“Where is that bastard?”
THIRTY-SIX
Heidelberg,
June 13, 1945
While Jacob fretted in the alley, rose-streaked water washed against the wharf in the wake of a tugboat pulling a platform loaded with military crates and piles of boxes. The setting sun touched the trees and its last rays cast a cool glow on the bench where Sarah sat, taking deep breaths, focused on what she had to do. With a slight breeze it was chillier than she had expected. She did up the buttons on her blouse, thought better of it, and undid them again. If only she had a mirror.
She had arrived just in time. Two benches were occupied by young couples and since she had claimed the last one two more couples had come who now sat with their legs dangling over the wharf. They held hands and kissed and lay their heads on each other’s shoulders, and again she thought she should have come here with Jacob. Or Hoppi.
Nerves made it hard to swallow, she could feel her heart beating. She looked up over her shoulder. People were leaning on the wall, gazing across the water, waiting for the sunset or just resting during their evening stroll. Their faces were lit by an orange glow. It could not have been more serene: for them. As for her, how quickly it all changed. From terror in basements and bushes, alone and starving, to hot baths with her lover in their lovely little home. In what? A month? Her eyes closed. It didn’t seem possible. Was it too good to be true? She heaved a sigh of contentment, a gentle smile played on her lips. Until she started: Yes, it may be too good to be true. If it all goes wrong now.
She had almost forgot why she was here.
* * *
In the alley, Jacob’s heart was racing. It’s almost dark. Where is he? Don’t say I missed him. His mouth was dry. He licked his lips. He should have brought a bottle of water. He should have worn a coat. He should have come earlier. He should have done a lot of things. How long to wait? Verdammt! Damn, tomorrow’s Saturday, the Rat’s leaving for Argentina, this is my last chance: Where is the bastard!
Jacob peered around the corner yet again and jerked his head back as if he’d been shot. It’s him. It’s the Rat. Now his heart slammed against his ribs. Thirty meters away. Close. From the hotel then he came. Only now it occurred to Jacob. He was coming from the right, so he’d have to pull him in with his left hand. His weaker arm. He might not have the strength. Or should he hold the club in his left hand, wait for Seeler to walk by, grab him with his right arm, then pull him inside? He didn’t have the power or the coordination to hit him with the club in his left hand. He’d need to pull him in, throw him against the wall, transfer the club from his left to his right hand, then hit him. Shit. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He could hear the heavy steps now. Is the ground shaking? The Rat was wearing a coat and a hat. He could grab the coat. But with which hand? He held the club in his left hand, ready to grab Seeler with his right, his stronger arm, as he walked by. Or just club him in the street with both hands and then drag him into the alley? If he falls, people may see him. He pressed himself back against the wall, tried to push himself into the bricks, he thought his heart would explode, he smelled his own sweat, he prepared his legs to pounce. At the last moment he changed his mind and held the club in his right. He’ll pull him in with the left and hit him at the same time. Or pull him in with both hands. But what about the club?
Jacob sensed him before he saw him, a premonition of him, his aura, maybe it was the evil that preceded him, and now a leg appeared in the frame of the alley walls followed by his bulk and another leg and he was past.
Jacob could hardly breathe. What happened? Had his heart stopped for an instant? He gasped for air, slumped back against the wall, hung his head forward, and heard the dull thud of the club falling by his feet. Inside, his head was screaming, howling, it was Maxie, and he turned and threw up against the wall.
Sweating, groaning, he felt a hand stroking his head, lips brushing his neck, he shivered, heard a loving whisper in his ear, and he dropped to the ground, where he sat against the wall and could barely support his head. He felt his strength drain away, all his energy fade; he could have slept for two days on the spot.
It’s over, he thought. Sarah was right. There was no point waiting for Seeler to come back home.
He couldn’t do it.
His body had understood before his mind, and said no. If it meant losing Sarah, he didn’t want to. Between Maxie, who was dead, and Sarah, who was alive, at last he chose. His heart leaped. He felt a tear of joy.
Jacob pulled himself up and steadied himself against the wall. He swirled saliva around his mouth and spat out bile that had burned his throat. He took deep breaths and looked back down the alley, to the light at the end, the courtyard, the middle building, his escape route.
He stubbed his foot on steel and looked down. He bent but stopped halfway. He straightened and walked out of the alley, leaving the club on the ground.
* * *
He’s late, Sarah thought. Maybe he won’t come? Another young couple came down the steps and approached her bench. She waved them away with a gesture and a smile and they went to the edge of the wharf and sat with their legs hanging over. Where is he? Has something happened? Jacob? She felt her hands trembling, held one out to see if it was shaking. At that moment, with one arm stretched out, with the sun almost behind the hills, Hans Seeler took her other hand, making her start, and she felt the bench shake as he fell down next to her. “I didn’t frighten you, did I?” Hans asked.
“I didn’t hear you coming,” Sarah said. “I was daydreaming. Isn’t it beautiful here?”
“Oh, yes. When we were small we jumped into the water from here, the river was nothing like it is now. It was clean. There was a rope ladder to climb back up.” He stood, went to the edge, and looked along the wharf. “It’s gone. Everything’s gone. It’s all so different now.” He sat next to Sarah and took her hand again, resting it on his thigh.
She looked down. Her hand was so small in his big fist. She should have been afraid but a calm settled upon her. Rarely in her life had she felt so sure of herself, so sure that she was doing the right thing, the only possible thing. She closed her eyes for a long moment, as she breathed in, telling herself, Be strong.
He had been gazing into the distance. Now he looked down, at her hand, and stroked it. “Well, well, Gertie, here we are.” He smiled at her.
“Yes, Hans, here we are.”
“Gertie Haus.”
“Haas. Gertie Haas.” She squeezed his hand.
“Oh yes, Haas. Where does that name come from?”
Sarah frowned at him. “Where does it come from?” She shrugged, as if to say, doesn’t everyone know? “It’s from Hase, hare. You know, the saying. ‘Wo die Fuchse und die Hase einander gute Nacht sagen.’ Where the foxes and the hares say good night to each other. It means in the middle of nowhere. Because my family, going way back, came from tiny villages in the north, in the middle of nowhere. Hase became Haas, I suppose.” She laughed. “What about Seeler, where does that come from?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, Hans Seeler, here is a question you should be able to answer.” She peered through the dusk, at the young couples gazing across the water at the big red ball; searching up and down the wharf; over his shoulder and pausing at the people standing at the top of the steps. “What did you do during the war?”
“Well, that came from nowhere,” he said, turning to look at her directly. “Anyway, you ask as if the war is over.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Which war? Against the Americans? Yes. Against the Bolsheviks? It’s just beginning. But, so tell me, you want to work in our hotel?”
“Yes, I do, I hope so, your parents are very nice.”
“Oh. And I hope I meet your approval too.”
She took her hand from his. “Why, who decides? I imagine if your mother needs help she would decide, no?”
“Well, jobs are hard to find these days, very hard, especially good ones. And yes, actuall
y, I do have something to say in the matter.” He raised an eyebrow and moved closer. “Isn’t that why you wanted to meet me?”
Sarah looked away, across the river, toward the sun, whose reflection, as it sank, sent a shimmering column of orange across the darkening water, pointing at them. The sky was turning a delicate pink, diaphanous among the gathering night clouds. The young couples kissed and hugged. She looked over her shoulder, toward the steps. Where are you? Please come now. Now! A knot tightened in her stomach as she searched among the people gathered on the road above. It was hard to see faces in the fading light.
“No, it isn’t,” she said. “Why would you think that?” The pink glow of the sun sparkled in her dark eyes. He leaned forward and she leaned back, away from his thin lips, his stinking mustache. He stopped her with his hand behind her head, his fingers curling in her hair, and as her eyes widened, her heart pounded, he pulled her toward him and their lips met. She pinched hers and squealed with disgust. Desperate, her eyes wide, she stared over his shoulder at the group at the top of the steps, forcing herself to see through the gloom, and there, standing on the top step, a big man. He raised his hand and waved and walked down two steps.
Sarah jumped up and screamed. “How dare you! Leave me alone. Don’t touch me.” The young couples turned and looked as Hans sat up in surprise. He stared as Sarah hit his shoulder and slapped his face. “Help, leave me alone,” she screamed, a thin, piercing cry. Hans stood up and grabbed her shoulder. “Gertie, what are you doing, be quiet.” Sarah kept screaming and Hans slapped her in the face, not very hard. At this Sarah screamed louder, held on to his jacket, and pulled and wriggled, as if trying to escape his grasp.
Isak bounded down the stairs, shouting at the man to leave the woman alone, and leaped onto Hans, striking him in the face. Hans, shocked, stepped back. “Why, you Jew bitch,” he yelled at Sarah, “I didn’t do anything.” Isak punched him again and sent him sprawling to the ground. Sarah was screaming, “Help, he attacked me, help!” Now everyone was watching, the young lovers, the strollers above, as the two men struggled on the ground. Hans had kicked out behind Isak’s knee and his leg had buckled. He fell awkwardly to the ground, saving himself with one arm and fending Hans off with the other. He understood from the perfectly judged kick—Seeler knows how to fight. Finish it quickly. He roared and threw himself onto Seeler, his weight forced him to the ground, and he punched him in the head, once, twice, he seized his neck and smashed his head into the concrete. But Hans lashed out with his elbow, catching Isak in the eye, and he wriggled away and kicked Isak in the arm and rolled over to the edge of the wharf, and as he rolled his right hand went into his coat and came out with a pistol that, even as he rolled, he whipped into a straight arm as if the pistol were his hand, and he was pointing at Isak’s chest.
But Isak’s gun was already in his hand, and as Hans fired Isak dropped and fired too, a thunderclap and its echo. There was a scream from a woman on the wall as Isak heard the crack of a bullet missing by millimeters. She fell to the ground. But Isak didn’t miss. He had thrown himself to the side and on one knee aimed the Nagant pistol. At dusk Hans formed a perfect silhouette in the red glow. He hit Hans in the chest, once, twice. The .32-caliber bullets hurled Hans back. Splashes of blood looked like smudges in the dark. He teetered over the edge and, with everyone agape, he tried to rise but sank to his knees. His good arm clawed at the brick as he toppled over the side of the wharf and splashed into the river. His arm flailed as he tried to keep himself up in the current, which pulled him out.
“He’ll drown,” somebody shouted.
“He’s dead anyway,” another voice said.
“No, he isn’t, look,” a woman screamed, “someone help him.”
Isak watched the body go limp in the current. He glanced at Sarah. She had thrown herself to the ground. Their eyes met. Hers were wide with shock. He looked back at the floating body until there was a scream through the dark, “Hilfe, hilfe.”
Isak tore his jacket off and pulled off his shoes. “I’ll save him,” he yelled, before anybody else could. “Call for help.”
With powerful strokes the big Russian swam out and turned downriver and quickly caught up with Hans, whose head was lolling to the side, half submerged. He had been shot just above the heart. Hans croaked and gasped for breath, kicking to keep his head above water while one arm floated uselessly, and with the other he tried to fight off Isak. The current swept them out, they hit a sudden cold stretch, it was too much and Hans’s head sank as his legs weakened. Isak came at him from behind, like a lifesaver, and took hold of Hans’s head, cradling it with one arm as he struck for shore with the other, kicking his legs. A wake of blood trailed them, dark in the gloomy orange light.
“What are you doing?” Hans gasped, unable to understand. Was he saving him? After he shot him?
Now a crowd of people were running along the road above the river, pointing and shouting at the drifting men. They ran faster but there was no way down the high wall to the river to help until the ruins of the next bridge, half a kilometer away. They shouted encouragement to Isak as they raced.
Sarah was sobbing on the bench. It was dark now, as a crowd of people comforted her. An elderly woman held her to her breast. “There, there, dear,” she was saying, “we all saw it, him hitting you like that.” Two policemen pushed through the crowd.
And in the water, as the current pulled them downstream, a dark blot on the darker waters, Isak Brodsky, kicking with his legs to stay up, put his mouth to the ear of Hans Seeler and breathed, as water washed over Hans’s face and covered his terror-stricken eyes, “Can you … hear me?”
“Yes,” Seeler gasped, coughing, spluttering. “Save me … please.”
“Save you?” Isak said into his ear, in a calm, clear voice, as if he were standing on the road, not swimming backward in the dark Neckar, night setting upon them. “Save you? SS-TV Unterscharführer Hans Seeler … in the name … of the … Jewish people … I sentence you … to death.”
With that he shifted his weight until he loomed above Seeler’s face and pressed his chest down, and the weight of Isak’s body kept the Rat’s head underwater until the frantic threshing and flailing died and Seeler’s body went limp and the bubbles stopped rising and it was all over.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Heidelberg,
June 13, 1945
That’s strange. What’s different? From the door Jacob surveyed the room: crumpled sheets on the unmade bed, clothes strewn on the chair as if she’d been trying everything on, the bedside table with a cup of water and some toilet paper rolled into a ball, the sink full of dirty dishes. That’s unlike Sarah, he thought, she must have left in a hurry. He lingered on the cheap oil painting of Heidelberg Castle at dusk from across the Neckar; there must be one in every rented room in town. He closed the door behind him, took off his clothes, threw them on the bed with Sarah’s, and went into the shower.
He let the water run over his body and felt the relief wash over him, felt the dust and the grime of the alley wash away. There was hot water again. He turned the tap down to leave some for Sarah, too.
He watched the water course along his arms and drip from the hairs of his chest onto his belly and to his feet. There was something different. He had put on weight since Bergen-Belsen, but not much. He had always been thin, and as he soaped himself he could feel it. In the camp his skin had hung, it was like a loose shirt, and now it was tight, he had filled out with muscle.
Soap and water. Hot water. Oh, God! Maxie smiled, those impish eyes. How old? Six? Seven? When they had stopped having baths together? He wished he could see his mother’s face but he just couldn’t fit together the pieces. She leaned over the bath and rubbed them with soap, first Maxie standing up and then him. Maxie would splash him and the water ran over the floor and Maxie had to mop it up himself. He would always pull the top of the mop so that Maxie couldn’t clean up, and they’d chase each other naked through the house, with Mutti running after them
shouting, “You’re dripping, you’re dripping, you’re making a mess.” They’d had a fight and he’d hidden Maxie’s duck. Or was it a cow, a rubber cow? Maxie was always a crybaby.
Often they’d get into the same bed and Maxie would say, “Tell me a story.” He made them up. About things he had done in school, with the older boys, in which he was always the hero. Maxie soon nodded off, and he’d get up and fall asleep in his own bed.
In Bergen-Belsen they had shared a wooden board all night because he didn’t have another one to go to. He didn’t have any stories to tell and Maxie didn’t fall asleep, he babbled and the open sores made him shift and toss so that Jacob couldn’t sleep either.
Maxie had been semi-delirious for weeks as the typhus took hold. The beating from the Rat had only killed him quicker. It was probably a relief.
Jacob turned off the shower and wandered into the room, drying himself. He knew now it wasn’t the room that was different. It was him. He felt lighter. He was floating. If I were walking outside, he thought, there would be a spring in my step.
All the way home he had thought of Maxie. His oath hadn’t been worth much, as it turned out. What did that say about him? The thought of revenge had given him a will to live, brought him home even, and then, when it came to it, he couldn’t do it. In his heart he knew he didn’t even want to. There was no revenge that justified throwing away his own life, and certainly not if it harmed Sarah, too. What’s the proverb? If you seek revenge, dig two graves. Maxie would have wanted him to live, have a family with Sarah, that would be the true revenge. He sighed. They could adopt, there would be many Jewish orphans. And others.
Jacob's Oath: A Novel Page 27