Then Ruda rested her head against Tina’s breast, while Tina softly stroked the back of Ruda’s head, as if to encourage her to continue. “Where were you?” Tina repeated.
“Oh, I was someplace, someplace a long time ago. The older ones discovered there was a flap beneath the main hut, that we could wriggle beneath, hide under the trestle benches, hide and wait to see the show…”
Ruda moved to rest her head on the pillows. Tina could easily have got up then, but she didn’t move. The strong woman’s sadness had mesmerized her.
“What was the show? Was it your first circus?”
Ruda sighed. “Yes, it was a sort of circus. They had animals, they had dancers, and they had hunchbacks, and giants. They had every imaginable human deformity, but they had chosen only the prettiest girls, they were thirteen, maybe a little older, but each one had her head shaved, her body hair shaved, and they wore coronets of paper flowers…red flowers, like bright red poppies.”
Ruda’s eyes stared at the ceiling, her face expressionless.
“They made the dwarfs fuck the giants; they made the hunchbacks fuck the pretty sweet virgins; they forced the dwarfs to ride the dogs’ backs with their dicks up their arses. They clapped and applauded, laughed, and shouted for more. Then they began to beat the pretty, weeping girls, and they kept on beating them until their white bodies were red with their own blood, as red as the paper flowers on their scraped and scratched bald scalps. One of the trestles moved, cut into my leg. The others escaped, they crawled back under the feet of the bastards, inching their way out. But I couldn’t. I was trapped, I had to keep on watching. When I shut my eyes, it made it worse because I could hear them, hear the cries, hear the dogs.”
Ruda seemed unaware of Tina, who slowly inched away, and then slid from the bed until she knelt on the floor to pick up her clothes. Ruda made a strange guttural sound, half sob, half cry, and covered her face with her hands.
“Oh God, my poor Tommy, poor Tommy…!”
Tina slipped on her blouse. Ruda made no attempt to stop her from leaving. She wiped her cheek with the back of her big raw hand.
“Not until the show was over, not until they were too drunk to stand, too drunk to care, could I crawl back. Next morning, I saw what they’d done to the older ones. They were on the cart, the skin of their little bald heads burst open, clouds of flies stuck to their blood, purple-black rimmed eyes. They only wanted to see the show, to see what made everyone laugh.”
Tina crawled toward her skirt. Suddenly Ruda rose from the bed, her hand outstretched. “Don’t go. Please stay with me, just for a little while.”
Ruda reached over and placed her hand on the unborn, the rounded belly of the young girl. “I will see that you have money to travel, but you must leave.”
Tina backed away, the expression in Ruda’s eyes made her afraid again. “You will leave, Tina, but without my husband.”
Tina blurted out a pitiful: “No…no!” She would never forget the look on Ruda Grimaldi’s face, the strange hissing sound before she spat out the words: “He is mine!”
The slap sent Tina reeling against the wall. At the same time Grimaldi eased open the trailer door, silently, so as not to wake Ruda. He heard the cry, went to Ruda’s bedroom, and opened the door. For a moment he was unable to comprehend what he was seeing.
He slammed the door, burst out of the trailer, and began to vomit. He turned as Tina rushed out hysterically, half undressed, sobbing. She gasped. “My handbag…I want my handbag.”
Tina snatched it from him and ran. She stumbled once, flaying the air with her hand, and then was out of sight.
Ruda was at the trailer door, looking at him…shaking. “You better get some coffee down you. Come on, I’ll get Mike to clear up in the morning.”
Grimaldi, dazed, allowed himself to be helped back up the steps, stood as she took his jacket, peeled off his shirt.
“Christ, you stink. What the hell have you been doing?”
“I met Fredrick Lazars, we got drunk…”
“Sit down and let me take your pants off, you stink like a dog!”
Grimaldi sat as she heaved off his boots, unbuttoned his pants.
“I slept with Boris, a baby chimp.”
He curled up on the cushions. She brought a blanket, put it on him, then placed a bottle of scotch next to him for when he came around. She knew he would be unable to face the day without a drink. When she was sure he was asleep, Ruda returned to her room and slumped onto her crumpled bed, confused by the evening’s events. What had she just done?
She rubbed her arms with revulsion, very angry at herself. She had told Tina, stupid little Tina, about a part of her life that she had never shared with anyone before. Why? She bit her knuckles. Tina had made her feel something, the girl’s soft body in her arms had reminded her of a warmth, a loving, she had forgotten. But it wasn’t the same. It was stupid to even think of it now. She had to get her mind straightened out, had to think straight. She had even offered to pay her money to leave—why? “Ruda, what do you want?”
Even if she didn’t want him, was it the real truth that she didn’t want anyone else to have him, either? That surprised her. “What do you want?” Ruda said aloud as she started pacing up and down the small bedroom. Her pace quickened, and she paused twice looking up at the cupboard. She could feel its pull, but every time she got close to it, she turned and walked back across the room. She paused by her poster. She pressed her hand against her own face, and then she couldn’t stop herself. She stepped up on the small stool by her makeup mirror, and opened the small cupboard above. She had to balance on tiptoe to reach it, her hands pushing aside boxes and hats until she felt the cold sides of the black tin box.
She hugged it to her chest, secretive, like a child, and then got to her hands and knees, lifting the carpet until she found the key. She always felt a strange sensation opening the box—pain pierced her insides. The odd assortment of treasures, her secrets that meant so much to her, but were of no value to anyone else. She spent a long time fingering, touching her “things,” unaware of the low humming sound she made, her body rocking backward and forward.
“Mine, mine…mine…” She licked the small oval gray pebblelike object, then replaced it, and looked to the poster of herself. “Mine, mine, mine.” Her face in the center of the brightly colored poster became a distorted skeleton head. She could see the loaded truck, weighted down, being dragged through the muddy yard, teetering dangerously to one side. Beneath a hastily thrown tarpaulin, she glimpsed the stacked, bloated bodies, and from the crushed bellies of the corpses came the hideous hissing sound of escaping gas.
As the truck tilted a body slid from beneath the tarpaulin and fell to the ground, rolling to one side. The guards shouted to the orderlies to get the corpse back on the truck, but then in the darkness something glittered on the fat bloated hand with fat purple fingers. The guard tried to wrench the thick gold wedding ring free, but try as he might he could not release it. He picked up a spade and, holding it above his head, he brought it down blade first across the dead woman’s hand. The fingers jumped, as if they had a life of their own, fingers like black sausages, and they rolled in the mud. The guard dug this way and that, swearing and shouting but unable to find the ring. He gave up and screamed for the truck to move on. An orderly unhooked his coat belt, made a loop, and flicked it over the dead woman. He dragged her by her neck back onto the truck, and then pulled the tarpaulin down. The guards and the Kapos began to push and shove the truck forward through the freezing muddy ground.
As it disappeared, the ragged men, hidden like nightmare shadows, appeared like a pack of dogs, scrabbling in the mud until one of them, on his hands and knees, found the ring. “Das gehort mir!” “Mine!” But the others tore at him and beat him. He screamed and screamed; “Das ist der meinige, meinige, MEINIGE!” The pitiful man clung to his treasure, fought like a demon, then desperate to save himself, he threw the ring and it shot through th
e air, sinking in a puddle two feet away from a tiny little girl, a little girl crying from pain in her leg, terrified by what she had just witnessed…a frightened Ruda, crawling between the alleyways of huts, safe from the shadow men, on the other side of the barbed wire fence. The man clung to the meshing with his skinny hands, his mouth black, gaping and toothless, like a starving jackal he screeched: “Das ist der meinige, das gehort mir, das ist der meinige!” Ruda had crept back to her hut, silently lifting the worn blanket, slipping in to lie beside her sister, needing her comfort, needing to feel the warmth of the tiny plump body. In her sleep, Rebecca turned to cuddle Ruda, to cover her with sweet, adoring, childish kisses. Ruda felt safe and warm. They had a prize worth a fortune. A golden ring. The music, the red paper flowers, the screams and the anguished faces blurred in her mind as Ruda, not old enough to comprehend the misery, felt only the burning pain in her leg, and repeated over and over in her mind: “Das ist der meinige, das ist der meinige…meinige, meinige…”
Ruda carefully relocked her treasure box, hid the key, and returned the black tin box to its hiding place. She knew she could not sleep, and as it was after five decided she would shower and get ready for the first feed of the day. As she soaped her body, turning around slowly in the small shower cabinet, she felt the tension in her body begin to ease. But she could not rid herself of her deep anger. She carefully wrapped herself in a clean soft towel, patting herself dry, then pointed her left foot like a dancer. There was still the small scar where the trestle bench had cut into her leg, so many years before. She poured some lotion into her cupped hand and massaged her leg. The wound had festered. She had been so frightened of telling anyone that eventually she had been taken to the hospital bay. They had put a paper dressing on it. Days, perhaps weeks later the pain had become so bad, she had been carried back to the hospital by an orderly. Lice had eaten into her leg beneath the pus-soaked bandage, and she had been forced into the delousing bath, screaming and crying out in pain. It was as a result of the festering wound that she came to the attention of Papa. She had been taken to see him that afternoon, wearing clean clothes, washed and cleaned, her hair combed, her wound well bandaged with a proper dressing. That was the first time she had been alone with him, the first time he had asked her if she wanted to play a very special game with him. He had sat her on his knee, given her a sweet and bounced her up and down. When she didn’t unwrap the sweet, he had asked why not. He had smiled, she remembered, asking why she didn’t want the sweet. He even playfully tried to take it away from her.
“Das ist der meinige!” The little girl’s fist clenched over the sweet as she glared into his handsome face. Her determined expression delighting him, he smiled, showing perfect white teeth.
Ruda tossed the towel aside. She continued to rub the lotion into her body, then she dressed. The anger was gone now. Thinking of Papa always made the anger subside. It was replaced, as it had always been, with a chilling, studied calmness. Ruda braided her hair, gave a cursory look at her reflection. She passed the poster of herself and lightly touched it with her hand. The poster represented everything she had fought so hard to attain, and nothing would take it from her. She didn’t even look at the poster as she passed, but she whispered quietly to herself, making a soft hissing sound: “Das ist der meinige!”
Luis was still asleep where she had left him. She drew the blinds, pulled the blanket around his shoulders, and opened the door. Outside she picked up the hose and washed down the trailer herself. Then she began to whistle, stuffing her hands into her pockets as she strolled over to the cages. She looked skyward, shading her eyes. It still looked overcast.
Ruda passed between the trailers, calling out a brisk good morning to the early risers. There was movement now, some trainers and performers were heading to the canteen for breakfast, some like Ruda were getting ready to prepare their animals’ feed.
She made her routine morning check, passing from cage to cage, calling every cat by name, and then she stopped by Mamon’s cage.
He was lazily stretching, he threw back his head and yawned. “You’re mine, my love.” She leaned against the rails, and he swung his head low, stared at her, and then threw his black mane back with a roar that never ceased to delight her. He seemed to roar her inner rage.
“Everything’s all right now ma’angel!”
Chapter 10
Torsen woke refreshed. The moment he got into his office, he pasted up his memos, his suggested schedule for the men. It was still only seven-thirty; he had brought in fresh rolls and was brewing coffee. He typed the past evening’s reports furiously and distributed them around the station.
At eight-forty-five when the men began to trickle in to the locker rooms, they saw a large memo requesting all station personnel to convene in the main room for a briefing.
Torsen was placing his notebook and newly sharpened pencils on the incidents room’s bare table when he overheard Rieckert laughing as he entered. “It’s not just a dwarf, but a Jewish dwarf and…”
Torsen gestured for Rieckert to join him. He kept his voice low, his back to the main room. “I hear you make one more anti-Semitic remark, in the station, in the car, at any time you are wearing your uniform—you will be out, understand?”
Rieckert smiled, said that he was just joking.
“I don’t care, I don’t want to hear it, now sit down…”
Torsen handed out the day’s schedule, and suggested that they should all review their on/off-duty periods. Anyone with any formal or reasonable complaint should leave a memo on Torsen’s desk. He then discussed in detail his findings to date regarding the murder of Tommy Kellerman.
The meeting was interrupted by the switchboard operator, who slipped a note to Torsen. It was an urgent request to call his father’s nursing home. Torsen telephoned, and the nurse informed him that his father was exceptionally lucid, and had asked to see him.
Torsen returned to the incidents room. “I will not, as listed, be on the first assignment; Rieckert and Clauss you take that, and I will join you at the Grand Hotel. Please stay there until I arrive.” Torsen had made clear that they must all remain in contact with each other throughout the day to exchange information and discuss findings. He declined, however, to tell them where he was going. After his pep talk, a visit to his ailing father should perhaps not have taken precedence over the murder inquiry.
♦ ♦ ♦
Nurse Freda, a pleasant dark-haired girl in her late twenties, was waiting for Torsen at the main reception. “He seemed very eager to speak to you.”
“I appreciate your call, but I cannot stay long. I am involved in a very difficult case!”
He followed her plump rear end along a corridor, and into his father’s ward. Nurse Freda turned, smiling. “He’s been put by the windows today; it’s more private, you can draw the curtain if you wish.”
The old man looked very sprightly, with his hair slicked back; he had on a checkered dressing gown, and clean pajamas. A warm rug covered his frail knees, and his jaw looked less sunken: He was wearing his dentures.
“Took your time, took your time, Torsen. I don’t know, only son and you never come to see your poor old father.”
Torsen pulled the curtain, drew up a chair to sit next to him.
The old man crooked his finger for Torsen to come closer. “This is important, I woke up thinking about it and I’ve been worried stiff. Can’t sleep for worrying. Then I had a word with Freda, and it clicked, just clicked.”
“What did, Father?”
“You need a wife, you’ve got to settle down and have a couple of kids, you’ve got a good job, good pay, and a nice apartment—now Freda, she’s not married, she’s clever, she’ll make you a good wife. She’s got good, child-bearing hips.”
Torsen flushed, afraid they would be overheard. “Father, right now I don’t have a telephone.”
“Why haven’t you got a telephone? Did they take it out?”
Torsen sighed, they
had had this conversation before. “No, remember when you moved in here, I was given a smaller apartment. The telephone has remained in the old apartment, I was not allowed to take it with me.”
“How can you work without a telephone?”
“With great difficulty. I have requested one months ago, and today I left a memo in the director’s office. Today, in fact, I have instigated many changes, some I am quite proud of.”
The old man stared from the window, plucked at his rug a moment, then turned, frowning. “No telephone?”
Torsen checked his watch, then touched his father’s hand. “I am in the middle of an investigation, I have to leave.”
The old man sucked in his breath and turned around, leaning forward to see the row of beds. Then he sat back. “Dying is a long time in coming, eh?…There are many here, waiting and afraid.”
Torsen held the frail hand. “Don’t talk this way, I don’t want to go away worrying about you.”
“Oh, I’m not afraid, there are no ghosts to haunt me, but the dying here is hard for some. They have secrets, the past is their present, and they remember. You understand what I am saying? When you pass by their beds, look at their faces, you’ll see. You can hide memories surrounded by the living, but not in here. Still, soon they will be all gone and then Germany can be free.”
Torsen wondered what his father would think if he saw the packs of skinheads with their Nazi slogans. “I hope you are right.”
The old man withdrew his hand sharply. “Of course I am. We have been culturally and politically emasculated by Hitler, devastated by the Allies, and isolated by the Soviets for more than half a century. Now it is our second chance. The city will be restored as the capital of reunified Germany. We are perfectly placed, Torsen, to become the West’s link to the developing economies of the democratic East. You must marry, produce children, be prepared for the future.”
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