Children of the Dusk (19 page)

Miriam could see that the young man held a certain amount of real respect for the colonel, despite the Nazi uniform. There was no denying that conditions here on Mangabéy were infinitely better than in Sachsenhausen, and much of that was Erich's doing.

And mine, she thought. If he only knew how much.

An explosion went
whump
from the far hill. They must be back clearing the last of the forest around the crypt, Miriam thought.

Erich listened intently, as if expecting to see part of the forest fall, even from this distance. Those birds that had not taken flight earlier rose into the air. As if satisfied that the explosion was part of the clearing and not some insurgency, he relaxed and stuck his head inside the tent. "Bruqah! Outside! I need you to drive the tank!" he said.

The Malagasy almost instantly appeared. "You need Bruqah? Who fail make machine go forward?"

"Just get in the goddamn tank."

"Erich?" Miriam said. "I wish to go back with you."

Erich scowled at her. "Forget it. Not in your condition. This isn't the Autobahn, you know."

"You are going to the crypt. I need to see inside it."

She had realized by now that somehow she had lost the memory of a part of the day and replaced it with another of the bizarre waking dreams--visions as Sol called them--that had come to her with increasing frequency since their arrival on the island. Something told her that the roots of this one were to be found inside the tomb. Had it not been for Misha's unfortunate run-in with the pitcher plant, she'd have asked to be taken inside the crypt when they were up there earlier in the day.

Without much effort, she reconstructed what she had seen in her mind's eye...

She lay on stone, her ankles fastened by straps, shallow depressions in the stone fitting her form perfectly. As though made for her. Sweat streamed off her forehead as the contractions rolled through her with a pain she swore she could not endure. Not one more. Then she turned her head, and beyond the open door she saw tiny gyrating men, dancing jerkily as marionettes....

"Please, Erich," she said. "Franz can stay with the boy."

"Very well, then," Erich said. "But you are not to blame me if this overtires you.
You
, whatever your name is, ride in the tank with us. Make sure my wife rides safely."

"Yes...sir, Herr Oberst!"

Miriam wondered if the young man's enthusiasm were the result of helping her or of riding rather than walking. There
were
some things best left unknown, she decided.

Bruqah drove slowly, the tank barely bucking on the deepest ruts. This time, being on the machine gave her a particular excitement she had not experienced since girlhood, the kind of pleasure she had known when one day she, Sol, and Erich rode bicycles to the
Siegessäule
--the Victory Monument--and later that afternoon, drenched from a sudden rain, had broken into the abandoned Belford mansion and within five acres of underground wine cellar had pretended to be knights-and-lady. Erich had been Tannhaüser and she Lady Venus; she could not recall what role Sol had elected, except that he had surprised them all by winning. That was the first time she had seen him when the ghosts came....

It was all too long ago to belabor.

She forced her attention upon the moment and caught a glimpse of what it was like to play toy soldier. Perhaps, she thought, the attraction of the military
wasn't
just killing.

"This is absolute foolishness," Erich said suddenly, when they were halfway up the hill. "Stop the tank, Bruqah, we’re going back. I don't have time to waste. I've already inspected the crypt and I’ve the building of the dock to oversee. Max, help Miriam off this thing. Then Bruqah and I will head down the hill.”

Bruqah did as he was told.

"Erich...,” Miriam said, her anger rising.

"I’ve made my decision."

She could see by his expression that he would brook no argument. When they arrived back at the gate she allowed Bruqah and Max to help her to the ground.

"Tell me what you found in the crypt, Bruqah," she said, keeping hold of his hands as he leaned over the edge of the tank.

Quickly, almost in a whisper, Bruqah filled her in. "Some say Count never try to bring her here. Even he never know her, some say. But one thing every man know for damn sure: she die of fever, and never return. Not even for
lambamena
ceremony."

"The dressing of the dead."

He looked at her with a pain-filled expression. "We wait rebury her, one day."

Miriam sensed Erich's growing impatience, but did not want to cut Bruqah short. "I'm sure that will happen."

"Anything possible. Everything have reason. Mister Sollyman specially know that." He shrugged as if to relieve himself of an emotional burden. "I run same risk when I not in Madagascar. There is place for my bones in crypt at kidney lake where alligators carry ancestor's souls. I am woman and man, both. My people need my soul, else blood run thick again. Aye-aye say--"

He shuddered, clearly afraid. He was always so proud and strong that Miriam was loathe to let go of his hand.

"Bruqah! Let’s go!” Erich said.

Miriam chuckled at the great army commander needing a Malagasy to operate his modern machinery.

The tank pulled away, leaving Max to escort her to the medical tent. Feeling the need to walk after Erich’s brusque treatment of her, she sent him on alone into the compound and meandered down a path that led toward a copse of slender trees.

She found herself in a tiny clearing, almost a grotto. There was a well-worn bench and the grass was tramped down, as though the place were often used. She sat down, thankful to take the load off her feet. Letting her head tip back, she breathed in the humid air and looked up toward the bowl of deeply blue sky. She felt strangely at peace, despite the heat. And despite the larger, terrible questions: birth, survival.
  

She thought of the maze of events that had brought her here, and of her own manipulations of those events. She'd relied on her friendship with Juan Perón, who had so adored her when he had first danced with her, when she was young and beautiful and optimistic. She wondered fleetingly what he would think of her now, with her chopped off hair and ungainliness. It was still a mystery to her why Erich had never said anything about her bout with the scissors. Even Sol had said little except, "It will grow back."

Which was probably what her Uncle Walther and Perón--or Domingo as she had called him, using his middle name--would have said. They had indulged her, the two of them. In those days, he was a young attaché to the Italian embassy, and she was being groomed by her uncle to enter the political arena. "Half Jewish and, soon, all woman--now
that
will set the Reichstag on its ear," Uncle Walther had told her. Not that she'd ever wanted to be anything but a performer.

Perón, still wanting to please her many years later, had requested that Erich Alois be placed in charge of the Madagascar Experiment. Or at least in charge of initial operations. Himmler had surprisingly acquiesced. He had approved, as well, her accompanying her husband, and signed without hesitation an order releasing one Solomon Isaac Freund, Jew, fluent in French and experienced in accounting, to be interpreter and supply clerk with the advance party.

She had deluded herself into thinking that Himmler's decision was based on Erich's qualifications. After all, Erich and his trainers were in charge of security for Goebbels' headquarters, and there was word that his expertise in security and his genius for dog training might land his zodiac team the coveted job of guarding Hitler himself.

Only weeks later did she learn that Himmler had approved Perón's request out of political, not military, expediency. Regardless of Hitler's having declared her "without Jewish blood," she remained Jewish in Himmler's eyes. And she was the perfect ploy. Goebbels, with Himmler's blessing, had hired Leni Riefenstahl to make a propaganda film, with Miriam in a title role.
Pregnant wife of Colonel Erich Alois--stolen from the cradle by Jews and raised by the traitor Walther Rathenau, once Germany's foreign minister--is now bound for the African island of Madagascar. The island is the remnant of the sunken continent of Lemuria, home of the great winged Roc that attacked Sinbad
. There she would serve husband and Fatherland, as in his compassion the Führer created a homeland for the Jews.

The documentary would play to teary-eyed audiences in the Reich's theaters--more likely in theaters all over the world. Like her first film, when
the young and beautiful Frau Alois--
who no longer felt young or beautiful--renounced Judaism and all its evils and placed a wreath on the graves of the young anarchists who had assassinated her uncle.

To save Sol.

To keep her love alive.

She sighed and closed her eyes, wishing she could forget. The baby kicked. She smiled and placed a hand on her belly. The Nazis had taken her mansion and her money, and severed her career. They would not have the child. Or Solomon, if she could help it.

"Deborah," she whispered, repeating the name again and again. Feeling the child move as had happened each time she'd spoken the name aloud. The child was a girl, she was sure of it, a girl-child aware of the mother who bore her.

Images began to bombard her. She gave in to them----

----
Again, she lies on the stone hearth, the shallow depressions fitting her form perfectly, as though carved for her
. Her belly rolls like the sea. She stares at it in horror. The baby is coming, the pain jerks her head back, and still the unnatural rolling of her belly continues. Through the doorway she sees pygmy dancers, whitely glowing, undulating. An eternity passes before the pain lets up enough for her to move. A hand with nails like claws touches the outside of her thigh. In horror she looks down her body, but the hand darts away. Behind the rows of guttering candles there is a blanket-draped figure.

An elderly white woman wearing bifocals, her safari hat wrapped and tied under her chin with a bright yellow chiffon sash, enters the stone room. She reaches out for Miriam but does not touch her. Her hand, the same hue as her khaki jacket and pants, remains suspended in air, as if she fears to touch the woman on the dais.

"You have choices, Miriam," she whispers. "Your child is bringing you one reality. You do not have to accept it."

"Who are you," Miriam asks, struggling to rise above the pain.

"I am Judith," the woman says. "Dr. Judith Bielman-O'Hearn."

"Thank God," Miriam gasps. "A real physician."

"Not a medical doctor," Judith says. "An anthropologist. I work with the Falasha--the Black Jews of Ethiopia. Hitler has plans for them...uproot them from their ancestral home and send them here to Madagascar. Mussolini has approved the idea. As has Stalin, with the Ukrainian Jews."

The pain is excruciating. Miriam screams, wishing the woman would help her or go away.

"I have come to warn you of the Malagasy. He wishes to control the child."

"The Zana-Malata? I wouldn't let that...that creature--"

"Yes, he is evil and power-mad. He confuses the dybbuk in your child with the soul of Ravalona--"

"The
what
?"

"The dybbuk that was in Solomon was in his seed...."

Before Miriam can fully comprehend what she has heard, Judith says, "But it is the other one, the one called Bruqah of whom I speak. He knows the child is not a vessel for Ravalona, but fears what the false belief that it is will do to his people. It is he whom you should fear."----

----
Tekiah
.

The first note of the Shofar sounded--long and melancholy. In ancient times, it had summoned Jews to battle.

So the Juterbourg farmer had succeeded in fashioning a Shofar out of the zebu horn Misha had found, Miriam thought, glad that the trumpeting had broken the spell of the vision. For a moment all other sounds ceased. The guards' talking and clatter, the dogs' barking and baying, the lemurs' and insects' chittering in the jungle that surrounded the hilltop pasture on which the encampment sat--all stopped, as if man and beast recognized, for whatever reason, the traditional call to worship on this Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish new year.

Sundown had surprised Miriam again. Already it was almost dark and the cooler, evening air pressed against her skin like a soft hand. She half-ran toward the encampment, hampered by her bulk. In the southeastern corner, beneath the limestone knoll that served as the fourth sentry tower, she could see the prisoners gathered around Solomon, heads bowed but bodies upright in defiance of the four machine guns that were trained in their direction.

Miriam felt her heart sink as Pleshdimer grinned at her in passing and lumbered toward the Jews. The bowed heads did not seem to notice him coming, but from the rain forest, a dozen eyes reflected the dying sun. Lemurs, probably. If they weren't careful, their curiosity would earn them the stewpot.

Shevarim
. The second note. Broken. Mournful.

If only she could attend the Service, but having "officially" renounced Judaism, anything contradicting that would bring down Hempel's wrath, much less Erich's.

Or maybe it wouldn't.