by A G Mogan
“I can do that for you, Corporal Hitler,” I hear the voice of Dr. Forster say. I also hear him fetching the candle and removing it from the ward.
“I think it is time we should talk,” he says upon his return in the ward.
I immediately sit up. “Oh, yes! I need to talk immediately, I must tell the truth to the world. The truth about the conspiracy! The Jews, the bloody Jews!”
“We could talk about this later, Corporal Hitler. For now, I am more concerned with your blindness.”
“Oh?”
“Could you please follow me to my consulting room? You can lean on me.”
I stretch my hand forward and grab him by his arm. Walking slowly, with short sliding steps, I realize how weak I have become. Only my bone structure is left of me and the skin that prevents it from scattering all around the floor. I feel old, very old.
As we reach his consulting room, he helps me up on a metal table. While he’s examining my eyes, I think of my misery. They have all abandoned me … the Providence, the Goddess of War and Justice, even my own self. I deserve nothing but misery. Abandonment and suffering must be all that I deserve. I am, indeed, a good-for-naught.
“Well, I do not believe you are one of them,” the doctor suddenly interrupts my train of self-hating thoughts.
“One of who?” I ask, puzzled.
“One of the whiny children.”
“How do you mean, Doctor?”
“Most of them are, most of the soldiers. They are nothing but malingerers, simulators seeking to escape the dangers of the trenches; war hysterics, Corporal Hitler, who would produce every imaginable symptom from fear of the front.”
“Yes, they are! I met many of them on the front, scoundrels who would talk against the war, rascals who were there fighting, but in their heart of hearts they were all deserters,” I say, gesticulating furiously. “I assure you doctor, I am not one of them, I would have given a limb just to be able to return to the front! Before the pastor came in, I couldn’t sleep at night thinking what I should do to be allowed to return in the trenches!”
“I believe you.”
“Well, Doctor, if that’s what you are thinking of them, then you wouldn’t be surprised to know what they are thinking of you!”
“And what is that?”
“Well, they say you are a bully who behaves like a master punishing his servants.”
“Good one, Corporal Hitler. Good one!”
“Please, Doctor, call me Adolf. The war is over and Corporal Hitler did not complete his mission. From now on, I am simply Adolf.”
“And what mission would that be?”
“Saving my Motherland from the traitors.”
“That is a tough mission you have assumed for yourself. Much too tough and much too great for a mere mortal. We all wanted it, yet─”
“You’ve said you wanted to talk. What about?” I say, cutting short his idiotic speech.
“Yes, indeed. You know I am a neuropsychologist, don’t you?”
“No, I didn’t,” I answer nonchalantly.
“Well, we therapists believe that we can cure many of the patient’s conflicts quite effectively through a simple method.”
“Which is?”
“Talking, Adolf. Simple talk.”
“I can talk alright. Would that cure me of this dreadful blindness?”
“That remains to be seen. But at least I am proving myself to be no bully!” He burst out laughing and I as well.
“Okay. I will start by telling you that sometimes the profound desires of an individual clash with his moral convictions, and thus, they are shuttered away, deep in the subconscious, so to speak. Yet they are only dormant for a while and tend to resurface in a disguised way … ”
“I am afraid I don’t follow.”
“I am trying to say that by talking, by pulling out of your subconscious the real problems that torment you, we will come to the cause of your blindness. When Sigmund Freud gave to the world the gift of ─”
“The cause of my blindness, doctor, is the British gas.”
“It was…when you arrived here. You’ve been cured. Yet your blindness returned.”
“Well, maybe you hadn’t used the proper treatment.”
“The treatment was proper, rest assured. You hadn’t been exposed to such an extent for your blindness to become permanent.”
“But I am blind! Or maybe some evil witch cast a spell on me?” I shout out, enraged by his display of stupidity.
“Nothing like that. Your blindness returned when you heard the news of Germany’s defeat.”
“So?”
“So, my guess is that you suffer from hysterical blindness, and not as a result of the mustard gas poisoning.”
“Are you insinuating that I am crazy?” I seethe, clenching my fists.
“Of course not. Not crazy. In the words of Freud, you would be called a person who is ─”
“Enough!” I yell and lurch off the table, losing my equilibrium for a moment. The doctor grabs and holds me, but I violently push his hand away.
“Are you one of them, too? Are you a Jew? Talking! I am blind and he wants to talk! Not about my physical blindness splashed in my face by the enemy, but of resurfacing subconscious in disguise! And of what else? Of Sigmund Freud! The greatest Jew of them all! Patient cured and buried! Halleluiah!”
“It’s just simple talk, Adolf!”
“What you call simple talk, I call another Jewish method to screw up our minds!”
“There are no Jews in here, only you and me!”
“You all are the henchmen of the Jews. They’ve poisoned your minds and you, in turn, are doing it on others! You want talk? There! That’s what’s going through my mind! That’s what riddles my subconscious and conscience alike! For years!”
“I see. You refuse my help out of a racial or political conviction. If so, then you might need my help more than you think.”
“I need your help to see again, not to talk! Can you do that? Can you make me see again? No! All you want is to talk! Why? Because you have no goddamn clue how to cure me!” I roar, groping and shuffling toward the door. “Incapable! Inefficient! Quacks! That’s what you all are!”
“I could make you see again,” I hear him say from the doorway, and know we are done with the useless talk. “Please, come back and take your seat on the table. I will examine your eyes again.”
I oblige and return inside.
“Thank you,” I say curtly, and climb onto the table.
“I believe you are right,” he starts, dropping his utensil on the table with the small ring of metal hitting against metal.
“Your blindness seems, indeed, to be the result of mustard gas poisoning and not of a psychological trauma.”
“Of course, I am right, I told you. What do you suggest, Doctor?” I ask, puffing out my chest and raising my chin proudly. I might have just opened his eyes to the Jewish poison. I may be blind myself, but surely I gave him back his sight. Now, it’s his turn, and hopefully, he’ll do a job just as good as I did.
“Well, I am afraid I have bad news.”
His words take me unaware. “How do you mean?”
“Being physical, it is very probable that your blindness will become permanent.”
His words reduce me to silence. They are so straightforward and definitive. My mouth opens, yet no sound comes out of it.
“I am sorry,” he concludes.
“That’s it? I shall be blind as a bat, forever groping and shuffling?”
I am lost. I am ruined. First I lose the war and now … now this! I curse you, Father! I curse you, Jews! I curse you, world, for all the …
“Unless … ”
“Unless what, doctor? Please tell me!” This simple word hits me like the first ray of sun after a long, dreadfully cold winter.
“In some cases, extremely rare cases I must add, maybe one in a millennium, this handicap has been overcome. And who knows, maybe you could be one of those cases. After all, why not?”
> “But how? How? What must I do?”
“Well, you’ll have to listen very carefully to what I am telling you. But again, I don’t think you really want me to talk … ”
“Of course I do! I am all ears! Please, tell me what I should do! Upon my soul, I’ll do anything!” I wail, while fidgeting on his consulting table.
“Okay, then. Listen to me well. Maybe you yourself have the rare power, which occurs once every millennium, to perform a miracle. Jesus did it, Mohammed did it, and all the saints did it … ”
“Yes! Yes!” I shout.
“With your symptoms, a normal person would be blind for life. That’s a certainty. But for a person with exceptional will power and mental energy, there are no limits. Scientific knowledge does not apply to that person.”
“I am exceptional! I always told Gustl, my childhood friend! I was an exceptional being and he couldn’t understand what I meant! But you do understand, Dr. Forster, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. You need to believe in yourself totally and without reservation, and then you will see again. You know that Germany now needs people who have energy and blind faith in themselves. For you, my son, everything is possible! If you love your country, everything is possible!”
“You are absolutely right! And there is no man on this earth with greater will power than myself! No man with more love for his Motherland than me! I swear it to you!” I exclaim passionately and feel my body starting to shiver.
“I am happy to hear that, my son. And even if it sounds a bit ironic, I tell you this: Have blind faith in yourself and you will stop being blind.”
No sooner does he finish his sentence, than something extraordinary happens. The miracle that occurs once every millennium. I see light! It is not a constant light, but more like flashes coming and going. But I see it! I see the light!
I point my finger at the beam of light and begin to scream. “Dr. Forster! Would you believe if I told you? I see! I see light! It gets brighter and brighter! I am chosen! I am the chosen one!”
I continue to scream and again lunge from the table, straining to reach the miraculous light.
“Easy now, you must take it easy. It is a slow process, but you will regain your vision fully,” he says, helping me back to my bed. “My son, I am proud of you. You proved, once again, that science is in its infancy. Can you please rest? You are in good hands now.”
“Thank you! No words can express my gratitude! Thank you, Doctor!” I mumble and avert my face as burning tears are suddenly bursting from my eyes.
“The pleasure was all mine, Adolf. I am happy to have known a man destined for great things. A man with destiny!”
“You will certainly hear from me again! That I promise you! I will forever be in your debt!”
He shakes my hand then and walks from the ward.
Yet if he thinks I can lie here in my bed, he is mistaken. Just like a child who sees the things around him for the first time in his life, I start walking around the room and inspecting everything in it. I help the nurses, talk to the wounded soldiers, and write letters to their loved ones. I never thought I would be so happy at the sight of a stethoscope or a pencil or a blood-stained sheet. I am bursting with joy inside and out. I feel as if I had suddenly received my long-awaited wings; a spectacular pair of wings with tough, indestructible steel feathers, befitting only a man selected by Providence—the chosen one.
The joy and enthusiasm enveloping me prolongs into the night, long after everyone else has already drifted off to the magical woods of Dreamland. But those are not the only feelings enveloping me. The guilt of having doubted Providence again also torments me.
I lift my hands in prayer and from the bottom of my heart ask for forgiveness. How could I have been so weak as to doubt, at the slightest hindrance, the plan of the glorious Goddess of History? How could I have doubted and ignored the voice that guided me all these years, the voice that saved my life in the trenches, when all the others were blown to pieces? How could I? I had erased, in one moment of distrust, all the help I had received. Once more, I lift my arms and squeeze my hands tightly, asking for forgiveness. Streams of tears burn down my cheeks. I vow to the skies and to myself never again to lose faith in my destiny. I was weak, but now I received my steel-feathered wings. I had been lost, but now I am found again.
My prayer is stopped short by the sound of muffled voices coming from the hospital’s hallway. I prop myself up on one elbow, surprised that someone is still awake at such a late hour. The voices go on, louder and louder, only interrupted now and then by wild outbursts of laughter. My curiosity gets the best of me, and slipping out of bed, I head for the door. In the dim light, I bump into a nearby bed and tip over the pisspot, spreading urine all over the floor. A growl mixed with a curse escapes my lips, but I continue to grope and shuffle through the dark.
When my hand finally hits the door, I press my ear against it and strain to make sense of the talk on the other side of it. It’s true what they say; when one of your senses is damaged, the others enhance. My blindness improved my hearing and I discover amusedly that I can distinguish the voices very well. And not only that, I could swear I can hear the two people talking, but also when they breathe, sigh, and giggle.
One of the voices is Dr. Forster’s. He is chatting with one of the nurses working the night shift. Eavesdropping is not in my usual habit, but tonight, for some unknown reason or perhaps out of boredom, I am curious.
I hear the nurse whispering. Her voice sounds sweet and young and flirtatious. “Yes, dear, you can count on my discretion. Don’t forget that I, too, am married! Why would I need a scandal, when this way I can enjoy both of you?”
“I quite agree with your reasoning, dear,” the doctor says.
“The hours here are dreadfully long and I am sick of these impotents lying in beds,” she continues, and they burst into howls of conceited laughter. I can almost see the scene. She, throwing her head back. He, pulling her closer to bury his face on her exposed neck.
So my doctor is sowing his wild oats! I tell myself and smile in the dark, growing enthusiastic about what might follow next.
“Ah! And how!” he retorts. “I, too, am sick of all these war hysterics! All they do is whine like scared children. Today, I met the most hysterical of them all! What a tough day I had, pretty head!”
“Oh?”
“Come here, darling! Make me forget about this dreadful work of mine!”
“No, no, please, tell me! Who are you talking about?”
“The blind fellow in Ward II. Corporal Hitler.”
“The scrawny forlorn?”
“That’s the one!”
I cannot believe my ears and press my head even harder against the door. My heart is pounding rapidly, the pumped blood invading my cheeks.
“Bighearted as I am, I take him to my consulting room to try to adjust here and there his paranoid thoughts about the war, if only for saving him from that permanent sulkiness possessing him. We’ve all gotten over the defeat, except him. He harangues all day long about the Jews, their betrayal, and how they sold his country. He’s exasperated the other patients. The ones who listen look as if wanting to slash their wrists.”
My throat contracts with tears. This time, however, they are indignation tears.
The nurse sighs. “Poor fellow!”
“I knew he had mental problems as soon as he arrived here. And they were confirmed to me by your colleague the other day, when she told me that the fellow became blind again right after he heard the news of Germany’s defeat.
“Yes, Erna. She was on the day shift the day before yesterday.”
“Mark my words, pretty head, the man is a lunatic.”
“Ay, Ay, Ay!”
“Listen. I begin to explain to him how I am planning to help him, knowing of course that his blindness was hysterical, due to the impact the bad news had on him, and what does he do?”
“What?”
“He jumps off the table, starts wringi
ng his hands in indignation, all the while screaming that the Jews are to blame for everything, that they sold his country and must pay for their betrayal, that psychotherapy is an obscure science invented by Israel to bedevil the rest of the world, and so on and so forth.”
My stomach churns in revulsion and I clench my fists in an effort to hold my mounting fury from erupting.
“You’re so hilarious!” the nurse exclaims around bouts of laughter.
“You mean he is!”
“Well, yes!”
“Anyway … I manage to calm him down eventually, and quickly think of a method I could use to help restore his vision. After all, I am a doctor, and any method would do as long as the result is the expected one.”
“And did you find one?”
“Well, yes. Listen here. I tell to the poor fanatic that his blindness is indeed the result of mustard gas intoxication, and that he might be able to see again, if Providence has selected him for a greater purpose. I tell him that for a man with exceptional will power nothing is impossible.”
“You are so smart, dear. What an exceptional idea!”
“No sooner do I finish my sentence than I see the fellow coming back to life. His transformation from the suicidal, depressed, sulky cuckoo to the talkative, vital, enthusiastic fellow is so swift one would think I have a magic wand hidden in my drawer.”
“You are hilarious!” the woman says, and I hear the sound of a loud, quick kiss on the cheek.
“The hilarious part is just beginning, sweet lips.”
“You don’t say!”
“As I keep urging him to have absolute faith in himself, to trust his will power, and so on and so forth, I turn on my electric lamp. Still drilling on his fervent nationalism, I place the lamp near his eyes and play with its light, turning it on then off, then on and off again. Ah, my beauty! You should have heard him: Dr. Forster! Would you believe it if I told you? I see! I see light! It gets brighter and brighter! I am chosen! I am the chosen one!”
I expect uproarious laughter again, but, to my surprise, the woman changes her mood.
“Poor him … I feel so sad … ,” she says, making a tsk-ing sound. “I can only imagine what he’s been through, for four years in the trenches, deprived of heat and proper food … any sane man would turn mad!”
