The Fury of Rachel Monette

by Peter Abrahams

  “Red or white?”

  “Red.”

  He took a thick cheap glass from a shelf, held it up to the light, wiped it with a fairly clean-looking rag and filled it to the brim with red wine from a large stone jar. “And one for yourself,” Rachel said. He filled the second glass without bothering to go through the rag business. Picking up both glasses he came to the table. He set one in front of her.

  “Sit down,” she said.

  He sat opposite her and placed his wine in front of him. The sad eyes were alert, and far more intelligent than she had suspected. She raised the glass to her mouth, spilling some of the wine on her chin and neck. She felt a trickle between her breasts. The wine tasted rough and strong. The man drained his glass at a gulp and stared at the wine on her neck. He turned the empty glass in his brown hand.

  Rachel didn’t bat her eyelids or drop a handkerchief or pretend to be interested in football. “Have you got a room?” she said.

  He rose and walked behind the bar and through the curtain. Rachel followed him. The closed shutters outside the only window kept the room dark. There was a sink in the corner and a double bed against the far wall. They lay on it.

  He moved with an intensity that shocked her. It was more than anything she had felt with Dan, or the men before him. The realization brought a pang of disloyalty, but it was true. She made herself stop thinking and gradually an intensity of her own arose within her, an intensity that matched the man’s, then after a while began to feed it, and finally consumed it.

  Afterward the prickling was gone.

  The man rolled over. He sighed very deeply. Rachel found her clothes in the dim light, dressed and went through the doorway. Behind the bar she saw a bottle of cheap brandy, with a silhouette of a Spanish dancer on the label. She took it with her, leaving what she thought was fair payment on the counter. As Rachel opened the front door she almost bumped into a woman entering. The woman, dressed in rural black, was leading a little boy by the hand and carrying a heavy sack of onions. They both looked at Rachel with curiosity. Rachel got into the car. She heard an argument start in the café.

  She drove through the afternoon and early evening, drinking now and then from the bottle. There was still an immutability about the peaceful countryside but it no longer had the power to scare her. She had fooled herself into thinking she was part of it. She knew she was fooling herself but it worked anyway. By the time she reached Nice the bottle was empty.

  Rachel checked into a hotel which stood in the middle of the line of hotels facing the sea. Her room had a shower, a bidet, a comfortable bed, a window looking onto the harbor and a porter who didn’t think much of her tip. Nice was a big town. It had a big phone book to prove it. It listed no Reinhardts, three Shreyers but only one had the initial J., two Feldbrills, neither one an M., and one Kopple, H.

  She dialed the number that gave her an outside line and followed it with the seven digits the book had printed beside Shreyer, J. Her call was answered on the fourth ring.

  “Hello,” a male voice said in English. It was an American voice with a southwestern twang like Tom Dawkins’s.

  “May I speak to Joachim Shreyer?”

  “Sorry, lady, ain’t no Joachim Shreyer at this number. You’re the second one today. This here’s Jim Shreyer.”

  “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “’S okay.” He hung up.

  She tried Kopple, H. She let it ring twenty times, counting the rings to herself. Then she dialed it again in case she had misdialed the first time, and listened to twenty more.

  She sat by the telephone table looking out the window. Under the clear night sky she saw a few people walking along the rocky beach, and the lights of the yachts rising and dipping gently in the harbor. A liner lit like Times Square was just about to drop off the horizon. Rachel fell asleep in the chair before it happened.

  When she awoke she found herself in bed but she didn’t remember how she got there. The man in charge of the gong for J. Arthur Rank was practicing conscientiously somewhere behind her forehead. Cheerful sunshine filled the room, illuminating the pleasant floral pattern of the wallpaper and hurting her eyes. She reached for the telephone and tried H. Kopple’s number.

  “Hello,” said a woman in French.

  “Is Hans Kopple there please?”

  “You just missed him. They’ve gone to the beach.”

  Rachel felt her pulse quicken. “Can you tell me what beach? It’s very important.”

  “I don’t know. I’m only the maid.” Rachel waited. “Are you a friend of theirs?”

  “Yes,” said Rachel. “An old friend from Germany. I’m only here for the day.”

  “Then it should be all right,” the maid said. “They always go to La Napoule. It’s on the Esterel.”

  And what do they look like, these old friends, Rachel thought as she hung up.

  It didn’t matter because they were the only people she saw on the little beach. From the top of the stairs that led from the road to the sheltered cove far below they looked like two pink walruses sleeping in the sun. Their naked bodies glistened with suntan oil. A cool breeze blew in off the sea. It wasn’t really a beach day unless you were supplied with abundant subcutaneous fat. Walruses are.

  They lay on their backs less than an arm’s length apart sharing a faded blue blanket. By their feet was a Lufthansa bag with a white brassiere poking out the zippered opening. Each wore opaque plastic goggles over the eyes to protect them from the sun. They were not aware of Rachel approaching across the sand. When she drew near she saw that their excess flesh seemed to fit them well. They were fat, but in proportion. The man’s plump penis was tucked safely under his belly. His mate had a plump vagina to go with it. Rachel stood over them, throwing her shadow across their bodies.

  “Hans Kopple,” she said. “I want to talk to you about the orders you received on January 18, 1942.”

  Their heads came off the blanket with a start, tossing the goggles onto the sand. Each raised a hand and squinted at Rachel through spread fingers, trying to see her against the sun.

  “What do you want?” the man said in a frightened voice.

  “I just told you. I want to hear about a camp called Siegfried.”

  The woman’s other hand touched the man’s leg. “Oh, Hans.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” the man said to Rachel.

  “You two should get your stories straight. You’ve had plenty of time.” Something in her tone made them draw up their knees as if to render themselves less vulnerable. Rachel picked up the Lufthansa bag with their clothes inside. “But I don’t,” Rachel went on. “I don’t have much time at all. So talk.”

  “You have no right to disturb us like this,” the man said. He was trying to inject more force in his voice but the added energy only affected the upper registers, making him sound querulous. “I have done nothing illegal.”

  “Then you must have another reason for not wanting to talk about it.”

  “People have a right to some privacy.”

  “They do, Lieutenant Kopple,” Rachel said. “But they give it up when they start sending unsolicited documents through the mail.”

  “But I never intended—” Too late he checked himself.

  “What? What didn’t you intend?”

  He kept silent. The woman sat up fully, her heavy breasts falling toward her stomach. “Who are you?”

  “Don’t ask stupid questions, Marthe,” the man said angrily. “She’s obviously an Israeli agent.”

  “You’re wrong, Lieutenant Kopple. Maybe you should let her talk more often.”

  “Please don’t speak to my husband like that. You don’t know him.” The strength in the woman’s voice surprised Rachel.

  “Then persuade him to talk.”

  “He will talk more easily if he knows who he is talking to. And if you allow us to dress.”

  Rachel looked closely at the woman’s face. Except for the mouth which was a little too sensual i
t was the kind of face a smart advertising man might have put on packages of precooked pastries: Auntie Marthe’s Frozen Pies. Rachel sighed.

  “My name is Monette. My husband wrote a book called The Dreyfus Disease. Your husband sent him a German army document.” The Kopples turned and gazed up at the road that ran along the top of the cliff, but there was no one to see. “It got him killed.” Rachel dropped the Lufthansa bag on the blanket.

  “Oh, God,” the woman said softly. Her hand gripped her husband’s forearm. His pink face had gone very pale. “How could you have known, Hans?” she asked him gently. He pulled his arm free, reached for the flight bag and awkwardly got to his feet.

  “I’ll talk,” he said. He began removing clothing from the bag: cotton briefs, green polyester trousers, a red and blue striped shirt. Rachel watched him dress.

  “My husband never meant for anything like that to happen,” the woman said to Rachel. Rachel didn’t answer. “He tried to do the right thing.”

  “I’ll talk,” Kopple repeated, almost to himself. “I should have talked long ago.”

  “Do you want me to go?” his wife asked him.

  “No. Please stay.” He turned to Rachel and added, “If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind.” The woman put on her brassiere, panties, a shapeless floral sundress. The Kopples sat on the blanket with their backs to the sea. Rachel sat on the sand facing them.

  “Where do you want me to begin?” Kopple asked.

  “I’m not sure. Why don’t you start with the orders.”

  “The orders.” He focused his eyes on nothing, far away. “On January 18, 1942, I was twenty-one years old. I had been a Lieutenant for three weeks, and in Africa for two. I was assigned to the Afrika Corps, 90th Light Infantry. It was considered an honor. I felt proud. I was not a Nazi. I loathed them. But I was proud to serve under Rommel.” His eyes moved to Rachel. “Do you understand that?”

  “No.”

  Kopple leaned forward and raised his voice slightly, not in anger but in the hope of making himself clearer. His German accent made his highly grammatical French come from too far back in the mouth, giving it a hybrid unmusical sound that reminded Rachel of something mechanical, like a player piano.

  “Rommel was an honorable man. He was not a Nazi thug. He fought hard, yes, but by the rules of war. Because he was not a thug and he commanded us, we could not be thugs either. There was no S.S. in Africa.” He paused and again his eyes looked into the distance. “So I thought at the time,” he added in a quieter voice.

  He lifted a handful of sand and sifted it through his fingers. “I was content to be in Africa. The alternative was the Russian front. In the middle of January we were camped at El Agheila, west of Benghazi. And then we received those very strange orders. They commanded me to lead three men, a corporal named Shreyer and two privates, Reinhardt and Feldbrill, over three thousand kilometers to the west, in the opposite direction to the fighting. The orders were top secret, seen only by me and my commanding officer. They made no sense. Neither of us had heard of this Camp Siegfried or of a place called Mhamid. We had to find it on the map. My commanding officer made an attempt to appeal the orders, but he could do nothing. They came from Berlin.

  “We were supplied with equipment that was badly needed elsewhere: two jeeps, petrol, food, water. And civilian clothing. Under the Vichy armistice German soldiers were not allowed in French North Africa. There were a few hundred of them anyway, but they did not wear uniforms. We were given a more elaborate cover in a second set of orders which arrived the following day. They told us to pose as Austrian scientists in search of minerals in the desert. These orders accompanied appropriate passports and other documents. We left on the twentieth, the same day that the rest of the Corps began the thrust toward Gazala. They were told we had been reassigned to Germany.

  “I was very frightened. Our cover story was thin. None of us knew anything about minerals. Of the four only I had even set foot in Austria. But we passed through Tunisia and Algeria and into Morocco with no difficulty. It helped that the whole region was under the control of Vichy.

  “In ten days we reached Camp Siegfried. It was not impressive. There were only two structures—a barracks and a much larger building with no windows. I reported to an army captain. He commanded a unit of guards made up of two other officers and eight men. We were to supplement the unit. He did not explain what we were guarding, or from whom. He gave us new uniforms. And he told us that the big building was out of bounds. The laboratory he called it. It was the private territory of the S.S. There they were on the African continent, contrary to everything we had been told. But we knew enough to keep our mouths shut.

  “We rarely saw them. They did not stay in the barracks with us; they hardly ever emerged from the laboratory. No supplies went in or out, not even water. The guard commander said there was a well dug within the walls. Occasionally a man in a white coat came out of the building for a few minutes and stood in the sun.

  “Once or twice a month two Frenchmen came in a jeep from the direction of Mhamid. We were told they were our liaison with Vichy, but none of us believed that. Vichy could not possibly have known about the camp, at least not officially. It was in direct contravention of the armistice. These two Frenchmen wore civilian clothes, but they had képis on their heads. They were obviously demobilized French soldiers.”

  “What were their names?”

  Kopple made a little snickering sound. “Names? We didn’t know anyone’s name, except those of the other guards.”

  “Can you describe them?”

  Kopple thought. “I never had a close look,” he said. “Usually I would be riding around the perimeter of the camp in a jeep, or watching the desert from the top of the rock. All I can really say is that one was taller than the other.” He thought again. “The tall one always went into the laboratory and stayed for about an hour. The other one waited outside. Then they drove away.”

  “What happened in the laboratory?”

  Kopple looked over Rachel’s shoulder. “We never really knew.” He inhaled very deeply. “Sometimes we thought we heard screams in the night. They were very faint. It could have been the wind in the desert.” His wife shifted her weight on the blanket, moving closer to him.

  “But eventually you found out,” Rachel suggested. He nodded grimly. “What was it? The airplane?”

  Kopple’s eyes opened wider in surprise. “You know about the airplanes?”

  “A little. Tell me more.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I haven’t got time to explain right now. Get on with it.”

  Kopple stroked his fleshy jaw. The suntan oil smeared across his palm. He regarded it with distaste and tried to wipe it off on the blanket. “The airplanes,” he said. “I saw two of them while I was there, but both times from a distance. As soon as the airplanes appeared the guards were ordered into the barracks. There was one small window which gave a partial view. The airplanes had French markings. They were small transports of a type I didn’t know. When they landed, the S.S. men came out of the laboratory, armed with rifles. Each airplane brought about fifteen women. They were dressed in Arab robes, but they were European women. That became obvious when the man in the white coat … inspected them. After that they were led into the laboratory, and the airplane flew away to the north. The second time the two Frenchmen were at the camp, and they left on the airplane.”

  “Did you see the women again?”

  “Not alive.” Almost imperceptibly Kopple began to rock back and forth. His wife placed her hand on his knee.

  “So we stayed in the desert. It was very boring. We were promised leave at Christmas. That was all we had to look forward to. But Christmas never came. Early in the morning of November eighth the British and Americans landed at Casablanca and Algiers and Oran. An S.S. major came into the barracks and woke us with the news. It meant we were cut off. Our only hope was to somehow get to the sea and find a boat to take us to the Canary Is
lands. We wanted to leave immediately, but the S.S. major forbade any such plan. We were confined to barracks for the whole day and the following night. By then it was clear from the radio reports that the whole of French North Africa was in enemy hands. We were desperate to leave.

  “At noon on the ninth of November the S.S. major returned to the barracks and summoned us to the laboratory. He ordered us to leave our weapons behind. We had no choice. He was the highest-ranking officer. We went into the big building. Inside it resembled a hospital. There was a long corridor down the center with rooms off it on either side. The corridor was filled with armed S.S. men. There must have been thirty of them. We had no idea there were so many. The man in the white coat was there also. He stood on a chair at the far end. He told us that we had been called into the laboratory because there remained a lot of work to be done before we could leave, and time was running out. The buildings had to be demolished, he said. And there were also bodies to be buried. But before we got to that he told us that we had made a great contribution to science by guarding the laboratory. Germany had been engaged in a great experiment, an experiment designed to investigate the nature of the bond between mother and child. To investigate its nature and to test its limits. And now it was over, he said. It was a total success.”

  Kopple laughed bitterly.

  “They took us into the rooms, two S.S. to each guard. There were pallets on the floor, four to a room, and on the pallets lay women. Some of them were pregnant. The others had babies in their arms. They were all dead. They hadn’t been shot or clubbed: it was probably poison or gas. But their deadness was not what you saw at first. It was the alterations that had been done to them. And to some of the children too.” His voice became very thick.

  “What do you mean alterations?” Rachel asked quietly.

  “They were mutilated, medically mutilated. Before they were killed. You could see the stitches in some of them.” Tears began to roll down Kopple’s cheeks. “Some of the babies were mutilated. And many of them were blond, blond like the S.S.” Kopple began to sob. His wife put her arms around him. She was crying too. In a little while they grew quieter.