"What is it, Josef? What time is it? Is it another escape?"
The adjutant glared at me as the Kommandant reached for his uniform jacket, lying on the floor. The Kommandant was wearing his shirt and pants.
"Worse than an escape," said the adjutant. "They've blown up the ovens."
"What?"
The Kommandant's body instantly straightened, though he winced when he put his weight on his leg, and his face lost its dazed expression.
"And they set Crematorium Four on fire."
The Kommandant shoved his arms into his jacket. As he buttoned it, the adjutant grabbed the Kommandant's boots from under the cot.
"Are the guards getting..."
"The machine guns. Yes, sir."
"And the dogs."
"Yes, sir. They've surrounded the yard."
The adjutant held the boots steady. The Kommandant forced his feet into them while he was buckling on his holster with its weapons. I gathered up the blankets and wrapped them around me. Lying on the cot, I pulled my legs up, close to my chest. I pressed my shoulders and back against the wall. The Kommandant unlocked his weapons cabinet for more ammunition. After he loaded his pistol, he closed the case.
"How much damage?" he said.
"The flames were coming through the roof in several places, but we can't tell any more until morning."
"Why not? What's wrong with the spotlights?"
"Too much smoke," said the adjutant.
The Kommandant picked up his field-glasses and went to the windows. His adjutant pressed close behind him. Already, without the glasses, even I could see the glow of the fire on the horizon: red and fierce against the black of night, with the smell of smoke creeping in between the windows and their frames. The Kommandant hit the field-glasses against his thigh, then dropped them into his chair. He turned and strode toward the door. Fire, in his camp. Fire, glowing on the horizon, burning in his own camp. Fire, disrupting his work and his sleep, its glow mocking him, in his very own camp.
"Damned Jews," he said.
The glow of the burning candles was in every window. I pressed my face against the glass and saw the glowing points in other windows. I smiled.
"What are you doing?" said my father. "What's happening?"
"The Germans executed some of our young men this morning, for no reason," I said. "We're protesting the German action."
"Are all the Jews putting candles in their windows?" said my mother.
She wrung her hands as she followed me to the front door. She hovered by me as I slipped my shoes on.
"Is it safe?" she said. "Maybe we should blow out some of the candles. We might need them. One would be enough, wouldn't it?"
I rushed out into the street, without a coat. The cold air slapped my skin, but I didn't notice. My mother stood in the open doorway, and my father came up behind her. They called to me. In the middle of the street, I turned around and around. In every window, up and down the street, candles burned. Their flames formed a line of white against the darkness, a line of fire in the night, on either side, in every window. I hugged myself, but it wasn't to keep off the chill. Those candles warmed me. But the air was so cold, it brought tears to my eyes.
"Samuel, make her come in," said my mother from the doorway, "before somebody sees her."
"Come in," said David.
He was on the front porch: I heard his voice through the open window. I stopped typing and rushed to the head of the stairs. David set down the luggage, beside the door. The little girl was with him.
"It's all right," said David. "This is where we live. Rachel? We're here."
He took her hand and eased her into the house. As I came down the stairs, she gripped his hand tightly. She hid her face behind his arm. David saw me, and he looked down at the girl.
"This is Althea," he said.
She was so tiny, so frail. Her fingers were leaving indentations in the back of David's hand.
"She lost both her parents, and her grandparents, in the war," he said. "In the camps."
When I knelt before her, she clung to him.
"This is Rachel," he said. "I told you about her. Remember?"
She peeked out at me from behind his sleeve. She was very thin. Her eyes looked too large for her head, and there were sores and scars on her face and neck. Her cheeks were sunken. She seemed nothing but bones. I tried to say something, but the words got caught in my throat. I didn't even know her language. I reached out my hand, but I was afraid to touch her. I sat on my heels before her, my hands in my lap, and she stared at me. She held onto David, her cheek pressed against his leg, and she stared at me with those eyes.
"Althea," I said.
She looked up at David.
"She has no one, Rachel," he said. "No one at all."
"No one, and I mean no one has gone into that office more than once," said the Kapo.
The two of us slipped and slid across the camp's yard. She swung her baton with each step.
"No one's been with him more than once," she said. "So don't think you're anything special, Jew-cow."
I was wearing a clean uniform, with no tears or patches, and no blood-stains. A red scarf covered my shaved head. I had shoes to walk in. He had sent for me. There were no clouds in the sky. The sun was shining, and little birds fluttered down from the clear, cloudless sky. He had sent for me. I was going to him. When the Kapo hit me on the arm with the baton, I looked at her.
"Jewish pig," she said.
The little birds chirped and sang. The Kapo hit me again.
"He'll tire of you as quickly as the others," she said.
The Kapo and I walked beside the electric fence. The Kapo spat at those who had gone into the wire. They were the young ones. Their hands still clung to the steel mesh, and their faces gazed up at the empty sky. I stepped very carefully in the uneven clay. I didn't want to soil myself. Not now.
The Kommandant's adjutant was standing on the other side of the yard, talking to one of the guards. They looked at us when we approached. The Kapo saluted, but the adjutant frowned at her. At me. After he had dismissed her and the Kapo had gone, the adjutant's sneer revealed his teeth.
"Filthy Jewish whore," he said, in his language.
The guard beside him nodded.
"There's no end to them."
There was no end to the words. They gushed from me, all day, all night. In the end I abandoned sleep, and the typewriter, and wrote by hand. It was faster. But still I couldn't keep up with the words. They tore the white sheets, staining them. The pages darkened under the weight of the words, and the stack of paper beside the typewriter grew. Still the words came. I found more ink in David's office. More paper. The pen scratched on into the night. Every night. The words burst from me.
"Burst?" said the Kommandant. "Out of the ground?"
"Yes, sir," said his adjutant.
"The bodies in the Birch Grove burst out of the ground?"
"Yes, Kommandant."
"Didn't you put lime on them?"
"Of course, we did," said the adjutant.
"Then why are they coming out of the ground?"
"From the heat, sir. And from decomposing."
"God damn it," said the Kommandant. "The stench is going to be intolerable."
"It already is, sir."
"Re-bury them," said the Kommandant.
"We already tried that, sir."
"And?"
"The bodies came up again."
The Dead Bodies That Line the Streets lay beside me in the bed when David came up to the bedroom. He opened the door but didn't come in. I put the loose pages of the new manuscript in my lap. I took off my glasses and laid them beside Survivor: One Who Survives.
"You're awake," David said.
"Yes."
He closed the door and leaned against it.
"She's finally asleep," he said. "On the floor, with two blankets and a pillow, by the front door."
"Will she be warm enough?"
"I think so."
/> David walked slowly to the bed.
"New places frighten her."
He picked up Survivor, then put it down again, beside the loose pages. When he touched the manuscript, picking up one of its pages, I put my hand on his.
"Not yet," I said.
He nodded. He pushed aside The Dead Bodies and Survivor to sit on the edge of the bed. I put my glasses on the bedside table. I gathered up the loose pages. David took them from my hands and placed them carefully beside my glasses. I laid my pen on top of the pile.
"You look tired."
"You cut your hair," he said.
My cheeks felt flushed as I looked down. The Dead Bodies bumped into my leg as David leaned nearer, as he touched my hair.
"You told me you were never going to cut it again."
His hand brushed the length of my hair. He touched the strap of my nightgown, my bare shoulder, the swell of my breast. I caught his hand and kissed it. I held his hand tightly. I kicked away The Dead Bodies and One Who Survives. I moved closer to David and placed my fingers against his face. Now the words were there. Now, at last, I might finally tell him everything, so he would understand, so the words wouldn't be between us anymore, so things could be the way he wanted them to be. I leaned close, till he could feel my breath, so he could hear the words better, and he put his arms around me.
"David," I said.
But he stopped my words with the kisses of his mouth.
My mouth was dry. The stack of paper was heavy in my lap. The bathroom tiles were cold on my legs. A bottle of the Kommandant's liquor sat beside me: he was so drunk most of the time, he wouldn't notice if any of the liquor was missing. The house was very quiet. We were alone, and he was upstairs, asleep. I'd let him kiss me, everywhere. I'd stroked his face and kissed him. I'd put my tongue in his mouth. I'd wrapped my legs around him and breathed his name against his throat. I'd trembled and sighed, as if he'd touched me. He'd cried out, and wept against my breast. He'd sleep a long time.
I looked down at the papers in my lap. I lifted a corner of the first page. I tore off a small piece.
I put it in my mouth.
I swallowed.
I took a drink of his liquor, to wash the words down. It burned my throat and made my eyes water, but it made my mouth less dry. It took only a moment to get the words down. It took forever.
I tore off another piece.
I put his words in my mouth.
"Just a moment," I said after I heard the knock on the door.
The kittens jumped off the kitchen table. I rinsed the flour from my hands. There was another knock: louder, more insistent.
"Just a minute," I said.
I took the towel with me, drying my hands as I went. The kittens rushed into the hallway. There was a man at the door. The sun was bright: I couldn't tell who he was standing at the door, this man, this tall man. He was shadowed, because the sun was so bright behind him. He was very tall. The kittens fell over each other in their race. That made me laugh.
Then I saw who it was.
Then I saw him.
He had found me.
My heart started to pound. I stood in the hallway, with only the screen door between us. His right hand was behind his back. Without taking his eyes from me, he moved his hand to the front. My fingers tightened on the towel. He was holding a small book. The kittens cried as they rubbed themselves against my ankles. He looked at me a long time before he opened the book, before he started to read. My fingers covered my mouth.
He had brought The Dead Bodies to me.
I didn't need his words to recognize him, even without his uniform. He was greyer than I remembered. His face seemed more lined, craggier, tired: but there was no doubt about who he was. He was the Kommandant. I knew that body, even without the uniform. I knew that voice, even in English. I knew every scent, every scar, every word of him.
I should have known that he would find me. Perhaps I had always known it. All the months of hiding, all the years of running away, all the miles I'd put between us: none of it mattered. There was no escape. Not from him. Yes, I knew that. I'd always known it, deep inside. No matter what else I said or did in my life, I knew the Kommandant would find me.
He said he would.
He'd said, "No matter what you do, you'll never be free of me."
He'd said, "No matter where you go, I'll be there."
He was the Kommandant.
As the Kommandant ordered, so it was.
The Kommandant stood in the shadows of the front porch. When I saw him, I remembered everything. When I heard his voice, I lost my own. When I was with him, I felt cold.
But I was ready for him.
Before he had finished his words, I took the pistol from beneath the towel. His left eyelid began to twitch. He said something, but I couldn't understand it. I frowned. He kept talking: it was his language, but they were not his words. I knew the words that came out of his mouth. They were my words: they were spelled with my skin, my blood, my bones. I knew those words he was giving to me. They were the Kommandant's words, but they were forged with my skin, my blood, my bones. The Kommandant opened his mouth and The Dead Bodies poured out of him.
I readied the gun for firing: snap, click.
He closed the book. He took off his reading glasses and slid them into his breast pocket. He nodded, clicked his heels together, and stood straight. He always was a proud man.
"Ja," he said.
He wouldn't close his eyes.
"Ja."
Without opening the screen door, I fired.
I didn't miss.
The Kommandant was flung, in slowed motion, backward, and the book was thrown from his hand. I kept firing. The Kommandant's head cracked on the bottom step. I fired again. Every bullet hit him. Every one, but he never cried out. He wouldn't.
The acrid powder stung my nostrils, and the gun tugged me forward. When I opened the screen door the kittens ran out. I went down the steps. I stood there, beside him, but not too close. I looked down at him. When he said my name, I fired again. I didn't need him to bring The Dead Bodies back to me. I didn't want him to say my name. I fired, again and again, until the gun was empty.
He wouldn't close his eyes. Blood was on his lips, and when he coughed, little bubbles formed in the red. His hand reached out, toward my leg, toward the hem of my dress, but I stepped aside, and he grasped at the air. His mouth moved, but I wouldn't listen to his words. I wouldn't kneel beside him, I wouldn't lean close, I wouldn't feel his hands or his breath on my skin: I didn't want any more of his words. I'd had enough of words. I had enough words to last the rest of my life. I stood there, looking down at him, but I wouldn't listen.
I said nothing.
When his eyes became fixed and opaque, I dropped the gun.
The weapon lay there, beside The Dead Bodies, which had fallen with him. The sun glowed on the pages of the open book. The kittens sniffed warily at him. They cried plaintively as they pressed themselves against my legs. My hair blew across my eyes, but I didn't brush it away.
The Kommandant didn't move.
In my hand, the white towel fluttered in the early morning breeze.
Part Three
The dead know nothing.
Ecclesiastes 9:5
Maximilian Ernst von Walther
(1909-1947)
Descendant of an old Prussian military family, Maximilian Ernst von Walther was born outside Berlin on 28 October 1909. An imaginative and intense student, von Walther displayed considerable powers of leadership and personal magnetism, even at an early age. During his undergraduate years, he acquired a reputation as having a violent temper, but this was generally overlooked by his devoted following, and did not seem to affect his studies. He was awarded his baccalaureate in Germanic literature in 1931. He then went on to study literature at Heidelberg and Berlin. Though he completed the course work for a Doktorat in Germanic literature and successfully passed his comprehensive examinations in 1939, von Walther failed to complete his di
ssertation.
In his youth, von Walther was a prolific writer of poetry, and the poems in his dissertation manuscript show his interest in folklore, German peasantry, völkisch and National Socialist ideology, as well as a marked adolescent romanticism. His writings often portray idealized German heroes and unrealistic heroines. His poems are rank with racism, anti-Semitism, and the völkisch cult of the peasant. Though he seems never to have attempted to have any of his work published, in 1937 he became a member of the National Socialist Writers' Association (Reichsschrifttumskammer).
Well over six feet tall, powerfully built, and considered exceedingly physically attractive, von Walther married only reluctantly. On 12 October 1936, he wed Marta Ottilie Kramer. The only child of a prominent, formerly wealthy German family, she was, by all accounts, fanatically devoted to her husband. By her, von Walther fathered two surviving children: Ilse (born February 1938) and Hans (born January 1942). Three other sons died in infancy: Albert (born January 1937, died April 1937), and twins Karl and Wilhelm (born September 1939, died February and March, respectively, 1940). Each of the three died after contracting a fever of indeterminate origin.
A paternity suit against von Walther was filed by Suzanne Reining in the summer of 1939, but the charges were dropped by the plaintiff later in the year. By his longtime mistress, Dianne Braun, who lived in the Nazi-sponsored maternity home Lebensborn, von Walther fathered a son Klaus (born October 1940) who died from injuries suffered in an air raid in February 1944. Von Walther did not attend his son's funeral.
An outspoken nationalist, von Walther was a dynamic and ambitious member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP, or, more familiarly, the Nazi Party), which he joined in 1932, and he quickly acquired his colleagues' respect. An expert marksman, he participated in the Blood Purge on 30 June 1934, which came to be known as the Night of the Long Knives, during which twenty-seven leading Nazis, including Ernst Rohm, Chief of Staff of the Storm Troopers or "BrownShirts" (Sturmabteilungen, SA), and at least one hundred others were massacred. In 1936, in a simultaneously cunning and brutal move, von Walther publicly denounced Ludwig Beck, the only German general to consistently oppose Hitler. Von Walther denounced Beck again in 1938, just prior to Beck's resignation.
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