Children of the Dusk

by Berliner, Janet

  Regardless of what the others thought, to him the matter was clear. Should Otto Hempel seize control of the camp, all was lost. Helping Erich solidify his command, despite its making escape more difficult, was in the prisoners' best interest.

  If Erich proved worthy of trust.

  If.

  Odd, he thought, that he should know Otto Hempel so well, while his former friend remained an enigma.

  He heard footsteps behind him. "I told you that I need time to think," he said, expecting Goldman.

  "I need your help, Solomon," Erich said.

  "And I yours...Erich," Sol said, making his decision and risking the use of the familiar. "May I," he asked, thinking he might bring hope to Goldman and the others while simultaneously helping Erich put Hempel in his place, "make a request on behalf of the free laborers?"

  "Give you a finger and you ask for a hand. Is that it?"

  Solomon ignored the bait. "We would like permission to conduct a Kol Nidre Service, and to complete the Yizkor Service at sundown the following day."

  "You had your prayers. There's been the devil to pay ever since." Looking toward Hempel's tent, Erich's eyes filled with a look of sly anger. "I'll consider it."

  "We..."

  "I said I'll consider it. Right now I have more urgent matters to attend to."

  "You mentioned needing my help."

  Erich hesitated. "Later," he said and strode off without mention of what had brought him to the Jewish quarters. Some advice to do with Miriam, perhaps?

  "We heard everything," Goldman said, creeping into the moonlight. "Thank you. Perhaps even a Nazi heart can be opened."

  "With a wooden stake," Solomon replied. What really lay within that heart, he wondered, watching the naked pygmies who had attached themselves to the camp during the past week leaping and cavorting among the shadows as they moved in a wild dance toward the Zana-Malata's hut. Glowworms?

  Knowing he would find no rest that night, Solomon exercised the privilege that had, to his continued astonishment, not been removed, and made his way over to the medical tent. He found Miriam asleep, veiled by netting. Her eyes were squeezed shut; worry lines creased her forehead. She seemed oblivious to Taurus whimpering behind her, chest rising with each breath, fur rippling as if the muscle beneath were in constant spasm.

  After a moment's hesitation--for fear of waking Miriam from the rest she so desperately needed, no matter how troubled it might be--Sol whispered I love you. For an instant she appeared to hover between sleep and waking. The worry lines deepened. Her hands tightened into fists.

  Then she sighed and her shoulders sagged; her throat moved as she swallowed. In reflex action, her tongue touched her lips, like a small animal seeking moisture in the hot, oppressive tent. She turned on her side and put a hand protectively against her belly.

  Solomon wondered if he had ever loved her as intensely as he did at this moment. Having been separated from her for so long, he had not fully internalized the changes her pregnancy had wrought. Until now, he had continued to think of her as his lithe dancer.

  All this time, he realized, she had possessed what despite his scholar's aptitude--or perhaps because of it--he had never learned. The ability to be practical. The ability not to question life but to live it. He felt ashamed of how little he knew compared to what she'd had to teach.

  Some day, he vowed, we will be a family. With Misha as our eldest.

  The boy, too, confounded him. Misha had had a chance to escape Berlin, had been almost aboard the train with Beadle Cohen. He had chosen to run from that, from someone who cared, back to danger and Miriam, whom he hardly knew. An eight-year-old, determined to find the parents who had been taken from him. Now he had run again, from Miriam who cared, to people and things too dreadful to contemplate.

  Strangely, Taurus also fit in the picture of the household developing in his mind. Yet Erich's she was, and his she would remain.

  He could never forgive Erich. Of that he was certain, though in fact he had learned that it was not Erich who had been directly responsible for his arrest. What Erich had done to earn Sol's contempt had happened long before that, while Solomon was safe in Amsterdam. It was then that the man he had once called friend had lied to Miriam, telling her that Solomon had been incarcerated. Lying again, this time about his own status in the Party, he had promised to keep Solomon alive, perhaps even have him released. Her part of the bargain was to live with Erich and prove that she loved him; prove that Solomon was but a friend by renouncing her religion, marrying Erich, and making Goebbels' precious propaganda film.

  Now that he was free from Sachsenhausen but not from the Nazi threat, did the future hold any promise for Miriam and himself? He had traveled so far since attempting suicide in the camp, yet in some ways he had not moved a centimeter.

  "Don't take the baby, Judith!" Miriam cried out in her sleep. "She's mine! She's mine! Bruqah, don't take her!" Her mouth looked pinched and narrow with terror. Her hair hung damp and lank, her forehead so pearled with sweat that her skin glistened in the lantern light.

  Sol did not know if he should wake her. Even what to do with his hands baffled him; they felt too large and ungainly for the spare body the months in Sachsenhausen had bequeathed him.

  Miriam opened her eyes. "Sol?" She blinked, glanced around, turned her gaze toward him again.

  "I miss you so much!" he said.

  "I miss you, too." She shut her eyes, and he thought she would nod off again. "I keep seeing...images. Erich says your dreams have infected me." She tried, unsuccessfully, to sit up. "I told him I was going to join you and the others."

  So that was what Erich had intended to talk to him about, Sol thought. "I want you with me, you know that, but you need to be here." His words did not come easily. After a moment, he added, "I heard you calling out the name 'Judith.' Is she the same Judith who...." He did not know how to phrase it. "Whom I've seen?"

  "Elderly...khaki clothes. She spoke of Ethiopia."

  How many times had Judith visited him in dybbuk-borne visions--she, and half-a-dozen others? "Judith told you she was from Ethiopia. She spoke to you?"

  "She warned me..."

  She fell asleep again. He had to consciously stop himself from rousing her. How was it possible that Miriam was seeing his ghosts? Beadle Cohen, interpreting the mystic language of the Kabbalah, had said that the dybbuk opened doors to others' lives being lived in this and in other realities. In his, Sol's, case, the visions were complicated by his own power as a visionary. His ability to see randomly into what he supposed was the future, or a possible future, came in the form of psychic flashes, brought to him--as they were to Isaac Luria and others like him--in a halo of cobalt-blue light.

  Their past had been brought to him by the dybbuk, which was no longer a part of him: Judith, speaking of the exodus of the Black Jews from Ethiopia, which gave Mussolini control of the southwestern edge of the Red Sea; Peta, the Ukrainian Jew whose people fought for Hitler against Stalin, in exchange for emigration; Lise, the physicist who cried about having sold the secret of something called critical mass. All so that German Jews might be released. And others, who had come to him repeatedly, showing him lives that, real or not, told of their hopes for a Jewish homeland in Madagascar, free from the evil of the Führer. If they gave Hitler what he wanted.

  Was their present and future to be shown to him, too, by his own psychic force?

  He had seen Judith so clearly on Rosh Hashanah. Was it possible that she was here, in the flesh, on Mangabéy? Had Miriam seen a real woman or a ghost? Perhaps both? And if so, by what possible means could Miriam be tied to her, perhaps even to the others?

  Sol remembered the terrible night he had tried to have the dybbuk--and the dreams--exorcised. Under cover of night, the religious among Sachsenhausen's almost-dead had gathered outside Barracks 18 to pray for themselves. Sometimes they were led by a rabbi, though more often the task of leading the prayers fell to the physically strongest among them.

  That nig
ht, he had found a rabbi, one schooled in such Kabbalistic rituals as exorcism.

  The incongruity of an exorcism in a charnel house had been absurd.

  Over and over, under the press of the rabbi's hands, he'd chanted the incantation born of King Solomon: Lofaham, Solomon, Iyouel, Iyisebaiyu...Leave this man..." Even now, he could taste the bile that had filled his mouth, feel the wave of nausea that engulfed him. Ultimately, he could hear only the ragged sound of his own voice, feel nothing but the throbbing in his head, see nothing but the sweep of the searchlight. Until, finally, the rabbi said, "All I can do for you, Solomon Freund, is ask for God's blessing. You had a dybbuk in you once. It is no longer there, but I believe it remains flesh of your flesh and blood of your blood. Whatever is in you now was always yours--and always will be."

  "...flesh of your flesh and blood of your blood...."

  The child.

  Was the child the new vessel for the dybbuk, removed there through his seed and linked to Miriam through her unity with the infant?

  If so, the child was his, in fact as well as in spirit.

  Taurus' renewed whimpering commanded Sol's attention. Consciously drawing himself into the moment, he listened to the shepherd's faulty respiration.

  What might Erich do to someone ministering--or failing to minister--to his prize pet? What might he, Solomon, feel if he did not try to help the so obviously failing animal?

  He loosened her collar, but it didn't help. She lay on her side, eyes vacant, a deep huuking sounding in her throat, her chest heaving and her rear legs kicking spastically. He felt as useless as he had when Erich had begged him to help Grace, Achilles' mother. The dog had been dying after giving birth. Neither he nor Erich had been able to save her.

  "Touching a German dog, Jew?"

  A hand gripped his hair, and his head was wrenched back as Pleshdimer and the Zana-Malata materialized out of his peripheral blindness. He suddenly realized how very much the loss of his peripheral vision had increased his physical danger.

  "Something's wrong with her breathing," he sputtered, pulling away and losing a handful of hair in the process. "You had better find the Oberst."

  "Giving orders?" Pleshdimer's voice was heavy with menace. "A Jew giving orders!" He grinned at the Zana-Malata...then slapped Sol so hard across the temple that his head snapped sideways.

  "What the hell's going on here?" Erich pushed aside the Kapo and Zana-Malata and knelt beside Taurus. "What happened?" He lifted her head in his arms. He had been drinking again, Sol noticed--heavily, from the smell of him.

  Taurus' tail flicked once, but otherwise she gave no sign of recognizing her master. Her weight went slack, and she slumped from Erich's hold.

  "What can we do?" he asked Solomon.

  We? Solomon's brows lifted. Suddenly it was "we"; everything had changed since their boyhood together, yet nothing had changed.

  "Her breathing's labored," Sol said. "Why not talk to Bruqah? He has an amazing store of knowledge about..."

  Erich put his head down on Taurus' chest. Apparently unable to hear a heartbeat, he kneaded the sternum with the heel of a hand, fingers interlocked, one hand behind the other. "Help me, Sol!"

  Sol. Not Solomon. Nor, as he half expected, Jew.

  In no position to refuse, Sol stooped beside Taurus, his hands awkward appendages disconnected from his desires. Ineffectually, he stroked the dog's coat. "Good girl." His voice sounded less than optimistic.

  "Go back to your books," Erich said in disgust. "You always were useless in an emergency."

  Sol's arms fell to his sides. A great stone upon his shoulders bore his head down.

  "I suppose you're praying," Erich said. "You and your goddamned hocus-pocus, I swear you're as bad as..." He lifted his head, his gaze drilling the Zana-Malata. "What's that filth doing inside my compound!" He unsnapped his holster and brought his pistol up, leveling it at Pleshdimer's groin.

  A shudder raced through Taurus. The huuking renewed. Fear clouded Erich's features; he thrust the gun back in the holster. "Get help!" he cried. "Get Bruqah...anyone!"

  Sol turned to leave, but the Zana-Malata gripped his biceps.

  "Chi...en!" the syphilitic hissed. He stooped and, shrugging off Sol's attempt to grab him, clenched shut the dog's frothing jaws. Erich frowned anxiously toward Sol, but kept massaging the heart as the Zana-Malata placed his mouth-hole over Taurus' nostrils and breathed into her, repeatedly raising up and sucking in air, only to utter "Chi...en!" and again lower his mouth over her nose.

  Taurus gagged.

  The syphilitic released his hold on the muzzle. The dog shook, opened her mouth--and began breathing.

  "Her pulse feels stronger." Sol stooped to check the carotid artery. His eyes met Erich's, and the sense that the two men were remembering another dog, so many years ago, slammed into Sol like a fist. "The pain must have brought on a seizure. She'll be...fine," he tried to assure Erich.

  "She'd better be." His head drooped, and he did not resist when Sol put a consoling hand on his shoulder. "Lose her, I lose everything."

  The Zana-Malata straightened and touched the back of Erich's neck. "Chi...en."

  Erich batted away the man's hand.

  Solomon clutched Erich's arm. "For heaven's sake! He saved Taurus. I think he's saying chien--French for dog! Maybe he's trying to tell you he can do something more for her."

  "Don't be a fool!" Erich looked in disgust at the burbly, drooling hole. "Just because he grunted something you think is French doesn't mean I should put Taurus in his hands!"

  Sol took hold of the black man's wrists. "Vous parlez Francais?"

  The syphilitic nodded rapidly. "Chi...en." He pointed toward Taurus.

  "You studied a little French," Sol reminded Erich. Cocking an ear like a conductor listening for nuances from the violin section, he asked the syphilitic, "What about the dog?"

  "Chi...en. Beau."

  "He says the dog is beautiful."

  "So he knows two words. Madagascar is French territory."

  "Maybe he can help Taurus. What harm could there be in trying?" Sol put a gentle hand on the shepherd, which was panting softly and gazing up in bewilderment.

  "Harm? Taurus could die."

  "Looks like she could die anyway," Sol said.

  After a moment, Erich said in a tone of resignation, "Ask him what he wants in return for his help."

  "In return?"

  "If you think that's the Good Samaritan, you'd better look again. The older you get, Solomon, the more ignorant you act."

  Solomon spoke to the man, who responded with vowels and drool and vigorous head shaking.

  "He doesn't want anything," Sol translated.

  "He wants what we all want." Erich gave him a hard look. "Control."

  Rising, the Zana-Malata pointed at Taurus and outside, in the direction of his shack. He repeated the gesture, then took off at a lope toward the gate, waving for them to follow. The gate guard jerked his Mauser to his shoulder and eyed the syphilitic through his rifle sight, but the Malagasy paid him no heed. Looking back over his shoulder, he continued to wave them onward.

  Erich's gaze again met Sol's, and Sol felt the weight of what Erich demanded. He hadn't changed. Should something go wrong, it would be Solomon's fault.

  "Get the stretcher," Erich instructed Pleshdimer. "We'll do whatever must be done to see her through this."

  Together, Sol and the Kapo loaded the dog onto the stretcher and followed Erich across the compound. A small crowd of guards pressed forward to see what was being carried.

  Hempel joined them. "Seems your brightest star has fallen from the zodiac, Herr Oberst." Lighting a cigarette, he nodded toward Taurus. "But don't worry, she'll be fine as long as he cares for her."

  With his cigarette he pointed toward the hut. A sparking curl spiraled from the hole in the thatch. "Don't go blaming yourself for your dog's condition, Herr Oberst. Don't blame yourself for anything that goes wrong. It's just that caring and caring for are different enti
ties."

  "As are the ranks of Oberst and Sturmbannführer," Erich said. "Keep that in mind the next time you think about going near that boy."

  Hempel touched his cap as if to acknowledge Erich's transient victory. "My men and I find the little animal--entertaining." His eyes gleamed. "So versatile. It's a rare pet, after all, that can spit-shine boots. But," he lifted his palm in compliance, "I shall procure a mascot more to your liking. You may have that one put to sleep."

  "This isn't Sachsenhausen," Erich replied.

  "Nor is it some Berlin suburb. Manicured lawns and delicate sensibilities have no place in the wild, Herr Oberst."

  He saluted, did an about-face, and strode toward the mess, leaving Erich to glower, a hand on the grip of his pistol.

  "Let's go," Erich said darkly, under his breath.

  At the gate, the guard saluted listlessly. With Erich in the lead, they hurried toward the hut. Grasshoppers sprayed out before them and crunched beneath their feet, and Sol could hear the rattle of Pleshdimer's breath as the fat man struggled to keep up. They moved along jerkily, Sol pulling at the front end of the stretcher and the Kapo yanking back, as if to slow their progress.

  A searchlight illuminated the hut, and Sol witnessed a black arm reach around the tanhide door, urging them onward.

  Taurus' breathing began to saw. "Faster!" Erich panted.

  "No, Mister Germantownman."

  The voice seem to hang disembodied in air. Erich crouched, pistol ready. In the glare of the searchlight his face took on a look of irritated relief as Bruqah stepped from the shadows of the tanghin tree next to the hut.

  "Help them with the stretcher," Erich ordered.

  Bruqah shook his head. "This hut," with a knuckle he tapped the mud-and-wattle exterior, "no place for white men now human air has touched Benyowsky." He seemed to be struggling to translate his thoughts into words. "Kalanaro in there sometime do bad magic. They what you call cap...cap--"

  "Capricious," Sol guessed, helping him out.

  Bruqah nodded his thanks. "They happy to help Zana-Malata."

  "Help him do what?" Sol asked.