A Quiet Flame

“Yes,” said Izzy. “But I fear this is just the beginning. This is more than just a fire. Mark my words, this is the funeral pyre of German democracy.” He placed an avuncular hand on my shoulder. “You’re going to have to watch yourself, my young friend.”

“Me?” I grinned. “I’m not the one who was hiding out in the Chinese Embassy.”

“Oh, it’s been over for me for a while. We’ve been prepared for something like this. Our suitcases have been packed for weeks.”

“Where will you go, sir?”

“Holland. We’ll be safe there.”

I could see he was tired. Exhausted. So we shook hands and I left him. I never saw him again.

I went up to the roof and found Frieda, watching the fire with some of the guests and hotel staff. One of the waiters from the cocktail bar had brought up a bottle of schnapps to help ward off the cold night air, but no one was drinking very much. Everyone knew what the fire meant. It looked like a beacon from hell.

“I’m glad you’re back,” she said. “I’m scared.”

I put my arm around her. “Why? There’s nothing to be scared of. You’re perfectly safe up here.”

“I didn’t mean that, Bernie. I’m Jewish, remember?”

“I’d forgotten. I’m sorry.” I drew her closer to me and kissed her on the forehead. Her hair and overcoat smelled strongly of smoke, almost as if she herself had caught fire.

I coughed a little. “So much for Berlin’s famous air,” I said.

“I was worried about you. Where have you been?”

A strong gust of bitterly cold wind filled our faces with smoke. Where had I been? I didn’t know. I was dull, without thoughts. I swallowed with some difficulty and tried to answer. The smoke was bothering me a lot now. There was so much of it that I couldn’t see the fire anymore. Nor the Adlon’s rooftop. Or even Frieda. After a minute, I took a deep breath that hurt my throat. Then I called out to her: “Where are you?”

A man peered at me out of the smoke. He was wearing a white coat and a gold wristwatch. His eyes were on my collarbone and then his fingers, too, as though he expected to find something he was looking for under my Adam’s apple.

I turned my head on the pillow and yawned.

“How does that feel?” asked the man wearing the white coat.

“Hurts a bit when I swallow,” I heard myself say. “Otherwise it feels fine.”

He was tanned and fit-looking, with a smile as neat as the teeth on a comb. His castellano wasn’t up to much. He sounded English, or American perhaps. His breath was cold and perfumed, like his fingers.

“Where am I?”

“You’re in the British Hospital in Buenos Aires, Señor Hausner. You had an operation on your thyroid. Remember? I’m your doctor. Dr. Pack.”

I frowned, trying to remember who Hausner was.

“As it happens, you’re a very lucky man. You see, the thyroid sits on either side of your Adam’s apple like two small plums. One of them was cancerous. We took that part of your thyroid out. But the other part was fine. So we left it there. All of which means you won’t have to spend the rest of your life having to take thyroxin pills. Just a little calcium, until we’re satisfied with your blood analysis. You’ll be out of here and back at work in just a few days.”

There was something attached to my throat. I tried to touch it, to feel what it was, but the doctor stopped me.

“Those are some little clips to keep the skin over the incision together,” he explained. “We won’t stitch you up finally until we’re quite satisfied that everything in there is all right.”

“And if it’s not?” I croaked.

“Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it is all right. If the cancer hasn’t already spread from one side of your thyroid to the other, it probably won’t now. No, the reason we don’t sew you up yet is because we like to keep an eye on your windpipe. Sometimes, after removal of the thyroid or a part of the thyroid, there’s a small danger of asphyxiation.” He brandished a pair of surgical pliers. “If that happens, we unlock those clips with these, and open you up again. But I can assure you, sir, there’s really very little chance of that happening.”

I closed my eyes. I didn’t mean to be rude. But there was too much dope inside me to mind my manners. And I was having a hard job just trying to remember my real name. My name wasn’t Hausner, I was certain of that much.

“I hope you operated on the right patient, Doc,” I heard myself whisper. “I’m someone else, you know. Someone I used to be, a long time ago.”

THE NEXT TIME I woke up, she was there, stroking the hair back from my forehead. I’d forgotten her name but I certainly hadn’t forgotten how lovely she was. She was wearing a figure-hugging cigar-brown dress with short, tight sleeves. It made her look like she’d been rolled on a Cuban girl’s thigh. If I’d had the strength, I’d have put her in my mouth and sucked at her toes.

“Here,” she said, putting a little necklace around my neck. “It’s a chai necklace. For life. To help you get well.”

“Thanks, angel. By the way, how did you find out I was here?”