Touching the Wire

by Rebecca Bryn

  A practiced hand sliced and lifted the organs into a metal dish. ‘The trick is to keep the heart beating until the last. It means the organs are in the freshest possible state. Pass another dish for the liver.’

  He gripped Arturas’s hand tightly and held out the dish, forcing down bile. Phenol should work quickly… the dose wasn’t large enough… It was one child, just one child, or a whole block of women and girls. The child’s liver plopped into the dish, blood spattered across his chest and onto the floor. Chest separators forced apart ribs, broken without regard. Merciful God, let this poor child die. His heart, small like a fist, pumped, beat after beat.

  Mengele reached into the boy’s chest. ‘What a miracle of life. To touch a beating heart… Here, feel it… There’s nothing like it, except…’

  He put a reluctant hand on the heart, feeling life ebb with the loss of blood. He swallowed. ‘Except?’

  Mengele worked with intricate care when he wanted. He could have been a great surgeon. ‘Except cutting a beating heart from a living body.’ He held the heart up. ‘To have absolute power over the beginning and the end of a life makes us gods, don’t you think?’

  The fingers’ grip slackened: sightless eyes stared at the ceiling. He closed them with his thumb and forefinger. Pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death. He shook his head slowly, not wanting to believe what he’d taken part in. It was insanity. ‘Nothing can justify what you have done here, today, Josef.’

  ‘What we have done, my friend.’ Mengele’s tone was almost compassionate. ‘Now, we have number 459… 458’s twin.’

  His guts twisted and his head swam. Peti…

  ‘We’ll compare his uninfected organs. Fetch 459 while I label these and remove the lungs, lymph nodes, brain and eyes.’ Mengele took the pack of chocolate from his coat pocket. ‘Give him some of this. He’ll be easier to handle.’

  The small room was crowded with the ghosts of children, and echoed to the screaming in his head. They were all dead: murdered, tortured, or drowned in their own blood for worthless, meaningless research. The lone figure, dressed only in a striped shirt, recoiled into a corner of the lower bunk.

  He made his voice soft and his smile gentle like his mother had all those years ago. ‘Peti, it’s me. I’m not going to hurt you.’ He sat on the edge of the bunk and waited. Wide eyes drove spikes into his heart.

  Only one child? He could help to make it less painful, less frightening. He felt in his pocket. ‘I brought you this.’

  Large eyes grew rounder. ‘Chocolate?’

  ‘It’s yours, Peti.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He ruffled short curls. The boy sat straighter, his hand pausing an inch from his lips. Z for Zigeuner preceded the number tattooed on his forearm. ‘I want Mama.’

  ‘You’re a brave boy, Peti. Your mother is very proud of you.’ His heart pounded, his palms were sticky with sweat. He couldn’t do this.

  Peti smiled and stuffed chocolate into his mouth. The jaws stilled, chocolate lips froze. ‘I should save some for Arturas.’

  ‘Arturas is with your mother. He wanted you to have the chocolate. You eat it, Peti.’

  The boy swallowed. ‘I want Mama, too.’

  His heart bled for him. ‘You’ll be with her soon, I promise. Come.’

  The boy put a small hand trustingly in his large one. The walk to the surgery was like forcing his feet through treacle. Arturas and Peti’s eyes would follow him to the grave. He pushed open the surgery door and lifted Peti to sit on the table.

  The boy shifted uneasily at feeling cold stone against his bare bottom and legs. He looked around at the unfamiliar room. ‘What are all these things?’

  He forced his voice to stay calm, centred his resolve. This was the best he could do. ‘I’m going to give you a small injection.’ He put a finger in the space between two ribs, above Peti’s heart. ‘Here… It will mean you will feel no pain.’

  Peti looked at the syringe and nodded slowly. He wanted to shout run. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide; no escape for either of them, except in death. He filled the syringe, an adult dose Mengele would call a waste of resources, and placed the point to Peti’s chest. ‘Can you count to ten, Peti?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘We’ll count together then, shall we? You can tell me if I get it wrong.’

  Peti mumbled as he munched. ‘One, two, three…’

  The needle slid smoothly between Peti’s ribs and the little body tensed.

  ‘You’re very brave. Five, six, seven…’

  Peti swallowed. ‘You missed out four.’ He jammed the rest of the chocolate into his mouth.

  ‘So I did. Four, five, six, seven… Peti?’ He withdrew the syringe and laid it on the table. He sat in the surgery for a long while cradling the dead child.

  Quiet sobbing brought him back to the present. No, his worst nightmare hadn’t prepared him for the horror of Mengele’s experiments, and the one child that had become two, and then three, and then many. ‘A phenol injection to the heart ended his short life. I loved those two boys like sons. I murdered Peti in cold blood, but he was the lucky twin. He didn’t suffer, like Arturas.’

  Faces blurred through his tears. Pain spread across his chest. Truth begets hate. No-one spoke. Faces judged, the compassion replaced by outraged shock: not one offered a morsel of comfort. It was as he deserved.

  He broke the silence at last. ‘I watched Miriam die and I survived. I condemned the sick to death, telling myself I was saving those with a better chance. I played God with people’s lives… killed newborn babies. I survived.’ He couldn’t meet their eyes. He buried his head in his hands. No-one spoke. He was forced to continue. ‘I was a doctor. My vocation was to save lives. I did abominable things.’

  Adam cut in. ‘The experiments that are recorded in the documents?’

  ‘I aided Mengele. I did those things. I should have had the courage to kill him. I’d have been shot but it would have been an honourable death.’

  ‘You could have saved the lives of thousands of children.’ Charlotte’s certainty intensified familiar guilt. ‘You could have spared their suffering at Mengele’s hands.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have saved them. They’d have been gassed. And his death would have caused terrible retribution. Had I known Miriam and the others would die anyway, perhaps…’ Breath shuddered through his chest and he shook his head. ‘Nothing I could have done would have saved a single soul.’

  Robin sneered. ‘You’re a cold-blooded murderer. You should hang.’

  Condemned by the wolf, himself. ‘It’s what I deserve.’

  Adam frowned. ‘But, after the war, why didn’t you hand the documents over to the authorities? The Nuremburg trials…’

  ‘Cowardice. I have no defence. Josef fled. I escaped from the forced march west and made my way back to camp. After Miriam died, Albert and I left.’

  ‘You didn’t wait for liberation?’ Robin’s eyes bored into his. ‘You abandoned sick women?’

  ‘Some were strong enough to care for the others, once they had food inside them. We’d found clamps of potatoes and turnips, and left them a heap of firewood. They wouldn’t have starved.’ The pain crept into his arm and throat.

  Charlotte shook her head. ‘Those women needed you.’

  ‘The Soviets arrived the next day. I’d have been arrested if they’d realised I was a Nazi, and Albert didn’t want to end up in a Soviet work camp. I had a promise to keep and I wanted to live, for Miriam. I brought the diary and documents to England.’

  Charlotte’s expression was grim. ‘Enough evidence to hang all the Nazi doctors.’

  ‘Especially Mengele, Muench and myself.’

  Robin’s perfectly groomed eyebrow made an arc. ‘How did you escape detection?’

  ‘The network of Nazi sympathisers working out of Newcastle provided me with papers in the name of Carr.’

  ‘Albert didn’t make it home, Grandpa?’

  ‘He died of pneu
monia somewhere north of Warsaw, Lucy. I had no antibiotics, and no sulfa left to save him.’

  ‘And you took his identity when you left the documents at the bank.’

  ‘And then changed my name again to distance myself further. If the Nazi sympathisers had discovered I had any of Mengele’s records no evidence would have survived. I travelled to Kettering intending visit Albert’s widow, Irene.’ He paused, breathing heavily. There was so much he had to tell them: will power alone drove him now. ‘I met Jane. I didn’t think I’d ever love again. Her love was sanity in a world gone mad. I lost myself in her, buried the pain. Too late, I discovered she was pregnant. I couldn’t desert her. The shame of being an unmarried mother would have ruined her life. I had to leave the past behind and protect my new family.’

  His lungs and throat ached with the effort of speaking. He garnered his remaining strength. The daughters of Night drew closer, the edges of his vision faded, the veil grew dark. The Keres would do their work but he craved forgiveness Hebe, Goddess of Forgiveness and Eternal Youth would never grant. He fought against oblivion, the feel of Lucy’s hand buttressing his resolve, sustaining beat after painful beat. The wolf, too, lurked silent and deadly. He had no right to ask. ‘Lucy… Charlotte?’

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Charlotte couldn’t see for tears: she couldn’t speak. She felt sick.

  Lucy spoke for her. ‘I am holding the wolf by the ears. I remember Wselfwulf too. He gave me nightmares. Charlotte, Grandpa was trying to protect those he loved, like he’s always tried to protect us.’

  She swallowed a sob. ‘Who keeps silence consents. You consented, Grandpa, then and later. How could you do such terrible things to children?’

  ‘I was a coward.’

  Lucy’s eyes held compassion. ‘Charlotte, we all do things we regret.’

  ‘Regret!’ She glared at Lucy and then fixed her stare on Grandpa. ‘You lied to us, Grandpa.’ She brushed aside Adam’s restraining hand. ‘You lied to Gran and Mum and us. I thought you were just my Grandpa. I loved you.’

  ‘I am your Grandpa. I love you too. It’s why I had to leave.’

  ‘And what about us? Lucy and me, and Mum? And have you any idea what it did to Gran? She had to identify your body by its clothing. She showed the police a shirt like the one that was found on the body. She said she could only find one.’

  ‘Then she’d have realised it was Eric’s body. He had a shirt the same. He was wearing it that day. I only ever had the one.’

  ‘What? Gran knew?’

  ‘Not who I was, though she must have suspected something. The years of nightmares, the diary. She loved me enough to let me go.’

  She jumped to her feet. ‘You mean Gran lied to us, too? Dear God, she denied Eric’s family a funeral.’

  ‘Charlotte, Gran thought she was doing the right thing.’

  Adam tried to calm her. ‘She did it for you and Lucy, and your mum. She gave you your farewell.’

  ‘It wasn’t damn well final, was it?

  ‘If I’d been recognised, after they offered that huge reward for Mengele’s capture in ’85… The backlash… you were all in danger.’

  Lucy squeezed Grandpa’s hand. ‘I understand, Grandpa. I forgive you.’

  Tears ran down his face. He took Lucy’s hand in his, and pressed it against his heart. ‘You understand? I fear Charlotte never will.’

  She shook her head and stumbled away, conscious of Adam’s feet thudding behind her. ‘Leave me alone!’

  Adam caught her, outside in the fresh air. ‘You must try to forgive him.’

  ‘How can I?’

  ‘Charlotte… sweetheart… why do you think he made those carvings when he could have left the documents where they were? Let justice be done though the heavens should fall. He wanted to be punished.’

  ‘He hid, like the coward he was.’

  ‘It was you he was trying to protect, not himself. All this anger and hatred… this is the wolf that has come back to bite us. Don’t let Hitler’s evil win, not now, not after all this time.’

  ‘But how could he lie like that, Adam? All those years of deception, pretending to be someone he wasn’t. He was a monster.’

  ‘How could he tell you? You heard why he did those terrible things, how he hated it. He was a coward, yes, but it was Mengele and Hitler who were evil. You heard him crying out in the night.’

  She could hear him now, a child again, her head under the bedclothes.

  ‘You don’t have to condone the act to forgive the man. You’ve read the diaries. You know his heart stayed true.’

  She understood at last. ‘Need is a powerful weapon in the armoury of seduction?’

  Adam nodded. ‘You’ve never done anything you were ashamed of?’

  ‘I’ve never murdered children.’

  ‘Sweetheart, I realise you’re hurting but that isn’t my point. You are totally guilt-free?’

  The ground at her feet occupied her attention. Guilt-free? Adultery… betrayal. She’d lied to both Adam and Robin by omission. Guilt consumed her.

  ‘Tell.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It would hurt…’ She had to confess or she was little better than Grandpa. ‘It would hurt you.’

  ‘I’m immune to pain, look.’ Adam pinched his arm but the smile showed he was dying inside. ‘I do a great line in forgiveness.’

  Gran had loved Grandpa enough to let him go. Now she must let Adam go. He had a visit planned to Lyon, to see Gabrielle and Effie; her confession could drive him into Effie’s arms. ‘I’ve slept with Robin, since we first met.’

  ‘He’s your husband. We weren’t an item. What’s to forgive? Like Lucy said, we’ve all done things we regret.’

  The scrunch of gravel made her turn. Robin stood beside Lucy, an amused smile on his face. ‘Confession time, Charlotte?’

  Lucy looked at each of them in turn. ‘Tell them, Charlotte. I warned you what would happen if you didn’t.’

  Was it easier to forgive a murderer than a lying adulteress? Lucy was right. She had to let go of the wolf. She looked from Robin to Adam. ‘I’m sorry, Adam.’

  Adam’s face drained of colour. ‘You’re going back to Robin?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What then?’ Adam gestured his confusion. ‘Charlotte, I love you. I want to marry you.’

  She buried her face in her hands. She had to break his heart. She lowered hands wet with tears. ‘I slept with Robin, again, after you and me. After Trier.’

  ‘After…’ Adam’s blue eyes held the pain she’d tried to spare him. The pain Effie had inflicted so callously. His expression was blank, unreadable.

  Robin’s smile was smug. ‘I told you she was a whoring, deceitful cow.’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  The momentary hope in Adam’s eyes became fear and heartbreak.

  ‘I can’t be sure, but I think it’s Robin’s.’

  Adam turned away, his back rigid, fists clenched by his side.

  ‘Adam, I’m sorry. Robin…’

  Robin had lost his smile. ‘If this is a ploy to get maintenance out of me, forget it. In fact, if you don’t want Family harbours Nazi war criminal splashed all over the nationals you’ll forget any money from our divorce at all.’

  She didn’t doubt he’d do it. The newspaper reporters would rip them to shreds; Grandpa’s trying to protect them all these years would be for nothing. ‘I don’t want your money. I’d like nothing more to do with you, but if this is your child…’

  Adam swung back to face her. ‘You told me the consultant was doing tests.’

  ‘I lied.’

  Robin sneered. ‘See, a lying, cheating whore. Did she tell you she picked up Chlamydia, too, sleeping around? Looks like you’ll be bringing up this bastard alone, Charlotte.’

  Her cheeks prickled with heat. ‘It was years ago, Robin, and I did not sleep around. If you don’t want to acknowledge that this could be your child, why don’t you
butt out?’

  ‘Read tomorrow’s headlines.’ He thrust her away and opened his car door.

  ‘Robin, no… Don’t take this out on Gran and Mum.’

  Adam caught her as she stumbled. He looked dazed.

  She pushed him away. ‘Robin, please…’

  Gravel flew from the wheels of the Porsche as Robin accelerated out of the car park and into the sweep of drive. She took a short-cut across the grass, ignoring Adam and Lucy’s shouts, and stood, feet apart in the road.

  The Porsche hurtled towards her. Robin’s face was fixed in a mask of hatred. She didn’t want to live without Adam.

  Touch the wire…

  The car windscreen filled her vision: sweat glistened in beads on Robin’s forehead. His mouth opened in a scream of rage, spittle flying.

  I wanted to live. Darja wanted to give her baby life. Her baby… Life. Her muscles locked: she couldn’t move. The roar of the engine deafened her.

  A weight hurled her onto the grass. The sickening thump of metal on flesh caused no pain.

  ‘Adam…’

  Lucy’s voice shocked her back to reality. Adam was sprawled half on the road, not moving. Brakes squealed and she got to her feet, screaming. ‘Adam!’

  He groaned. ‘Is Charlotte...’

  ‘Charlotte’s fine.’ Lucy turned on her. ‘You stupid, stupid girl. Do you think Gran and Mum would want you to risk your life, your baby’s life, Adam’s life, for them? Would Grandpa want that?’

  For them? She hadn’t done it for them. She’d lacked the courage to bear the pain of losing the man she loved, and had almost thrown away the gift of life for which Miriam, and so many others, had fought to their last breath. She could have harmed her baby, could have got Adam killed. ‘Adam, I’m sorry. Are you hurt?’

  He got stiffly to his feet. ‘I’ll live. Are you okay, Charlotte?’