“Your new guest,” she said casually, taking a slice of white cheese off the flat of the knife blade, “he must have taken breakfast to his room.”
Iulu’s brow furrowed. “Breakfast? He didn’t have any breakfast here. But many travelers bring their own food with them.”
Magda frowned. Why had he said he was going to see Lidia about breakfast? An excuse to get away?
“Tell me, Iuliu…You seemed to have calmed down since last night. What upset you so about this Glenn when he arrived?”
“It was nothing.”
“Iuliu, you were trembling! I’d like to know why, especially since my room is across the hall from his. I deserve to know if you think he’s dangerous.”
The innkeeper concentrated hard on slicing the cheese. “You will think me a fool.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Very well.” He put down the knife and spoke in a conspiratorial tone. “When I was a boy my father ran the inn and, like me, paid the workers in the keep. There came a time when some of the gold that had been delivered was missing—stolen, my father said—and he could not pay the keep workers their full amount. The same thing happened after the next delivery; some of the money disappeared. Then one night a stranger came and began beating my father, punching him, hurling him about the room as if he were made of straw, telling him to find the money. ‘Find the money! Find the money!’” He puffed out his already ample cheeks. “My father, I am ashamed to say, found the money. He had taken some and hidden it. The stranger was furious. Never have I seen such wrath in a man. He began beating and kicking my father again, leaving him with two broken arms.”
“But what does this have to do—”
“You must understand,” Iuliu said, leaning forward and lowering his voice even further, “that my father was an honest man and that the turn of the century was a terrible time for this region. He only kept a little of the gold as a means of being certain that we would eat during the coming winter. He would have paid it back when times were better. It was the only dishonest thing he had done in an otherwise good and upright—”
“Iuliu!” Magda said, finally halting the flow of words. “What has this to do with the man upstairs?”
“They look the same, Domnisoara. I was only ten years old at the time, but I saw the man who beat my father. I will never forget him. He had red hair and looked so very much like this man. But”—he laughed softly—“the man who beat my father was perhaps in his early thirties, just like this man, and that was forty years ago. They couldn’t be the same. But in the candlelight last night, I—I thought he had come to beat me too.”
Magda raised her eyebrows questioningly, and he hurried to explain.
“Not that there’s any gold missing now, of course. It’s just that the workers have not been allowed to enter the keep to do their work and I’ve been paying them anyway. Never let it be said that I kept any of the gold for myself. Never!”
“Of course not, Iuliu.” She rose, taking another slice of cheese with her. “I think I’ll go upstairs and rest awhile.”
He smiled and nodded. “Supper will be at six.”
Magda climbed the stairs quickly, but found herself slowing as she passed Glenn’s door, her eyes drawing her head to the right and lingering there. She wondered what he was doing in there, or if he was there at all.
Her room was stuffy, so she left the door open to allow the breeze from the window to pass through. The porcelain water pitcher on her dresser had been filled. She poured some of the cool water into the bowl beside it and splashed her face. She was exhausted but knew sleep was impossible…too many thoughts swirling in her head to allow her to rest just yet.
A high-pitched chorus of cheeps drew her to the window. Amid the budding branches of the tree that grew next to the north wall of the inn sat a bird’s nest. She could see four tiny chicks, their heads all eyes and gaping mouth, straining their scrawny necks upward for a piece of whatever the mother bird was feeding them. Magda knew nothing about birds. This one was gray with black markings along its wings. Had she been home in Bucharest she might have looked it up. But with all that had been happening, she found she couldn’t care less.
Tense, restless, she wandered about the tiny room. She checked the flashlight she had brought with her. It still worked. Good. She would need it tonight. On her way back from the keep, she had reached a decision.
Her eyes fell on the mandolin propped in the corner by the window. She picked it up, seated herself on the bed and began to play. Tentatively at first, adjusting the tuning as she plucked out a simple melody, then with greater ease and fluidity as she relaxed into the instrument, segueing from one folk tune to another. As with many a proficient amateur, she achieved a form of transport with her instrument, fixing her eyes on a point in space, her hands playing by touch, humming inwardly as she jumped from song to song. Tensions eased away, replaced by an inner tranquillity. She played on, unaware of time.
A hint of movement at her open door jarred her back to reality. It was Glenn.
“You’re very good,” he said from the doorway.
She was glad it was he, glad he was smiling at her, and glad he had found pleasure in her playing.
She smiled shyly. “Not so good. I’ve gotten careless.”
“Maybe. But the range of your repertoire is wonderful. I know of only one other person who can play so many songs with such accuracy.”
“Who?”
“Me.”
There it was again: smugness. Or was he just teasing her? Magda decided to call his bluff. She held out the mandolin.
“Prove it.”
Grinning, Glenn stepped into the room, pulled the three-legged stool over to the bed, seated himself, and reached for the mandolin. After making a show of “properly” tuning the instrument, he began to play.
Magda listened in awe. For such a big man with such large hands, his touch on the mandolin was astonishingly delicate. He was obviously showing off, playing many of the same tunes but in a more intricate style. She studied him. She liked the way his blue shirt stretched across the width of his shoulders. His sleeves were rolled back to the elbows, and she watched the play of the muscles and tendons under the skin of his forearms as he worked the mandolin. There were scars on those arms, crisscrossing the wrists and trailing up to the point where the shirt hid the rest of him. She wanted to ask him about those scars but decided it was too personal a question.
However, she could certainly question him about how he played some of the songs.
“You played the last one wrong,” she told him.
“Which one?”
“I call it ‘The Bricklayer’s Lady.’ I know the lyrics vary from place to place, but the melody is always the same.”
“Not always,” Glenn said. “This was how it was originally played.”
“How can you be so sure?” That irritating smugness again.
“Because the village lauter who taught me was ancient when we met, and she’s now been dead many years.”
“What village?” Magda felt indignation touch her. This was her area of expertise. Who was he to correct her?
“Kranich—near Suceava.”
“Oh…Moldavian. That might explain the difference.” She glanced up and caught him staring at her.
“Lonely without your father?”
Magda thought about that. She had missed Papa sorely at first and had felt at a loss as to what to do with herself without him. But at the moment she was very content to be sitting here with Glenn, listening to him play, and yes, even arguing with him. She never should have allowed him in her room, even with the door open, but he made her feel safe. And she liked his looks, especially his blue eyes, even though he seemed to be a master at preventing her from reading much in them.
“Yes,” she said. “And no.”
He laughed. “A straightforward answer—two of them!”
A silence grew between them, and Magda became aware that Glenn was very much a man, a long-boned ma
n with flesh packed tightly to those bones. He had an aura of maleness about him that she had never noticed in anyone else. It had escaped her last night and this morning, but here in this tiny room it filled all the empty spaces. It caressed her, making her feel strange and special. A primitive sensation. She had heard of animal magnetism…was that what she was experiencing now in his presence? Or was it just that he seemed so alive? He fairly bristled with vitality.
“You have a husband?” he asked, his gaze resting on the gold band on her right ring finger—her mother’s wedding band.
“No.”
“A lover then?”
“Of course not.”
“Why not?”
“Because…”
Magda hesitated. She didn’t dare tell him that except in her dreams she had given up on the possibility of life with a man. All the good men she had met in the past few years were married, and the unmarried ones would remain so for reasons of their own or because no self-respecting woman would have them. But certainly all the men she had ever met were stooped and pallid things compared with the one who sat across from her now.
“Because I’m beyond the age when that sort of thing has any importance!” she said finally.
“You’re a mere babe!”
“And you? Are you married?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Have you been?”
“Many times.”
“Play another song!” Magda said in exasperation. Glenn seemed to prefer teasing to giving her straight answers.
But after a while the playing stopped and the talking began. Their conversation ranged over a wide array of topics, but always as they related to her. Magda found herself talking about everything that interested her, starting with music and with the Gypsies and Romanian rural folk who were the source of the music she loved, and on to her hopes and dreams and opinions.
The words trickled out fitfully at first, but swelled to a steady stream as Glenn encouraged her to go on. For one of the few times in her life, Magda was doing all the talking. And Glenn listened. He seemed genuinely interested in whatever she had to say, unlike so many other men who would listen only as far as the first opportunity to turn the conversation to themselves. Glenn kept turning the talk away from himself and back toward her.
Hours slipped by, until shadows began darkening the inn. Magda yawned.
“Excuse me,” she said, “I think I’m boring myself. Enough of me. What about you? Where are you from?”
Glenn shrugged. “I grew up all over western Europe, but I guess you could say I’m British.”
“You speak Romanian exceptionally well—almost like a native.”
“I’ve visited often, even lived with some Romanian families here and there.”
“But as a British subject, aren’t you taking a chance being in Romania? Especially with the Nazis so close?”
Glenn hesitated. “Actually, I have no citizenship anywhere. I have papers from various countries proclaiming my citizenship, but I have no country. In these mountains, one doesn’t need a country.”
A man without a country? Magda had never heard of such a thing. To whom did he owe allegiance?
“Be careful. There aren’t too many red-haired Romanians.”
“True.” He smiled and ran a hand through his hair. “But the Germans are in the keep and the Iron Guard stays out of the mountains if it knows what’s good for it. I’ll keep to myself while I’m here, and I shouldn’t be here that long.”
Magda felt a stab of disappointment—she liked having him around.
“How long?” She felt she had asked the question too quickly, but it couldn’t be helped. She wanted to know.
“Long enough for a last visit before Germany and Romania declare war on Russia.”
“That’s not—”
“It’s inevitable. And soon.” He rose from the stool.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to let you rest. You need it.”
Glenn leaned forward and pressed the mandolin back into her hands. For a moment their fingers touched and Magda felt a sensation like an electric shock, jolting her, making her tingle all over. But she did not pull her hand away…oh, no…because that would make the feeling stop, would halt the delicious warmth spreading throughout her body and down along her legs.
She could see that Glenn felt it, too, in his own way.
Then he broke contact and retreated to the door. The feeling ebbed, leaving her a trifle weak. Magda wanted to stop Glenn, to grasp his hand and tell him to stay. But she could not imagine herself doing such a thing and was shocked that she even wanted to. Uncertainty held her back, too. The emotions and sensations boiling within were new to her. How would she control them?
As the door closed behind him, she felt the warmth fade away, replaced by a hollow space deep within. She sat quietly for a few moments, and then told herself that it was probably all for the best that he had left her alone now. She needed sleep; she needed to be rested and fully alert later on.
For she had decided that Papa would not face Molasar alone tonight.
TWENTY-ONE
THE KEEP
Thursday, 1 May
1722 hours
Captain Woermann sat alone in his room. He had watched the shadows grow long across the keep until the sun slipped out of sight. His uneasiness had grown with them. The shadows shouldn’t have disturbed him. After all, for two nights in a row there had been no deaths, and he saw no reason why tonight should be different. Yet he had this sense of foreboding.
The morale of the men had improved immensely. They had begun to act and feel like victors again. He could see it in their eyes, in their faces. They had been threatened, a few had died, but they had persisted and were still in command of the keep. With the girl out of sight, and with none of their fellows newly dead, a tacit truce had formed between the men in gray uniforms and those in black. They didn’t mingle, but there was a new sense of comradeship—they had all triumphed.
Woermann found himself incapable of sharing their optimism.
He looked over to his painting. All desire to do further work on it had fled, and he had no wish to start another. He could not find enough ambition to get out his pigments and blot out the shadow of the hanging corpse. His attention centered now on that shadow. Every time he looked it appeared more distinct. The shape looked darker today, and the head seemed to have more definition. He shook himself and looked away. Nonsense.
No…not quite nonsense. Something foul was still afoot in the keep. No deaths for two nights, true, but the keep had not changed. The evil had not gone away, it was merely…resting.
Resting? Was that the right word? Not really. Holding back was better. It certainly had not gone away. The walls still pressed in on him; the air continued to feel heavy and laden with menace. The men could slap one another on the back and talk one another out of it. But Woermann could not. He had only to look at his tainted painting and he knew with leaden certainty that there had been no real end to the killings, merely a pause, one that might last for days or end tonight.
Nothing had been overcome or driven out. Death was still here, waiting, ready to strike again when the occasion suited it.
He straightened his shoulders to ward off a growing chill. Something was going to happen soon. He could feel it in the core of his spine.
One more night…just give me one more night.
If death held off until tomorrow morning, Kaempffer would depart for Ploiesti. After that, Woermann could again make his own rules—without the SS. And he could move his men out of the keep immediately should trouble start again.
Kaempffer…he wondered what dear sweet Erich was doing. He hadn’t seen him all afternoon.
SS-Sturmbannführer Kaempffer sat hunched over the Ploiesti rail map spread out before him on his cot. Daylight was fading fast and his eyes ached from straining at the tiny interconnecting lines. Better to quit now than try to continue under one of the harsh electric bulbs.
>
Straightening, he rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. At least the day had not been a total loss. The new map of the rail nexus had yielded some useful information. He would be starting from scratch with the Romanians. Everything in the construction of the camp would be left to him, even choice of the site. He thought he had found a good one in a row of old warehouses on the eastern edge of the nexus. If they were not in use or not being put to any important use, they could act as the seed of the Ploiesti camp. Wire fences could be strung within a matter of days, and then the Iron Guard could get about the business of collecting Jews.
Kaempffer ached to get started. He would let the Iron Guard gather up the first “guests” in whatever haphazard fashion they wished while he oversaw the design of the physical plant. Once that was underway he would devote more of his time to teaching the Romanians the SS’s proven methods of corralling undesirables.
Folding the map, he found his thoughts turning to the immense profits to be earned from the camp, and of ways to keep most of those profits for himself. Confiscate the prisoners’ rings, watches, and jewelry immediately; gold teeth and the women’s hair could be taken later. Commandants in Germany and in Poland were all becoming rich. Kaempffer saw no reason why he should be an exception.
And more would come. In the near future, after he got the camp running like a well-oiled machine, there were certain to be opportunities to rent out some of the healthier inmates to Romanian industry. A growing practice at other camps, and very profitable. He might well be able to hire out large numbers of inmates, especially with Operation Barbarossa soon to be launched. The Romanian Army would be invading Russia along with the Wehrmacht, draining off much of the country’s able-bodied work force. Yes, the factories would be eager for laborers. Their pay, of course, would go to the camp commandant.
He knew the tricks. Hoess had taught him well at Auschwitz. It was not often that a man was given an opportunity to serve his country, to improve the genetic balance of the human race, and to enrich himself all at once. He was a lucky man…
The Complete Adversary Cycle: The Keep, the Tomb, the Touch, Reborn, Reprisal, Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack) Page 22