to you, but his signs are improving. Anyhow, I need your advice. You assistant, Helene, said she has a company interested in one of your designs. How shall I answer that?”

  “Tell her to stall. That I will speak with her next week.” Her eyes kept flicking towards Stephen every few seconds.

  “All right.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Take all the time you want, Mother”.

  A few minutes after Paul left the room, she heard a murmer, “Anna.” She turned, startled. It had come from Stephen!

  She fought down a desire to leap to her feet. Instead she took up his hand gently. “Yes, Stephen. Hanna is here.” Did she detect a focusing of his eyes! “I am Hanna. Hanna from Gremai.”

  He did not respond, just looked blankly at the ceiling. She could hardly wait to call Doctor Bulakhovski and tell him what happened.

  “Excellent, Mrs. Timoshinkov. Excellent. Continue reading. It is a marvelous idea. He is becoming accustomed to your voice.”

  “Shall I try talking to him?”

  “No. No. It must come from him. It must come from within.”

  “Hanna.”

  She came wide awake. She glanced at the clock. It was 2 a.m.

  “Hanna.”

  She almost leaped from her bed. Stephen was looking at her. “God Almighty!” she cried softly. “He is not staring! He is looking!”

  She walked over to him. “Hello, Stephen. I am Hanna. Hanna from Gremai.”

  “I know,” he whispered, his voice barely audible.

  She dropped to her k
nees. “Stephen,” she said, unable to believe her ears. “Who am I?”

  His mouth worked for a moment or two. “You are Hanna…my wife.”

  She buried her face on the edge of the bed, unable to control herself any longer. She wiped her eyes; her chest heaving with emotion. “Yes, yes, my beloved,” she managed to say without choking. “I am your wife.”

  “Where am I?”

  “You are in London, England, Stephen. In a hospital. You have been very ill.”

  Then, in an instant, his eyes began to cloud, and he rolled over on his side.

  Hanna waited a long minute.

  “Stephen,” she said. He did not reply. Wearily, she climbed to her feet. She must take great care. As Doctor Bulakhovski said, he had to find his own way.

  The following day, Stephen had some lucid moments, and he even recalled a few of the incidents that he and Hanna had shared. And although the periods became longer each day, she still continued greeting him with, “Good morning, Stephen. I am Hanna. Hanna from Gremai.” He actually looked forward to her salute. By now he was eating more soft foods, along with his glucose and vitamin injections. All were greatly encouraged. Soon they helped him to a chair, and he sat up for a couple of hours, at times looking about with interest, and then abruptly staring off into space. Hanna had an inspiration, so she brought in her phonograph and put on a recording of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. He loved it, and nodded eagerly when she asked if he would like to hear it again. From then on, Russian music filled his room until it was time for him to sleep. Now, when he looked off into space, he was still listening.

  Hanna stepped into the bedroom to check on Stephen. The nurse had gone out for a few minutes after helping to put him to bed. As she quietly approached, she saw from the light of the bed lamp that Stephen’s eyes were open, and that tears were rolling down his cheeks.

  “Stephen,” she said in alarm. “What is the matter?”