by Matt Killeen
She stepped back and collapsed to the floor. She caught sight of herself in a full-length mirror. She was momentarily shocked by what she saw, then she snickered at the picture.
She was still wearing Lisbeth’s old-fashioned cream dress, but it was now torn and stained white where the bleach had attacked the fabric. Mud plastered the hem. The remains of her makeup streaked down her face, while her bare skin was red, raw, and peeling away in dry flakes. The side of her head was a dark and gritty brown starfish with arms that ran down her loosened hair in red matted braids. She was a clown, a terrifying backstreet entertainer so long in the dark she couldn’t see to apply her stage paint.
A plan. Her mother, her voice, would always want a plan. Still she was silent.
She was a lost little girl on the far side of the world from civilization.
Whose civilization? she demanded. But she ignored herself.
A lost little girl, who would do anything to get home. Anything.
A lost little girl who didn’t understand anything, who would accept any help, to get back home.
She looked at the monstrous clown in the mirror . . . and grinned.
Dearest Mouse,
If you knew who I was, who I really was . . .
You would not care.
If you knew what I had done . . .
You would not care.
Would you?
Alles Liebe,
Sarah
Dirty Jew and murderer
THIRTY-THREE
November 9, 1940
“WHAT DO YOU mean I’m not coming?” Claude was as confused as he was indignant.
“I need you to drive me to the airfield but drop me off without being seen. Then come back here and look after your friend the Morphinist.”
“We’ll probably be too late, the amount of time you took.”
Somewhere behind the rain clouds the sun was rising and the sky was a turning a pale gray.
Sarah had showered, changed her clothes, and combed the blood out of her hair. Careful braiding had concealed the wound, and she had used the Captain’s cologne to mask the pervasive smell of disinfectant. It wasn’t perfect, but it was all the time she could spare.
“This wouldn’t have worked otherwise,” she stated adamantly.
“But—”
“No, enough. You need to get my ‘uncle’ home, and you can’t do that if you get yourself killed. Everyone at the airfield is your enemy now.”
“Then I’ll burn the lot,” he said, tapping the flamethrower.
Sarah looked out of the window, at the growing crowds in the street, at the people with trunks and suitcases heading for the harbor. The ease with which she could even consider this should have frightened her, but she was numb. She knew that torching everyone—Hasse, Bofinger, the mission, the samples—was the only way to be safe . . . but she had to save Lisbeth. The woman had asked for their help. Whatever she had been involved with, she wanted out of it. Sarah wanted . . . Sarah needed to hold her hand again, and then everything would be all right.
Lisbeth was stopping a slaughter. Lisbeth was Sarah’s salvation.
“The hotel manager talked about them having machine guns. We get Fischer out first, she’s on our side.”
“That’s still easier at the point of a gun,” Claude growled. “Why am I letting you boss me around?”
Sarah looked at him, almost desperate to be backed up. No, for him to be in charge and to take responsibility away from her. She looked at the priest, the angry, violent racist with a chip on his shoulder, and knew she didn’t trust him. It was a lonely moment, like she was the last person on Earth.
She seized on that weakness and strangled it.
“Leave this to me. I know the people, I know what I’m doing.”
The truck was almost swamped with refugees now, and it was having trouble getting through. Claude sounded the horn and screamed through the window for them to make way. In the harbor there were three ships, and crowds on the quayside and pier were threatening to overwhelm them.
“I don’t know why they’re bothering. There’s a naval blockade, and two French cruisers are fighting it out off the coast. It’s as dangerous out there as it is here,” Claude mused.
Sarah sought out the ensigns flapping at each ship’s stern.
“Liberian flag, French flag, and . . .” Sarah stopped. The most distant ship was face on, so the flag was almost invisible until it caught the wind. She waited for the next squall to move it.
The flag was German.
She turned to Claude.
“I need money. And your gun.”
* * *
Sarah ran across the airfield toward the distant truck and the tiny figures next to it. She tried to get her breathing into a rhythm, to add the acceleration that she knew was there, but the malaria and the pounding headache had taken the edge off her abilities. She had left Claude at the gate, arguing with, cajoling, and distracting its guards.
Before she had left Claude, she had turned back.
“Thank you, Claude. Thank you for saving my life.”
“Jeremy brought you all the way here. Even this Jeremy . . . you must have been worth bringing. So be worth it, little girl.”
Sarah laughed without humor. “He brought Clementine, too.”
“No,” Claude said, shaking his head. “I know the story. You brought her. Don’t make that mistake again.”
She thought about these words as she moved over the thin grass, the first time she had been able to think about Clementine and what she had done.
Sarah was wounded by the betrayal, a wide, jagged, and oozing sensation of grief and loss—a loss of something that hadn’t even existed. No, it had existed, they had been friends. But she was more angry at herself than Clementine. She played events over and over again in her mind, seeing the hundred little moments where she should have been more suspicious, more critical. When instead she had allowed Clementine to antagonize and distract her, making her second-guess herself and her motives. Had she been less brittle, had she listened more, things might have been different, before the end, when it was too late. If she had been stronger, Clementine might have felt able to join them. Sarah had failed her friend.
Clementine did what she felt she had to do to survive, and the continuation of Sarah’s life had already taken innocent lives. Clementine had been right—how could there be judgement in that line of miserable existences?
And Clementine had been right about most things, yet so, so wrong in what they made her do. Sarah could feel her fury crushing her sense of justice and righteousness. Is this how Clementine had become what she was? To stay useful, would Sarah need to become something else?
Sarah promised herself that she would be strong, not hard.
The airfield was no more than a few hangers and aging biplanes, but the Vichy forces were digging in around the perimeter. They were showing no signs of giving up the site without a fight. The gunfire sounded murderously close now, and Sarah felt very exposed.
They won’t shoot a little girl. At least not a white little girl.
She looked to the jungle at the edge of the field and wondered if they’d stop to look.
She was close to the truck, almost at shouting distance. She could just make out the individual people, the flash of Lisbeth’s hair and the taller, rounder figure of Hasse. She prepared herself, feeling again the absence of her mother’s guiding voice.
She needed to cry. She dug into the recent past for sadness and loss but found only anger and rage—the razed villages, the betrayal of the dying man in a cage, of Ngobila’s final weeks. She had believed herself dead . . . but here found only relief. She thought of Clementine, hefting the bloody wrench, but that brought only fear.
Oh, Mutti, she thought. Where are you?
There was a sliver of loss, of loneliness
and abandonment, and Sarah pounced on it. Feel it in the cheeks.
Sarah began to scream for Lisbeth, letting the run pull the power from her cries to make them more vulnerable and helpless. She wanted to be with Lisbeth, to hold her chapped, greasy, but warm hand, to know she wasn’t alone.
The tears began to flow.
Lisbeth had turned, along with several others, but it was Hasse who moved first and began to narrow the gap between them.
“Fräulein Haller? What is wrong?” he called. She couldn’t yet read his face.
“Lisbeth! Help me.”
Lisbeth started forward.
“What’s happened?” Hasse called. She could see his face now. Behind the mask of concern, his face betrayed a deeper anxiety. Sarah made to exploit it.
“It’s horrible!” she howled, then let breathlessness break up her speech. “It’s . . . it’s . . . hor . . .”
Lisbeth arrived and went to hug Sarah. Hasse put out an arm to stop her. He reached down and patted Sarah for weapons. Lisbeth turned on him in surprise, then pushed past him and took Sarah into her arms.
“Oh, Liebchen, it’s all right,” she cooed.
“My uncle is dead. I thought he was sleeping . . . after his medicine . . .” She made her chest heave between words. “But he stopped breathing . . .” She pulled back from the woman’s arms and turned to Hasse. “And Clementine told me to find you and say, It was done, and then you’d look after me. Then Claude the priest turned up and shot her! Said she was a traitor . . .”
If Clementine had found Hasse by now, she was undone.
“When did you talk to Clementine?” Hasse demanded.
He was asking, Are you infectious yet?
“An hour ago,” Sarah said, letting confusion cross her face. Not infectious yet.
He couldn’t hide his relief. It was a full second before he swapped that expression for sympathy.
“Terrible, terrible. Where is this Claude now?”
“I lost him in town . . .”
“Enough with the questions, Hasse!” Lisbeth barked, gathering Sarah back into her arms.
A rattle-crack of gunfire made them all start.
“Back to the truck, please,” Hasse ordered.
The shots restarted and stopped amidst shouts to cease fire. Sarah watched a group of soldiers emerge from the tree line waving their arms. Strident demands for identification were being made. The two opposing sides looked identical.
They trailed back to the dubious cover of the mission truck, but Sarah held on to Lisbeth’s arm to slow her down.
“Wait, we need to talk,” Sarah whispered, turning and hugging the woman again, stopping her.
“I looked for you. Your uncle was in a . . . daze, but leaving with Hasse wasn’t optional,” Lisbeth said. “Is your uncle really dead?”
“Might as well be, for now. Klodt is dead,” whispered Sarah, and Lisbeth winced. “He”—Sarah nodded at Hasse as he walked ahead of them—“thinks I’ve been infected, without my knowledge. He’s going to use me to take the disease to the United States. A walking incubator. How long before he’d have to isolate me?”
Lisbeth was shaking her head, appalled.
“Less than a week.”
“Did you know about Ngobila?”
“Who?”
“The Bateke, the person who was put in a cage,” Sarah growled.
Lisbeth closed her eyes and screwed up her face. “I didn’t know. I swear that when we left the village I had no idea. I sent Klodt to . . . put him out of his misery as soon as I possibly could.”
“Out of his misery?” hissed Sarah, her forehead knotted.
“There was nothing I could do for him. Nothing. It was an appalling thing that they did, but by the time I knew it was already too late.”
“It’s complicated, you said,” Sarah hissed, the venom pouring out of her, unable to stop it. “Is that what you meant? He was a father, a brother, an artist, an Arschloch, a drunkard, or a saint, who knows what. A person with a life, a story.”
“You’ve got to believe me, I didn’t know until—”
“Dr. Fischer! Get in cover, please,” called Hasse.
Lisbeth went to move, and Sarah pulled her tighter.
“Who has the samples?” she demanded.
“My father has—”
“I stopped Claude coming here and torching you all,” Sarah interrupted. “You must come with me now. There’s a ship to Liberia in the harbor, and from there we can get to British territory in Sierra Leone or Nigeria. You can’t get on this plane, and you’ve got to take the samples with you.”
“We’re all getting on that plane,” Lisbeth said sadly. “Look.” She pointed to the truck.
For the first time Sarah noticed the addition to the staff.
Five heavily armed men. A perimeter. Armed with machine guns. Mercenaries. Professionals. They were motionless and dead behind the eyes. One watched the two women with a lizard-like stare.
The mission staff could feel it and were nervous, fidgeting. They sensed their detention. They were prisoners.
She spotted Samuel, sitting calmly on a box, next to Emmi. Then he looked up and saw her. He was briefly dismayed, then he slowly shook his head at her.
“They’re going to kill everyone,” said Sarah softly.
“No,” she scoffed. “They just don’t want anyone disappearing.”
Sarah looked at the Herero, who stared back at her, eyes haunted by the knowledge of the past. He tightened his grip on Emmi, who had tears in her eyes.
They became aware of a distant, buzzing rumble. One by one, the waiting mission staff looked up at the gray sky.
“At last!” exclaimed Hasse, clapping his hands. “Professor, Doctor, do come with me a moment. You, too, Fräulein.” He waved to them to join him by the truck, away from the others.
Lisbeth’s eyes widened.
There was more gunfire at the tree line. It began erratically, tempered with caution, but more shots joined the chorus. There was a series of dull thuds and then an explosion that made everyone flinch.
“We should run,” Sarah said.
Lisbeth shook her head and began to walk to the truck.
The deep, throbbing buzz grew.
The mercenary looking at Sarah made an unambiguous motion with his gun.
There were screams audible from the tree line. Cries for help drowned out by more firing. Vichy troops were running across the airfield to reinforce the line.
Out of the clouds dropped the huge cruciform of a Ju 52, its three engines making the air vibrate as it passed overhead.
The corrugated metal sides were unmistakable and gave Sarah a wave of nausea at the idea of being inside that tin box again, but the numbers and tail had been blacked out to hide its identity. One of the mercenaries watched it fly over and popped a smoke flare. After a moment’s fizzing, it produced a billowing column of white smoke that chased after the plane.
“Aunty Ju is here!” Hasse laughed and gestured to Sarah. “Fräulein, come.”
Sarah reluctantly followed, watching the aircraft. It almost seemed to disappear into the distance, but then banked gently and began a long turn over the town. Sarah looked back to the mission staff. The doctors, nurses, porters, and servants were being herded away from the truck. Good people, bad people, side by side. She lost sight of Samuel behind one of the gunmen.
Sarah broke into a jog and reached Hasse.
“Don’t do this,” she pleaded.
“Do what?”
Lisbeth was arguing with her father in a quiet, angry voice, but Sarah couldn’t make out the words over the rising noise of battle. Samples. Berlin. The team.
“Don’t kill them all,” Sarah pleaded. “Just let them go if you don’t need them.”
“If I’m to look after you like your Neger
said, you’re going to have to learn to do what you’re told.”
Sarah wanted to spit at him, cut herself and wipe her hands on him, something, anything that she could do that he might be frightened of. She knew, suddenly and clearly, that if she couldn’t or wouldn’t do something at this moment, she was going to have to live with the consequences forever.
“Lisbeth says she needs them,” she managed.
“Does she? Which ones?” Hasse asked.
She saw Samuel.
“That one, the old guy,” she said, pointing. “And the woman—”
“What, some old Hottentotte?” He snorted. “I thought you were serious.”
“I am! Lisbeth! Tell him, tell him you need them . . .”
Lisbeth turned from her argument, with a face so lined, so anxious, it didn’t even seem to be hers. She strode toward them.
“Are you really going to do this, Obersturmbannführer?” Lisbeth demanded. “These are all vital members of the team.”
“Professor?” Hasse said, turning to the old man.
Bofinger shrugged and mumbled something.
“Oh my God!” Lisbeth exclaimed. The first cries of alarm had started among the corralled staff. A mercenary pushed someone back. The throbbing of the aircraft engines filled the air.
“I thought as much.” Hasse turned away. The sounds of the battle swelled, the cracks and bangs and screams, the mosquito whine of bullets flying wild, built around them.
Sarah tugged his sleeve. She sank into her body to make herself as small as she could and looked up at the SS man.
“Please?”
Hasse smiled and snickered. “Your little girl act is . . . not convincing, Fräulein,” he said, and then leaned down, touching his eye. “I can see kohl pencil on your eyelids.”
He straightened up to watch the Ju 52, which was now face on and descending toward the airfield. The buzzing of aircraft seemed to be all around them.
“Two things,” he said. “No room, and . . . no witnesses. It’s pragmatism. No one is going to miss them. In the same way, I’m going to put you on a boat to America, safely out of the way. Because if you vanished altogether the Abwehr might ask me awkward questions.”
