Finding Rebecca: A Novel of Love and the Holocaust (36 page)

Cassin looked at the brown liquid in
the glass and raised the glass to his lips, knocking half of it back in one
swig. “The camp guards took her away.” It had been more than five minutes since
Christopher asked the question.

“What happened? When?”

“What am I doing here? Is this your
revenge? Why don’t you just get it over with?”

“I’m asking the questions! What
happened to her?” Christopher snarled and took a sip of the whisky. It hit his
empty stomach like a fireball, swirling around with all the other agonies
there.

Cassin looked up at him and drank
from his glass. “It was in the late summer. We had been at the camp for a few
months. It wasn’t that bad there, not compared to some of the stories of places
that we’d heard about.”

“Had you heard about here?”

“Only in whispers from prisoners who
had been transferred out. This is the hub of the murder that you Boche
perpetrate. I always knew…”

Christopher sat back down. “What
happened?” he interrupted.

“The conditions in the camp were
nothing I couldn’t handle. We were fed and were forced to work but nothing too
strenuous. Nothing I couldn’t take.” Christopher wondered what work a man who
had never worked a day in his life could take. “But then a new Commandant came in
and things changed. Food rations worsened and the beatings began. Rebecca never
was one to abide by what she saw as… unjust behavior.” Cassin coughed and
looked into Christopher’s eyes across the table. He finished the glass of
whisky and Christopher poured him some more. “There was a prisoner, also from
Jersey. She was from one of the families that had been deported to be interned
there, not Jews, just those that had fought in the first War, Sergeant
Higgins’s daughter, Anna.” Christopher nodded.
 
“She was not strong like Rebecca. One of
the guards took a liking to her. He began to harass her, all the time. With her
father ill, Anna had no one to stand for her. No one except my Rebecca of
course.”

“Your Rebecca?” Christopher said and
then stopped himself. “Keep going.”

“One morning, at the end of August
the guard tried to force himself upon her. Rebecca was on her way to work when
she found them. We heard the screams of the guard from the other side of the
camp. It was only a small place with less than a thousand prisoners. The guard
stumbled out from behind the barrack holding his head, blood pouring through
his fingers from where Rebecca had struck him with the spade she was carrying.
Then we saw Anna limping out from behind the hut with her arm over Rebecca’s
shoulders. That was it.” Cassin looked down.

“What do you mean, that was it?”

“They took her away. She was
executed.”

Christopher was frozen, the tears
gone.
 
A strange mix of agonizing
pain, utter failure and pride for who she was filled him and he sat there
staring at the desk, unable to feel his body, as if he were sitting there as
someone else. The only thing he could hear was the sound of Cassin reaching
forward to finish off the bottle of whisky. The effort of raising his eyes the
three inches or so until they rested on the gun on the desk was almost too much
for him. He could kill him here and now. No one would ever question him. In
fact, it would help his cause, deflecting suspicion. Killing Cassin here and
now could help him save others. Christopher placed his hand on the cold metal
of the pistol. Cassin looked up at him, their eyes meeting. Cassin stopped, the
glass in mid-air.

“Did you see this happen? Did you see
her die?”

“I was hardly in the position to make
such requests.”

“Were you close to her in the camp?
Did she speak of me often?” Christopher asked.

“We were close. Our hatred of
everything you people stand for united us. Everyone in the camp, all the people
from Jersey drew strength from her. I don’t know where she got it, certainly
not from her mother. God only knows where she is now….”

“I don’t want to hear about that.
Tell me about Rebecca.” Christopher had raised the gun and was pointing it at
Cassin. He had the whisky glass in his other hand and brought it to his lips.

Cassin shifted in his seat, his eyes
visibly widening. He let the almost empty whisky glass fall to his side. “I
didn’t speak to her much about you. I never wanted to hear it and she knew
that. I could lie to you…”

“Why not? You’ve done it so many
times before.”

“I did her speak about you to the
other prisoners.” Christopher saw the sweat on Cassin’s forehead as he pushed
himself backwards in the seat. He was staring into the barrel of the gun. “They
would say things about you, because you were German…” Cassin coughed and looked
directly at the barrel of the pistol. “But she always spoke up for you and told
them your nationality didn’t matter, even in times like these.”

Christopher felt the urge to tell
this man why he was sitting here in an SS uniform, imagined how good it would
feel if someone else here knew his real intentions, his real self. “I am an SS
officer,” Christopher said, his voice cracking as he spoke. The gun shook in
his hand. “That’s who I am now.”

“Why did you bring me here?” Cassin
asked. Christopher could see the blood draining from his face.

“I never wanted
you
here.” Christopher snarled. “Why would I ever want
you
here? I tried to have Rebecca
transferred here and they sent you. Some sick joke that is. With the story I
told them I suppose they thought that you were the consolation prize. That if I
couldn’t ransom her back to the family that you could fetch a similar price.”

“A ransom? Back to whom? The
Durrells?
 
I don’t understand.”

“Shut up, just shut up.”

They sat there in silence for a few
seconds. Cassin raised the glass to his lips once more and finished it. “What
are you going to do with me? Is this your revenge?”

Christopher looked at him and saw
Anka’s head jerking backwards as the bullet burrowed into her skull and the
tears on Schultz’s face as Friedrich murdered him. He tried to picture Rebecca
as she died but withdrew from it as too painful. His hands were sweating in the
cold room. The glass of whisky on the desk in front of him was empty. This
would prove to the other SS men that he was committed to the cause. This would
give him the freedom to help people who deserved life. He felt his finger
squeeze around the trigger. Cassin saw his eyes and pushed back in his seat.
Christopher placed the gun down on the desk. “You will be assigned to the work
group I oversee, here in the Economic Agency. Life in the camp is hard, but I
will protect you. As long as you work you will be safe and I will do my best to
keep you alive.” Christopher stood up. “What can you do?”

“I can do anything you want.”

“Just do your best. If anyone ever
finds out the reason you’re here then I will have my revenge. In fact if you
ever tell anyone that we knew each other or that I knew Rebecca you will die.
Do you understand?”

“Yes, of course,” Cassin said looking
down at the floor.

“There is no law here. Not for the
prisoners anyway. Respect me and I will protect you, as much as I can anyway.”

Christopher poured one last glass for
himself and passed the bottle to Cassin.

It was still dark as Christopher
awoke but he hadn’t really slept. His movements were slow and labored as he
climbed out of the bed and placed bare feet on the cold floor. The emptiness
inside him had spread throughout his body. He felt like an old man. Lahm was
asleep above him. Christopher left the light off as he got dressed. His eyes
were used to the darkness by now. He was dressed in the matter of a minute or
so and went to shave in the communal bathroom. There had been no snow overnight
so just the grey slush of yesterday remained, churned and dirtied. He trudged
through it to the car he had the privilege of using on these mornings of his
trips to Berlin. Thoughts of Rebecca, and Anka, accompanied him on his journey.
The searchlights and lamps lit the way enough for him to see the faces of the
prisoners, roused from their sleep to begin work, lining up for roll call, the
life and energy extinguished from each face, each person as a walking corpse.
The car stopped with a skid and Christopher got out to look for the spot where
she had died, where Anka had been shot, along with the man who died trying to
save her. The blood was still there, a darker pool of black against the brown-grey
slush around it.

The car was packed and ready to go in
ten minutes. There were six cases, each so full of banknotes that they were
hard to carry, and he strained as he piled them one on top of another in the
car. There was no mission left now. Christopher Seeler was just an SS man,
trying to do his job, and to stay alive. There was no purpose left for him, no
reason for him to ably assist in the murder of so many innocent people. He
could take the car and keep driving, drop off most of the money in Berlin and
desert. He could try to pick up Alexandra and his father and make for the Swiss
border with all the bribe money he could ever need. But he looked down at the
black stain of Anka’s blood and that didn’t seem enough.

It was still dark and Christopher
still felt nothing as he drove out and beyond the gates into the dead landscape
beyond. He thought about the pistol on his belt and what he could do with it.
He could kill Friedrich and then the pain might end. He could kill himself and
all this would end. The car slowed as he pulled off to the side of the road and
he was completely alone, perhaps fifteen miles outside the limits of the camp.
It would only take them a day or so to find his body in the woods here. They
would search for him all right once the money had not been turned in. The
pistol was heavy, cold in his hand and the barrel was ice against the soft of
his temple. The weight of it against his skin felt right, as if this was the
only way left now. How could he be a part of this now? It was better to end it
this way rather than to assist in the horror of the camp. He closed his eyes,
his head rocking back and forth, waiting for the bullet that would end all
this. But he let the pistol fall into his lap. For the first time since he was
a child he saw his mother, as the woman she might have been now, grey haired
and slightly wrinkled, like an older version of Alexandra, and he put the
pistol back into its holster.
 
Christopher looked up and down the road. There was no one. The key to
the trunk slid in easily and the cases opened just the same. He took at little
from each, reminding himself to adjust the ledgers. When he had finished he had
three large wads of American and British currency, about the equivalent of
three thousand American dollars.

Alexandra cried when Christopher told
her about Rebecca. Stefan leaned forward, his head in his hands, elbows propped
on cousin Harald’s dining room table, Christopher heard the sniffle from inside
his hands and saw his head convulse back and forth. Christopher watched them
for a few seconds in silence before he felt their arms around him. He stood up
and buried his face in his father’s shoulder and felt Alexandra with her head
under his armpit clinging to him. They stood in that embrace for several
minutes before Christopher finally broke away.

“There is something else I need to
tell you about,” he began. Christopher stared into space as he spoke, a feeling
of lethargy overtaking him once more, whereby it became an effort even to
speak. He told them about Anka, about Schultz, about their murders.

Christopher watched as Alexandra and
his father struggled for the words. It was Alexandra who spoke first.
“Christopher, what you did was very brave, but if you had been caught...”

“If I had been caught instead of
Schultz, I would be in jail right now, or possibly executed but he is dead,
murdered in the blink of an eye. He knew the risks, but he still tried to save
her. He still did it.”

“Christopher, I don’t want you to
risk your life,” Alexandra said and looked at her father.

“You need to stay safe, Christopher,
there are so many dangers there.” Stefan flashed his eyes across to Alexandra
and then back to his son. “These men you told us about, Friedrich, Breitner,
Frankl, Lahm, they seem like monsters. They wouldn’t have a second’s hesitation
in turning you in.” Stefan raised a hand to his head and breathed out.

“I know that, but why did I join the
SS, Father? Was it to further the cause of the Third Reich, to serve the
Führer?” Christopher’s voice was shaking as he spoke.

“Of course not, Christopher, but….”

“I’ve already made my decision, I’ve
decided what I’m going to do,” Christopher said, cutting off his father. “I’m
going to need your help, I won’t be able to do this without both of you.”

“What about the security system in
the camp? You’re an accountant for God’s sake, not a commando.”

Christopher somehow managed to smile.
“Security system? You’re looking at it as far as the funds are concerned.
Diamonds, gold, that’s a different story. They’re transported separately. But
cash, that’s my job. It’s my job to gather, count, document and transport cash.
There’s no one else, at least not right now. I have the ear of the
Lagerkommandant. I am head of the Anti-Corruption Committee, and I hear the
model I introduced is being adopted in other camps.” Christopher took Alexandra
by the hand. “Listen, I know it’s dangerous, but I can’t do nothing. I can’t
just be an SS officer. Especially now. I owe Rebecca that much. I owe Anka and
Schultz that much.”