Bruno would not allow this.
The point of the demonstration was survival.
He got up on the edge of the tank.
“Schwimmen!” he yelled.
I swam.
I swam the side stroke, feminine and graceful. I felt like a professional again. I was almost happy.
“Schwimmen!” Bruno cried, his voice already hoarse.
But I didn’t care if he shouted.
It was only flesh. That was all I had. If I had been a sailor in the North Sea, or a fisherman adrift in the Atlantic in midwinter, that would still be all I had. My flesh. And my vulnerability. My weakness. I switched to the breast stroke. Lazy and slow. Feminine.
“Schwimmen!!”
I smiled.
I even waved.
He wouldn’t dare come in himself. I knew that.
I swam to the far side of the tank. I went under. I thought about drowning, but then I thought, No. I’ll let the cold do this.
I surfaced.
I blew water, like a whale.
I thought of my first impression of the camp.
Again, I laughed.
I was achieving a measure of freedom.
I was swimming back into myself.
Nightmares begin with an Act.
Atonement.
Absolution.
I became numb.
My fingers went first.
Then my feet.
“My ankles hurt,” I said to Bruno, swimming past him.
The others were watching.
Death is fascinating.
A slow death is mesmerizing.
“Schwimmen!”
“I am.”
“Crawl!” he screamed. “Crawl!”
I fluttered my feet.
I could not feel them.
Nor my shins.
Nor my knees.
I began to kick.
I didn’t want to kick.
I wanted to die with grace.
Atonement.
Absolution.
The dreamers were watching me. Praying. I knew their prayers. It involved my life.
I began to sink.
Numbness is a weight.
“Schwimmen!”
The cry was blurred.
I was going to die, I thought.
“Schwimmen.”
It became very faint and was not a word at all. Not even German.
Let me do this for them, I prayed.
Then they need not do it for me.
The dreamers in their rows began to sway.
We became One.
If I could endure more cold than anyone ever had, then they would never have to endure the cold again.
I was dying.
Rows of stars and crosses.
I was going down.
Absolution for integrity.
Drowning.
It was the Light in the Darkness that ruined it.
In the Darkness, this Light—which seemed to be Death—and was—frightened me. It panicked me. I didn’t want the Light. I was afraid of it.
I shot up to the surface.
Bruno was there.
Schwimmen!
I thrashed.
I went down again.
Twice.
There was the Light again.
Terror.
The dreamers swayed. They held their breath. Their hair got tangled in my arms and legs. Their faces stared at me with prayers.
I grabbed for the surface.
I saw it.
I struggled for it.
I prayed for it.
Longed for it.
Begged for it.
I strove into its presence.
“God help me ” I cried.
And Bruno saved me.
would not speak to me after that. Not properly. I was retired from demonstrations. I became merely his wife again.
He stared at me a lot.
He was figuring something out. Something statistical. I had almost made it. That was the first part. I had performed magnificently. That was the second part. He had theories—that was the third part. There could be a combination of these things that would be perfect. That was the fourth part. It was genetic statistics. But he had not recognized, or was just not reconciled to, the fact that I had performed magnificently only when I wanted to die. Not live. The genetics of that is different.
And he thought he knew about genetics.
So, in silence and with scientific precision, he set about creating his babies.
But I would not have them.
I have tainted blood. I carry hemophilia. He did not forgive me.
The conclusion of this is that I survived. Unwittingly. Unwillingly.
I go back to the counting.
One-and-two-and.
One-and-two.
The Nightmare, you see, will involve your integrity.
Or do I mean…intelligence.
He divorced me. I was being sent home.
I went on my final motorcar ride, driven by my own Dark Angel now, to Hamburg.
There was one last thing.
I had boarded the ship and, because it was not to weigh anchor for another four hours, I got off again. I wanted to have one last look at Germany. I don’t know why I wanted this, when it had all turned out so badly for me there, but I did. I sensed that there was something else for me to see.
I went down to the harbor.
It is a lovely harbor there, with old streets and ancient houses. And the ships stand up over everything. And everyone is involved in the river and in the sea. And there is something marvelously incongruous about these oceangoing ships standing inland, where there are fields and trees and houses and bridges. The sun shone that day, too.
I walked about. I went nowhere. I just walked.
And then it was that this last thing happened.
I was standing in a narrow street where the houses were extremely old. I could see ship masts and spars over the rooftops. There was little commerce in the street. A few cyclists passed and that was all.
A man came all at once, stumbling as though blind, from between the houses.
I stopped on the curb, watching him, wondering what assistance he might need.
But he was not blind, merely blinded. He had been in the dark.
Gradually he was able to see, and he looked about him.
There was only me. And the houses. And, faraway, the sky.
He looked at it. He looked at me.
He approached.
His clothes were damp. He smelled. It was a stale smell. Wet. Part of it was human excrement.
He was old. Or he appeared to be. He was bearded. His walk was crazy—this way and that—and I wondered if he was drunk.
He wasn’t.
He stared at me. His eyes were clouded. He raised his hand like a word: some sort of greeting. I waited.
This was the first dreamer I had met, face to face, hand to hand, since Mr. Seuss, long, long ago in Paris.
I said, in German, “Yes?”
He said, in German, “Will you help me?”
I said, “Yes.”
He said, “I must die.”
I nodded. I tried to understand.
“I have hidden,” he went on, “hoping for a ship, hoping for some way out. But there is none. My wife and children have not come. They were to meet me here. We were to go away. What month is this?”
I told him. “August.”
“August?”
“August, nineteen thirty-eight,” I said. I took his hand.
“Excuse my hands,” he said. “I have waited a long time.”
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
“No. I am not hungry.”
He wavered. He looked along the street.
I steadied him with my arm around his shoulder.
He stood against me like a child.
He stared into the sky.
He rocked a little, back and forth. He had not stood upright in weeks. He felt like so many bones in a bag.<
br />
He said, “Walk with me.”
I said, “You cannot walk.”
And he said, “Make me walk. A few steps. Please.”
We stepped out like strollers.
(They knew once another world but that has been forgotten.)
“I cannot walk,” he said. “You are right.”
“Shall we sit down?” I asked.
“No. There is not time. I shall lie down. Please. It must happen here.”
I helped him down until he was crouched on the curb. The back of his head rose like a skull above his clothes. He reached up with one of his hands and scratched it. Right at the crown. I shall never forget that.
Then he said again, “Here. It will be here.”
I knelt on the pavement beside him and helped him all the way down onto his back. He lay out flat.
His eyes reached into heaven.
It was unmistakably heaven.
That much was true.
I said, “Quickly. Tell me your name.”
He muttered words.
I laid my ear against his mouth.
He whispered his name.
It is private to me. I will never tell it.
Then he whispered something else.
Pocket.
His hands did a dance over his damp, decaying clothes. This was the rush to death.
I followed them as rapidly as they flew. I followed after, searching.
“Quickly,” he said.
Then he found it.
His star.
I had a pin in my lapel.
He thanked me. I placed his star, neatly, over his heart.
He took a short time dying.
No one came.
I stayed with him.
His eyes never left the sky.
I was sorry. I had to leave him there. I think that’s what he wanted.
A sign.
When I boarded the ship I saw the blond man.
It was the first time. He is still with me.
I went to my cabin. I had thought I wanted to see the last of Germany from the deck of my ship, the city, then the green fields in the twilight. But now I did not want that.
I am not a thief under normal circumstances, but I had stolen one thing from Bruno. It was to help me understand. At least I hoped it was. A book, autographed by the author, precious to Bruno. He would miss it, but then, God help us, he could surely secure another.
The ship moved.
People yelled.
I had heard, already, too much yelling. I closed my porthole.
I walked around for a moment checking idiotically (now that the ship was actually moving) to see that I had not forgotten anything.
I hadn’t.
So.
I opened my purse. I took out the star of Mr. Seuss and pinned it to my lapel and then I sat down on my bunk and began to read Mein Kampf.
It was a mirror for Bruno.
In my own mirror, when I finally looked, my hair, growing unhampered at last, came back to me white. As you see it now.
The Chronicle of
Alvarez Canyon
September 15th, 1938:
The Road to Alvarez Canyon
10:00 a.m.
The beauty of Alvarez Canyon was known around the globe. Nominally it was a state park, but the visiting public had proclaimed it “Paradise.” Birds, reptiles, fishes, and mammals roamed its precincts unharmed and free. The park was a sanctuary, and thus Paradise was governed and protected by the State of California. The laws concerning visitors were very strict.
No one was allowed past the gates unaccompanied by a warden. All visits were, of course, arranged in advance. Parties were restricted in number. No smoking was allowed. At the barrier all guns were confiscated; in fact, no weapon of any kind could be carried except by the attendant wardens, who all possessed knives which they were to use in the event of snake bite.
Alvarez Canyon Paradise lay due north of Santa Monica, in the mountains that squatted there by the sea. They were called mountains, which they were not; they were merely hills. But “mountains” sounds superb and indicates the proper respect for Paradise. So, “mountains” it was.
If seen from the air, the canyon which contained Alvarez was not very large. It was an area of approximately forty acres. The sides of the canyon were exceptionally steep and presented a formidable barrier to anything or anyone wishing to climb out. In 1928 a family of cumbers had fallen to its death attempting to do just that—to climb out—and ever since, the rules about climbing had been strictly enforced.
In order to preserve the atmosphere of Paradise in all weathers, some portions of Alvarez were quite unreal. The plants in these places were made of specially treated fabrics and of rubber. Thus when elsewhere the acacia leaves were falling they did not fall down in Alvarez. On close scrutiny, too, one out of every ten animals was dead and taxidermed. A glass stare can be disconcerting, but the thrill of coming face to face with an oryx, apparently tame, made up for it.
So it was that on this Thursday, when work had temporarily come to a halt on the film Hell’s Babies, Dolly persuaded Myra, Ruth, and his mother to venture to Alvarez. “A little Paradise,” he had said, “will do us good.”
Naomi concurred with pleasant surprise, Myra did a small dance and had to be quieted, Ruth (greatly upset by the death of the red-haired nude) merely said, “Very well,” and fell silent—and Miss Bonkers, who had not been invited, insisted on accompanying her patient and efficiently packed a bag of drugs and got out her motorcycle. Because of the fifteen-mile-an-hour speed limit set by Adolphus, it was Miss Bonkers on her motorcycle who arrived first.
Ruth drove while Naomi sat silently beside her. Dolly and Myra, like toys, were wrapped in a tissue of pillows, veils, and sun hats. They sat in the rumble seat. Boxed.
They languished along the highway, going north. Soon Miss Bonkers, approaching ninety miles an hour, whizzed by with a wave of both hands. On a motorcycle the death-nurse was transformed. She was dressed in her uniform, of course, but over it she now wore an aviator’s leather jacket and helmet, goggles, gauntleted gloves, and high black boots. She had a passion for World War flying films and doubtless, had it been practical, an airplane would have replaced the motorcycle. But as Miss Bonkers herself admitted, “At Topanga Canyon Beach there was no damn place to park a car let alone a biplane.” So the motorcycle became her substitute.
As the journey progressed, the company fell increasingly silent. Even Myra.
Naomi fell asleep.
Myra calculated how many days it would be before she would eat a decent meal. Her pretty, round face could not be seen, so deeply had she swathed herself in protection from the sun. All that was visible in a sort of mold of gauze and stoles was her pursed but ever-sensuous curlicue of a mouth and her heart-shaped celluloid glasses. The rest was all hat and blond curls and round, plump arms hidden in pink-and-green beach pajamas and swaddle. She secretly pinched her breasts, one by one. They were delicious to touch. The mouth unpursed. She smiled. She’d show them a thing or two. Fat! My hat! I’m gorgeous! She recited this to herself, pinching and patting away. Then she went so far as to smirk, which was a mistake, because Dolly turned and saw her.
“What are you smirking at?” he said somewhat testily, because he could not endure so much quiet.
“Smirking?” said Myra, wide-eyed behind the hearts of celluloid. “Smirking? I don’t even know what smirking is, so how can I be it?” She drew closer to Dolly. She whispered, “Do you wanna put your fingers inside my veils?” and leered delightfully as she spoke.
“Myra! Please!” said Dolly. “For heaven’s sake remember that my mother is sitting in the front seat.”
11:55 a.m.
Arriving at the barrier, they discovered that they had been preceded not only by Miss Bonkers’s motorcycle but also by a large Rolls-Royce, beside which a Negro chauffeur languished in a drooping stance. His mouth was open and he snored, but very gently, adding his voice to the distant cacophony of sa
nctuaried birds and insects.
Ruth said, “I thought only one party was allowed in at a time.”
“Maybe,” said Naomi, “it’s someone just about to leave.”
“Or a High Mucky-Muck,” said Dolly.
Myra stared and giggled.
They clambered down, Naomi handing Dolly down by the arm to Myra, and then stepping down herself.
Ruth said, “I’m going to have one last cigarette before we go in,” and lit up.
Dolly, on his long, knock-kneed legs, pigeon-toed his way to the gatehouse.
“Damarosch,” he said, poking his head through the little window.
“You’re sure as hell right,” said a sleepy voice.
“I beg your pardon?” said Dolly.
“I said you’re sure as hell right. It’s damn hot.”
“Oh,” said Dolly. “Yes, of course.”
He withdrew in confusion.
“What do y’want?” asked the guard, pursuing Dolly’s head with his own, sticking it out the window.
“We’re arrived,” said Dolly.
“I can see that,” said the guard, who had been asleep. “But what do you want?”
“Entrance,” said Dolly, quite annoyed. He hated any sort of personal foul-up in front of his mother and Ruth. He enjoyed, rather, the immediate response of respect that his name and person usually drew in public places. This sort of shilly-shallying simply flustered him.
“Entrance to what?” said the man, who was one of those basically cantankerous persons so often employed as custodians and gatekeepers.
“Alvarez Canyon!” Dolly raised his voice and grew red.
The head withdrew and presently reappeared at the top of a giant uniformed body whose baggy gut pendulated dangerously over a slackened belt.
“Someone’s in there,” said this parade of swarth and swagger, and jammed its thumbs into its pockets, letting its hairy hands hang down.
“Our visit has been arranged since yesterday,” said Dolly precisely, hiding behind his cane. “If you’re able to read, you’ll doubtless find us in your book. The name is Damarosch.”
The opposing eyes squinted between the hairs of massive eyebrows and searched over Dolly’s figure and the figures of Naomi, Ruth, Miss Bonkers, and Myra. It had to be admitted that the view was somewhat odd, for it contained this man dressed entirely in blue, caved in on the support of a rapier-thin cane—plus a madwoman with a flat, youthful face and pure white hair, and a frail, reedy woman in a blue dress, green hat, and purple shoes, who was carrying an orange parasol. Next there was a simpering of veils, sunglasses, nail varnish, bosom, and bright lipstick that the guard could hardly help but guess was someone in pictures, since she rather mechanically responded to his stare with a nod and a smile and a heaving of breasts. Finally, concluding the group, there was a short stocky man in an aviation leather helmet, goggles, gauntlets, riding boots to the knee, and what appeared to be a nurse’s uniform.
The Butterfly Plague Page 11