1
The siren pierced the early morning serenity of Jerusalem's silent streets, deserted except for an occasional man returning from morning prayers. The ambulance sped down the almost empty road, bordered on both sides by old trees leaning against the aging white stone buildings of 1949 immigrant housing, which gradually gave way to expensive, modern villas with red-tiled roofs. On the right side loomed the Monster, a hill-sized black-and-white head with three bloodred slides spilling from its mouth that delighted Jerusalem's children.
Seeing it, the driver thought of his own small children, shaking his head sadly as he glanced into the rearview mirror at the little boy stretched out and motionless, surrounded by paramedics.
"Hurry!" one of the paramedics called out.
The driver turned quickly into the long, winding road to Hadassah Hospital, barely allowing himself a glance at the spectacular gold spires of the Gorney Convent rising up from the valley of Ein Karem as he concentrated on the road, speeding forward through barren hillsides peppered with dark bushes that flourished between the ancient white stones, barely slowing down even when he reached the hospital's security gates. Instead, he motioned urgently to the guards, who quickly raised the barriers, waving him through.
He pulled to a stop in front of the emergency room, jumping down and scrambling to fling open the back doors. As one paramedic pumped air into the child's lungs and the other held an intravenous drip high above his head, the driver navigated the gurney urgently through the beige and apricot corridors crowded with donor plaques straight into the Pediatric Trauma Center.
"Unconscious child. Heartbeat barely stabilized," the paramedics shouted. A flurry of nurses, almost all of them mothers, pulled around the gurney like metal shavings to a magnet. Slowly, and with a heavy heart, the driver backed away.
A senior nurse split the crowd in half, making her way to the patient.
He couldn't have been more than two or three, she thought. His wide eyes were closed and his round, cherubic face was bloated with scars in various stages of healing, the most prominent a black-and-blue mark on his right temple. The nurse placed a stethoscope under his little pajama top: "Get Dr. Freund!" she shouted.
An intern pushed his way through. "What's the history? Where's the mother?"
No one responded.
When the senior doctor arrived, the nurses drifted reluctantly back to their stations, shaking their heads slowly as they glanced briefly over their shoulders, their troubled eyes catching each other's glances.
The child was wearing soft, fuzzy Carter pajamas-an American brand not found in Israel-in a pale shade of blue with tiny yellow bunnies, Dr. Freund noted with the practiced eye of an experienced grandfather sent on numerous solo shopping trips before and after medical conferences in San Diego and New York. Gently, he lifted the top over the child's chest, then drew down the bottoms. What he saw made him catch his breath. After so many years of intimacy with the human body in every condition, he had assumed himself to be impervious to shock.
But this ...
He cleared his throat, taking off his glasses and pinching both sides of his nose to discreetly remove the moisture that had gathered there.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" he said, gathering himself together. He held out one hand for the paperwork and scans, while with the other he pinched the child's finger and felt his chest, testing him for some response. There was none.
"How old is he? How much does he weigh?"
"Almost three. Weight approximated ... there was no time...," a paramedic answered.
Dr. Freund looked up. "Where is the mother?" he asked, repeating the intern's unanswered question. Again, there was silence.
"Well, then, who brought him in here?"
The paramedic holding the intravenous bag leaned forward. "We got a call about four in the morning. Took us ten minutes to get there. He was on the floor. His heart had stopped and he wasn't breathing. There was no mother or father, just some older siblings and a Hassid, no relation, who said he was a friend of the family. He told us he was baby-sitting when the child started crying and suddenly collapsed. We got him stabilized, then took him to Shaare Zedek for a CT scan."
"So why is he here?" Dr. Freund asked. But he already knew. Shaare Zedek wasn't equipped to handle extensive brain injury. His eyes narrowed and his breath quickened as he studied the CT scan. "Call the pediatric anesthesiologist. Tell him it's urgent. The child must be intubated immediately."
"Yes, Doctor."
"Someone will need to sign.... Isn't anybody here from the family?"
The paramedics shrugged.
"Well, do you at least have a name?"
"An older brother said the baby's name was Menachem-Menchie-Goodman."
A passing nurse stopped. "Goodman? Are you sure?"
Dr. Freund looked up at her.
"It's just that ... There's a Daniella Goodman who came in a few hours ago with another child. A four-year-old. He had extensive third-degree burns on his legs. We sent him to the burn unit. I think they said he's going to need skin grafts."
"Get on the phone," he told her, "and call the police."
Copyright © 2015 by Naomi Ragen
