The forest was dense, with vines on the ground, but it covered a lone man. His paces were fast and silent. However, the tan business suit did not camouflage well within the jungle and he made a point to move off the path and into the patterned light of the trees. This morning he wasn’t sure if he was the predator or the prey. He was relieved when, within half an hour he spotted some camouflaged tents, stepped in toward the guard and asked to see the Captain.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Hank Burns with CIC, and I have instructions to return to Admiral Halsey’s offices. The mission is classified, and I do need your assistance. “
“Hey Joe! We gotta guy with a foreign accent who wants to visit the Admiral!”
“That’s a good one. What kind of accent?”
“Sounds like a German Schweinhund to me.”
Hank interrupted. “Dutch.”
“OK, Says he’s Dutch. Are they even in this game?”
“What’s he got for ID? “
“There’s no ID. Says he is under cover.”
“Then put him back undercover. That’s what we got a jungle for.”
“Wait a minute – says he knows Mark Mitchell. OK buddy – how do you know Mitchell?”
“He’s my boss. I work for him.”
“What’s his rank?”
“Captain”
“You know his serial number?”
Hank panicked. He had never been told to memorize serial numbers. The soldiers laughed.
“Listen, you could be legit, but we have to radio up ahead and find out. It could take a while depending on what the action is today.” Hank sat down on a metal chair outside of the camp. At least he hadn’t been thrown back out into the jungle. He didn’t want to be seen at all, especially not by Chemin. He tried to not tap his feet or indicate any type of anxiety. Pacing back and forth would be a bad idea too.
A soldier in full uniform came out to meet him. “Get in the jeep. We’ll take you in.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bergen Belsen
February 1943
Response from the Pope following the murder of more than 200,000 Ukrainian Jews:
“to bear adversity with serene patience” ~ Pius XII
Georg Lutz looked peacefully around his quarters. Within these walls he had everything he needed, a simple bed, warm clothing and a woman whose bright spirit gave him a smile or two each evening. A second bed was attached to the outside wall, and he did not currently have a bunkmate. Esther could stay with him through the harsh winter nights, and sleep in a warm featherbed. But tonight he had serious thoughts on his mind. He looked at her swollen belly. They had been living together for six months now and, at some point, there would not be just the two of them. His frayed vision of humans was to undergo still another transformation.
“Esther, when Jews pray, what language do they use to speak with God?”
She laughed, “Oh, I forget all those prayers. We went to Hebrew school. The prayers are in Hebrew.”
“I was wondering about that. Jesus must have spoken Hebrew. So, when you pray, do you pray in Hebrew?”
“God and I are no longer on speaking terms. And I don’t see any churches around here either.” She looked at him intently. He had not flinched at her remark, but she knew she had said something harmful, even dangerous. “Lutz, in what language do you pray?”
“Funny you should ask that. We were taught to pray in Latin. I can recite all the prayers, but I don’t think I have thought about their true meanings since I was a child.”
He looked at her belly. “I want to live in a pretty town with a nice church, but I think our child should learn to pray … in some other way, not reciting verses in languages that are no longer spoken.”
Esther stretched her back, arching it and extending her arms and legs. That was better. The chair pressed. She no longer had enough flesh on her thighs to sit comfortably. She lay down, and then stood up again. Finally she crouched in a squatting position to relieve some of the pain. Lutz removed his black uniform and pulled on a soft loden green sweater, one that had been with him all his life. The sweater reminded him of home in Tyrol, and quiet evenings under the stars. Evenings here in this cold living graveyard were another kind of quiet.
“Did your family worship together?”
“There is a very old synagogue in Amsterdam. We went there for special events and holiday services. My brothers’ bar mitzvah services were there. The place was huge. A hundred guests did not even fill….” Her eyes began to shift around the room, and she blinked then wiped her face with her sleeve.
“I didn’t know you had brothers. What happened to them?”
“You tell me. My parents and Max were picked up on July 22nd. Where did they go?” Lutz looked down, and rubbed his forehead. He began to fiddle with the buttons on his sweater vest. Out of reflex, but not empathy, Esther began to rub his temples. The bastards knew what they were doing, and he didn’t even have the courage to say so. But she was an actress now, and acting was her path to freedom, if such a thing would ever exist again.
“How is it that you didn’t come here until August?”
“I ran out of the theatre. I knew where to hide in the streets, but I got picked up again.”
Lutz gently ignored her pointed query. “You said, ‘brothers.’ How many did you have?”
“My brother Hans left Amsterdam in July 1939. He was of age and decided to seek his fortune in America.” She began to mentally check her facts, of why she had refused passage, and of her attachments to previous lovers. She did not want to continue this conversation, but Lutz was now curious.
“Hans was my best friend. He liked to be quiet and look at things. We used to play elaborate tricks on our governesses. But he spent more and more time with his stamps and his cameras. He hoped to go to New York and take pictures for magazines. He could see things that others couldn’t, like patterns and shadows, things that are there and not there.” Now the tears did begin to flow. Her last meeting with Hans had been anything but cordial and, on top of that, she had been wrong. The mirrors of the Café Americain began to flash through her mind, like some kind of Hollywood movie, but not a happy one with singing and dancing. She had made an awful error in judgment. Now she was paying the price. Sick that she couldn’t justify her actions. How do people recover from mistakes? Were the tears sadness, regret or anger? She had no way of knowing.
Lutz looked at her. “You are so pale. Please don’t get sick. Maybe we can find your brother after the war.”
It was evident that she was dizzy, and she dropped onto the narrow bunk with its simple quilt. Lutz had a feather bed on his, bedding confiscated from arriving Jews. But she couldn’t sleep. Where was Hans, and what was he doing now? The Americans were in the war. Maybe he came back to Europe to save his family, and then… and then what?
Confused images of Amsterdam, mostly red bricks and white patterns of window frames criss-crossed through her dreams. That and the waters of the canals flowing past her bedroom window. Then, she was in the canal, in a boat, all wet.
She awoke, “My God, I have wet the bed, and it’s still coming, the waters will not stop.” Water flowed from her body, but it didn’t smell like urine. She shook Lutz, crying, “Something is wrong – water is coming.” He reached around her to comfort her, and then felt it – her bed was drenched.
“I’m not peeing, but the water is coming everywhere.” Then she began to shake uncontrollably. They got out of the bed, and he sat her in a chair. The cotton batting in the mattress was soaked through. They couldn’t take it outside to dry in the mid-winter. It would freeze and thaw for days. There were no other sheets. She clenched her teeth with a groan. Grabbing her abdomen, she began to cry again. “I think the baby is coming.”
Lutz looked at her in astonishment. “I thought babies didn’t come for nine months.”
“I have no idea, but sometimes they come early.” She got up and began to pace the room frantically, cleaning the spotless table. A few minutes later, she doubled over with another groan. “It’s the baby, I can feel it.” They were both terrified of this moment. Lutz had asked a lot of questions about the camp hospital. There were no real doctors and nurses, just a few medical researchers who were investigating the physical abnormalities that made someone a Jew or a homosexual. They were working to perfect the human race, and here in Bergen Belsen they had an excellent laboratory.
On the farm in Austria Lutz had seen sheep deliver, and one time he had assisted his father with a horse that was struggling to deliver its colt. But he had no idea how it worked with human women. He placed the wool blankets on the wet mattress and suggested that they lie down again. He tried to rub her stomach as she groaned in pain. She got up to walk, but nothing relieved it. She could not miss the morning roll call, or she would be severely punished. Finally he put on his uniform jacket, went to the hospital and asked for a nurse to come with him. Someone was sick, and needed attention. The nurse walked with him back toward the barracks. When they turned on the light, Esther looked at them both, and then covered her mouth as she doubled over again. The nurse assessed the situation. “She is in labor. What we need to know is, how often are the pains coming? And has her water ruptured?”
Lutz stared at her. “The water?”
“Yes, the baby sits in a pouch of water in the woman’s body. When the pouch breaks, labor begins and the baby comes.”
Lutz pulled back the bedding. “Do you mean like this?”
“When did that happen?”
“A little after midnight, I think.”
“Is this your baby? Or is she one of the whores?”
“Certainly it is my baby. We live together. She has never even visited the brothel.”
“Keep her quiet, and I will go for a stretcher. We need to take her to the hospital. She is so thin, it is impossible to know if the baby is fully developed. Her belly looks awfully big for seven months, but we will see. Sir, do you want her back after she delivers, or shall we place her somewhere else?”
“I want them with me.”
The nurse stared at him. Clearly he was out of his mind. But she was also not going to argue with an officer. He thought this Jewish infant would be going into the nursery. She would instead notify a commandant that he would need to be counseled. Georg’s arm was drawn across Esther’s swollen waist, now and then sensing the spasms that radiated up her back. He held her tightly while they were waiting for the stretcher. “This is not the place to talk of love, but we will be together.” A second nurse followed the stretcher, and gave Esther a shot to quiet her down. Screams should not be heard outside. The SS Officer’s quarters were a place of rest. The grounds of this place were silent as death, and not to be disturbed by the crying of women and children.
As the stretcher came into the brightly lit hospital hallway, a couple of thick-waisted women with flashlights examined Esther. A square jawed blonde with a nose like a potato glared at her sharply. “Well, Jew bitch, now you see what comes from your whoring.” Esther glared at her, silent. They removed her trousers and then lifted her onto a table, with one of the women grasping her legs. “Gitta, can you examine her?” Birgitta’s dirty hand reached inside, scraping her vitals. Esther screamed all the screams that had been packed inside her for the past year and cried all the tears that had not been shed in the barracks night after night. Gitta’s hand was covered in blood. Great clots of dark flesh dropped out onto the table, and the blood poured from Esther. A dark haired nurse in a white cap gasped, then commented, “Gitta, be careful. Leutnant Lutz wants this one back.”
Gitta laughed, “We have lots more where she came from.”
Esther saw the open razor first, held out in the nurse Jutta’s hand. If she died in this moment,…. The searing pain came again and, before she could breathe, Jutta lowered the knife into an area near her buttocks. “I’ll take care of this one myself. We have to serve the officers even if one of them has a Jew baby. Girl, can you push now, very hard?” Esther screamed again as the pressure on her body exploded into a new spasms of energy. The infant shot out of her like a cannonball. “It’s a little boy.” Esther closed her eyes.
Jutta took a look at the baby - unfortunately it was not stillborn, even though Esther had arrived at the camp in August. It was perfect, and he cried as he entered the harsh lights of the cold room. Esther heard his cries, like those of a kitten, and tried to sit up. Jutta and Birgitta looked at each other. “What do we do? Lutz will want his son.”
“Lutz doesn’t have a son. That baby is the son of a Jewish bitch.” Then she commented, “I will take him to the nursery,” and wound him tightly into the dirty sheets, swaddled from head to toes until he went limp and silent.
***
Esther was carried back to her bunk where she lay for days, clouded by pain and fever. A restless sleep relieved some of the exhaustion, but it was not enough to obscure her memory of the brutal strangling of her infant son. Lutz did not come to see her, and he did not summon her. The nurses said that the baby was stillborn. Maybe they weren’t even wrong, but it was terrifying how practiced they were at silencing a newborn whose eyes never opened to the cruelty of the world.
What could she possibly say to Lutz if she ever did see him again? Right now she was barely alive. Her fiction had worked. Maybe he was right and someday they would settle, have other babies, and become a good Catholic family. Why not?
The matron announced that she would be assigned to a brothel as soon as she was healed from the birth, and that was an optimal fate. Lutz was young, compassionate and had cared for her. There was no message from him. What did she expect? Flowers? Grinding under pigs did not appeal. She wasn’t afraid of pain, but revulsion could say too much. The alternative would be that they would find no use for her.
Silence was her only defense, so for days she did not look up and she did not speak. Hannah thought she was praying, that the words were just packed up inside. Where was God now? No book existed to make this right. The empty myths only work when we are getting what we need. Then we can think of benevolence and fairness. Not in these days.
A bird built its nest in the rafters of the women’s building. The huge wooden beams provided a platform for safety. Now the cheeps of babies came from the nest, and parents flew back and forth with tiny bugs for them. Soon little heads began to peek over, chirping bits of life. Even in hell, spring would come once again. Part of the earth might live.
A farm girl from Brabant began to complain about the birds, the bird shit and the early morning noises. She hated the sun peeking through cracks in the walls, threatening the arrival of still another day. The girl began to gather a small pile of pebbles, stacking them up on the rail of her upper bunk. One morning in the predawn darkness, she tore a strip of fabric to make a small sling, placed the rock in it and whirled it through the air. It clattered against the beam. Another rock flew. Naked and blind, the first baby bird fell out of the nest. Pelting the nest with rocks, Annaliese continued until all the birds had been killed.
Esther began to sob, at first gently then uncontrollably. Hannah tried to subdue her, first with a gentle rub to her back, and then taking her head and holding it to her own breast. Esther clawed at her dearest friend, screaming with rage. A second girl began to cry, as the perpetrator laughed. The wails increased to screams splitting the air, loud enough to bring a matron to the barracks.
The matron looked at the dead birds. “Savages, you are all savages, filthy… you never were human in the first place.” She pulled the whip off her belt.
“Esther, stop crying. Immediately!
Anneliese, you will come with me.”
Chapter Thirty
Flight Fishing
February 1943
Japs Hurled Back on Guadalcanal
~ Daily Mirror
After six months of desperation, disease, and brutal fighting, the U.S. declares Guadalcanal secure the day after the last Japanese soldier quietly evacuates the island.
Counter intelligence is all about weaving lies and truth into invisible webs. Information was available from every corner of the tropical universe. Sometimes he landed on a tasty morsel, and other times he landed in a pile of dung. Like a fly with compound eyes, Hank Burns was seeing many sides and none.
Which was Chemin? The cordial Frenchman had done nothing to him. Hans Steen, the Dutch wanderer, had been treated like a guest, but terror nearly overcame him during the long night at the plantation. The question was, “Why?” Chemin was physically powerful, and had displayed it openly. He also had made his Vichy loyalty clear and he really didn’t care what his guest thought. Hans wondered whether the elaborate communications between colonials were a result of loyalty to France, or a means to survival. Chemin was most likely a mercenary – an unknown element, someone who shifts loyalties for a price. Soldiers in Noumea had pledged to lay down their lives for far away homelands. Hank Burns had taken that same oath, but now he examined his own conscience for his loyalties. What, or where, was home?
Back at camp, Hank washed off streams of red jungle dust and made some brief notes. The events of the last twenty-four hours had been a jumble of evidence and languages. He strode rapidly toward Mitchell’s office where the captain was waiting.
Mitchell looked up from his desk. “We hear you had an interesting trip into the jungle. How in blazes did you find that guy?”
“Remember sir, you sent me out to find the Consul, only there wasn’t one. And the French are not as they seem to be.”
“Gee, that’s a surprise. You got Free French, Vichy French, French colonists, and descendants of prisoners all on some island that France could give a shit about.”
Islands of Deception Page 22