Nine Lives

By Dr. Siegfried Kra

NINE LIVES is a sequel to Twilight in Danzig which tells of Siegfried Kra's childhood leading up to WWII, concluding with his family’s escape from the Gestapo. Nine Lives begins when Kra’s family emigrates to NY by boat. A riches to rags story, Kra picked up various ways to help feed his family when his once successful father in the coal industry was unable to find work. A desire to study medicine led Kra to Toulouse, France, where he became enraptured by studying every nerve ending and valve of the human body, which he drew on his chalkboard-painted walls and ceiling, until they became a part of him. Kra completed his education at Yale, where he later became a Professor of Medicine and practicing cardiologist. Within this novel are intriguing, charming and touching stories of romance, brushes with death and medical cases during the ‘Golden Age of Medicine.’ Nine Lives is an enchanting look into an older world that no longer exists and will stick with you long after you put it down. This was then…While some of these stories appear within the short stories of Dancer in the Garden, this book narrates a sequential, comprehensive, and more detailed life story. Kra wanted to save lives so that people could continue to live and love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press
• Release date: Oct 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781545753323

Book preview

EPILOGUE

THE WAITING ROOM was crowded with anxious patients waiting for me to arrive. One hour had passed, but they were expecting me to be late. As I paused outside the front door I heard one man say: He’s always late, you know. He is in the hospital, but it’s worth waiting for him.

Don’t you think? said a woman in a loud voice. Dr. Kruger’s a famous Yale professor with a very busy referral practice.

I entered the waiting room and waved to my patients with an apologetic smile. I then opened the door to my office secretary and said, A little late sorry, Margo.

You have lots of calls, doctor, from the hospital, and your father wants to speak to you.

I quickly looked over to the the waiting room through the glass door that separated the waiting room from the offices and saw a number of new referrals. The walls of the waiting room were covered with paintings which I’d acquired from my visits to various museums around the world. The lithographs gave a bright, optimistic color to my practice. But there had been a time, in Danzig, when the paintings on the walls of my parents’ estate were not reproductions.

I liked to think I had a charming smile and piercing brown eyes that twinkled when I was happy, and that women in particular liked my looks. I had a straight-looking body, muscular broad shoulders, a crop of gray hair, skin somewhat tanned, and a voice that was convincing and gentle if need be.

My private office was my pride. The floor covered with a large oriental rug, an expensive Tabriz, and an antique desk from 1860 accompanied by a swivel chair. A fragrant red rose sat in a Waterford glass on my desk. There were photographs on the wall of famous teachers and celebrity patients. There was also a picture of Danzig harbor with boats carrying coal and large signs reading, BALTIC KOHLEN. This had been my father’s company before the Nazis invaded.

Today was the anniversary of my graduation from medical school. This was also the day my dear socialite mother died. She had a horrible disease called Scleroderma, that made her skin like parchment and her lungs like leather. Her heart was encased in a fibrous-like jacket. There was no treatment. Her beautiful delicate face soon looked like a character from a horror movie. She could not smile because her face was frozen in disease.

The Chief Resident in the Intensive Care unit had said, We love your mother, but please tell her to be more cooperative. She will not allow us to examine her in the morning unless her hair is combed, lipstick on and wearing perfume.

I remembered when I visited her after my rounds at the hospital. She was in an oxygen tent, pulling the curtains away, not wishing to be in it.

Don’t do that! You need the oxygen to breathe! I had yelled.

I left the Intensive Care unit after placing a kiss on her once beautiful face, now leather, and at three in the morning I got a call that she had suddenly died.

*

My last patient of the day was Hans Krause, an old family friend from Danzig. He had been referred from his family doctor because of palpitations and chest pain. After the usual questions, I took him to the stress lab for a cardiac stress test. Hans, who spoke English with a strong German accent, reminisced about Danzig.

You were just a child, but I do remember you, believe it or not, he said as a he ran on the treadmill without even sweating.

I will tell Father that you came to the office. I will see him this afternoon. There are not many people left from Danzig. Do you remember my mother, Lucy?

Of course, I remember her very well as that elegant woman. I heard she died. I did not escape to the U.S. like your family. I went to Argentina. We could not get a visa into United States. I’m here only for a short visit and then we’ll return to Buenos Aires. Your father is a very smart man to have arranged for the escape. I was not Jewish, but still had to run because I did not sympathize with Hitler. Your father will tell you the whole story. I know you’re a busy doctor now.

He finished his run on the treadmill. But now his face was red and then turned pale.

He whispered, I don’t feel right—something is going on.

He suddenly climbed off the treadmill and collapsed on the floor.

I pushed the Emergency bell.

I got on my knees and started CPR. The staff rushed in and swiftly placed leads from the defibrillator on his chest. I pushed the red button. An electric current surged through Hans’ body and he almost became airborne.

He awoke and began speaking. Oh, my chest is burning!

His heart was in a regular rhythm and the blood pressure was normal. The CPR had been successful.

The ambulance arrived and took him to the hospital for observation.

You guys did a great job, I complimented my well-trained nurses.

I had not anticipated that Hans would suffer an arrest, as his stress test was normal. But I had also recently reiterated to the residents at Yale New Haven Hospital, where I taught, not to be fooled by a normal test, as the arteries can still be blocked. I was used to cardiac emergencies in my office or the hospital, but I felt particularly uneasy from this experience, because with each passing year my connections to Danzig diminished.

I was busy with my last patient of the day when I got a call from the ER. I assumed it was about Hans, but it was a from a hospital in New York. My father had died from a heart attack.

He was found lying on the street and died in the ambulance, I heard someone say.

Can’t be, I said. He was healthy. I saw him last week. He looked great. We must get an autopsy!

*

Jamaica Hospital was located in Queens, New York, adjacent to Highway 95. I took the train to Grand Central Station and the number five line subway to Queens. I had grown up in New York and often visited to see my father, go to shows on Broadway or opera at the Met, and visit museums.

I recalled my father once telling me he confronted a mugger by saying, If the Russians could not kill me and Germans could not kill me, do you think you can, you hoodlum? Then he pushed the gun out of the mugger’s hand and ran him off.

*

I entered the Emergency Room with great trepidation. The hospital was located in a decrepit neighborhood with sidewalks covered with garbage and seedy-looking characters hanging around, leaning on broken down apartment buildings.

I am Dr. Kruger. My father, Henry Kruger, was brought here this morning, and died. Is the doctor who saw him is he still on duty?

A minute later a tall dark man wearing a long white coat introduced himself as Dr. Gupta in a distinct Indian accent.

I am sorry, doctor.

Please tell me what happened.

He arrived barely conscious, his heart was hardly beating. We struggled to put in a pacemaker. We tried CPR for twenty minutes then pronounce him dead.

Can I see his ECGs?

I sat in the doctors lounge to read them. I had read thousands of ECGs and now for the first time read my father’s, wiping the tears from my eyes. I could not believe what I saw.

I suddenly ran out and spoke to Dr. Gupta in an angry voice, my face red and my eyes flashing with desperation.

"His ECG was normal! He did not have a heart attack. I demand an autopsy.

My father’s body was still in the hospital morgue. So the officials decided to grant permission to perform an autopsy that very day after the Chief of Medicine and the Chief of Pathology agreed. I waited in the doctors lounge.

My father was a sturdy, strong man. At the age of 75 he was active and exercised daily. He had no history of heart disease. He was in the cavalry in Poland and fought the Russians in 1917.

*

The head nurse directed me to the patients office in the basement to pick up his belongings.

My father, Henry Kruger, I said in quiet, sullen voice.

The clerk handed me his wallet, containing ten dollars, his apartment keys, and a pair of glasses. There were also his clothes: his shoes, suit, socks, shirt and tie. He must have gone to an appointment to be so dressed.

I walked towards the autopsy room, also in the basement. The pathologist greeted me with blood on his gloved hands.

Well what did you find? I asked impatiently, looking at my father’s blood. His heart was OK, but the belly was filled with blood. We will need a few days to find the cause, the pathologist informed me.

What? So he did not die of a heart attack? And those idiots in the Emergency Room missed the diagnosis and wasted precious time trying to put in a pacemaker!

*

I went to my father’s building on Yellow Stone Boulevard in Queens and rode the elevator to the fifth floor. I felt like a burglar inserting the key. The familiar view and even the smells of the apartment made me want to yell out, Hello, Father are you there?

I walked through it with tears in my eyes. The small living room neatly furnished with a leather couch and four leather chairs in a semicircle resting on an oriental rug.

I walked into a second bedroom that served as his office. Old papers, photos of Danzig, and newspaper clippings were strewn on the desk. One picture of the Queen Mary was dated 1938, the year we sailed on her to the New World.

He had even kept the ticket stubs from the ship.

I sat down in his desk chair, remembering my parents and I standing together on the deck of the Queen Mary as we entered New York harbor.

Liberty

THE HMS QUEEN MARY slowed its engines as it sailed past the Statue of Liberty to dock in New York City. The passengers stood silently on the upper deck, some wearing fur collars and fur coats. These were the lucky ones who had escaped from the reign of terror of the Germans, who were on the verge of destroying an entire civilization. My parents and I had escaped from the Gestapo by boat from Danzig to Southampton in November, I938.

The silence was broken by the jubilant playing of the Star Spangled Banner by the ship’s orchestra. Some of the passengers stood wide-eyed, some cried, others applauded. Then, as the sun rose on the horizon, an apparition: suddenly I saw the magic city of tall buildings rising up from the sea like some great silvery monster.

I lifted myself on the railing below the pilot’s deck to watch the burly men scurrying about the dock, tugging at the mass of ropes that secured the shifts.

Then came the loudspeaker announcing all refugees and passengers not holding American passports will depart from the AA Deck for customs inspections.

I found my parents in the long line that led to the gangplank.

We were looking for you, get in line, my father said.

A large custom’s inspector met us at the bottom of the stairs. Welcome to the United States of America. Let’s see your passports. Get your luggage please.

He pointed to a huge pile of suitcases on the pier, beside porters in blue uniforms waiting for their tips.

My father said, No luggage. Only what we wear.

I smiled because I understood something that the porters were yelling. Okay, Okay! I knew this word from the movies we saw aboard the Queen Mary, such as The Adventures of Robin Hood, with Errol Flynn.

I felt my short lederhosen to check if the money sewn in my pants was still there. When the custom’s inspector glanced at me, I thought he could see right through my pants. But a minute later we were waved on and my mother pulled my hand as she hurried outside, where our wealthy American cousin waited to greet us.

*

Our rich American cousin checked us in to the Waldorf Hotel, where we stayed for two days before he found us an apartment on 89th Street and West End Avenue. But we barely heard from him after that.

My father looked for work but he spoke no English and America was suffering from a depression. Once a wealthy coal merchant and industrialist, he had no place in New York. He went to Blue Coal and many other companies, but they all refused him. We had no money except the coins sewn into my lederhosen. The