The Bible of Clay

by Julia Navarro

  "If they find her, they'll do something terrible to her, and to us too."

  "What do you suggest, that we turn her over to the kapo? That bastard Gustav would strangle her with his bare hands. She wouldn't even make it to the women's barracks, where the poor children came from," Lechw replied.

  "You know, you can't tell whether she's a girl or a boy with her head shaved like that," another prisoner observed with a glint of hope in his eyes.

  "Are you people mad! If they find her, we'll all pay!" said an older man.

  "I, for one, am not going to turn her in; I won't have it on my conscience. You can do what you will," said the Polish doctor.

  This little girl reminded him of his own daughter, whose fate he had never learned. Friends of his had assured him that they would protect his wife and daughter, but had they been able to do so? Or was his little darling in a camp like Mauthausen? If she was, he prayed to God that someone might take pity on her as he was caring for this tiny creature lying here unconscious, perhaps never to awaken again.

  "Please don't turn her in," he whispered.

  The men turned to look at the boy who hours earlier had tried to defend his mother and sister.

  "What is your name?" Lechw asked him. "Carlo," he answered bashfully.

  "Well, then, Carlo, you are going to make sure that they don't find her," said Lechw gently. "You and your friends must try very hard not to attract attention. It is difficult—the kapos are not nice men—but it is not impossible," he explained.

  "We'll be very careful, sir," Carlo said, as his friends Bruno and Hans nodded.

  The boys sat on the floor near the cot where Mercedes was lying, waiting for her to regain consciousness. They, too, were injured, although the most terrible wounds had been inflicted upon their souls.

  The entire night, Mercedes remained in a coma, near death. It was a miracle, the doctor said, when she recovered consciousness the next morning.

  When Carlo saw Mercedes' eyes flutter open, he squeezed her little hand to let her know he was there for her. He and Hans and Bruno had sat by her cot all night. All three had prayed to God—though they really didn't know whether he was listening—to have mercy on their friend. The doctor told them that God had heard their prayer and had pulled her up out of the darkness.

  When the kapos came into the barracks and ordered the men outside into formation, they paid no attention to the wounded children who had taken refuge in a dark corner, trembling with fear and hunger and pain. The prisoners had covered Mercedes with a blanket, so she could hardly be seen. No one went over to the cot to look any closer.

  When they were alone, Hans gave Mercedes a little water. She looked up at him gratefully; her head hurt, she was dizzy, but more than anything she was afraid. She could taste blood on her Hps—the blood of her dead baby brother that the SS officer had thrown in her face.

  "We have to kill him," Carlo whispered, and his three friends looked at him expectantly.

  They could all barely move from the beating they'd taken. Their bodies covered by bruises and bloody wounds, they crept closer to Carlo so they could hear better.

  "Kill him?" Bruno repeated as quietly as he could.

  "The one in charge, with the blond hair. He killed our mothers," Carlo insisted.

  "And our little brothers and sisters won't. . . won't be born now," said Mercedes, her eyes brimming with tears.

  None of the boys shed a single tear, despite the terrible weight of pain and grief that had settled in their hearts.

  "My mother used to say that when you want something very, very much, you get it," said Hans timidly.

  "I want to kill him," Carlo repeated, his teeth clenched.

  "Me too," said Bruno.

  "Me too," said Mercedes.

  "Then we shall," Hans said. "But how?"

  "However we can," Bruno replied.

  "It will be hard to do here," pointed out Hans.

  "But when we get out of here . . . We won't be here much longer," insisted Bruno.

  "I don't think we will get out of here alive," said Hans glumly. "My mother said that the Allies are going to win; she was sure of it," Bruno insisted.

  "Who are the Allies?" asked Mercedes.

  "The ones that are against Hitler," Hans told her.

  "We agree, then?" proposed Carlo.

  They looked hard at one another for a moment, seeming much older than the children they were, and slowly nodded their heads in a silent oath, aware of the solemnity of the moment. Then they hugged in a sign of solidarity; the embrace of friendship made them all feel better.

  They spent the rest of the day imagining the moment when they would kill the SS officer, discussing how they would do it, with what instrument. When the men came back to the barracks that night, they found the children trembling with cold, starving, but with a gleam in their eyes that the men could only explain as burgeoning fever.

  Lechw examined them, and an expression of concern came over his face. One of Mercedes' head wounds was infected. He used the rest of the vodka to clean the wounds, but he was pessimistic.

  "We need medicines," he said.

  "Why upset yourself about it—there is nothing to do," said another Polish prisoner, a mining engineer.

  "I am a doctor. I shall do everything in my power to keep these children alive—I shall fight to my last breath!"

  "Calm, calm," said another of the Poles. "This one here," he said, jerking his thumb at the Russian, "knows the ones that clean the infirmary—we'll get them to bring us something."

  "I need it now," the doctor complained.

  "Give us time," his friend said.

  It was just before dawn when Lechw felt someone touch his arm. He'd fallen asleep while watching over the children. His Polish friend and the Russian with a talent for finding things were standing by the cot, grinning. They handed him a package, then faded into the shadows, back to their cots.

  The doctor unwrapped the little bundle carefully and had to stifle a cry of joy when he saw what it contained: bandages, disinfectant, and analgesics, the most wonderful haul he could ever imagine.

  He got up quietly, so as not to wake anyone, and observed the four children's fitful sleep. He unwound the dirty strip of cloth with which he had wrapped Mercedes' head and applied disinfectant once again to the wound. When she felt the cold sting of the Mercurochrome, she woke up and was about to cry out, but he gently placed his hand over her mouth, then smiled and told her not to cry. The brave little girl bit down on the blanket that covered her and, pale as death, lay quietly while the doctor, all concentration, went about treating the wound. Then she gratefully accepted a sip of water and two pills he gave her.

  Hans, Bruno, and Carlo were also tended by the doctor, who swabbed the cuts and contusions that covered their bodies. Then they, too, took an analgesic to soothe their pains.

  "I heard one of the kapos say that the war is going badly," said a Spanish Communist as he watched the doctor care for the children.

  "Do you believe it?" Lechw replied.

  "I do. He was telling one of the other kapos; apparently he heard one of the officers from Berlin talking. And I have a friend who cleans the radio room. He says the Germans are nervous; they listen to the BBC all day and night, and some of them are beginning to ask what will happen to them if Germany loses the war."

  "Oh, praise God!" Lechw exclaimed.

  "God? What does God have to do with this?" spat the Spaniard. "If God existed, he'd never have allowed this monstrosity. I never believed in God, but my mother did, and I imagine she's praying right now that I return someday. But if we get out of here, it won't be God who frees us—it'll be the Allies. Do you actually believe in God after all this?" the Spaniard asked almost sarcastically.

  "I do—if I didn't, I wouldn't have been able to live through this. God has helped me survive."

  "Then why didn't he give a hand to the mothers of these poor children?" the Spaniard asked, pointing to the four little ones.

  Me
rcedes was listening to the conversation avidly, trying hard to understand what the two men were saying. They were talking about God. When they were in Paris, her mother sometimes took her to church; they went to the Sacre Coeur, near their home. They never stayed inside very long; her mother would go in, kneel briefly, make the sign of the cross, murmur something, and then leave. Her mother told her that they went into the church to ask God to protect her papa. But her papa had disappeared while she and her mother had had to flee, and God had done nothing to stop it.

  She thought about what the Spaniard was saying—that God was absent—and she silently agreed. God was not in Mauthausen, she had no doubt of that. She closed her eyes and began to cry, quietly, so that no one would hear. She could still see her mother lying broken and bloody among the rocks on those terrible stairs.

  Her friends Carlo, Bruno, and Hans pleaded with the older prisoners to let them stay; they promised to take care of Mercedes; they swore

  they wouldn't be a bother, that they wouldn't cry, so the kapos wouldn't find them. It soothed her to hear the men agree.

  So she would stay there, in those barracks. She was going to pretend to be a boy—she had to act like one and not do anything to attract attention, because if they discovered her there, they would all pay for it. She swore to herself she would never do anything to cause harm to these loving men, or her three wonderful friends.

  37

  robert brown was happy with the results of his

  meeting with George Wagner. All that was left was for Paul Dukais to pull off his part of the plan and for them to keep Alfred Tannenberg satisfied until the operation was too far along for him to sabotage it.

  Brown wasn't deluding himself—he knew that without Tannenberg none of this would have been possible and that the sick old man was still capable of retribution if things didn't go his way.

  He took out his cell phone and called Paul. They agreed to meet in Brown's office an hour later. Operation Adam was about to begin, a name Brown had chosen as a nod to the idea of God having made the first man out of clay from ancient Mesopotamia.

  Meanwhile, George Wagner was talking to Enrique Gomez, who was at his home in Seville.

  "So it'll be on the twentieth?" Enrique asked.

  "Yes, March twentieth—I received confirmation hours ago."

  "Does Dukais have everything ready to go?"

  "Robert says he does. What about you?"

  "No problems here. When the package arrives, I'll pick it up, just like always."

  "This time it's coming in on a military flight."

  "That doesn't necessarily make things any easier, but the contact you gave me on the base already has his advance on the payment, so he's good to go. And he knows what'll happen to him if he decides to make trouble."

  "Have you made contact with the buyers?"

  "The usual ones, but first I want to see the goods. How are you going to divide it up?"

  "Robert Brown has a good man, Ralph Barry, a former Harvard professor who's a specialist in the area. He'll be in Kuwait when the material comes in. Ahmed Husseini has made a provisional list."

  "Good idea. You know, George, we ought to start thinking about retiring. We're too old to keep this up."

  "Too old? Not me. I'm not going to die in some nursing home, staring out the window with my legs wrapped in a blue blanket. Don't worry, Enrique, everything will be fine; you're going to be living the good life in Seville for a long time to come."

  The ringing of Frank dos Santos' cell phone interrupted his conversation with his daughter. Alma frowned; she couldn't believe her father would bring his cell phone the one time they'd been together in weeks.

  "Hey, George! . . . Where am I? You wouldn't believe it—I'm horseback riding. Alma decided to take me out. But I'm getting old; my rear end hurts!"

  Frank went silent while his friend on the other end talked. George was telling him the same thing he'd told Enrique: The war was going to start on March 20.

  "Everything's ready here," Frank finally said. "My clients are looking forward to seeing the merchandise. Will Ahmed be able to fill the list I sent you? If he does, we'll make a killing. . . . Okay, I'll call you; my men are set."

  He put away his phone and breathed deeply; he knew his daughter was watching him.

  "What's this deal, Papa?"

  "Same as always, sweetie."

  "Just once you might tell me something."

  "Be happy I make a lot of money for you to spend."

  "But, Daddy, I'm your only daughter."

  "Which is why you've always been my favorite," Frank said, laughing. "Come on, let's get back to the house."

  Robert Brown and Ralph Barry were waiting for Paul Dukais. As usual, the president of Planet Security was running late.

  When he finally came into the office, grinning broadly, Brown exploded.

  "What's so fucking funny?"

  "My wife just called to tell me that she's got a migraine, so we're not going to the opera tonight. Is that lucky or what?"

  Ralph couldn't help smiling, but he didn't kid himself about Paul Dukais. He knew that under his mask of vulgarity there was an intelligent man with a heart like an iceberg and a careful, deliberate mind, more cultured than he let on, and capable of anything.

  "The boys in the Pentagon have set a date for the invasion—March twentieth," Robert Brown said curtly, still irritated at Dukais.

  "Good. The sooner our troops go in, the sooner we start making money. And the longer they're there, the more we'll make."

  "Ralph is leaving for Kuwait. Talk to your Colonel Fernandez to organize the reception committee."

  "He's already in the area. I'll call him, don't worry. But first we need to notify Yasir—he was going to Safran today. Alfred sent for him and Ahmed. The old man is keeping a tight rein on things."

  "Okay, get in touch with him. Alfred has to know the date as well."

  "I'll use our usual courier," Dukais suggested. "Yasir's nephew in Paris—he's one of Alfred's men. He owes everything he's got to Alfred."

  "What about Yasir?" asked Ralph.

  "The nephew is close to Yasir, but his loyalty is to Tannenberg," Dukais said with a worldly shrug. "If he has to choose, he'll go with Alfred."

  "Just a few weeks . . . ," muttered Ralph.

  "Yeah, but everything is ready, not to worry. I trust Mike Fernandez, and if he says that the operation is ready to roll, then it's ready to roll," Dukais declared.

  "You should trust Alfred. He's the one who knows how to make things happen, especially over there. He always has been. So don't pin any medals on yourself yet. The only problem with Alfred is that damned granddaughter of his."

  38

  ahmed husseini and yasir were already sitting in the

  helicopter with their flight helmets on when a soldier ran toward them, gesticulating madly. Red-faced from the sprint, he handed a sealed envelope up to Yasir. "Your office sent it. Said it was urgent."

  Yasir ripped the envelope open and pulled out a short typewritten note.

  Sir, you have received an urgent message from your nephew. He says that on March 20, he and some friends will come to see you, although he does not want you to tell any member of your family. He wants to surprise them. You shoidd tell your friends, though. He insists that you shoidd be told immediately that he is coming.

  Tucking the note and envelope into one of his jacket pockets, Yasir motioned to the pilot to take off. Dukais was confirming the date that the war would start. He had to tell Ahmed and, of course, Alfred.

  Night was falling when the helicopter's landing skids touched down a few hundred yards from Safran. A chilly breeze made the lights in the houses seem to flicker like fireflies.

  Ayed Sahadi was waiting in a jeep to take them to the camp. "You look down in the mouth, Ayed. What's wrong?" Ahmed asked.

  "Living in this village is hell. I've been here too long. Anyway, your wife is waiting for you with Alfred. Picot and his team leaders too. They're jumpy—
we've had reporters here telling them the war is inevitable and that given the weather and the state of readiness, Bush will attack any day now."

  "I'm afraid they're right," Ahmed replied. "There are demonstrations all over Europe—in the U.S. too. But Bush has already set the machinery in motion; he's not going to call everything off now."

  "So they're actually going to attack," Ayed said in disbelief.

  "That's what it looks like," Ahmed said laconically. "But for now, my friend, you'll be staying put. The Colonel told me we should keep you here awhile longer."

  Ayed drove them into camp. Yasir was to stay in the village leader's house, while Ahmed would be sharing quarters with his wife and her grandfather.

  The meeting between Clara and Ahmed was strained. Suddenly they didn't know how to act toward each other.

  "You'll have to sleep in my room; we've set up a cot," Clara told him. "I'm sorry, but it would be hard to explain if you didn't sleep here. I prefer to avoid any gossip about us yet."

  "That's fine. I'm just sorry to intrude."

  "It's okay. We have to make do. How long are you planning to stay?"

  "I don't know. Once I talk to your grandfather, I should really go— I have responsibilities that can't wait."

  "Of course; that's what he pays you for."

  Clara was immediately sorry she'd said that, but there was no taking it back now. And, anyway, she wanted Ahmed to know that he would never again be able to lie to her.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "About the fact that you work for my grandfather; you're a partner in some of his business dealings and he pays you for that. Among other things. Isn't that right?"