Summary

In “Nurse,” narrator Christine Meckel tells the Visitor about her time working as a nurse at a medical clinic during the war. She notes that they were not permitted to treat Jews, and that the sick, old, and mentally ill were put to death with a lethal injection of morphine. She recalls a particularly difficult instance in which she was forced to hold down two teenagers while her superior injected them. When the Russians moved into Berlin, Christine and her fellow nurses were instructed to kill the remaining injured soldiers in their care. She goes on to say that she is suffering from macular degeneration and losing her eyesight. She has difficulty seeing herself in the mirror.

In the next chapter, “Dance Craze,” a man named Horst Galbrech recalls working for...