The Color of Light

by Helen Maryles Shankman

  One night towards the end I brought her a wireless radio. This was a specialty item, fraught with peril. Just to have one in your possession was punishable by death, a threat which understandably did not hold much sway with me.

  Shyly, Isaiah asked me to draw him a horse. My fingers could no longer create the intricacies of the human face, but I could still manage a car, an airplane, a dog, a horse, the sort of things that a ten-year-old boy might draw.

  While he scribbled ecstatic circles over it at the table, I threaded the antenna out the window in the kitchen. Sofia and I sat on the floor, head to head, as I fiddled the dial, crossing a universe of static until we found the BBC. A posh British voice declared that the Soviets had Germany’s elite Sixth Army completely surrounded in Stalingrad. It sounded like a turning point.

  Isaiah had fallen asleep with his head on the table, softly breathing, the pencil still in his hand. I gathered him up and carried him to the bed. His hair stuck up in damp clumps all around his face, smelling of the French milled bath soap I had brought the day before. I tucked the feather quilt around his little body.

  He opened sleepy eyes. “Wafie,” he said.

  I crouched down beside him. “Go back to sleep, little man. Maybe tomorrow I’ll bring you a toy racing car.”

  He smiled joyously, showing me a glimpse of pearly teeth between bowed pink lips before his eyes fell closed again. On impulse, I kissed the top of his head.

  Sofia played with the dial until she found some music. She leaned her head close to listen.

  A bittersweet little waltz began to play, with words I didn’t understand. “I know this song,” she said with wonder. “I haven’t heard it since…”

  Paper is white, and ink is black, she said. He is at a wedding. There are many beautiful girls, but none hold a candle to his love. Her face, her figure. Her beautiful black eyes, her beautiful black hair.

  “In my heart burns a fire,” she translated, looking directly into my eyes. “No one can know the burning in my heart. Der Tod und dir Leben ist by Gott in dir hend. Life and death are both in God’s hand.”

  I stood and pulled her to her feet, slipped my fingers around her waist. One two three, one two three, one two three. I waltzed her around the room, dancing her around the table and the chairs to the melody, sweet and rueful and filled with longing. We danced for what we had lost, and for things that could never be.

  Sofia in the circle of my arms. It was all I’d ever wanted. The smell of her hair. The pressure of her fingers on the back of my neck. I spirited her backwards; she drove me forward.

  I never wanted the plaintive little tune to end. But it was a brief song, a poem, almost, and it was a memory nearly as soon as it had begun.

  When it was over, the station went off the air, leaving only static. I didn’t want to let her go, so I made a joke out of it, dipped her down to the floor. When I pulled her back up, she was breathing hard, her lips parted.

  For a moment we just stood there, looking into each other’s eyes, my hands around her waist. Her fingers, resting lightly on the back of my neck, slid up to the side of my face. I kissed the palm of her hand.

  “Raphael,” she said hesitantly.

  “Don’t,” I said, laying my finger over her lips. “I know. Please don’t say it.”

  There was nothing remarkable about the first hours of that day, the one that was the beginning of the end.

  In the late afternoon, there was a soft knock at my door. My innkeeper with a telegram. It was from Anastasia. Rudi was stationed in nearby Krakow, capital of Nazi-occupied Poland. She was delighted to find me well, I must phone her right away. I folded the cable in quarters, tucked it away in the inside pocket of my jacket.

  After sunset, I went to the black market to pick up a few things. Merchants smiled to me, waved me over. Money made for good friends.

  I passed through the market square as it was shutting down. I had located Skip’s lady friend, the one who sold potatoes, on my second day in Wlodawa. She looked up at me as I went by, and as I did every day, I considered luring her into a dark passageway and sucking the life out of her. It was already dark. A pretty girl in a maid’s uniform was dumping dirty water out into the gutter. She had high pink cheeks, round like apples. I followed her around the back, had my dinner. Picking up my parcels, I continued on my way.

  My blood racing, I hurried through the busy streets to the house, ducked through an unlit passageway to the inner yard, and knocked softly. As I waited, I laid my hand on the rough wood, imagining it would take on her warmth. She opened the door, already smiling.

  “What is that scent you always wear?” she asked. The basket held a roasted chicken, potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, an orange, real coffee. As she took it, she held on a moment longer than was necessary, her fingertips touching mine.

  “Sandalwood.”

  “Sahn-dahl-vood,” she repeated in her lush voice. “Always, it will make me think of you.”

  She may as well have said, “I love you.” She looked shyly away. Then, with new boldness, she stared into my eyes. That was when I saw it, the image of a man in a fedora, floating in the depths of her pupils. Understanding dawned on me slowly.

  “Good God,” I whispered. “I can see myself in your eyes.”

  She smiled, not understanding the significance. It was the first time I’d seen my own face in over three years.

  I reached out and grasped her arms. Yes, I would tell her. There was no one else in all the world that I cared about more. She would understand. “Sofia,” I said, softly, urgently.

  There was a knock on the front door. Three sharp raps.

  The color drained from her face. On the floor, playing with his new toy racing car, Isaiah froze in place.

  We waited in silence, a moment that lasted for a hundred years. The knock came again, more insistent this time, accompanied by a harsh command in German to “Aufmachen die Tür!” Open the door.

  I called, “Just a moment!” as I vaulted past the table and raced into the kitchen. Throwing back the bit of carpet, I yanked open the trapdoor in the floor. Sofia clambered down the ladder as I scooped up Isaiah and his car and handed them down to her. I looked down at them, my little family, their eyes wide with terror, then shut the trapdoor over their frightened faces.

  I could hear the men outside making ready to force the door. Smoothing my hair, straightening my tie, I hastened to greet them.

  There were two of them, an officer in a black leather coat, and a tall soldier carrying a semiautomatic rifle, bayonet fixed. “Hello, gentlemen,” I said politely. “What seems to be the problem?”

  They seemed surprised to see me. The officer addressed me in German. I didn’t understand his rapid delivery, but he seemed to want to come in.

  “No one here but me,” I replied, smiling pleasantly. He had a little brushy mustache and the flinty eyes of a playground bully. Putting his gloved hand on the door, he barred it open, the threat implicit.

  I burrowed deep inside myself, summoning all the hocus-pocus hypno-power at my disposal, then stared hard into their eyes. “There’s no one here,” I suggested smoothly. “No need to come inside.”

  It seemed to work. I could see their faces go slack, inert. Nodding their agreement, they muttered something that sounded apologetic, and turned to go. Though I had no breath, I could still heave a sigh of relief, and I did so as I closed the door behind them.

  I got halfway across the room before there was another knock at the door. Cursing to myself, I opened it again.

  This time, there were no pleasantries. The soldier leveled his rifle, squeezed off two rounds into the center of my chest.

  The impact knocked me off my feet. I flew into the air, crash-landing on top of the table. It toppled and fell under my weight. The world receded into a tiny pinprick of light. Next thing I remember, I was on the floor, propped up by the overturned table. There was a frightening ache under my ribs.

  The soldier’s face swam into view, advancing toward me.
Seeing that I was not quite finished, he ran the point of his bayonet into my heart and waited for me to die.

  A groan. A fierce pain, cold and burning, all at once. Time stopped for a minute. But I did not die.

  Wrapping my hands around the muzzle of the gun, I wrenched it out and slammed it backward, pulverizing his nose with the stock of the rifle. He sagged back, covering his face, making sounds like an injured dog, blood pouring out from under his fingers. I seized him by the helmet and smashed his forehead into the upturned edge of the table, once, twice. He fell to the floor, wriggled a little, then lay still.

  I turned my head. The officer was in the kitchen, pistol in hand, his finger in the ring that opened the trapdoor.

  With a single leap across the room, I was upon him. He had time for one look of horrified incredulity, one disbelieving “Was?” before I ripped his throat out.

  He dropped the gun as his hands went to his neck. A great arterial spray fanned across the pictures on the wall. He fell to his knees, pitched forward onto the floor. His body thrummed across the trapdoor for a moment, then relaxed.

  Covered in blood, I stood alone, triumphantly regarding the body of my enemy. And then I aimed a vicious kick at his head.

  I dumped their corpses in the sewers.

  “Olly olly oxen free,” I said, opening up the trap door.

  Sofia was a hazy white shape floating in the dark. “There were gunshots,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I thought you were dead.”

  I reached down, pulled her up. She threw her arms around my neck, held me tight.

  The apartment had grown cold. I took Isaiah from her, made him comfortable on the couch, tucked my overcoat around him. Kissed his cheek. Held him for a moment.

  “You’re bleeding,” she said.

  I looked down at my shirt. It was covered in blood, mine mostly, and torn in three places. Now I ached. Pain radiated up into my arms, my neck, the back of my head. It felt like my chest was on fire.

  “I’m all right. Really. If I could just rest for a minute,” I said lightly. I wavered, lost my balance. She caught me, eased me onto the bed. I lacked the strength to even lift my legs onto the mattress.

  I put my head back onto the pillow. It felt so good that I dozed off for a moment. I opened my eyes to see Sofia crying, tears falling down her cheeks. I smiled reassuringly at her, wanting her to know that it was all right, I was fine, but I passed out again before I could say anything. I could feel light fingers undoing the buttons on my shirt, a rush of cool air hitting my bare skin, the hiss of an indrawn breath.

  It was nighttime in London. A building to our right shivered and collapsed into a mound of fiery rubble. She was walking ahead, going too fast for me, and I was shouting at her to slow down, afraid I was going to lose her in the smoke, but with all the noise and confusion, she couldn’t hear me. I caught sight of the hem of her coat disappearing into La Coupole, and I followed her in. Here, it was warm, bright. I could smell the cigarette smoke and women’s perfume. I sat down next to Leo, who for reasons of his own was accompanied by a dancing bear. He offered me a cigarette from a silver case, and said, “She’s still here, you know.”

  Suddenly, a thick fog rolled in. La Coupole disappeared, and I was in a foul alleyway alongside the Élysée Montmartre. Colby lay twisted in an unnatural position on the fluorescent blue-green cobblestones, gray and lifeless next to a skinny prostitute in sequins and bedraggled feathers. “Sorry about all this,” I said apologetically. “Have you seen Sofia? I really must find her. There’s no time to lose.”

  Colby’s eyes snapped open. He pulled himself up, dusted off his suit, and helped the prostitute to her feet. He offered her his arm and they drifted out of the alleyway. Just as he was about to step out onto the street, he turned and said, “Well, are you coming or not?”

  I followed, and emerged from the alleyway into the Carpathians, where the rocks jutted up out of the landscape like broken teeth. Colby had misled me, she was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, Archbishop Grigorii appeared out of the mist, his saffron vestments spattered with blood. He was accompanied by a circle of villagers that included Erlichmann and Beata, toting pitchforks and scythes. His deep-set eyes fell on me. “Even evil has a purpose,” he reminded me kindly as he passed.

  Now I was getting desperate. They had been no help at all. Where was she? It was late. I needed to be getting back.

  Back through the corridors of my boarding school, the desks bursting into flames. Back through the hallways of my father’s house, the people in the portraits applauding politely as they burned in their frames. Back through the lanes of Highgate Cemetery, the angels dusted with snow. Back through a crooked court beside a shuttered tavern, where Anastasia came gliding out of a darkened passageway. “Let’s face it, my darling,” she breathed, blood on her lips. “I made you better.”

  There was a skittering sound at the mouth of the court and I hurried towards it, late for class. Sofia was already there, her attention focused on Lulu the model, brush raised in the air. She turned to look at me and smiled. I took my place behind my easel, relieved. She was safe. The monitor raised the windowshade, she was bathed in light. Now I could rest.

  It was pitch black. I didn’t know whether I was awake or asleep, dead or alive. Something warm and wet was trickling over my skin, dribbling down my sides. It came to me that I was being bathed, gentle hands sponging away the blood and gore, washing me clean.

  Someone was bending over me, a silhouette against the rectangle of light coming from the kitchen door. My throat was parched, as dry as a brush fire, but I had something terribly important to say, something that could not wait.

  I caught hold of a slim wrist. “Tell Sofia I’ve changed my mind,” I said urgently. “Tell her Raphael said yes.” Then I babbled out a dire imprecation to stay away from the burning buildings, and drifted down again into deep, dreamless sleep.

  I awakened before dawn. No pain. Everything worked. Sofia must have been up for hours, scrubbing the walls and washing my clothes. It was as if last night had never happened.

  Except for one thing. The miracle of Sofia in bed with me, wearing nothing but a thin slip, breathing softly in sleep.

  I sat up, inspected my wounds. Three scars, new pink skin already growing over them. As I gazed down, it came to me that she had seen me completely naked. A warm sensation tingled between my legs. I forced it away. There was nothing I could do about it.

  She was stirring. I dressed quickly, went back to sit on the edge of the bed.

  “I have to go,” I whispered, stroking her hair.

  She struggled up out of a dream, rubbing her eyes. “Where?”

  I looked at her lying there, half undressed and half asleep, and thought how good it would be to see her like that every day of my life. “To meet with some people I know in Krakow. I’m going to get you out of here. I’ll be back tomorrow night.”

  I knelt beside Isaiah, asleep on the couch. “Goodbye, little man,” I said. He rubbed his eyes with his little fists, then his nose. “You’re the man of the house, now. Take care of your mum.” He looked very serious. I fluffed his hair, kissed the top of his head.

  I opened the door, squinted up at the lightening sky. Like a small, furious tornado, she was beside me, her body melting into mine.

  “Don’t go,” she said sorrowfully. “You’re hurt. You should be resting.”

  My hands slid up her round white arms. I could feel her ribs under the slip, her soft breasts as she pressed against me.

  Sofia Wizotsky’s eyes. I stared down into their wild tragic depths one more time. I did not tell her I loved her, though I think she knew. She was a married woman, after all. “I’ll see you tomorrow night,” I said, and slipped out the door.

  I went straight to my hotel, packed a small overnight bag. My mission was simple and clear. I wanted to get Sofia and Isaiah out of Poland. I had plenty of cash and a powerful connection. I just needed to know who to pay.

  My innkeeper booked a phone
call for me to Krakow. Two hours later, Anastasia was on the line, purring with delight, and I had a meeting with Rudi scheduled for just after sunset.

  The trip took all day, longer than I expected. There were countless stops and starts as we were shunted aside for troop movements, supply trains, more passengers. When I finally reached Krakow, it was nighttime. There was a car waiting for me, a long black Daimler coach with shaded windows and a young driver in a Nazi uniform who rushed out to open the door for me.

  There was no problem getting into Wawel Castle, a formidable Gothic pastiche of cathedral, fortress, administrative offices, and prison. Getting out was the trick. A young guard at the booth directed me to a nearby building, then a junior SS man appeared and led me through a fifteenth-century courtyard surrounded by graceful arcaded galleries. He showed me into an office, then clicked himself out.

  The room was empty. There was a desk, unoccupied, the secretary gone for the day. Behind the desk was a door, and now and then, I could hear sounds issuing from it. Too nervous to sit, I took inventory of the items on the desk, doubtlessly identical to items found on desks on the Allied side. A typewriter. A telephone. Rubber stamps. A stack of forms. An in box. An out box. Pictures of a smiling family.

  The door to the inner sanctum opened, and there was Rudi. He had put on weight, and his skin looked thick and pasty.

  “Well, well, well. Our lost Englishman, wandering the enemy countryside. I’m surprised you haven’t been shot for a spy.” He went to a rosewood cabinet, poured himself a drink. “So. What have you been doing with yourself, Sinclair? How do you find the hunting here? Any of our boys give you a hard time?”

  “Not as long as I steer clear of German pussy,” I said.