The Medium Read Online Free PDF

That people were in despair and now they are not.”
    â€œWe can be glad for that, I suppose,” Emilie put in.
    Walter nodded grudging agreement.
    â€œRemember in ’thirty-three when Herr Hitler first took charge?” Ursula said. “Otto wrote then that people lit bonfires on every hilltop to show the nation had awakened.”
    â€œBut awakened to what?” Walter said. “I’d like to see Germany on its feet again, and I know the state has to be strong for that to happen, there must be order, the people must make sacrifices, but I still think placing all law in the hands of one man is dangerous.”
    â€œOtto does not complain,” Ursula sniffed.
    â€œMaybe Otto doesn’t dare.”

    Ursula had grown up in Germany, coming to America when she was twenty, while Walter and Emilie had both been born right here in New Jersey, but of late, news from Germany, whether from the radio or family letters, seemed to interest them all equally. Helen had never met this cousin Otto, nor had her parents. Yet her father acted as if Otto’s plight were a part of their lives they must not ignore, like cobwebs in the corners of an otherwise well swept room.
    Helen only half-listened to the news reports on CBS, but she was aware of Adolf Hitler and his rise to prominence. Her father’s concern that Hitler now constituted the whole of the German government intrigued her. In their home, her father was the holder of all the rules. The fact that her mother and grandmother might find ways around him from time to time didn’t dispute that. And wasn’t a country a more difficult thing to manage than a family? How much more necessary for someone to be clearly in charge. Like FDR was here. In his second inauguration at the beginning of the year, he’d said he saw one-third of the nation still ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished. How would he fix that if not with a strong hand on the reins of government, even now when things were so much better than they had been when he was first elected? But maybe strength wasn’t the only way to judge a leader. Maybe, as Walter implied, Hitler wasn’t a safe man to give the reins.
    Â 
    Helen went to bed early, curling up in a ball around the lingering ache in her belly. She was disappointed to awaken some time later and find she hadn’t yet made it to morning.
    She fumbled out of a tangle of blankets and went to the bathroom. When she stood up from the toilet and turned to flush, she saw by the glow of the night light something dark in the bowl. She flicked on the overhead light. A bloody cloud was seeping through the water. Then she felt small splashes of warm
liquid on the insides of her thighs. She thrust her hand into her pajama pants and with a gulp of terror brought it back, the fingertips wet with bright red blood.
    â€œOh, oh,” she said aloud.
    She wanted her mother, but she shrank from the thought of what would come next. The rousing of the rest of the household in alarm, the summoning of Dr. Nichols. It would be mortifying to have the doctor and her father learn the nature of her illness, but with such dire symptoms how could they be left out?
    She pictured them all standing funereally around her bed. They would speak softly and smooth her covers. Her mother would wear a brave smile. Dr. Nichols would tell them to get some rest. He wouldn’t even give her a shot or any foul-tasting syrup because what remedy could there be for someone whose insides were leaking out?
    Was this Iris’s doing? Helen couldn’t believe Iris would wish her harm, but there was no denying the succession of events. Maybe it was Iris’s mark on her. Like when Lloyd Mackey and Owen O’Brien sliced their fingers to pledge themselves blood brothers. If it were just a mark, then it would be okay. If it were just a mark, it would stop, and she wouldn’t have to tell anybody. With shaking hands, she pulled off her pajama pants and