Max

by Sarah Cohen-Scali

  Mother’s tears were still damp on my face, her hair hooked in my fingers. A gust of wind whipped the strands away. I would have liked to keep them to remember her by. I peed and no one came to change me. I couldn’t go back to sleep. I started howling, so loud that the whole nursery followed suit.

  It was a hell of a racket.

  For my first feed the next day, I found myself in the arms of a stranger, my nose squashed into her breast, which, although ample, was nothing like a nice soft pillow. She tried to stuff her nipple in my mouth, but I kept twisting my head away. She didn’t smell right. She wasn’t tense. I felt nothing. There was obviously no magic cord between her and me. The magic cord could only work with Mother, who had left last night. Left for good, I realised.

  I felt a strange sensation: as if the cord was still there, between my fingers, but no matter how I tugged on it, shook it, there was no one on the other end to answer anymore.

  I tried to reason with myself. If Helmut had got over Heidi leaving, if Léni had got used to Gisela’s absence, if dozens of others had managed to do without their cord, why couldn’t I? After all, I’d been baptised by the Führer himself; I was, in a way, the Chosen One. I should have set an example. I should have been the first to go through the experience of separation, since I was the veteran of the Home. But there you go, Mother had had the privilege of staying longer than the others, so the cord had attached a bit too strongly.

  I tried to swallow the wet nurse’s milk, but it made me want to vomit. Sour, thick, disgusting. Yuk! I couldn’t stomach it.

  During the next feeds, I scarcely managed a few drops before throwing up. My throat was burning; I was in agony. Over the following days, I kept up my cantankerous behaviour and yelled at every opportunity. I couldn’t lie down without getting cramps. And they’d moved me: I no longer slept in the nursery with the newborns, but with the big kids in another room. Besides, the nursery was overflowing. The new arrivals were piling up, almost on top of each other, not in bassinets, but in large tank-like containers. Like battery-cage chickens. The construction noise only added to my anxiety. (Once again they had to renovate the premises to accommodate all the new arrivals.) Being held didn’t calm me either. Overcome by hunger, I stopped being so fussy and resigned myself to drinking the disgusting milk. Result: diarrhoea, the runs!

  On the wagon. Nothing but rice milk.

  Then I realised I had to act, and fast. Two events opened my eyes.

  First, the weekly visit to Doctor Ebner’s laboratory.

  Herr Ebner pursed his lips in disgust when he saw my nappies soiled with that foul, green, slimy, stinking stuff that was not at all in line with the nicely moulded stools of a child of the master race, evidence of excellent health and perfect bodily control. I was so ashamed! When Ebner put me on the scales, it seemed that, behind his round glasses, his steely eyes froze, like two beads of ice. The vein at his temple was bulging more than ever. He dictated my weight to his secretary, who recorded it in the ‘Adequate’ column. I’d lost 700 grams since my last visit. Far too much. If this kept up…Ebner didn’t finish his sentence, but I knew that what he’d left unsaid was part of the code language.

  I was getting scrawny. Unharmonisch!

  Pull yourself together, Konrad! And fast!

  The second event was Ursula.

  She was still at the Home, even though she’d asked Josefa several times to get her an early release.

  ‘I’m sick of being cooped up! I’ve had it with nappies, naps, feeds, and the whole shebang! You never said I’d have to take a raincheck before giving another child to the Führer?’

  ‘Of course,’ replied Josefa, ‘but you know perfectly well that you have to wait a decent amount of time.’

  Ursula also fed her baby well; that’s why she was forced to stay longer at the Home. To stave off boredom, she indulged in her favourite activity: spreading gossip.

  We were on the terrace. The wet nurse was trying to feed me a bottle of water, which I refused. After persisting for a bit, she gave up and made do with holding the teat near my mouth, to give Josefa the right impression, while she lounged in the sun. That’s when Ursula came and sat next to us.

  ‘Well, now I know!’ she announced triumphantly.

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘I know where they took Edith, Klaus and Markus.’

  The other fat cow didn’t seem to have a clue who Ursula was talking about, but I did. Edith, Klaus and Markus were the babies picked out by Josefa the other night, the ones who’d left in the delivery van.

  ‘So where are they?’ asked the wet nurse idly. (She had absolutely no interest and was just making conversation.)

  ‘They were sent to the Steinhof Institute in Vienna. To Am Spiegelgrund, the children’s clinic, Ward 15,’ whispered Ursula.

  ‘Oh, good, they’ll be well looked after there.’

  ‘You just don’t get it!’ snapped Ursula, playing her guessing game with a cheeky smile. Eager to reveal her big secret, she continued, ‘They are part of a new program called “Merciful Death’.’’

  She rattled off the rest in a low voice, stopping often to look around and make sure there were no indiscreet eavesdroppers. Especially not the other mothers on the terrace. I hung on her every word, in particular the new code words.

  ‘Merciful death’ means that once the babies reach Ward 15, they’re killed. ‘Merciful death’ is not exactly synonymous with ‘purification’ or ‘relocation’; it’s different, subtler—it’s inducing death following an incurable illness. Because, well, the doctors at the Homes realised that, even if we children of pure Aryan stock had been engineered with the greatest care and rigour, even if we were the fruit of an impeccable union, once we were born, we were prey to any sickness that we might be exposed to as we grew up. A sad truth and a huge disappointment. Klaus, for example, had been afflicted with a harelip, Edith was deaf, and Markus suffered from asthma. Other defects had been discovered in one baby or another in places outside Steinhöring. If we were meant to be the incarnation of a new generation of lords and masters, then these flaws were inadmissible.

  Why did they occur? the doctors wondered. What could be the cause, the precise origin of these growth disorders? How could these congenital abnormalities be eradicated? In order to find a solution, they had to do research, experiments, tests.

  On the sick babies brought to Ward 15.

  First while they were still alive; then once they were dead. Their corpses were dissected, their heads, brains and organs preserved in formaldehyde and placed in jars on shelves—with labels.

  Another code word: ‘weak heart’—the term used in the clinic’s record books for cause of death.

  Ursula waited for the wet nurse’s reaction. The fat cow remained silent for a while, opening and closing her mouth like a soundless hand puppet.

  ‘I don’t believe you. That’s all nonsense!’ she finally announced.

  Annoyed that the fat cow wouldn’t take her word for it, Ursula ploughed on: ‘So what do you think our Führer, the Reichsführer Himmler, and the doctors Ebner and Brandt were discussing, here at this very Home, after the name-giving ceremony? Everyone knows the Reichsführer Himmler is passionate about scientific research, right? So why were certain bassinets empty after their visit to Doctor Ebner’s laboratory?’

  ‘Who told you all this? How did you find out?’

  ‘I like being social, you know,’ said Ursula. ‘It’s boring here with only women, so sometimes I have a chat with the delivery drivers in the morning. One of them told me. He’s happy because it’s more work for him. He delivers food in the morning, and in the evening he comes for the “rabbits”.’

  Another code word. The ‘rabbits’ are the babies taken to Ward 15 at the institute in Vienna to be used as guinea pigs.

  The wet nurse stared at Ursula without saying a word, without even opening her mouth the way she had before. She looked anxiously round at all the mothers on the terrace, as if she wanted one of them to be her witne
ss. Then, suddenly disenchanted, she shook her head. ‘Oh, you young people!’ she exclaimed. ‘What will you come up with next?’

  She leaned backwards, angling her face at the sun, while Ursula, still annoyed, walked off to put her baby back to bed and sneak away for another cigarette.

  Markus, Edith, Klaus.

  Markus the asthmatic. Edith the deaf one. Klaus the harelip.

  I’d often hung out with them. In the nursery, our bassinets were next to each other. Were they contagious?

  And my diarrhoea and loss of appetite, were they growth disorders? Defects? Intolerable flaws for a baby of the master race? I had just paid another visit to Doctor Ebner’s lab. He hadn’t finished his sentence…Now his silence resonated in my head, roaring, empty, terrifying. Now I knew what his silence meant: ‘Rabbit. Deliver to Ward 15.’

  No! No! I don’t want to be a rabbit! I don’t want to be chopped into pieces!

  A nervous spasm went through me and I flung my arms back so violently that the bottle of water clattered to the floor. I threw myself onto the wet nurse’s breast, latching on to the nipple as if I was going to swallow it.

  I sucked and sucked until I was full, even if the milk didn’t taste as good as Mother’s. And I clenched my buttocks, praying that this food wouldn’t end up in my nappy as soon as I’d gulped it.

  The next evening, I had terrible nightmares. I dreamed I was a ‘rabbit’ and they were injecting needles into my eyes to change their colour, make them bluer. I dreamed they gave me poison; that they drowned me in a bucket like a kitten; that they threw me into a furnace; that they strangled me. I dreamed of Klaus’s twisted mouth: it became more and more warped and misshapen, opening like a gigantic oven that engulfed me. I dreamed of Edith’s deaf ear and saw it swimming in the formaldehyde like a big fish in a bowl.

  I admit I was afraid, terribly afraid.

  So I battled to overcome my fear. And I succeeded.

  Now I am doing much better. I never baulk at a feed anymore, and I’ve gained weight. I came out of that ordeal a lot stronger.

  I understand now that my buddies’ sacrifice was essential in guaranteeing that the Reich’s medical science is the finest in the world. Markus, Edith, Klaus and all the ‘rabbits’ from the other Homes can be proud because they will be contributing to great discoveries: vaccines against tuberculosis and typhus (diseases spread by Jews and Gypsies), medications to heal the wounds of our soldiers at the front—once the war gets going, many of our men, alas, will be wounded. I now know that we make up a chain, every link of which, even the smallest, is vital. The weak die so the strong can become invincible.

  Now I’m no longer distressed by the disappearance of the ‘rabbits’ in the middle of the night. They’re necessary. And lots of them are needed. I’ve heard that, in addition to the clinic in Vienna, other ‘scientific institutes’—a new code word—will be opened. Former prisons will be refitted as ‘children’s hospitals’, with ultramodern ‘operating theatres’. (You’ve cottoned on, haven’t you? I don’t need to repeat myself? Let’s agree that, from now on, words in quotation marks are code words.) Reichsführer Himmler intends to open another fifty ‘research institutes’. Medical research will go ahead in leaps and bounds! Especially because, when they run out of ‘rabbits’, the war will keep the supply going, in the form of prisoners.

  There. I’m relieved to have confided in you about this moment of weakness and doubt, this bad patch I went through. I’ve undertaken my self-criticism, thus fulfilling one of the essential duties of any good National Socialist.

  I’m fine now. I eat, sleep and grow. I’m in perfect health. Harmonisch!

  And also…no more magic cord! It no longer exists. I’ve cut the umbilical cord once and for all. My memory of Mother is fading. It’s more and more blurred, like a reflection on the water’s surface that ripples and then vanishes. I can’t remember her smell anymore, or the feeling of pressing against the soft pillow of her breasts. Soon I’ll have forgotten she existed. Besides, I’m going to erase the word ‘Mother’ from my vocabulary. It serves no purpose right now, so why would I bother myself with it, when I’ve got my work cut out learning all the new code words.

  It’s good to feel free, unencumbered. I let myself lounge in anyone’s arms; I feed from any old set of breasts. Actually, soon I’m graduating to the bottle.

  I’m growing. Tall. Strong. Tough.

  Made of Krupp steel.

  They’re completely obsessed with housework here. And everything connected with it: the delivery of new toys, new furniture, back-up cleaning staff (prisoners allowed to enter the Home for work).

  Oh, boy! There’s no time to get bored. It’s all happening. Everything’s running smoothly. All the mothers are new: the only ones here now are those who have just given birth.

  Josefa is beside herself, running from room to room, racing upstairs and downstairs. Nothing escapes her eagle eye: a portrait of the Führer that hasn’t been dusted, some wilted flowers on the piano, that crooked rug in the entrance, and that baby who’s had a snotty nose all morning. She’s shouting at the nurses, nagging the secretaries, scolding the mothers, hitting the prisoners. (She got stuck into one the other day and hit her so hard, the girl had blood all over her face, and then Josefa reprimanded her for getting blood on the clean floor and hit her even harder.) Josefa is a nervous wreck. Even the sound of crying babies—the sound one associates with the Home, like the whirring of machines in a factory—sets her nerves jangling. The secretaries have been on the job for at least a fortnight. They’ve received a deluge of mail and have to work overtime to deal with it.

  In my opinion, all this carry-on—the housework, the new furniture, the high voltage tension in the Home—is also a code. It means we’re about to receive visitors.

  I’ve got a hunch: the secretaries are replying to letters that are all applications for adoption.

  In other words, after being conceived under the most rigorous scientific conditions, after passing the selection process at birth with flying colours and managing not to be disposed of as ‘bunnies’, we babies of the master Aryan race are now going to be sent off all over Germany.

  We’re going to leave, get to know the outside world!

  Our future adoptive parents, SS officers and their wives, have very specific requests: some want a brand-new baby just in, others want a three- or six-month-old who doesn’t need to be breastfed, some want a girl, some a boy. (Lucky we’re all tall, blond and blue-eyed: it narrows the criteria.) Before replying to the various requests, the secretaries have to check the rank of the prospective fathers. The higher the rank, the more attractive the assigned baby. For example, an Oberscharführer, a mere staff sergeant, can’t expect as perfect a baby as an Obersturmbannführer, a lieutenant colonel, who would be less favoured than an Obergruppenführer, a lieutenant general. When it comes to a request from a private, the lowest rank, Sturmmann, the letter is not even opened; it goes either straight in the bin or on the stack of files pending. If there’s ever a surplus of babies, which is not the case now, the private might receive an answer. So the secretaries have a difficult task: under no circumstances can they mix up the ranks, or else there would have to be a returns or exchange policy, which would be extremely difficult to manage. To handle each request properly, they have to study the racial history of the baby, estimate a suitable match, draw charts and graphs, and refer to scientific statistics. I’m pretty sure that’s a lot of work.

  Obviously we babies have been well and truly prepared for the occasion. Washed, changed, dressed in new outfits, sprayed with scent. The newbies (my name for the newborns) are in the nursery and the veterans, of whom I am the leader, being all of seven months, are in a separate dormitory. Those who can’t yet hold up their heads are wrapped in pretty embroidered sheets and must be placed on their tummies because Doctor Ebner has observed that, given the malleability of the cranial bones, if there is pressure on the temple region of the baby’s head this would accentuate his dolicho
cephalic tendencies. Those able to sit on their backsides without too much wobbling are carefully placed in their cots, wedged between pretty little cushions to support them if they tip over. Finally, the babies who can move about more, like me, are strapped into specially fitted little chairs.

  Girls on one side, boys on the other.

  So here we are, all decked out for the visitors.

  Our future parents’ cars are heading up the main driveway. This time there’s no nurse at the window to describe the scene outside, like there was when the Führer visited. Nurses only talk to the mothers, not to the babies, and now, given the circumstances, the mothers have been sequestered in their rooms under strict instructions not to come out. By and large, the nurses remain silent with us: they wash us, change us, dress us, without uttering a word. This gains time, maintains the rhythm, and thus keeps productivity at a maximum. But every now and again, when Josefa’s back is turned, a few of them let rip and express their annoyance. ‘Oh no, come on! You’ve pissed yourself again, have you! What the hell are you screaming for? Shut it, will you!’ Personally, I’m not overly bothered by this inappropriate language. I’m tough, as you know, and these sorts of comments, although pretty unpleasant, don’t upset me. Especially as I always find a way of getting back at anyone who mistreats me: a well-aimed vertical squirt of urine onto a clean white blouse, a stool straight onto a nappy that has just been changed, a mighty burp right in the face, and, as a last resort, screams that could burst your eardrums and turn you into a bundle of nerves, the kind of howling that seems interminable, that makes you want to tie the culprit up in his nappy and chuck him out the window—a crime no nurse has yet committed.

  I wish I’d been filled in on the cars of the prospective parents. If I have to be adopted, I’d prefer to leave in a Mercedes.