The Keep

by F. Paul Wilson

  “How did they finally solve the problem?” Woermann asked.

  “They left.”

  Silence followed Cuza’s simple reply.

  Woermann finally turned to Kaempffer: “I’ve been telling you that for—”

  “We cannot leave!” Kaempffer said, a hint of hysteria in his voice. “Not before Sunday.” He turned to Cuza. “And if you do not come up with an answer for this problem by then, Jew, I shall see to it that you and your daughter personally accompany me to Ploiesti!”

  “But why?”

  “You’ll find out when you get there.” Kaempffer paused a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. “No, I believe I’ll tell you now. Perhaps it will speed your efforts. You’ve heard of Auschwitz, no doubt? And Buchenwald?”

  Cuza’s stomach imploded. “Death camps.”

  “We prefer to call them ‘resettlement’ camps. Romania lacks such a facility. It is my mission to correct that deficiency. Your kind, plus Gypsies and Freemasons and other human dross, will be processed through the camp I will set up at Ploiesti. If you prove to be of service to me, I will see to it that your entry into the camp is delayed, perhaps even until your natural death. But if you impede me in any way, you and your daughter will have the honor of being our first residents.”

  Cuza sat helpless in his chair. He could feel his lips and tongue working, but he could not speak. His mind was too shocked, too appalled at what he had just heard. It was impossible! Yet the glee in Kaempffer’s eyes told him it was true. Finally, a word escaped him.

  “Beast!”

  Kaempffer’s smile broadened. “Strangely enough, I don’t mind the sound of that word on a Jew’s lips. It is proof positive that I am successfully discharging my duties.” He strode to the door, then turned back. “So look well through your books, Jew. Work hard for me. Find me an answer. It’s not just your own well-being that hangs on it, but your daughter’s too.”

  He turned and was gone.

  Cuza looked at Woermann pleadingly. “Captain…?”

  “I can do nothing, Herr Professor,” he replied in a low voice full of regret. “I can only suggest that you work at those books. You’ve found one reference to the keep; that means there’s a good chance you can find another. And I might suggest that you tell your daughter to find a safer place of residence than the inn…perhaps somewhere in the hills.”

  He could not admit to the captain that he had lied about finding a reference to the keep, that there was no hope of ever finding one. And as for Magda:

  “My daughter is stubborn. She will stay at the inn.”

  “I thought as much. But beyond what I have just said, I am powerless. I am no longer in command of the keep.” He grimaced. “I wonder if I ever was. Good evening.”

  “Wait!” Cuza clumsily fished the cross out of his pocket. “Take this. I have no use for it.”

  Woermann enclosed the cross in his fist and stared at him a moment. Then he, too, was gone.

  Cuza sat in his wheelchair, enveloped in the blackest despair he had ever known. He saw no way of winning here. If Molasar stopped killing the Germans, Kaempffer would leave for Ploiesti to begin the systematic extermination of Romanian Jewry. If Molasar persisted, Kaempffer would destroy the keep and drag him and Magda to Ploiesti as his first victims. He thought of Magda in their hands and truly understood the old cliché, a fate worse than death.

  There had to be a way out. Far more than his own life and Magda’s rested on what happened here. Hundreds of thousands—perhaps a million or more—of lives were at stake. There had to be a way to stop Kaempffer. He had to be prevented from going off on his mission…It seemed of utmost importance to him to arrive in Ploiesti on Monday. Would he lose his position if delayed? If so, that might give the doomed a grace period.

  What if Kaempffer never left the keep? What if he met with a fatal accident? But how? How to stop him?

  He sobbed in his helplessness. He was a crippled Jew amid squads of German soldiers. He needed guidance. He needed an answer. And soon. He folded his stiff fingers and bowed his head.

  Oh God. Help me, your humble servant, find the answer to the trials of your other servants. Help me help them. Help me find a way to preserve them…

  The silent prayer trailed off into the oblivion of his despair. What was the use? How many of the countless thousands dying at the hands of the Germans had lifted their hearts and minds and voices in a similar plea? And where were they now? Dead!

  And where would he be if he waited for an answer to his own supplication? Dead.

  And worse for Magda.

  He sat in quiet desperation…

  Still…there was Molasar.

  Woermann stood for a moment outside the professor’s door after closing it. He had experienced a strange sensation while the old man was explaining what he had found in that indecipherable book, a feeling that Cuza was telling the truth, and yet lying at the same time. Odd. What was the professor’s game?

  He strolled out to the bright courtyard, catching the anxious expressions on the faces of the sentries. Ah, well, it had been too good to be true. Two nights without a casualty—too much to hope for three. Now they were all back to square one…except for the body count which continued to rise. Ten now. One per night for ten nights. A chilling statistic.

  If only the killer, Cuza’s “Wallachian lord,” had held off until tomorrow night. Kaempffer would have been gone by then and he could have marched his own men out. But as things looked now, they would all have to stay through the weekend. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights to go.

  A death potential of three. Maybe more.

  Woermann turned right and walked the short distance to the cellar entrance. The interment detail should have the two fresh corpses down in the subcellar by now. He decided to see that they were laid out properly. Even einsatzkommandos should be accorded a modicum of dignity in death.

  In the cellar he glanced into the room in which the two bodies had been found; their throats had not only been torn open but their heads had lolled at obscene angles. The killer had broken their necks for some reason. That was a new atrocity. The room was empty now except for pieces of the shattered door. What had happened here? The dead men’s weapons had been found unfired. Had they tried to save themselves by locking the door against their attacker? Why had no one heard their shouts? Or hadn’t they shouted?

  He walked farther down the central corridor to the broached wall and heard voices coming from below. On the way down the stairs he met the interment detail coming up, blowing into their chilled hands. He directed them back down the stairs.

  “Let’s go see what sort of job you did.”

  In the subcellar the glow from flashlights and handheld kerosene lamps glimmered dully off the ten white-sheeted figures.

  “We neatened them up a bit, sir,” said a private in gray. “Some of the sheets needed straightening.”

  Woermann surveyed the scene. Everything seemed in order. He was going to have to come to a decision on disposition of the bodies. He would have to ship them out soon. But how?

  He clapped his hands together. Of course—Kaempffer! The major was planning to leave Sunday evening no matter what. He could transport the corpses to Ploiesti, and from there they could be flown back to Germany. Perfect…and fitting.

  He noticed that the left foot of the third corpse from the end was sticking out from under its sheet. As he stooped to adjust the cover, he saw that the boot was filthy. It looked as if the wearer had been dragged to his resting place by the arms. Both boots were caked with dirt.

  Woermann felt a surge of anger, then let it slip away. What did it matter? The dead were dead. Why make a fuss over a muddy pair of boots? Last week it would have seemed important. Now it was no more than a quibble. A trifle. Yet the dirty boots bothered him. He could not say why, exactly. But they did bother him.

  “Let’s go, men,” he said, turning away and letting his breath fog past him as he moved. The men readily complied. It was cold down here
.

  Woermann paused at the foot of the steps and looked back. The corpses were barely visible in the receding light. Those boots…he thought of those dirty, muddy boots again. Then he followed the others up to the cellar.

  From his quarters at the rear of the keep, Kaempffer stood at his window and looked out over the courtyard. He had watched Woermann go down to the cellar and return. And still he stood. He should have felt relatively safe, at least for the rest of the night. Not because of the guards all around, but because the thing that killed his men at will had done its work for the night and would not strike again.

  Instead, his terror was at a peak.

  For a particularly horrifying thought had occurred to him. It derived from the fact that so far all the victims had been enlisted men. The officers had remained untouched. Why? It could be due purely to chance since enlisted men outnumbered officers by better than twenty to one in the keep. But deep within Kaempffer was a gnawing suspicion that he and Woermann were being held in reserve for something especially ghastly.

  He didn’t know why he felt this way, but he could not escape the dreadful certainty of it. If he could tell someone—anyone—about it, he would at least be partially freed of the burden. Perhaps then he could sleep.

  But there was no one.

  And so he would stand here at this window until dawn, not daring to close his eyes until the sun filled the sky with light.

  TWENTY-THREE

  THE KEEP

  Friday, 2 May

  0732 hours

  Magda waited at the gate, anxiously shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Despite the morning sun, she was cold. The soul-chilling sensation of evil that had been confined to the keep before seemed to be leaking out into the pass. Last night it had followed her almost as far as the stream below; this morning it had struck her as soon as she set foot on the causeway.

  The high wooden gates had been swung inward and now rested against the stone sides of the short, tunnellike entry arch. Magda’s eyes roamed from the tower entrance where she expected Papa to emerge, to the dark opening directly across the courtyard that led down to the cellar, to the rear section of the keep. She saw soldiers at work there, hacking away at the stones. Where yesterday their movements had been lackadaisical, today they were frantic. They worked liked madmen—frightened madmen.

  Why don’t they just leave? She couldn’t understand why they remained here night after night waiting for more of their number to die. It didn’t make sense.

  She had been feverish with concern for Papa. What had they done to him last night after finding the bodies of her two would-be rapists? As she had approached on the causeway, the awful thought that they might have executed him filled her mind. But that fear had been negated by the sentry’s quick agreement to her request to see her father. And now that the initial anxiety had been relieved, her thoughts began to drift.

  The cheeping of the hungry baby birds outside her window and the dull throb of pain in her left knee had awakened her this morning. She had found herself alone in her bed, fully clothed, under the covers. She had been so terribly vulnerable last night, and Glenn easily could have taken advantage of that. But he hadn’t, even when it had been so obvious that she had wanted him.

  Magda cringed inside, unable to comprehend what had come over her, shocked by the memory of her own brazenness. Fortunately, Glenn had rejected her…

  No, that was too strong a word…demurred was a better way to put it. She wondered at that, glad he had held back, and yet slighted that he had found her so easy to refuse.

  Why should she feel slighted? She had never valued herself in terms of her ability to seduce a man. And yet she heard this nasty whisper in a far corner of her mind hinting that she lacked something.

  But maybe it had nothing to do with her. It could be he was one of those…those men who could not love a woman, only another man. But that, she knew, was not the case. She remembered their one kiss—even now it caused a wave of welcome heat to brush over her—and remembered the response she had felt on his part.

  Just as well. Just as well he had not accepted her offer. How would she have faced him again if he had? Mortified by her wantonness, she would be forced to avoid him, and that would mean depriving herself of his company. And she so wanted his company.

  Last night had been an aberration, a chance combination of circumstances that would not repeat itself. She realized now what had happened: Physical and emotional exhaustion, the near escape from the soldiers, the rescue by Molasar, Papa’s rejection of her offer to stay by his side—all had combined to leave her temporarily deranged. That had not been Magda Cuza lying next to Glenn on the bed last night; it had been someone else, someone she did not know. It would not happen again.

  She had passed his room this morning, limping from the pain in her knee, and had been tempted to knock on his door—to thank him for his aid and to apologize for her behavior. But after listening a minute and hearing no sound, she hadn’t wanted to wake him.

  She had come directly to the keep, not solely to see that Papa was well, but to tell him how much he had hurt her, how he had no right to treat her in such a manner, and how she had a good mind to heed his advice and leave the Dinu Pass.

  The last was an empty threat, but she wanted to strike back at him in some way, to make him react, or at least apologize for his callous behavior. She had rehearsed exactly what she was going to say and exactly the tone of voice in which she would say it. She was ready.

  Then Papa appeared at the entrance to the tower with a soldier pushing his chair from behind. One look at his ravaged face and all the anger and hurt went out of her. He looked terrible; he seemed to have aged twenty years overnight. She hadn’t thought it possible, but he looked more feeble.

  How he has suffered! More than any man should. Pitted against his countrymen, his own body, and now the German Army. I can’t side against him, too.

  The soldier pushing him this morning was more courteous than the one who had wheeled him yesterday. He brought the wheelchair to a halt before Magda, then turned away. Wordlessly, she moved behind and began to push Papa the rest of the way. They had not gone a dozen feet when he held up his hand.

  “Stop here, Magda.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She didn’t want to stop. She could still feel the keep here. Papa didn’t seem to notice.

  “I didn’t sleep at all last night.”

  “Did they keep you up?” she asked, coming around to crouch before him, her fierce protective instincts kindling anger within her. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

  His eyes were rheumy as they looked into hers. “They didn’t touch me, but they hurt me.”

  “How?”

  He began speaking in the Gypsy dialect they both knew: “Listen to me, Magda. I’ve found out why the SS men are here. This is just a stop along their way to Ploiesti where that major is going to set up a death camp—for our people.”

  Magda felt a wave of nausea. “Oh, no! That’s not true! The government would never let Germans come in and—”

  “They are already here! You know the Germans have been building fortifications around the Ploiesti refineries; they’ve been training Romanian soldiers to fight. If they’re doing all that, why is it so hard to believe that they intend to start teaching Romanians how to kill Jews? From what I can gather, the major is experienced in killing. He loves his work. He will make a good teacher. I can tell.”

  It couldn’t be! And yet hadn’t she also said that Molasar couldn’t be? There had been stories in Bucharest about the death camps, whispered tales of the atrocities, of the countless dead; tales which at first no one believed, but as testimony piled upon testimony, even the most skeptical Jew had to accept. The Gentiles did not believe. They were not threatened. It was not in their interest—in fact it could well prove to their detriment—to believe.

  “An excellent location,” Papa said in a tired voice devoid of emotion. “Easy to get us there. And should o
ne of their enemies try to bomb the oil fields, the resulting inferno would do the Nazis’ job for them. And who knows? Perhaps the knowledge of the camp’s existence might even cause an enemy to hesitate to bomb the fields, although I doubt it.”

  He paused, winded. Then: “Kaempffer must be stopped.”

  Magda shot to her feet, wincing at the pain in her knee.

  “You don’t think you can stop him, do you? You’d be dead a dozen times over before you could even scratch him!”

  “I must find a way. It’s no longer just your life I worry about. Now it’s thousands. And they all hang on Kaempffer.”

  “But even if something does…stop him, they’ll only send another in his place!”

  “Yes. But that will take time, and any delay is in our favor. Perhaps in the interval Russia will attack the Germans, or vice versa. I can’t see two mad dogs like Hitler and Stalin keeping away from each other’s throats for too long. And in the ensuing conflict perhaps the Ploiesti Camp will be forgotten.”

  “But how can the major be stopped?” She had to make Papa think, make him see how crazy this was.

  “Perhaps Molasar.”

  Magda was unwilling to believe what she had just heard. “Papa, no!”

  He held up a cotton-gloved hand. “Wait, now. Molasar has hinted that he might use me as an ally against the Germans. I don’t know how I could be of service to him, but tonight I’ll find out. And in return I’ll ask that he be sure to put a stop to Major Kaempffer.”

  “But you can’t deal with something like Molasar! You can’t trust him not to kill you in the end!”

  “I don’t care for my own life. I told you, there’s more at stake here. And besides, I detect a certain rough honor in Molasar. You judge him too harshly, I think. You react to him as a woman and not as a scholar. He is a product of his times, and they were bloodthirsty times. Yet he has a sense of national pride that has been deeply offended by the presence of the Germans. I may be able to use that. He thinks of us as fellow Wallachians and is better disposed toward us. Didn’t he save you from the two Germans you blundered into last night? He could just as easily have made you a third victim. We must try to use him! There’s no alternative.”