B004U2USMY EBOK

by Wallace, Michael

  “Decided to keep my mouth shut and hope you weren’t planning to kill me.”

  “It looked like he was raping you.”

  “He was, in a way. I didn’t care for it much.” He groaned as the knots came loose. He brought his hands around and felt at his groin. “Both still there. I wasn’t sure.” He looked up. “Did you mean that, about wanting all Germans to die?”

  “I’d never hurt you. But some Germans could die horribly, and I wouldn’t feel overly sorry. What do I know, I’m just a whore.”

  “He’s a liar, you’re not a whore. You never have been.”

  “I don’t care about that, it doesn’t matter anymore. But Hoekman was right about one thing, I do love you. Now, can you get up?” She looked for his clothes.

  He closed his eyes and grimaced. “Give me a minute.”

  “We don’t have a minute.”

  #

  Word had spread along the old port and lower Marseille. Thousands of people clogged the docks. The gold coins were long gone, but still they kept coming.

  Nine Germans lay dead. Their bodies slumped where they’d fallen, except for one, who bobbed face-down in the water, pushed against the filth collected at the end of the harbor.

  Soon the Germans would arrive and take their revenge. Probably be a massacre. The Vichy officials would be helpless to stop it. That’s how these things went.

  But how to decipher what had happened? Something about gold coins and a riot and gunmen. An old German dead from cyanide poisoning. A Gestapo colonel killed with a bullet to the head.

  Gabriela, Christine, Brun, and Helmut left the port on foot. No way to get the truck out with the crowds. Helmut moved slowly, grasping his groin and wincing.

  “Maybe they’re all dead,” Gabriela said.

  “Who’s all dead?” Helmut asked.

  “Colonel Hoekman and his men, anyone who would know you were a part of this. He wanted to hog the glory, or at least solve the crime before anyone else got involved.”

  “Maybe. But they’ll want to know what happened. The story of the gold coins might confuse them, but they won’t let it drop. Not with gold. And there were eyewitnesses. Some might even be reliable. We need to cover our tracks or we’re all dead just the same.”

  “What about the gold?” Brun asked. “You still have most of the coins.”

  “It’s French. And I don’t just mean the coins were made in France. Most of it was bought with French wealth. You take it.” There was a worrying flatness in his expression. She didn’t think it was the pain talking, she thought he’d given up.

  “You want me to take it all?” Brun asked. “But I don’t. . .that is, the plan, it failed.”

  “The war isn’t over. You’ll need it for something else.”

  “So why don’t you keep it,” Gabriela urged. “You don’t know what will happen in six months. The Americans might change their minds or there might be something else you could do. There’s so much money. Think of the possibilities. You worked too hard to give up now.”

  “If there’s a use for them, someone else will find it.”

  “I’ll keep them,” Brun said, “but only until you figure out what you want. Then they’re yours.”

  Helmut said nothing, just leaned his weight on Gabriela and Christine as they cut down an alley. The clamor from the docks receded in the distance.

  Chapter Thirty-three:

  The old man stepped out of the building and blinked at the strong light. He looked up at the sky, a puzzled, but not unhappy expression on his face. It was October and a gust of wind blew a cascade of leaves over the fence and into the yard. He stared at a reddish gold leaf, spotted with brown, as it landed on an outstretched hand.

  The nurse tugged his arm to get him moving. A pair of German soldiers watched with sideways glances from their post by the asylum door. He shuffled toward the gates.

  Gabriela watched the nurse lead her father across the yard. Her heart pounded, she felt dizzy.

  Helmut put a hand on her arm. It was steadying.

  She turned over his pipe in her hands. Her fingers rubbed the soft meerschaum stone.

  Guards unlocked the gates and the nurse led him through. She wore a sour, pinched expression, as if turning over her charge only under duress. Helmut had brought a wheelchair and he helped Gabriela ease her father into the chair.

  Her father looked up with watery eyes. “Hija.”

  Hearing his voice, seeing the recognition, she felt like she would explode with emotion. “Oh, Papá. Que tanto te quiero.”

  “I love you too.”

  He recognized her, thank god, he recognized her. But there was a childish expression on his face, unsophisticated, barely comprehending. There would be no more witty comments, wry observations about the world, deep conversations over a cloud of pipe smoke. She wanted to fall into his arms and weep.

  Gabriela handed him the pipe. He turned it over in his hands. No recognition on his face, no spark.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s your pipe.”

  “Oh, do I smoke?”

  “Sometimes.”

  When you are reading philosophy. When you are writing. When you are railing against the injustices in the world. When you are yourself.

  “I did not know that.”

  “Come on,” Helmut murmured. “We have a train to catch.”

  “A train?” her father asked. “May I come?”

  “Of course.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the asylum. A confused look clouded his face, then passed. “What is your name again, hija? I’m sorry, I forgot.”

  “Gabriela, Papá.”

  “That is a beautiful name.”

  “You gave it to me, that’s why it’s so beautiful.”

  This brought a smile to his face.

  #

  Her father was worn out by the trip to Helmut’s car, and then again to the train station where he had to get out of the chair to climb stairs to the platform. As soon as they were in the private compartment, he slumped back and fell asleep.

  Gabriela sat next to Helmut. They held hands.

  “I was so worried about you,” she said. “I didn’t hear from you all summer.”

  “I’m working on the Eastern Front. The war is going badly.”

  “But nothing happened, no interrogation?”

  “Briefly questioned, that’s all. Alfonse covered for me, can you believe it? General Dorf protected him. All that time, I thought he was just bragging, you know how he is. But apparently they really are good friends. Took care of me, too. It helped that Hoekman was dead and all their evidence was innuendo, but still, I owe Alfonse for what he did.”

  “Good for him.” She hesitated. “How is your wife?”

  “Sick, getting worse. But Loise is a Valkyrie, she’ll keep fighting it. Maybe one day we’ll get to this surgeon in Vienna who can help.”

  “I hope so.”

  The train whistled and pulled out of the station. Out the window, she could see another train arriving. More German soldiers with heavy packs, coming, going. Smart men in suits—the kind of men who profited from the war. Women with bundles and children in tow. Twenty, thirty men in manacles being loaded onto a prison car by a pair of soldiers. Did it never end?

  They were shortly leaving the bustle and grime of industrial Strasbourg behind.

  “How is Christine?” Helmut asked. “Did she stay in Provence?”

  “No, she’s in Paris again. Returned to the Egyptienne, but got in another argument, so she’s back with Monsieur Leblanc at Le Coq Rouge, back sleeping with German officers. She got pregnant over the summer, ended it.”

  “Ah, that’s too bad. I was hoping. . .”

  “Yeah, me too. We divided the money you gave us and she spent her half the first six weeks. Gave most of it away, in fact. So that’s some of it, but I don’t think it’s everything. She stops by my flat every Sunday afternoon and drags me out to the Bois de Boulogne, so we can look for Roger Leblanc.
No sign of him, or his friends either. The zazous have either been deported or gone so far underground nobody will ever find them.”

  “Their day will come.”

  “As for the Germans in the city, they’re older, less numerous, but more and more frantic to celebrate the good life of Paris.”

  “Like a last meal before an execution,” Helmut said.

  “Christine says the restaurant is packed. I couldn’t say, I haven’t been back.”

  “That’s good.” He turned and looked out the window.

  “Your business is going well?” she asked, when the silence became too much to bear.

  “Terrible.” He turned back. “Lost most of my workers, of course. I couldn't pay half of them. Others got sent off as so-called volunteers to Germany before I could put them back to work. Still, there’s always need for my skills, and I set some aside for emergencies, so I’m not hungry.”

  “But what about the gold?”

  “That’s Philipe Brun’s now.”

  She tried to press him on that, but he started giving one-word answers or shrugs and they lapsed into silence again. Her father woke and looked out the window. He looked sad.

  #

  The Swiss crossing was as heavily armed as anywhere she’d seen. The border on the Swiss side was a porcupine of casements, bunkers, and gun emplacements. Armed Swiss guards searched the train, inspected papers. They were interrogated in both French and German before being allowed to enter the country.

  David Mayer met them at the train station in Geneva. He embraced Helmut. “Hey, boss. Good to see you again.”

  “How do you like Geneva?”

  “Comme ci, comme ça. What do you know, the Swiss don’t like Jews, either.”

  “I keep telling you,” Helmut said. “You need your own country. This Palestine thing the British keep talking about.”

  “And live with a bunch of Arabs? No thanks.”

  “Hey, the Arabs get along with anyone. Bet they’d be happy to take the Jews, especially if it means swapping them for the British.”

  “What are you, a Zionist? No, soon as my papers come through I’m off to Brooklyn. I’ll take my chances with the Americans.” David looked at Gabriela. “You’re looking good, Gaby. Finally put a little flesh on those bones, it suits you.”

  “I’m getting fat, you mean.”

  “Hardly. But I no longer feel the urge to stuff you with croissants. And you, you must be Señor Reyes.” He held out his hand and then picked up the older man’s hand and shook it for both of them. “Your daughter is quite a woman, it does you credit.”

  “Merci, jeune homme. Muchas gracias.”

  “Come with me, sir, I have a car waiting.”

  Her father looked at Gabriela.

  “It’s okay, Papá, David is a friend. And I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Okay, hija.”

  David carried her heaviest bag and wheeled her father out of the station.

  Helmut gave her a sad smile after the other two had gone. “I guess this is it.”

  “Does it have to be?”

  “Another year, two maybe, then this goddamned war will finally be over.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “But you’ll be okay, right?”

  “Maybe, who knows. The Allies are in Italy, what about that?”

  She knew some of it. The Americans had mounted a full-scale invasion of Italy since summer. The Italian government fell, the Germans occupied the north of the country. Seemed like the Americans were making slow but sure progress driving the boches north.

  “But that could be good,” she said. “The Yanks are in Europe, at least.”

  “Say the Americans conquer Italy, how will they cross the Alps? But it’s got them committed, that’s the problem. They should have come through Marseille. Now it could be another six months before they come at France. Meanwhile, the Soviets are pushing west, hard. You know, I heard a whisper the other day about a new plot to kill the Fuhrer, then arrest Goebbels, Himmler, and the lot.”

  “Could it work?”

  “A coup? Sure, but you know what they’re after? They want to put a general in charge, maybe Rommel, with the idea of better fighting the war. They still think we can win. No hope, it will only prolong the misery.” He sighed. “I suppose I’m nothing more than a defeatist.”

  She took his hand. “So stay with us in Geneva. There’s nothing left for you there.”

  His face clouded with pain. “I can’t, Gaby, you know that.”

  “Because of your wife?”

  “Yes, in part. Loise won’t leave, she needs me. I have to stay behind.”

  “So you’re going back to Germany to die?”

  “To see what happens. Maybe rebuild after. Or yes, maybe to die.”

  “Oh, Helmut, no.”

  “We had a good run for awhile. Germany could have ruled the world if we’d gone about it the right way. We didn’t, we did everything wrong. Now it’s only fair to be punished for our crimes.”

  “But what does that have to do with you? You didn’t do any of that. You’re a good person, you helped people.”

  “Gaby, I cast my lot with Germany a long time ago. It made me rich. Now I need to pay the price for that loyalty.”

  “It isn’t fair. You’re just one man, you don’t deserve to suffer. Please. Don’t come with me, then, if you don’t think it’s right, but you have to get out.”

  “Gaby.”

  There was so much more she wanted to say, but then David returned from the car. He waited a few meters away.

  Helmut put a hand to her face. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For making me feel alive.” He took out a piece of paper folded up in his pocket. “Christine left this in Marseille. I don’t know if you want to keep it or if it’s too ugly to remember. You can throw it away if you want, but I wanted you to decide.”

  She unfolded the paper. It had got wet at one point and the colors smeared along the side of one wall, but there was still a dark, chilling power in the gray building with its smokestacks. And the little bit of color, the red rooster with the human face standing on the roof of the asylum.

  When she looked up, Helmut was walking away. He disappeared into a mass of men and women, all jostling on the platforms, arguing with station guards, haggling with porters, struggling with children, wrestling too much baggage evacuated in too little time, hurrying to catch a train, trying to communicate in some obscure language, and waging the millions of other individual battles being fought from London to Paris, to Berlin, to Moscow and every other station, street, and corner across the continent.

  The individual battles of people, surviving.

  -end-

  Read on for author bio, discussion questions, and an excerpt from The Devil's Deep, by Michael Wallace.

  I welcome email from readers at m.wallace23@yahoo.com. Would you like an alert when the next book is published? Sign up for the new releases email list and you'll be the first to know. This list is used to announce new releases only, not for any other purpose.

  About the author:

  Michael Wallace has trekked across the Sahara on a camel, ridden an elephant through a tiger preserve in Southeast Asia, eaten fried guinea pig, and been licked on the head by a skunk. In a previous stage of life he programmed nuclear war simulations, smuggled refugees out of a war zone, and milked cobras for their venom. He speaks Spanish and French and grew up in a religious community in the desert. His suspense/thrillers include The Devil's Deep, State of Siege, Implant, and The Righteous, and he is also the author of collections of travel stories and fantasy books for children. His work has appeared in print more than a hundred times, including publication in markets such as The Atlantic and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

  The Devil's Deep

  by Michael Wallace

  Chapter One:

  It was ten minutes to midnight when Rosa Solorio ent
ered the darkened room to kidnap the retarded man.

  She found Chad Lett twitching in his bed, his arms curled into clubs, biceps stretched like cords. His hands formed claws. Muscles strained on his neck and his eyes fluttered. No sound came from his mouth, but it grimaced as if in pain.

  “Dios mio,” Rosa whispered under her breath.

  She knew Chad’s every spasm and moan. Three other beds lined the room. They held the other residents of Team Smile and after five years she could recognize each of their cries, moans, or screams from the other side of the facility.

  But eighty minutes had passed since night meds. Team Smile took theirs ground into applesauce and spooned back until reflex made them swallow, and one of Chad’s pills was a muscle relaxant. He should have been asleep by now. Instead, that grimace, the right eye rolling, but the left staring straight ahead.

  Rosa hesitated, doubting everything. Every question she’d asked herself, every time she’d studied Chad on nights like this, his face in shadows cast by the sterile, fluorescent light coming from the hallway. Maybe she was wrong.

  She couldn’t pull her gaze from Chad’s eye. Not the rolled-back right eye—the evil eye, she thought—but the left. The living eye.

  It had begun as a fantasy, spun in her own head. She’d dreamed about Chad Lett, not the profoundly retarded man warehoused at Riverwood, but a man who had walked by her side along the beach.

  “Are you sure?” the man in her dreams had asked. “Absolutely sure? Look me in the eye, Rosa. Look! Then tell me that you’re sure I’m gone.”

  And she found herself watching his eyes while she bathed him or fed him. The right showed only the glassy stare so typical of the lowest-functioning residents. But she couldn’t help but watch the left, wondering and afraid, as it blinked.

  She stood over his bed one shift after Riverwood sank into its nighttime slumber. “Are you alive? Blink if you can understand me.”

  And the left eye had answered. Blink.

  He was alive. Not just a body that breathed and a heart that beat while the brain sat cold and still. But a man, alive inside that body. A man who had just blinked his answer. As if to say, Yes, I’m alive. I’m alive and trapped in this hell. For God’s sake, help me!