The Children's War

by Stroyar, J. N.

  “What’s so funny?” Ryszard asked as he poured himself a whiskey. “Do you want one?”

  “I should be getting that. Yeah, I’d like one.”

  Ryszard handed him the drink, and Peter explained the source of his amusement. He continued paging through the book, and his eyes landed on some fee list for several years prior. “What about these? Is this what I cost?”

  Ryszard scanned the page.“More or less.”

  “One hundred thousand NRM,” Peter read the appropriate category with something like dismay. There it was, his price, published in a book. “What do you make?”

  “Annually, I have a base salary of about a million.”

  “Base? What, do you earn overtime?”

  Ryszard laughed. “You could call it that.”

  “So my lifetime labor cost one-tenth of a year’s base salary?”

  “Well, yes, but I am well paid. A very well-paid laborer only makes about a hundred grand.”

  “So even a worker could afford to buy me on one year’s salary?” Peter felt a sudden shock of . . . what was it? Bitterness that his price was so low? Wasn’t that a ridiculous thing to feel outraged about?

  “No, a worker could never afford you,” Ryszard answered. “Those are the official fees involved in transferring the contract from the state to a private individual. They could even be waived altogether. Where the money comes into the picture is getting that contract transferred in the first place. You have to have some political muscle, or an overriding social need or a really good bribe.”

  “What sort of bribe?”

  “Varies with availability. Could be up to a million, usually much lower. In your case, I’d guess Karl didn’t pay a pfennig—just hounded the Reusches into signing you over.” Ryszard paused, then added with unnecessary callousness, “I would guess your birthrights were sold for less than a pack of cigarettes.”

  Peter ignored the comparison. “And the Reusches?”

  “I would guess they were being bought off to keep quiet about their son’s death. They probably paid a minimal amount and maybe even had the fees waived.”

  Peter vaguely remembered something about “in lieu of the usual fees . . .” Why, he wondered stupidly, did he feel so insulted?

  “You almost certainly went cheap,” Ryszard said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “You were a test case, so to speak. That reeducation bit had only just been introduced, and placing you with a family was risky. I had you pegged for a powerful family—”

  “You?”

  Ryszard laughed. “Took me a while to recall the event, but after I perused your file—”

  “You?”

  “Yes, I arranged your release. I thought you’d make trouble so I suggested a politically powerful family as your placement.”

  “ You were responsible for what I went through?”

  “No, not me. I was just on an inspection tour.”

  “Who was, then? What’s his name?”

  Ryszard shook his head.

  “What’s his name!”

  “No need to thank me for saving your life; it was, after all, just a joke,” Ryszard said pointedly. “In any case, they obviously did not feel comfortable about letting you out to someone important. The Reusches were nobodies. Maybe they deliberately chose someone they didn’t care about, so if you slit their throats in the middle of the night, it’d be no great loss.”

  Peter breathed deeply trying to control his fury. There was no point in asking Ryszard again, so instead he asked, “So how did I end up with the Vogels? Wasn’t he valuable?”

  “Depends on who you ask. But I think he just wanted someone on the cheap, and there you were, owned by politically weak people who had committed a minor crime. Plus, by then, I guess you had proven yourself, if he even bothered to take such things into account. He is, about certain things, rather thick.”

  So am I, Peter thought. He took a moment to swallow all the information Ryszard had so casually passed along. Ryszard knew who had tortured him, Ryszard had organized his release, Ryszard had saved his life. As a joke. A joke. Peter blinked away the bitterness he felt and to distract himself scanned through a few more pages. On one was a list of regulations for subletting workers to industry, and it prompted him to ask,“How much do you think I earned for Karl in that factory job?”

  “Did they feed you?”

  “No.”

  “Full day?”

  “No, just eight hours.”

  “Seven days a week?”

  “Yes.” Day in and day out without a break. Work at home all day, work in that god-awful factory all night. Breathe those foul fumes, walk home barely able to put one foot in front of the other. Two hours of sleep, naps whenever Frau Vogel wasn’t looking. God, it had nearly killed him.

  “It has gone up, but I’d guess at the time you probably pulled in about three thousand a month.”

  “Three thousand?” Peter could not believe his ears. “One hundred per day?”

  “Yeah, that’d be my guess. I suppose I could ask him, but”—Ryszard grinned—“for some reason he doesn’t enjoy talking about you—except of course to grumble.”

  “A pack of cigarettes per day,” Peter translated, using Ryszard’s scale. “They nearly killed me for a fucking pack of cigarettes a day.”

  “Which he no doubt smoked without thought.”

  “How much are rations?”

  “For you, they’d have been . . .” Ryszard looked pensive. “What class of rations did you have?”

  “I didn’t realize there were classes.”

  “Oh, yeah, there are. What color was your card?”

  “Blue.”

  Ryszard laughed. “The cheapest! I could have guessed. Those run about two hundred a month. So you bought your food with two days’ work. Add another day for clothing and the rest was pure profit.”

  “It nearly killed me,” Peter said rather sadly. He did not expect Ryszard to understand and he had not meant to say it out loud.

  “How so? Was it the chemicals?”

  “Partly. But mostly it was that I was expected to continue to do everything at home as well. I was getting two hours of regular sleep then.”

  “Well, in any case, it couldn’t have lasted more than a week or two. Still, I suppose two weeks with such a schedule would be devastating.”

  “Two weeks! Try”—Peter counted silently—“nearly five months!”

  “What? Five months!” Ryszard laughed. “I’m amazed he got away with it for that long!”

  “Why not? I wasn’t dead; that seemed to be the only criterion,” Peter answered bitterly.

  “No, no! It’s against the rules, look for yourself.” Ryszard pointed at the book. “If anyone had caught him pulling that sort of stunt, Karl could have lost you back to the state. You weren’t supposed to be used for personal profit; after all, if it’s factory work they wanted you to do, it’s the state that should have made the profit.”

  Peter felt a sudden chill.

  “But, of course, you didn’t know that,” Ryszard said, interpreting Peter’s expression.

  Peter shook his head.

  “He didn’t either. Not until I told him,” Ryszard guessed. “I think, if I remember-correctly, he had you quit that very night.”

  “You told him?”

  Ryszard grinned. “Yes. Seems I saved your life a second time.”

  Peter nodded numbly.

  “Though almost too late, judging from how you looked then. You seemed pretty shattered.” Ryszard paused as if remembering, then asked, “You don’t even remember my visit there, do you?”

  Peter shook his head, mouthing the word no.

  “And it was all unnecessary. Illegal even,” Ryszard added.

  That was true, and the fact he had suffered so unnecessarily was indeed a bitter-pill, but even more so was the knowledge that he had been grovelingly grateful-to Karl for having finally ordered him to quit. He felt sick at the memory of how he had reacted to
Karl’s alleged mercy. It had not been mercy at all!

  “Not that I expect gratitude, or anything,” Ryszard said jokingly.

  Peter could not even respond; he had an urge to vomit.

  “Are you all right?”

  Peter shook his head as he stared at the smooth, pale, damaged skin of his hands.“No,” he breathed.

  Ryszard did not know what to do with that answer, so he left his brother-inlaw alone with his thoughts while he went to unpack his briefcase and change out of his suit.

  “Why the gloomy look?” Zosia asked as she walked into the room several minutes later.

  Peter jerked his head in the direction of the regulations. As Zosia began to peruse it, Joanna burst into the room.“Hi, Ma! Hi, Dad!” She bounced across the room, giggling the entire way, and at the last bounce threw herself up and ontoPeter’s lap and wrapped her arms around him to hug him while still giggling. He joined in her laughter and stood up while holding her so that he could spin her around before dropping her back down to continue her bouncing. She bounced around the room one more time, then stopped and announced breathlessly, “Genia wants to show me the park. Can I go with her?”

  “Sure, if you promise not to fool around, not even a tiny bit,” Zosia answered, trying to maintain a stern air.

  “I will, Ma.”

  “This is serious!” Zosia emphasized. “Not one wrong word. Remember everything I’ve told you and do everything I’ve taught you. Do you promise?”

  “Of course!” Joanna sounded offended at the repetition.

  “And only if Genia’s mother thinks it’s okay,” Zosia added as an afterthought.

  “She’s napping,” Peter interjected worriedly.

  “Oh, I guess we shouldn’t wake her. What do you think about them going out alone? You know the turf better than me.”

  “It’s not usually done that way. Besides I’d feel a lot better if one of us went along.”

  “That means me,” Zosia sighed.

  “Why can’t Dad come?” Joanna whined.

  Zosia grimaced slightly.“Nice to know I’m so welcome!”

  Joanna threw her arms around her mother’s thighs and said, “I meant both of you!”

  “I might be recognized by someone in the neighborhood, sweetie,” Peter answered, “so, I’m afraid I’m housebound.”

  “What would they do?” Joanna asked, suddenly serious.

  “They’d kill me,” Peter responded just as seriously.

  Joanna’s face dropped, but then she remembered her original request and said, “So we can go?”

  “Yes, you and Genia get ready while I get my papers together,” Zosia answered.

  Feeling lonely and abandoned, Peter watched out the window as Zosia walked with the two girls in the direction of the park. As he stood there, he absently swept his fingers across the windowsill. They came away covered in dust, and he shuddered with the knowledge of what would have happened if Elspeth had ever discovered such an accumulation.

  49

  “SO YOU THINK Uwe is depressed and that’s what’s prolonging his illness? Is such a thing possible?”

  “Yes, gnädige Frau. The mind is very powerful,” Peter answered, wondering if a cigarette was possible.

  Elspeth nodded to herself. “Interesting. I hadn’t really thought of things that way.” She looked at him and smiled kindly. “It was rather nice today, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it was,” he agreed without having to lie. He glanced at the time and decided not to try for the cigarette today. Maybe next time. He climbed out of the bed and pulled on his clothing. “I guess I should get back to work.”

  Elspeth glanced at the little clock on the bedside table and smiled provocatively. “There’s plenty of time, come back to bed.”

  He hesitated to answer as he contemplated how he could say no without offending her.

  “Oh, don’t give me that miserable look!” she snapped, exasperated.

  It was too late, he would never be able to summon up enough enthusiasm to make up for his faux pas. “Forgive me, gnädige Frau, but I have so much work that must be done . . .”

  “Oh, I don’t know why I expect any response from you. You have no appreciation of what I do for you . . .” He recognized the beginning of a tirade and there was nothing to do but wait it out. Though it was no worse than usual, he felt inexplicably hurt by her words, but he did nothing, said nothing, until she was finished, at which point he apologized and asked permission to leave to return to his work.

  “. . . you must have so many wonderful stories to tell about her!” Kasia’s voice floated into his perception.

  He peered through the gap between the curtain and the window frame into the garden below and watched the two women as they sat there sipping their tea and eating their tiny sandwiches.

  Elspeth picked a bit of lettuce out of her teeth, then motioned for Zosia to refill her teacup before saying, “We’ve just changed caretakers, so I’m afraid I haven’t heard anything amusing recently.”

  Bad enough that Elspeth had not brought Magdalena with her, despite an explicit invitation to do so, but now Kasia couldn’t even wring a story out of her! He turned away to look into the darkened bedroom and sighed his exasperation.

  “Oh, did you have trouble with the last one?” Kasia asked.

  “No, she was just a schoolgirl on a month’s course. Like the others. I’m afraid Magdalena hasn’t really taken to any of them much.”

  “Maybe she’d like more interaction with her mother, or her father,” Kasia risked saying.

  Elspeth’s face darkened for a moment. Her thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. Then she smiled, sipped her tea, and shrugged. “Frankly, my husband never took much interest in the girls. And as for me, well, just between us, I’m a bit fed up with children.”

  “I understand,” Kasia murmured, and nodded her head. “I understand.”

  The obvious truth came out in bits and pieces in the conversation. The child was an irrelevancy. She had served her purpose by being born; she was a number—number eight, a quota fulfilled. Peter stared down at Elspeth’s dark rootswith growing dismay. His poor little Magdalena, whom he did not even know. She was fated to be an extra mouth to feed, a burden on the family, a nonson. He closed his eyes and sighed heavily. How could Elspeth feel so cold toward her own child? Was she mad? And if so, how had he ever managed to maintain his sanity in her household?

  Maybe he hadn’t. Could a sane man have accepted the verbal and physical abuse she meted out one minute and make love to her the next?

  “. . . so you were able to get another servant besides the nannies?” Kasia was saying.

  “Oh, yes, I wasn’t going to try and manage all on my own! That house, oh, there’s just so much to do!”

  “I know.” Kasia nodded agreeably. “It’s so hard to get the help to do anything right. I thought, though, you would have had trouble given, er, that little incident?”

  Elspeth blushed.“No, no problem. We, well, it was obvious that it was not our fault and that his training was defective. We had problems—mind you, nothing serious, but still—we had problems with him from the first.”

  “Oh, really?” Kasia exuded sympathy.

  “Yes, terrible. He was an asocial. Never fit in, never showed proper respect.” Elspeth shook her head. Her words sounded almost memorized and did not match either her tone or expression. To Peter her tone sounded as though she felt betrayed; her expression was one of poignant, perhaps even fond, memories. It sickened him, and he placed his head on his arms on the windowsill and listened to the rest of the conversation without looking at her again.

  Elspeth finally left, and Zosia came to the bedroom door, pushed it open, and slipped inside. She stood silently contemplating him in the dim light, then she asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” he answered, resigned to hearing a diatribe about his cowardice. With her? How could he? She was even worse than expected. Such a Naziette! Not even pretty. And so on.

/>   “You look . . . are you sure you’re okay?” Zosia asked as she came to stand by him.

  He nodded. “I guess I forgot how much I hated her. Or maybe I never really realized it at the time.”

  “I’m sorry she didn’t bring the baby,” Zosia soothed as she stroked his hair. Without meaning to, he pulled his head away, then realizing what he had done, he turned his attention to her. She was so loving, how could he possibly shy away from her? He stood and reached toward her and they kissed passionately. He would make it up to her, make amends for that moment of defensiveness, and besides, it would feel good to purge the emotions of the afternoon. They continued to kiss and embrace and stroke each other, moving slowly toward the bed.

  They undressed each other, rolled onto the bed together, and continued their passionate kissing. He began kissing her body, moving down the smooth skin tonibble at her breasts, to run his tongue over her hardened nipples. He moved downward kissing her stomach, stroking between her legs with his hands, caressing the curves of her waist with his lips, exciting her to groans of expectation.

  When she seemed thoroughly excited, he began to raise himself, but she stopped him. “Go down on me,” she pleaded as her hands convulsively stroked his face. “You’ve never done that.” Ever so gently she guided his face farther down.

  He let her hands guide him so she would not recognize his hesitation. He bent his head toward her, but stopped. “I’d rather not,” he said simply, and moved upward in the bed.

  “Oh, why not?” she groaned with disappointment. “Really, we’ve never . . . I just wanted to try it with you.”

  “Please. No.” He kissed her on the lips.

  Something in his tone woke her out of her dreamlike state. She opened her eyes and stared at him. “That woman!” she accused. His silence was the only acknowledgment she needed. She rolled onto her side putting her back toward him. He raised himself up and reached for her, but she pushed his hand away.