Entwined (44 page)

Luis brought the first aid box and knelt down beside her. "Jesus Christ! Did he break the skin?"

"No, no, it's just bruised. It was tough out there, they were all acting up."

Luis looked up at her, and carefully pushed her sleeve up her arm. "You mean your fucking angel was, you'll have to cut that part of the act. Jesus God—he could have taken your arm off."

"But he didn't. Just put some antiseptic over it, then find me a clean shirt."

She put on an identical black shirt. The old one was torn, Mamon's teeth had ripped the silk. She flung a coat around her shoulders while Grimaldi went to get his, to accompany her, but she patted his cheek.

"They just want to talk to me, Luis, you wait here. I won't be long."

He stepped back, flushed, saying he understood. He'd wait, maybe cook up dinner. She smiled, said that she was hungry and left. He watched her holding the coat over her head against the steady rain.

Luis knew her arm must hurt like hell. She never ceased to amaze him…all the cuts and knocks she'd taken during training, but she had never complained. He put away the first aid kit, and then remembered the tin box he had taken from her wardrobe. He had better replace it before she discovered it was missing. She'd know he had taken it because he had damaged the lid.

Luis was about to try to press the damaged lid back into shape without opening it when his curiosity overcame him. He took a screwdriver and inched the lid open. There was their wedding ring; she had worn it only for a year, then she had taken it off, saying it cut into her finger. There was also another wedding ring, probably the one Kellerman had given her. Luis picked up their wedding license, still in its envelope. Under it he saw, tied up in a pale blue ribbon, a pile of neatly folded newspaper clippings, brown with age. At first Luis thought they were reviews. He untied the ribbon; the clippings smelled musty, the frayed creases almost splitting in two. Carefully he unfolded the first, and stared at the headline.
MENGELE STILL ALIVE IN BRAZIL
. He checked each clipping; every one referred to Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death. One article described how Mengele had made sure the chimneys of Birkenau were always heated by thirty fires. There were 120 ovens; each one could burn three corpses at a time. Three hundred and sixty corpses could be disposed of every half hour; 720 people per hour, 17,280 per day. Dr. Josef Mengele made sure the ovens were filled to capacity; he alone had the power to choose who lived and who died, to direct the terrified masses to the gas chambers with horrifying efficiency.

Luis felt his blood grow cold, as he read the dates and was faced with the magnitude of the horror: May 1944, 360,000; June 1944, 512,000; July 1944, 442,000.

In her childish scrawl, Ruda had written on some of the articles:
Josef Mengele, Papa
.

Grimaldi refolded the scraps of newspaper. Some of the clippings described the diabolical experiments the Angel of Death had performed on small children, with or without anesthetic, depending on his mood or the availability of medication. Article after article described Mengele's passion for furthering the Aryan race. He had embraced cruelty beyond a sane person's credibility, he had been a madman. A piece of newspaper was wrapped around a small pebble, or stone, he couldn't tell; as he opened it, the cracks split the paper in two, as if this particular piece had been read and folded many times.

The article reported the alleged death of Dr. Josef Mengele. His body had been found on a beach in Brazil; the paper was dated 1976. The article discussed the possibility that the body found was not that of the real Josef Mengele; forensic scientists had left for Brazil to begin tests.

Luis began to restack the clippings the same way he had found them. He tied them with the worn ribbon. Ruda had kept them as carefully as treasured love letters. He replaced each item in the tin box, rescrewed the back, and put the box back in her wardrobe. As he stepped off the stool, he remembered things she had said to him in rage…how he would never know the pain she had suffered, that her worst scars were inside. He bowed his head and sighed. True, he had never even attempted to understand, but, he told himself, Ruda had always been very reluctant to talk about her past.

He looked around the kitchen to see what he could cook, wanting to do something special for her. He decided to go out and buy groceries from one of the all-night shops. He wanted to start afresh, a second chance. If she secured the Ringling contract, they could have a new life. He wouldn't fight her anymore, he would fight for her.

He passed the meat trailer. The lights were on, and he went inside.

"Mike? I'm going out for some groceries. If you see Ruda, tell her I won't be long!"

Mike grinned, said the word was already getting around, the Ringling Bros, scout was having talks with Ruda. Grimaldi winked, and told him not to count chickens before they were hatched. He looked out, the rain was still pouring. "You got a spare umbrella, Mike?"

"No, Boss—I dunno where they all disappear to, but I got a rain cape you can borrow!"

Grimaldi shook his head, pulling up his collar. Mike continued chopping and said that his hat was around someplace, in fact he had borrowed it.

Grimaldi held out his hand. "Okay, I'll take your hat, I'll give it back later."

Mike shook his head. "No, I said I used yours, that old black leather trilby. Ruda said she hated it, so she stashed it in here someplace. She caught me wearing it!"

Mike searched under the table. "I dunno where it is now. I tell you what. Wrap one of the rubber aprons around your head!"

Grimaldi laughed, hunching his shoulders. "I'll wrap it around yours, son. Never mind, I'll make a dash for it."

Grimaldi ran to their Jeep and started to drive out. He passed the lighted administration offices and slowed down to look in at the window. He could see Ruda with the boss and the Ringling scout. They were drinking champagne, talking, and the Russian was with them. He stared for a while. He couldn't help feeling hurt, even rejected, but then he punched the wheel. "Go get dinner, go cook for your woman…come on, get your fat ass into gear!"

He was about to drive off when Ruda shouted out to him. She ran from the administration office, leaping over the puddles like a young girl. She yanked open the passenger door.

"I did it, Luis!…
I did it!! They want me to go to New York straight after this contract ends…!
"

She spun around, hands up, face tilted to the rain. "
I did it
…I did it…!!!"

"And if you stay out there any longer you're gonna catch pneumonia…come on—get in the Jeep!"

She dived inside and slammed the door, flung her arms around him. "Luis, I did it…he loved the act, he thought it was great!"

Luis said he would drop her off at the trailer, and go on in to pick up groceries, maybe some champagne.

"I've had champagne…just take me to the cages!"

"But you're soaked."

"I don't care, I want to see my baby…I want to tell him!"

Grimaldi drove her to the animals' tent, and she was out before he'd even stopped the truck.
"Get me chocolate…black chocolate!"
She turned back as he started to roll up the window, and cupped his face in her hands. "I told you Mamon was a good guy, didn't I?"

He had thought she was going to kiss him, he'd hoped she would, but then she was off. Mamon bared his teeth as she pressed close to the bars. "Angel…Ma'angel—what's the matter, huh?"

His eyes ablaze, he ripped his meat apart, his whiskers and jaws bloody. She rubbed her arm, suddenly conscious of it. He had held too tightly; tomorrow they would have to rehearse again; she would rework him, remind him she was stronger than he was. She remembered Luis's instructions: Never let them know how strong they are, never let them know their own power. Ruda stared hard at Mamon. "Until tomorrow, My Angel."

Vebekka's attack was unlike any Dr. Franks had witnessed. He was convinced it was not an epileptic seizure. He looked through her files and saw a report from a doctor dated 1979: "Periods of loss of consciousness…with serious convulsions. Epilepsy brain scan negative." Franks rechecked: The date of the attack coincided with the newspaper incident. He called Helen Masters.

She informed him that the newspapers were still in the package that had just arrived. Franks asked her to read the papers and look for clues, and call him first thing in the morning. Helen replaced the phone. Seeing Vebekka taken away looking so defenseless had upset her more than she liked to acknowledge, and yet she couldn't talk to Louis, he had asked her to leave him alone. The newspapers were in Louis's room; she would have to wait until morning.

She sat for a long time deep in thought, going over the meeting with Frau Klapps, and then she shook her head and went to her desk. Neatly written side by side on a piece of paper were Ulrich Goldberg's number in Philadelphia and Frau Klapps's office number in Berlin. Though it was very late, Helen Masters decided to dispense with proprieties and call Lena Klapps. The phone rang four times but no one answered. Helen decided that it would be best if she were to wait until morning.

She waited up, pacing the room and reading, until two o'clock in the morning. She decided then that the time difference would allow her to catch Ulrich Goldberg early in the evening. She excused herself for intruding, but explained that the baroness, Rebecca, his cousin's daughter, was very ill, and they needed to know as much about her background as possible to help her recover. Ulrich hesitated; he did not understand what assistance he could give.

"My cousin and I were not on friendly terms. It is a personal matter that I would rather not speak of with a stranger."

"Rebecca is
very
ill, Mr. Goldberg."

There was a long silence; then he told Helen that the rift was over religion. His cousin's wife, Rosa, had never converted to Judaism, and the couple made no attempt to bring up Rebecca as a Jew. This became a matter of bitter contention. Also, David Goldberg had achieved financial success, whereas Ulrich had failed. When he had asked David for help, it was offered only on condition that they accept Rosa into the family.

"Most likely you cannot understand what this would have meant, to me, to my wife and my sons. My wife is the daughter of a rabbi, and one of my sons was to be ordained. My cousin left me no option but to sever ties. It was a sad day…"

"Can you tell me about Rosa?"

Ulrich paused, and then said sharply, "She was very cold, aloof. Exceptionally intelligent, but deeply disturbed. She thought we were persecuting her husband when nothing could have been further from the truth. She was quite cruel to me and my wife about a small debt. For the last fifteen years of her life she was bedridden. I would say she was a deeply unhappy woman."

When Helen asked about Rebecca he took his time to answer. "They had a great deal of trouble with her in Canada, I was told, but she seemed to settle down in Philadelphia. All in all I've seen her maybe three or four times."

"Was she adopted?"

Ulrich Goldberg coughed, and asked her to repeat the question.

"Were you aware of the fact that Rosa Goldberg couldn't have children?"

"Yes, I guess."

"Then you
knew
Rebecca was adopted?"

"I was never told."

"Was it perhaps because she may have been adopted illegally?"

"As I already told you, we were not close and in Philadelphia we didn't see one another much. I was not privy to his affairs."

"Mr. Goldberg, I am very grateful to you for talking to me. If you think of anything which may be of help to my patient, please contact me. May I give you my number at the hotel?"

Helen gave him the information and then, almost as an afterthought, asked how well he knew Frau Lena Klapps. She was surprised to hear that he had never met her, he had traced her only via Rosa Muller's address book. The sole telephone number he found for her was at work, at the bureau of records. After the death of his cousin, he had wished to contact anyone who might know his cousin's heir. Not being in touch with Rebecca, he did not even know if she was still alive.

"My cousin left everything to Rebecca, and it was at his funeral that I last saw her. She refused to let me go into the house. At the funeral she spoke to no one. She left almost immediately after she was told she was the only beneficiary of David's will. We were disappointed, had a misguided hope that David would forget our differences…but he left everything to her. We knew he was rich, but the fortune was much larger than we could have guessed. Rebecca's husband's lawyers settled the sale of the house and business."

Helen hung up and began to pace the room once again. Louis had remarked on a number of occasions that Vebekka had inherited her father's estate. What he had never disclosed was that it was vast. If his lawyers had settled the estate, he had to know…Clearly he had lied about not knowing her true name. Helen found herself wondering whether Louis wanted to divorce Vebekka, or simply have her institutionalized so as to gain full access to her money—or had he access to it already?

Helen's mind reeled. She knew she had to speak to Lena Klapps, but now it was truly far too late to call her. She decided the best thing was to see her before Frau Klapps went to work.

Helen jumped when she heard a knock at her door. It was Louis, he said he couldn't sleep, and excused himself by saying he had seen her light was on. He was hesitant. "I feel in need of some company."

Helen smiled, and said she was glad that he had come in because she was anxious to read through the papers. Louis looked puzzled for a moment, and then remembered the package. "Oh. Yes, of course."

"I promised Dr. Franks I would look through them before tomorrow. We can do it together."

Helen followed Louis into his suite. He asked if she was hungry, and she realized that she was. "Yes, maybe a sandwich." Louis picked up the phone and asked room service to send up some seltzer water and chicken sandwiches, then he went to get the newspapers.

They sat at the large oval table. Louis took out five newspapers and chose
The New York Times
. "I was reading the first section, and Vebekka had the real-estate section. Helen?…Helen, did you hear me?"