Child of the Journey (18 page)

"Are you Jews?"

"Yes."

"Then you are criminals."

"Don't you understand?" She grabbed his sleeve. "I am a German."

The man's smile froze. He issued a soft command, and the dog at his feet growled again and leapt. The woman fell beneath its attack, one arm raised in a feeble effort to ward off the animal, the other tightened around her child. The dog sank its teeth into her cheek, ripped out a hunk of flesh and bit down again. She shrieked. Her curls bounced obscenely as the dog shook her head side to side. Blood pooled on the asphalt.

Miriam saw that Sol was not watching the terror, but rather the guard.
 
Do nothing,
she silently begged him.
Nothing.

The baby rolled from her arms and lay kicking, too young to know its danger as the animal backed off and shook itself as though after a swim. Blood from its jowls showered the street.

Lying on her side, the mother reached for the child. Her legs just moved anxiously while her upper body remained in place, like a live insect pinned through the head.
  

The dog padded over to the child, poked its nose beneath the blanket, and opened its huge jaws.

Miriam could not move. She felt cast in amber.

"Down, Prince," the soldier said softly. "Good boy."

The dog backed away from the baby and the guard knelt to feed it a treat. As he petted the dog, he leaned his submachine gun against his leg, calmly unholstered his pistol, and shot the woman between the eyes. The roar echoed inside Miriam's bones, turning marrow into flame. Blood and gray matter sprayed the street.

"Anyone else done nothing wrong?" The guard looked around. Several people were vomiting. Others cried softly and covered the eyes of their children.

"You two!" He pointed at two prisoners. "Remove that mess."

One man, trembling and white-faced, obeyed. The other paid for his hesitation with his life.

"All right, you!"

The third man obeyed at once. The first man had already scooped up the child in a massive arm and handed it to the nearest female prisoner. Now the two men carried the dead woman up the ridged plank and into the nearest car.

"Everyone in!" the guard commanded.

As if seeking shelter from a city gone mad--or sure that what awaited them could not be worse--the people crowded into the boxcars. A horn blasted, like the animate sound of Miriam's conscience. She too had done nothing.
Nothing!
Not one move to help the woman. Nor could she attempt to help Sol and Misha without endangering them and herself. If only she had fled with Sol either of the two times he had begged her to!
It's my fault. My fault,
she cried inwardly in despair.

"Come, Miriam." Konrad appeared behind her and took her arm.

Like a little girl--perhaps because he finally called her
Miriam
--she did as she was told.

"Oh, God, Konnie! Why?" she whispered as she slid onto the front seat and, needing his strength, clung to his arm and put her head against his shoulder. Her sobbing made her whole body heave. "I don't understand. They killed that woman and then the man--"

"I saw," he said quietly.

"It was cold-blooded murder! All she did was ask a question. She wasn't even resisting arrest. She had a baby in her arms.... How do they justify it?"

"The records will show that the man disobeyed orders and the woman resisted arrest...or tried to escape."

"Escape the SS, and rifles, and dogs? Risk retribution--to their families, their friends?" Would she, she wondered? "Where will they take them?" she asked, feeling stupid. They always said the same things:
A holding facility--a resettlement camp--until emigration or vocational relocation can be arranged.
Meanwhile, their houses, land, possessions were confiscated. They called
that
redistribution of wealth.
All Germans must share evenly,
the rhetoric explained.

Damn the rhetoric, she thought, and damn them all to Hell. What had happened, what was continuing to happen, was as fathomless as Solomon's concept of an infinite nothingness at the center of the universe. By ridding the society of its Jews, the Reich was creating a moral void; those who insisted on the laws of justice instead of the jungle were being driven out.

"Where do you want to go?" Konrad asked.

"Take me to Erich's flat."

She needed to be alone--and
not
at the estate. Alone to think, to plane, to examine her Jewishness. And she was Jewish, wasn't she?
Wasn't she?

If Erich is behind this I will kill him,
she thought feverishly.
Poison, I'll do it with poison and watch him die.
  

After sending Konnie home to Christmas dinner, she let herself into the apartment, kicked off her shoes, and lay down on the bed without bothering to draw the curtain that separated it from the rest of the room.

There had to be something she could do to help Sol! Gripping the pillow, she fought to keep the panic dammed that brimmed along the edge of her consciousness. Perón was not around. There had to be someone influential who could find out where Sol and Misha had been taken. That would be the first step.
Find them.

She brewed coffee and began to pace around the flat. She was on her third cup when she thought of Werner Fink, the outrageous
conférencier
with whom she had worked when she had been the star attraction at the Ananas cabaret.

He was certain to have connections; otherwise how would he have avoided arrest for so long, especially since, as he had told her, he had a twin brother incarcerated in Sachsenhausen? What hold might he have on the Nazis that had kept him free for so long? Photographs, perhaps, of orgies in after-hours cabarets, to be made available should he disappear? He was a survivor, that one.

Her own underground connections, with which she had helped save a dozen desperate lives, were of no use to her now that she needed them; the network had been compromised. Erich had told her that the furriers had been arrested.

What else did he know?
 
There was no point in asking him. If Erich could tell her that Sol was in camp, knowing that he was safe in Amsterdam, he was capable of any lie. A better question was, how influential was he? The Gestapo knew about the safe-house. Did they know about her, too? Was Erich the reason she had not been arrested as well?

Had he found out about Sol's return, and was he responsible for--

No, she decided, forcing herself to calm down. Even Himmler could not have interceded had the Gestapo found out about her. Her cover remained intact because she had insisted that communications be double-blinded. No one knew the others' identities. The day after Erich had told her about the Lubovs, her last communiqué had arrived, telling her the network was dissolved until further notice.
 

Sol's arrest probably had nothing to do with the use of the hideout as a safe-house. Yes, he had been discovered hiding down there, but that did not link him to the underground. After all, he had been using the sewer as a refuge since childhood.

Perhaps, then, Erich knew nothing about today's happenings. Wait, she told herself. Reserve judgment.
 

Coffee cup in hand, she wandered around the small flat. Though she had a key and was often in the area, she hadn't been here since moving into the estate with Erich. Doubtless he had, she thought, noting the remains of a meal on the table.

The place had never been a typical bachelor refuge, barren except for beer and bratwurst and the hope of feminine conquests, but now there had been changes that stirred her to even deeper anger--a candelabra, probably "liberated" from Jews, a four-poster brass bed, exquisite Danish linens, the Dresden china. She opened the pantry. It was stocked with canned venison marinated in sour cream, Norwegian salt herring, assorted sausages, and fine French mustards. She wondered if the prostitutes Erich brought here were women who reminded him in some way of her, or if he specialized in officer's wives, whose pre-coital and post-coital whispers might serve him in the Party.

For all she knew, they had even furnished the place for him. She ran a hand along the small claw-footed bathtub that sat before the balcony doors and doubled as a base for Erich's desk. According to Erich, it had been the darling of Friedrich the Great's personal physician, and it had taken three strong men half a day to maneuver the tub up the stairs.

She lay back down on the bed, finally exhausted.

Had Erich forged Goebbels' cramped handwriting to waylay prize pieces of furniture from Jewish inventory? Had he lied to her about Sol because he loved her that much, or because what one did to a Jew didn't matter? Either way, maybe his guilt about the lies had caused him to leave her bed and spend most of his nights in the room that once had been her uncle's. Perhaps Erich's need to prove himself with other women was tied to her and, therefore, to Solomon.
 

Should she tell him about Sol--offer forgiveness for his lies in exchange for help--or would she simply get more lies?

No, she thought. Take vengeance. Use him. Match him lie for lie.

She buried her head in the pillow. "God, what am
I
becoming!"

She closed her eyes.

The sound of a key turning in the lock awakened her. The flat was dark. She could hear a woman's laughter--low, sensual--and Erich, fumbling with the door. She slid off the bed and stepped behind the corner of the wardrobe.

"Make yourself at home, Anneliese," Erich said. "Pour a bath, for both of us. I'll go down and arrange for dinner." He put a flame to two candles, set them on the table, and transferred the dirty dishes to the sink. "Be right back. Make yourself beautiful for me."

Erich sounded inebriated. Not drunk, but well on the way.
 
The woman heated water, filled the tub, added bath oil, and stripped, flinging her clothes onto the carpet. By the time Miriam knew what she had to do, Anneliese had raised one leg to climb into the tub.

Miriam stepped into the room.

"A threesome!" The woman seemed unperturbed by Miriam's appearance. "Erich said I'm his birthday surprise--but this
is
pleasant! What fun!" She was pretty, in her late thirties, long dark hair, high cheekbones. They could almost have been sisters.

"Leave." Miriam handed the woman her clothes. "I'm his wife."

Anneliese shrugged. "All the same to me," she said. "He promised me two hundred marks. I'll leave, but I want my money."

Miriam rummaged in Erich's dresser. She found a stack of notes under his shirts and gave some to the woman. "Now dress," she said, "and get out."

"A
nneliese?"

Must be on the toilet, Erich thought, touching her tub water. It was warm and silky with oil. He heard the chain being pulled and the subsequent flush.
 

Undressing, he slipped into the tub, anticipating how relaxed she and the water would make him and thinking about the dinner he had selected. Trout
au bleu,
garnished with spring peas, pineapple, and wild mushrooms. Dilled potatoes sautéed in butter and surrounded by sweetmeats. A natural-state May wine from a Rhein-Hessen vineyard.

For dessert he had chosen one of his favorites, cream cheese tucked in a peach and flamed with kirsch, accompanied by a bottle of Rothschild he had tucked away in the Bierstube wine cellar for just such a special occasion as a birthday. Followed by Viennese coffee with whipped cream and a generous helping of sherry.

What on earth was she doing in there? "Anneliese!"
 

"In a minute," she said softly and sweetly from the bathroom.

He lay back in the tub. He was not so drunk yet that he could stop wondering why every whore he brought here looked like Miriam, spoke like her, walked with her particular grace.

Close to sleep, he allowed himself to drift, the tepid water seducing him. He dreamed that a sheath encapsulated him. On a white beach, a shepherd bayed, its howling a river of sound cutting into the furred, spiked foliage that lined the shore. With each howl the placenta around him breathed, but he could not cry out for help lest the film that clung to his lips suffocate him. He was an infant, helpless, drowning in amniotic fluid. What he could not understand was why he liked it, why it felt warm, comfortable, secure.

He awoke pleasantly to a line of warm red liquid curling down from his shoulder and across his chest, just visible in the candlelight. For a second he thought he had been knifed and, strangely, it hardly mattered.

"Wine massage?" The voice was soft and female.

Erich swiped at the red liquid, tasted it, and laughed. Without turning his head, he secured a cheroot from among his clothes on the chair, lit it, and lay back, still half asleep. In the flickering candlelight he saw her silhouette on the wall above the bed as, continuing to kneel behind him, she began working the warm wine into his shoulders and scalp.

At last, a woman who knew how to please. A satisfied murmur passed through his lips. No quick hump and head for the door, this one.
 
He would invite her back.