The officer stared. “Part of that architecture wouldn’t include a Jewish girl, would it?”
Davood pretended he hadn’t heard. “There is a bakery on one corner. The owner makes pastries that are better than Vienna’s.”
“Oh, so that’s the way you want to play it. What is his name, this baker?”
What was his name? Oh, God, Julia had told him. After a long pause, he said, “Bruchner.”
Suddenly Schröder flew out of his office, looked around, and locked eyes with the SS officer.
Davood swallowed. What was happening?
“Enough, Standartenführer,” Schröder barked, his expression one of fury. “You are disrupting my staff. Keeping my people from their work. Please do this another time.”
The officer looked angrily at Davood, then Schröder. It felt like forever. “We are not finished, Hauptsturmführer,” he muttered. He turned on his heel and left.
Schröder gazed at Davood, then went back into his office. Friedrich and the other assistants refused to make eye contact.
Back in his room that night, Davood made a decision. Last week when the SS officer had argued with Schröder, Friedrich had said it was over Deutsche Physik. But what if Friedrich was lying? What if the officer had been targeting Davood and no one had the nerve to tell him? Friedrich had made that odd comment about girlfriends. Did he know? Whom should Davood trust? He worried a hand through his hair. Everything was coming apart. It was time for him to flee.
A knock on the door interrupted him as he was packing his bag. He crept to the door and ran his hands over it, as if he could divine who was there by touch. A raspy voice called out. “Sarand. Open.”
Schröder. This was the end. There was no escape. Davood decided to ask Schröder to kill him here and now. It would reunite him with Julia. He took a deep breath and opened the door.
Schröder was in the same coat. But his gloves were on this time, and he wore a fedora pulled low on his brow. “Come. Hurry.”
Davood shook his head. “No, Herr Doktor. I want to end it here.”
“What are you talking about?”
Davood straightened. “You heard me. I wish to face my death now. You were my superior. You owe me that much.”
“Sarand, get your things. We must leave. Right away.”
“But I want—”
Schröder cut him off. “Are you crazy?” He went to Davood’s bag, closed it, picked it up. “Let’s get going.”
Davood was confused. “Where are you taking me?”
“You will see.”
Davood trembled. He thought about Julia. His parents. His brother back in Persia. He thought about the village where he’d grown up. The family had uprooted themselves; hidden their identity because of him. He wanted to tell them it had all been wasted. The disease of anti-Semitism had claimed them after all.
He followed Schröder down the stairs and out the door. He thought about sprinting as fast as he could down the street. That way he would be shot from behind. At least he wouldn’t see it coming. He was about to take off when a dark car screeched to a stop outside the Pension and two Gestapo officers climbed out.
“Thank you, Hauptsturmführer Schröder. We will take over now.” One of the officers moved toward Davood. “You are under arrest, Sarand. You will come with us.”
Davood stared at the men, but before he could register what was happening, Schröder dropped Davood’s bag, pulled out a gun, and shot both men. They fell to the ground.
“Quickly. In my car.” Schröder pointed to a Mercedes across the street.
Davood scrambled into the car. So did Schröder. He threw Davood’s bag in back and keyed the engine, and the Mercedes roared down the street.
“What is happening? Where are we going?” Davood asked.
Schröder headed north and west, out of the city.
“Are we going to Berlin?”
“That would be east. We are heading west.”
“Where?”
“To Amsterdam.”
“Amsterdam?” Davood’s voice cracked.
“From there we will be met by people who will take us to America to continue our work.”
Davood was astonished. “Our work?” When Schröder nodded, he asked, “Why me?”
Schröder looked over. “Why do you think?”
“How long have you known?”
“You were seen in a Jewish neighborhood. With a Jewish girl.”
“Yes, but—”
“And when I came to your room and heard you speaking Aramaic, I was certain.”
“You heard me recite Kaddish.”
“Is that what it was?”
“You didn’t know?”
“There are only a few Kurds who speak Aramaic rather than Farsi. Those who do are usually Jews from isolated villages high in the mountains.”
“Why didn’t you turn me in? You are a captain with the SS.”
Schröder let out an unhappy laugh. “Who says I didn’t?”
“Is that why the SS officer came back to the lab?”
Schröder pursed his lips. He wouldn’t answer. Which was an answer in itself.
Davood sat back in his seat, trying to piece together the events. Schröder was escaping Germany. He had carefully orchestrated his defection. And yet he had been a loyal Nazi. He’d even informed on Davood. But in the end, the man had saved him. And shot two Gestapo officers in the process.
“Why did you do it?” Davood asked.
Schröder’s answer surprised him. “If I had a gifted son, I would want him to have the opportunity to prove himself. Since the Reich will not allow it, I feel obligated to find people who will.”
“What about you? Why are you leaving?”
“For much the same reason.” Schröder was quiet for a moment. “And because you have stumbled across a tantalizing possibility. What you have come up with inside your brain is remarkable.”
“The chain reaction…” Davood murmured.
“If it is correct, it could become an astonishing weapon. A weapon that will change the world—forever.”
Schröder stopped talking then, and stared through the windshield, as if intent on his driving.
After a while, Davood looked out as well. The grim winter night rushed past, the wind whipping tears of freezing rain across the glass. The Nazi and the Jew, bound together by war secrets, headed north toward the future.
THE VLY
BY C. E. LAWRENCE
The tale I am about to tell has, over the years, acquired the aspect of a murky, half-forgotten dream. At times I fear my memory of that fateful night is a product of my own fevered consciousness. But I have carried secrets far too long. Now that I am old and broken, close to the shore to which we must all return, I take up pen in trembling hand to record long-ago events which have haunted me ever since.
The Kaatskil Mountains (or Catskills, as they are now called) lie on the western banks of the Hudson River—bony protrusions stretching deep into Ulster, Greene, and Sullivan Counties. Seen from the gently rolling hills of Dutchess County across the river, they are serene and majestic. Up close, they can be forbidding. Some of the peaks have fanciful names, like Big Rosy Bone Knob, Peekamoose Mountain, and Thunder Hill, while others reassure the observer with their promise of splendor: Guardian, Eagle, and Overlook Mountains.
Legends chase these hills like the summer storms that come and go in the blink of an eye—one minute there is not a cloud in sight, and the next cascades of rain pour from the heavens. The mountains are moody and unpredictable, even to those of us who have lived here all our lives. But no part of this landscape strikes more fear into the heart of its inhabitants than the low-lying marsh between Krumville and Lomontville.
The Dutch call it the Vly.
I say “the Dutch” even though I am Dutch on my mother’s side. On my father’s I am English, and so I was raised. After the British conquest of 1664, Dutch ways persisted for some time. But just over a century later, little was left here of a once-thr
iving culture. My mother spoke only a few scattered phrases of that language, having taken most of my father’s Anglo-Saxon customs. It was she who told me that Vly is an old Dutch word for “valley.”
I grew up with stern warnings to avoid this evil place. The sandy soil, too poor to support crops, flooded in early spring, often staying soggy until October. Some said spirits inhabited the marshes and bogs at its center; others claimed travelers could lose their way, caught up in the mists and fogs that descended quickly on warm nights. There were stories of poor souls who wandered into the center of the marshland, to be sucked underneath it, trapped in the soft quicksand. I heard snippets of still darker tales—of a great, gaunt hound that roamed the Vly at night, a ghostly creature with an insatiable appetite for living flesh. The Indians had lived in this area for generations, and it was said the Vly was a place even they avoided.
None of this was on my mind one fine Sunday in late April when I ventured out hunting with my cousin Jacob. He was a robust blond fellow, tall and strong and lively, afraid of neither man nor spirit. His family lived not far from us, just off the road that passes through Krumville. Like so many of us this side of the river, his father was a tenant farmer on lands owned by Robert Livingston. It was said the Chancellor could sit on the porch of his mansion, Clermont, and gaze across the river from Columbia County, knowing that whatever lands he saw belonged to him. Those of us whose families worked those lands didn’t own so much as a single stone or piece of straw.
Though I was the type to lie awake at night seething at such inequality, my cousin Jacob was of a carefree disposition. He would much rather be off hunting grouse with his black retriever, Dragen—dragen being the Dutch word for “bear.”
On that day Jacob and I were roaming the hills around Krumville, uncocked rifles hanging loosely at our sides, listening for the rustle of grouse in the blackberry bushes. I had just turned twelve, and Jacob was sixteen. My mother had finally agreed to let me go hunting with him—no small decision on her part, since my father had died in a hunting accident just a year before. It took pleading and bribery on my part—in the end, I agreed to help her with the washing as well as doing my share of the chores the following day.
My stomach knotted with anticipation as I strode beside my cousin, stretching my legs to keep up with his long strides. Dragen trotted at our heels, his pink tongue lolling happily from his mouth. The bees buzzed lazily in the pink and white trillium, the fields still covered with dew from the night before, glistening like teardrops in the morning sun. Lost in the beauty of the day, we wandered for some time without much thought as to where we were headed. Jacob led the way, following deer tracks along a narrow woodland trail as it turned and twisted through forest and meadow.
We lingered beside a cool spring, to eat some jerky and biscuits from our pouches and fill our bellies with clear mountain water. We stretched out beneath the shade of a chestnut tree just coming into bloom. Dragen splashed happily in the creek, lapping up water and snapping at minnows and tadpoles.
Our conversation meandered from dogs and horses to the mysteries of the fairer sex—and finally, to family. Though every clan in our little community had its share of misfortune, ours had suffered the most recent and devastating tragedy with the loss of my father. It was almost exactly a year before, to the day, that the hunting accident had claimed his life.
My cousin tore off a piece of jerky and chewed on it thoughtfully.
“What do you suppose really happened to your father?” he asked, leaning back against the chestnut’s broad trunk.
I felt my face go hot. “Why do you speak such a question? They said—”
“I know very well what they claimed,” he replied impatiently. “That he tripped and his gun discharged in his face.”
My forehead buzzed with confusion and my line of sight seemed to narrow. “What are you saying, Cousin?”
He gave me a searching look. “Consider it, Slade. Did you ever know your father to have a clumsy moment in his life?”
“Well, no, but Hugh Turner said he tripped—”
Hugh Turner had been my father’s hunting companion that day.
“A shotgun does not easily go off in a man’s face!” Jacob declared. He leapt to his feet and demonstrated with his own rifle, pretending to trip. The gun, instead of aiming at his head, fell harmlessly to one side. “There!” he said triumphantly. “That is what would happen—at least ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I’ll wager.”
A nameless dread slithered like a tapeworm through my gut. “What are you saying, Cousin?”
He flung himself on the ground beside me. “I never saw his body—did you?”
“No. But my mother told me it was too—”
“Too horrible to look at; I know,” Jacob replied. “But my father carried the casket at the funeral and he said it was awful light to be the body of a full-grown man.”
“Perhaps people shrink when they die,” I offered.
Jacob shook his head, his corn silk–blond hair catching the rays of the late-morning sun. “Something else happened, Slade. Look at what became of Hugh Turner.”
I shuddered. Hugh Turner had gone stark mad a few nights later, running through the streets naked, babbling incoherently about witches and goblins. He now lived with his daughter and her family, who tended to him as though he was a simple child. He could occasionally be seen on the village green, flailing his arms and muttering to himself.
“Do you believe my father is still alive?” I asked.
Jacob frowned. “I do not believe he perished in a hunting accident.”
At that moment swarms of gnats descended upon us and we heaved ourselves to our feet.
“We must be on our way,” said Jacob. Waving away the cloud of insects, he slung his rucksack over his shoulder. “The day is not growing any younger.”
I spat a gnat from my mouth, grabbed my own pack, and looked up at the sky. He was right—the sun, having reached its zenith, was descending.
“Come along, Dragen!” Jacob called.
The dog bounded up the bank and shook his coat mightily, spraying us with water. He grinned up at us, evidently much pleased with himself.
We returned to our path, crossing the stream, whereupon we entered a birch grove. As we emerged from the woods into a wild field of winter wheat, we heard growling behind us. We turned to see Dragen baring his teeth, ears flattened behind his head.
“What is it, boy?” Jacob said, but the dog continued to growl. Saliva dripped from his jaws, and his eyes narrowed with fear.
I followed the dog’s gaze. He seemed to be peering at a copse of scrub oaks, on the other side of a patch of blackberry bushes.
“What is he frightened of?” I asked my cousin.
“We must be near it,” Jacob replied cryptically. “Have we really come that far?”
“Near what?” I said.
He hesitated before answering. “The Vly.”
Fear dried my throat, turning my tongue to parchment.
“Perhaps we should turn around and go back,” I suggested.
“Don’t be foolish,” Jacob replied, straightening his shoulders. “What is there to be afraid of?”
I wanted to shout that there was plenty to be afraid of, but pride stopped my tongue. This was my first hunting trip, and I wasn’t eager to be branded a coward before I had a chance to shoot my first grouse.
“Very well,” I said, affecting a nonchalance I did not feel. “Lead on.”
Jacob bent down to break off a thin stalk of wheat, sticking it in the side of his mouth. I had seen him do this before when he was trying to work up his courage.
“Let’s go, then,” he said, striding forward confidently, but I noticed he cocked his rifle. “Come along, Dragen,” he called. The dog obeyed reluctantly, slinking a few yards behind, still growling.
I tightened my grip on my own rifle. I had lovingly cleaned the barrel that morning with linseed oil and could feel it mixing with the sweat on my hands as I clamb
ered after my cousin, lifting my knees high to clear the spiky stalks of winter wheat.
As we crossed the field, the sky darkened and a fierce wind swept over the meadow, rippling through the wheat. The stalks flattened as though a great hand were swatting them to the ground. The change in weather seemed to come out of nowhere—one minute the sky was clear and bright as a sparrow’s eye, and in the next it was gray as the steel of our rifle barrels.
Jacob stopped in his tracks as Dragen’s growls changed to whimpers.
“We should turn back,” I said, the words bursting forth in spite of my desire to appear brave.
I saw my cousin’s shoulders stiffen. And then I felt it.
I grew up in these hills. I was accustomed to sudden changes of weather, floods, and rock slides, as well as dangerous wild animals, from black bears and wild cats to coyotes. But this was different. The air itself was oppressive. I felt a sodden, sullen weight pressing upon my shoulders, pushing me toward the ground. A bleak, dense cloud threatened to envelop my consciousness; I was overwhelmed by a leaden feeling of hopelessness.
I had heard whispered stories about the Vly all my life, but it was not until I stood there with my cousin that I felt the full impact of that dark and gloomy place. It was as if all the will had been drained from my body, leaving behind a hollow, empty vessel. I could barely summon the strength to speak, let alone take a step forward. I had never believed a place itself could be truly evil until now. But young as I was, there was no doubt in my mind: the Vly exuded a palpable, supernatural malevolence.
I pulled at the sleeve of Jacob’s linen shirt. “Now,” I whispered through parched lips. “We should go now.”
My cousin turned to face me. I took a step back, stunned by the change in his demeanor. His once-bright blue eyes were cloudy and tormented, the muscles of his face contracted as if in pain. His rifle hung useless at his side; with the other hand he clawed at the air, as if trying to grasp at phantom shapes floating before his eyes. Seeing him like that shocked me into action. Perhaps being younger, I was less vulnerable to the effects of that dreadful place. I summoned the willpower to shake free of the terrible darkness threatening to overwhelm me.
Mystery Writers of America Presents the Mystery Box Page 7