Entwined

by La Plante, Lynda

  Rebecca slipped under the linked arms of two men. For a brief moment they were confused, thinking she was Ruda. By the time they realized their mistake, it was too late to stop her—she was already running between the trailers.

  Rebecca saw the flares and the nets, but they meant nothing to her. She wanted to get to Ruda.

  By now, Helen and Louis had been told what was going on and remained waiting outside the ring of men. They couldn’t see Mamon, but they could feel the electrifying tension in the crowd.

  Torsen joined them. Helen explained that they were still trying to capture the lion. Louis tried to make out Rebecca in the flickering lights, but he couldn’t see her, and looked toward Ruda. He was struck by the eerie likeness, her long shadow directly behind her, making her look like a giant.

  Mamon continued his slow journey down the aisle between the trailers, while Rebecca ran the last few yards between the ones adjacent to him, and suddenly she burst into the clearing.

  “Ruda…Ruda!”

  There she was between Ruda and Mamon, unaware that the big cat was no more than twenty feet behind her. Mamon froze. Head up, he sniffed the air, then lowered his head and growled, darting back. Crazed, he ran toward the nets, then made an about-face, snarled with anger, and charged back into the clearing.

  The men were ready with the nets. If Mamon came within range they would release the poles to drop the mesh over him. But he was wily, and kept his distance, moving further into the clearing. Now there was nothing between him and Rebecca.

  Rebecca turned, saw Mamon, and looked back to Ruda in terror. Ruda’s voice was soft, persuasive, cajoling, and calm. “Don’t move. Stay perfectly still. Don’t move, keep your hands at your sides.”

  Ruda inched forward, moving a fraction to her right, keeping Mamon directly in her line of vision. Mamon tilted his head to the right, to the left. He stepped forward, stopped. Crouched. He was ready to spring.

  “Move toward me, one step at a time.”

  Grimaldi knew the cat was enraged enough to attack. He cursed the stupid bitch, his heart pounding, but he knew that if he were to make a move now it could be fatal for both women—like everyone else he remained motionless, his hand clenching the rifle.

  Rebecca took one step forward, her back still to Mamon. He was watching her. She moved forward again, and he followed, low on his haunches.

  Grimaldi raised the rifle, trying to release the safety catch silently, but the click made Mamon lift his head.

  Ruda heard the slight sound, but did not take her eyes off Mamon. Her voice remained calm.

  “Don’t touch me, just move very slowly behind me. You can do it, nobody will hurt you, Bekka. Come on, I’m here. Ruda’s here.”

  Rebecca edged behind Ruda, into her shadow. “Good, Bekka, good. Now, when I step forward, you step back. But slowly, very slowly. Wait!”

  Mamon hurtled from the aisle, his outline clear to everyone. He seemed to begin a lunge and then stop, his chest heaving as he glared around. The sisters remained together.

  “Back! Mamon, back…MA’ANGELLLL!”

  The baron tried to break through the chain of men, but he was pushed back, forced to watch with everyone else as Ruda moved closer to Mamon, placing herself in danger as, step for step, Rebecca moved away to safety.

  Louis pushed forward and grabbed hold of Rebecca. If she knew it was he, she gave no indication. She was rigid, her eyes riveted on Ruda.

  “Is she safe?” Ruda kept her voice calm, never taking her eyes off Mamon. “Is she safe?” she repeated.

  Grimaldi took a step into the arena. “I’ve got her. Now back up to me, I’m about four feet behind you, just start backing toward me, sweetheart, I’m here…Ruda?”

  Slowly Ruda lifted her right arm, and let the whip drop. Then she lifted her left arm. Both her arms were now open wide, and there was a moment of total silence. No one moved, no one spoke. Luis, expecting Ruda to step back, shifted a fraction to his right, aiming the rifle. It happened in a split second.

  Ruda did not move back, she stepped forward. Mamon and Ruda seemed to move simultaneously toward each other; then he reared up onto his hind legs, and sat back on his haunches. His massive paws enveloped her head and shoulders in a terrifying embrace.

  Perhaps he was simply obeying a command, a command he was used to being given in the ring: KISS. Nobody heard the command, but she had said something. Those nearest her clearly heard her say “Ma’angel.” Then the shots rang out.

  The first bullet hit him in his right shoulder. His jaws sprang open as the second bullet hit him just above his right ear. The third bullet entered his right side. It struck his heart, but he was already dead. The big animal fell forward still holding her, his weight crushed her and snapped her neck. Ruda made no sound, no cry.

  Four men had to roll him off her body. Her hands were clenched tightly to his fur, his blood covered her shirt. At first they thought one of the bullets had hit Ruda. Only when Grimaldi took her in his arms did they realize her neck had been broken. The big man held his wife, rocking her gently, sobbing. The helpers moved in closer, as if protecting him, shielding him. They formed a circle around him, and bowed their heads.

  Mamon’s carcass was dragged away in the nets. In death he seemed pitiful. All power gone. His limp body was sodden from the rain, his claws and feet caked in mud. The three bullet wounds were hidden beneath his thick fur, but the dark blood matted his coat.

  Helen and Louis took Rebecca to the first aid room. She was dazed, robotlike. By the time the doctor came to see her, she was catatonic. She did not know where she was, she did not recognize Louis or Helen. When Dr. Franks arrived an hour later, they arranged for her to be taken to his clinic.

  Torsen sat in the patrol car, his face so pale it seemed almost blue. “She’s dead. The lion attacked her, she’s dead…”

  Rieckert swore. “Shit! What a thing to miss. Wish I’d been there.”

  Torsen shook his head. “No. No, I don’t think so. It was one of the saddest, most horrifying things I have ever seen. I don’t think I can drive home. Will you drive us back?”

  Torsen moved to the backseat, and Freda held his hand. She knew he was crying, but that made her feel even closer to him.

  “She seemed to give herself to the animal. She had no fear. From where I was standing I could see her face…and she smiled, I am sure of it…She smiled, as if she knew she was going to die.”

  Freda stroked his arm. “I see it every day, those who are afraid to let go, and those who welcome the end. It’s strange, when it’s over all the pain in their faces is gone.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “I know she killed once, maybe twice. No one will ever know exactly what happened and I doubt if I would ever have been able to prove it!”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Luis Grimaldi, wearing a big overcoat, stood by the stonecutter, whose face and overalls were covered with a fine film of dust. The man’s large, gnarled hands held the sheet of paper tightly, because of the wind. The rain that had not stopped for days made the ink drawing run.

  “Can you do it?”

  “Yes. It’ll take a while, and I’ll need a very large block. Black marble is the most expensive. I have to have it shipped in from Italy.”

  “I’ll pay whatever it costs. I’ve brought you photographs. If there’s anything else you need, you know where to contact me!”

  The stonecutter watched the big broad-shouldered man walk out of his yard. He carefully folded the damp sheet of paper. He had received some strange requests for headstones in the past, but never one like this.

  When the marble arrived he set to work. In truth, he relished the challenge. As the massive head began to take shape, it seemed to take on a life of its own. He buffed and polished, then stood back to gaze in admiration. He felt an enormous sense of achievement. This work surpassed any of the other angels he’d carved to guard over the dead.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  At first
he had considered taking over the act, but every animal reminded him of Ruda, and he sold all the cats to the Russian trainer. He then sold the trailer to the circus management. Now there was nothing left to keep him in Berlin. He made no attempt to find Rebecca, but wrote her a brief note care of the Grand Hotel giving details of Ruda’s burial. He also sent her the small black tin box, feeling that perhaps the contents would mean something to Rebecca. But he did not want to see her. He blamed her for Ruda’s death.

  Luis had no thought of what he would do next, he was at a loss. Without Ruda he didn’t seem able to function in the world to which he had introduced her.

  He knew just one thing. He had to wait until the headstone was ready.

  The sky was clear and cloudless the day he went to say his last good-bye. Grimaldi could see it immediately, towering above the other tombstones, and his breath caught in his throat. He had done something right. Immediately after Ruda’s death, when he had been inconsolable, blaming himself, the tears he had shed had broken from him in gasping sobs. Now he wept gently, tears welling up and spilling down his cheeks.

  He towered above her, his wonderful head resting on his paws, his black mane, his wide black eyes. His jaw was open in warning not to touch or trespass upon the grave. Carved in gold was his name. MAMON.

  RUDA GRIMALDI.

  Died February 1992.

  A Wild Animal Trainer.

  May she rest in fearless peace.

  Chapter 21

  After the tragedy Rebecca was in a catatonic state for quite some time. She had no memory of Ruda’s death. She was kept heavily sedated until Dr. Franks felt she was mentally and physically strong enough to continue the sessions under hypnosis.

  Helen Masters had returned to France. The baron wrote her about Rebecca’s treatment, as if the letters were in some way therapeutic for him. The sessions took place every other day, to give Rebecca time to absorb and accept each new insight. Under deep hypnosis she began to recall the incidents that her adopted mother had sought to cover up. Her breakdowns were linked directly to Ruda’s proximity. Whenever Ruda had tried to contact her, be it out of hatred or love, Rebecca’s rages began. Louis Marechal checked the date of each incident against circus schedules. In each case, unbeknownst to Rebecca, Ruda had been physically near.

  Rebecca’s more recent mental breakdowns had coincided with the arrival of Mamon in Ruda’s life. Mamon’s strong will and expressiveness had forced Ruda to use all her determination to train him. In teaching him to learn the colors of the pedestals, she had tapped into Rebecca’s subconscious. When Ruda was in close proximity, these color drills created havoc in Rebecca’s head.

  Gradually the jigsaw puzzle became clear: Rebecca was taken back to Birkenau. She described horrifying events, as she saw them when she was a child. At times she was quite cheerful. She spoke about the babies, how she had wanted one as a doll. She chattered on, about the funny thin people, the wires, the other children. At one session she actually stunned Dr. Franks by laughing.

  “What is so funny?”

  She recalled a young guard who used to play with the children.

  He would rip up little bits of paper, put them on the end of his nose and blow them away like snowflakes. “We called him the Snowman!”

  “Was this man kind to you?”

  She fell silent, and Franks repeated the question. She whispered that he was not very nice, not all the time. Franks tried to find out why, but she was unsure…she said he would take children across the wire fences to the gray hot place where they baked bread. Whoever he took away never returned.

  She talked at length about what her Papa had given her: the white frilly dress, the white socks, and patent leather shoes.

  She giggled and she said she loved him. “I got a dolly with yellow hair. He said it was as yellow as the dirty Jews’ stars.”

  The sessions disturbed Louis. He felt a hopelessness, a fear that Rebecca would never be returned to him. Often he had to walk out of the viewing room, but always he came back.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Six months after Ruda’s death, Franks decided Rebecca was strong enough to delve more deeply into the past, sometimes without hypnosis. She talked of the woman whom Ruda had nicknamed “Red Lips.” Franks surmised that the woman was the notorious Irma Griese, known for her beauty—and remembered for her cruelty to the inmates at Auschwitz and Birkenau. Rebecca recalled that Griese always smelled of flowers.

  “Ruda said she wanted to be like her when she grew up. Red Lips used to have a whip tucked into her boots, like a lion tamer, and when she was near, because of her perfume, we didn’t smell the bread. They made bread, day and night. Papa told us that was why the flames were red, the ovens had to be hot for the sweet bread.”

  At the next session, Franks noticed a physical change in his patient. The child in Rebecca was beginning to recede, she was subdued. When he asked if she was feeling unwell her voice took on a strange dullness.

  “My frock is dirty.”

  Franks waited but she said nothing more. He hypnotized her again and she sat throughout the session with her head deeply bowed. She no longer smiled.

  “Where are you, Rebecca?”

  She slowly lifted her head. Her eyes were dead, her mouth open. “Ruda’s gone with the Snowman!”

  “Where are you?”

  She spoke in an almost drugged monotone as she described sitting in the dentist’s chair in the glass booth with the dark green curtain. Rebecca seemed old now and wizened, yet she could have been no more than four.

  She spoke of seeing what they had done to Ruda, how they had forced her to look at her sister through the glass window.

  “Papa took out Ruda’s insides. He said it was because I was naughty. He cut off Ruda’s hair, and put something in her belly, he said it was a baby like me. Papa said I was a bad girl because I couldn’t remember…I tried, I tried hard to remember! Tried to feed her…”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  That night, after that session, Rebecca refused to take her sleeping pill. She rang the bell by her bedside with insistence. She didn’t want Maja, she didn’t want Louis, she wanted to see Franks. By the time he came over from his house she was hysterical. As he walked in, she attacked him.

  “Why are you doing this to me? Why? Why are you making me remember these things. Why? You are killing me!”

  “No, no I’m not. I am helping you. These things happened to you. You have to face them, go through them.”

  “Why?”

  “So that you may heal, leave with your husband, and be with your children. These events are real. You have been denied the remembrance, and all I am doing now is allowing you to recall the past. If you wish, I can stop. It is up to you.”

  She became quiet and sat on the edge of the bed. “I want to tell you something…about Ruda.”

  Franks rested his chin on his hands, waiting. Rebecca tugged at her blanket as she explained how she had seen Ruda through the glass. Then she looked up. “It was a mirror. I didn’t see Ruda, it was a mirror.”

  “I don’t understand, what mirror?”

  “He cheated me, he lied to me.” She twisted the blanket around and around in her hands in a wringing motion. Franks quietly asked who had lied to her and she let it out.

  “Papa lied! Don’t you understand? It could not have been Ruda saw.

  Rebecca became visibly more and more distraught, and Franks suggested that she rest. She dismissed the idea with her hands. “No, no, listen to me. I understand now. I mean it wasn’t logical, how could her hair have grown overnight? He didn’t show me Ruda. It was me, in a mirror.”

  She went to the window and gripped the white painted bars. “I saw myself in the mirror. Not Ruda, but me. They gave me cakes, sweets, milk—and I ate everything, I saved nothing for her.”

  Franks put his arms around her shoulders. “You were a baby then. You cannot blame yourself, there is no guilt.”

  “There is. She hate
s me. I ate and ate, and she went hungry.”

  “Nobody hates you, and you should rest. Try to get some sleep. Rebecca?”

  She sighed and flopped down onto the bed. “Rest? You open my mind and expect me to sleep at night?”

  She closed her eyes. “The memories plague me, even when I’m alone. It’s as if I cannot stop the past…”

  “No matter how painful, that’s good. What are you remembering?”

  “A soldier, the one who took me away from the camp. He took my hand and asked if I wanted some chocolate. I demanded a piece for Ruda also because she was inside me. She needed a piece of chocolate, but…please, please don’t leave me alone.”

  Franks assured her he would stay. He watched as she stared at her reflection in a small mirror, repeating over and over, “It was a mirror…”

  Throughout the session, which lasted the entire night, Franks was able to piece together what it was she was desperately trying to release.

  Gradually, as the telepathy succeeded beyond his first expectations, Mengele did not want Rebecca to see that her twin had not been rewarded or fed as he had promised, so he tricked her by placing a mirror across the booth’s window. Thus, Rebecca did not see Ruda in the white dress, but she saw herself. Only now did Rebecca recognize the deception. She became consumed by guilt because she had not understood the horror of it.

  Franks watched Rebecca wrestle with her own conscience.

  “How could I know? And Papa was very pleased with me, he kissed and cuddled me and one of the Schutzhaftlings took me over to the warehouse to choose a new dress. I wanted to show off my new dress. We passed a group of inmates designated to clean latrines and they spat at me! One woman hurled mud at me…I remember the way they shouted after me. The children hit and kicked me and I cried and cried. I shouted back that when Ruda came back she would make them cry, too. They told me she’d gone with the Snowman; that she would never come back for me.”

  Two days after Rebecca had been given the new dress, the camp was liberated. In the mayhem that followed Rebecca and a number of other children from her ward ran into the main hospital wing. She ran from bed to bed looking for Ruda.