Daniel's Special Case
“I’ll leave you to it,” Daniel said.
“A bit over-eager, isn’t he?” said Erik.
“Ah well… he is my friend. I think it’s good he believes so strongly that doing good makes a difference. With more men just like him in it, the world would be a more forgiving place.”
Erik looked at him as though he was trying to read him. “I can see why the two of you are friends.”
“Anyhow,” Charles said a little awkwardly. “Want to show an American idiot where his office is?”
Erik chuckled. “In my defense you were reaching for a scone when I said that, and that accent… just the voice is entrapment. How is anyone supposed to know he is speaking with an American?”
Charles laughed at that. “I understand. I know how Americans can seem to a… I want to say European?”
It was a genuine question. He had absolutely no knowledge of this man’s background, except for the context clues. Charles didn’t just wonder about in minds where he wasn’t invited.
“Sure,” Erik said and elaborated no further.
The office was nice, with large windows that looked out to the prettily manicured garden. You could almost see the water.
“Are all the views like this?”
“No. You’re getting one of the best ones, Oxford.”
“Two insults in the span of a few minutes? Charles asked. He knew there was a great deal of mirth in voice. He typically wasn’t mocked for attending the best schools in the world. “I suppose that almost makes us friends.”
“Is that so?”
That sounded mocking, but there was a genuine question underneath. So the handsome stranger didn’t have many friends, then.
Most of the rest of the tour passed in conversation about the clinic, Haifa, and the way war neurosis manifested many of the patients here. Whenever Charles was with someone, walking, talking, he always got a steady feed of surface thoughts. Not even thoughts, really. He was quite good at tuning those out. What he could not tune out was the mood, the shape, of another person’s thoughts. Erik’s thoughts were shaped like a steel trap. It was as though he had an iron wall around his mind. A private person in the extreme. Charles decided to stop talking and see if that stratagem would draw Erik out. They walked in silence most of the way to where they were headed. So shutting up achieved nothing. Erik didn’t like small talk, apparently. Instead of wasting time on niceties, he simply took Charles to the person who was the reason Daniel wanted him here in the first place. The special case. It was a young woman, probably around Charles’s own age. Charles looked over to Erik. He couldn’t have been older either, even if he acted like it.
“Her name is Gabrielle Haller. Born in 1930 in Vienna. She lived there with her parents until they were taken to Poland. They think she was never in a ghetto, that they managed to hide in Vienna far longer than most. From the paperwork it looks like she and her family were taken from Vienna to Auschwitz. Her parents were killed on that day. As for her, it seems they experimented on her almost the entire time she was there, until the liberation. No one could figure out exactly what they did to her, which might have helped them treat her coma. If we knew what exactly happened, perhaps we could understand why her situation is so bizarre.”
It was a little jarring to hear Erik describe what happened to Miss Haller without emotion, but this was his job. He knew hundreds of stories like this young woman's. Also, he didn't seem like the type to let the mask slip and reveal what he is actually feeling at any given moment.
Erik was right. The catatonic state this young woman was in was strange in the extreme. She was sitting upright. Her eyes were open. If you poured a sip of water in her mouth she drank it, though she could not chew. They fed her IV now, but they tried tubes quite successfully. Much of this was utterly unlike a usual coma. Charles tested her vision, tested if she reacted to visual stimuli at all. No, not at all. Her blue eyes, even in this unresponsive state, were very clear. He looked her over for any clues that might help. She was very thin, but probably not dangerously so. Her nails looked well. Her ink-black hair was long and shiny. Someone made a lot of effort to keep her looking this way. When Charles asked Erik about it, he said this girl was the nurses’s Sleeping Beauty. Their Snow White in her glass coffin. Well, Erik didn't use those references, but leave it to Charles to find a metaphor to beautify any situation.
When the tour ended, Charles did not want Erik to leave. Just sensing his steel mind was like the pleasant sting of a wintery chill in the air. And the view was spectacular. Yes, it would have been easy to look. One peek and all of Erik’s preferences would have revealed themselves. A split second and Charles could have known if this handsome stranger liked women or men. Or both. But where was the fun in that? The chase was enjoyable because of its mystery. Why cheat and look to see if you have a chance with someone when you could find out by sweet-talking them?
“First days are overwhelming every time, though in a pleasant way. Don’t you find that’s true?”
“Don’t know,” Erik said, clearly preoccupied. “Can’t say I’ve thought about it.”
Charles was undeterred. “Well, I’ve had many first days, and many other firsts, in my time,” he said. “They only slightly get easier. I need a drink. Would you mind joining me?” He could feel hesitation rolling off Erik. “I’ll be buying, of course. Please? I hate to drink alone.”
Charles felt Erik’s mind warm to the idea. It was Erik who led the way to a nearby bar, given that Charles wasn’t familiar with Haifa. He enjoyed seeing Erik walk beside him, making light conversation, feeling the cool, metallic pulse of his orderly mind and the sea breeze on his damp skin. The night was alive with starlight. There were no butterflies in the pit of his stomach. All Charles knew was that this was where he wanted to be. On this moonlit beach, the sand between his toes, with this man.