The Pearl Thief

by Fiona McIntosh

  We passed a tarpaulin of sorts on the ground – I barely glanced at it, because my gaze was helplessly drawn to the old woodcutter’s hut in the near distance. Clearly that was our destination and I began to understand that yes, it was going to get worse before the final release. Panic flared but was immediately quenched by that same wintry sensitivity that told me no amount of panic would serve me. Rudy even held the door open for me and I walked in like the helpless child I was. The door was closed and then it was locked.

  ‘Ah, Katka, alone at last,’ he sighed, slipping off his coat with an ominous creak of leather and taking the time to hang it on a hook behind the door.

  I breathed, low now and silent, making sure they were deep breaths to find some calm.

  Rudy began pulling off his gloves with care. I planned to disappoint him by my lack of interest in him or what he was about to do. I suppose that natural ability to dislocate helped me now as I forced myself to – how can I describe this? – step away from my body in a way. When my mother had descended into her madness accompanied by incessant wailing, threats and accusations at my father, I’d begun teaching myself how not to hear or feel any of the hostility in the household by disappearing within … or perhaps it was ‘without’. I had learned how to withdraw so I didn’t have to hear, feel or think until it was safe to return again. I used that skill now and began to gather myself up and away from the edges of myself so I could no longer feel my fingers or toes; I couldn’t tell you where the tip of my nose was. It was a trick of the mind, I knew, but it was my only haven now as I watched my captor unbelting his tunic and removing his pistol, which he held up to me with a smirk. ‘I think you’d like to use this on me, yes?’

  ‘I wouldn’t hesitate,’ I admitted, backing away into the edge of a rough wooden table. It wasn’t fully steady on the ground and had a tilt that annoyed me somewhere on the rim of my mind.

  He laughed low, genuinely amused. ‘I like your spirit,’ and he put the pistol on the highest ledge of a crudely made stack of shelves that held everything from old pots to a Bible. ‘I have to tell you this, Katka, anything you might do that brings harm to me will be reflected out there with the family I know you love so much. I have no feelings for them so it would not bother me in the slightest to take little Hana and smash her skull against a tree.’

  I gasped at his promise of violence, imagining Hana’s brilliant brain tumbling out of her cracked head in a pitiful waste.

  He nodded, closing his eyes briefly in a gesture of sympathy. ‘I know. My aunt once accused me of being sadistic. I was too young to know what that meant but I found out its meaning in due course and perhaps it does describe me.’ He shrugged and moved on in a conversational tone. ‘Did your father mention that I met Protektor Heydrich?’

  I shook my head, still too shocked to speak.

  ‘I think I’ve impressed Heydrich because I’ve been appointed to Terezín. I’ll be one of the most senior people in that establishment within a fortnight.’

  ‘Why aren’t we being taken there?’

  ‘Now, that’s a good question, Katka. And I’m pleased to be able to tell you that this is the one kindness I am offering. Your family was always ridiculously generous to me and a debt needs to be paid. Your mother, poor silly fool, used to kiss my cheeks as if I were her own child, and before his own son came along, I think your deluded father regarded me as one.’

  ‘And you repay their generosity like this?’ My voice was stretched, as though it were about to snap.

  ‘Yes. Because this is my time now. And I have to prove myself to my superiors. I have done you the most enormous of favours because the army don’t know you are up here in the foothills. They thought they’d cleared this region of Jews but your family slipped in with the help of others. Anyway, while you might have got through the winter unhampered, the soldiers would have caught up with you. That’s no lie. I am saving your family much despair, I promise you this. It is the single way I am repaying any debt owed to your family, and believe me it is true charity. I know what’s out there, Katka, and it’s the death camps that beckon to the Kassowicz family. Have you heard about them?’

  I didn’t flinch. I really didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Of course you have.’ He smiled; he could surely see the knowledge in my expression. ‘The rumours are already reaching back from Poland, aren’t they? Certainly to the well connected like your father. But status, reputation and riches won’t save you; you must understand that every Jew is to be exterminated – this is Hitler’s single desire. Now, I don’t make these rules, my dear. Our Führer does. And I am a good and patriotic Nazi.’

  He struck a match and lit a candle. I was suddenly so acutely sensitive to my surroundings but particularly to Rudy that I could smell the sulphur of the dead match still in his fingers. Light was fading and I’d have preferred him to let it remain dark so I didn’t have to see him.

  ‘I thought you were a proud Czech?’ I accused him.

  ‘I am a proud citizen of Czechoslovakia, Katka. This is true. But my family is Volksdeutsche and it’s that German blood in my veins that’s pounding hard now. I am not hurting my place of birth in what I’m doing … I’m making Czechoslovakia better.’

  ‘You truly believe that?’

  He put his hand over his heart. ‘Truly.’

  ‘Then you are cursed.’

  Rudy laughed at me and it was a dismissal. ‘It is why your father’s little museum in Prague is so touching; together your diligence has built us a resource about a people who will be extinct in a few years and we can show our children – I will enjoy showing my sons – your history and why you had to be eradicated.’

  ‘I pity any son of yours. What an unfortunate child it will be to bear your name, carry your blood. Your bigotry turns my stomach.’ I sounded like an old woman. I don’t know where I was finding this maturity to stand up to him.

  ‘That’s a big word for a youngster. You are too bright for your own good, Katya.’

  It was true. I’d heard my father use it only the previous day but it fitted Rudy and I knew I was using it properly.

  He shrugged, untroubled, as he unbuttoned his fly. ‘You asked, Katka, I’m answering, that’s all. I don’t mind if it offends you. Besides, you’re only fourteen so who cares what you think, anyway? And you’re Jewish – that means no one cares about you at all. Do you see the Czech people coming to your aid? No. Do you see your so-called Allies rushing to save the Jews? No. Perhaps they don’t mind the Führer’s ideals.’

  My strength was depleted. I had nothing more to draw on and I’d learned that no amount of defiance was going to help me. Terror of what was ahead froze me against the rickety table. And just as it had seemed in my bedroom half a dozen years earlier, the hut now felt like a room in a doll’s house. Rudy looked like a giant again and I had become a miniature version of myself.

  ‘Oh, this won’t take long. Just satisfying an itch that’s been irritating me for years now.’

  ‘Rudy, don’t.’

  ‘I’ve warned you what I shall do if you resist, Katka. Think quickly now.’

  ‘Rudy, please, I don’t know how … I’m a virgin —’

  ‘Soon you’ll be a dead one, Katka, so does it matter?’ He stepped forward and tutted sharply as I took a breath … it was instinctive to scream. But his warning finger held in the air stopped me letting it go.

  ‘So I should order the beating of your mother by my men?’

  I thought of his henchmen outside, who weren’t the boyish, smiling German soldiers of the checkpoint. These were older, bigoted Czechs, collaborating with Hitler’s Nazis. They were not soldiers but certainly hardened, going by their grubbied overcoats and stubbly faces. No doubt Rudy had made them promises for their future once he’d achieved his promotion.

  ‘Or perhaps we can break your twin sisters’ arms, hmm?’

  As traumatised as I was, the understanding that he was baiting me wormed its way through to the remaining area of my mind that s
till could make sense of life. Yes, he was taunting but that didn’t mean he couldn’t torture one of us first and enjoy watching me die inside before he killed the shell. And his earlier response struck a chord: did it matter that he raped me before he put a bullet in each of our heads? No. Not to him, and it would not save us if I resisted or went down fighting. I would make it worse for those I loved and I believed that. Perhaps allowing him this fury – and I could see it rising beneath his trousers – meant our deaths would follow swiftly rather than becoming sport. It was incredible in that moment that I was rationalising my own imminent murder and that of my family.

  ‘Do what you must,’ I said in a hard voice; I don’t know where it came from. A different place, a part of me that I didn’t know existed until this moment but perhaps had always been there wanting to show itself. This sense of resignation didn’t weaken me, though. In that moment of deep fear it seemed to give me power, delivering back to me a measure of control. I was allowing this. He was not taking it.

  No … I understood him now. I was not his victim. I was his weakness.

  I would take that notion to my grave … I weakened Ruda Mayek by my presence and the memory of his weakness would haunt him for the rest of his days, I hoped. I prayed, as he began rummaging to loosen himself from his clothes, that every day from this one forward, my name and what he was about to do to me – to my family – would make him feel the need to look over his shoulder.

  ‘That’s the spirit, Katka. I can see your resilience rising – it’s reflected in that devil’s eye of yours.’ He swung me around without warning and shoved me forward, bending me over the table. ‘I don’t want to look into that eye while I take you.’ He ripped the dress at my shoulders so the bodice flopped past my waist and he reached under it to savagely tear at my underwear. I turned limp. I was not going to help him, and all the while he struggled to rip off my garments I could feel his lust pressing against my flesh. Hard and hot. I wildly looked around with my devil’s eye for a cleaver – what a stupid thought – but I wanted to hack that pulsing flesh away from me.

  Teenage daydreams had let me imagine what it would be like to lie with a man … someone I loved, someone I desired with my body as much as my heart. I admit to often trying to imagine what it would be like to have a man inside me. But Rudy was using his body as a weapon; one designed to humiliate, to make me his vessel, his slave. He was showing me my true worth to him through this degradation. But I also knew – and reminded myself – he couldn’t resist me. He’d let me see that, know it … which is why I was the one with the power, no matter what he did to me.

  Searing pain split me. I sucked back a breath suddenly as I felt flesh tear and Rudy forced his way into me. His hand covered my mouth. I tasted metal – was it from his pistol? No, I’d bitten my tongue or broken my lip in that panicked agony that no girl should feel. I could no longer be defiantly limp. I was now as rigid as Rudy was – every muscle in my body felt clenched, and as twilight chased away the lateness of afternoon and dusk rode hard on its heels to banish the last light of this day, so too did my faith in other people flee. I was now a lonely soul. Trust was gone – I was glad I would die that day after this.

  The pain was harsh: so intense that it created a vacuum within me, into which I toppled. The table edge banged rhythmically against my pelvis, bruising my hips, as Rudy shoved and bashed his rage into me. With each thrust I think he became angrier. He momentarily pinched one breast so hard I sucked a fresh breath of horror through my nose but I refused to shriek in agony for fear of my family hearing. He lost interest in my body and no longer bothered with trying to suppress my screams. He trusted now that I wouldn’t. Instead he pushed my forehead to the table, to improve his angle, I suppose, and I felt the sharp prick of a splinter angle into my skin; strange that I felt that tiny wound above the monstrous injury Rudy had inflicted. Meanwhile I begged in my mind for this to be over and to bring the bullet closer. His breathing became more ragged and he began to grunt. Pain was no longer my enemy. I couldn’t feel much other than burning pressure. He would be done soon; I knew that much. I just wanted to get to my family one last time. Look upon them once more.

  Rudy gave a final shudder and a sigh that sounded more of disgust than relief. He shoved me roughly forward once again as he wrenched himself out of me. I clutched the table’s edge for support or I would have slipped to the floor.

  Fluid slid down the inside of my thighs and a new sort of throbbing pain flashed to reach deep inside but also around into the crevice of my buttocks. I was torn and blood was joining what Rudy had contributed. Even so, it was obvious more blood was surely going to run tonight, so I pathetically reached down to pull up my underwear. My violation didn’t matter. It really didn’t in the larger scheme of what was happening to me, to my family, to the Jews – to the people of Europe. I returned my ripped bodice up and over my shoulders in an effort to hang onto a final thread of dignity. It wouldn’t hold but I had to cover as much of my flesh as I could. I did not want my father or sisters seeing the worst of it.

  ‘Very nice, Katka … tight and oh so satisfying to take that from you.’

  I turned to fix him with a baleful stare. I hoped all he could see was the evil eye that was damning him to an eternal life of hell when his soul was finally claimed.

  ‘Look over your shoulder, because one day we will meet again for your death.’

  ‘Bravo, Katka, you’re so defiant. And brave. Look at you holding that exquisite chin of yours so high. You didn’t let me down.’

  I said nothing. I looked back at him as vacantly as I could. The immediate pain was easing but I think it was more that it was being pushed aside by the shocking reality of what now was coming.

  ‘You know, in a different life,’ he continued as he did up his trousers and reached for his belt and pistol, ‘you and I … well, we might have been true friends, perhaps even lovers.’

  No, Rudy, only in your warped and twisted mind could that reality exist, I thought. My stare continued in silence.

  He didn’t seem to mind; he was only interested in his voice, his notions. ‘We might even have considered marriage, despite our considerable age difference. I feel sure you would have given me the son I crave. I have daughters already, did you know?’

  I didn’t. That was a surprise but I refused to show it.

  ‘There, I’ve rewarded you for your obedience. I’ve let you into my life, allowed you to glimpse my closest secret that with every beat of my heart I particularly want to have a son so that my name does not end with this war, should I die through it.’

  How did you ever find a woman to love you enough to curse her life and her children’s lives with you? I thought, wishing I could say it and carry it off in the same sarcastic, careless way it sounded in my mind.

  ‘Ah, the whims of life, eh? Your father begat a son, then lost him. Is he blessed or cursed by a host of daughters? He seems to love you well enough, though I suspect it’s his son he grieves for daily – and now I’m going to take his daughters from him too. I’ve already ruined his favourite, but shhh …’ He held a finger to his lips and then touched it to mine in a sort of hideous kiss. ‘That’s our secret. We can both take it to our graves – yours a little earlier, I fear.’ He smiled his neat smile. ‘Still feeling courageous, Katka? One more trial to get through and then you can rest in winter’s embrace, you and your family frozen together in time. I’ll ensure you’re buried deep enough so the forest animals don’t dig you up and cart you all off in pieces. Oh, they do that, you know,’ he said, in case I wasn’t showing enough fear in my expression. I couldn’t. My features held the mask I needed, mostly in shock, but partly to deny him what he wanted.

  ‘So now it’s time, Katka. I enjoyed this special, private time of ours. Follow me.’

  He pulled on his coat and once again I looked wildly around in the light of the faint single flame but there was nothing to hurt him with – unless I had the fleeting satisfaction of burning him with hot wax. H
e picked up the saucer with the stub of candle stuck to it and gestured for me to go first through the door.

  Along with my virginity, I left my innocence, my trust in people, my delight in life as I stepped back into the forest clearing. I felt ready to die, because I understood now the German remark I’d missed earlier. Rudy had told them to strip my family. Their garments lay in an untidy heap and my family stood naked, shivering uncontrollably; my father tried to cover himself for modesty around the girls. My mother stood there, unsure of why her body was out for all to see. The girls hugged each other. They appeared terrified in the ghastly glow of the candle as Rudy approached. I realised the tarpaulin had been taken away and my family stood on the edge of a pit. This was to be our mass grave.

  ‘Ah, all ready. Good. Let’s get on, then, shall we?’

  I ran to them, raggedly dressed, and was embraced; I pulled my mother into our circle of tears and fear. The sound of my father’s relentless despair and apology cut through the weeping of my sisters and my soothing words. I could smell my mother’s talcum powder. The scent of lavender and violets danced around us as we prepared to die. I’m sure Lotte had grasped what was going on but my little sisters were confused in their fear, wondering when we would be going home.

  ‘Close your eyes, darlings,’ I pleaded, ‘and the game will end. You have to keep them closed, no matter what you hear.’

  They obediently obliged and fell quiet.

  I realised the two henchmen with guns had taken position. Rudy was staring at us all and even in the lowest of lights I could see he was smiling benignly at our touching scene. He noted I watched him and a thought seemed to strike him.

  ‘Katka, just step back here, would you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Remember my warning.’ He spoke so softly, even tenderly, that it only made his intimidation greater. I obeyed as dutifully as the girls had obeyed me. What else could I do?