In the Land of Armadillos

by Helen Maryles Shankman

  Toby looked reluctant. “I don’t think you’ll like it.”

  “Try me.” Max took out his cigarette case, lit one for himself and one for Toby. Between them, the smoke revolved lazily into the air.

  “The setting is the interior of a large old-fashioned house. Oversize furniture, Oriental rugs, heavy drapes, urns with artificial flowers. The family is all at home. Mother says she heard in the marketplace that a tremendous rainstorm was coming their way. Someone should check that the windows are shut, the laundry taken off the line, and the chickens locked safely in the henhouse. Father is in his study, lost in his research on a particular species of beetles in the Amazonian rain forest. Brother can’t be bothered, he’s too busy flirting with the sexy servant girl. Sister doesn’t believe it, she only wants to talk about the party last night and how she needs a new dress for the big dance. Mother goes off to check on something cooking on the stove, then lies down on the couch with a headache. Just then there is a threatening roll of thunder in the distance. A giant hand descends through the roof and snatches them up, one by one. They scream and scream, but it’s as if no one can hear them.

  “Suddenly, the point of view changes: A small boy is taking dolls out of a large, elaborately decorated toy house. When he is called to dinner, he leaves the dolls naked in a heap on the playroom floor.”

  Toby took a deep drag on the cigarette. Max waited for more, but it became apparent that there was none forthcoming. “That’s it?” he said, puzzled. “Then what happens?”

  “Nothing. The End.”

  Max was disappointed. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but the story was too vague and disquieting to be enjoyable. “Not your best work,” he advised him. “Don’t feel bad. The next one will be better.”

  He unbuttoned his jacket the rest of the way, settled back on the bed with a satisfied sigh. He liked to watch Toby work, the movements of his hands as they drew looping lines and angles that became animals, or trees, or buildings, or people. This was how he ended his days now; there was something comforting in the regularity of the nighttime ritual. Had anybody asked him, he would have denied it, but the truth was, he could let down his guard with Toby in a way that wasn’t possible among other Germans.

  “Where do you get your ideas from?”

  Toby, hunched on the chair, peered at him through the haze of smoke. “Everywhere,” he said. “It’s like a game. It starts like this. You see the paintbrushes, right? Look at them, all clustered together in that vase. What if the brushes were alive? What sound would they make, rubbing up against each other? What if they could talk? What would they say to one another? Would they have an ongoing feud with the paint about who is the most important? What would they think of the current political situation? You get the idea.”

  Max shook his head in wonder. No, he did not get the idea. His mind didn’t work that way. In his brain, every word, every thought, every action, had a slot, like a well-organized toolbox, where he stored them until they were needed.

  “But how do you do it? I can’t draw anything, not even a straight line.”

  “I don’t know. A picture appears in my head, and my fingers do the rest.” Wearily, Toby rubbed at a place under his eye. Max could tell he was tired. The pouches were more bruised-looking than usual. “Sorry, it’s late,” he said. “Anything else?”

  “Listen,” Max said, coming to the second part of his plan. “I met an old friend of yours.” A more observant man would have seen Toby turn pale, but rapt with enthusiasm, he plunged on. “Bianca Rozycki,” he said, wagging a naughty-naughty finger at him. “You didn’t tell me how pretty she is!”

  “She’s not in any trouble, is she?” There was a queasy tremor of fear in Toby’s voice.

  “Oh, no, not at all. She looks very well. She didn’t want me to tell you I’d seen her. Probably didn’t want you to worry. Now, Toby,” he went on earnestly, “she did tell me one thing that was useful. You have a sister.”

  Toby bleached a deathly white. The hand holding the cigarette began to shake.

  Max leaned forward. “It’s all right, Toby. Trust me. I want to be your friend. Just tell me where she is. Maybe I can help her, too.”

  On his chair in the middle of the room, Toby hunched his shoulders closer together, as if in defense from imminent attack. Max thought he understood. “I know. When you look at me, maybe all you see is this uniform. I am an officer of the German Reich, yes, I do my job very well, yes, but inside the uniform, I am also a man. I know what it is to worry about someone you love. Come on, Toby. Let me help you. At least give me an idea.”

  “I can’t. I mean, I don’t know where she is.” The long sensitive fingers had a life of their own, creeping across his forehead. “She was in a hiding place on the other side of town. For a while, I was getting regular messages from her. She was hungry, she was bored, could I bring her some movie magazines . . . a few weeks ago, they stopped. I went to the house, but it was empty. It looked like it had been ransacked. A neighbor told me there had been Jews hiding there, but someone gave them away. When they tried to escape into the forest, they were caught. I haven’t heard from her since.” His hands were trembling so much, he spilled ash over his pants. He brushed at it with fumbling fingers. Absently, like a worried mother. “Silly girl . . . the last time I saw her, she wasn’t even dressed properly for winter . . . I had to give her my coat.”

  Max had a bad feeling about this. “When was this, exactly?”

  “It would have been around the time I came to work for you.”

  Something’s come up. We caught a group of Jews in the forest outside of town, and I need you to take over. A small job. Twenty-three. They must have been hiding out somewhere. Two dark-haired girls at the far end of the line, fourteen or fifteen, clasping each other for support. The celebrated artist and writer Tobias Rey, on a day so cold that the branches outside his window were jacketed in ice, showing up to his first interview without an overcoat. One of the girls, delicate, with legs like two spindles. Dark eyes in a sensitive face, wearing a coat many sizes too large for her. He saw it now. The girl looked just like her brother.

  “Did you say she was wearing a man’s coat?” he inquired cautiously, his eyebrows fanned upward.

  At first Toby’s eyes fixed on him with something like hope. But as the silence dragged grimly on and on, the import of the SS man’s words dawned slowly across his face. Suddenly his features were changing shape, melting, breaking apart. A wordless cry forced its way out of his throat, his voice shattering into silvery pieces that fell to the floor and rolled away into the corners like balls of mercury from a broken thermometer.

  “She didn’t feel a thing, Toby,” Max said urgently, sitting forward, putting his hand on his arm. “You hear me, Toby? She fell without a sound.”

  “Was it you?” he cried out. “Did you do it?”

  “No. But I was there,” Max said. Quietly, to calm him. “It was Krause, from my team. A good man. It was over in seconds. She didn’t even hear the gunshot, I swear it.”

  There was another bleat of anguish, and the thin, pale fingers plowed into the unkempt hair, hiding his face from view.

  Max knew what to do. Swiftly, he hurried down the stairs, came back up holding a bottle of vodka. He poured a tall glass for Toby and another one for himself. He pulled up a chair and sat down next to him. “Now, Toby, you listen to me,” he said firmly. “It’s over for her, okay? She’s out of it. No more pain, no more suffering. Do you think she’d want you to give up, to go through all this drama, acting like it’s the end of the world? No, of course not. She’d want you to be happy, to get on with your life. That is how you honor your sister’s memory.”

  But the dark, shaggy head was rocking back and forth, no, no, no, no. Max sighed, rubbed his hand over his own stubby hair. Oh, he’d really put his foot in it. This was going to be harder than he thought.

  “Listen, Toby,” he started again, more gently this time. “The war won’t last forever. One day all this bus
iness of killing will be over, and we will have to start again with the business of living. And on that happy day, we’ll have a drink together in friendship. But for now we just have to get through this. Come on, drink up.”

  Toby stopped shaking, but behind his hands, he was making small, unintelligible sounds, as if he were crying in the language of animals. Finally, his head lifted. His face was puffy, smudged with tears and paint. He wiped it off on his sleeve and downed half of the vodka in a single gulp. “You want to drink? Okay, then. Let’s drink.”

  Toby’s eyes were rimmed with red, but there was a menacing junkyard-dog quality to his movements that was setting off alarms in Max’s head. “Hey, does the Gestapo ever play bar games? As a patron of the fine arts, I think you’re really going to like this one.”

  In his time in the Einsatzgruppen, Max had seen a lot of drunks. Most of them slurred their words, became sloppy, or angry, silent, or sentimental. Toby, on the other hand, seemed to grow more awake, more aware, more precise. He roamed through his portfolio, pulling out a sheet of laid paper. Max caught his breath. It was an ink drawing of a man prostrating himself on the floor beneath a naked woman seated on a bed. The man was worshipfully kissing the underside of her foot. Toby said, “Here we go. You draw a line, and I have to make something out of it.”

  “I don’t want to ruin your picture.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ve got lots of dirty pictures. Come on, it’ll be fun.”

  “No, Toby.” He was uneasy. “You’ve just had a terrible shock. You need to sleep.”

  Toby’s voice had changed, darkly colorful, slippery, and raw. “Not really. I don’t sleep much these days. Drawing makes me feel better. Go on, Herr Sturmbannführer. Draw.”

  “I told you, I can’t draw. And don’t call me that. There’s no ‘Herr Sturmbannführer’ between you and me, Toby.”

  “Okay, then, I’ll go first.”

  Toby took a pencil, scribbled on the back of the paper, then shoved it across the desk. Reluctantly, Max fingered the pencil, then looked at the line. It was just a meaningless squiggle. How could you do anything with that? He stared at it and stared at it, and then, in a flash, he had it. Squinting and tilting his head, he began to draw. A few minutes later, he slid it over to Toby, almost fearfully awaiting his judgment.

  “I see. A rabbit. Clever, very clever,” he mumbled. He tipped the glass upward, finishing the vodka. “Come on, Max. My turn.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Just draw a line. After that masterpiece, it should be a piece of cake. I’ll do the rest.”

  With the tip of the pencil touching the paper, Max hesitated. He had the distinct feeling that he was on the point of losing control of the situation. Best to just say no, turn Toby out into the night, with a guard, of course, to get him home safely. Better yet, he could just leave, locking the artist in the attic room. By morning he would surely be back to himself. But then he would miss the pleasure of seeing Toby draw. On the paper, Max made an irregular zigzag line, the lightning insignia of the SS, and pushed it across the desk.

  Toby studied the scribble, tapping the end of the pencil against his teeth. “Perfect, just perfect,” he said. With fierce joy, he bent over the paper and began to draw. Max wished he would just stick to drawing, but Toby wouldn’t shut up. “It’s bedtime, isn’t it? How about a story?”

  The pencil went scritch scritch scritch. The grandfather clock in the stairway bonged midnight. Outside, the wind wept and tore at the windowpanes. The hairs prickled up on the back of Max’s neck.

  “Once upon a time, there was a handsome and powerful prince. He owned a castle filled with servants, but still, he was lonely. The prince fell in love with a princess who lived in a faraway land. He wrote her many beautiful letters filled with poetry, inviting her to visit him. He decorated his castle with the finest flying carpets from Persia, drapes woven by enchanted spiders, furniture built by captive fairies, but still, the princess wouldn’t come. It turns out the princess was actually fucking her son’s riding instructor. The End.”

  Max lifted himself from his seat and punched Toby in the face. His chair teetered on two legs for a moment before falling over backward. Bunching his hand into a fist, he stood over the emaciated, angular figure and punched him again. Blood spurted from Toby’s nose, ran from the split lips, the twisted, insolent mouth. Max yanked his gun from the holster and whipped it savagely across the unprotesting face.

  Toby’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he passed out. Breathing hard, the SS man stood over the prone, crooked body and pointed his pistol at Toby’s heart.

  Astonishingly, the hand with the gun faltered, dropped back to his side.

  “No,” he said forcefully to the ruined, unconscious face. “I won’t do it, you Jew bastard. I won’t kill you, no matter how much you want me to. You’re going to live, you little shit, whether you like it or not.”

  He checked to make sure that Toby was breathing, threw a blanket over him, and walked to the door. The pen drawing of the naked girl and her foot-fetishist lover lay under the upturned chair. Max righted the chair, picked up the drawing, and turned it over.

  Bars, walls made from stone, a sink, a bed, a toilet. On the bed sat a man in a prison uniform, reading a letter. Despite his fury, Max could still admire the attention paid to detail in the little portrait of himself.

  He gave the artist a good swift kick, then headed down the stairs to get Adela.

  From Max Haas’s diary, November 12, 1942

  . . . a dreadful night, up until dawn selecting Jews for transport, another thousand, and I’m expected to replace them and have the businesses up and running again by the next day. What are they thinking?

  There are rumors flying, something bizarre happened in the forest. Either no one knows, or no one wants to say. Many good men lost their lives, Krause and Hanfling from my team among them. It was brutal, barbaric. A man disemboweled and hung in a tree, another found without skin . . . of others, they are finding only body parts. There isn’t even anything left to send home to their families. Some say it was the Communists. I’m sure it was the partizans. These people are animals.

  From a letter to his wife, posted on the same date.

  . . . a firm date for when you are coming. No more excuses! You can’t imagine how urgently I need you. The murals in Peter’s room are almost finished. After our artist is done with the nursery, I think I’ll put him to work in the dining room.

  P.S. Please discontinue Peter’s riding instruction. I’m anxious for his health. He can resume his lessons when he gets here.

  * * *

  A Siberian wind was blowing down from the steppes. Max’s handsome overcoat was made of the finest fabrics, from the finest German mills, by the smartest designers, but it was small comfort against the eastern cold.

  Earlier in the day, he had taken Lilo out for a ride. This time of year the landscape was flat and dead, frost lying between the furrows. Lilo snorted, dipping her head up and down, happy to be freed from her stall. Patting the side of her neck, Max urged her into the forest.

  Leaves and small branches snapped beneath her hooves, and the pleasantly astringent smell of pine needles rose into the air. Unexpectedly, they came upon a big operation, hundreds of Jews patiently waiting to take their place in front of the pit. Rohlfe was there with Hackendahl, Reinhart, too, looking pinched and serious. Reinhart had visited Max’s office a number of times in the past month, always congenial, always with gifts: a gold watch or a diamond bracelet in exchange for one Jewish craftsman or another whom he would whisk away to his labor camp. Max was rather sorry he’d let him have Soroka, he would have liked to keep the saddlemaker in town. He himself had recently ordered a new saddle from him; he was the best in the region.

  Gruber called and waved. But Max couldn’t stay and socialize, he had a full desk of work waiting for him, so he turned Lilo around and headed back for town.

  Near the edge of the woods, he came upon a cad
re of ragged, starved-looking Jews. When Max ordered them to put their hands in the air, they turned instead and fled, forcing him to give chase. He’d shot three of them, two men and a girl, when Lilo stumbled on the uneven ground and fell.

  The long bone of her right front leg was fractured. He couldn’t even coax her to her feet. It was obvious he would have to put her down. As if to break his heart, she put her velvety nose into his hand, snuffling around for the treat that he always carried for her. Running his fingers across the smooth hard hide, he looked for the last time into the liquid brown eyes and almost cried. He was grateful for only one thing—that she didn’t know what was coming.

  Capping off a perfect day, just as he returned to his villa, Soroka arrived, bringing with him the new saddle. Max almost lost it right then and there. By the time he reached his office, he was practically bawling. After signing a few papers, he picked up his files and went home.

  Before he was halfway through the door, his senses were captivated by the smells of plums and cinnamon. Adela was baking. From the upper floor, he could hear music playing—Marlene Dietrich sighing throatily, falling in love again, never wanted to . . . what am I to do, I cahn’t help it. He went straight to the kitchen.

  Adela had turned out to be an able and trustworthy comrade in the struggle to keep Toby’s feet planted on this earth. After cleaning him up that long bad night, she had stayed with him until morning. Since then, a bond seemed to have been forged between his artist and his cook; she could often be seen dashing upstairs with a plate of something delectable, and it could be some time before she was seen again in the kitchen. Once he had come upstairs to find them close together in the darkened room. They’d sprung guiltily apart at his entrance. They had no idea how excited he was by the proof that his little matchmaking scheme was working. As she left, he’d intercepted a stealthy look of passion meant only for Toby, her hooded eyes gleaming, her lips wet and parted. Max had been so aroused that he’d had to excuse himself to rush downstairs and write an ardent letter to Gerda.