The Children's War

by Stroyar, J. N.

  Peter glared at her but there was nothing he could say. He was grateful. He was grateful! But where was that fantasy ending he had always written to hisstory? Where was the dream that had sustained him? The one where he was welcomed as a hero, embraced and kissed and comforted and thanked? Or even just greeted with a warm smile?

  Where were the words that would have made just one hour of torture bearable? Where were the words? Without realizing it, his fingers clawed at his manacle.

  “Now,” Katerina said, her eyes indicating his wrist, “let’s get that thing off you.”

  2

  “YOU HAVE SCAR TISSUE here and here,” the physician said, running his fingers along Peter’s cheekbones. “It’s harmless, just the result of being repeatedly pounded, but it changes the shape of your face slightly.”

  Peter nodded, unconcerned. Along with organizing the dental work that he had desperately needed, Zosia had insisted on a medical examination. He had reluctantly consented and allowed himself to be poked and prodded by three doctors over several days. They had discovered that he had had broken ribs on more than one occasion, but that most of his injuries had seemed to heal fairly well. They took X rays of his lungs and shook their heads ruefully at the images of scar tissue. They noted old fractures on his arms and legs and skull and told him, uselessly, that he had received a number of severe blows to the head. They also discovered that his recurrent headaches and occasional blurred vision were due to “trauma,” which was simply a way of saying he had been hit one too many times in the face. Now he was sitting through the final consultation, and these results were summarized by the staff physician—a balding, gnomelike fellow who wore an oversize lab coat and kept nervously fingering his stethoscope.

  The physician pinned an X ray onto a backlit screen. “And see here, you have some damage to some vertebrae. I guess someone really whacked you pretty hard across the back, eh? Kicked you, maybe?”

  His eyes drifted off the X ray to the cabinets aligning the wall. “What’s the damage?” he finally asked.

  “Hard to say. Whenever you’re dealing with nerves, you never know when things are going to go wrong.”

  “Thanks for the cheerful news,” he commented morosely, wondering at the wisdom of having a checkup.

  “Could affect your back or your legs or your neck around this area.” The physician placed a finger at the base of Peter’s skull. “That, not surprisingly, can give you pretty awful headaches.”

  “What can be done about it?”

  The physician shrugged. “Painkillers.”

  “Great,” Peter responded sarcastically. “What else?”

  “Your legs,” the physician continued ruefully. “They healed well enough, I suppose, but I imagine they give you some trouble now and then?”

  “Sometimes. Can you do anything for them?”

  The physician pursed his lips.

  “I know, I know. Painkillers.”

  “We have these.” The physician handed him a small bottle of evil-looking pills. “Very strong, so I advise you don’t use them often. And they’re addictive.”

  He nodded.

  “Be careful with them, but take one if the pain gets unbearable.” Unbearable. Now there was a concept. He doubted that anything would hurt more now than it did originally, and he had borne that. After having had so many drugs pumped into him involuntarily, he was not sure he wanted to take any more, but he accepted the bottle and dropped it into his shirt pocket, thanking the doctor as he did so.

  “Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s much we can do about your vision. At least not here.”

  “Where then?”

  “In a properly outfitted hospital, they could do some more extensive testing. Maybe they could enact some repairs with lasers or surgery. Usually we get our people into a major hospital with appropriate papers and identifications to make sure they are important enough to get good treatment, then we see to it that our doctors are assigned to work on them. Unfortunately the hospital staff is, naturally, mostly their people”—it was clear from his tone who they were—“and getting you in there . . . Well, to put it bluntly, you’re a marked man. There’s no way we could pass you off as . . . well, you know, not with the scrutiny one undergoes in a hospital.”

  Peter nodded, unseeing. Would he never escape the bastards? Even here, even now, he could feel their choke hold on his life. He looked up at the physician. “Am I going to lose my sight?”

  The doctor hesitated longer than was comfortable; finally he said, “I don’t know.”

  Peter closed his eyes, but he opened them again immediately, irrationally afraid that his sight would disappear if he failed to use it. He looked around the office, savored the view, tried to impress on himself how grateful he was for his vision, as though begging his eyes not to deny him a gift he fully appreciated.

  The physician wandered over to a drawer and rooted around a bit. Finally he found what he was looking for and brought it over to Peter.“Here”—he held out a glasses case—“these might help prevent the headaches. Wear them outside and whenever the light is bright.”

  Peter reached inside the case and pulled out a pair of dark sunglasses in a wire-rim frame. He put them on and leaned back to see his reflection in the mirrorthat hung over the counter. He smiled indulgently at the unfamiliar image, removed the glasses, and thanked the physician. Maybe it would help. Then he looked down at his arm. “Is there any way to remove this?”

  The doctor shook his head. “I’m not an expert, but I don’t think so. They really have gotten efficient at that, haven’t they? The dyes are—well, it’s not my field, but as far as I know, there’s nothing that dissolves them that wouldn’t take your skin off as well.”

  “What about burning it off?”

  “Ech.” The physician frowned, his bald forehead wrinkling with distaste. “I don’t think that would work. They inject the dye quite deep—don’t you remember the pain?”

  “I was out. It did hurt afterward though.”

  “Well, if you burned the skin off, you’d have to go quite deep; probably you’d get some muscle and nerves. I once heard something about some technique involving lasers, but if there is one, it’s not for the likes of you and me— especially you! You’d have to check into a hospital and, well, there’s the rub. Anyway, we don’t do anything like that here, we’re just a clinic really. And an occasional emergency room.”

  The physician must have read Peter’s expression, because he felt inclined to continue, “I think you can understand, we usually have more pressing issues to worry about. I don’t think you could find anybody to do it for you, it’s just not that important.”

  Peter ran his fingers along the numbers: one three one four seven oh eight. How many times had he run that through his mind? “It never changes,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  He hadn’t realized he had spoken aloud. “It never changes.” The doctor nodded in that absently sympathetic way that doctors do and then, as if to conclude, asked, “Is there anything else?”

  Slightly confused by the question, Peter shook his head. Shouldn’t he be asking-that of the doctor? Then he remembered something unusual that had happened at the Vogel household and decided to ask about it. The doctor was already heading out of the room, so Peter had to call after him. “Wait! Yes.”

  The doctor turned and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

  “Some months ago, in February, actually . . .” In February, when he had been reeling from Karl’s revenge, there had been a midday knock on the door. He had gone to answer it and had been horrified to see three officials—one a policeman, the other two in white lab coats, such as doctors wear. As they requested, he fetched Frau Vogel. She came to meet them at the door, equally mystified, and invited them in. They had told her that they had something of importance to discuss and looked pointedly at him. Frau Vogel sent him from the room with a dismissive nod, but within a matter of minutes he was called back into the sitting room. Frau Vogel was by the
window, leaning over a table, signing some papers.

  She did not even look up as he came into the room; instead one of the whitecoated men told him to roll up his sleeve.

  A tourniquet was put on him, the white-coated man snapped a finger at a vein in the crook of his arm until it stood out, and then the other white-coated man produced a needle. The needle was injected and emptied and the tourniquet released. Frau Vogel returned the papers, the men thanked her, and they left without a word of explanation.

  For the next several days, he had lived in horror of what might have been injected into his bloodstream. He had a fever and felt ill the following day, but with Karl constantly hammering him, it was rare he felt well in any case. The gossip around the town square—all the Zwangsarbeiter, and no one else, had been injected—was that it was some sort of inoculation against a communicable disease.

  “Nothing came of it, as far as I know. I never got particularly sick or anything. Do you have any idea what they did then?” Peter asked, hoping at last for an answer to the mystery.

  “I don’t suppose you used to have brown eyes?” the doctor joked.

  “No.” Peter found the reference to a cruel medical experiment in extremely bad taste.

  “Well, clearly they used you as guinea pigs,” the physician answered seriously. “They were probably just doing a field test on a new vaccine or something. Certainly, if there was a disease scare and they had something they knew was safe, they wouldn’t have skipped their own people. No, it was clearly a test.”

  “I guessed that much myself,” Peter said, somewhat exasperated. Was this fellow good for anything? “Can you tell me what they injected?”

  “Your blood doesn’t show anything really unusual. You’ve been sick with some of the normal lousy-living-condition illnesses, and any one of them could have been caused by that shot. Or none of them.” The physician looked at Peter sympathetically and added rather uncharacteristically, “Sorry. Don’t worry about it, I don’t think the shot did any long-term damage.”

  After the examinations and dentistry were completed, Peter was called before the Council to discuss his skills.

  Katerina began, “Clearly, you have much experience that could be of value to us—you know a great deal about the current state of German society—at least a segment of it. In a few days, a psychiatrist and a sociologist will be here to interrogate—”

  “Interview,” Zosia suggested.

  “—question you at length for a few weeks. They’ll report back to HQ with the information they’ve gained. After that we need to know what you can do.”

  A few weeks? What in God’s name could they want to know? Although Zosia had been careful to get Katerina to reword what she had said, he could not help but feel dread at the prospect of being interrogated or interviewed or questionedfor such a long time. He remembered his conversation with Katerina in the library—clearly she was pursuing her interests to their logical conclusion. It took a moment for him to realize that everyone was waiting for him to speak. He looked at them blankly.

  “Your skills?” Hania prompted.

  He began with the basics. He had had reasonable weapons and assault training, but he was no longer a kid, and it was decided that he should not, in general, be used for direct assaults such as sabotage. They were equally unimpressed by his long-ago training as a sniper, though a note was made for future reference.

  “We have more than enough people who know how to fire a gun,” Wanda commented archly.

  “How about propaganda,” Peter suggested. “The English Underground put out a so-called German Resistance newspaper; I used to contribute articles now and then. I’m fluent and I’m experienced, so my work is easily passed off as genuine. If you want, I can organize such a newspaper for you.”

  Tadek, Wojciech, and Wanda started to laugh.

  He thought they were questioning his abilities, so he added, “Look, I can make it realistic, I’ve seen the genuine article. Teresa passed The Parliamentarian on to me sometimes, and Geerd had a copy of The Nationalist.” Those were both illegal newspapers genuinely originating from the shadowy German Resistance, and they were the only evidence he had ever seen of the German Underground’s existence.

  Now the entire Council was laughing. Katerina finally motioned for order and stated not unkindly, “Those are ours. I’m sure you can contribute an article now and then, but we have plenty of writers. Is there anything else?”

  Angry and embarrassed, he scanned their faces in turn. After a moment’s hesitation he mentioned some other minor skills he had picked up along the way: maintenance, repairs, lockpicking, even cooking. It was all greeted with barely disguised contempt.

  Zosia cocked her head to the side as if wondering what sort of game he was playing, but she did not question him or his choice of offerings.

  Tadek, however, did. “Isn’t there anything you can do that we can use?” he asked with ill-humored impatience. Then with a practiced air of frivolity he added, “After all, we don’t have any German camp commanders who need servicing.”

  There were one or two grunts of amusement. Peter stifled his initial reaction of stunned hurt and searched for a quick response. How long had Tadek waited to drop that little gem? With so little warning, all Peter could manage was to maintain a façade of composure and reply quietly, “We all do what we must.”

  “A real man would have died first.”

  “Indeed. But all the good men have been killed.” Peter paused significantly to let the meaning of his words sink in. Zosia had told him, in strict confidence, about a sabotage mission from which Tadek alone had returned. Years hadpassed, but no one, especially Tadek, had forgotten. Smiling slightly Peter added unnecessarily, “So, how are you still alive, Tadek?”

  Tadek slowly rose to his feet, enraged.

  Peter stood to meet him.

  “Stop this nonsense!” Zosia interjected angrily, glaring furiously first at Tadek, then at Peter. She turned to Tadek and said something to him in Polish that caused him to sit back down looking somewhat abashed. Then she turned to Peter and hissed in English, “I told you that in confidence! How dare you betray my trust!”

  “I’m sorry, Zosia, I wasn’t prepared for what he said.”

  “Well, since you’re so keen to betray my confidence, maybe you should know the whole story,” Zosia spat, still using English.“He did it to try and save his wife from a military brothel!”

  Peter sat back down, feeling extremely foolish. His only consolation was that Tadek looked even more sheepish. Zosia continued in German, “We don’t have the resources to fight both the Germans and each other! Now, let’s get back to business like civilized people.”

  Katerina nodded her agreement. “Peter, tell us if there is anything else you might be able to do. Our needs are great, and although another person is always welcome, our resources are very limited. You have to contribute if you are to stay.” She gestured around. “As you can see, we have no windows here to clean. Is there any skill, or even interest, that you can offer that we can develop?”

  Peter grimaced; he had held his most important and well-developed skill in reserve. He had spent his life being trained for it, yet he hesitated to mention it to the committee, partly out of fear that if they scoffed at it, he would have nothing more to offer, partly because it brought back such strong and painful memories of his time with Allison and his very last years in the Underground. But as he saw the row of faces looking questioningly at him, some hopeful, some full of disdain, he was forced to offer up his last hope.

  “I know something about decoding. You know, cryptanalysis.”

  The sudden look of interest on the faces of the Council was rewarding. “But my knowledge is old, almost certainly out-of-date,” he added, quick to point out the disadvantages before anyone else did.

  “But you know the basics?” Katerina pressed.

  “Oh, yes, I know the basics,” he replied, thinking of some of the idiotic things he had learned. Katerina would surely h
ave opined that his time could have been better spent with a rifle.

  “Were you good at it?” Hania asked.

  “I suppose. But it was a long time ago.”

  “Still, you do remember things, don’t you?” Konrad insisted.

  “Yes. I guess so.”

  “And you could pick up on new techniques and knowledge quite quickly?”

  “I don’t see why not. If someone gave me the information, I could study it certainly.”

  “Good. I think we have a job for him. Don’t you agree?” The speaker was the older, balding Council member named Tomasz, whom everybody called Tomek. He was the one who had initially voted against Peter—it was funny how Peter never failed to remember what their votes had been—but had switched rather easily when pressed.

  Tadek scowled at Peter and cleared his throat to get the Council’s attention. “I hate to interrupt this little festival with something so tedious as a rational thought, but before we rashly take yet another idiotic decision, I think he should prove his skills. Otherwise, we might waste a lot of time and effort on him.”

  “How would we do that?” Marysia inquired.

  “Let him decipher some coded documents. We have some stuff from years ago—certainly we could find something for him to look at. Something outdated—you know, at his skill level,” Tadek sneered.

  “What would that prove?” Zosia asked, clearly annoyed.

  “It would prove he’s not lying to us now. That he’s not just buying time to work some mischief. If we set him to learning current skills and decoding stuff, he could be here for years before we’d see a result—or the lack of one.”

  Zosia began to object, but Peter interjected, “I don’t mind. I’d like to see what I can do. It’s been a long time and a lot has happened since then.”

  Tadek smiled with a great deal of self-satisfaction. Zosia glared at Peter for preempting her defense of him.