Entwined (28 page)

As the truck tilted a body slid from beneath the tarpaulin and fell to the ground, rolling to one side. The guards shouted to the orderlies to get the corpse back on the truck, but then in the darkness something glittered on the fat bloated hand with fat purple fingers. The guard tried to wrench the thick gold wedding ring free, but try as he might he could not release it. He picked up a spade and, holding it above his head, he brought it down blade first across the dead woman's hand. The fingers jumped, as if they had a life of their own, fingers like black sausages, and they rolled in the mud. The guard dug this way and that, swearing and shouting but unable to find the ring. He gave up and screamed for the truck to move on. An orderly unhooked his coat belt, made a loop, and flicked it over the dead woman. He dragged her by her neck back onto the truck, and then pulled the tarpaulin down. The guards and the Kapos began to push and shove the truck forward through the freezing muddy ground.

As it disappeared, the ragged men, hidden like nightmare shadows, appeared like a pack of dogs, scrabbling in the mud until one of them, on his hands and knees, found the ring.
"Das gehort mir!"
"Mine!" But the others tore at him and beat him. He screamed and screamed;
"Das ist der meinige, meinige, MEINIGE!"
The pitiful man clung to his treasure, fought like a demon, then desperate to save himself, he threw the ring and it shot through the air, sinking in a puddle two feet away from a tiny little girl, a little girl crying from pain in her leg, terrified by what she had just witnessed…a frightened Ruda, crawling between the alleyways of huts, safe from the shadow men, on the other side of the barbed wire fence. The man clung to the meshing with his skinny hands, his mouth black, gaping and toothless, like a starving jackal he screeched:
"Das ist der meinige, das gehort mir, das ist der meinige!"
Ruda had crept back to her hut, silently lifting the worn blanket, slipping in to lie beside her sister, needing her comfort, needing to feel the warmth of the tiny plump body. In her sleep, Rebecca turned to cuddle Ruda, to cover her with sweet, adoring, childish kisses. Ruda felt safe and warm. They had a prize worth a fortune. A golden ring. The music, the red paper flowers, the screams and the anguished faces blurred in her mind as Ruda, not old enough to comprehend the misery, felt only the burning pain in her leg, and repeated over and over in her mind:
"Das ist der meinige, das ist der meinige…meinige, meinige…"

Ruda carefully relocked her treasure box, hid the key, and returned the black tin box to its hiding place. She knew she could not sleep, and as it was after five decided she would shower and get ready for the first feed of the day. As she soaped her body, turning around slowly in the small shower cabinet, she felt the tension in her body begin to ease. But she could not rid herself of her deep anger. She carefully wrapped herself in a clean soft towel, patting herself dry, then pointed her left foot like a dancer. There was still the small scar where the trestle bench had cut into her leg, so many years before. She poured some lotion into her cupped hand and massaged her leg. The wound had festered. She had been so frightened of telling anyone that eventually she had been taken to the hospital bay. They had put a paper dressing on it. Days, perhaps weeks later the pain had become so bad, she had been carried back to the hospital by an orderly. Lice had eaten into her leg beneath the pus-soaked bandage, and she had been forced into the delousing bath, screaming and crying out in pain. It was as a result of the festering wound that she came to the attention of Papa. She had been taken to see him that afternoon, wearing clean clothes, washed and cleaned, her hair combed, her wound well bandaged with a proper dressing. That was the first time she had been alone with him, the first time he had asked her if she wanted to play a very special game with him. He had sat her on his knee, given her a sweet and bounced her up and down. When she didn't unwrap the sweet, he had asked why not. He had smiled, she remembered, asking why she didn't want the sweet. He even playfully tried to take it away from her.

"Das ist der meinige!"
The little girl's fist clenched over the sweet as she glared into his handsome face. Her determined expression delighting him, he smiled, showing perfect white teeth.

Ruda tossed the towel aside. She continued to rub the lotion into her body, then she dressed. The anger was gone now. Thinking of Papa always made the anger subside. It was replaced, as it had always been, with a chilling, studied calmness. Ruda braided her hair, gave a cursory look at her reflection. She passed the poster of herself and lightly touched it with her hand. The poster represented everything she had fought so hard to attain, and nothing would take it from her. She didn't even look at the poster as she passed, but she whispered quietly to herself, making a soft hissing sound:
"Das ist der meinige!"

Luis was still asleep where she had left him. She drew the blinds, pulled the blanket around his shoulders, and opened the door. Outside she picked up the hose and washed down the trailer herself. Then she began to whistle, stuffing her hands into her pockets as she strolled over to the cages. She looked skyward, shading her eyes. It still looked overcast.

Ruda passed between the trailers, calling out a brisk good morning to the early risers. There was movement now, some trainers and performers were heading to the canteen for breakfast, some like Ruda were getting ready to prepare their animals' feed.

She made her routine morning check, passing from cage to cage, calling every cat by name, and then she stopped by Mamon's cage.

He was lazily stretching, he threw back his head and yawned. "You're mine, my love." She leaned against the rails, and he swung his head low, stared at her, and then threw his black mane back with a roar that never ceased to delight her. He seemed to roar her inner rage.

"Everything's all right now ma'angel!"

Torsen woke refreshed. The moment he got into his office, he pasted up his memos, his suggested schedule for the men. It was still only seven-thirty; he had brought in fresh rolls and was brewing coffee. He typed the past evening's reports furiously and distributed them around the station.

At eight-forty-five when the men began to trickle in to the locker rooms, they saw a large memo requesting all station personnel to convene in the main room for a briefing.

Torsen was placing his notebook and newly sharpened pencils on the incidents room's bare table when he overheard Rieckert laughing as he entered. "It's not just a dwarf, but a Jewish dwarf and…"

Torsen gestured for Rieckert to join him. He kept his voice low, his back to the main room. "I hear you make one more anti-Semitic remark, in the station, in the car, at any time you are wearing your uniform—you will be out, understand?"

Rieckert smiled, said that he was just joking.

"I don't care, I don't want to hear it, now sit down…"

Torsen handed out the day's schedule, and suggested that they should all review their on/off-duty periods. Anyone with any formal or reasonable complaint should leave a memo on Torsen's desk. He then discussed in detail his findings to date regarding the murder of Tommy Kellerman.

The meeting was interrupted by the switchboard operator, who slipped a note to Torsen. It was an urgent request to call his father's nursing home. Torsen telephoned, and the nurse informed him that his father was exceptionally lucid, and had asked to see him.

Torsen returned to the incidents room. "I will not, as listed, be on the first assignment; Rieckert and Clauss you take that, and I will join you at the Grand Hotel. Please stay there until I arrive." Torsen had made clear that they must all remain in contact with each other throughout the day to exchange information and discuss findings. He declined, however, to tell them where he was going. After his pep talk, a visit to his ailing father should perhaps not have taken precedence over the murder inquiry.

♦ ♦ ♦

Nurse Freda, a pleasant dark-haired girl in her late twenties, was waiting for Torsen at the main reception. "He seemed very eager to speak to you."

"I appreciate your call, but I cannot stay long. I am involved in a very difficult case!"

He followed her plump rear end along a corridor, and into his father's ward. Nurse Freda turned, smiling. "He's been put by the windows today; it's more private, you can draw the curtain if you wish."

The old man looked very sprightly, with his hair slicked back; he had on a checkered dressing gown, and clean pajamas. A warm rug covered his frail knees, and his jaw looked less sunken: He was wearing his dentures.

"Took your time, took your time, Torsen. I don't know, only son and you never come to see your poor old father."

Torsen pulled the curtain, drew up a chair to sit next to him.

The old man crooked his finger for Torsen to come closer. "This is important, I woke up thinking about it and I've been worried stiff. Can't sleep for worrying. Then I had a word with Freda, and it clicked, just clicked."

"What did, Father?"

"You need a wife, you've got to settle down and have a couple of kids, you've got a good job, good pay, and a nice apartment—now Freda, she's not married, she's clever, she'll make you a good wife. She's got good, child-bearing hips."

Torsen flushed, afraid they would be overheard. "Father, right now I don't have a telephone."

"Why haven't you got a telephone? Did they take it out?"

Torsen sighed, they had had this conversation before. "No, remember when you moved in here, I was given a smaller apartment. The telephone has remained in the old apartment, I was not allowed to take it with me."

"How can you work without a telephone?"

"With great difficulty. I have requested one months ago, and today I left a memo in the director's office. Today, in fact, I have instigated many changes, some I am quite proud of."

The old man stared from the window, plucked at his rug a moment, then turned, frowning. "No telephone?"

Torsen checked his watch, then touched his father's hand. "I am in the middle of an investigation, I have to leave."

The old man sucked in his breath and turned around, leaning forward to see the row of beds. Then he sat back. "Dying is a long time in coming, eh?…There are many here, waiting and afraid."

Torsen held the frail hand. "Don't talk this way, I don't want to go away worrying about you."

"Oh, I'm not afraid, there are no ghosts to haunt me, but the dying here is hard for some. They have secrets, the past is their present, and they remember. You understand what I am saying? When you pass by their beds, look at their faces, you'll see. You can hide memories surrounded by the living, but not in here. Still, soon they will be all gone and then Germany can be free."

Torsen wondered what his father would think if he saw the packs of skinheads with their Nazi slogans. "I hope you are right."

The old man withdrew his hand sharply. "Of course I am. We have been culturally and politically emasculated by Hitler, devastated by the Allies, and isolated by the Soviets for more than half a century. Now it is our second chance. The city will be restored as the capital of reunified Germany. We are perfectly placed, Torsen, to become the West's link to the developing economies of the democratic East. You must marry, produce children, be prepared for the future."

The old man's face glowed.

"Father, I have to leave. I will come by this evening."

"What are you working on?"

Torsen told him about the murder of Kellerman, and the old man listened intently, nodding his head, muttering: "Interesting, yes, yes."

Torsen leaned close. "In fact, I was going to ask you something. Remember the way we used to discuss unsolved crimes?"

The old man nodded, rubbing his gums as if his teeth hurt.

"There was an old case, way back, maybe early sixties, late fifties, we nicknamed it the Wizard case…do you remember? The body was found midway in your jurisdiction and I think Dieter's—there may be no connection, it was…"

"How is Dieter?"

"He died, Father, ten years ago."

The old man frowned. Dieter was his brother-in-law, and for a moment he was confused; was his wife dead too?

"Father, can you remember the name of the victim in the Wizard case?"

"Dieter is dead? Are you sure?"

Torsen looked into the perplexed face, and gently patted his hand. "I'll come and see you later."

Torsen drew the curtain back, waved to Nurse Freda to indicate he was leaving. His father began singing softly to himself.

Torsen proceeded to walk down the aisle between the beds. He paused, watching Freda finish tending a patient, then he waited until she joined him.

"I wondered if perhaps, one evening we…if you are not on duty, and would like to join me, for a movie…"

Freda smiled. "Your father has been playing Cupid?"

While Torsen flushed, and fiddled with his tie, she laughed a delightful warm giggle and then asked him to wait one moment. She disappeared behind a screen with a bedpan.

Torsen stared at a skeleton-thin patient, plucking frantically at his blanket, his toothless jaw twitching uncontrollably, his eyes wide and staring as if at some unseen horror.

Torsen turned and hurried out, unable to look, too agitated to wait and arrange a date with Freda.

Rieckert was waiting in the hotel lobby. Torsen hurried to his side, apologized for his lateness, and then crossed to the reception desk to ask if they could go to the baron's suite.

The baron opened the doors himself, and pointedly looked at his wristwatch. Torsen apologized profusely as they entered the large drawing room. Rieckert gaped, staring at the chandelier, the marble fireplace—the room was larger than his entire apartment.

The baron had laid out his wife's and his own passports and visas on the central table; he then introduced them to Helen Masters, who proffered her own documents. Torsen leafed through each one, and then asked if they were enjoying their stay. The baron murmured that he was, and sat watching Torsen from a deep wing armchair.