The Keep

by F. Paul Wilson

  His eyes were drawn to movement directly below him. It was Magda, hesitant at first, and then with straight-backed, high-chinned decisiveness, marching bucket in hand toward the cellar entry. The men followed her at first with their eyes, then they were on their feet, drifting toward her from all corners of the courtyard, like soap bubbles swirling toward an unstoppered drain.

  When she came up from the cellar with her bucket of water, they were waiting for her in a thick semicircle, pushing and shoving toward the front for a good close look at her. They were calling to her, moving before, beside, and behind her as she tentatively made her way back to the tower. One of the einsatzkommandos blocked her way but was pushed aside by a regular army man who grabbed her bucket with exaggerated gallantry and carried it ahead of her, a clown footman. But the SS man who had been pushed snatched at the bucket; he succeeded only in spilling the contents over the legs and the boots of the one who now held it.

  As laughter started from the black uniforms, the face of the regular army man turned a bright red. Woermann could see what was coming but was helpless to stop it from his position on the third level of the tower. He watched the soldier in gray swing the bucket at the SS man, saw the bucket connect full force with the head, then Woermann was away from the window and running down the steps as fast as his legs would carry him.

  As he reached the bottom landing, he saw the door to the Jews’ suite swing shut behind a flash of skirt fabric, then he was out in the courtyard facing a full-scale brawl. He had to fire his pistol twice to get the men’s attention and had to threaten to shoot the next one who threw a punch before the fighting actually stopped.

  The girl had to go.

  As things quieted down, Woermann left his men with Sergeant Oster and headed directly for the first floor of the tower. While Kaempffer was busy squaring away the einsatzkommandos, Woermann would use the opportunity to start the girl on her way out of the keep. If he could get her across the causeway and into the inn before Kaempffer was aware of what was happening, there was a good chance he could keep her out.

  He did not bother to knock this time, but pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Fräulein Cuza!”

  The old man was still sitting at the table; the girl was nowhere in sight. “What do you want with her?”

  He ignored the father. “Fräulein Cuza!”

  “Yes?” she said, stepping out of the rear room, her face anxious.

  “I want you packed to leave for the inn immediately. You have two minutes. No more.”

  “But I can’t leave my father!”

  “Two minutes and you are leaving, with or without your things!”

  He would not be swayed, and he hoped his face showed it. He did not like to separate the girl and her father—the professor obviously needed care and she obviously was devoted to caring for him—but the men under his command came first, and she was a disruptive influence. The father would have to remain in the keep; the daughter would have to stay in the inn. There was no room for argument.

  Woermann watched her cast a pleading look at her father, begging him to say something. But the old man remained silent. She took a deep breath and turned toward the back room.

  “You now have a minute and a half,” Woermann told her.

  “A minute and a half for what?” said a voice behind him. It was Kaempffer.

  Groaning inwardly and readying himself for a battle of wills, Woermann faced the SS man.

  “Your timing is superb as usual, Major,” he said. “I was just telling Fräulein Cuza to pack her things and move herself over to the inn.”

  Kaempffer opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by the professor.

  “I forbid it!” he cried in his dry, shrill voice. “I will not permit you to send my daughter away!”

  Kaempffer’s eyes narrowed as his attention was drawn from Woermann to Cuza. Even Woermann found himself turning in surprise to see what had prompted the outburst.

  “You forbid, old Jew?” Kaempffer said in a hoarse voice as he moved past Woermann to the professor. “You forbid? Let me tell you something: You forbid nothing around here! Nothing!”

  The old man bowed his head in resignation.

  Satisfied with the result of his vented anger, Kaempffer turned back to Woermann. “See that she’s out of here immediately. She’s a troublemaker!”

  Dazed and bemused, Woermann watched Kaempffer storm out of the room as abruptly as he had arrived. He looked at Cuza, whose head was no longer bowed, and who now appeared to be resigned to nothing.

  “Why didn’t you protest before the major arrived?” Woermann asked him. “I had the impression you wanted her out of the keep.”

  “Perhaps. But I changed my mind.”

  “So I noticed—and in a most provocative manner at a most strategic moment. Do you manipulate everyone this way?”

  “My dear Captain,” Cuza said, his tone serious, “no one pays much attention to a cripple. People look at the body and see that it is wrecked by an accident or wasted by illness, and they automatically carry the infirmity to the mind within that body. ‘He can’t walk, therefore he can’t have anything intelligent or useful or interesting to say.’ So a cripple like me soon learns how to make other people come up with an idea he has already thought of, and to have them arrive at it in such a way that they believe it originated with them. It’s not manipulation—it’s a form of persuasion.”

  As Magda emerged from the rear room, suitcase in hand, Woermann realized with chagrin, and perhaps a touch of admiration, that he, too, had been manipulated—or “persuaded.” He now knew whose idea it had been for Magda to make those repeated trips to the mess and the cellar. The realization did not bother him too much, though. His own instincts had always been against having a woman in the keep.

  “I’m going to leave you at the inn unguarded,” he told Magda. “I’m sure you understand that if you run off it will not go well with your father. I’m going to trust in your honor and your devotion to him.”

  He did not add that it would be courting a riot to decide which soldiers would guard her—competition for the double benefit of separation from the keep and proximity to an attractive female would further widen the existing rift between the two contingents of soldiers. He had no choice but to trust her.

  A look passed between father and daughter.

  “Have no fear, Captain,” Magda said, glaring at her father. “I have no intention of running off and deserting him.”

  He watched the professor’s hands bunch into two thick, angry fists.

  “You’d better take this,” Cuza said, pushing one of the books toward her, the one he had called the Al Azif. “Study it tonight so we can discuss it tomorrow.”

  There was a trace of mischief in her smile. “You know I don’t read Arabic, Papa.” She picked up another, slimmer volume. “I think I’ll take this one instead.”

  They stared at each other across the table. They were at an impasse of wills, and Woermann thought he had a good idea where the conflict lay.

  Without warning, Magda stepped around the table and kissed her father on the cheek. She smoothed his sparse white hairs, then straightened up and looked Woermann directly in the eye.

  “Take care of my father, Captain. Please. He’s all I have.”

  Woermann heard himself speaking before he could think. “Don’t worry. I’ll see to everything.”

  He cursed himself. He shouldn’t have said that. It went against all his officer training, all his Prussian rearing. But that look in her eyes made him want to do as she asked. He had no daughter of his own, but if he had he would want her to care about him the way this girl cared about her father.

  No…he had no need to worry about her running off. But the father—he was a sly one. He would bear watching. Woermann warned himself never to take anything about these two for granted.

  The red-haired man sent his mount plunging through the foothills toward the southeast entrance to the Dinu Pass. The greening terrain around him went
by unnoticed in his haste. As the sun slipped down the sky ahead of him, the hills on each side grew steeper and rockier, closing on him, narrowing until he was confined to a path a scant dozen feet wide. Once through the bottleneck up ahead he would be on the wide floor of the Dinu Pass. From there on it would be an easy trip, even in the dark. He knew the way.

  He was about to congratulate himself on avoiding the many military patrols in the area when he spotted two soldiers up ahead blocking his path with ready rifles and fixed bayonets. Rearing his mount to a halt before the pair, he quickly decided on a course of action—he wanted no trouble, so he would play it meek and mild.

  “Where to in such a hurry, goatherd?”

  It was the older of the two who spoke. He had a thick mustache and a pitted face. The younger man laughed at the word “goatherd.” Apparently it held some derogatory meaning for them.

  “Up the pass to my village. My father is sick. Please let me by.”

  “All in good time. How far up do you intend to go?”

  “To the keep.”

  “‘The keep’? Never heard of it. Where is it?”

  That answered one question for the red-haired man. If the keep were involved in a military action in the pass, these men at least would have heard of it.

  “Why are you stopping me?” he asked them, trying to look puzzled. “Is something wrong?”

  “It is not for the likes of you to question the Iron Guard,” Mustache said. “Get down from there so we can have a better look at you.”

  So they weren’t just soldiers; they were members of the Iron Guard. Getting through here was going to be tougher than he had thought. The red-haired man dismounted and stood silent, waiting as they scrutinized him.

  “You’re not from around here,” Mustache said. “Let me see your papers.”

  That was the question the red-haired man had feared throughout his trip. “I don’t have them with me, sir,” he said in his most deferential manner. “I left in such a hurry that I forgot them. I’ll go back and get them if you wish.”

  A look passed between the two soldiers. A traveler without papers had no legal rights to speak of—his noncompliance with the law gave them a free hand to deal with him in any way they saw fit.

  “No papers?” Mustache had his rifle at the port position across the front of his chest. As he spoke he emphasized his words with sharp outward thrusts of his rifle, slamming the bolt assembly and the side of the stock against the red-haired man’s ribs. “How do we know you’re not running guns to the peasants in the hills?”

  The red-haired man winced and backed away, showing more pain than he felt; to absorb the blows stoically would only incite Mustache to greater violence.

  Always the same, he thought. No matter what the time or place, no matter what the ruling power calls itself, its bullyboys remain the same.

  Mustache stepped back and pointed his rifle at the red-haired man. “Search him!” he told his younger partner.

  The young one slung his rifle over a shoulder and began roughly slapping his hands over the traveler’s clothes. He stopped when he came to the money belt. With a few deft moves he opened the shirt and removed the belt from beneath. When they saw the gold coins in the pouches, another look passed between them.

  “Where’d you steal that?” Mustache said, once again slamming the side of his rifle against the red-haired man’s ribs.

  “It’s mine,” he told them. “It’s all I have. But you can keep it if you’ll just let me be on my way.” He meant that. He didn’t need the gold anymore.

  “Oh, we’ll keep it all right,” Mustache said. “But first we’ll see what else you’ve got.” He pointed to the long, flat case strapped to the right flank of the horse. “Open that, “ he told his companion.

  The red-haired man decided then that he had let this go as far as he could. He would not let them open the case.

  “Don’t touch that.”

  They must have sensed menace in his voice, for both soldiers stopped and stared at him. Mustache’s lips worked in anger. He stepped forward to slam his rifle against the red-haired man once more.

  “Why you—”

  Although the red-haired man’s next moves might have looked carefully planned, they were all reflex. As Mustache made to thrust with his rifle, the red-haired man deftly ripped it out of his grasp. While Mustache stared dumbly at his empty hands, the red-haired man swung the butt of the rifle up and cracked the man’s jaw; from there all that was needed to crush the larynx was a short jab against the exposed throat. Turning, he saw the other soldier unslinging his weapon. The red-haired man took a single step and drove the bayonet on the other end of his borrowed rifle full length into the younger man’s chest. With a sigh, the soldier sagged and died.

  The red-haired man viewed the scene dispassionately. Mustache was still alive, but barely. His back was arched, his face tinged with blue as his hands tore at his throat, trying in vain to let some air through to his lungs.

  As before, when he had killed Carlos the boatman, the red-haired man felt nothing. No triumph, no regret. He could not see how the world would be poorer for the passing of two members of the Iron Guard, and he knew that if he had waited much longer it might have been him on the ground, wounded or dead.

  By the time the red-haired man had replaced the money belt around his waist, Mustache lay as still as his companion. He hid the bodies and the rifles in the rocks on the northern slope and resumed his gallop toward the keep.

  Magda paced about her tiny candlelit room at the inn, anxiously rubbing her hands together, stopping every so often at the window to glance out at the keep. No moon tonight, with high clouds moving in from the south.

  The dark frightened her…the dark and being alone. She could not remember when she had last been alone like this. It was neither right nor proper for her to be staying unchaperoned at the inn. It helped some to know that Iuliu’s wife, Lidia, would be around, but she would be little help if that thing in the keep decided to cross the gorge and come to her.

  She had a clear view of the keep from her window—in fact, hers was the only room with a window facing north. She had requested it for that reason. There had been no problem; she was the only guest.

  Iuliu had been most gracious, almost obsequious. That puzzled her. He had always been courteous during their previous stays, but in a rather perfunctory way. Now he virtually fawned over her.

  From where she stood she could pick out the lit window in the first level of the tower where she knew Papa now sat. She saw no sign of movement; that meant he was alone. She had been furious with him earlier when she realized how he had maneuvered her out of the keep. But as the hours passed, her anger gave way to worry. How would he take care of himself?

  She turned and leaned back against the sill, looking at the four white stucco walls that confined her. Her room was small: a narrow wardrobe, a single dresser with a beveled mirror above it, a three-legged stool, and a large, too-soft bed. Her mandolin lay on the bed, untouched since her arrival. The book too, Cultes des Goules, lay untouched in the bottom drawer of the dresser. She had no intention of studying it; she had taken it only for show.

  She had to get out for a while. She blew out two of the candles, but left the third burning. She did not want the room to be totally dark. After last night’s encounter, she would fear the dark forever.

  A scuffed wood stairway took her down to the first floor. She found the innkeeper hunched on the front stoop, sitting and whittling dejectedly.

  “Something wrong, Iuliu?”

  He started at the sound of her voice, looked her once in the eye, then returned to his aimless whittling.

  “Your father,” he said. “He is well?”

  “For the moment, yes. Why?”

  He put down the knife and covered his eyes with both hands; the words came out in a rush. “You’re both here because of me. I am ashamed…I am not a man. But they wanted to know all about the keep and I couldn’t tell them what they wanted. And th
en I thought of your father, who knows all there is to know about the keep. I didn’t know how sick he was now, and I never thought they’d bring you, too. But I couldn’t help it! They were hurting me!”

  Magda experienced a brief flare of anger—Iuliu had had no right mentioning Papa to the Germans! And then she admitted that under similar circumstances, she too might have told them anything they wanted to know. At least now she knew how they had connected Papa with the keep, and she had an explanation for Iuliu’s deferential manner.

  His pleading expression touched her as he looked up at her. “Do you hate me?”

  Magda leaned over and placed a hand on his round shoulder. “No. You didn’t mean us any harm.”

  He covered her hand with his. “I hope all will go well for you.”

  “So do I.”

  She walked slowly along the path to the gorge, the silence broken only by the pebbles crunching underfoot, echoing in the moist air. She stopped and stood in the thick, freshly budded brush to the right of the causeway and hugged her sweater more tightly around her. Almost midnight, cool and damp; but the chill she felt went deeper than any caused by a simple drop in temperature. Behind her the inn was a dim shadow; across the causeway lay the keep, ablaze with light in many of its windows. The fog had risen from the bottom of the pass, filling the gorge and surrounding the keep. Light from the courtyard filtered up through the fine haze in the air, making a glow like a phosphorescent cloud. The keep looked like an ungainly luxury liner adrift in a phantom sea of fog.

  Fear settled over her as she stared at the keep.

  Last night…considering the mortal threats of the day, it had been easy for her to avoid thinking about last night. But here in the dark it all came back—those eyes, that icy grip on her arm. She ran her hand over the spot near her elbow where the thing had touched her. There was still a mark on the skin there, pale gray. The area looked dead, and she hadn’t been able to wash it off. She hadn’t told Papa. But it was proof: Last night had not been a dream. The nightmare was a reality. A type of creature she had blithely assumed to be fantasy had become real, and it was over there in that stone building.