The Devil's Madonna

by Sharon Potts

  “I’ve spent a lifetime hating this man, detesting him above everything else. He’s the incarnation of evil. His name makes me cringe.”

  “That’s how I feel.”

  “You’re Hitler’s granddaughter.”

  “Yes. I have his blood, but I’m Jewish, just like you. I share your heritage, your deep-rooted abhorrence for Hitler and all he did. But Neil, please, please don’t turn away from me.” She got up from the cot and took a step toward him.

  “No.” He held out his hand to stop her. “Don’t look at me like that, Kali. Damn it—what do you expect me to do?”

  “Hold me. Tell me you still love me. That who my grandfather may have been has nothing to do with who I am.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. The bruise on his forehead was practically gone, only a trace of bluish-green remained.

  “Don’t you understand?” she said. “I’m not asking you to forgive Hitler; I just want you to accept me.” She took another step toward him and the floorboard creaked.

  Neil opened his eyes, but his jaw remained clenched as though he was in excruciating pain.

  The scent of their lovemaking seemed to engulf the room, or maybe she was just imagining it. Could he smell it, too?

  She touched his hand. He didn’t pull away. “Please, Neil. The sins of the fathers can’t keep being thrust upon the next generation, then the next. It has to stop somewhere. At some point, civilization has to move forward.”

  “And do what?” he asked. “Forget? I’ll never forget.”

  She shook her head. “Not forget. But maybe it’s time to forgive the innocent.”

  He looked at her hand in his.

  For a moment, she thought he would squeeze it. But he didn’t. He released her fingers and turned toward the door. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is too much to process. Maybe you thought I was a bigger man than this, but I’m not. I want kids of my own someday, but the idea of propagating his—” He bit down on his lower lip. “I’m so, so sorry, Kali, but I can’t do this.”

  He started down the stairs, his big sneakered feet echoing in the stairwell.

  She felt a chill. Anger, frustration, rage.

  She called after him. “So what exactly does that mean that you wouldn’t propagate his? What would you have done if I hadn’t miscarried? What would you be doing now if I’d given birth to your child? Would you still walk out on me?” she shouted. “Would you walk out on your own flesh and blood?”

  She heard his footsteps quicken, then stop as he pushed open the back door.

  And then the alarm began to scream.

  67

  Kali turned off the alarm. She felt eerily calm, as though muffled in silence.

  She was completely on her own. No one to depend on, no support system.

  Why wasn’t she panicked and gathering up her things to drive far, far away where she and her unborn child couldn’t be found? Because the reality was that there was nowhere to hide. She didn’t know who her adversary was or how he might come after her, so how could she protect herself from him? Even if she locked herself away in the house, he’d find another way to come after her. Maybe run her over in the street, or shoot her from a distance with a sniper’s rifle.

  If she was meant to die, there was little she could do to prevent it. And so, she would simply try to live.

  On her own.

  She went up to her bedroom and got the heart-shaped locket out of the drawer where she’d put it after finding it in her grandmother’s cold hand. The thin gold chain was broken. Kali rummaged through a small box with pins and buttons and fasteners. She found only one safety pin—a large one, but it would have to do. She put the locket around her neck, closing the chain with the safety pin. She caught her reflection in the mirror above the chest of drawers. The heart settled at the center of her breastbones just above the rounded neckline of her black dress. Her blue eyes looked back at her from a pale face, her braid coming undone.

  Kali reached for her hairbrush, then remembered it had been missing since the day her grandmother had been murdered. The thought that the killer had taken it made her shudder. She plaited her hair quickly, slipped on a pair of flip-flops, then went downstairs.

  She left the house after setting the alarm and locking the door, and got into her car. The Rabins’ house was quiet and the thought of Neil’s rejection broke her calm. Then she settled herself. She would depend on herself. It was what she’d been taught to do, first by her mother, then by her grandmother.

  All those years of self-sufficiency had to be worth something.

  She drove south on Alton Road and turned onto Dade Boulevard, then onto Meridian Avenue. A looming bronze hand covered with clinging, desperate figures reached toward a gray sky tinged with tangerine from the setting sun. The Holocaust Memorial.

  Kali parked the car. The street was quiet. It was early evening, too late for groups of schoolchildren or curious tourists. A sculpture of a mother huddled with two frightened children stood at the entrance. Kali looked beyond the palm trees at the cars passing in the street. Had she been followed? The symbolism of this place for Kali’s own murder was hard to resist, and yet she felt safe here. As though some force would keep the evil out.

  Kali entered an arbor of white bougainvillea vines supported by stone columns and black granite slabs etched with photographs of a tortured Holocaust history.

  Just beyond was the Garden of Meditation. Kali sat down on a bench in front of the water lily pond. The dark, still water was tinted with red from the setting sun and reflected the stone plaza, semicircular colonnade, and the soaring outstretched arm of love and anguish. Tormented bronze figures—mothers, fathers, children—were caught in perpetuity, frozen as they attempted to climb the arm to escape the horrors Kali’s grandmother had believed she’d caused.

  Seventy years of guilt had distorted her grandmother, making her remote and unlovable. But her grandmother had once loved and been loved.

  Kali clasped the gold heart around her neck. She could feel it warm and pulsing.

  Her grandmother was dead. And Kali had never told her she loved her. Never realized that she loved her until now.

  Had stopped calling her Grandma.

  She stood up and walked through a dark, repressive tunnel illuminated by slats of fading sunlight in pomegranate red. Around her came the haunting voices of children singing. In the distance, at the end of the tunnel, Kali could see a hunched child, whose sobbing grew louder and louder as Kali approached.

  Kali ran the last few feet, the child’s sobs reverberating in her ears. She threw her arms around the bronzed statue, clinging to it with all her strength. Soaking up its pain and tears.

  She looked up at the red, red sky and realized the pain, tears, and cries were her own.

  In that moment, she understood the depth of her grandmother’s burden. That her grandmother knew her daughter and granddaughter would always be tainted and unloved because of her.

  For seventy years, her grandmother had carried that guilt, unable to hug, to love, to be loved. And no one had ever released her.

  Kali rested her head against the child’s cool one, the gold heart pulsing in her hand.

  “It’s okay now, Grandma,” she whispered. “I forgive you.”

  She heard a voice humming the now familiar Yiddish lullaby.

  And she felt her grandmother hug her back.

  68

  The sun had set by the time Kali pulled her car into the driveway of her grandmother’s house. Despite the glow from a couple of street-lamps, the color was drained from the street and neighboring houses.

  Kali got out of her car and crossed the lawn to the front door. Something was moving at the house next door. A shadow by Neil’s car.

  She froze just as a dog began barking and she heard the slam of a car trunk.

  Neil, holding a sport jacket, was standing beside his car in the dim light. The barking came from Gizmo, whose leash was attached to the doorknob of the Rabins’ house. />
  It took Kali a second to grasp what was happening.

  Neil put the jacket inside the car and waited by the open door as Kali approached.

  She glanced up at the ornate balcony, where she’d once imagined being Juliet to Neil’s Romeo.

  “So you’re leaving,” Kali said.

  “Everything’s pretty much packed up.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose. “I called one of those estate disposition companies, and they said they could take it from here.”

  “Oh.” She could think of nothing more glib or meaningful to say.

  The headlights from a car went down the street, brightening the poinciana tree. The lacey leaves seemed naked without their red flowers.

  “So you’re flying out tonight?”

  He glanced at his watch. “Yeah.”

  Gizmo was pulling toward Kali, restrained by his leash.

  “I was hoping you’d get back before I left,” Neil said.

  “Why’s that?”

  Neil went to the front door, untied Gizmo’s leash, then returned.

  The dog barked and wagged its tail as he licked Kali’s hand.

  “I can’t take Gizmo with me.”

  “You want me to keep him?”

  “I thought you might want him. But it’s okay if you don’t. I can bring him to—”

  “I’m happy to take him.”

  Kali started to take the leash out of Neil’s hand, but he put his other hand over hers. “I’m really sorry, Kali. I’ve tried to understand what I feel. It’s just— This is not a path I can take right now.”

  “You don’t need to explain.” She tried to pull her hand away, but he gripped it more tightly.

  “Maybe over time I’ll be able to handle this. Like with my mom—her Alzheimer’s came on slowly, so I could adjust. First, she’d forget little things I had recently told her. Then bigger pieces of her life got erased. But it was a gradual process. It didn’t totally rip my heart out when I realized she was no longer the bright, witty woman I’d always known.”

  “What are you saying? That I’m not still Kali to you? That the rainbow gypsy you said you loved doesn’t exist anymore?”

  “Oh God, Kali. It hurts so much to look at you.”

  “But I’m still me.”

  “Are you?” He shook his head. She could hardly make out his eyes in the darkness. “My whole life, all I’ve heard about is the Holocaust, the atrocities. It’s part of who I am. I can’t just disconnect from a lifetime of beliefs.”

  “But I’m not the Holocaust.”

  “No, but every time I’d look at you, or any children we might have, that’s what I’d see.”

  Kali pried her hand out of his. “We see what we want to see.”

  “No, Kali. We see the images that have been permanently implanted in our hearts.”

  “Then I’m sorry for you.”

  And she walked back across the lawn with Gizmo at her side, noticing the rusty brown trunk of the poinciana, the pale green web of leaves, and a single red flower dangling from one of the branches.

  69

  Kali brought Gizmo into the house, took off his leash, and set the alarm. She felt numb and sad. And very, very alone.

  “Well, it looks like it’s just you and me, boy.”

  The dog looked up at her with its one good eye.

  “Do you like cat food?”

  The dog cocked its head.

  “Just kidding. We’ve got some great roast beef sandwiches in the fridge.”

  Gizmo followed her into the kitchen. It was almost seven and Kali had no appetite, but she took a sandwich from one of the platters left over from the funeral and set it out in a dish for the dog.

  Gizmo wolfed it down.

  “Good boy.” She bent down and buried her face in his soft chestnut fur. He smelled like nacho chips.

  Just the two of them, and hopefully someday soon a baby. Seth, Neil, her grandmother—everyone she cared about—were gone. There was no one to love her, no one to hold her, just when she’d learned how lovely it felt to hug.

  Gizmo licked her face and she realized she was crying. “It’s okay. We’ll be fine.” She wiped her cheeks. “We’ll be great. You, me, and Bucephala.”

  She went into the TV room and curled up on the sofa. The afghan her grandmother used was lying across the back. Kali shook it out and spread it over herself. Gizmo lay down on the shaggy rug beside the sofa, close enough for her to stroke the back of his head. She closed her eyes, hoping to block the images of the last couple of days, searching for a happy memory.

  Her mother smiling, hair in a ponytail, dark wispy curls around her face, blue eyes sparkling. Holding a big chocolate cake with burning candles.

  Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you.

  Grandma and Grandpa singing with her. Clapping their hands. A cigar at the corner of Grandpa’s mouth. Grandma so beautiful with her high cheekbones and long neck, her blonde hair in a bun. Pretty as an actress.

  Happy birthday, dear Kali, happy birthday to you.

  Twelve candles and one for good luck.

  Her last birthday with everyone there. Everyone happy.

  It was possible. Happiness was possible.

  Kali took the afghan and cried into it, inhaling the damp wool, a trace of lavender. She rubbed her belly as the sobs wracked her body.

  Happiness was possible.

  The doorbell rang. The dog’s head shot up.

  Who in the world? Neil changing his mind? Seth?

  Gizmo barked.

  “It’s fine, Gizmo. The murderer isn’t going to ring the doorbell.”

  She wiped her wet cheeks, then went down the hallway, the dog at her heels.

  Through the peephole, she could make out Javier Guzman’s bald head.

  Damn. Not him. But she didn’t want to appear rude.

  She input the alarm code and opened the door. “Dr. Guzman.”

  The dog emitted a low rumbling noise.

  Guzman remained outside, eyes on the dog. He was wearing the dark suit he’d had on at the funeral and holding a large black briefcase.

  “Gizmo, be good. Sorry, Dr. Guzman. He won’t bite.”

  “No, of course not. I hope I’m not intruding. I’ve come to pay my condolences. I didn’t realize everyone would be gone.”

  “That’s okay. Please come in.”

  “You sure it isn’t too late?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Thank you.” He stepped into the foyer. Gizmo growled.

  “I’d better put him in another room.” She took Gizmo by the collar and led him into the TV room. She closed the door to the kitchen and then went through the TV room to the doorway that connected to the living room. “Stay here and be good.” She pulled the pocket door out from the wall a few inches. It rattled as she slid it closed behind her.

  Dr. Guzman was where she’d left him, still holding his briefcase. It was as though he’d come on business. Please, please don’t stay too long, she prayed.

  “Your grandmother lived here a long time,” he said, glancing around the room.

  “Seventy years.”

  “And you? You think you’ll stay here?”

  “For now.”

  Kali felt awkward standing in the foyer with this man she didn’t really know. “Would you like something to eat, Dr. Guzman? There are plenty of leftovers.”

  “That’s very nice of you, Kali, but I don’t need anything. And please, call me Javier. I’m not here in my professional capacity. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. I know you don’t have a lot of support right now and there are some things I’d like to show you that may help.”

  “Would you like to sit down?”

  “Thank you. I would.”

  She led him into the living room, turning on a lamp, then going across the room to turn on another. Kali had been keeping the drapes closed the last few days, paranoid about someone looking in.

  “Do you mind leaving that one off? Too much brightness hurts my eyes.”


  “No problem,” she said, remembering his dark office.

  Javier sat down on one of the wingback chairs. Kali chose the edge of the sofa, the coffee table with his briefcase on it between them. There was something disconcerting about the way he looked at her with his pale-green distorted eye. She wished he would get on with his purpose and leave. She wanted to return to her afghan and the sweet memories.

  “You said there was something you wanted to show me?” she asked.

  He smiled, his mouth tugging down at the side. “Yes. But first, if you’d bear with me, I’d like to give you a little background.”

  “Sure.” There was something off in his manner. Something that made her uneasy. Her hand clasped the gold heart around her neck.

  He took off his suit jacket and laid it across the arm of the chair. “You see, Kali, you and I have been thrown together by destiny.” He unbuttoned his cuffs and started rolling up his shirtsleeves.

  A tattoo became visible.

  “Your grandmother, my father.”

  Four right angles in a pinwheel shape.

  All of Kali’s nerve endings lit up. Oh, no. Oh, God, no.

  “Ah,” he said. “I see you have some idea what I’m talking about.”

  A swastika on his arm.

  He smiled again. “My father was a military man, a dedicated soldier. He was the personal attaché of one of the greatest human beings in history.”

  Please, God, this couldn’t be the man.

  “One of my father’s jobs was to facilitate any liaisons of, let’s just say, a personal nature, that his Leader desired. One such liaison was with a beautiful, young actress named Leli Lenz.”

  Kali felt the heat in her face. Graeber. This was Graeber’s son.

  He leaned over and snapped open the briefcase.

  She jumped.

  “I’m sorry.” He looked at her with his hellish eye. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  He stuck his hand into the briefcase. She expected to see a gun, but he was holding out some papers. “Please. Have a look at these.”

  She took the papers from him, her hand trembling. They were photos of Leli Lenz, an old letter on thin paper written in graceful letters, but in German. The signature. Mama.