by Matt Killeen
“Who is stopping you?” Sarah asked.
“The Madame . . . she says no.”
“You have friends there?” Sarah pointed beyond the barrier.
“My sister and her family. Please,” she implored. “I’m a healer, I can help.”
“The Madame didn’t want help?”
“Not my kind of help, she said.”
“Come on, let’s go and see her,” Sarah said.
Sarah bent down and helped the woman up. She smiled, just an uncertain glimmer of a thing, and then she began gathering her pans. She busily described their contents.
“Ursula.” The Captain beckoned from the middle of the road.
Sarah excused herself and returned to his side.
“Sarah of Elsengrund,” he whispered with a special intensity. “Do not . . . touch . . . another person here, do you understand?”
“She’s not sick,” Sarah scoffed.
“You don’t know that.”
“She’s outside the, what . . . cordon sanitaire.”
“Is it manned, is it holding? Is this spread by animals? Until we know something . . . Don’t. Touch. Anyone.”
His voice had acquired a steel, a certainty that she had not heard for some time.
“I’m going to help this woman up the hill,” Sarah said firmly. “Do you want to yell at me now, or do you want to save that for later?”
“Let Clementine do it—” the Captain called, causing Clementine to make a rude noise and fold her arms.
“Yell at me later, all right?”
As they climbed the slope, with the others trailing in their wake, the woman chattered. The village had become sick just over a week ago. The missionaries came a few days later and stopped anyone coming near. There was anger, but also fear among the scattered locals. There were few relatives who dared approach the village.
“What would you want to do?” Sarah asked.
“The elders would say, leave everyone in their huts. If they come out, good; if they don’t, you burn them where they lie. Two precautions are better than one.”
“But would you do?” Sarah said, smiling.
“They’re old men, easy to stop caring when you’re that old,” the woman said scornfully. “These people need looking after, by their own.”
“You don’t like the missionaries?”
“They’re like the elders, it makes for easy decisions when it’s not your family.”
“But they’ve brought medicines, haven’t they?”
“I work in a town twenty kilometers from here. There’s a hospital and some good people in it. But the white—” She stopped talking, paused, then restarted. “The French, the British, they have no cure for death. But death quakes in the face of love, it laughs when love is withheld. We need to be involved here, our traditions exist for good reason. You can’t swap that for an injection. Even after death, call it a Christian burial or the final rite of passage, you don’t have to believe that the unburied dead will upset the balance of the world. People just need to say goodbye to move on. It’s important.”
“Have you heard of the White Devil?” Sarah asked.
The woman stopped. “That’s a lot of superstitious connerie—sorry, pardon my language, Mademoiselle. People get sick, sometimes it’s catching. It’s not a demon, or a God. It’s the way of things . . . but you know, when you stop people following their traditions and don’t explain anything, it makes them suspicious and irrational.”
They crested the top of the rise where the track turned a corner. There, in a fierce patch of sunlight that had stolen through the clouds, stood a figure in a green coat and apron, long rubber gloves and boots, mask and goggles over a cloth hood.
Sarah took an involuntary step back. She heard the camera aperture click open and closed behind her.
The figure pulled off its gloves and dropped them to the side before reaching up to its head and pulling the hood, mask, and goggles away.
It revealed a small European woman in her early thirties, with a look of intense concern on her face. So unlike the steel and gilt of the Ice Queen’s malice, or the shadow-soaked blonde cunning of Elsa, this woman wasn’t beautiful in that way, nor was she handsome like Marika Rökk or any other film star. But in those green eyes there was not just a fierce intelligence, but a warmth that echoed the round, dimpled attractiveness. There was also immaculately applied makeup.
As the strap of the goggles came free, her hair escaped from a tie and shook loose down one side of her face. Despite the sweat and tangles and strap marks, her hair was a vibrant gold with flashes of auburn brown that actually glittered in the light, like tiny pieces of gilt were threaded through it.
A look of deep sadness and profound pity overcame her expression. She walked up to Sarah’s companion.
“Oh, Millie, Liebling. I told you . . . well, you’re here now. Why don’t you set those down there and I’ll make sure they get to . . . Marlène, isn’t it? She’s good, you know, she’s hanging on. I’m really hopeful . . .” The words poured out in French and German. Millie tried to talk over her, but the European reached up to touch the other woman’s face. Her hands were red and chapped. “No, Süße, I know, I know. What kind of doctor would I be if I let you get sick? You’ve children, three children, right? We have to protect them.” Millie was still talking, but somehow everything she said was lost in the woman’s speech. Soon she was facing back down the hill and departing.
The woman watched her go, hands on hips. She spoke to Sarah and the others without even acknowledging them.
“Lieber Gott, that poor woman. Every day. Every day she comes here. She is such a brave one.”
“You could let her see her sister,” Sarah ventured.
“Her sister died three days ago.” It wasn’t a rebuke, it was a quiet cry of controlled anguish. “What am I supposed to say? Maybe I can save a niece or nephew, offer her something at the end.”
“Can you save them?” Sarah asked.
The woman turned and looked Sarah in the face. One lone tear had escaped her eye, taking a rivulet of mascara down one cheek.
“I haven’t so far . . .” she murmured before apparently coming around. “Gottverdammten, there goes what’s left of the makeup. Do you have any eyeliner?” Sarah shook her head. “Maybe your girl?” Clementine raised her eyebrows. “Sorry, silly question. Talking of questions . . .” She turned to the Captain and Claude. “Bonjour, mes amis, nous sommes des citoyens suisses, agissant sous les auspices de La Société Missionnaire de l’Église—”
The Captain raised a hand and interrupted.
“We’re not the Free French authorities. Which is a good job, too, as I don’t think your Swiss passports, if they even exist, will pass muster. We’re looking for Professor Bofinger.”
She relaxed and then became a very different kind of suspicious. She cocked her head to one side.
“Who’s asking?” She turned to Sarah. “Who’s asking, Liebchen?”
“The Abwehr,” Sarah replied.
“Ursula!” the Captain moaned. Clementine snickered and Claude rolled his eyes.
The woman chuckled in a way that made her cheeks invade her eyes.
“Heil, to the agents of the Vaterla-la-dingsbums . . .” She turned and bowed to Sarah. “And greetings to young Ursula. My name is Dr. Lisbeth Fischer. Who is the fake priest?”
“Which one?”
“Oh, she’s funny. The fake one.” She pointed at the Captain and then at Claude. “He’s real. I can spot a true believer a mile away.”
“That one”—Sarah gesticulated at the Captain—“is my uncle.”
Lisbeth turned to him, a burst of concern overtaking her. “What are you doing bringing children here? Did you know why you’d been sent here?”
“I’m here to talk to Professor Bofinger, and I’ll use any assets I have to, i
n any way I see fit.”
The Captain had the edge to his voice that Sarah had come to know only recently. It was the voice that grew impatient. The one that made mistakes, that forgot to charm and ingratiate.
“Dr. Fischer, do you know the Herr Professor?” Sarah asked, moving into the silence.
“Rudolf Bofinger is my stepfather.” Lisbeth turned back to the Captain. “He’s not going to want you here. As for you, true believer, get some gloves and a mask and start tending to the sick.”
“It would take the devil to make me do that,” Claude replied in perfect German.
“Well, true believer, the devil is here, all right.”
* * *
“You don’t go into the village without mask, gloves, and goggles. Don’t remove your mask, gloves, or goggles in the village, at any time, for any reason. If you do, you’re staying there,” Lisbeth stated in a voice used to giving orders. “When you’re done, gloves in the bleach, all the way in, that’ll clean your hands. Then take off your mask and goggles. Hands in the bleach again, and let them dry in the air. Get that wrong and you stay in the village. You cause me any trouble, you stay in the village. I’ve only lost one nurse so far. You endanger that record and you stay in the village. Am I being clear enough?”
“Glasklar,” Sarah replied. She caught Clementine’s eye, who made a vomiting gesture.
The table of buckets, gloves on hooks, and other protective gear ran alongside the new path that led to the village from the mission encampment, itself the size of a small village. Sarah counted twenty tents at least, as well as two large marquees. In addition to the white mission staff, a small army of servants moved from shelter to shelter. Horses were corralled next to carts, and behind that sat two large trucks. For something so evidently temporary it seemed oddly like Fort-Lamy, a statement of intent, of privilege and power.
As they approached it, Sarah noticed that the clearing they had set up camp in was not natural but built from scorched earth and ashes.
Lisbeth called to a porter and talked to him in Flemish Dutch.
“Take their girl and fetch their luggage. On the way, burn the gloves on the path and . . . empty the soup out into the bushes. Carefully, so it won’t be seen. Leave the pots by the barricade.”
The Belgian waved to Clementine to follow him, who did after an insolent delay.
“Not eating the soup?” Sarah asked.
“I’m . . . too scared, to be honest. I’m not sure we’ve got all of this bottled up here.”
“You touched her face,” Sarah mentioned quietly.
Lisbeth shrugged. “She needed to be touched . . .” Something occurred to Lisbeth. “You speak Dutch,” she said with a smile.
Sarah’s command of languages, one of her mother’s few gifts to her, came so easily that she sometimes forgot what she was listening to. She was going to have to be more careful around the doctor.
“Now I see why he keeps you around,” Lisbeth continued. “What does he want, Ursula?”
The Captain hovered, but Lisbeth ignored him, turning her back to him as he moved. Sarah struggled momentarily to unpick the truth from the lie, the cover from the real mission, uncertain what that was.
“You’re in enemy territory, you need to be escorted to safety,” she managed.
“Well, enemy territory is where we’re needed right now,” Lisbeth replied.
“You’ve research that’s needed at home.”
“Oh, screw that. It’s meaningless there if people are still dying here.”
“I think they’re interested in what you’ve uncovered.”
Lisbeth stopped and swung around to face Sarah. “They’re interested . . . Gottverdammte, Father . . .” She spun on her heel and stomped toward one of the big marquees, before storming in.
There were raised voices, which quickly settled.
“What did you say to her?” the Captain demanded.
“Just that we’re here to escort them back . . . and why—”
The Captain made a face. Sarah fizzed in irritation. She saw him beginning to struggle, to lose trust in her, to fail as a spy. Evening was approaching, and he was in trouble. He was breathing heavily, his skin already pale and the whites of his eyes growing sallow. This was a play she had seen over and over, but she had stopped questioning the script. She knew the final act but never waited to see it, believing that if she ignored it, it would go away. Norris knew, Clementine knew, and not letting them talk about it hadn’t stopped it happening.
She took a deep breath. “I’m not sure you should talk to anyone at the moment,” she managed quietly. “Go . . . do whatever you need to do.”
She winced at the phrase she had used before, over and over.
He looked like he was going to argue. Then one of the mission staff emerged from the tent. He was wearing a lab coat and a mask that concealed his features.
“Welcome to the Bofinger Medical Mission. You are all invited to dinner at eight p.m. You will be shown to tents where you can dress appropriately. Please be punctual.”
He turned and walked back into the marquee. Several servants had taken their cue and began beckoning to the visitors.
Sarah rubbed at her face, feeling the weight of the air tighten around something in the center of her forehead. It was like the dirty sky was pushing down and threatening to crush them all.
NINETEEN
THE DINING TENT was the pulsing heart of the encampment’s pretension. It was as lavish as Sarah had seen, even in early childhood or at the Schäfers’ poisoned banquet hall. The huge table was solid beneath the tablecloth, the chairs were no camping stools but high-backed mahogany antiques, and the place settings were gleaming crockery and silverware. There was even a chandelier suspended above it, fully laden with freshly lit candles.
Sarah could barely conceive how the contents of this room were transported, how many porters and servants, carts or trucks might be required to drag it from one piece of the jungle to the next, keeping pace with the work of the White Devil. They also needed to keep away from the Free French authorities, who could decide that even missionaries from an enemy nation might be safer under lock and key.
However, the grandiose sense of scale was choked by the atmosphere. The darkness and the candlelight just added to the sweltering heat, saturated air, and intense pressure. The claustrophobic space made Sarah feel short of breath, that she might asphyxiate or drown where she sat. The thick stench of sweat from the assembled diners was just a minor discomfort in comparison.
“You’re late,” growled a man at the head of the table, gripping the arms of an oversized chair like it was a throne. It wasn’t possible to guess his age. He seemed both youthful and impossibly old all at once. There was a fire in his eyes that spoke of a childlike vitality, but they sat in a jowl-laden face, skin tanned and wizened by ten thousand suns or more. He had the thick, curled mustache so beloved of older men, now a silver white, but that hair sought escape from such control. With the thinning mop of strands perched on his head, it risked being comic. Something in his expression of intense disapproval and reprimand suggested otherwise.
Behind him hung a flag that it took Sarah a moment to identify. It was the war flag of the Kaiser’s German Empire, defeated in the last war. It made a change, she thought.
“They are almost exactly fifteen minutes late, as decorum demands, Vater,” Lisbeth chided, rising and turning to the guests. She was now wearing a cream evening dress, something Sarah recognized from her early childhood as being almost twenty years out of fashion. The lace was yellowing and the material had been darned and repaired, yet she made it look like she was on the cover of the latest Filmwelt. Sarah also noticed she had fixed the mascara trail and restored a perfectly powdered complexion. On a leather strap around her neck was a long, thin necklace carved out of one piece of white stone.
“Almost is not good enough,” he
complained. “If you want meat from my table, you need to be timely. We’re not savages here.” He stared at Claude for a moment and then made a dismissive gesture.
Lisbeth rolled her eyes theatrically and waved the Captain, Claude, and Sarah to their seats.
“Where’s Clementine?” Sarah whispered to the Captain.
“Yes, let’s bring our servants to dinner, that’s not at all weird,” the Captain said witheringly. To Sarah’s relief, his eyes were clear, his skin healthy.
“Ursula, sit next to me—”
“Boy, girl, boy, girl—” the host grunted.
“Shush, Vater,” Lisbeth interrupted.
There were another half dozen guests, all but one men of various ages. Most seemed less than delighted to be there, and one, the youngest, looked positively terrified. The servants began to serve water and a dull series of dishes of chicken and potatoes, but the food was hot and there was enough. Not many of Sarah’s meals on the long drive south had been.
“Thank you for your hospitality, Herr Professor—” the Captain began.
“So my stepdaughter tells me that Berlin wants my research,” the professor interrupted. “To which I say, about gottverdammte time—” He stopped and looked away. “By heaven’s will, Klodt. Stop fidgeting with that cup,” he shouted at the scared-looking youth with too much oil in his hair. The boy was holding his water like it might reach out and strike him. “It’s water. Our water. Clean— Oh, never mind, drink the wine and dehydrate, see if I care.”
Bofinger took a second to gather his thoughts before continuing.
“Yes, forty years wiping the Popos of these savages.” He made a circular gesture with a hand. “And finally I seem to have something important to the Fatherland.”
“I’m not sure at this point what you may have found—” the Captain managed before Bofinger interrupted him.
“Well I am. A more virulent pathogen has never been discovered. Cut a swathe through our party before we could control it.”
