No Greater Love (4 page)

“What happens to them then?”

“If their application for asylum was not accepted, they have to leave The Netherlands, return to their country.” He grimaced. “Many stay illegally.” He rubbed his left eye to relieve the twitching. “Those who are granted asylum must leave the center and earn their living.” He groaned. “They are turned out onto the streets of Amsterdam at eighteen with no home, no family, no work skills, and barely able to speak or understand Dutch.”

“The poor children. No family and no home.” Carl sighed deeply. “I’m sure they have psychiatric problems. What are you seeing?”

“Exactly what you’d expect, loneliness, sleep problems, anxiety, depression . . . posttraumatic stress disorder.” His eyes were shadowed. “Very often, these children have experienced sexual abuse in their home country and during their journey. High, very high rates, of posttraumatic stress disorder.”

“How are you treating the children?”

“Their problems are staggering.” Pieter leaned forward in his chair with his hands hanging limply between his knees. “They’ve lost their families, homes, schools, and the cultural rules that governed their lives. Their sense of identity and their hope for the future have been stripped from them.” His shoulders drooped. “And, of course, they don’t speak our language.”

“You speak French and Arabic as I recall,” Carl murmured. “That must be helpful but what do you do to treat them?”

“Special schools can help the children connect the past, the flight for refuge, and the future. Schools provide a bridge and I”—he jumped to his feet and resumed pacing—“a university trained specialist in child psychiatry, can only provide strategies to reduce the stress of children waiting to hear at any moment that they will be deported, returned to the situation they escaped.” At Carl’s nod, he continued. “For the young children, we use art, games, stories, and sand play.” He shrugged helplessly. “Five years of specialized training in child psychiatry and I use
sand
to treat my patients.” He met Carl’s questioning gaze. “I use a table of sand and small objects so that they can recreate their villages, their homes, and their families, and sometimes they tell me about them. But for the older children”—he shook his head in self-disgust—“I have so little to offer them. I listen if they are willing to talk. I try to teach problem-solving skills to children who have always had every decision made for them by their father. I try to build self-esteem where the danger of abuse lurks constantly. I try to teach conflict resolution to adolescent who live six to a tiny apartment and where the stronger ones dominate.”

“You don’t give up on them,” Carl said softly. “You keep going back.”

“Yes, I keep going back.” He stopped pacing and leaned on the fireplace mantel, staring at the glowing embers. “I keep telling them that there’s hope for a better future.”

Suddenly a boom shook the windows and Pieter snapped erect. “What was that?”

“Thunder.” Carl glanced uneasily toward the stairs. “We’re near Lake Erie and we get thunder snowstorms at this time of the year.”

The sound of another crack of thunder followed by a prolonged rumbling filled the room and this time it was followed by a terrified scream. “
Anne
!”

“Janan. She is calling for her mother in Turkish.” Carl struggled to get out of his chair. “I must go to her. She has recurring nightmares of the earthquake that killed her family.”

With the second scream, Pieter was already racing toward the stairs. “I’ll go,” he said as he took the stairs two at a time.

Opening the door, he found Janan engulfed in a white flannel nightgown huddled on the bed with her hair tumbling around her shoulders, her eyes huge in her ashen face.

Pieter leaned heavily against a bedpost with his heart pounding from the sudden exertion. “It’s all right. It’s just a thunder snowstorm,” he said gently over and over. Slowly, still trembling, she relaxed against her pillows as she focused on his face. Resisting the urge to rock her in his arms, he repeated, “It’s just thunder. You’re safe.”

When she dropped back against her pillows, he covered her carefully with the comforter. “It’s over now. It’s all over.”

Standing at the foot of the stairs, Carl asked anxiously, “Is she sleeping now?”

“I don’t think she really woke up.” Pieter rubbed the back of his neck. “Does she have these flashbacks often?”

“When she first came, her adoptive parents said that she had them often, night terrors they called them then but now . . . I don’t really know.” Carl passed a hand over his face. “Her adoptive father was like a younger brother to me. We were close when we were growing up but, in later years, we had less contact. Her parents were both ill a long time before they died, her father soon after her mother. I saw them frequently as their doctor but they never talked about Janan. She took care of both of them and now she lives alone.” He mumbled hesitantly, “She started sleeping here a few months ago so that I would not be alone.” 

“There is treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder, for the flashbacks and nightmares.”

“Yes, I’ve tried to convince her to get treatment but she refuses. She said something once about it being disloyal to her family to try to get rid of the memories.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t help to hang on to painful memories of what we have lost, but we all do it, don’t we?”

“She will be exhausted in the morning. I can drive myself, really I can. Let her sleep.”

“No. She would be so upset. She wants to do this for me. She knows that I would go with you if I could. She’s taking my place.” He patted Pieter on the shoulder. “Let her.”

Chapter 3

The next morning, Pieter paced the Inn’s porch overlooking the parking lot as he waited for Janan. As soon as he had buckled his seatbelt and grunted a response to Janan’s “good morning”, he began to question her. “Carl seems frailer than I expected. Tell me how he really is.”

“He was managing on his own quite well until about a year ago.” She concentrated on merging with the morning commuter traffic.

“I should’ve come back sooner. It’s been over two years.” He groaned in frustration. “No matter what, I should’ve come back sooner.”

“He seemed lost when Roel, my adoptive father, died. Roel had always been like a younger brother to Carl, and when he died, Carl seemed to age very rapidly. He is only 78,” she said protectively, “but the neuropathy in his legs limits his ability to get around. He won’t say it but I think he worries that his legs will give way and he will fall. He feels safer at home.”

“Who is looking after him?” Pieter frowned as he spoke.

“I help him. I live nearby and I make his meals and so on.” She continued slowly, “Mrs. Potter comes each morning to clean and to heat up his lunch.”

“Is he alone the rest of the time?”

“Not anymore. Now, I sleep in one of the upstairs bedrooms and, during the day . . .” She stopped, uncertain of how much to say.

“Tell me everything,” Pieter commanded.

“There have been some worrisome events and so I arranged for a retired school teacher, Miss Abbott, to come after lunch and stay until I get back.”

“What events?” His voice was sharp.

“Carl’s great-nephew, Arnold, is pressuring him to sign the power of attorney over to him so that he can ‘look after him properly.’” Janan could not keep the scorn out of her voice. “He would drop in when he knew that Carl would be alone and urge him to sign the papers.”

“Are you saying that someone is harassing Carl?” He shook his head in confusion. “Carl never said anything about a nephew.”

“It’s complicated. Carl’s mother’s younger sister had married a Dutchman and so, when the Nazis forced Carl’s family to leave their home in Leiden, to go to the concentration camps, she and her husband moved into Carl’s home.”

Pieter nodded and said grimly, “If she was married to a Dutchman, she would not have been sent to the camps.”

Janan took the exit off the thruway and headed toward the Cancer Hospital. “His aunt had a son, Michael, and that son had a son, Arnold Schoolhaver, Carl’s great-nephew. Arnold is an assistant professor of history at the University at Buffalo. A pompous, hateful man!” Janan pounded the steering wheel of the faithful Subaru. “Carl, kind, brave Carl who would help anyone, is terrified of him.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“That is what is so strange.” She thumped the steering wheel again. “Carl has lived here almost all his life and the nephew has been here at least three years, but it is only in the last couple of months that he has been coming to see Carl.”

“What has changed?”

Startled at the familiar clinical question, one of the first questions of a psychiatric evaluation, Janan swept a quick glance at his face and answered slowly, “After my adoptive father’s death last year, Carl seemed restless, discontented, and then, two months ago he heard that his mother’s sister had died. Since then, he has been almost obsessed about going back to Leiden and claiming his family home.” She hurried on, trying to convey the information that would help him understand, “It’s not only the house. He’s determined to get the benefits from his father’s insurance policies and to retrieve the money deposited in a Swiss bank. He feels that he must do that to keep faith with his father.”

“I see and you have surrounded him with people so that he’s never alone?”

“Yes. I changed the locks, too. Somehow Arnold had obtained a key. He no longer has a key, but he is a relative and I am not. I don’t know what he will do next.” She frowned. “I just don’t understand why he wants that power of attorney so badly. Carl receives social security and he has a retirement plan with the Erie County Medical Society but it is not a big one.” Her voice softened. “He was a family doctor who helped everyone who needed it.” She blushed with shame. “He still has a mortgage on the house. He refinanced it to help my parents pay for my college education. I am repaying him each month but the mortgage payments are still big.” She shook her head. “I owe him so much.”

“So do I.” Pieter’s voice was thick with self-reproach. “Carl was there for me as I went through my medical training. He was the one who advised me, who smoothed my path.” He paused and then began to speak hesitantly. “It was more than that.” He flushed. “Carl loved me like a son and I loved him as only a shunted aside, imperfect, middle brother can. He didn’t see that I lacked the charisma of Crispin, the easy charm of Dirk. He didn’t see my birthmark that makes everyone uncomfortable. He just saw me.”

Janan glanced quickly at him and said gently, “He wants to go home. He doesn’t talk about it very often but he yearns to go home, to Leiden, to that old house on the Rapenberg Canal.” Her words were thickened by the tears she held back. “He has tried to draw a picture of the house so that I can see where he lived but he can’t draw the details and it infuriates him.”

“Carl is the only one of the family to survive. The home should be his without any question,” Pieter said in a low voice, unaware that she had pulled into the driveway in front of the hospital.

“Oh, are we there all ready?” he asked as he surveyed the sprawling medical complex that made up the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. You don’t have to wait for me,” Pieter said stiffly. “I can take a taxi back.”

“Carl would be so hurt,” Janan explained softly. “He already feels terrible that he couldn’t come with you.” Stopping in front of the main entrance, she said, “I’ll let you out here and park.” She put a hand on his arm. “Wait for me . . . please.” When Pieter gave a curt nod, she took a quick breath and added, “Wait for me in the lobby. It’ll be warm there.”

Janan hurried back and, slightly out of breath, asked, “Where do you have to go?”

“To the Leukemia Care Center.” The words fell between them and for a moment they stared at each other.

“We go down this corridor,” she said, moving closer so that her shoulder touched his.
Why was she so stunned? She had known that they were going to a cancer hospital. What had she expected?
“I worked here right after I graduated.” Her thoughts were swirling as they walked slowly down the long hall.
Why had he come to Buffalo? There were excellent Leukemia Centers in the Netherlands. What had made him travel so far?
She slipped off her raincoat and moved between him and the door with ‘Leukemia Care Center’ written in bold print.

“Carl told me that you had tests scheduled for all day.” She spoke quickly, uncertain of how he would respond to her suggestion. “You’ll be moving from room to room. Perhaps you’d like to have me keep your wallet and passport for you?”

“You don’t have to wait around.” Pieter’s mouth drew into a thin line of disapproval.

“I’m staying. Carl would have stayed if he’d been able to come. I’m staying for him,” she said flatly.

Without speaking, Pieter slid a hand into his jacket pocket and handed her his wallet and passport. He waited silently as she slipped them into the pocket of the short black jacket that just covered the waistband of her black pants and then asked, “Would you keep my watch, too, please?” He would have no need to know the time once he went through the door. Everything would be out of his control but Janan would be the keeper of time for him.

He watched as she stabbed impatiently at the holes in order to adjust the strap around her wrist. “Let me help you. Those openings have never been used. They are probably tight.” He held her wrist with one hand and, with the fingers of his other hand eased the prong into the opening and then, using just enough pressure, drove it home.

Janan felt his long cool fingers on her wrist and trembled despite herself. “Thank you.” She turned and put her hand beside his as he pushed the door open.

A tall, lean man with close-cropped brown hair, eyes the color of black coffee, and a face that bore the stamp of a desert heritage hurried forward. “Pieter!” He threw both arms around him. “I haven’t seen you in years.” He laughed as he patted Pieter’s back. “Remember Dallas?”

Pieter smiled back at him. “How could I forget? We delivered babies around the clock for three of the hottest months I’ve ever known.”