by David Nickle
Lewis wondered what that was, and Kurtzweiller explained.
“A Teutonic society,” he said. “Mystics. Theosophists. They put great stock in the purity of the Aryan race. It was popular in Berlin for a time. They met secretly, developed great plans—and told anyone who would listen about them.”
“Eugenics,” said Andrew. “We’re familiar with the notion. What was the trouble at this spa?”
Zimmermann shook his head. “In time. Fräulein Harper told me about your Decameron system. I rather like it. We tell the story in the order it occurred. I can see the value in the exercise, for the men guarding the farmhouse had never put their thoughts in such order. I did ask about the troubles.
“One man told me: ‘The children rose up, and refused to obey.’
“Another, who happened by in the midst of it, told me that a beast devoured them, and a third said that wasn’t so. ‘The Piper led them away.’ What? The Pied Piper? Was he having me on? There was a serpent, said the first, but he wasn’t sure that it hadn’t fled from the beast. Maybe it hadn’t.
“‘In any event the children have become the forest,’ he said. ‘It is best not to wander too far.’
“‘It is true, Herr Zimmermann,’ said the original guard. ‘We keep you here for your own safety.’”
“A Juke!” said Kurtzweiller. “A Juke dwells in that valley!”
“How did you escape it?” asked Lewis, leaning forward. “It is rare—”
Andrew lifted his hand and Lewis caught his breath. “The children have become the forest?” Andrew asked. “Is that what he said?”
“Indeed,” said Zimmermann. “I asked him that too—did he mean they were transformed into trees? That would be quite a trick.
“‘Think what you like,’ was all he would say. ‘Good German men have vanished there too. You don’t venture far. Leave that to the American sorcerer you brought to us.’
“Yes, that was another thing that I learned: my co-pilot was a sorcerer! He had some magical ability to withstand the Pied Piper’s song. That was why he had been summoned.
“It took me longer to learn about the men who’d summoned him. That took more risks on my part. My masters had girded me with more fear than training. I knew to lie, and step softly, and I knew if I were to fight a man in the dark, I best do it quietly and kill him in the end. Had I ever done any of those things? The first yes, the second perhaps, and the third—never. Nevertheless, on the second night, after the candles were snuffed in the barracks and the men were snoring, I stole from my cot through the main hall to the forbidden upper floors, where I was able to conduct a goodly search of the place. I learned the identity of some of the men who were in charge of the operation—written on the outside of envelopes addressed to them, discarded by a desk. There was a Dr. Jurgen Plaut; a Professor Hermann Muckermann; a Dr. Johannes Bergstrom.” Zimmermann paused here, and made as if to study Andrew’s expression. “Yes,” he said. “Of relation to another Dr. Bergstrom, who died in America. Of Miss Harper’s and your acquaintance. His brother, I believe?”
Andrew nodded. “I believe I know of Muckermann too. He’s at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, isn’t he?”
“He is in charge of it,” said Kurtzweiller. “A Jesuit, I believe. I’ve met him.”
“And Johannes Bergstrom,” said Andrew. “I didn’t know Nils had a brother. Particularly one who was a doctor.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t,” said Ruth. “You might move in some of the same circles.”
“We don’t have as much to do with our German colleagues as we’d like,” said Andrew, and glanced at Kurtzweiller. “Present company excepted. But I shouldn’t be surprised, given the nature of the project, that a Bergstrom would be involved.”
“Or a man like Muckermann,” said Kurtzweiller. “As I think of it, I recall he has written fairly extensively on topics of breeding and eugenics. Doesn’t care much for the Jews either.”
“What about Plaut?” asked Lewis; to Zimmermann: “Who’s he?”
Zimmermann bared his teeth in a humorless grin, and drew another puff from his pipe.
“I wish I could say,” said Zimmermann. “I briefly met Dr. Bergstrom, and can confirm some things about him as a result. Tall, a little heavy in the gut . . . a square-faced man, maybe in his late fifties, early sixties. His hair was going white, but he had all of it. And yes, he was an alienist . . . a psychoanalyst. Muckermann was not in attendance during my stay there. I met Plaut only two or three times, much later on. A small man, stocky . . . in his forties, perhaps? A little older than me. As to his profession . . .”
“Yes?” prompted Andrew, after it was clear that Zimmermann had trailed off.
“It never came up,” said Zimmermann. “We only spoke once . . . I suppose you could say we spoke . . . and then, there were other matters to attend to.”
“Other matters?” asked Lewis.
When Zimmermann spoke again, it was very softly.
“There was so much blood. And under the circumstances . . . all he could do was scream.”
Four
Lawrence Thorn stayed out of the bunkhouse for two days, until the screaming started up. He thought it was an animal, hurt or caught, when it carried across the meadow—and when he drew nearer the bunkhouse, he figured it for the sick girl, Ruth Harper, turning for the worse. But it wasn’t. It was Jason.
Andrew Waggoner met him at the door to tell him what was what.
“The boy has been through hell and back,” said Andrew. “He has nightmares. This was . . . a bad one.”
“All right,” said Lawrence, and fixed Andrew with a stare, “then let me see to him.”
Andrew considered turning him away, but something in Lawrence’s eye that early morning told him he better not. It was the fourth day they’d been there, and Andrew wondered how many more days their welcome would last.
He led Lawrence into the bunkhouse. The farmer had likely never seen the place tidier: Jason and Annie had scrubbed it spotless after the surgery. Jason was sitting on a chair near one of the bright windows, his back to the gold sunrise, staring down at his feet.
Lawrence lifted a chair from beside the door and brought it to sit by Jason.
“Leave us a spell,” he said when Andrew made as if to join them, so he went over and sat by Annie and Ruth. He watched Jason and Lawrence—two farmers—hunched together, whispering, nodding, slowly shaking heads, occasionally looking up to regard Andrew.
After a few minutes of this, Lawrence stood and so did Jason.
“I’m going to the farmhouse,” said Jason, “just for a little while. I’ll bring back breakfast.”
“You want some help?” asked Annie, and Lawrence shook his head.
“It’ll be all right ma’am,” he said, as he led Jason outside. “We’ve got things in hand.”
The door closed behind them, and Andrew looked at the two women.
“Well,” said Annie, “that was curious.”
“I don’t think he cares for us,” said Ruth from her bed. “Mr. Thorn, I mean.”
“I suppose we are an imposition,” said Annie.
Andrew crossed his arms so he cradled his injured right in the crook of his left. “We are,” he said, “but it’s not just that.”
Annie touched Andrew’s shoulder, and nodded. It wasn’t just that, and she knew it and Andrew knew it too. There was only so much forbearance to be had, in some white people—most white people, in Andrew’s experience—for the presumed wisdom, medical or otherwise, of a Negro.
Ruth looked at both of them, and then straight at Andrew, and nodded.
“You,” she said, firmly, “will never be an imposition to me.”
Ruth Harper’s and Andrew Waggoner’s eyes met again across the litter of wine bottles, then they both turned to look to Albert Zimmermann.
Andrew thought that another man might have broken down—and maybe that was what Zimmermann was doing now, just not in a way that Andrew recognized. His chin tucked
into his collar, as he set both hands on the table, bowl of his pipe clutched tightly in his left. It seemed as though he weren’t breathing at all. Andrew reached toward him, but Ruth stopped him with a sharp shake of her head.
“Sometimes he’s like this,” she whispered.
Andrew motioned for Ruth to join him by the entryway, out of earshot.
“What did he see?” asked Andrew when she did.
Ruth drew a breath to speak, let it out, and drew another.
“There was a calamity at the farmhouse, finally,” she said. “Definitely bloodshed. He has difficulty recounting it clearly. It’s one of the reasons I took him seriously, when he arrived at Crete. Andrew, he was very ill, in the way that we became . . . ill, after we escaped from Eliada.”
“Was he exposed to a Juke, do you think?”
“Not precisely,” said Ruth. “No, I don’t believe precisely, not like you and I . . . you and I and Jason were. But I had a sense of it when he arrived at the villa I’d rented. He knew he had seen something, and that it was terrible. But . . . well, he has benefitted from our Decameron System. He continues to benefit from it.”
“All right,” said Andrew. “Is he going to be able to continue now?”
Across the room, as if he heard, Zimmermann rose from his chair. He shook his head, and set his pipe down. Ruth touched Andrew’s elbow and led him back to their chairs as Zimmermann rolled his shoulders and resumed his own seat.
“If it is all right,” he said, “I think I shall have that wine now.”
Dominic emptied the remains of a bottle into a glass and handed it to Zimmermann, then set to work opening a fresh bottle.
“I got ahead of myself,” said Zimmermann. “We are here to talk about Jason Thistledown, your friend. And mine, I suppose. I’ve told you enough about his captors.”
Dominic topped up Zimmermann’s glass, and looked around the table to see if anyone else wanted more.
“Jason did come back from his mission in the valley. Let me tell you about that.”
“I was smoking at the front doors as the truck pulled up. Aguillard got out of the cab along with Gustav, and they summoned the guards. I joined at a distance to watch as they clambered into the back, and gathered the stretcher that bore Jason. They had strapped him to it at the chest and feet; his neck was covered in a thick swathe of bandage, as were his hands. His eyelids seemed swollen shut, his lips were chalky dry. His shirt was soaked with sweat and patches of blood. And he seemed as if he were convulsing—although that may have been a misapprehension on my part.
“‘The door!’ shouted Gustav, seeing me, and I hurried to it, propping it open as they hurried within. There was a sitting room—a smaller, finer one than the one where I was bivouacked, on the other side of the farmhouse—that had been remade as an infirmary, with cots and bandages and racks of medicine. I slipped in after Aguillard—and no one objected when I moved to help transfer him to one of the cots.
“Jason fought us as we undid the straps from the stretcher, and it was beyond us to bind him to the cot, so we had to hold him down while Aguillard prepared an injection. He was like a wild animal—pitiable in his way. Well, I took pity.
“As we held him, I leaned close and whispered, in English: “I am sorry, Captain Thorn. I did not know.”
“And at that, he did calm himself. He let Aguillard approach with his syringe, and lay still as the needle pricked his forearm.
“‘Go to hell, Albert,’ he said finally. But he was smiling, and he added: ‘That’s right. You didn’t know.’
“Aguillard ordered me out of the room, and Gustav escorted me back to the barrack hall. What had happened? I asked.
“‘He returned,’ said Gustav. ‘That’s something in itself. But he came back in the state you just saw him . . . filthy, raving . . . just past dawn today. He had lost the pack we sent him in with, and the camera we gave him.’
“‘He’s injured,’ I said, and guessed: ‘Did he do it to himself?’ I mimed burning a cigarette in my throat, and Gustav nodded.
“‘Dr. Aguillard believes the burns have become infected,’ he told me.
“‘Shell shock,’ I said. Gustav agreed with that too.
“Now at this point, I should say that Gustav and I had visited Wallgau to attend the beer hall, and although I had found a postmaster I had not been able to get clear of Gustav long enough to post the letter to my masters. How much better my report would be, should I be able to include an interrogation of Jason Thorn! That night, I made to return to the infirmary.”
“You were getting bolder,” commented Kurtzweiller.
“It was not so difficult,” said Zimmermann. “There was a watch placed at the front doors, and the main entrance to the infirmary. But there was also a passageway from the kitchens that led to the sitting room, and more than once I had seen S.A. men steal into it at night to filch some bread and honey. The Nazi S.A. . . . they dress like an army, but they are simple hoodlums at heart. Truly, something will have to be done with them should Herr Hitler ever gain power.
“So I did what they did: sliced a stub of bread, dipped it in honey, and when I was sure that I was alone, made my way into the sick room. I had a plan, should Jason be under guard, or care, to explain that I was simply coming in to check on my old pilot—and if Aguillard or any other told me to leave, well, I would. This was much simpler than my adventure in the upper floors.
“But as fortune would have it . . . Jason was alone. The straps had been removed, and he lay on his cot, smoking one of his cigarettes, feet crossed on the frames. He was utterly calm—and whatever drug Aguillard had given him, he was no longer under its influence.
“‘Herr Zimmermann,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s a bit late, isn’t it?’
“‘I thought you might enjoy an evening snack,’ I said, and presented the bread. Jason sat up, with some difficulty, and took it from me.
“‘You’re sorry,’ he said. ‘I figured that out already,’
“As he bit into the crust, I set about to tell him part of the truth. I had indeed taken money to agree to the rerouting of the trip, but I had not been told the reason, or the risk. I had not known that Nazi Party interests were involved. I did not, of course, tell him about the Russians. I did not tell him the rumours I had gathered from the S.A. men here. When I was finished, I poured him a mug of water and when he had washed down his meal, he simply nodded.
“In time, I asked: ‘Can you say what has happened to you?’
“‘I can’t,’ he answered, and I motioned to his bandages.
“‘Can you say how those came about?’ I asked.
“‘I did some of that to myself.’ He held up his cigarette with one hand, pointed to his neck with another. ‘Lit cigarette, pressed under the jawline. It’s a trick I picked up . . . when I was younger.’
“‘For the shell shock,’ I said and motioned toward his bandages. ‘You perhaps have learned it too well.’
“‘Not for shell shock,’ he said. ‘Though I used it when I was flying. Nothing gets a man’s attention like pain. For a time, anyhow. I don’t think it’s going to work anymore.’
“‘You have become inured,’ I said, and he nodded again.
“‘It looks that way,’ he said. ‘Anyhow, your pal Aguillard tells me it’s gone infected in there. So I’m taking some sulfa until I’m well enough to go back.’
“‘Back to where precisely? Africa?’ I asked, and that brought a quiet laugh.
“‘No,’ he said. ‘Back beyond yonder mountains.’
“I asked him for what purpose, and he grew quiet again and finished his cigarette. He stubbed it out in a pan on the table by his bed and looked at me.
“‘You say you’re sorry,’ he said, and now I simply nodded.
“‘Now it’s not I don’t appreciate the bread and water,’ said Jason. ‘But I need you to do something for me.’
“‘Name the task,’ I said.
“‘More than one task,’ he said. ‘First one’s easy
. Fetch me a pencil and paper. There should be both in that desk.’ He pointed me to a rolltop desk by the window. While I found the items, he struck a match to light another cigarette and clamped it in his lips and beckoned. I hurried over with it. As I waited, he wrote a careful note—indeed, the same note that Miss Harper showed you. He folded it, and handed it to me.
“‘Next job now. There’s a lady named Ruth Harper. An American lady, real rich. Old friend of mine. She’s staying with some folks she knows up in Germany. The Dietrichs, in Brandenburg. You find out the best way to post this to her, care of them. You don’t show this to anybody here.’
“I unfolded the letter, and then read it when Jason nodded his approval.
“‘This sounds very dire,’ I said. ‘The lady is in danger?’
“‘That’s what they told me here,’ said Jason. ‘If I can’t do the job behind those mountains, they told me they’ll go get Miss Harper and make her try.’
“‘And we cannot allow that,’ I said. ‘Tell me, how is it that you trust me with this message? I could easily turn it over to Aguillard.’
“‘That’s so,’ said Jason. ‘But if you do, Miss Harper’ll be in no worse straits than she is now. And if you don’t . . . Well, there’ll be at least one fellow in this place I know I can trust.’
“That is how Jason thinks,” Andrew commented. “Very strategic when he wants to be. And I take it from your presence that you earned his trust.”
“I did,” said Zimmermann. “No one saw the letter at the farm. And although I considered it, my masters in Vienna didn’t either.”
“Now that’s a risk,” said Lewis. “If they’d found you were holding back—”
“—they might expose my ancestry. That is why I considered it. But I also considered the position in which Jason had been placed by the men there. It was very similar to my own: labour and loyalty, compelled by threat of harm.” Zimmermann looked to Ruth at that moment. “To family and friends.” Ruth nodded.
“And so it was that on my next visit to Wallgau, I brought two letters. One, to my masters—very circumspect—and another, to Ruth Harper, care of the Dietrich family, who were luckily well-enough born that the postmaster was able to find an address. It sounds absurd now—but it was important that I pass Jason’s test.”