BLITZ IN BERLIN
[Chapter One]

by Carol W. Berman

The first thirty or so times I tried to create a golem I failed. I worked in the rear of my study, which gave me access to our small backyard. My first attempts were very basic, just some mud gathered from the garden and slapped together into the shape of a person. I didn't have enough knowledge at that point to realize that the physical part of the creation meant little. The Sepher Yetzirah, a book of the Kabbalah, gave me instructions on how to animate the creature. Each time I faced east and chanted:

As the text directed, I visualized the letter shin on the mud man's head, mem in his stomach, aleph on his chest. Again, my knowledge was so limited that I didn't know that the moon needed to be full and the sun in the sign of Aries.

I forget how many times I actually tried. Every time the man of mud looked better and better. In fact, by the time my wife Pearla opened the door to my study one night he almost looked human. She screamed and dropped the plate of honey cake she was bringing me.

"What is that?" She stared at him and then at me.

"Don't be afraid. I'm making a golem to help our people. His name is Isaac. Once I animate him, you can use him to carry water from the well or do other chores."

"Isaac? I thought a golem is only a monster from bubbe maysehs. Who knew that he could exist?" Since the creature didn't move, Pearla grew bolder and approached him. She ran her finger over his face. "He is strange looking. And dirty. Smells like the earth."

One day - - perhaps it was after discussion with her or with Emperor Rudolf II, whom I was visiting regularly, I placed a piece of paper in the golem's mouth and he moved!

* * *

Ike felt as if something like a piece of paper had been shoved into his mouth. Then he saw the old man who suddenly materialized in Ike's apartment off Avenue C in New York City. The man's blue-looking face was partly hidden by a bushy gray beard. Ike prided himself on his own full black beard and long hair, but he thought he would shave if he looked half as bad as the old man. To make things worse the man - - a hallucination, or whatever he was - - wore a shabby, dark coat that was so long it touched the floor. The guy was an eyesore next to Ike's wife's pink sofa in the living room. His gnarled hands were shaking, trying to steady himself on the new compact CD player. Ike would kill him if he knocked that over. A strong wind from nowhere whipped the man's beard to one side and blew his top hat off, revealing a yarmulke.

Ike lunged forward and stepped right through the man. "Get out!" Ike yelled, punching the air. He hated being disturbed in the privacy of his own apartment, especially by someone who looked like his rabbi father. When Ike turned back around, he saw a halo of white light encircling the man's chest. Aleph, kaph and other burning Hebrew letters spun off him. The hallucination's face and body sunk into darkness as the halo elongated into a glowing cylinder and pushed forward on its own. The voice lingered, whispering: "Help us, Ike! Go to Berlin - - go to Berlin!"

Ike shivered; that stupid dealer downstairs, Peter, must have sold him bad pot again. The last time that Peter had spiked the pot with PCP, Ike hallucinated for days. He saw what looked like dead men who had been with his grandfather in the concentration camp. They sat on Ike's legs and chewed on his feet.

Although Ike, at the age of twenty-nine, stood six-one, solidly muscled with thick, black curly hair down to his shoulders and a great beard, old men like the hallucination and his father made him feel weak. They made him feel there was something wrong with him.

The black-coated man and his burning letters had dissolved into nothing within minutes. Even his top hat was gone. The problem was that Ike kept hearing the man's voice. He had not told his wife, Pat, about his hallucination of the old man. He'd met Pat two years ago when both were hospitalized on the same psychiatric ward. Since then Pat had gone back to school to become an art therapist. Ike felt she was leaving him far behind. He was afraid that if Pat heard him talk about the old man, she'd believe that Ike was having another episode and insist that he be re-hospitalized.

* * *

Two weeks later, because of Peter's pot or just bad luck, Ike was back in the hospital. Groans woke him up. Ike could see his crazy new roommate sitting naked with his bare ass right on the floor. Pedro had curled himself into a ball beneath the barred window. It was too cold for that unless the guy was completely freaked out.

"What?" Ike called out in response to Pedro mumbling to himself. Phlegm clogged Ike's throat. They must have drugged him with something powerful. He could hardly move. Usually he leapt out of bed, but now he had to gather all his strength to fling off his warm bedcovers. When his feet hit the icy floor, he grunted and then dragged himself over to Pedro, who was about to cut himself.

"What? No way, man!" Ike grabbed a tin can top out of Pedro's hand and threw it across the room. "Cut it out!" The sharp-edged disc clattered as it hit the corner of their tiny room.

"Give it to me!" Pedro reached blindly for the piece of metal. His fingers were covered in blood.

"Quiet, Pedro. You want the nurses in here, holding you down, shooting you full of shit?"

"I don't care. I'm getting out of here any way I can." Pedro's face was so twisted that Ike could hardly recognize the good-looking, swaggering Latino he'd met five days ago when the two of them had first been locked into the ward.

Suddenly, Pedro scurried on all fours to the other side of the room and plucked the tin can top off the floor. Before Ike could reach him, Pedro dug the jagged edge into his wrist again, drawing more blood.

"Give me that," Ike yelled. Like a football player Pedro huddled in the corner over the piece of metal. Ike slipped his arm in under Pedro's belly and forced him onto his back. He straddled him, trying to pry the lid out of his fingers.

Tears ran down Pedro's face. "It's all I have, man." "Don't take it away," he begged.

Ike finally wrenched the disc out of Pedro's hand, but in doing so he felt a sharp sting as the metal pierced his own palm. The pain made him want to slug Pedro in the face. Instead, Ike held up Pedro's injured wrist and squeezed on a point above the artery to stop the bleeding, something he'd learned from his mother.

"Take it easy. You can't cut your wrists, bro." Ike climbed off onto his knees and held up Pedro's hand. Pedro wrenched his hand away from Ike and rolled back up into a ball.

"I've been in and out of these psych wards three times before," Ike said. "It's no big deal. Eventually they let you out," he added, standing up, holding his hand in the air to stop the bleeding. He hoped he could follow his own advice and not try to bolt as he wished he could.

"I can't stand my life, period," Pedro said, crying and rocking.

Feeling awkward, Ike bent down and patted Pedro's naked back. He considered Pedro a friend and hated to see him so low. Everyone thought of him as strong, since Ike was so big and he looked like Samson. Deep inside, Ike didn't feel like Samson, he felt like Pedro.

"You better go take a shower. Your wrist is bleeding all over the place," said Ike, pulling Pedro up by his arm. "I'll bandage it afterwards. Hold it like this." Ike demonstrated. "Don't tell the nurse or you'll get in trouble. Now go on."

"Sure, man, sure."

Pedro seemed dazed and agreed too easily. Ike would keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't hurt himself any more. Pedro wrapped a towel around his hips and wandered out of the room toward the men's showers down the hall. Ike stuck his hand under running cold water in the sink in their room. The cut was on his palm just above his Popeye wrist tattoo. Nothing to it, except the water stung. The Satan's head tattoo on his left hand seemed to smile up at him as he wiggled his fingers. Ike found a band-aid in the medicine chest that contained little else. He slapped it on, then carefully placed the bloody, metal disc in a pouch clipped onto his belt. The disc might be useful someday.

Fortunately, he didn't have to wear the baggy pajamas that Pedro and most of the patients wore. On Level 2, he was permitted his own street clothes. The wards were so crowded that Level 1's and 2's had to share rooms. Ike didn't really mind since he liked guys like Pedro who were on Level 1. Ike proudly slipped into his black leather vest, which showed off his bicep-heavy arms and tattoos. He thought he looked better without a shirt underneath. Tight jeans completed his outfit. Ike figured they didn't think he was that sick if they allowed him to wear normal clothes.

He sauntered out of his room into the hall and almost crashed into a short, balding man in a blue suit carrying a briefcase. Ike stared down at him.

"Oh, excuse me. I'm your legal-aid attorney." The man adjusted his jacket and seemed to look up fearfully at Ike.

"You're the guy who gets us out of here?" Ike asked.

"If you feel you're being unfairly held, we can write a letter demanding your release in 72 hours. The court will consider every case and I'll defend you."

The little man had such an honest voice - - Ike immediately liked him. "That's too long a time. I need to be out of here right away. My friend Pedro feels the same way," Ike said.

"What brought you in here?"

"The police. I was smoking a jay in Tompkins Square Park and they didn't like it. Not that anyone else was busted. They brought me here because I'd been in the hospital three other times."

"I'll look into it for you," the lawyer said, writing down Ike's name after reading it from his plastic wristband.

The head nurse, a fat man almost as tall as Ike, approached them. "If you've had breakfast, it's time for medication," he said scornfully to Ike. "Line up with the others." He pointed to a group of patients who already stood waiting, then turned to the lawyer. "What are you doing here so early in the morning?"

"Helping your patients, as usual," the lawyer said, winking at Ike who grinned.

"You'd help them best by minding your own business and staying off the ward."

The nurse's white shirt was so stiff with starch that Ike imagined it could stand up by itself.

"The law guarantees every citizen due process. Just because these patients are locked up, doesn't mean they have no rights. A mental patient is seen as a disabled person requiring help from the hospital," the small man said elegantly.

"Yeah, yeah," said the nurse. "Now if you and the patient will excuse me, I'll get some work done."

While the nurse and lawyer spoke, Ike snuck over to an unattended cart arranged with little white cups of medicines and a container of apple juice. He grabbed a cup full of yellow pills that he thought looked like speed and stuffed it into his back pocket. He didn't think anyone saw him.

Pedro came out of the dining room. "Hey man, here's breakfast," he said and passed Ike a Kaiser roll.

The nurse interrupted, "Just a minute. You're not to give away your food. Ike is perfectly capable of going in there and eating breakfast himself. Pedro, line up for your meds."

Ike quickly took several big bites of the roll and then stuffed the rest into his mouth. Pedro was a real buddy. Ever since Ike had told him that he couldn't stand being crushed into big indoor crowds, like in the ward's dining room, Pedro had brought Ike snacks. Most of the time, Ike had managed to avoid going into the dining room with Pedro's help. Sometimes he'd dash in after meals to snatch whatever leftovers he could find.

"Wait, let me see your wrist," the nurse demanded. Pedro hid his arm behind his back but the nurse seized hold of him and exposed the gash to everyone. "This is the reason you can't be releasing every Tom, Dick and Harry. These patients are dangerous to themselves and others," he bellowed, practically sticking Pedro's wrist into the lawyer's face. Ike felt bad that he hadn't been able to bandage Pedro's wrist before the nurse saw it.

The line of patients next to the medication cart all grunted at the same time as they witnessed the head nurse strong-arming Pedro. Ike felt like joining them and uttering some kind of low groan, but he forced himself to be quiet. His main goal was to show how sane he was in order to leave the hospital.

Ever since he was a child, Ike knew people thought he was different. Certainly, he was stronger and more restless than anyone in the neighborhood. His father was the rabbi for a small community of Holocaust survivors in Brooklyn. The other kids all did well in school and went on to college to become doctors, lawyers and businessmen. After Ike was told by his high school counselor that he was a paranoid schizophrenic, he dropped out of high school and joined a biker group in the East Village. His mother believed that he was smart and would eventually improve. He fought constantly with his father, who finally told him to leave the house. He didn't want anything to do with a nut like Ike.

The nurse led Pedro into the glass-enclosed nursing station set off from the rest of the ward like a stage. Pedro turned around and made a desperate face at Ike who gestured for Pedro to cooperate. The lawyer went over to the last person in line and started talking to him.

Suddenly Pedro dashed out of the nursing station and headed toward the recreation porch, a great big cage, where patients could look through a wire grid at the tempting blue sky of the outside world. Even the ping-pong table was bolted down. The tall, fat nurse waddled after Pedro, but quickly gave up and stood still, hands on hips. Two other nurses came out of their station and stood beside the head nurse.

Pedro belly-flopped onto the ping-pong table. It swayed under his weight. In a minute he jumped off the table onto the wire wall of the cage. Ike stared, while Pedro scuttled like a monkey on all fours to the cage ceiling. No way out. He hung from the wire swinging back and forth as everyone on the ward watched. Ike thought he could never go that crazy, pot or no pot.

"Get down now!" commanded the head nurse. He waved for the other two nurses to accompany him, as he swaggered toward the porch.

All the patients moaned. Ike found his voice and felt it resonate in his chest. They were brothers and sisters crying out to Pedro and the world. They felt Pedro's pain. They were with him, swaying back and forth, looking up at the clear, blue sky above the chicken-wired porch ceiling, wanting to be free of illness, of this ward, of the rough nurses and uncaring doctors. Their sound was a low rumble of stalled engines, like Ike's bike when it idled.

Pedro screamed from his position high above them, "I really am crazy. I'm a butterfly. I can fly." He banged his fist on the wire. By this time two nurses stood on the ping-pong table. They pulled Pedro down while the head nurse steadied the table. When they captured him, they pushed his face down onto the table, while two nurses held him and the head nurse yanked down his pajama bottoms and gave him an injection into his butt. The low rumble reached a higher note as all the brothers and sisters worried about Pedro.

"Is that legal?" Ike asked the lawyer who looked as shocked as anyone else.

"I'm afraid forced medication is permitted. We're working on getting that repealed, but in the meantime the nurses are within their rights." The lawyer adjusted his jacket and tried to appear in control.

The nurses carried Pedro back through the hall on their shoulders. He seemed to finally be at peace- -
like a dead man.

"Put him on the cot in the treatment room," ordered the head nurse.

Instead of waiting for a normal discharge, Ike decided to escape. His worry was that when Pedro woke up, the staff would question him and find out that Ike had never reported Pedro's suicide attempt. How many times had they been told in community meeting to report anyone trying to hurt himself? Ike was sure that if he stayed they'd punish him for that.

Ike saw his psychiatrist, Dr. Justine, a beautiful, red-haired, ivory-skinned woman, emerge from her office. She'd been too busy to speak to him so far. One of the cooler male nurses had pointed her out and told Ike that he was a lucky dog to have Dr. Justine assigned to him. Ike heard she was just a first year resident - - a real beginner. While everyone else was still focused on Pedro, Ike followed the doctor down to the other end of the hall. She put her key in the lock of the huge steel-reinforced ward door that served as both the exit and entrance to the ward. Ike had been eyeing the door for five days, but telling himself it was better to wait.

"Please stand back," she said, looking him up and down. Ike could tell by her elevated chin and stiff back that she was too sure of herself. He knew the type who thought she could do everything alone and wouldn't call one of the male nurses to guard the door as she left. Dr. Justine was perfect for his plan.

"Don't worry about me. I'm your patient - - Ike," he said in a pseudo-drawl, instead of his usual Brooklyn accent. He liked to imitate Elvis, his hero since childhood, especially when talking to ladies. He extended his right hand for a shake, wrist slightly up, hoping she'd be charmed by the Popeye tattoo and not notice the band-aid over his cut.

"Pleased to meet you, Ike. Sorry, I haven't had a chance to talk with you, but I'll be back in a few hours. We'll talk then. Now if you could please stand back." She shook his hand. Hers was small, soft and quick to drop the shake.

Just as Ike predicted, the doctor thought she could handle him and continued turning her key in the lock. He stepped back as she pushed open the ward door. In the next second Ike quickly sprang forward and slipped out the door behind her. Once in the hall he kicked the ward door closed, pulled her wrists behind her back and clamped his free hand over her mouth. Her body stiffened with alarm. She struggled, but he knew his vise grip was foolproof.

"Unlock the staircase door or I'll snap your neck," he commanded, dropping the drawl and giving her a dose of tough-guy Brooklynese. There was only one small window in the ward door and if they didn't make noise, who would look through it? He shoved her over to the staircase door, which also was locked. He could smell her sweat. She trembled when he released her just long enough to unlock the door. He would show her who was in charge now. As he pulled her down the stairs with him, he couldn't resist squeezing her full breasts.

"Wait a minute," she managed to blurt out.

He clamped his hand back over her mouth. They encountered no one on their five-floor run. Staff and patients took the elevator. Still, he was worried about their clumping footsteps as they descended. He figured speed was his ally, so he tried to move them along as fast as he could. She moved her jaw, grunted and even tried to bite him. He laughed; she couldn't hurt him, his hands were as tough as the seat of his bike. Finally, at the bottom of the staircase, he pushed her onto the floor. By this time, he had her keys.

"Goodbye, sweet heart, thanks a lot." He grinned in what he thought was a good imitation of Elvis in "Heartbreak Hotel."

"Ike, if I could ..." she began again.

"Don't even say it. I'm leaving. Be glad I didn't hurt you, beautiful." Ike knew he couldn't waste any more time. The doctor was sexy, but Pat, his wife, was much sexier. He couldn't wait to get back to her.

Ike walked out the front door of the hospital with his head held high. It was a cool spring day. Fifteen blocks and he would be in the East Village. He threw the doctor's keys into a half-empty garbage can. His goal of being seen as sane was accomplished by just being outside the hospital. He tried to ignore the uneasiness he felt about leaving Pedro behind.

He wouldn't have any trouble fitting in with these freaks strolling around Alphabet City. Fortunately, Ike didn't mind hoards of people outside, it was only indoor crowds that bothered him. Two obese lesbians with shaved heads kissed in front of a café. A man who seemed twice as wide as himself, sporting so many tattoos that his white skin looked black, balanced a yellow cockatoo on his shoulder as he walked. Ike wasn't really interested in all these people or the crumbling buildings with drug dealers leaning against them, calling out code names he couldn't understand. He wanted to get home before the police came looking for him. Dr. Justine probably had already reported him missing.

Ike approached the tenement building off Avenue C where he and Pat had lived for the past two years. He wanted to sneak up the back stairs so none of the neighbors would see and report him. As he headed towards the rear of the building, he saw Pat talking to Peter. It looked as if the dealer was hitting on her. Pat and Peter were standing close to each other, Pat gazing up at Peter as if he were Elvis himself. Pat looked small, delicate, and very blonde in a strapless yellow dress.

"Patty!" Ike shouted. Peter and Patty both jumped and turned towards Ike.

"Ike, baby, what are you doing here? Why didn't you call me to pick you up?"

Pat seemed distracted. What were she and Peter doing together? She walked over and hugged him.

Ike grabbed her as hard as he could and pressed her to him. He'd make her forget Peter. Her mango lip-gloss made her mouth taste delicious. She smelled of lavender water.

Ike released her from his bear hug and took her hand. "Let's go!" He wanted to run upstairs and have sex with her, but he had to talk to the dealer. "Peter, what kind of pot are you selling, man?" He ranted until he heard the screech of a car stopping in front. Usually cars didn't stop and start so abruptly in the neighborhood, unless it was the police.

Peter slipped around to the front of the building to investigate. "It's the man!" he said, returning quickly and looking frantically around for a hiding place.

"O.K.!" Ike dropped Pat's hand. "Listen, I've got to run. Be ready for me, I'll call and tell you where to meet me. O.K.?" Ike kissed Pat once again. She looked lost and hurt. He wanted to stay with her, but he couldn't risk being caught and forced back into the hospital. He had to be free. Voices and footsteps were approaching - - time to split.

"Ike, I want to go with you!" Pat grabbed his arm. She looked so beautiful that he was tempted to stay with her.

"No, I'll call you. Tell them you haven't seen me. 'Bye." He waved as he headed toward the series of side streets that would lead him to the river. His hand brushed against his back pocket. He reached in and pulled out the yellow pills, which he promptly swallowed without water. Speed would be an ally.

They had caught his grandfather, but no one would catch him.