November Sky

by Marleen Reichenberg

  When Mama phoned the week after Nick went to the hospital, I came within a whisker of confiding to her how severely our young marriage was being tested. I felt anxious and helpless. But my instincts told me not to pour out my heart to her.

  Afterward, I was glad I’d resisted the temptation when I asked her how things were.

  “Thank God everything’s OK with you two at least,” was her answer.

  When I inquired in alarm, she told me that a routine examination showed my little niece’s heart might have a birth defect. Mama tried to keep composed, but I could tell how much it affected her.

  “Anna and Lars are distraught, of course. She needs a series of tests, and they can’t say anything more precise until after them. The worst-case scenario is an operation.”

  The mere thought of operating on a tiny infant made me feel cold inside. I called Anna right after Mama’s call, and she sounded totally drained and not her usually optimistic self. She cried.

  Given my own worries, I found it difficult to exude optimism but gave it my best shot. I felt so desperately sorry for Anna and Lars, and once again the voice of reason whispered that it was good that Nick and I had not yet taken any steps toward having children.

  Although Saturday was the first day I could officially visit Nick, I had to give the seminar first. My husband was constantly on my mind, but I hoped the audience was pleased with my lecture. Fortunately, it took place in a hotel near Munich and afterward I went immediately to the hospital.

  But when I rang the bell at the ward and announced myself, I was not allowed to see him.

  “We are a psychiatric section and operate differently from the usual wards, where visitors can come and go as they please,” explained a stern-looking elderly nurse. “Our patients are mentally unstable and need a certain daily routine. Now is their suppertime and then they’re confined to bed. Come back tomorrow afternoon around two, then you may see your husband.”

  Bedtime at six! And for Nick, a night owl who never went to sleep before midnight. I’d had enough.

  “Listen, my husband came here of his own accord. You will allow me to see him here and now, or I shall go to the chief physician. I have kept to medical protocol not to visit Nick until today. There was no mention of restricted visiting hours.”

  We stubbornly stared at each other until she lowered her eyes and silently pointed to the end of the long corridor.

  A minute later, I knocked gently on Nick’s door and went right in, quietly and with a rapidly beating heart. All day long I’d wondered what condition he’d be in. An untouched food tray sat on his nightstand, and Nick was stretched out on the bed in his jogging outfit, absentmindedly staring at the TV. The sight dashed my hope that his condition might have improved. But when he saw me, he jumped up, and in one bound he took me in his arms with a joyful smile. I clung to him and enjoyed the warmth of his body. I was infinitely happy to see him again.

  “Laura, what took you so long? They tried to tell me you didn’t have the time to come.” He shook his head. “But I didn’t believe them. I’ve read your letter over and over. One of the few patients in the ward coherent enough to have a normal conversation with told me that families are advised not to phone or visit during the first week. I counted the days, and it was only the prospect of seeing you after a week that kept me more or less together. Thank you for the books. They helped me pass the time.”

  He pushed me back a little and gave me a penetrating look. “Darling, I swear to God you must get me out of here, or I’ll turn into a zombie. There are virtually no sessions with doctors, and we’re all constantly high on medications. We get a few hours of gym or painting and then group therapy, where we sit around in a circle like kindergarteners, and everybody has to tell how they feel at the moment. The presiding doctor makes notes and says nothing. Sometimes I get the impression he’s not even listening but making a shopping list . . . I’ll never find out what’s wrong with me like this.”

  I scanned his face. Nick looked completely normal and considerably livelier than a week ago, just a little pale and thin. I waffled. On the one hand, I doubted whether it was right to break off an apparently successful therapy that had just begun; on the other hand, I missed him terribly and longed to have him back home with me. I cautiously suggested discussing it with Dr. Heberloh with him present.

  Nick agreed reluctantly, saying, “Please don’t believe a thing he says. He’s really never had a long talk with me. He just gives me prescriptions for pills.”

  In the doctor’s office half an hour later, the doctor seemed tired and uninterested. I’d roundly rejected his suggestion to speak with me privately. My husband was not a minor and was going to be present. It annoyed me that the doctor nevertheless ignored Nick and talked only to me.

  “Although your husband is somewhat better owing to the medication, he is not healed. He will have to stay here for a long time if we are to help him, Frau Vanderstätt. Do not let him fool you. Many patients lie to their family so they can go home and avoid therapy. Herr Vanderstätt is still suicidal. And I shall argue against it and appeal to your reason if he should wish to discharge himself.”

  A sidelong glance at Nick told me how tense he was. He pressed his lips tightly together and clenched his fists in his lap as if he were holding himself back with a mighty effort. I felt caught in a bind as I looked at Dr. Heberloh, who seemed impassive. Should I give in to my gut reaction and get Nick out of there as fast as possible or follow my reason that said the doctor was a better judge because he was a professional?

  “How long do you think he’ll have to be here until he’s healthy again?” I asked.

  “That guy’s off his rocker. I can’t take another three months here. You can ship me straight off to the funny farm forever after that.”

  The fact that Nick spoke fairly calmly gave me pause. He’d controlled himself amazingly well in the doctor’s office and hadn’t spoken a word in contradiction. Back in his room, I was startled when Nick knelt on the floor and fumbled around under his bed. When he stood up, he triumphantly held up a knotted tissue.

  “They haven’t found them, thank God. I really wanted to show you these.”

  He undid the knot and shook the contents of the little bag onto the bedcover. Pills of every imaginable color and size lay before us. I was appalled and put my hand up to my mouth.

  Nick said in all seriousness, “There are thirty-two of them. Sleeping pills, downers, uppers, laxatives—take your pick. I was supposed to take all of them over the last several days. Like a good little boy I took everything they gave me in their blister packs at my first mealtime. When I felt like a zombie a few hours later, it dawned on me that they simply wanted to sedate me. And from then on I faked it and just collected the pills. Sweetheart, if I really wanted to kill myself, then this stuff would have given me a great opportunity. I acted very calm and cooperative toward the doctors and staff. I read in bed most of the time, and if anybody came in, I pretended to be asleep. You did hear from that quack Heberloh that the medications were working.”

  The merest hint of a smile played around his mouth. “I’m not an actor for nothing. Do you understand now why I can’t stay here one second longer? If you don’t take me with you, and that character doesn’t let me go, I’ll find another way to get out—even if I have to slide down a bedsheet out the window.”

  Chapter 15

  Nick grew livelier with every mile we came closer to home, regaling me with hair-raising stories about the ward.

  “That crazy doctor tried to convince me I was suffering from a severe depression. The chief and his staff doctors regard depression as a mere metabolic disorder, so they go after it purely with chemistry. Some patients are constantly on new medications. The doctors try something several times within a few days, and sometimes they even give patients the wrong meds. The poor bastards in there are like mice in a pharmaceutical research lab. I’m just so h
appy I got my act together in time and didn’t take the pills.” He shuddered. “This has surpassed my worst expectations for psychotherapy by a mile. And the staff were especially, um, shall I say, highly motivated? They were motivated to sedate patients, anyway: They’d just plop them in front of the latest YouTube videos or sports programs.”

  I was shocked. I’d heard stories about healthy people winding up in the psychiatric ward and being kept there for years, but I never took those tales seriously. It was impossible for that to exist in our civilized modern country—at least, that’s what we were supposed to think.

  When I raised this objection, Nick shrugged. “I think there were just too many patients on the ward. And unlike me, they were mostly really kaput mentally. The doctors and staff are totally overworked and they have no time for individual patients. I’m so happy you got me out of there, despite the gloomy predictions from the doctor and nurse.”

  I was absolutely convinced I’d taken the appropriate action after all I’d seen and heard at the hospital. Dr. Heberloh, strongly supported by the head nurse, painted a dire picture for Nick if I took him home. He said we’d very soon regret our overly hasty decision because Nick’s psyche “is to a considerable extent disturbed.” But in my layman’s view, the fact that he’d been skillful and clever in spite of the conditions there argued for his good mental health.

  Of course, we hadn’t informed the hospital that Nick’s rapid improvement resulted despite his refusal to take medications. We threw the pills in the nearest garbage can on the way to the car.

  While driving home, I set aside all thoughts of where to go from here and for the time being was just so happy to have Nick with me. Who cared what was next? We were on our own. Until that day I’d actually believed that doctors could help Nick, but now my faith in psychiatry was shattered.

  When we got home, Nick went immediately to take an extended, hot shower to get rid of the hospital stink. Afterward, shaved and temptingly scented, with only a bath towel around his waist, he found me in the kitchen. I’d thawed and seared two steaks before putting them in the oven on low, and now I was mixing a salad. Nick glanced at the ticking kitchen timer and hugged me from behind.

  “Time enough for something else before we eat. I missed you so much.” His hands roamed over my body, and he moaned. I turned around eagerly and kissed him as hungrily as he kissed me.

  After a passionate reunion and delicious dinner, we went to bed. I snuggled up to Nick, who was reading me his favorite passages from Saint-Exupéry. When he read from Night Flight, I could easily see how he fantasized about the flights over South America when he read from the book in that dismal ward. Even I, who got no joy from flying, was absorbed by the story. The first pages described the dangers and exhilaration of flying when air travel was still in its infancy, and when flying in the primitive machines was romantic and extremely risky.

  Before we turned out the light, Nick gave me another tender kiss and said, “My greatest wish would be to make a film about him sometime, maybe about his mysterious end. He was forty-four and crashed during a reconnaissance mission. To this day, nobody knows if he was shot down. There are rumors about a suicide.”

  And there it was again! The hobgoblin I’d so splendidly repressed until now. Nick dropped the word as casually as if referring to eating and drinking. It seemed to upset him substantially less than me, but it also didn’t seem to fascinate him. At any rate, he didn’t pursue the subject but took me in his arms. He was delighted to be in a decent bed again instead of a prison cot, and a few seconds later he was overcome by sleep. I was resigned to the fact that my husband had a predilection for short-lived heroes.

  I must have eventually nodded off, because when I opened my eyes it was eight in the morning. Nick was still in deep slumber. I closely studied his relaxed, peaceful facial features. I wanted to huddle close to him and simply enjoy having him with me again but decided to let him sleep. I tiptoed down to the living room to phone Mira.

  She agreed with my decision, as I’d hoped. “I’d have done the same thing, after what you’ve described. Pills aren’t the answer. At least not in his case. He is not permanently depressed—quite the opposite. I don’t know a single person who radiates so much charm and joie de vivre. And if anybody can help with his problems, it’s you. He trusts and loves you.”

  Since Mira had become friendly, she’d told me that when her depressive mother lay around the house apathetically for days and weeks on end, she’d had to take over the household responsibilities. To make things worse, her mother tried to combat her depression with alcohol. Her father had deserted the little family when Mira was twelve. He’d supported his wife and daughter with a generous monthly check, but he broke off personal contact completely. Mira’s mother died from a severe case of cirrhosis of the liver when Mira finished school. These early blows forced her to grow up fast and her strength of will helped her work her way up professionally. She’d been a long-time assistant with a film production company, where she made some good contacts and then ultimately founded her own casting agency. She had little patience with people who didn’t have any drive.

  “The first time I saw you I wasn’t sure what to think. You were so completely different from Nick’s previous girls. I wanted to test you, to see what you could put up with. That’s why I behaved rather nastily,” she told me. “But since you didn’t run away bawling or bitch to Nick about my mean remarks, my respect went up by leaps and bounds.”

  I was equally candid. “You did a good job of hiding it. I was scared shitless that you’d sabotage the wedding.”

  She laughed. “Why should I do that? It was super publicity for Nick. After your dream wedding was in the papers, his offers for roles tripled. His market value shot up. And what’s more, I’ve got offers from a diaper manufacturer and a baby-food company on my desk to shoot an ad starring your first baby.”

  I was speechless. How crazy did you have to be to offer jobs in advertising to unborn kids? “Mira? You haven’t negotiated payment with them yet, have you?”

  Before she could reply, I heard Nick’s voice behind me and nearly dropped the receiver out of fright.

  He smiled mischievously. “What are you two setting me up for behind my back? If you’ve finished auctioning me off to the highest bidder, then give me that.”

  I handed him the phone and left it to Mira to enlighten him. He insisted on going back to work the next week, and since he apparently felt OK, I had no objections. I hoped that our problems were finally over. Every day without incident increased that hope and decreased my anxiety a little. Mira speculated that his brief stay in the clinic might well have given him a healthy shock. Perhaps he was finally over his dangerous fits.

  “What did Richard do? That can’t be!” I stared at my colleague in consternation.

  I’d been sitting at my desk for four hours, trying to stem my growing anger but with little success. Chris hadn’t even bothered to send me one word that she’d be late for work that day, and I couldn’t rustle her up on her cell phone. I assumed she was looking at another building lot with Richard. She’d already proudly showed off her wedding dress; the ceremony was to take place in five weeks.

  Now she was standing before me, tear-stained and distraught, and nodding slowly.

  “But it is.”

  Her taut mouth revealed her pain as she sank onto a chair and started sobbing again. “What an idiot I was! Completely blind and so damn stupid! Blinded by my ambition to get married as fast as possible. And all because my mother was forever drumming it into me that her sister had waited too long for the right man and that’s why she was still unmarried to this day and desperately unhappy.”

  I went over to her and laid a consoling hand on her shoulder. “Chris, stop beating up on yourself. We all liked him. He fooled everybody, not only you. Of course it hurts to find out that the man you were going to marry is a professional imposter. But you’re
not the first woman to get sucked in by a rat like that. How did you find out?”

  She took a deep breath and lifted her head. “A woman called me the day before yesterday and warned me about him. He’d played the same old trick on her, but she—unlike me—got suspicious and hired a private detective, who saw him with me. I thought at first it was a prank call. But she knew too much about the bastard. He told her the same lies. His name is assumed, and he’s not even a doctor but an electrician who’s been unemployed for years.”

  She sobbed some more. “He hunts for victims on the Internet and lives off the money he sweet-talks women out of.”

  “Well, then, be happy that you’ve at least been spared that.”

  Chris put her hands over her face in shame and whispered, “I’m afraid not. I gave him forty thousand euros. We found a building lot, and he said he’d negotiated with the owner for a payment to lower the selling price and the broker’s cut. Richard let me believe he’d be getting a rather good sum from a term deposit in four weeks and asked me to advance him the money until then as a deposit on the lot. Because we were buying the property jointly, I didn’t give it a second thought and handed it over. Of course, I didn’t get a receipt. I trusted him 100 percent.”

  My anger gave way to sympathy. That con artist must have been an amazing actor to talk Chris of all people out of an amount of that order with no security; she was more scrupulous about our company accounts than I was. I wondered where the money came from. I knew that a lot of her income went to her struggling parents, who were in a home, and the rest went for the rent, car maintenance, luxury items, and expensive trips abroad. Unlike me, Chris didn’t think much of saving and she made no bones about giving herself presents. “Money has to circulate to make the economy boom,” was her standard answer. I thought it paradoxical that she adroitly advised people on money matters despite her personal behavior. But some butchers were said to be vegetarians . . .