The Dutch Wife

by Ellen Keith

  At the same time, a few lower-ranked officers appeared and ordered the inmates to get back to their blocks. They, too, looked flushed with drink, and Karl debated which of his lunch companions had spread the news. The prisoners broke apart, revealing the markings on their uniform. Three of them pink triangles.

  He walked toward them, his hands twitching at his sides. “Whatever you’re planning, it’s useless. You won’t get out of here alive.”

  The prisoners halted and looked to the ground, while the officers turned to him, waiting for his next move. He gritted his teeth as he heard a plane overhead, thought of those Americans marching in, throwing grenades at his villa, shooting at them, showing no mercy. He jabbed a finger at the pink triangles. “You three, stay here. The rest of you, leave.”

  As the others scattered, he nodded to the officers, who grinned. They circled around the fags, moving in closer, knocking them to the ground. With each kick, each cry of pain, Karl felt his nerves settling, felt himself growing stronger. They weren’t defeated, not yet. They wouldn’t let their enemies win.

  AFTER an unpleasant Easter Day, all he could think of was Marijke. She never failed to distract him, to calm his anxious mind. But when he arrived in her koberzimmer, she seemed about as pleased to see him as a Jew served a pork roast. Her lips slumped into a sour frown, and she started in on him about those damn pansies. Granted, no part of him wanted her to witness him like that, but work was work and she failed to grasp that.

  In all his years at home, he’d never heard his mother talk back to his father. His experience with women in Berlin was limited to pretty things in stockings and aprons that did exactly what was expected of them. Even Else, who had her strong opinions, had never once lashed out at him. But Marijke had the look of a lit fuse as she stormed out of the koberzimmer, slamming the door behind her.

  He got up and marched over to the exit, ready to yell out her name and order her back. But he stopped himself, worried about how that would look to anyone within earshot: the brothel doctor, the guards. Plus, if he went back on his word, the two of them would go back to being slave and master. For four long minutes, he waited. The door stayed shut. His temples pulsed in his ears. Another minute passed.

  His boots sat beside the sink, laces spilling onto the floor. As he stepped toward them, his head brushed the dangling vines of the plant hanging from the ceiling. He tore the pot from its mount and whipped it at the wall. It smashed, splattering dirt across the wood panels.

  “Self-righteous whore.”

  He knelt to do up his boots, but his fingers shook, and the bow he was tying slipped apart. Still no movement at the door. He couldn’t waste the night defending himself to some prisoner, some irrational woman. It was beyond her capacity to examine reality like a man, like a responsible citizen of a powerful nation.

  As he left the brothel, he cursed himself for having gotten so soft with her. He didn’t know where to go from there. The wool of his uniform itched his throat, and for the first time in years, he craved a cigarette. He walked around the brothel and alongside the cinema. A biting wail came from the trees beyond the watchtowers. He stood still to listen. A baby rabbit, he was almost positive. He’d heard that cry many times in the forest near his childhood home after his father would come home from an afternoon hunt. His father used to ridicule Karl’s eagerness to identify the flora and fauna in that forest. “You can’t be a Boy Scout forever,” he’d said, as he tapped the ash from his pipe.

  The wail picked up again. He found it chilling, the thought of a fox or some other carnivore attacking a burrow in such close proximity. When the calls stopped, Marijke’s hot cheeks and furious glare came back to him, and he realized that, to her and so many others, he himself was that ruthless predator.

  He kept walking. After twenty-five metres, he stopped again and turned around, prepared to go back and set her straight. Or maybe apologize. But he wouldn’t run in circles for some hard-headed woman who seemed to forget her role. Instead, he trailed the barbed-wire fence that led in the direction of the gatehouse. A crescent moon had risen on a bed of clouds, but the searchlights from the watchtowers lit his path. The guards’ voices drifted toward him. In the distance, truck engines rumbled, signalling the arrival of a late shipment of supplies and fresh labour.

  A faint peal of laughter broke out somewhere nearby. Farther ahead, he discovered the source. One of the doors to an outer block stood open a few centimetres. When the noise continued, he approached. The crack in the doorway was wide enough to glimpse inside undetected. Hundreds of inmates covered the bunks, legs dangling into the centre aisle. Everyone had his back to the entrance. Lamps burned in the common area at the far end of the block, where a few men clumped together, but one stood in front of the others, singing a Polish song. Every few seconds, part of the audience would start chuckling, a weak, muffled laugh. Karl shuffled a step over to get a better vantage point. For once, he didn’t see timid prisoners cowering before him. These men’s eyes held something different. Not fear. Not the weary look of resignation, but a flicker of something else, the same spark Marijke wore.

  After a round of hushed applause, two new men stepped forward, both political prisoners. One wore a toothbrush moustache of charcoal. The other had on wire-rimmed spectacles and adopted Himmler’s stiff-lipped pose. At this point, Karl knew he should intervene, but he kept watching with amazed curiosity.

  “Well, Hindelmeer, we’ve lost another battle on both fronts. Tell me, what does your third eye say: Am I going to lose the war?”

  “I’m afraid so, Duke Adolin.”

  “Will I die?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Who is going to kill me?”

  The man adjusted his glasses and gave the crowd a knowing look. “A Jewish celebrity.”

  “Which Jewish celebrity, Hindelmeer?”

  “Any Jew who kills you will be an instant celebrity.”

  At this, the prisoners chortled and nodded and called out in a mix of European tongues. Even Karl had to suppress a chuckle, struck by how perfectly they’d captured Himmler’s mannerisms, his strange fascination with the occult. Just like an old schoolmaster. He’d been lucky enough to meet Himmler at one or two party functions, but never the Führer, who seemed unable to do so much as take a piss without being swarmed by eager followers.

  The Himmler impersonator removed his glasses and started reciting a limerick. He waved his arm as he spoke, gesticulating like a raving Italian:

  Ten men in a row in one bed

  All fighting for soup and some bread

  But here come the lice

  So take my advice

  And cover that poor fuzzy head!

  A particular flick of the wrist jumped out at Karl. He pushed the door open a little farther for a better look. Where had he seen him before? The man ran a hand over his scalp and let out a raspy laugh. Then Karl placed him. A famous actor from Bavaria, a family friend of Else’s. A communist. They had dined together numerous times before the war, and unless the actor got on the subject of Bolshevism, he always made pleasant company. He was also a better match at chess than anyone Karl knew. A well-dressed, stocky man, now thin and aged twenty years. Even his eyebrows had fallen out.

  Karl was so busy observing him that he didn’t realize how far he’d inched forward and pushed open the door. One by one, heads snapped toward him and a whisper ran through the crowd. The men at the front stopped performing to stare. It felt like a grenade had just been lobbed, and he held the pin.

  A rat scampered across nearby feet, but nobody moved. A sickly boy wiped his nose on his sleeve, and somewhere someone stifled a cough. Karl told himself to shout an order, to pull out his Luger. He touched a hand to his holster before looking back at that actor, who squinted at him from across the block. When shocked recognition crossed the man’s face, Karl turned and walked away, leaving the door open behind him.

  LATER that night, he sprawled across his bed, still stinging from Marijke’s accusations. On
the nightstand, his alarm clock counted out long, wasted minutes. When the ticking had fried his patience, he got up, made himself a cup of hot milk with a generous shot of brandy and settled in the armchair in his study.

  He couldn’t separate his fight with Marijke from the sight of that old acquaintance in rags. He tried to tell himself Else’s friend had chosen that path by refusing to give up his political dogma. The pansies had earned blame by going against nature. But then there was Marijke. Beautiful, passionate, innocent Marijke, who didn’t deserve to be torn from her home, didn’t deserve to be used by man after man, like a pump at a petrol station. All because she had tried to help out a few neighbours, fix up some petty radios.

  Karl took a sip of his drink and let the warm brandy trickle down his throat. A hairline crack ran through the porcelain cup, and he traced his finger along the line but couldn’t detect the groove. Those actors in the block had reduced Hitler to a simple man with a moustache. He began to doubt his understanding of the Reich. Were the Allies right to hate him? Was he supporting a nation, a dream for the resurgence of the German people, or supporting one man’s beliefs?

  He thought of Aaron Stein, his Jewish friend from primary school. Those drops of blood from his finger mixing with his. For years, the two of them had constructed forts together, played pirate explorers at his family’s summer home. When Karl’s father returned from the war, Aaron sat on the front porch with him, waiting for his father to appear down the block. When Aaron’s father returned from the war, Karl stood at Aaron’s side in the rain, watching the coffin slip into its muddy grave. The last time Karl had seen him was in 1938, three weeks before Kristallnacht. He had just joined the party and was hurrying down the streets of Munich to tell his father. At an intersection, Aaron waved from across a crowded street. Karl was about to run over to him when he considered the party papers tucked under his arm, the loyalty these demanded. Instead, he lowered his head and crossed the street in the opposite direction. For seven years, he’d avoided thoughts of him, refusing to acknowledge Aaron’s probable fate. It wouldn’t take much to find out: a few calls and his name would turn up on one list or another. He’d never bothered to inquire.

  The bottom of his cup contained more brandy than milk. He swallowed it back and reached for the bottle. The problem of the pansies remained. He’d seen the medical experiments, watched hangings performed at Brandt’s orders, and although he had nothing personal against them, the thought of what they did left a nasty tang in his mouth. But Marijke had a point—surely that didn’t create enough reason to despise them, to take their lives.

  After one final slug of brandy, he screwed the lid on the bottle and returned to his bedroom, determined to fix things with her before it was too late.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  LUCIANO

  MAY 23, 1977

  BUENOS AIRES

  Dear Papá,

  What were you trying to tell me on the phone? Were you—you sounded like you wanted to get something out, something I needed to hear. I could sense it in your voice; it was a voice, it was a tone you’ve never used before. Dear Papá, I can’t stop thinking, your voice, it was so choked, so strained, but full of emotion. Something I want so badly to believe in but I—I keep wondering if I imagined it all because when have you ever—when have you ever—sounded like you cared, like you were genuinely upset, like you actually, maybe truly love me. That call keeps playing over and over in my mind, and I keep hoping to pick up on something else, to be able to dig deep down into the meaning of every word, every breath, every pause.

  I want to believe you’re sitting at home right now in the chair by the window, with music and the TV on, but that for once you’re not watching the game. Instead, you’re sitting there worrying about me, where I am, if I’m okay, maybe even, just maybe, wishing you’d treated me a little differently.

  Papá, do you remember Orión the Owl? Do you remember sitting there all evening to make him for me?

  Luciano sighed. He could still see the campfire’s glow that had painted his father’s face amber, could smell the smoke on his father’s jacket. They’d been at Nonna and Nonno’s ranch to celebrate Luciano’s sixth Christmas. Earlier that afternoon, his father had taken him on a long walk, past the bougainvilleas and the adobe shed, through the copse that led down to the stream. His father pointed out the different species of trees and flowers along the trail, and when an owl swooped across their path, he crouched to help Luciano find it. As it perched on a low branch, his father held him close, and there was something about the lost look in his eyes that made Luciano feel like they needed one another.

  Papá, the way you held me when we spotted that owl, I can still feel the comforting strength of your arms around me, the way you bent to kiss my hair. I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve ever hugged me. But that moment, I wanted it to last forever.

  His father had carried him back to the ranch on his shoulders, showing him the sheep and cattle and asking him to name them. When Luciano also tried to rename the cat, his father laughed and claimed the new name was better. For years, they called that cat Paco. Later that night, his father sat at Nonno’s workbench, the fire crackling beside him as he carved a toy. Almost in a trance, he kept to himself, ignoring everything but his hands. The knife skimmed along the wood, coaxing out curls that fell at his feet, and when he finished, he presented Luciano with the little owl and asked him to name that, too.

  Orión the Owl. It was the only time I saw you carve anything. The tail is crooked, and it looks stunned, but I’ve always liked its flaws. At six, I didn’t know any better. Now it just feels good to know you’re not perfect at everything yourself.

  Orión had gone everywhere with Luciano until his eighth birthday, when Papá announced that real boys didn’t carry toys around like a security blanket. But did his father realize that it sat on Luciano’s bookshelf even now? For years, Luciano would wish it good night, until this became as much a habit as saying the Lord’s Prayer. He lay in bed, thinking about what he could do to make his father proud of him. And whenever his father scolded him for spending too much time in the kitchen with Mamá, for wearing “women’s colours” or having a weak stride, he’d pull that owl down from the shelf and hold it in his fist, trying to recall the concentration on his father’s brow as he worked to shape the wings just right.

  All those times I would dig Orión’s beak into my skin, my palm, my wrist, slicing it across and imagining it were a razor blade, like I could feel your disapproval trickling out of me. Like poison. Do you ever stop to think how much you’ve hurt me? You’re so blind; you don’t care about anything but yourself. You don’t notice what’s going on around you, what Mamá and I need from you.

  At one point, Luciano had taken the pair of scissors from his desk and driven them into Orión’s eyes. Had his father ever noticed the pattern of nicks on the wallpaper from where he’d whipped the owl across the room? Like the traces of a game of darts played after one too many beers. The angrier Papá had been with him, the more days the owl would stay hidden wherever it had bounced, until Luciano felt guilty enough to crawl under the bed or search for it in the piles of dirty clothes.

  Every time, I ended up putting it back on the shelf, because, no matter what, I couldn’t throw it away. I don’t think I ever could. All I want is to hear your voice on the phone again, to hear you say you miss me, that you care.

  CONDITIONS began to improve for Luciano after another week of labour. He spent more time without his hood and received permission to have his meals with the other forced workers in the basement. They ate together in silence, but he felt an air of solidarity as they exchanged furtive glances, pretending to keep their focus on the soccer or telenovelas playing on the nearby TV. The volume was always maxed out, but it didn’t take long to learn that whenever the screen flickered to static, someone had turned on the cattle prod in the next room. His appetite waned, and his pants continued to sag more at his waist with each passing day.

>   One evening, a group of them sat around, waiting for their dinner. Shark entered with a big pot, which he placed at the head of the table. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and gave Luciano a long look before leaving a new guard to supervise the meal. Even with the lid on the pot, Luciano could almost taste the charred bits that must have been stuck to the bottom.

  Hawk wandered by and wrinkled up his nose. He stopped, lifted the lid and scowled. “This is what you’re serving?” The new guard shrugged his shoulders and reached for a bowl, but Hawk pushed away his hand. “Don’t dish it out. I’ll see if there’s anything else in the kitchen.”

  He was gone a long time. Desperate faces eyed the pot, but the guard followed orders. Hawk returned carrying a paper bag stamped with the name of a bakery. The bag opened with a crinkle, releasing the mouth-watering scent of ground beef and onions.

  As the group divided the five empanadas, Hawk laid a stack of paper napkins on the table and left. Luciano bit into his half-pastry, savouring the taste of the spices. The steaming meat burned his tongue. For the second time since his abduction, Luciano smiled.

  Later, he wondered if Hawk had used his own money to buy the empanadas, and if so, why he would have done that. But when five days passed without feeling Hawk’s sharp grip on his arm or hearing his low voice, he assumed the guard’s actions hadn’t gone unpunished.

  Dear Papá,

  I hate how much control you have over me. Everything I do, every time I come home from school, every decision: you’re in the back of my mind. I always wonder whether you’ll be proud of how I’m acting, if you’ll approve, if you’ll respect me a little more if I do things the way you’d like.

  Dear Papá, I think you’re ashamed of me. Actually, I know this for a fact. I can see it in the way you lower your eyes when I come into the room, the way you never ask me questions about what I’m up to, about my friends. I bet you don’t even know the names of most of them. Camila and I dated for months, and yet, the one time you met her on the street, you behaved like you’d never heard of her before. Sure, maybe I didn’t talk about her all the time—maybe that’s, well, maybe there’s actually a good reason for that, but still. Mamá asks questions; she shows interest.