The Choice

that when, in November 1948, she is fourteen months old and falls ill,
I don’t believe it at ĕrst. I know how to read her fussiness. She’s
hungry, I think. She’s tired. But when I go to her again in the night, a
fever rages. She is coal-hot. Her eyes are glassy. Her body complains;
cries come out. But she is too sick to register my presence. Or I make
no difference. She doesn’t want to nurse. My arms are no comfort.
Every few minutes a deep throttling cough seizes up her chest. I wake
the household. Béla calls the doctor, the doctor who delivered him,
who delivered Marianne, and paces the room where he was born.
e doctor is stern with me. She has pneumonia. “is is life or
death,” he says. He sounds angry, as if the illness is my fault, as if he
can’t let me forget that from the very beginning Marianne’s life has
been founded on risk, on my foolish audacity. Now see what has come
to pass. But maybe what sounds like anger is just weariness. He lives to
heal. How often his labor must end in loss.
“What do we do?” Béla asks. “Tell us what to do.”
“You’ve heard of penicillin?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Get your baby penicillin. And fast.”
Béla stares at him, dumbfounded, as the doctor buttons his coat.
“You’re the doctor. Where’s the penicillin?” he demands.
“Mr. Eger, there is no penicillin in this country. None that you can
buy legally. Good night. Good luck.”
“I’ll pay any price!”
“Yes,” the doctor says. “You must make your own arrangements.”
“e Communists?” I suggest when the doctor has le. ey
liberated Slovakia from Nazi occupation. ey have been courting
Béla, courting his wealth and inĘuence. ey have offered him a
position as minister of agriculture if he will join the party.
Béla shakes his head. “Black market sellers will have more direct
access,” he says.