The Devil's Piper

by Sarah Rayne

  Each time he went into the camps he had found a way to take or deliver notes between huts, even once to smuggle in small radio parts for the secret listening posts in the camps. There were knives for digging crude tunnels beneath the camp latrines, there were the locations of small partisan groups outside who could provide fake papers and false identities or simply shelter for a few nights. Every scrap of information was absorbed into the network, and Jude seldom knew how effective his contributions were. The network itself was pitifully ragged; the cobweb strands of plots often tangled with other cobweb strands, rendering weeks or months of dangerous intrigue worthless. How it did not unravel altogether Jude never knew, but incredibly it did not. Incredibly, between prayer and determination and courage of an extraordinary degree, it struggled on, even though its people had to move in extreme secrecy; even though to be caught meant death and, before death, brutal questioning. Reveal the names of your collaborators or we will tighten the thumbscrews, we will winch the pinions of the rack, we will operate the device that will mangle your hands and feet . . .

  All of these or any single part of them were enough to stamp out the frail shoots of rebellion, but they did not. Insofar as the Jewish rebels could risk a rallying cry, they risked one: ‘Dahm Y’Israel Nokeam’ – ‘The blood of Israel will take vengeance.’ Later the slogan was abbreviated, using the first letter of each word, the Hebrew letters: daled, yod, nun, which spelled out another Hebrew word: DIN, meaning judgement.

  The careful underground planning went on, and Jude, peddling his music, entering the camps wearing the falsest of all false guises went on with it. To most people by now he was a Nazi collaborator, one of Himmler’s jackals, to be hated and feared. It was not unknown for his recitals to be greeted with sullen silence, or with jeers and cries of ‘Traitor’.

  He never quite despaired; he thought he never would despair because the music would always save him – Angelika von Drumm had not been so very wide of the mark when she had said if he had a god, that god was music – but at times despair came agonisingly close and at times he almost gave up. So easy to leave them to it; so easy to argue that it was not his fight and it was not his war, and the few prisoners he was smuggling out and the thin scraps of information he was carrying to and fro were so infinitesimal that they could scarcely count. So seductively easy to go back to Mallow where the pouring dusk was smudged with violet and indigo, and where the air was scented with woodsmoke. And where Lucy would be waiting, seated in the jutting bow window perhaps with the child, perhaps just reading or sewing, her hair turned to the colour of new-run honey by the glow from the lamps burning in the windows . . .

  But he never did go back, and eventually, after the years of struggle and danger and intrigue, it was too late.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  ‘The little I did was never enough,’ said Jude, looking at Isarel. ‘It was nothing compared to the millions who died.’

  Isarel was aware that his mind was starting to work properly again. He still could not concentrate on the menace in the dark tunnels beyond this room, but he knew the difference between the past and the present once more. He sat up a bit straighter, but it was Kate who spoke next.

  ‘You used the music,’ she said, and Jude looked across at her.

  ‘I used the music,’ he said. ‘But not in the way the Nazis expected. Vogel and his people wanted the Black Chant very much, they believed it would give them tremendous power and I believed it as well. They wanted the Jews subdued – mesmerised – so that they could slaughter them wholesale and as well as that they wanted it for Hitler’s mad fantasies.’ He paused, and then said, ‘By then Hitler was already enamoured with his insane dream of creating a new Aryan Race, and to place such power in such hands was unthinkable.’ He spread his hands, and Isarel was abruptly reminded of his ancestry. ‘And so I removed the heart from the Piper suite after the Eisenach concert, and then stitched the music up so that it wouldn’t show.’

  ‘You – could do that?’

  ‘Of course I could do it,’ said Jude, and for the first time, the arrogance was there.

  ‘You went into the death camps and gave recitals,’ said Kate, staring at him.

  ‘Yes. It was the only way I could get inside.’

  ‘That’s – absolutely remarkable.’

  ‘Not so very remarkable as all that,’ said Jude. ‘Mahler’s niece, Alma Rosé, led an entire orchestra while she was a prisoner inside Auschwitz. And Furtwangler used his position as leader of the Berlin Philharmonic to smuggle Jewish musicians out of Germany. It was not generally known at the time, but he did it. I continued playing what Vogel believed to be the Black Chant in the death camps but it was no longer the Chant at all, of course.’

  Ciaran said thoughtfully, ‘You risked a very great deal.’

  ‘I expect I did,’ agreed Jude, sounding amused. ‘There was no heroism, you understand, no bravery. It was little better than romantical idealism. Perhaps it was also vanity and arrogance. I believed I could save the world.’

  Ciaran said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with idealism when it brings help and hope. There’s nothing wrong with romanticism either. You must have an extraordinary story to tell.’

  ‘So,’ said Jude politely, ‘must you. But we shall none of us have any kind of story to tell if we don’t think about getting out of here.’

  ‘And,’ Isarel pointed out, ‘the most immediate thing to think about is Ahasuerus.’ He heard with relief that his voice was sounding very nearly normal. ‘Moira, what happened to Ahasuerus when he brought you in here?’ He indicated the half-open door leading to the tunnels. ‘Where did he go?’

  Moira took a minute to reply. Ridiculous to feel this strong sense of protectiveness, but in those agonisingly brief minutes in the tunnel something had been forged that she would not forget. Even the terrible burned face beneath the mask had not had the power to make her flinch.

  Because you remember me as I once was, Susannah . . .

  His burned maimed mouth had twisted in the painful travesty of a smile, and Moira had managed to smile back, even though tears were spilling from her eyes and there was a hard sick lump of misery in her throat.

  Because he was born too early and I was born too late and there is no way of crossing the huge gulf now . . .

  There had been a sudden hard embrace and another of those brief flashes of memory – a young man with pale translucent skin and features purer and clearer than you could believe possible, and sensitive fastidious lips that could lift in mischievous passion – and then he had gone. But the glimpse had printed itself on her mind, and she thought it would always be there. Something to keep folded away for ever and never to share.

  She looked at the others and said, ‘Ahasuerus simply brought me here, and I don’t know where he went. I couldn’t see. He might have gone back to the castle—’

  ‘Or he might be prowling out there in the tunnels,’ said Isarel, glancing at Moira, and then away. Kate shivered and pulled Ciaran’s coat more closely about her.

  Moira said carefully, ‘I don’t actually think that Ahasuerus means any of us any harm.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bet the ranch on it,’ said Isarel caustically. ‘I wouldn’t place any reliance on what Vogel might do, either.’

  ‘Nor,’ said Jude dryly, ‘would I. You four must get out at once.’

  ‘How?’ Kate leaned forward and Jude regarded her and smiled. Isarel saw Kate blink and then return the smile, and thought: well, I was right about one thing at any rate: he’s a killer with women. I can’t begin to work out how old he’ll be – although he can’t be less than eighty – and Kate’s probably thirty-two or -three. But she’s looking at him as if she’ll be his slave for life. I expect I’m doing the same. I can’t take my eyes off him – I don’t want to take my eyes off him. I think he’s a sorcerer or a hypnotist or something. And I still don’t know if we can trust him, because for all we know he’s working with Vogel.

  Ciaran said, ‘There isn’t any way
out except for the doors, surely?’

  ‘There can’t be,’ said Kate. ‘I explored the whole place when Vogel locked me in. I’m sure I didn’t miss anything. And we heard the doors closing—’

  ‘Vogel closed them, of course,’ said Moira, and she, too, regarded Jude intently. Like acolytes hanging on to the every utterance of the Messiah, thought Isarel. If I’m not careful, I’ll be falling for it as well.

  Jude said, ‘Yes, Vogel lured us all in here very nicely.’

  ‘Including you?’ Isarel heard the note of suspicion in his voice, but he couldn’t help it. I don’t trust him. I don’t dare trust him. ‘Why did Vogel put you in here?’ he said sharply, and Jude turned his head.

  ‘So that I should be out of the way for the concert. I’ve had a silken prison, Isarel, and I’ve had almost every comfort and luxury I could wish for, but it’s been a prison for all that.’

  Isarel said, ‘You never tried to escape?’ and there was a sudden silence.

  ‘You don’t trust me, do you?’ said Jude, at length.

  ‘Not entirely. I certainly don’t believe that someone with your guts submitted to being a captive for so long without trying to get out,’ said Isarel.

  ‘How do you know I didn’t? How do you know I didn’t try a number of times and failed?’

  ‘You didn’t though, did you?’ said Isarel, meeting the dark eyes.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Jude hesitated and then said, ‘We’re wasting time we haven’t got. If you don’t get out soon you may find you’re Vogel’s prisoners to a far more helpless extent than this.’

  ‘Then,’ said Kate, ‘where is your way out? And how do we know we can believe you?’ Isarel caught the note of aggression and understood that Kate also was distrustful of Jude, and that she was angry at herself for having succumbed to his charm earlier. The only one of us who does trust him is Moira, he thought. And that’s very odd indeed.

  ‘My dears,’ said Jude mockingly, ‘fifty years ago I was aware of almost every escape route out of almost every Nazi death camp. . I may have been ignorant of one or two, but I certainly wouldn’t have been ignorant of the one on the doorstep of my own prison.’ He indicated the half-open door leading to the crematorium.

  ‘The escape is in the one place that the Nazis never thought to look,’ said Jude.

  ‘Inside the ovens.’

  ‘The prisoners built it over a long and tortuous period,’ he said. ‘They hid inside the ovens between mass burnings, and while the ovens stayed cool enough, they broke through the brickwork. They dug outwards using their bare hands and any scraps of instruments that could be smuggled in. The hole is very small but it joins up with the chimney flue and once in there, it’s possible to climb up and come out on to the hillside beyond the castle boundary.’ He looked at them. ‘I’m simplifying what was a very complex operation, of course – they had to insulate the inner wall from the tremendous heat when the furnaces were fired and they had to shore up the space beyond the oven wall and a dozen other things. But that was the principle.’

  ‘That’s—incredible,’ said Ciaran, staring at him, and Jude again gave the shrug that Isarel suspected was partly assumed.

  ‘There were far more incredible escape stories than that. The prisoners here worked at night, with only a single lookout to keep watch,’ he said. ‘Eisenach wasn’t an especially large camp, and although it was sentried, it wasn’t as heavily sentried as Auschwitz or Belsen or Dachau.’ As he spoke, Ciaran was crossing to push open the door to the crematorium, and Isarel saw for the first time the gaping ovens. Horror prickled his skin and almost automatically he reached for Moira, pulling her against him. She felt light and fragile and unexpectedly familiar.

  ‘The opening is at the very back of the largest oven,’ said Jude. ‘Near the floor. It will be difficult and I’m afraid it will be unpleasant, but if you can get through, you should be able to get to safety.’

  Isarel started to say, ‘What about—’ and then stopped as they heard a sound from beyond the underground rooms.

  Ciaran said, ‘Ahasuerus—?’ and then stopped, because it was certainly not Ahasuerus.

  Kate said, ‘It sounds like – car engines being revved. Several of them, very close to us.’

  ‘It is car engines,’ said Jude, his eyes on the half-open door. ‘And can you hear the other sound above it?’

  ‘A thin hissing,’ said Isarel after a moment. He looked at Jude. ‘It’s coming from the outer room,’ he said and a terrible comprehension began to unfold.

  Jude said, ‘That is a sound I have not heard for fifty years, and it’s a sound I hoped never to hear again.’ He looked at them. ‘The gas machines have long since fallen into disuse, but unless I’m mistaken, Vogel has connected car exhaust pipes to the vents. He’s pumping in pure carbon monoxide.’

  Isarel said, ‘But that means—’

  ‘That means that however crude and however makeshift, Vogel is resurrecting the gas chambers, and that you probably have no more than thirty minutes to live.’

  Isarel and Ciaran moved as one, slamming shut the chamber doors.

  ‘Will it seal us from the gas?’ said Moira, her eyes on the door.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Jude.

  He glanced at Isarel, who answered, ‘It’s not very likely, is it? Whatever seals there were will have disintegrated years ago. Vogel’s probably used rubber tubing to run from the exhausts to the vents themselves, and it’s not foolproof, but it’s pretty damn close. We haven’t got any time to waste.’ He moved to the largest of the yawning ovens, repressing a shudder. Difficult and unpleasant, Jude had said. ‘It ought to be ladies first, but in case we meet anything unexpected, Ciaran or I had better lead the way.’

  ‘You lead,’ said Ciaran, at once. ‘You’re thinner, and it’s fifty years since this thing was used. You might have to force a way through—’ He glanced at Jude, who said,

  ‘The hatch is very small. The prisoners were severely under-nourished and emaciated. But I think you will manage it. If Isarel goes first, Moira and Kate can follow, and Ciaran can bring up the rear.’

  Isarel looked at him. ‘And you?’

  Again the characteristic spreading of hands. ‘I must stay.’

  ‘Why?’

  Jude glanced uneasily to the outer chamber. The hissing of the fumes was faint, but it was discernible. Thirty minutes . . . And several of those minutes had already gone. ‘There’s no time to explain,’ he said.

  ‘Explain,’ said Isarel angrily, and Jude made an abrupt gesture uncannily like Isarel’s own. Speaking rapidly, he said, ‘It took the Nazis a long time to realise what I was doing, and when eventually they did discover it, they were in an awkward position. They couldn’t kill me because they still wanted the Chant, but they couldn’t let me remain free either. And towards the end of Nineteen Forty Four, Karl Vogel and his creatures took me to Auschwitz.’

  The savagery in his voice and in his eyes as he said creatures was so brutal that Isarel stared at him and felt something painful close about his heart. This is what I was waiting for. This is the real Jude; the angry, idealistic young man who fought Hitler’s Third Reich and stormed Nazi strongholds and carried prisoners out under their noses. This is what I wanted to feel. I wanted a hero; it looks as if I’ve got one.

  ‘In Auschwitz, they tortured me,’ said Jude. ‘They wanted the original music of course, but more than that they wanted the details about the escape network – about what was called DIN. I managed – somehow – to keep silent. But inside Auschwitz there is a device called the boot,’ he said. ‘Not a new device, the Tudors knew about it, and the Nazis never disdained to steal ideas. It’s a mechanism that crushes bones and tendons and muscles beyond repair.’ He stopped, and for the first time emotion showed in his dark eyes.

  Isarel said in a whisper, ‘They crippled you. They crushed your feet. Dear God, that’s why you could never escape.’

  ‘Yes.’ Jude glanced at Moira,
and unexpectedly he smiled. ‘I think you had already guessed,’ he said.

  ‘Not entirely. Perhaps a bit.’

  Kate, who had been staring in horror, said, ‘They left you the ability to create music, though.’

  ‘Oh yes. You find that surprising?’

  ‘Cold and calculating,’ said Kate, and Isarel saw her shiver. ‘Vogel and his people still wanted you to work for them, didn’t they?’

  ‘Yes. They left my hands and my mind whole,’ said Jude. ‘And for that I have never ceased to thank God, because without music – without the ability to compose – I should not have survived their imprisonment.’ A sudden reminiscent grin lifted his lips, and he said, ‘A very remarkable lady once said that music was my only real god – forgive me, Ciaran – and I was to prove her right.’

  Isarel, mindful of the seeping, choking danger, but still unable to stop looking at Jude, said, ‘You continued to compose? Inside Eisenach?’

  ‘Certainly. I demanded – and got – a Bluthner. I demanded gramophones and recording machines. The compositions are all in my turret rooms. Symphonies, concertos, two operas, even some jazz, although that is perhaps not—Were you thinking of your inheritance?’ he asked politely.

  ‘God, no—’ Isarel broke off and said angrily, ‘We’ll manage a way to take you out with us.’

  ‘You will not. I should be the most appalling handicap and you would never get out. You must go without me.’

  ‘I can’t leave you here—I can’t—’

  Jude said impatiently, ‘Isarel, for the last fifty years, I have not been able to do more than drag myself across the room. You have to leave me behind.’ The sudden mocking smile showed. ‘In all of the best escape stories, the weakest gets ditched,’ said Jude. ‘Ditch me.’