Entwined

by La Plante, Lynda

  Vebekka remained standing. “I am sorry, I don’t understand, I don’t speak German.”

  Magda smiled, shrugged her plump shoulders. “What then?”

  Vebekka spoke in French, introducing herself as Baroness Marechal, asking if they had met before. Magda looked steadily at Vebekka, she observed her heavily made-up eyes, the mascara so thick the lashes were spiked. “You want to speak in French, Italian, Spanish, that’s okay by me…you been away so long, huh?…that long?”

  “I don’t understand, I am so sorry, but I think there is some misunderstanding. I don’t think we have ever met!”

  Magda leaned her fat elbows on the desk. “Okay, I’ll play, have a drink, sit down.”

  Vebekka eased herself onto the proffered chair; she felt very uneasy, but she sipped the champagne. Magda suddenly reached out and took Vebekka’s left wrist and turned it over. Vebekka tried to withdraw her hand, but the old woman, for all her heavy breathing, was as strong as an ox. Her long nails scratched at Vebekka’s wrist, turned her palm upward, and traced the fine skin graft with the tip of her nail. She let go, and smiled.

  “Why did you do that?” Vebekka rubbed her wrist.

  “So I know for sure. Drink, drink—it’s good, the best money can buy,” Magda answered in French.

  Vebekka sipped the champagne while the old woman scrutinized her. Magda said that the work was good, she looked good, looked young. She asked where she was staying, why she was in Berlin, and Vebekka said she was with her husband.

  “And you couldn’t resist it? Had to come back and see Magda? And now you are a what? A baronness? Well, well—face changed, name changed, what did you call yourself? Vebekka? What kind of name is that?”

  Vebekka smiled, a sweet coy smile, and sipped more champagne. Magda picked up her vodka, drank heartily. “I still take it neat, with ice, but now I have a warehouse full! Times change, huh? Times change, Ruda…little Ruda, just look at you, and married to a baron! Does he know you’re here?”

  Vebekka began to feel uneasy, frightened. Why did the woman keep on calling her Ruda? But all she said was that her husband did not know.

  “I bet he doesn’t…so you got to America? I heard you had, and then what? You met a prince and a baron—all the same thing. Is he rich?”

  Vebekka drained her glass, and Magda poured her another. She asked again if her husband was rich. Vebekka shrugged. “I suppose so, I don’t know, I never think about money…”

  Magda laughed, her body shook. She had a coughing fit that seemed to subside after a drag on her cigarette. “You don’t think of money…I do, every second of every day, I count it every night on this little computer.”

  The two women drank in silence. The sounds of Madonna could be heard from the club, the low murmur of voices and shrill laughter. Magda’s eyes watered. “You know, it hurt, Ruda, it hurt when you ran off—I never thought you would steal from me, not after all I did for you. I never thought you would do that to Mama, maybe that’s why I have never forgotten you…you forget lovers, forget husbands, forget children even, but when someone hits your pocket, you don’t forget. I never forgot you, Ruda, and maybe I just guessed one day you would come back.”

  Vebekka listened, her head cocked.

  “I don’t understand what you are saying, but I know I have never met you before…I am not this—Ruda? You are mistaken…”

  Yet Vebekka felt a strange sensation when she pronounced the name Ruda, it rang through her brain like an ominous bell. Magda pulled herself to her feet and looked at Vebekka with distaste. “Don’t play games with me, I am a master player, honey. You don’t speak German? We’ve never met? Who the fuck do you think you are kidding, eh? Because you got fancy clothes on, and call yourself a baroness?”

  “I don’t understand…”

  Magda was losing patience, she slapped the desk with her fat hand. “Don’t make me angry, it’s been many years, a lot of changes, Ruda…I run this city, hear me? You stop this act right now—I have had enough!”

  Vebekka gulped. “I have never met you before! Please, there is some misunderstanding, I must leave…”

  Vebekka started to go but Magda pushed her back into the seat, looming over her.

  “You want something to refresh your memory? Huh? I didn’t want to do this, I was prepared to be hospitable, maybe forget, but me? Never, I forget nothing…no one, you owe me a lot, Ruda, you owe me!”

  Magda waddled to a large built-in cupboard and gasped for breath as she opened the double door. The cupboard was stacked with boxes and files, she looked up and down, reached in for a box, and then withdrew her hand. Suddenly she yelled at the top of her voice: “Eric…Eric!”

  The club was in full swing now, Madonna blared from the speakers.

  “Just sit, sweetface, I’m gonna jog that memory of yours.”

  Eric came in, looked at Magda, Vebekka, then asked if everything was all right.

  “There was a box, old cardboard box from the Kinkerlitzchen, taped up, big brown cardboard box…”

  “What about it?”

  “I want it. Where is it, it used to be stashed in here, in this cupboard, where is it?”

  Eric stood by the cupboard doors. “I haven’t moved anything in years; everything you wanted brought over should still be here, unless when we computerized somebody threw it out!”

  “I never gave permission for one thing to be chucked out!”

  Magda’s chest was heaving, and Eric got down on his hands and knees to look for the box. “Shit, this place is filthy, it’s dusty down here.”

  Magda stood behind him. “Just find the fucking thing.”

  Vebekka looked from one to the other, not understanding what they were saying. Eric suddenly pulled a box from beneath a stack of files. “Is this it?”

  Magda peered over his shoulder, and told him to put it on the desk. Eric dumped the dusty box on the table and then restacked the files as Magda tore open the box. She rooted around, hurling things to the floor, and then took out an old torn thick envelope. “Put it all back and get out!”

  “Shit, Magda, I’ll have to take all the files and restack them again, it won’t fit now.”

  Magda yelled for him to leave, she would sort it out later. Eric tripped over the dog, who yelped and scuttled under the desk, and then slammed the door shut.

  Magda filled Vebekka’s glass again, then settled herself back on her cushions, lighting another cigarette. “You don’t remember Mama, huh? You don’t remember what I did for you, what Mama did to help Ruda? Well tell me, do you remember this, sweetface?”

  Magda tore the envelope and pulled out an object wrapped in old newspapers.

  Ruda? The name puzzled her. She suddenly looked behind her, she had the sensation there was someone else in the room, close to her; but there was no one. Ruda, she repeated to herself, no longer listening to Magda. She sipped the champagne; it was chilled, it tasted good. She had not been allowed to drink for years. She turned again, sure that someone was there, but as she did so she saw Magda watching her, and she laughed nervously.

  “I have not been allowed to drink! I had forgotten how lovely it tastes. Are you all right?”

  Magda was coughing, ripping the newspaper. She withdrew an old wood-handled carving knife, a knife with serrated edges, and snarled: “You forgotten this?”

  Vebekka looked at the knife. “I don’t understand?”

  “You don’t understand, and you are not Ruda?…And you didn’t come crying to Mama? Didn’t come begging me to help you clean up? Help you to strip him, help hide him? You couldn’t lift him, you had to come running to Mama? That perverted piece of shit still moaning and begging us to save him, begging you, begging me, but you couldn’t do it, so you started begging Mama—you remember Magda now, tart?!”

  Magda staggered, gasping for breath again. Vebekka began to shake, both hands clasped around her champagne glass. She could hear Louis shouting at her, he was dragging her to the
ir car while she was trying to button her blouse. Where was it? Was it here? She couldn’t remember, all she could hear was his voice as he pushed her roughly into the car. “You tart!…You cheap tart!” He had driven off fast, the tires screeching, his face white with anger. He was shouting that he had been searching for her. Then he had pulled over and had punched the steering wheel with his hands. “Why, why do you do this?”

  “Answer me, tart!”

  Vebekka’s head began to throb, she gulped the champagne. “Did my husband tell you?” she asked Magda. She felt hot, the cramped office was stifling.

  “Water, could I have a glass of water?”

  Magda leaned back, clinking the ice cubes in her vodka glass. “What have you done to your face? You’ve done something to your face, you had a nose job? That’s what’s different, you had some work done, sweetface?”

  Vebekka touched her face. “Yes, yes…I had, er, surgery.”

  Magda chuckled. “I knew it, I knew it. I can always tell…Ruda.”

  “Please, I need a glass of water!”

  Magda reached over to the champagne bottle and banged it down in front of Vebekka. “You want a drink?”

  Suddenly her fat face twisted. She leaned forward and threw the contents of her glass into Vebekka’s face. The vodka burned her eyes, and she knocked over her chair as she sprang to her feet, her hands covering her face.

  Magda waved the carving knife in front of her. “Get the hell out, and think about this! Think about this, Ruda, then come back and see me! You owe me, maybe now’s the time to pay me off, out—get out!”

  Vebekka stumbled to the door and fumbled, trying to open it. Magda pressed the button at the side of her desk. The door buzzed open, and Vebekka ran out as Magda picked up the phone and screamed for Eric to come in.

  Magda was sweating, her eye makeup running. She didn’t even give Eric time to walk in before she snapped at him to follow the tart, find out where she was staying and report back. “I want to know everything about that one, you understand me? Go on, get out!”

  Eric straightened his silk tie, smoothed his hair, and made his way quickly to the club exit. He stomped up the stairs and looked for the bouncer. He saw him examining two kids’ driver’s licenses. “You see a woman come out, dark-haired woman, few seconds ago?”

  He nodded, jerked his thumb along the street, and Eric took off, swearing loudly that he should have put on his overcoat. It started to pour; the bouncer cursed and huddled in the doorway.

  Magda opened up the soft leather clutch bag. It contained only a gold and diamond embossed compact, a matching lipstick, and a gold cigarette case. There was no wallet, no credit cards, nothing. She sniffed the lining; there was a faint smell of perfume. “You sure it was hers?”

  The bartender nodded, said the woman had left it at the bar when she went into the office. “Okay, you can go.”

  The bartender left as Magda took a magnifying glass from a drawer and examined the compact. She squinted, then lifted her eyebrows; it was gold, so the diamonds must be real. She checked the cigarette case; it too was eighteen-carat. Maybe the bitch wasn’t lying, maybe she was a baroness. Magda laughed, lit another cigarette, then turned the cigarette case over in her hand. She’d hang on to it and the compact; they would cover what the little bitch had stolen all those years ago. Hell, she thought, nowadays the leather bag alone would cost two hundred dollars. She opened a drawer and put the bag inside, slamming it shut. It was funny, but she hadn’t meant to turn nasty, she hadn’t wanted her debt repaid, so much water had passed under the bridge.

  Magda sucked on her cigarette. The room stank of smoke. It was the way the bitch refused to admit who she was that really pissed Magda off; who did she think she was kidding? All the handouts she’d given, all the helping hands to the young punks, yet they always turned around and slapped you in the face. She thought about the girls and the pimps she had set up, buying their trailers, even the bitches’ clothes, all they had to do was stand outside them and pick up customers. She paid off the police, she, Big Mama, covered everything—and they still robbed her when they could.

  Magda reached for the carving knife. The blade was eight inches long, the handle carved but worn; Ruda had probably stolen even that, or found it in one of the bombed-out houses. In those days it was surprising what you could find poking around in the rubble. Magda ran her fingers along the serrated edge, now brown with rust.

  She gulped her vodka, slowly calming down as she remembered the good times. The Americans, the English…those soldier boys wanted women, young, fat, thin, they wanted them, and Magda filled their needs. She tried to accommodate every sexual preference: even for underage kids, boys and girls. Children roamed the streets, hundreds of them, hungry and homeless; they’d turn a trick for a meal, for a crust. That’s how she got her nickname “Mama,” even that bitch Ruda had called her Mama.

  Magda closed her eyes, and saw Ruda as clear as yesterday. Ruda, no more than eight or ten years old, infested with lice, dressed in rags, her skinny legs covered in open sores. She was like a stray dog, no matter how often Magda and her boys sent her packing, she returned, hand out, begging. Magda had taken pity on her, let her scrub out the cellars Magda had started to convert into makeshift brothels. She clothed her, fed her, and the child never said a word. For weeks they didn’t know her name, or was it months? She couldn’t remember how long it was before the girl had started talking, and when she did she had an odd, gruff voice, and used a strange mixture of languages: Polish, German, Yiddish. They never found out her real nationality; but they could see because of the tattoo that she had survived one of the camps—which camp they never discovered.

  They nicknamed her Cinders, after Cinderella, and wondered if she was deaf because she spoke so little. Then one day, she hit one of the young boys who tried to mess with her. She hit him with a broom and knocked him unconscious. Mama Magda had been called to attend to him. Ruda was huddled in the corner, clenching the broom, and then in her odd gravelly voice she said that her name was Ruda. Magda had slapped her hard, told her she had to behave if she wanted to be fed.

  “My name is Ruda.”

  Magda asked if Ruda had a last name. She was worried about the police rounding up her kids. At every bomb-blasted corner there were long notices of missing children; Magda always read these lists in case one of the missing children was working for her. If any were, she got rid of them fast, even dragged them to the depots. The families could cause a lot of aggravation. Soldiers, doctors, and nurses from the many orphanages being set up tried to get the kids off the streets. It seemed like a hopeless mission; no sooner were some picked up and housed than others took their places—the pitiful bedraggled aftermath of war. Some kids, diseased and sickly, simply died on the streets. The ones who knew their way around landed with Mama Magda.

  Magda often asked Ruda if she had a last name, but the child acted dumb. Once she had shown Magda her wrist, as if the number were a surname. Maybe it was that gesture that had touched Magda, maybe that was what made her take such an interest in the skinny wretch. Magda let her work in her own apartment, washing and cleaning. She was all fingers and thumbs, but the good thing about Ruda was she didn’t talk, just got on with her work. She put on weight, her hair became free of lice, and her sores healed. She was not a pretty girl, but she had something, and Magda’s men friends soon started to take an interest in her.

  Magda would probably have kept Ruda on as a maid, had she not been visited by health inspectors, who regularly checked on missing kids. They had a long list of kids who had escaped from orphanages. Magda listened to the names and shook her head. “I look over the lists, I make sure none of them are around here. If I find one, you know me, I drag them to the depot, I’m known there.”

  Then they asked if she’d come across a girl called Ruda. They had no last name, and they were still trying to trace any living relative. Ruda had arrived at Auschwitz but had been removed to Birkenau until her relea
se. She had been kept in a mental institution for four years right after the war. She was a survivor of Birkenau, could be recognized by her tattoo; they described her as possibly eight to twelve years of age. They had a place for her in an orphanage but she had run away.

  Magda said she had no child of that age working for her. She was sorry she couldn’t help, but she would keep her eyes peeled. For a moment she was scared they were going to search her apartment, but they folded their papers.

  “I hope, Magda, you don’t keep any underage girls, because if you do, we’ll keep on coming, and we’ll bring the police with us.”

  Magda had given them a black market bottle of scotch. Laughing and joking, she told them she drew the line at kids. “You think I’d use kids?—what kind of a woman you think I am?!”

  They had no illusions about her, but what could they do? They had no search warrants, no time to really look, there were too many children…Even the threat of bringing in the police was an empty one, but they had to make a show, at least try to salvage some of the children roaming the streets. They took the scotch and left.

  After they had gone, Magda had to look for Ruda, guessed she must be hiding. She went into her bedroom and opened the wardrobe. Ruda was crouching inside. “Don’t send me back there, Mama, please…please don’t.”

  “I can’t keep you here, sweetface, they’ll shut me down. I don’t want trouble; I said I didn’t know you. They find out I lied and I won’t get them off my back.”

  Ruda had clung to her, sobbing. It was the first time Magda had seen her shed a tear. “I can’t keep you here, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  Even though she now knew Ruda’s age, she got one of the older girls to take her around to the brothels, got her to break her in. But then, after a few weeks, Magda was told that there was something wrong with the girl’s vagina. She couldn’t have straight sex. Magda had shrugged; she was still a kid, maybe too tight. She suggested they teach her a few other tricks, to get her working. “Just don’t bring her back, I don’t want her here. If she can’t earn her keep, kick her out.”