I ran into the kitchen, the abandoned brush clenched in my fist. Marta jumped, clutching the dishtowel to her breast. I hurled the wooden brush at the small window over the sink, but its falling glass fragments were soundless beneath my rage. I grabbed the china and crystal she'd been drying and shattered them against the wall. Marta stumbled to the table, twisting, untwisting, twisting the white dishtowel. It wasn't enough. I tipped over the table, with its coffee cups and dessert plates. I opened one of the cupboards: the wedding china. I shoved out an entire shelf. That made Marta cry out. But still it wasn't enough. It was never enough. I stormed outside, to be free of her, with her tears, her scolding, her complaints. I had to get outside, to get away from the place, to get away from women, with their incessant demands.
But no matter how many places I went, I couldn't get away from the girl. Not from her. Of course, I couldn't find her either. Until I closed my eyes at night. Then the girl was there. I called out to her, but she couldn't hear me. I reached for her, and my hand passed right through her.
Every night, it was the same: I called and called, but the ship she was on drifted further and further from the shore. Away from me. I waded into the dark water. Calling. My legs were so heavy, and the water was brutally cold. My clothes dragged me deeper and deeper into the rough waves. The Dead Bodies That Line the Streets fell from my hands into the water. The Dead Bodies swelled, and became a raft. I threw myself onto the raft, and paddled out toward the sea.
I kept calling. Calling. I waved my arms. The girl stared out from the deck. I was right there. But she never saw me. I was so tired. And the water was getting colder. Deeper. It kept splashing into my eyes. Blinding me. I must've lost consciousness for a while, there on The Dead Bodies. From exhaustion. When I opened my eyes again, the ship was gone. She was gone.
Every time I woke, I was alone. Or with Marta. If she touched me or told me it was just a dream, I pushed her away. She couldn't possibly understand. Whenever I closed my eyes, the waves went over my head. Sometimes I forced myself to stay up all night, to keep the dreams away, to keep The Dead Bodies from dragging me under with them. I kept looking for the girl until the end, but I never found her.
GIRL FOUND
The telegram shook in my hands. I pulled over a chair and sat down. I looked back at the slip of paper in my hands.
GIRL FOUND
RENTING HOUSE FOR SUMMER
ADDRESS BELOW
MAY BE ALONE
GOES BY NAME RACHEL SARAH LEVI
WHAT NEXT?
Chapter Seven
"So I caught up with you at last," said a repulsive man as he stood beside my table in the diner. "You're one tough bird to keep up with."
"I beg your pardon."
"Let's cut the crap," he said, pushing aside my coffee cup as he seated himself. "I know who you are. Hey, Honey, another cup of coffee here. And bring a couple of doughnuts."
"I am not in the habit of dining with strangers," I said, folding my napkin and placing it on the table.
"Yeah, well, we both know what you're in the habit of, don't we?" he said.
His hand snapped out and pinned my wrist to the table. He moved his jacket aside, revealing a gun.
"Now, you be a good boy and sit there while I have my coffee and doughnuts," he said. "And we'll talk about the situation we got here. Man to man. Gentleman-like."
"Is this a separate check?" asked the waitress, staring at him.
"No. Put it on his tab. You're a nice-looking Honey-girl. What time do you get off?"
"Do you need anything else, sir?" she said to me, turning away from him.
"He needs lots of things, but you can't give them to him."
"No, thank you. Nothing else," I said.
She frowned at the man before she left.
"Now, here's the way I see it," he said, biting into the pastry, crumbs falling from his mouth to the table.
"No, here's the way I see it," I said. "We have not been introduced to each other and I have no wish to make your acquaintance. I have completed my meal, and I have no desire to hear anything you might have to say."
"Is that right, Mr. High-and-Mighty? Well, maybe you'd like me to blow a hole in your belly. Or maybe you'd like to hear about the reward out for you. Money. On your head. And you don't have to be alive for me to get it."
He smiled.
"I thought that might get you to sit back down," he said.
He emptied the sugar bowl into his coffee, and he slurped down the thickened liquid. When he bit the second pastry, its jam oozed onto his chin. His belly and the gun bulged beneath his jacket.
"What do you want?" I said.
"Now we're talking. What do you think I want?"
"I have no idea."
"Oh, come on, now, you're a smart man. A Commander and all. Guess."
"I am not in the habit of playing games. Tell me what you want."
"No, come on. Guess."
"Tell me."
"Come on, Commander. Guess," he said, smiling a gap-toothed smile.
"You want advice."
"Advice?"
"And that's fine because I have nothing for you except advice."
"Advice, he says. That's a good one. They didn't tell me you was funny, Commander."
"Don't call me that. Let me pass on something I learned..."
"Advice. That's a good one."
"Any lie told often enough becomes the truth."
"Truth?" he said, snorting with laughter, dribbling coffee onto his shirt. "This has nothing to do with truth."
He was wrong. It had everything to do with truth. There was nothing left in the world but the truth. And sometimes, I felt I'd been left behind to tell it.
"Do you want the truth?" said Dieter as we sat together in the back of my car, touring the camp. "You're a better man than Owl-eyes."
"What? Better than Heinrich? What are you talking about?"
"He came out last week, I told you that, and he decided he wanted to see how the killing was done."
"How the killing was done? Why? Are you doing something special?"
"No," he said, gazing out the window at the rows of inmates standing at attention for head-count. "Just shooting. The same as always. But he ordered me and my men to line up a hundred prisoners. Men and women."
"Women?"
"Yes. He wanted us to execute them. Right then. Right there."
"But you were only shooting them. Why would he want to see that?"
Dieter shrugged as the car paused to allow a line of inmates to pass. After one of the inmates fell, a guard released his dog and the animal pounced on the prisoner. I motioned the driver to continue. The driver tapped the horn; the guards and the dogs herded the remaining inmates to the side so the car could proceed. When we turned at the corner of the camp, Dieter rolled up his window.
"When the first shots were fired, and the victims collapsed, Heinrich got ill."
"No. Not Heinrich."
"He reeled."
"No."
"He almost fell to the ground before he pulled himself together."
"It was only a shooting."
"And then — listen to this — he screamed abuse at my firing squad."
"What?"
"Screamed at them. At me. For poor marksmanship."
"But you're the best there is. What did he mean, 'poor marksmanship'?"
"Some of the women were still alive. The bullets had merely wounded them."
"That's why he screamed at you?"
"As if we did it on purpose," said Dieter.
He was always telling us what was expected of us. How we should act, think, believe. How history would regard us as the Saviours of the German race. He said we were connected by more than our desires, by more than our hopes and our dreams. We were connected by blood.
"We will become the blood community. We are the bearers of the blood of the Aryan race. Pure blood runs in our veins, through our hearts. We must be swift like the greyhound. Tough like leather. Hard
like Krupp steel. Tough. Hard. Pure. Only the purest of the pure can act without hesitation. Only the purest of the pure can see the truth. Only the pure can act on truth."
"We act on principle. We oppose your truth," said the leader of the dirty, blood-stained group.
There were seven of them, dressed in rags, filthy and bloody. One of them could hardly stand on his own. A young boy was with them. So was a woman with short hair. She spat at me when I stood before her. My adjutant slapped her with the back of his hand.
"Where did you find them?" I said.
"In the woods outside the camp, Kommandant."
"Partisans," I said. "We can take care of partisans."
"They had weapons, sir. We lost a few of our men."
"How many?"
"At least three."
"No," said the dirty leader, in my language. "Four."
"Five," said the woman, and she raised her chin defiantly as she smiled.
"Did you find their hiding places?"
"Some."
"Weapons?"
"Only a few. But a lot of other supplies. Food. Bandages. Gasoline."
"Gasoline?"
"Yes, sir."
"Stolen from my camp."
"Of course stolen from your camp," said the leader. "From under your very nose."
"It was easy," said the boy.
"Too easy," said the woman.
Before she'd finished speaking, their dirty leader lunged forward, throwing himself onto me, his hands grabbing for my pistol, for my service dagger. The guards shouted as the force of his body threw me back against the desk. The woman shrieked when I bashed her leader's head, and again when my guards yanked him off me. My adjutant put his pistol against the partisan's head and pulled the trigger. The woman rushed forward, slapping at the two guards who tried to prevent her from taking the man in her arms. The other guards had their weapons trained on the remaining partisans. The boy clenched his fists, but no one else moved. I straightened my uniform. The woman looked up at me, the bloodied head of her leader held against her breasts.
"Our lives mean nothing unless we defeat you," she said.
"Then your lives mean nothing," said my adjutant.
"Shall I execute them, sir?" said the guard who'd brought them in.
"You get some rest."
"What about the prisoners, sir?"
"They'll be taken care of. You get some rest. You deserve it."
"Thank you, sir."
"Tomorrow you'll go out again. We'll rid the woods of these pests."
Two of the partisans picked up their slain leader, and the guards hurried them out of the office, into the camp's yard.
"Kommandant?" said my adjutant.
"I'm fine."
He looked down at the pool of red on the floor.
"I'll get the housekeeper," he said.
"Tell her to get the blood in the bathroom, too."
"There's blood in the bathroom, Kommandant?"
"It looks like blood. On the floor, near the sink. And tell her to put dry towels in. Every time I've tried to use one of the towels this week, it's been wet."
"I'll take care of it myself, Kommandant."
"Thank you, Josef. I can always count on you."
He walked toward the door.
"Josef."
He turned around.
"Good work," I said.
He nodded, with a sharp click of his heels.
"Tonight, we'll all get some rest," I said. "We'll all sleep easy.
"Max, you've got to get some rest," said Marta.
I put the damp cloth on Ilse's forehead. I sponged her small body with cloths soaked in alcohol.
"You can't stay up all night, Max."
"You've been with her all day, Marta."
"You're exhausted, Max. You work all day. You haven't slept in three nights. You can't make yourself ill, too. I need you. Hans needs you."
"The fever's still high."
"I'll stay with her now. You sleep."
"Nothing's doing any good."
"Max, get some rest. I'll be with her."
"It's the same as..."
"No, it's not. Don't even say that, Max."
"She's going to die."
"No, the doctor said it wasn't the same."
"He wasn't there. He couldn't know absolutely. What'll we do if we lose her?"
"Stop it, Max. I won't let you say it. I won't. It's not the same as the fever that..."
"Then it's this camp."
"What?" said Marta, taking the damp cloth from me. "What are you saying?"
"This camp. It's the camp. The camp's made her ill."
"The camp didn't make her ill."
"We'll have to go. Then she'll recover. We'll leave the camp."
"This camp is your life, Max."
"The polluted water. The fetid air. Those damned, diseased inmates. Coughing. Spitting. Dying everywhere. That's what it is."
"It's not the camp, Max," she said. "If it were the camp, we'd all be sick."
She put her arms around me and held me tightly. We both looked at Ilse: she was so pale, so small and helpless, lying there.
"She'll be all right, Max. We've got to believe that. And Hans won't get ill. You'll see. Pray, Max. God won't abandon us now."
"You pray for me, Marta. I don't know how."
Even if I had prayed, it wouldn't have made any difference. Nothing would have changed. I was alone. I was always alone, but sometimes it was worse than others. When Marta took the children and went to visit her sister in Hamburg, I was alone in the house. In the spring. I took the girl's arm and pulled her to the stairs. She looked wildly about. At each step she resisted, but I tugged her upward, into the house proper. We passed the kitchen and the dining room. Everything was quiet. Empty.
The hall clock was louder than our steps. The girl glanced around constantly as I led her to the main staircase. She stopped, putting her hand on the banister, holding tight. She looked at the front door, toward the living room, up the stairs. I pulled at her.
With each step, her body became heavier, dragging more and more against me. In the upstairs hall, I had to take hold of both of her wrists. She didn't even walk. Her feet slid on the polished wood floor. Though she was slight, my heart was pounding by the time we reached the bedroom. I opened the door.
She shook her head. I had to catch her wrist again to prevent her flight back down the stairs. I didn't even try to say anything: there was no translator. I just kept pulling at her until she was in the room.
How frail she looked. How grey and frail against the white curtains and bedspread. Her arms hugged themselves tightly to her body as she stood there, her head bent, looking at me like that. I closed the door and stood there, leaning against it. She kept looking at me, with her head bent. There was no need to lock the door. We were alone. She stepped back, until the bed stopped her. There was no one but us, and I wanted her heart to pound, like mine. I unbuckled my holster.
My heart was racing. I was alone in the house. Marta was gone. I couldn't find her anywhere. I went outside. Ilse was with Nanny in the garden. Ilse clapped her hands and bounced up and down when she saw me. I lifted her up and kissed her cheek. Nanny hadn't seen Marta. I spoke to our neighbor, Mrs. Green. I spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Stein. No one had seen her.
"Marta? Marta?"
I came back to the house. My heart pounded as I ran up the stairs. Bathroom: empty. Our bedroom: empty. Ilse's bedroom: empty. I found Marta in the nursery, sitting in the rocking chair. She didn't move when I came in.
"Marta, I've been so worried. I've been looking everywhere for you."
She held the christening gown in her hands: its lace had yellowed. When I touched her arm, she looked up at me. Her lashes and cheeks were wet.
"Marta, what is it?"
"I don't think I can go through this again, Max."
"Go through what? What's happened?"
"I'm not strong enough. I'm not as strong as you think I am."
"W
hat are you talking about?"
"I'm pregnant."
I knelt and took both of her hands in mine. The lace of the christening gown covered our hands and wrists. When I leaned forward and kissed the backs of her hands, through the faded gown, she began to weep again.
"I don't know if I can go through it again."
I brushed the yellowed lace aside. I turned her hands over and kissed her palms. I buried my face in her lap. She bent over me, and her breasts pressed against the back of my head. Her tears were cool on my neck.
"I can't bear to disappoint you again."
I lifted my head. She looked tired. And fragile. The neck of her dress was open, and her pulse throbbed at the base of her throat. I stood. I pulled her up from the rocking chair. She seemed so frail, so beautiful. I held her face between my hands and wiped her tears away. I kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her eyes. She let the christening gown fall. She clutched my uniform lapels and leaned against my chest.
"Oh, Max, I can't bear to disappoint you again," she said.
I kissed her and held her until there were no more tears.
The disappointments in my life were my own fault: I'd always had expectations that were too high. I expected too much from the Party, from my marriage, from my entire life. At the end, after so much searching, I was even disappointed at how easily I found the girl's house. It was right up the hill, off the dirt road, just as the grocer had told me. Though the house was surrounded by shade trees, it was visible from the road. I parked the car under the cover of trees and sat there. There were no other houses, no cars, no animals, no people. I picked up my field-glasses from the seat beside me and looked at the house.
The front door was open. There was a screen-door. The porch swing drifted slightly in the breeze. Curtains fluttered at the upstairs windows. I saw no one. Not that day. I don't know what I expected. Yes, I do: I thought it would be easy, but I never got out of the car. No, my gun was in the trunk. Once, toward dusk, when I was looking at The Dead Bodies again, someone closed the curtains and turned on the lights. I snatched up my field-glasses and pressed them to my eyes until they gave me a headache. It didn't do any good. I saw no one.
I stayed until long after all the lights had been turned out. Once, I thought I saw the curtains in an upstairs window move aside, as if she'd seen, as if she were watching me, but it must've been my imagination. It should've been easy: I was the Kommandant. No, I couldn't even make myself open the door. I put the field-glasses back down on the seat. Then I drove away.
The Kommandant's Mistress Page 8