The Children's War (38 page)

Still, no matter how much he adapted, his day inevitably began just two hours after it had ended. The day’s work was rarely strenuous, and he knew the routine well enough that it involved little thought, but sleep deprivation and the exhausting labor of his evenings rapidly took their toll. Eventually, he lost his ability to concentrate; his mind seemed to shut down all but the most basic functions, and he wandered from day to day without even the energy to observe his own decline. Too tired to protest, he stumbled through his work, snatching at sleep whenever he could. Outside, he could kneel by the flower beds to weed them and close his eyes for a few precious moments; inside, he submerged his hands in soapy water and shut his eyes as he scrubbed the dishes mechanically, dreams obscuring his vision, factory noises drowning out commands until someone yelled at or hit him.

After several weeks, he noticed as he walked home in the chill dawn air that his eyes bled tears. He did not know their source—whether it was irritation or exhaustion or emotion—nor did he know how long it had been occurring. They continued to stream down his face as he lay down to sleep, but by the morning they had stopped—he was completely dehydrated. When he awoke, it was all he could do to remember to drink some water and eat some food before he began his day.

It became more and more difficult to do his work in the house, and if he had been conscious enough to make decisions, he might have decided to sleep and accept the consequences, whatever they were. But he had thrown himself into a completely automatic state, and he rolled out of his bed most mornings without prompting, and on the mornings he missed, Elspeth was sure to help him
awaken with curses and kicks. Finally, though, his body made the decision that he could not make, and he slept so soundly one morning that Elspeth thought that perhaps he was dead. She prodded him with her foot, but he did not move. Then she kicked and he did not respond. She went to put on the light and have a closer look, a slight chill creeping down her spine at the thought of discovering a corpse.

In the light, she could clearly see he was breathing; in fact, he was nearly gasping. He lay curled as if in pain, and his face, even in sleep, grimaced. She noticed that he had not washed the dirt from the factory off his face, and she felt revolted and angered. So typical of his race! So unclean! As she looked at him, she realized, too that tears had cut channels in the dirt and had left salt stains on his face. Just what one would expect of his sort, she thought, so weak they can’t control their emotions. Crying! A full-grown man, he should be ashamed! She tried again to wake him, but he did not move.

She felt thoroughly fed up. This whole business was Karl’s doing, yet she was the one who had to get Peter up in the morning, she was the one who had to rearrange their evenings and handle the jobs that he simply could not do. She was tired of sewing and mending and cooking, and she was tired of the garden falling into ruin and repairs going undone. He moved so slowly, he barely accomplished anything before he was obliged to leave for the factory, and then each job was pushed into the next day and the next and the next.

Karl should see this, she thought, and left to get him. Karl did not take well to being pulled out of bed and up to the attic, but he accepted Elspeth’s explanation that she was not strong enough to shake Peter hard enough to wake him, and so, doing his manly duty, he stomped up the steps to sort out the problem. He surveyed the sleeping form with undisguised disgust, then aimed a good kick with his slippered foot to a point between the shoulder blades. Peter rolled and groaned but did not awaken. Karl bent down, grasped Peter’s arms, and hauled him to his feet. It was harder than he expected and he was terribly off-balance, but he managed to pull the body up far enough so that he could throw it against the wall.

Being thrown against the wall was enough to wake Peter, and his first conscious moment was a realization that he was sliding down a wall into an awkward sort of sitting position. The next realization was that Karl and Elspeth were staring at him.

This can’t be good, he thought, and immediately began to try to climb to his feet. A spasm of coughing prevented him, and he coughed and gasped and finally, as usual, ended it by spitting something out of his throat. He did not even bother to look; he just wiped his hand on his pants and tried again to stand.

Karl gave Elspeth a satisfied smirk and left the attic. Elspeth, shuddering her revulsion, told him he was late and to hurry, and then she followed after her husband.

What a civilized and cultured pair, Peter thought with a remnant of his old humor. Then he realized where he was and what he had to do and that there was no end in sight. He had an urge to weep, but he was too dehydrated.

41

A
DAM GRINNED
as he was shown through the door of the office. A paunchy, balding man in a brown suit stood to greet him enthusiastically. “Ah,
Herr Major,
so glad you could come, so glad you could visit us!”

Adam shook his hand and accepted a drink from a pretty, smiling young woman. She gave him a sidelong glance and then blushed quite becomingly before turning away. Adam scanned the fine office with its large oak desk, its plush furnishings, and its exquisite decorations and then turned his attention to the other man, who sat waiting in an armchair, smoking a cigarette.

“Ach, I see you’ve noticed Herr Steinbach. I take it you two know of each other?” the manager asked.

Adam nodded. “Yes, Herr Steinbach’s and my office have been in communication for some time, though we’ve never met.” He extended his hand to shake Herr Steinbach’s.

Tadek stood reluctantly and accepted the proffered hand. “Ah,
Herr Major,
it’s always a pleasure to meet with the military arm of security,” he commented snidely.

“Likewise for your branch,” Adam responded jovially. He downed his drink in a gulp, handed it to the secretary for a refill, and walked over to the large picture window and looked out at the gentle landscape of suburban Berlin. “You have a nice view.”

The manager stood next to him and nodded. “Yes, it is a nice view. But it’s in the other direction that you’ll see the business end of this place. Shall we begin our tour?”

Tadek and Adam dutifully followed their tour guide as he led them into the bowels of the chemical factory. “I know you’re interested in the security of our storage facilities here,” the manager explained, “and I want to assure you that we have the most secure arrangements imaginable.”

“Just as well,” Adam commented. “We pay through the nose to get these chemicals.”

“Not only that,” Tadek added, “we don’t want our enemies knowing that they’re here in volume.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that! It’s a fertilizer plant as far as the public is concerned.”

“I’m concerned about the electronics,” Adam commented. “Where are those
kept? You realize that we have to smuggle some of the more complicated mechanisms in from America, don’t you?”

“I thought these things were brought in through India,” the manager said.

“Oh, no,” Tadek explained. “They had an election in August and since then the supply has dried up.”

“Until we find out who we have to bribe in the current government,” Adam added.

“Yes. Of course. Until then we’re dependent on American connections run through Argentina. That’s why these things must be so carefully guarded!” Tadek emphasized.

“Oh, yes, yes. I’m aware of all that,” the manager explained. “You’ll notice that I’m conducting the tour personally and that no one else is accompanying us! I understand how important this is, and I want to assure you, gentlemen, you have nothing to worry about!”

Adam grinned at their host, though Tadek looked unconvinced. They walked through a huge open area and then turned down a narrow corridor and ducked into a small room. “Here are the circuits you were wondering about,” the manager assured Adam. “You’ll notice the guards near the entrance, the lock on the door, and the fact that this room, though convenient to the work area, is totally isolated from it.”

Adam nodded absently as he inspected the shelves with their unidentifiable gadgets laid out in neat rows, carefully labeled and numbered. Tadek returned abruptly into the hall and demanded, “What about that?” as he pointed upward at a videocamera discreetly located in a crevice in the ceiling.

The manager hurried after him and answered obsequiously, “That watches everyone who enters or leaves.”

“And who views the film?” Tadek asked.

The manager began to reply but was interrupted by a violent sneeze and the sound of crashing objects from within the tiny room. They both rushed back inside to find Adam standing somewhat sheepishly among a pile of the delicate electronic mechanisms. He shrugged expressively. “Sorry!”

The manager shook his head in dismay, but said, “No problem, no problem. I’ll have someone sort it all out.”

Adam smiled his appreciation as he fingered the tiny devices in his pocket. They proceeded from there to a balcony overlooking another large work area where barrels of chemicals were being shipped off to various subunits of the factory. They watched the workers for a few minutes, and then Tadek suggested, “Let’s go down there so we can see things up close.”

The manager made a face. “It’s quite dirty. I’m not sure we want to do that.”

“No problem!” Adam assured him. “If you want to see dirt, you should walk into one of our concentration camps! Utter pigsties. Why, this is immaculate in comparison!” He gestured broadly toward the shop floor. “Don’t you agree, Herr Steinbach!”

“I’m afraid I haven’t made a habit of tromping through any camps, so I can’t say. Nevertheless, I am interested in seeing what’s going on. It looks like you have
Zwangsarbeiter
down there. Isn’t it rather dangerous to have nonloyal workers?”

“No, no, no! It’s no problem,” the manager assured them as they tromped down the metal steps together. “We keep them under very tight control, and they work only in nonsensitive areas.”

“It seems an unnecessary risk,” Adam commented. “Why not just hire workers?”

“Nobody else wants to do the dirty work; we get complaints and illnesses if we put waged labor on this stuff. Besides, they’re cheaper, much cheaper,” the manager finished, gesturing toward one worker who was loading the barrels from a line onto a trolley.

Tadek studied the inefficiencies of the system and the moronic waste of labor. “Do these workers live on-site?” he asked the manager as Adam turned away from them and casually wandered over to some barrels standing nearby.

“Don’t touch it, it’s pretty nasty stuff!” the manager warned Adam.

“But your worker is covered in this stuff,” Adam pointed out.

The manager shrugged. “That sort! They’re used to it.”

“Do they live on-site?” Tadek asked more forcefully, miffed that he was being ignored.

“Most do. We hire in some local labor now and then, when there’s a shortfall of workers. They wear a special tag—like this one has.” The manager gestured.

Tadek continued to quiz him on the advisability of such a system and approached the laborer they were watching to get a closer look. The manager hurried to keep up with him to defend his workforce selection, and they both left Adam behind as he mindlessly poked among the barrels, dabbing at a spill and wiping the accumulated chemicals onto his handkerchief.

Eventually he joined the other two as Tadek was saying, “If you can’t place the trolleys closer, some sort of slide would make sense.”

“Oh, it works well enough like this,” the manager assured him as the laborer flung his arms around another drum and lifted it off the conveyor, carried it a few meters across the floor, and dropped it onto the trolley. He did not look at them as he worked, and Tadek had the impression he was a cleverly disguised robot. In fact, he looked like a mindless version of his companion and he said as much.
“Herr Major,
this one looks like you,” he teased.

“Nonsense!” Adam admonished. “Don’t be stupid! He doesn’t look anything like me.”

The manager looked from one to the other as if comparing the subhuman with his superhuman counterpart, but decided not to voice his opinion.

“No, really,” Tadek insisted, just to annoy his friend. “I bet if you threw that one in a shower and dressed him up—”

“Don’t talk rot!” Adam snapped. “Are these things sealed well?” he asked suddenly as the worker approached the barrel he had been toying with.

“Oh, yes! No problems there!” the manager assured them.

“Really?” Tadek asked, surging forward to look more closely. He bumped into the laborer and managed to trip him just as he was dragging the barrel off the conveyor. The worker stumbled backward, the drum fell to the ground, the cap popped off, and an orangish sludge spilled onto the factory floor.

Tadek sputtered his disgust at the droplets that had sprayed onto his suit, and the manager rushed forward to calm Tadek and berate the laborer while Adam stooped down to inspect the spill and discreetly scoop some of the sludge into a glass vial he held in the palm of his hand. He pressed the cap onto the vial and deftly pocketed it as he stood and went to join his companions.

“Are you all right?” Adam asked Tadek as the two of them walked away from the scene. The manager rushed to join them, leaving the foreman to deal with the mess. He apologized profusely, offering to return to the offices immediately so Tadek could wash.

“That’s all right. I don’t think I got much of it on me,” Tadek assured him. “It was my fault really.”

“Nonsense!” the manager argued. “It was that worker. That is a problem with the forced labor, they’re so unreliable. But don’t worry, he’ll be punished.”

There was a sickening thud of wood on flesh and a pained groan from behind them. Adam glanced back at the worker. “Indeed.”

Tadek followed his glance. “That isn’t necessary,” he protested to the manager. “It really was my fault.”

“Oh, it’s not good for discipline to make exceptions.”

“Besides, they’re used to that sort of thing,” Adam agreed breezily. “He won’t even really feel it.”

“Better than I had hoped!” Adam beamed at Tadek over his beer. “I think we have everything we need.”

“I can’t believe you got a vialful. The chemists will be pleased.”

“Yeah, I thought the handkerchief was going to have to do, but then I had that inspiration to loosen the cap.”

“Sheer genius,” Tadek praised.

“Glad you followed my lead there. It was brilliant the way you got that guy to drop the drum.”

Tadek shrugged. “I felt a bit sorry for him.”

“I noticed. What were you thinking, telling the manager it wasn’t his fault?”

“I don’t know. It was stupid. You did a nice job covering. You can really pull off the callous act.”

“Who says it’s an act?” At Tadek’s disbelieving look, Adam explained, “No, really. Neither of us have a clue what happened to him yesterday or what will happen to him tomorrow. I think it’s rather hypocritical to pretend to care for the three minutes he’s within our sight.”

“I guess so.”

“His life is already wasted; what we have to think about are the people who still have a chance.”

“You’re right, you’re right. Still . . .”

“And what was that nonsense about saying he looked like me? I thought you’d gone mad!” Adam chided.

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist. He did, you know.”

Adam snorted. “There I am, supposed to be one of the elite among the
Herrenvolk,
and you point at some godforsaken, half-dead
Untermensch
and say I look like him!”

“Eh, the manager knew I was kidding you. Don’t sweat it.”

“I’m not sweating it!”

Tadek rested his mouth on his hand but was unable to hide his laughter.

They traveled together to Göringstadt and met up with Alex there. “Good job, boys,” he praised, holding the vial in the air as if he were an expert on chemical analysis. “Is this all you got?”