by Boyd Brent
“Be very careful, Ralph. It seems she's placed an enchantment on you. I have seen it before. Some even begin to feel sorry for them. Helen!” Helen looked at David and David nodded at her. She walked past him and stopped just inside the door. “Come now, Helen. What can possibly be of so much interest on the carpet? Oh, goodness gracious. Look at you, Ralph. She has undoubtedly placed a Jew enchantment on you.” The floorboards creaked as Ralph crossed the room. “Such a delicate little chin … Come, look at me. Let me see those pretty eyes… That's better. Have you placed an enchantment on me?”
Hit her, thought David. Give her that scar now, and I can kill you. Please.
“No,” said Helen.
“You see?” said Ralph. “She is innocent, which I believe is part of her appeal.”
“You expect her to say yes? I have an inspection to carry out in one hour, not to mention a new housekeeper to find. Show your new owner out, Helen. And Ralph, you can collect her the day after tomorrow.”
Five minutes later, Helen returned to her attic room, with a cut on her cheek. The moment David saw her he moved swiftly past her to the door. She turned and said, “It's too late. He's gone. In his car. Back to Krakow. His driver is to return for me in forty-eight hours.”
Alix went to the basin and dampened a cloth. She wiped the blood from Helen's cheek, but more came to the surface. “When?” said David. “I watched him get into his vessel. Watched his driver close the door.”
Alix held the back of Helen's head and pressed the towel against the wound. Helen grimaced. “He decided to get out again, he said he wanted to grope my backside.”
“Apparently he's failed to grasp the meaning of the word grope … or where to locate a backside,” said Alix. She glanced at David. “So what now?”
Gull said, “His full name is Ralph Ernst Adler. He is head of interrogations at the Gestapo Headquarters in Krakow.”
“Gull just informed me who he is. Looks like I'll be going into Krakow to kill him, but first we get you out of here.”
Helen looked at him with pleading eyes. “You'll take us to the Polish Resistance?”
“If that's the best place.”
“It is undoubtedly the best place,” agreed Gull. “They saved thousands during this genocide.”
“Where are they, Gull?”
“Hiding in the forests of Ojcow and Niepolomice.”
“You can pinpoint their location?”
“I have accessed the records of their underground tunnels. During this period a Zegota splinter cell regularly observed the camp. The cell's base is hidden below ground less than three kilometres from our position. They have been gathering intel on the camp since its inception.”
When David relayed this information, Alix threw her arms around him. Not wanting to be left out, Anna clung to his leg. Helen held the towel to her cheek and whispered a prayer.
Thirty nine
Gull suggested they leave after Hirsch had retired to his bed. “It will give us several hours' head-start before they send men and dogs to track Helen.”
It was 11.30pm and Hirsch's nightly drinking session with his fellow officers showed no sign of abating. Helen had been downstairs and waiting on this assemblage of murderers since 8.30pm. Alix and Anna were dressed and ready to go, Anna in an outfit Alix had made from a blanket. She looked like a tiny member of a Neolithic tribe. When she'd seen her refection she'd asked, “Are you sure it's okay if I go out without my yellow star?”
Alix had stroked her stubbly head. “Of course it's okay.”
Anna lay a palm on the place where a yellow star had always been. “Daddy said never to go out without my star.”
“We're going to stay with nice soldiers now.”
“And you're sure they're nice?”
“They live in the woods. Polish soldiers. They're going to look after us.”
“David's going to look after us.” On this point Anna was most emphatic.
“But David has important work to do, Anna.”
“I know. He has to save Helen.” David was standing beside the door with his arms folded. Anna walked over to him. “Are you going to leave us?”
David knelt down and smiled at her. “Only once you're safe. There are things I still have to do. Very important things.”
“But you'll come back?” David brushed a finger against her cheek and stood up. They heard a burst of laughter from downstairs. A wolf whistle. Applause.
“You think Helen's alright?” asked Alix.
“Gull?”
“Helen is alone in the kitchen, David.”
“Helen's okay. She's in the kitchen.” Another burst of raucous laughter. “What exactly are we doing, Gull?”
“Could you be more specific?”
“Waiting around for monsters to wind up a party.” He turned to the door and ran a hand over his stubble.
“Our plan is tactically sound, David.”
“How's this for a plan: we make sure there's no one left alive downstairs to raise the alarm? It might actually give us more time.”
“I have considered that possibility, but there are six mid-to-high-ranking Nazis downstairs with Hirsch. Should they be eliminated, the reprisals on the camp population would be severe.”
“Compared to what? Extermination? We could make it look like a group suicide. In all the confusion, I doubt they'd even notice Hirsch's maid is missing. And the allies will have seven less Nazis to deal with.”
Silence.
“Gull?”
“I have located something useful in connection with the word 'suicide'.”
“I'm listening.”
“A melancholy recording entitled Gloomy Sunday. In the latter stages of the conflict, it was much favoured by suicidal Nazis. The Commandant has a copy in his record collection. I have heard it played here. Were it to be found on the gramophone, it would certainly indicate a group suicide.”
“Good. That's very good.”
“What is more it will be Sunday in twenty-three minutes.”
“Excellent. That's excellent. The poison gas they use in the gas chambers … you know where it's stored?”
“Zyklon B. It is kept in a hut less than two hundred metres from our current position.”
David looked over his shoulder at Alix. She smiled at him and said, “Please. If you can. Kill them. Kill them all.”
David was crouched on the roof of the Commandant's villa. The night air was muggy, the camp silent. The only sounds were those of Hirsch and his cronies indulging in the spoils of a war they knew would soon be over – and not to their advantage. David leapt from the roof. When he hit the ground he rolled head over heels, stood up and sprinted to the edge of the villa's boundary. Five metres below him was the curve of the dirt road that led back into the camp. David stepped off the edge and dropped to the road. He centred his cap's visor and made his way towards the gate. “Their procedures for entering the camp are stricter than leaving,” said Gull. “The guard will require paper documentation. I suggest climbing the outer fence.”
“Alright.”
“The inner fence is electrified. I have adjusted your nano augmentation to account for its voltage.”
“Appreciate it.” David cleared the two fences, the second of which sizzled against his fingertips. He followed Gull's directions around the outer edge of the camp, a route that took him past row upon row of large shed-like buildings where thousands of people clung to life by the barest of threads.
The shed that housed the Zyklon B was one amongst a dozen others, and so
innocuous that it might have contained gardening tools. Gull picked the lock and inside David discovered fifty small canisters no bigger than meat tins. Gas masks hung from hooks on the wall. David took one and picked up two tins of death.
“One will be sufficient for our needs, David.”
“Alright.”
Forty
David returned to the attic room. Alix was standing below the window, which was arch-shaped and too high for a
nyone of normal height to see out. Anna was sitting on Alix's shoulders, her head resting on the glass. Anna heard David close the door and turned her head. “Here he is!”
Alix lifted her from her shoulders and put her down. Her gaze fell upon the silver tin in his hand. “You found some?”
“Yes. We'll need to get you out before …”
“What about Helen?”
“Helen too.” David put the canister of Zyklon B and the gas mask on the bed. “You ready to go?”
On the ground floor, in the room full of contraband, David retrieved the makeshift rope from behind a wicker basket that overflowed with gold teeth smashed from the jaws of the murdered. He lowered Alix and then Anna down to the ground. Watched them run to the ditch twenty metres away. “Where's Helen, Gull?”
“In the target room. Wine has been spilt on the carpet. Helen is scrubbing the area.” David sat on the wicker basket and tapped his foot impatiently. A minute later, Gull said, “Helen is returning to the kitchen.”
David entered the kitchen and whispered, “Time to go.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“What about those devils?”
“As soon as you're safely out of here, I'm going to gas them. Make it look like a group suicide.” It was the first time he'd seen Helen smile. She removed her apron, knelt and took a small cloth bag from a space below the sink.
Forty one
David pulled the gas mask over his face, and sliced a hole in the top of the Zyklon B tin with a kitchen knife. Inside was a heap of white pellets.
The SS men sat around a table playing blackjack – the same table where Hirsch had gambled and lost his housemaid two nights before. The man he'd lost her to had stayed away for fear of losing her before he'd taken delivery. The air was thick with cigar smoke and the stench of sweat and spilled wine. Wearing an SS uniform and gas mask, David walked into the room holding the opened canister of Zyklon B. Hirsch had his back to him, but the five men opposite glanced up from their cards. Their initial reaction was to smile as though their host was playing some kind of prank. David smiled too and dumped the gas pellets into Hirsch's lap. Hirsch grabbed his own face and leapt to his feet. David grabbed Hirsch by his collar and belt and slung him onto the table – his body jerked and his mouth gaped like a man trying to mime fish out of water. The others stumbled away from the table like the petals of a grey flower suddenly opened. They retched up bloodied froth and collapsed with red and burning eyes. One amongst them tried to scramble past David on all fours but was hurled back amongst the dying like the last piece of garbage onto a pyre. David watched this man crawl onto an armchair and perish with his ass in the air. He remembered the people he'd arrived with and felt sick to the pit of his stomach.
“We would be afforded more time if the men guarding the front door were similarly terminated,” said Gull. David shook his head as though casting off this sentiment for the dead and walked the length of the room to the door. He opened it and found himself in a small entrance hall. Pistols in holsters were arranged along a sideboard, and there was a hat stand on which hats hung on antlers. David stood facing the front door to the villa. “The guards are standing just outside the door with their backs to us, David.”
When David opened the door, the two SS guards stood to attention but did not turn around. David took hold of their shirt collars and dragged them inside. He turned and manhandled them back into the gas-filled room as they protested their innocence. They died on their knees while David clutched their collars and stared at a painting of Adolf Hitler above the gramophone player. When David released them they did not roll over but slumped like puppets awaiting their next puppeteer. David continued to stare, unblinking, at the painting of Adolf Hitler. “Are you alright, David?”
“These two men were children not so long ago. They doubtless had parents who doted on them. Probably still do.”
“Now they are willing members of Hitler’s SS. They allowed themselves to be corrupted.”
“Yes they did.”
“It was the wrong choice.”
“Yes it was.”
“David?”
“Yes?”
“A driver is outside waiting for one of the dead men. He may raise the alarm before we would like.”
“The gods, Gull.”
Ten minutes later, David was in Hirsch's bedroom, changing out of the Nazi uniform and into a pair of black trousers and grey shirt. In a room downstairs, a pack of cards lay scattered amongst the bodies of ten dead Nazis. The song Gloomy Sunday was playing on a loop on the gramophone player.
Forty two
Outside, the door to the black staff car was still open. Ten minutes earlier, when David had told the driver his superior had had a heart attack, he'd hurried back inside the villa. David had followed him in, and made sure he was sufficiently acquainted with the Zyklon B.
Now he stood beside the staff car and called for Alix and Anna. They emerged from the darkness with Helen in tow. “They're gone?” asked Alix.
David nodded.
“Good. We can take this car.”
“We could. But it's supposed to be a group suicide. So it's best we leave it.” David picked Anna up and placed her on his shoulders. He gestured with his chin towards the woods five hundred metres away. They were shrouded in darkness. “The forest isn't far.”
There was no moon and no stars. The night was as black as pitch, the air foetid and close. The two women followed closely behind David. After a few minutes, the forest loomed like an army of ancient giants preparing to march forward and slay the great evil in their midst. They walked beneath its towering canopy, which devoured the scant light. Birds, disturbed, fluttered between the branches above them. David stopped and Alix stumbled into him, then Helen into her. It occurred to all three to apologise but none did. “I can't see a damned thing in here, Gull.”
“Would you like me to take over, David?”
“I think it's necessary if we intend to keep moving. How far away are the men we're looking for?”
“They are in a tunnel 2.7 kilometres from our current position. Their vital signs suggest they are sleeping.”
“Take us in that direction. Once we're a safe distance from the camp, we'll bed down. Try and get a couple of hours' sleep. It would be a bad idea to surprise these men in darkness.”
For the next thirty minutes, David rode as a passenger within himself. Anna clung to his head, Alix to his trouser belt, and Helen to hers. He was unaware of all three. During this brief respite, and regardless of his objections, his mind kept returning to Alix. Tomorrow he would be on his way, and these new friends or wards or whatever they were would remain with him only as memories. The idea of consigning Alix to that forest of whispering trees inside his mind caused within him an irrational dread that bordered on pain. No, it did not border; it crossed the line. He yearned for more. More what? More time? More memories? More contact? All three.
They entered a small clearing, and David's eyes returned to blue. He lifted Anna off his shoulders. As though she'd read his mind, Helen reached out in the darkness to take her. She sat, and the sleepy girl sat beside her. They laid down and closed their eyes. David took hold of Alix's hand and led her several metres away. She came willingly, and this made his heart race.
They sat between two trees on a bed of crisp leaves that disintegrated beneath them. “Any chance of some privacy, Gull?”
“Of course. There is a diagnostic I've been meaning to run.”
“I'd appreciate it.”
Alix hugged her knees to her chest. “How do you know he's gone?”
“He can't go exactly, but he can look the other way, in a manner of speaking.”
“Does he need to look the other way?”
David was thankful for the darkness that spared his blushes, and now he took advantage of that darkness. “I learned a new word yesterday.”
“I imagine that word wasn't 'tact'.”
“No. It was love.”
&nb
sp; Silence. A bird flew. Alix cleared her throat. “Not even close to tact, then.”
“The word love … it doesn't even exist where I come from. In fact, there are no words to express human warmth. They've been erased from human consciousness, along with the things they evoked.”
“That's bleak. I mean, that sounds bleak even to me. Your parents must have put you first. It's instinctive.”
“Maybe they did. My parents were taken away when I was Anna's age. There are times when I think I can remember them, but imagination is a powerful tool.”
“Where were they taken?”
“They probably ended up in a place as devoid of humanity as that camp back there. It was an experiment devised by Goliath … he called it Petri.”
“As in dish?”
“That's right. The inhabitants of Petri were forced to fight for their survival … in a way that could only strip them of their humanity – regress them, turn them into savages. Anyone who tried to cling to anything decent would not have survived long. My parents … they must have been the last of their kind.”
“What kind?”
“Parents.”
“Why?”
“The craft was within a life's span of reaching Earth. To Goliath, people had only ever been useful in maintaining that craft. His knowledge of the future must have suggested to him that Earth would be his final destination. Therefore, no future workers were required.”
“What happened to you? When your parents were taken away?”
“The last generation of children were supervised by women spared for that purpose – women of a certain age. As we grew into teenagers, they began dying-off. Men were brought in to train us in the skill sets required to maintain Goliath. We would replace these men, but there would be no one to replace us. And eventually the only survivors of humanity, of Petri, would be brought back to Earth … brought before the Architects as evidence of humanity's decline. Goliath must be feeling pretty superior about that, about himself. Just as the men who made him must have felt superior about what they'd created. I'm sorry. I talk too much. It was not my intention when I led you here.”
