Children of the Dusk (36 page)

The pain and the satisfaction of having made a decision burned like a clean flame. He picked up speed, running now, an awkward gallop, winding in and out of the foliage and staring at the sunlight that strobed between the trees.

"Taurus," he said, bursting onto the beach.

Misha, sitting in the sand, looked up at him from near Pleshdimer's body. Taurus strained in excitement against her leash. She was his again, the connection renewed.

Something punched him in the small of his back with such force that he arched and, groaning, fell to his knees. The boy jumped up and started toward him, his face tight with concern.

Erich thought he saw the boy say something, but suddenly he was beyond sound. Instead of an aquamarine sea, he looked down upon a sea of vegetation, hunter green and painted with shadow. The sea rotated, above him now, while beneath him shone a puddled yellow moon.

His breathing returned to normal. He gained his feet and, brushing Misha aside, stumbled to the plane and clung to the prop. Losing his balance, he slid to the ground. Taurus padded forward, straining so hard to reach him that her collar must tear away from her neck. He thought he could hear her barking as, on hands and knees, he fought for air, the world alternately tipping and spinning, light glinting dully off the blade of his knife.

He needed her power, her unthinking desire for vengeance and for blood, and there was only one way to get it. He fell sideways, twitching, her name on his lips.

As abruptly as it had begun, the seizure ended, and he was filled with a calm and a strength. His mind felt clear. He stood up slowly, feeling light yet strong, the air around him sweet and imbued with life. There had been a time, once, when he had believed that he and Taurus together could conquer the world. For a while, he had lost that conviction. It returned to him now, and he felt young again. He and Taurus, merged as one being, would be unstoppable except through the force of God. He remembered the many times that Bruqah had said that, in Africa, believing made it so. He could not believe more fervently than he did at that moment; all that was left was to make it so.
  

"C-cut the l-leash," he said, handing the knife to Misha, who was peering up at him. "So n-no one can ev-ever u-use it again."

Misha did as he was told, sawing earnestly at the leather. Then he held the knife to his side as the dog, freed not only from the tether but from the Zana-Malata's bonds, bounded toward her master.

Erich knelt, opening his arms, exultant not only from the sense of well-being which inevitably followed a seizure, but also from Taurus' return. She reached him, sliding to a stop, head lifted like a long-throated bird as she licked his face.

"M-my dearest l-love," he said.

He took her muzzle in one hand. With the other he clenched a thick fold of her neck, and jerked with all of his might.

The neck broke with an ease that surprised him.
 

She toppled with her head across his lap, staring blankly across the water. Her tail slapped once at a wavelet that reached her hind paws, and her whole body spasmed before the last of the air in her lungs was gone.

Misha dropped the knife and backed up so quickly that he bumped into the float and fell against the fuselage. He sat there in the sand, emitting tiny noises of disbelief.

Erich lifted Taurus' head from his leg and set it down gently. A final quiver passed through her. He stroked her, feeling the need to speak but unable to think of the right words.

When he rose, the dysplasia was gone. His hip sockets no longer ground in exquisite pain.

He picked up the knife from where Misha, in his shock, had dropped it onto the sand, passed it across his pants to wipe off the saltwater, and returned to the dog. Almost dispassionately, he wondered if he would be able to tell, now that she was gone, if the disease had again invaded her.

Turning her onto her back, he slit up from the soft, exposed belly to the rib cage, the skin so white in the sunlight it resembled purity itself.
 
Truly the heritage of perfection, he told himself. Grace had mated with Harras, offspring of the German grand champion, Etzel von Oeringen. From her had come Achilles, whom Hitler had killed. From Achilles--Taurus, born during a blood-red May sunrise before the Nazis had come to power.

He could not recall having felt so physically and emotionally strong. He, Erich Weisser Alois, would be the last of the line.

He held the coat away from the flesh and finished slitting up to the throat and beneath the muzzle. Gripping with one hand and paring with the knife, he slid the dogskin backwards, the flesh and tissue white and pink and ropy with veins. He left the paws attached to the skin, sawing through the forelegs at the first joint. Finally he stood, put his foot against her neck, and pulled toward the tail. The dogskin slid free except at the hind legs, which he quickly released.

For the first time since he had embarked on his course of action, remorse and compassion tugged at him as he held up the skin, the inside slick and gleaming. He fought the emotions, laid the skin across her body and pulled off his shirt and boots. Kneeling as if he were bowing before a lord, about to be knighted, he drew the skin over his back, shivering at the first touch of its moist warmth.

He stood up. From the corner of his eye he saw Misha scramble behind the float and stare in fear. The reaction made him feel electric. The skin hung like a cape, with the head hanging down his back. He secured it to himself with his boot laces. He tied it at his shoulders and beneath his biceps through holes he cut in the coat, then fastened it to his waist with his belt. Charged with power, he thought how puny and pathetic were the ways of humans. His eyesight was no longer sharp, but his other senses were keener than he had ever imagined possible. He smelled more than heard the Zana-Malata attempting to command him. The syphilitic's voice, if indeed it could be called that, hung in the oppressive air, before it drifted away on a sea breeze that wafted against the nape of his neck.

Feeling the need for ritual before he completed whatever transformation still lay in store for him, he sheathed the knife and, stooping, burrowed his hands into Taurus' body cavity. Pulling out the heart, the size of two melded fists, he tore it free. He turned to the breeze and lifted the heart to the sun, but said no words; he could think of no God worthy of prayer.

He lowered his hands to his chest and looked down at the heart, remembering Taurus running alongside him as he bicycled. Consciously, he put the nostalgia behind him and tore off a chunk of the heart with his teeth.

He did not bother chewing.

The meat slid thick and rich down his throat.

Screaming--exultant, emboldened--he pitched the heart two-handed into the sea.

M
isha huddled behind the float, comforted by the feel of the warm water of the lagoon moving around him. He stared in disbelief at Herr Alois, who appeared to have completely lost his mind. The thought occurred to him that he might be next; that in his feeding frenzy, the colonel would decide he had a hunger for consuming the flesh of young boys.

To his relief, Herr Alois, or Taurus, or whoever he thought he was, hardly gave him a second glance before he took off at a run in the direction of the encampment.

It was not until he was out of sight that Misha remembered the Kapo. Warily, he moved out of the water and across the sand, in the direction of the dead man.

"Help me. Please, help me."

Misha stopped in his tracks. At that moment, all he wanted to do was scream that this could not be possible. The Kapo was dead. He had to be dead.

Pleshdimer moaned and opened his eyes. "A drink, Misha. A little water." He tried to move, cried out in pain, and covered his wound with his enormous hands.

Automatically, Misha took a step toward him. Then he stopped again. "No!" he shouted. "I want you to die!"

Half-crawling, passing out briefly at irregular intervals, Pleshdimer pulled himself around in the direction of the trail to the Zana-Malata's hut. Keeping some distance between them, Misha followed the Kapo and his trail of blood. Every now and again, when Pleshdimer came across some means of leverage, he attempted to get to his feet. A few times, he even managed to stagger forward for a step or two before falling to the ground.

Finally he tripped, tumbled, and lay still beneath the underbrush.

Misha waited, expecting to hear the Kapo call out or to see him emerge from cover like some lumbering boar. When what seemed like forever had passed in silence, he tiptoed closer. All he could see was the bottom half of the man's inert body.

He felt a surge of happiness, not entirely untainted by guilt at celebrating death--even this man's. Then he took off as fast as he could in the direction of the Zana-Malata's hut, keeping to the jungle so as not to be seen. He did not stop running until he was only a few feet away. He could smell the burning coals from the brazier inside.

Unsure whether or not the Zana-Malata was in the hut, he sat down on the grass and stared at the sunset. Soon it would be dark; soon it would be Yom Kippur.

He sat there unmoving until the onset of dusk. When he heard Herr Goldman's voice singing
Kol Nidre
he listened, recalling, dry-eyed, the last Yom Kippur he had spent with his mama and papa.

"Good Yomtov, Papa," he said softly. "Good Yomtov, Ma--"

He stopped, interrupted by gunshot and the insane barking of dogs. Even on Yom Kippur, he thought, as a plan formed in his mind. He would go inside and steal the Zana-Malata's magic. If he had that, he would never need to be afraid again. He ran up to the zebu-hide-covered doorway, stood still for a second to listen to the silence inside, and entered the hut.

The brazier burned, even in the Zana-Malata's absence. By its light, he looked around the room. Since he had last seen it, it had been emptied of much of its clutter. He felt a transient hope that the syphilitic had moved away for good, but though much was gone, too much still remained.

Tentatively, remembering his plan, he groped for the stack of tanghin pits that the syphilitic kept inside the buffalo skull on the shelf in the corner of the room. The skull was too high for him to reach, so he climbed into the suspended raffia chair and, balancing precariously, grasped one of the pits.

He opened his hand to look at his booty, and cried out as a flame burst into the air. The suddenness frightened him, but he felt no heat from the fire which quickly went out when he dropped the pit. He examined his hand, expecting to see burn marks, but it was fine. He dug into the skull for a second pit and, holding it clenched in his fist, climbed off the chair.

Now what? he asked himself. Figuring he would go back outside and think while he listened for the sounds of the Shofar from the compound, he stepped over the brazier and headed for the doorway. From outside he heard the renewed barking of the dogs. He stood with his back to the zebu-hide covering, wondering if there was anything else he should take. A knife glinted in the corner of the room.

He took a step forward--

Bloody fingers encircled his ankle from behind.

Groaning, using his elbows, the Kapo pulled himself into the hut.

"I want you to die!" Misha screamed like he had at the lagoon, lashing out with his foot.

Weakened by the loss of blood, Pleshdimer loosened his hold on the boy. Misha backed up against the far wall and watched as, impossibly, inch by inch, the Kapo crawled toward him.

A
n hour or so before sundown, with the workday almost over, Sol saw Lucius Goldman take off for the spring. The farmer returned with his leather shoes knotted together and strung around his neck.

"I have prepared for Yom Kippur," Goldman told him.

The Hasid, Sol knew, was referring to the ritual cleansing, and to the fact that it was forbidden to wear leather shoes on the Day of Atonement.

"Walking on bare feet is a foolishness on a tropical island where such creatures as centipedes proliferate," Sol said.

Goldman laughed mirthlessly. "If they bite me, it will save the Sturmbannführer a bullet."

Sol avoided the man's eyes, for fear of seeing a mirror image of hopelessness. Instead, he looked at the horizon where the sun was about to be swallowed by the oncoming night.

As he had arranged with them, Sol's fellow prisoners did everything possible to create the illusion that tonight was no different than yesterday.

All except Goldman.

Apparently unable to live with the irreverence of praying with a bare head, he reached into his pocket and extracted a banyan leaf which he placed on the crown of his skull. The gesture brought back memories for Sol--his father, donning his silk
tallit,
touching the Torah reverently with the prayer shawl's
tzitzit
, the soft fringes his mother had attached to the corners with blue thread, bending his head to recite the
Shema.

"
Shema yisrael, adonai elohainu adonai echad
," Sol began in a whisper. "Hear O Israel, the Lord is Our God, the Lord is One."

Unable to contain himself, Goldman's voice rang out. The first stanza of
Kol Nidre
coincided with his people's declaration of faith, their affirmation of God's unity.