by Guy Saville
“Governor Globus phoned me earlier,” said Quorp, shutting the door behind them. His tone was instantly aggressive. “He said you might show up. I’m to offer you no assistance. The city is jittery enough because of the Ark.”
“I need a dozen of your men.”
“Odilo and I are old pals, from our Carinthian days.” He hid a belch behind his hand. “Loyalty means everything.”
“This is a matter of the highest state security. Who do you take your orders from, Globus or the Reichsführer?”
“Both. And you are neither.”
Hochburg turned back to the dining room. Kepplar was awkwardly rejecting Quorp’s wife as she offered him a glass of champagne. Beneath the table, two red setters gorged on bowls of meat. “Your family, I presume.” He looked forward to being reunited with Fenris.
“Of course.”
“How old is your youngest?”
“Emilia is four now. She was born here, at Mandritsara; the facilities are excellent…” He caught Hochburg’s single black eye.
Hochburg made no threat, simply allowed his voice to convey a gamut of possibilities. “Nice family,” he said.
“You … you wouldn’t dare,” replied Quorp as if a bone were stuck in his throat.
Fifteen minutes later, Hochburg stood impatiently at the gate of the villa. The house, painted acid green, was surrounded by Bismarck palms and situated on top of the city’s only significant hill. A simple barrier with two sentries led to a paved road—north to Diego, southwest to Mandritsara—and a third track headed down to the river and Antzu itself. It descended into thin, drifting mist. Hochburg smelled freshly baked bread. He twirled Burton’s knife between his fingers.
“I’m eager to find Cole again,” said Kepplar as they waited for their escort. “In Roscherhafen, I missed my chance to have a proper look at his skull. I predict a Category Four, possibly even a Five, wouldn’t you say, Herr Oberst? Like a negroid.”
Hochburg made no reply. He saw the mania in Kepplar’s eyes. How little he understood of their mission in Africa. It came from too much indoctrination: his former deputy was dedicated but incapable of thinking for himself. Hochburg was growing weary of men like him. Of all men. He appreciated how his superweapon would free him from having to rely on drones.
The front of the villa was decorated with baskets spewing scarlet bougainvillea. A line came to Hochburg: If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever. Who had written that? A melancholy welled in him; he seized upon Feuerstein’s predictions to chase it away. The scientist had spoken of an eye-shriveling flash as the device exploded.
“I will win back Africa for you, my love,” he whispered to Eleanor.
America’s interest in the bomb suddenly became clear to Hochburg. Nultz had been right: it was a form of insurance. Whatever pressure the American Jewish Committee was exerting on Taft, he had repeatedly vowed to remain neutral. The United States wanted the bomb not in order to attack but as a deterrent. Every time Globocnik crushed a township or sent more Jews to the reservations, America risked being drawn into conflict with the Reich. The threat of the bomb would curtail Globus, reduce him to a mere administrator. The AJC would be pacified, and Washington would have no need to embark on adventures abroad.
The clatter of boots roused Hochburg; four youths had arrived. They stood at attention clasping BK44s—all fresh and pink from Europe, heads shorn, excited to be carrying weapons. “Is that it?” said Kepplar. “Stable lads?”
“The lowest are often the keenest,” replied Hochburg. Quorp had refused him any soldiers from the garrison.
“But can we rely on them? If the Jews—”
Hochburg silenced him, glancing at the villa. “Name me any man I can rely on. They wear the skull and palm tree; that is enough.” Quorp was watching them from the dining room, his daughter at his knees. “He will have contacted Globocnik by now. We haven’t much time.”
Hochburg ordered the barrier lifted and marched toward the mist, slipping Burton’s knife inside his uniform and removing Madeleine’s file. He addressed the recruit next to him: the same groom who had met their helicopter when they first arrived.
“Do you know the city?”
“Yes, Oberstgruppenführer.”
“Good. Take me to Boriziny Strasse.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE ARGUMENT WITH Abner had robbed Madeleine of the last of her energy. She understood that he wanted to keep her safe, but she did not need his protection; it was bound to something selfish, a desire to prove himself. The only person who’d ever made her feel safe was Burton.
Madeleine closed the door, securing the lock as best she could. The air was saturated with an earthy, damp smell. For the first time in months, she was alone. In the abattoir she had craved moments of solitude; now it seemed deafening. Her house—the luxury that was Boriziny—consisted of a single room with a partition at the back that hid buckets and a hole to squat over; water came from a standpipe down the street. The walls, painted a coral pink by a previous occupant, were moldering, the floorboards rough and laid with banana leaf matting. The only furniture was a bed, the makeshift cradle, and a second crate she used as a table. A thought sneaked into her mind: that her brother had tricked her into returning to this place. Madeleine sat down on the bed, the frame creaking as if it would snap.
Perhaps her antagonism toward Abner was because he was right. There was no warrior spirit in her. If she wanted the twins, she should leave immediately and march straight for Mandritsara. She reached for the cradle, a sob filling her lungs.
“I’m too tired,” she said aloud to ward off the silence. “I need to rest … just for a few minutes. You’ll forgive me that.”
She didn’t know whether she was speaking to her babies, Burton, or herself. The sugar from the honey cake, so restorative a few moments earlier, coursed through her blood, making her heart palpitate. A sense of utter hopelessness was building inside her: finding the twins would be impossible; there was no escape from the island. Even if she did stand before Cranley again, he would bat her away like a bad smell. She wanted someone to blame: Burton for his recklessness, her husband for exiling her, Hochburg … If it wasn’t for Hochburg, Burton would never have been drawn to Kongo. Madeleine thought of those weeks she’d spent waiting for him to return from Africa. More than once she’d been on the verge of taking Alice and leaving. Why had she been so foolish as to stay?
Behind her eyes it felt as if her face were crumbling. It was the exhaustion talking. Never think when you’re tired, Burton used to tell her. The world will seem black. She needed to calm her mind, get some sleep. The flaking pink walls had guarded her children during her pregnancy; no harm would come to her here.
Madeleine yanked off her left boot, then turned to the knotted right one, trying to unpick it. Her fingernails were useless, blunt and soft with rain. She considered using her knife, but whole lengths of lace were too precious.
The second time she met Burton Cole she had been struggling with a knot. It was the autumn of 1949, a bright, breezy day on the coast. Later she reflected that all the important events of her life—fleeing Vienna, meeting Jared, the birth of Alice—happened as the year began to turn. Madeleine was walking along the beach, as she did most days when encamped in Suffolk. There were steep banks of shingle, the view empty in every directions except for a lone sail out to sea; inland were dunes and marshes. She wore the latest hiking fashions and a sturdy pair of Ayres & Lee boots. It was a relief to be free of the house and alone; the nanny was taking care of Alice, and Jared was in London till the end of the week. Time to fill her lungs and get her pulse hammering. The local countryside was too flat for proper hiking, the type she’d enjoyed as a girl; nevertheless, the exercise reminded her of her father. She wished he were there to confide in.
After she first arrived in London, wearing a hand-me-down uniform and scrubbing floors, she thought she would spend the rest of her life as a spinster maid, growing
bonier by the year. Now she had a beautiful daughter, two beautiful houses, and a marriage that protected her from persecution (if not occasional snide remarks); Jared was sober, prosperous, and endlessly faithful. Life had never been so comfortable—and yet she was ashamed to admit how miserable she was.
Madeleine was no longer the woman Jared had offered a ring to. She had flourished in the rich soil he planted her in, growing in ways neither of them intended. When she let herself be clipped into shape, he only seemed more dissatisfied with the result. As much as she tried, as much as she loved him, she fell short of being grateful in the way he expected. The miracle of their first few years became oppressive: a storm swelling in the distance, forever darkening, never breaking. Like after Dunkirk, when the country held its breath for invasion. Sometimes she yearned for an argument, to shout and be shouted at, simply for the respite that would follow. Jared hadn’t changed, though he wasn’t quite the husband she had imagined. She sensed that he preferred the vulnerable, unwashed immigrant who first entered his office. It might have been more bearable if she had a confidante; however, few women wanted to be her friend, and those who did were kind but incapable of understanding the life she had led. In the meantime, she became more entrenched in luxury.
As Madeleine was striding along the shingle, her boot became loose. She bent down to retie the laces and found them caught in a knot. The more she tried to unravel it, the tighter it drew. When it wouldn’t give, she slipped the boot off, raising it to her face to see better. The pebbles beneath her feet were spiky and sensuous. She wanted to feel them against her skin, so she tugged off her sock, burying her toes, arching her spine with pleasure. The knot was less pleasing: she plucked at it with her thumbnail, yet it refused to yield.
“Verfluchter mist!” she swore in German.
Madeleine continued to pry at the knot till her nail broke. She swore again, then again, speaking the forbidden language, her voice rising. The words came out in a flood. The beach was empty—what did she care? It felt good to roar. She cursed the lace and the boot and the muttering servants back home, working down through her register of insults till she reached the Nazis and Hitler, that kernel of pleasing, instinctive hate. Jared, ever the diplomat, tut-tutted whenever she spoke ill of the Führer in public.
The tension eased from her till she was giggling. When the knot still didn’t budge, she hurled the boot through the air in frustration.
It bounced off the shingle and landed in front of a stranger.
Madeleine shrank with embarrassment, wondering how he had managed to get so close without making any noise. His face looked familiar, and she feared he might be one of Jared’s friends. The thought of this incident getting back to her husband was too much to bear. The stranger was wearing a waxed jacket, his skin darkly tanned.
“Problem with your boot?” he asked in German.
His voice was soft, lethargic, exotic. She remembered him at once. “You’re the nephew,” she said, “the one in Africa.”
“You know my aunt?”
“We met at one of her parties last year. I was playing Schubert, remember? Your name’s Burton.”
He gave a half-smile, flattered to be recognized. He looked as if he was recovering from a long illness. The stubble around his chin showed the first signs of gray. Madeleine had a good memory for names, a talent inherited from her father; he claimed that his success as a doctor relied as much on his familiarity with his patients as it did on his clinical skills. She remembered that night at his aunt’s vividly, and the mistake she had made. After leaving him at the piano, she realized he was the first person she’d ever spoken to who might be able to answer her questions. She searched the house and gardens for him—but Burton had vanished.
He bent stiffly to retrieve her boot. “That’s a bad knot.”
Madeleine held out her hand for it, mortified that the innards might smell. That morning she had worn unlaundered socks—a silly, girlish act of rebellion. “Don’t worry. I can undo it.”
“By throwing it across the beach?”
She was unsure whether he was mocking her; his eyes gave away nothing. “Please, it’s no trouble.”
He returned it to her. She liked how he had not insisted, not proclaimed his superior skills. She fiddled with the laces for another thirty seconds before giving up. “I don’t want to cut them,” she said. The servants would tell.
He was looking at the ground. “Isn’t your foot cold?”
She passed the boot back and rolled on her sock. He took the laces between his fingers, did something she couldn’t see, and in an instant the knot was loose.
“How did you do that?” she asked, exasperated that it had been so simple.
“An old trick from the Legion.”
“You were a soldier?”
He gave an evasive nod and offered her the boot. “Which way are you headed?”
“Toward Dunwich.”
“Same as me. You want some company?”
Madeleine hesitated, unsure how to reply: not wanting to encourage him, not wanting to be rude. Knowing they might not meet again, and keen to question him.
They walked in silence except for the crunch of pebbles; Burton struggled to match her pace. She maintained at least a meter between them in case they chanced upon someone she knew. A yard, she heard her husband say. You mustn’t use these continental terms.
“Are you back from Africa?” she asked. He gave another of his noncommittal nods. “I’ve always wanted to see Africa.”
“There’s nothing there. Just misery.”
Madeleine eased her stride, building up to her real question. “What about Madagaskar—have you been?”
“Once.”
“What’s it like?”
He glanced at her, probably guessing that she had Jewish blood. She rarely admitted it, detesting the pity and poison that sneaked into people’s faces. Burton’s expression remained neutral.
“It was a long time ago,” he replied. “Before they sent them south.”
“I’ve never met anyone who’s been.”
He searched for something to say. “My last night, we were hiding in the hills above Majunga, waiting for a boat. The shelling had stopped, and it was quiet. Really quiet, just a chorus of insects.” He offered a distant smile. “You could almost believe it was peaceful.”
She continued to quiz him, surprised by how considerate his answers were; for some reason, she’d had him down as a brute. She knew there were no words of consolation; she no longer needed any. She simply wanted to make the beyond her family had passed into real, know the color of the earth and the smell of the sky from someone who had been there.
After ten minutes, he stopped abruptly.
“I can’t go any farther.” He gripped his thigh. “It hurts.” He turned in the direction from which they had come. “Do you often walk here?”
“I like to.”
“The doctor says I need exercise every day. To strengthen the muscle. Perhaps we’ll meet another time.”
“I’m not sure that’s appropriate. I’m married.”
He limped away, boots scrunching on the shingle, before he stopped again. “I remember the Schubert now,” he said, “The Hungarian Melody. You were very good. But, I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name.”
“Mrs. Cranley.”
“Your first name.”
She wavered. “Madeleine.”
“Like in the Bible.” Burton smiled and switched to German: “‘Healer of wounds and evil spirits.’”
The next morning dawned warm and blue, ideal for walking. “The weather’s been better since the Jews left” was a staple joke of the age. Madeleine stayed indoors, as she did the day after; then Jared visited till Sunday. As usual, he came with gifts and bonhomie, and that tightening of the atmosphere in the house. On Monday, it was pouring. Madeleine tied her hair in a bun and put on a mac, assuming she’d have the beach to herself, and found Burton patrolling the same stretch of shingle where they’d met before
. They exchanged pleasantries as the rain lashed them, and he asked about her weekend. For reasons she never understood—the conspiracy of the weather, a need to unburden herself, instinct—she told him the truth. She said nothing bad about Jared but explained how suffocating she found the expectations of home, how with the servants always around there could be no lapse in her poise.
“You must think me awfully ungrateful,” she said when she finished. Awfully ungrateful: she sounded like a bad parody of Celia Johnson.
“My aunt’s a good woman; so is her maid,” replied Burton. “They care for me like nurses. But sometimes I have to get out of that house or I’ll scream.”
Madeleine was soaked by the time she returned home. She ran a bath, and as she stood in her underclothes, steam billowing from the tap, she wondered whether Burton liked hot baths. I could never marry a man who didn’t like baths, she used to vow to her friends when she was a teenager. Jared’s new obsession was showers. They’re the future, he told her. Look at America.
She went out the next day in quiet anticipation of meeting Burton. But when she saw him in the distance—a dark, limping figure against the gray shingle—she froze. What was she doing? They could never be friends. She should return to London with Alice straightaway. When he raised his hand in greeting, she hurried off in the opposite direction.
“Ami!” he cried after her. The sound bounced across the shingle into the boom of the waves. “Ami!”
Madeleine jerked awake now, convinced that she could hear Burton’s voice echoing around her, as real as the pink walls and the pervasive damp.
Ami …
It was the call of a legionnaire as he approached a fort. She lurched to the door, her brain half-slopped, and looked up and down Boriziny Strasse. It was empty, the mist curling and shifting along its length. Nothing but the smell of baking. The woman opposite broke off from her breathing exercises to scowl.