“I once knew a man from one of the camps.” She speaks very slowly and precisely. “His name was Viktor Shmone. I took care of him. He was one of the few people left alive in the camp after the Germans fled.” She reaches for her purse, which she keeps on Stephen’s night table, and fumbles an old, torn photograph out of a plastic slipcase.
As Stephen examines the photograph, he begins to sob. A thinner and much younger Josie is standing beside Viktor and two other emaciated-looking men. “Then, I’m not dreaming,” he says, “and I’m going to die. That’s what it means.” He begins to shake, just as he did in his dream, and, without thinking, he makes the gesture of rising smoke to Josie. He begins to laugh.
“Stop that,” Josie says, raising her hand to slap him. Then she embraces him and says, “Don’t cry, darling, it’s only a dream. Somehow, you’re dreaming the past.”
“Why?” Stephen asks, still shaking.
“Maybe you’re dreaming because of me, because we’re so close. In some ways, I think you know me better than anyone else, better than any man, no doubt. You might be dreaming for a reason; maybe I can help you.”
“I’m afraid, Josie.”
She comforts him and says, “Now tell me everything you can remember about the dreams.”
He is exhausted. As he recounts his dreams to her, he sees the bright doorway again. He feels himself being sucked into it. “Josie,” he says, “I must stay awake, don’t want to sleep, dream….”
Josie’s face is pulled tight as a mask; she is crying.
Stephen reaches out to her, slips into the bright doorway, into another dream.
It was a cold, cloudless morning. Hundreds of prisoners were working in the quarries; each work gang came from a different barrack. Most of the gangs were made up of Musselmanner, the faceless majority of the camp. They moved like automatons, lifting and carrying the great stones to the numbered carts, which would have to be pushed down the tracks.
Stephen was drenched with sweat. He had a fever and was afraid that he had contracted typhus. An epidemic had broken out in the camp last week. Every morning, several doctors arrived with the guards. Those who were too sick to stand up were taken away to be gassed or experimented upon in the hospital.
Although Stephen could barely stand, he forced himself to keep moving. He tried to focus all his attention on what he was doing. He made a ritual of bending over, choosing a stone of a certain size, lifting it, carrying it to the nearest cart, and then taking the same number of steps back to his dig.
A Musselmann fell to the ground, but Stephen made no effort to help him. When he could help someone in a little way, he would, but he would not stick his neck out for a Musselmann. Yet something niggled at Stephen. He remembered a photograph in which Viktor and this Musselmann were standing with a man and a woman he did not recognize. But Stephen could not remember where he had ever seen such a photograph.
“Hey, you,” shouted a guard. “Take the one on the ground to the cart.”
Stephen nodded to the guard and began to drag the Musselmann away.
“Who’s the new patient down the hall?” Stephen asks as he eats a bit of cereal from the breakfast tray Josie has placed before him. He is feeling much better now; his fever is down and the tubes, catheter, and intravenous needle have been removed. He can even walk around a bit.
“How did you find out about that?” Josie asks.
“You were talking to Mr. Gregory’s nurse. Do you think I’m dead already? I can still hear.”
Josie laughs and takes a sip of Stephen’s tea. “You’re far from dead! In fact, today is a red-letter day, you’re going to take your first shower. What do you think about that?”
“I’m not well enough yet,” he says, worried that he will have to leave the hospital before he is ready.
“Well, Dr. Volk thinks differently, and his word is law.”
“Tell me about the new patient.”
“They brought in a man last night who drank two quarts of motor oil; he’s on the dialysis machine.”
“Will he make it?”
“No, I don’t think so; there’s too much poison in his system.”
We should all die, Stephen thinks. It would be an act of mercy. He glimpses the camp.
“Stephen!”
He jumps, then awakens.
“You’ve had a good night’s sleep, you don’t need to nap. Let’s get you into that shower and have it done with.” Josie pushes the traytable away from the bed. “Come on, I have your bathrobe right here.”
Stephen puts on his bathrobe, and they walk down the hall to the showers. There are three empty shower stalls, a bench, and a whirlpool bath. As Stephen takes off his bathrobe, Josie adjusts the water pressure and temperature in the corner stall.
“What’s the matter?” Stephen asks after stepping into the shower. Josie stands in front of the shower stall and holds his towel, but she will not look at him. “Come on,” he says, “you’ve seen me naked before.”
“That was different.”
“How?” He touches a hard, ugly scab that has formed over one of the wounds on his abdomen.
“When you were very sick, I washed you in bed as if you were a baby. Now it’s different.” She looks down at the wet tile floor as if she is lost in thought.
“Well, I think it’s silly,” he says. “Come on, it’s hard to talk to someone who’s looking the other way. I could break my neck in here and you’d be staring down at the fucking floor.”
“I’ve asked you not to use that word,” she says in a very low voice.
“Do my eyes still look yellowish?”
She looks directly at his face and says, “No, they look fine.”
Stephen suddenly feels faint, then nauseated; he has been standing too long. As he leans against the cold shower wall, he remembers his last dream. He is back in the quarry. He can smell the perspiration of the men around him, feel the sun baking him, draining his strength. It is so bright….
He finds himself sitting on the bench and staring at the light on the opposite wall. I’ve got typhus, he thinks, then realizes that he is in the hospital. Josie is beside him.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“I shouldn’t have let you stand so long; it was my fault.”
“I remembered another dream.” He begins to shake, and Josie puts her arms around him.
“It’s all right now; tell Josie about your dream.”
She’s an old, fat woman, Stephen thinks. As he describes the dream, his shaking subsides.
“Do you know the man’s name?” Josie asks. “The one the guard ordered you to drag away.”
“No,” Stephen says. “He was a Musselmann, yet I thought there was something familiar about him. In my dream I remembered the photograph you showed me. He was in it.”
“What will happen to him?”
“The guards will give him to the doctors for experimentation. If they don’t want him, he’ll be gassed ”
“You must not let that happen,” Josie says, holding him tightly.
“Why?” asks Stephen, afraid that he will fall into the dreams again.
“If he was one of the men you saw in the photograph, you must not let him die. Your dreams must fit the past.”
“I’m afraid.”
“It will be all right, baby,” Josie says, clinging to him. She is shaking and breathing heavily.
Stephen feels himself getting an erection. He calms her, presses his face against hers, and touches her breasts. She tells him to stop but does not push him away.
“I love you,” he says as he slips his hand under her starched skirt. He feels awkward and foolish and warm.
“This is wrong,” she whispers.
As Stephen kisses her and feels her thick tongue in his mouth, he begins to dream….
Stephen stopped to rest for a few seconds. The Musselmann was dead weight. I cannot go on, Stephen thought, but he bent down, grabbed the Musselmann by his coat, and dragged him toward the cart. He glimpsed the cart, which was filled with the sick and dead and exhausted; it looked no different than a cartload of corpses marked for a mass grave.