Beneath the Universe

by Jennifer Gaskill Miller

  “I can’t even think with her howling like that. Get her to be quiet.”

  “But she’s hurt.”

  “Coddling her is not going to fix her face, Giselle. And you,” he flipped his newspaper at Cora, “Go to bed.”

  Cora stopped crying. Not obediently, but dumbly. Her mother guided her to her room and laid out a nightgown. Neither said a word.

  “I need to be with your father. Can you clean that by yourself?” She winced as she looked at her daughter’s injury. Cora didn’t know what to say. So she simply nodded and waited until her mother had gone before dressing. When she had, she took her pillow and quilt and laid down on the floor beside her bed, hidden from view of the doorway. She lay down in a patch of moonlight where the shadows of snowflakes drifted over her. There she slept, her wet hair and bloody cheek soaking the pillow.

  The next morning, no one knew she had not slept in her bed. She looked in her mirror and saw her pathetic reflection. Her cheek was swollen, a mottled blue and purple. The bleeding had stopped and was crusted and dried over one side of her face. She hoped she could reach the bathroom without being seen. She wouldn’t give her mother a reason to pity her or her father a reason to scold her. She had ruined a perfectly good pillowcase. As she crept down the hallway she heard voices. Her mother was talking to someone, a man. But it wasn’t her father. It was a friend of his, someone from the camp. Cora tiptoed to the stairwell and listened.

  “He’s gotten worse. Every time he comes up with a new idea, a new method we all pay the price for it.” The man was saying.

  “But surely Blaz can do something to stop him. He’s a higher rank, isn’t he?”

  “He is. But Heinz is under orders from Chmielewski. There’s no competition there. He commands all of the Gusen I camp. Heinz is just doing what he’s told, however creative he’s getting about it. He’s certainly relishing his new name. Bademeister.”

  “Bath attendant?” Giselle asked.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s what he is. He takes the prisoners and showers them with cold water until they freeze to death. He calls it a proper cleanse.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “At least it’s better than the drowning.”

  “Drowning? How so? Doesn’t the bathing take longer?”

  “Yes,” the man took a sip of something. Cora guessed it was coffee. “It’s slower but it’s a more peaceful death. To drown someone he stuffs them into a barrel and -well, you can fill in the rest.”

  “And Blaz lets him do this?”

  “He has to. Besides, we’ve got to make room and as vile as Heinz is about it, he’s at least found some cheap ways to get it done.”

  “No wonder Blaz comes home so upset, seeing so much death all the time.”

  “I’m sorry, Giselle. I hate to put it on you, but I wanted you to understand where he’s coming from. That place, it’s not always easy.”

  “Please, don’t apologize. I’m glad you told me. He never shares with me the things that go on there. He doesn’t like to talk about it.”

  “It’s not you, you know that don’t you? He just doesn’t want to burden you.”

  “I know, Claus. And I know you are looking out for him. I hope you’ll look out for me, too.”

  “Of course. You and Blaz are the closest thing to family that I have. And Cora. How is she?”

  Cora perked at the sound of her name.

  “She’s well. She tries hard in school. Although . . .”

  “What?”

  “It’s nothing. Please forget I said anything,” Giselle tried to digress.

  “Please. You allowed me to lay my burdens on you. The least I can do is allow you to do the same.”

  “It’s just . . . Cora doesn’t have any friends.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true. Maybe she’s just not the social type. She’s focused, driven. Like her father, am I right?”

  “I suppose so. But I worry for her. She’s so desperate for attention. She’s terribly needy with me and when Blaz comes home she hovers. I know she’s just a little girl, but Blaz is such a private person. He doesn’t like to be shadowed that way.”

  “He’s just stressed. He probably feels guilty being gone so much of the time and when he is home he can’t live up to her expectations of him. If he’s never around her then he can’t disappoint her.”

  “That’s interesting. You may be on to something. I just assumed he doesn’t have the patience for her. He isn’t particularly fond of any children that I know. I think he will be if we have a son. But it’s hard to say. He’s so rarely around children. Except the children in the camp and I don’t imagine he spends much time with them. Does he?”

  Claus was quiet. He gulped down some more coffee and there was a tinkle as he set the cup in the saucer.

  “Thank you so much for seeing me, Giselle. I should really go before he wakes up. He wouldn’t like us talking about him.”

  “Claus? What does he do with the children?”

  Claus sighed, defeated.

  “There aren’t any.” He finally answered.

  “What do you mean there aren’t any? Surely children have to come into the camp.”

  “I didn’t say children didn’t come into the camp. They just don’t stay for very long.”

  Giselle’s pause was confused, as if waiting for an answer that floated in the air to land on her. When it did, she gasped and put a hand over her growing baby.

  “I have to go, Giselle. I’m so sorry. Thank you again for your hospitality.”

  Cora ducked as Claus walked through the parlor arch towards the front door. He had already opened the inner door and was walking out when Giselle followed him, waving with a dead hand as she closed it behind him. When he was gone, Giselle turned and clasped the hand over her mouth to stifle a sob. Then she shook her head, wiped her eyes and ran her hands over her hair and then her apron. Cora heard her clear her throat as she went to the parlor, gathered the coffee tray and disappeared into the dining room.

  Cora rose slowly. It wasn’t until she saw the look on her mother’s face after Claus left that she understood what he had meant. There were no children. Not for long. Cora had never imagined such a thing was possible. The camp was for prisoners, she knew that. Prisoners were bad people, dangerous people. And sometimes, if they were really bad they had to be killed, like in the movies. It was war, after all. Her father was a protector, a son of Germany. He got rid of the bad people to save it. But children? Why children? What had they done? Cora should have gone back to bed. She knew she should. But instead she descended the stairs and found her mother, sitting at the kitchen table with toast in her hand. She wasn’t buttering it, wasn’t eating it; just holding it tipped halfway up from the plate like a statue.

  “Mama?” Cora whispered as she sat beside her. She placed a hand on her mother’s. Giselle blinked and looked at her daughter.

  “Good morning, darling. Are you hungry?” Cora shook her head.

  “Mama?”

  “Hmm?” Giselle was looking at the toast again.

  “Does father kill children?”

  Giselle’s eyes snapped onto her daughter, magnets locking with other magnets. She was about to deny it, Cora could tell. But she stopped, her mouth half open, not knowing what to say. Minutes passed.

  “Darling, you shouldn’t eavesdrop. It isn’t polite.”

  “He does, doesn’t he?” Cora began to cry. Giselle pulled her to her, wrapping her arms around her shaking shoulders.

  “I don’t know. If he does, he must have a reason. He’s a good man.”

  “What reason?”

  “I don’t know,” she sniffed. “Because children grow up to be adults? The same kind of adults we are trying to save our people from.” They hadn’t heard him come in. Blaz stood in the doorway, barefoot, the words hanging in the air like a morning fog. Giselle swallowed hard, ashamed of herself or of him, maybe Cora. Blaz crossed the kitchen, opened a cupbo
ard and began rummaging for a clean cup.

  He slammed the cupboard, hard. “Don’t talk about things you don’t understand! I do what I have to do, obedience unto death! It’s my job! Someone has to do it! Someone has to! Do you want to do it?” Blaz grabbed Cora by the shoulders and shook her. “Do you want to drag prisoners by their feet until they bleed to death? Do you want to shoot them and burn them and watch them fall off the wall because they’re too damn weak to fight the person behind them? Do you?!”

  “Blaz, stop it!” Giselle was shouting. “She’s only a child!”

  “They’re not like us,” he ignored Giselle and knelt before Cora, his face a twisted, ugly mess as he held her roughly by the shoulders. “Feel my heart. That’s flesh and blood. True Aryan blood. That is sacred. Our blood is what propels us to do whatever it takes, to fight to our last breath in defense of all that is pure. They die because they don’t have it. They die because they are too weak and too afraid to survive. But you . . . you must be strong. Promise me, you will not be weak. Promise me you will not be afraid.”

  Cora’s heart was pounding. She could feel the heat of her blood, the pure blood he spoke of and believed him. She sniffed and looked into the blue eyes that were just like hers.

  “I promise.”

  Her father left home early, angry and anxious to get back to the camp. Giselle let him go without any fuss like she usually exhibited. She stood at the door and held his coat and his cap. They didn’t kiss goodbye, didn’t even say goodbye. Something was different and Cora wondered if what Blaz had said frightened her mother as much as it had her. But she had promised to be brave. If her mother were afraid, Cora would have to be the strong one. She set out the next few days being particularly cheery and helpful. She helped with any small chore she knew was needed: fluffing the pillows in the parlor, folding the linens narrow enough for her short arms to stretch in order to fold, picking apples from the tree in the back yard.

  It was never as pleasant picking apples as they made it seem in the movies. In movies there was always a sunlit orchard and a beautiful girl with a bandana in her hair who would pluck an apple, admire it, maybe even smell it and then, smiling with pleasure, place it delicately in her apron. But Cora didn’t see it that way. She was not graceful and lithe like the ladies on screen. She was awkward, skinny and half the apples she attempted to put in her apron slid out the open sides and fell to the wet earth, bruised and filthy. The recent rain showers had been a blessing after the heat of the summer, but it made Cora tired. Besides the fact that a cloudy sky was deceptive as far as telling time, the apples were slick from rain and the leaves as well, so that by the time Cora finished, she would be soaking wet and spattered with mud. To make matters worse there were insects everywhere, even this late in the season, and Cora had nightmares about them crawling onto her hand and up her bare arms as she tried to twist the apples one by one from the branch.

  In seasons past at least it had been time for her and her mother. Giselle would have a ladder and Cora could climb up first and find a perch on one of the stronger limbs and her mother would stand on the ladder and they would talk and sing as they harvested. It was there beneath the canopy of sweet cider fruit that Giselle taught Cora about Henry VIII and the royal court, how to tell different birds apart by the sound they made and how she had met Cora’s father. The work was no longer labor then, but a simple task as they refined their relationship as mother and daughter. Cora would listen to her mother’s voice; try to mimic her laugh and her smile. She thought that if she could recreate it, maybe her father would notice it and say, You have your mother’s smile. Unlikely, of course, but she hoped it all the same.

  And yet, this year Giselle was not beside her daughter picking apples. Instead, full and heavy from pregnancy, she watched from the kitchen as Cora stood on the ladder alone. Now it was laborious. Now it was just another chore placed on Cora’s shoulders, along with other jobs too burdensome for a woman in Giselle’s condition. She wanted to be strong as she had promised but Cora could only do so much and whenever she received a new responsibility, like carrying the wet laundry basket outside or weeding in the garden, her ambitions of impressing her father were soon dashed by her own ineptitude. She was grateful that he was gone so often. Had he been home he would have all the more reason to be disappointed in her. Besides, as long as he wasn’t there to observe, she could pout impishly without fear of him seeing her childishness.

  And so she did, puffing her lips and glaring towards the house as often as she could get away with before her mother waggled a finger at her. She had picked all she could within reach and moved to step on the top rung of the ladder, something her mother had never done. But Cora was smaller and didn’t want to waste time repositioning the ladder. The wood creaked, offended, as she stretched her thin arms towards a cluster of apples. She still couldn’t quite reach and, grasping a branch with one arm for extra support, she lifted herself onto tiptoe and finally tore one bright red apple, ripping it with a handful of twigs and leaves, the rainwater shaken into her face. The effort had been too much for the unused ladder rung and as it crackled and split, Cora shrieked and gripped the branch with both hands, her apron sliding to one side and spilling apples everywhere.

  “Mama!” She cried out. Giselle had been watching and was already outside, cooking spoon still in hand.

  “Hold on, darling! I’ll get help!”

  “No, Mama!” Cora pleaded. “Don’t leave me!” She was crying now, her thin fingers slipping on the wet branch.

  “Hold on. It’s going to be alright.” Giselle was composed again, ready to handle the problem. “Can you climb down?” She asked.

  Cora tried to look around her and saw a thick branch that looked like it might support her. She swung her body to try to reach it, but her slick boots wouldn’t hold.

  “I can’t, Mama! It’s too slippery!”

  Giselle was looking around.

  “Cora, I’m going to try to hold up the ladder under you. If you aim well you’ll only fall a few inches before you can land on the rung that isn’t broken. I’ll hold it steady and when you’re on it we can gently lean it against the tree again, alright?” Cora nodded, whimpering as she tried to see past the folds of her skirt and apron to where her mother was bracing the ladder on the ground and trying to steady it.

  “On the count of three, ready? One … two … three!” Cora let go of the branch and as she felt her foot hit the ladder, she grabbed for another. But her wet hand couldn’t hold it and down she fell, her boot catching the rung as she flipped and blacked out.

  For a moment she thought she had been sleeping. She felt the same way she did when she woke up in the morning; that dazed heavy feeling of being taken out of a dream before you’re ready. Someone was talking to her, worrying about her. She could hear it in their voice. But they sounded very far away and she couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. She winced, suddenly aware of a terrible pain throughout her body. As she opened her eyes, a fierce gray light seemed to pierce her right at her temples. The pain in the rest of her body was subsiding, except for her ankle which felt as though there were an arrow through it that was being tugged at. The voice was clear now, a male voice … her neighbor. She didn’t know his name, but he often greeted her as he tended his flowers or passed her on his way somewhere. He was older than her grandfather, plump and kind looking. She could feel him pushing her damp bangs from her face, stroking her hair furiously.

  “Wake up, child,” he ordered. Cora did as she was told, her eyes widened and her shoulders started to move with discomfort. She was on her back on the ground. Her neighbor knelt beside her and grinned with relief as she responded to him. He looked over his shoulder.

  “She’s alright! A little battered, but she’s coming around. How’s her mother?”

  Cora couldn’t see who he was addressing. But asking about her mother concerned her and she tried to raise herself up onto her elbows. The pain in her head spiked and she fell back.

 
; “Easy. Easy,” her neighbor said. “Let me help you.” He put an arm under her neck and gently pulled her up to him. She grasped his sleeve and let her head loll against his soft chest as she looked past him. Other neighbors were there. Some were huddled around her mother, some rushing about talking to one another, quiet but anxious. She could only hear small bits.

  “Where is her husband?”

  “Is he on his way?”

  “Poor thing. She’s been trying for so long.”

  “Is there any way to tell before the Doktor arrives?”

  Cora clutched the sleeve tighter, not even caring if it was attached to anyone, she just needed something to hold onto. Her mother was sitting against the tree, her legs curled halfway under her, her arms encircling her belly. She was sobbing into the neck of a woman Cora didn’t recognize. There was blood on Giselle’s legs and hands. But she was alright. The baby was gone and Cora was relieved.

  The doctor arrived before Blaz. He was able to instruct the gathered crowd on how to get both mother and daughter inside. He tended to Giselle first, leaving Cora in the care of the old neighbor and Zelda. Zelda had brought cream puffs for her mother and she offered some to Cora as they waited in Cora’s room. At first, Cora refused, wondering if it was inappropriate to accept gifts in a time of crisis. But Zelda insisted and the three of them nibbled the treats nervously. The doctor was just coming out of the master bedroom when Blaz burst into the house, leaving both the outer and inner doors open. He was accompanied by Claus who did not follow him but stayed downstairs. Cora listened as her father’s heavy boots charged up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time.

  “Would you like me to tell your father you’re in here?” Zelda asked.

  Cora shook her head. Her father would want to be with her mother. He would hate Cora. Zelda and the old man seemed to be communicating silently. One nodded and the other nodded back. Cora wasn’t really paying attention. She was staring at the flowers quilted onto her bedspread. The longer she stared, the bigger the flowers seemed to get as if they were blossoming right before her eyes.