Child of the Journey (43 page)

Why?

Because, it occurred to her, she did not love him--but pitied him for his weakness. Because he did not have her, and never would.

And the child's father?

Thanks to the Christmas rape, she did not know which man that was, and she was tired of wondering about it. Better to think of something else, like the fact that, in a few days, it would be the start of the Jewish New Year.
Rosh Hashanah
. Normally a time of forgiveness, of celebration, hope, prayer, thanksgiving.

Normally.

Nothing about her life was normal. She had never felt more abandoned. The burden of pretense had been a heavy one; its removal should have been sufficient compensation for her loneliness. It wasn't. There was too much was still unresolved.

She returned to the porthole, her watching post, and stared into the fog. The storm was diminishing. She could no longer hear the wind. The next few days would be long, and even lonelier than before. She had read everything on board, including all of Erich's books about Madagascar, except the one he kept locked in the brass-hinged sea trunk. She missed Perón's company, especially since she respected him so completely. How very much he had done for her...for
them
--she, Solomon, Erich, the baby. She even missed Leni, Nazi or not, for her dry sense of humor and interest in the world of dance.

But Juan and Leni were gone, and she was left with her own company and Bruqah's. During the next few days he brought in her meals, massaged her aching back, and spoke of all manner of things in a fascinating mix of innocence and wisdom, as if infant and sage had conspired to occupy the same body. Erich continued sleeping in the cabin, but their uneasy truce did not include conversation. He crept into his bunk late at night, when he was sure she would be asleep, and was gone before daylight. On the few occasions she had awakened before he left, she turned awkwardly to face the wall--and remained silent.

Today, convinced they must be closing in on their destination, she had spoken to him--pleasant words, despite her need to scream; words that eased their truce a little.

The cabin door opened. She turned, smiling; she expected to see Bruqah.

It was Erich. He avoided her eyes. "We've dropped anchor. Get ready to leave ship. Bruqah will help you."

He left the cabin and she returned to the porthole. The usual fog had shrouded the sea since dawn. As she stood there, it began to lift. An orange sun shone through a halo of clouds, highlighting a green saddle of hills, thick with vegetation and laced with mist, as if a trillion caterpillars had woven a webbed shawl to protect the slopes from the morning. Along the shoreline, she could make out wavelets shuddering against a mangrove-flat whose red, scalloped edge was overhung with interlocking roots and veils of moss.

A light knock at the cabin door claimed her attention. "Come in, Bruqah," she called, knowing Erich would not have returned. "Is that Nosy Mangabéy?" she asked, without turning around. "That small island at the mouth of the bay?"

"Yes, Lady Miri...." He sounded as if there were more he wanted to say, but his voice trailed off. His hands, normally so relaxed, were clenched into fists at his sides.

"What's wrong, Bruqah?" Miriam asked.

After several moments, he mumbled, "They're back, Lady Miri."

"Who's back?" She was growing impatient with his reticence. When he shook his head, obviously reluctant to answer, she took hold of his wrists and looked at him insistently. "Who? Tell me why you're suddenly afraid. Who has come back to that little island?"

With a finger that was quivering slightly, Bruqah pointed to the island. "There is smoke rising from the first hill, Lady Miri."

Another interval of quiet.

"The ghosts," he said finally. "They have returned. They have come back to the island where the dead dream."

M
isha started the day with a sense of purpose. He was going to search for a gun. He had no idea how to shoot one, but he could learn. He had seen Sachsenhausen guards shoot them--shoot
people
with them--often enough. If they could do it, he could, too. He had to, that was all there was to it, because if he could kill some of the bad people on his thought-list, everything would come into balance, or even be weighted to the good.

He pictured the ledger sheet. At the top of the bad side of the list were Pleshdimer and Hempel who appeared over and over, once for every time they did something bad. He had done the same thing on the good side, like putting in each birthday separately and not just lumping them under 'birthdays.'

Fair was fair, so there was also one Hempel entry on the good side. Hempel had been nicer to Misha since the escape from the stateroom at Lüderitz. In his relief that the boy had not fallen overboard, the Sturmbannführer had given him the run of the ship.

He took full advantage of the concession, exploring the ship from one end to the other, but staying out of trouble and out of everyone’s way, especially Hempel’s, because nicer did not mean nice. He had not stopped doing
the thing
, just decreased its frequency.

Come nightfall, Misha had to go back to more of the same.

As the sun sank lower, each pitch of the ship became a clock, ticking him closer to confinement and pain; each toss made him remember the mental tally sheet.

On the one side were the good people of his life: Papa, Hans Hannes, Solomon Freund, Fräulein Miriam. The other side was filled with hunger and pain, with the Nazi men breaking into the apartment, and, over and over again, Pleshdimer and the strap, and Hempel doing
the thing
.

Free for the day, Misha found his way into the cargo hold where the military equipment was stored. He sensed that guns were in the metal and wooden boxes that were stacked within the hold, but his attempts to open them proved futile.

Behind the stacked boxes, as if mocking him by the show of strength he could not use, was an airplane. Its wings had been removed and wired to its sides. There was also a tank, not much larger than one of the armored cars that sometimes roamed the streets of Berlin. Tarps only partially covered them. He climbed on both, wishing, exploring. The tank had a machine-gun mount, but the guns was packed elsewhere.

 
"Rat-a-tat-tat," he yelled, imagining himself sighting down the weapon and firing bursts as Hempel, Pleshdimer, and the other Nazis charged toward him, falling like the dominoes Papa had taught him how to stack in long rows.

When he tired of his solitary game, Misha made his way on deck. To his surprise, the ship had anchored and, in the distance, he could see land. Could it be Madagascar, he wondered?

He stood at the rail and looked down. He could see movement in the water, dark shadows which he took to be sharks.

Setting aside all thought of swimming to shore, he wandered to the windlass room. He hid in the shadows, watching the soldiers come and go. He recognized some of them as dog trainers, yet he could tell by their uniforms that they were real soldiers. What a wonder that would be, he thought, carrying a gun and commanding a powerful animal! Would anyone dare hurt him again? Would he even need a tally list? He liked the trainers, and had thought about putting them on the good side of his ledger, especially after the one Colonel Alois called Fermi let him into the hold to pet the dogs. Once he even fed them, under the trainers’ watchful eyes.

He leaned out of the shadows and tugged at Fermi, who was the last to pass by him. "Could I visit the dogs?" he asked.

"Sorry, Misha. I don't have time to take you down right now," Fermi said.

"I could go in by myself."

"Never, ever go near the animals alone," Fermi warned. "They might chomp you in half."

The dogs were better now, he said, except for Aquarius who was still terribly seasick, and Taurus, who had a fire in her hip.

"Why don't you put out the fire," Misha asked, imagining smoke and flame.

Fermi laughed, and tousled his hair. As the trainer walked away down the corridor, Misha thought about putting him separately on the good-side of the tally sheet, and the dogs, too.

Noticing that Fermi had failed to rotate the door handle behind him, Misha crept from his hiding place by the ladder well that led to the hold. He put a shoulder against the door and shoved. It clanged open against the wall.

All but three dogs--the two sick ones and Boris, the wolfhound--came to the front of their cages, trying to thrust their noses through the wire. He went to the front of the cages, pretending he was passing in review, much as he and the other inmates had done back in Sachsenhausen whenever Hempel had wanted, the other men said, to be admired. He kept his hands carefully at his sides.

Several dogs wagged their tales. "Don’t be fooled by the tails," Fermi had told him. "Means nothing, with these dogs. We taught them that trick. Wag and bite, wag and bite."

The wolfhound perked up its ears, but did not look at him. It stood and shook itself, gazing toward the left wall. Misha had lain awake often enough at night, listening to the creaks and groans of the ship, and to the scurrying of rats and roaches in the hollow walls. He supposed that to be what the dog was doing.

The dog whined and pranced as much as the cage would allow, increasingly nervous and animated. Maybe it's the island that's making him nervous, Misha thought, remembering what Bruqah had told them at the farmhouse about dead spirits on the island, and how animals could hear them. Maybe that
was
Madagascar he had seen out there.

As if they had been triggered by the wolfhound's nervousness, the other dogs--all but Aquarius and Taurus--followed Boris’ example. Their nervousness transferred itself to Misha, who began to think that he, too, was sensing something very strange and mysterious outside the ship

"Good boy," he told the wolfhound, and released the latch. The dog instantly pushed open the cage door and, ignoring him, dashed toward the eastern wall where he stood whimpering.

Is that how Major Hempel feels about me when I ignore him, Misha wondered. He fell to his knees and, heart pounding from the sense of danger, put his arms around the dog’s thick, warm neck. The animal did not resist, so intent was it on the wall. Did the dog not realize there was a door, at the opposite side of the room?

As if it had heard him, the wolfhound shook itself free and went to the door.

"No," Misha said softly, crawling after him. "You can’t go. Whatever it is you want, you have to stay here with me."

He stood up, took hold of the dog's collar, and walked the animal back and forth. The wolfhound appeared to relish the pacing, as if it partially relieved his anxiety. The other dogs watched, whimpering. "Good boy," Misha kept saying. "Good, good boy. Just like me."

We are friends now, Misha decided. He scratched the dog behind the ear. The wolfhound pressed its head forward in pleasure.

Then Misha heard footsteps in the corridor. The dog looked toward the east wall, whined deep in its throat, and let itself be maneuvered into the cage without resistance.

After relatching the cage, Misha secreted himself behind some crates of dog food. He would watch the trainers carefully from now on, he decided. He would learn how they handled the dogs. These dogs were special, Fermi had told him. Smart, tough, trained to kill.

With your help, Misha thought, eyeing the silver-blue tag that said "Boris" on the cage door and fingering the collar around his own neck, the bad side of the list will grow shorter.

"W
e have stopped moving forward," Solomon said. "They will be coming for us."

He sensed Goldman turn toward him in the dark of the hold.

"Moving. Not moving. What difference does it make?" Goldman said. "No one has been down here for days. They have probably decided to let us die in our own filth."

No one had been allowed above decks since Lüderitz. The storm had turned the hold into a hell-hole, and the question of whether or not they would die of disease before they reached Madagascar was never far from anybody's mind. Guards had brought food of sorts and drinking water, but the prisoners had none to spare for cleaning themselves or the floor, which was slick with a sour combination of vomit and the swill that had sloshed from the latrine-drum during the ship's relentless pitching and tossing.

In this last part of the journey, he made no attempt to stop himself from thinking about Miriam and the child she carried. He thought about their lovemaking in the cabaret and convinced himself that out of that had come the child. No matter what, he knew he would love the child, as he would always love Miriam.

And Erich.

Though with Erich, the love was tainted. Veiled in the confusion of wanting to hate him.

Finally, on this day when the ship's movement stopped, he thought about this so-called homeland. Berlin, the only home he knew, would never be his home again; now Jerusalem was the only homeland he wanted, not this ersatz place called Nose Mangabéy which Hitler and Hempel and, more than likely Erich, would turn into another camp or, at best, a ghetto.

What, he asked himself, had he really learned, on this long journey from boyhood to manhood? That he could see into the lives of strangers, and not into his own, and that the only constant in life was change?