Night Angels(19)

I heard Lola say something but could barely understand her. Then suddenly, Lola’s face seemed to explode. Thick blood streamed down her chin, to her pendants, to the front of her dirndl—she had drawn out the shard.

“You’re bleeding! Oh no. Oh no.” I fumbled in my handbag—lipstick, bills, the slip of newspaper, Tiger Balm, and finally, my monogrammed silk handkerchief. “Here, take this. Do you want to take this? It’s mine. You can use it. You need to go to the hospital. Do you know any hospitals, Lola?”

She pressed my handkerchief onto her face; in an instant, red bloomed on the silk. “Vienna General Hospital is nearby.”

“Oh good. Let’s go there. Wait. Let’s take a taxi. Do you want to take a taxi?” And then, because she didn’t speak and I didn’t know what else to do, I hailed a taxi.

The ride was excruciatingly slow, passing the grand opera house, the Hofburg palace, and the equestrian statues in the Heroes’ Square. By the time we reached the hospital, my handkerchief was soaked, and the front of Lola’s dirndl dress had turned black, but the blood continued to ooze endlessly, and she had to borrow my glove. When we entered the hospital’s lobby, a stout man wearing glasses greeted us. He looked at me and then Lola and said something in German. One hand on her face, Lola dug into her wallet with the other, perhaps searching for an identification card, and fired away some German phrases rapidly. The pain must have been unbearable; her words were slurred. But the man nodded in understanding. I was relieved. Fengshan had admired Viennese hospitals greatly, praising their advanced equipment, well-trained physicians, and good care.

But something was not right. The man should have gotten Lola a seat or taken a look at her wound—the bleeding had fortunately just been stanched, and her entire face was swollen. But he, and the white-gowned nurses milling around the lobby, did nothing other than talk. In the end, Lola turned around. “We need to go to another place, Grace.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s a new law. The hospital is prohibited from accepting Jewish patients.”

“What? Are you sure? It’s a hospital. It’s supposed to treat all patients. And you need stitches and some morphine.”

She was trembling. “Let’s go to a Jewish doctor’s office.”

Had I been an eloquent diplomat’s wife, I would have questioned the staff in the hospital about the law and pleaded with them to make an exception to treat Lola. Instead, I bit my tongue and hailed another taxi—Lola needed stitches.

Soon we arrived at a clinic in an apartment on a narrow cobblestone street. Lola looked relieved. I held her arm—she was growing pale, her face a ruined orb of swollen purple, and her hands were as cold as ice.

Inside the Jewish clinic, two men in tall black hats spoke to her. Again, Lola showed her identification card, and again, a rapid exchange in German ensued. The men looked at each other, then called out, and a doctor in a white gown stepped into the room.

Finally.

The conversation between the doctor and Lola sounded promising; this was a Jewish clinic, after all, and the doctor looked sympathetic, his tone soothing, soft, but then Lola turned around. “Let’s go, Grace.”

“Wait. Are they going to give you stitches?”

“They can’t.” She stumbled outside and nearly crashed into a pot of red geraniums at the door. She steadied herself, leaning against the wall. The narrow street was quiet, without the sun.

“Why?”

“They are not allowed to accept half-Jewish patients. It’s another law.”

“What?”

Tears welled in her eyes, exhausted and bloodshot, and in an instant, they were tinged with the blood near her brow, but she looked up, and those tears didn’t fall, and her voice, even though intelligible, was the same, fearless and forceful. “I’m a Mischling.”

I actually remembered what that meant—she was like me, a woman of mixed blood. So a woman of mixed blood, Lola, was declined at a Christian hospital for being Jewish and declined at a Jewish clinic for being only half-Jewish.

I wrung, and wrung, the strap of my handbag. “This is unexpected . . . What are you going to do, Lola? You need stitches. What can you do, Lola?”

“Let’s try another clinic.”

“Yes, yes.” I held Lola’s arm and walked by her side. She was different from me, a weeper, and how many times had Mother shaken me, her hands on my neck, screaming, trying to instill in me some steeliness that she believed would do me good—Have some grit, Grace. Learn from your father, Grace. Yet I was never my father, a hero, a man who had the backbone to save her from five gangsters.

We left the narrow lane and came to a broad street with traffic lights. Nearby, a group of women, picking at flowers in a florist’s cart filled with white tulips and red carnations, frowned at us, and in front of a news kiosk, three men in double-breasted summer suits turned to watch us and mumbled something in German.

Lola’s steps slowed and then stopped. “Grace, do you know how to return to the consulate from here?”

“I’ll take a taxi with the slip you wrote for me. Let’s go to the clinic. Where is the clinic?”

“You should go home, Grace, and I think I should go home too. I’m sorry about this unexpected disruption. I was hoping we would have a good time drinking coffee.”