She nuzzled her mouth down against his shoulder and, without warning, sank her teeth into his flesh.
Immediately, insistently aroused, he pulled her further onto the tub rim, forcing her knees apart, rising up in the water and pressing his hips against hers, unmindful of her angry squirming.
"You bastard!" Suspended unnaturally, she cried out in pain and anger. "I hate you."
Fighting as if for her life, she twisted from his grasp and climbed awkwardly off the rim of the tub. She picked up his jacket and began tearing off the Nazi insignia as if it were alive. Then she hurled it across the room and limped over to the bed.
"What's your game, Miriam?" He touched his cheek where she had hit him. "Tell me the rules so I can play too!"
"I want you not to be a Nazi. I want Solomon. I--"
"I can't change things no matter how much I'd like to turn back the calendar. I sit at my desk, intent on mapping out security, and instead find myself staring out the window for hours, thinking about the people out there I'd like to know, whose lives I would like to share. You're not the only one who wants, Miriam. I want too! Not possessions, not even power. Just to be part of others' lives." His emotion expended itself. So did his erection. "But I don't know how," he said quietly and bitterly.
He sat up and, elbows on his knees, put his head in his hands. On my birthday! he thought. Why is she torturing me like this on my goddamn birthday! Still, he could not stop himself from talking and--telling her. Maybe, he thought, he was rambling was because it was his birthday, the day he had hated for so long. "So much is happening out there, so much we can never know," he went on. "I feel locked inside myself...isolated from everything, everyone, that could have had real meaning for me."
He felt ashamed. He had never spoken like this to anyone before, not even Solomon. "I've no right to tell you my troubles," he said, staring at the rose-colored water. "Especially after the pain you've been through."
"Save the poetics for your Hitler Youth virgins." She lay down on the featherbed, face buried in the silver-tasseled pillow that homely Magda Goebbels had given him in remembrance of the time she had stayed the night with him.
He said nothing, waiting for her to do something. Anything. He felt too embarrassed and weak to fight any longer.
"I never credited you with the capacity for honesty," she said finally, in an emotionless voice. She lifted her head. "Everyone has the right to burden others with their despair, at least sometimes."
"Would things have been better between us if--"
"Had things been better, would you have lived differently?"
"You mean, would I have divorced myself from the Party? Would I hate Hitler more than I do? Probably not."
He rose from the tub and toweled himself. "Miriam? Miri? I'm sorry if I hurt you just now."
His mind in tumult, he knelt at the foot of the bed and massaged her feet. He had wronged her again, but was it, he wondered, really his fault? Was any of it? He could not have saved her estate, not even if she hadn't been off in her precious world of Parisian art and ballet. As for her taunting, she should know better than to treat him like some insentient being; he was a man, with a man's needs.
Yes, he had lied to her about Solomon. Intercepted the letters to her. Pretended regularly to be checking on Sol's condition, mostly to make certain that she would not take matters into her own hands and try to find him, but at least he had never truly planned the lie.
And the things he had done to keep her from learning the truth--things for which he had hated himself--he had done for her. Why else would he so degrade himself, except to hold onto her regardless of the price? Besides, he had lived that lie in the full knowledge that the man was safe in Amsterdam with his mother and sister. He had even broken a vow to never speak to his parents again. After they had ransacked the tobacco shop, he had phoned, reprimanding them. They swore they had stolen nothing; knowing they would be accused of a theft of which they were innocent, they had simply left town for a while--until, they had said, the real culprits were found.
Though he wanted to pretend that the lie was truth--the past could not changed, after all--the discussion had grown heated, and he had ended up slamming down the receiver, angry with himself for bothering with them again.
"I really am sorry I hurt you, Miriam," he said. "But God knows I've waited so long for you--"
"God? What do you know of God!" Hugging the pillow, she turned onto her back. She narrowed her eyes and glared at him, an expression of hatred. "Save your sorrow for the virgins with swastikas on their wings. That's what you're good at!"
"I'll show you what I'm good at."
Standing at the foot of the bed, he had the fleeting thought that perhaps the nickname Javelin Man had reached Miriam. Had she, not knowing his reasons for staying away from her bed, laughed at him on those many nights he had slept away from her? He looked at his penis. She wouldn't laugh at him after tonight.
Roughly, he pulled her forward until he was between her legs.
"Stop it, Erich! Goddamn you, let me go!"
Tightening his grasp, he entered her.
"You'll pay for this." She gasped. "I promise you'll pay!"
He concentrated, pushing deeply inside her. "I already did," he said. "You gave Anneliese two hundred marks. Now earn them."
Squirming and kicking, she tried to fend him off. Then, releasing the pillow, she gripped the rods of the brass headboard and let him slam into her with orderly, methodical strokes.
He gripped her hair. Turned her head to the side so that she faced the wall. "Count the money, as if I just gave it to you."
"You're crazy!"
"Now!"
"One...two...three..."
He reveled in the hatred in her voice. "Slower!"
"Four..."
"Again! From the beginning!"
"One..."
Hoping to delay orgasm, he closed his eyes and thought of his shepherds, seeing each with the clarity of a delirium dream. But he soon lost all control. Covered with sweat and unable to delay any longer, he came and crumpled on top of her, continuing to thrust--while she continued, tonelessly, to count--until sleep enfolded him.
He dreamed of a ship buffeted by the sea and of the beach where shepherds howled. When he awoke, the sun had broken through the clouds and he was alone, cold and uncovered yet strangely fulfilled. He climbed out of bed and padded across the carpet to the mirror. Contemplating his image, he decided he was better looking than ever.
Behind him, he saw the meal he had ordered the night before. It lay untouched, browning around the edges. They must have delivered it after he was asleep, after Miriam left, he thought. What a waste!
He walked over to the table, poured himself a glass of wine and nibbled at the dessert, a little astonished that he felt absolutely no contrition. If he owed Miriam an apology, she owed him one too for her lack of gratitude. He had taken her in. Kept her safe. As for Sol, he was safe in Amsterdam. He knew that, even if Miriam did not.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
April l939
"Why don't you get up, get dressed and come with me, Miriam? An outing will do you good. You've hardly left the estate since...since Christmas."
Erich avoided looking into Miriam's eyes and allowed his gaze to rest on the slight swell of her belly. In the past he had avoided pregnant women. They had appeared clumsy to him, repulsive, their eyes filled with a secret awareness that excluded him and the rest of the male world. Yet the idea of this child--his child--conceived though it was in anger, continued to excite him.
"You really want me to get up before dawn and come with you to Abwehr headquarters?" Miriam's voice was laced with sarcasm. "To do what, pray tell--enlist in the military? Today's Easter, Erich. You should go to Mass. You and all your Nazi friends. I'm having lunch with Werner."
"Never mind," he said bitterly.
Annoyed with himself for having made the suggestion, Erich swung his legs out of the bed they again shared. Women were peculiar...Miriam
no less than the rest. He had expected fury when he demanded to return to her bedroom, but she had simply shrugged, saying she did not care where he slept or with whom. She did not refuse him when he touched her, though he sensed that she knew he was sustaining his erection by reliving what he had come to think of as the Christmas Rape.
Not that she showed any real interest in him, or anyone else except Werner Fink. Erich indulged her need to spend time with that troublemaker because it got her out of the house--
He stopped himself.
The truth was that she had asked for little since Christmas, except to be left alone. Unnerved by her long silences, he had gone on his knees to ask her forgiveness. His apologies, profound and constant, were met with disinterest: a cold stare, a cold shoulder.
"Why do you stay with me, Miriam?" he asked quietly.
She answered simply, giving him the same reason she had always given him. "You are your brother's keeper."
He stood up and looked down at her. She was anything but a fool, this niece of Walther Rathenau: a permanent reminder to him of Solomon and of his own weakness. She knew what was best for her own well-being and that of the child.
"Miri, it's Easter," he said, determining to try one more time. "All I have to do is pick up some papers at headquarters and then slip out for the day. It's too late to get to Oberammergau, but we could drive into the country, perhaps to the Harz."
"I told you---" She doubled up suddenly, as if in severe pain.
Erich struggled to find the lamp chain. By the time he had the light on, she was lying with her back arched, pressing her fists into her silk-gowned belly.
"What's the matter? What is it!"
"How should I know! I've never been pregnant before."
"What does it feel like?"
"Like pain."
His rudimentary medical training in the military had not included childbirth. He felt helpless. Grappling for the telephone to call for help, he knocked her photograph off his nightstand. "I'll have the car brought around."
Her features contorted. Struggling, she rolled onto her side and pulled up her legs. "It's only the fourth month!" She was gasping. "I must be losing the baby!"
Grabbing a handful of crumpled silk, Erich pulled himself toward her. He thrust his lips close to her ear. "You can't lose the baby--our son! You hear? Please, Miriam!"
In his anxiety, he thought he heard Goebbels' laughter. He stopped to listen. Fool! Probably a radio broadcast coming from downstairs or, at worst, the Gauleiter with another hopeful starlet.
"I think I'm okay now," Miriam said after a time, her face to the wall.
"You think you're okay?"
She took a deep breath. "Lately I'm sure of nothing."
He dropped the telephone in its cradle as if it were a megaphone threatening to announce his incompetence to the world. "Can you sleep?" he asked as gently as he could. Hoping to soften her attitude, he reached over her and placed his hand on her belly. "Let me feel him, Miriam."
"Stop it!" She batted his hand away. "You're like an old horse trader gloating over his prize mare." After a moment she relented and took his hand in hers. She placed it on the slightly mounded flesh of what had once been a dancer's slender belly, to the right of center.
He had learned how to listen through his fingers to the tiny intermittent flutters.
His son!
She moved away and turned to stare at the velvet flocked wallpaper. It's normal for her to emotionally distance herself in preparation for motherhood, he told himself. Animals do it, so why not humans? She would redirect her attention to him after the birth. For now, the boy was rightly her main concern--
What nonsense! he thought. The truth was, she hated him, and for good reason. Given time, and the birth of their child, she would forgive him. He could not expect her to forget, but surely forgiveness was possible.
Meanwhile, given her physical changes and the larger ones to come, her attitude was actually something of a relief; it excused his occasional desire for other women--like Leni Riefenstahl, the film director. Trim body. So sure of herself. She was said to prefer women, but that only made her all the more exciting. Not that he intended to do anything about his desire for her--those days were over--just that it was natural to contemplate...
While Miriam dozed, he dressed. By first light he was outside. The day smelled of spring and he felt good despite Miriam's surliness; on impulse, he chose to ride his motorcycle to headquarters. There would be no going to Mass this day or any other in the new Germany. More and more people--like the *woman at the Passion Play in Oberammergau during his bivouac in the Black Forest--confused Hitler with God. He felt no such confusion, but he had long since lost his taste for the overt trappings of Catholicism. Besides, Mass was not exactly part of the Party platform; all officers made it a point to show up for duty--and punctually!--on this day, or face possible reprimand.
Still, policy and his own angers could not keep him from celebrating the Earth--God's creation. The breaking dawn was beautiful, and he thoroughly enjoyed the ride to Oranienburg, home of Abwehr headquarters and once home of his glory on the athletic field.
After reporting in and collecting the papers he needed, he wandered into the officers' club. He downed three large rolls with cheese and liverwurst, and half a pot of coffee.
Tomorrow, he thought, he would make sure Miriam and the child were all right. He would take them to see Doctor Morell. He congratulated himself for being important enough to have Miriam taken care of by Hitler's personal physician. Perhaps he would have a check-up himself; he had been getting far too little exercise of late.
With that in mind, he decided to leave the cycle in front of headquarters, where it would be seen, and enjoy an Easter stroll before sitting down to the paperwork that, as usual, he had allowed to pile up. A Sunday morning hike--just like in the Wandervögel days. Whistling softly, he headed down the main road and toward the mortuary, which lay about two kilometers out of town. He would turn around there.
However, he soon abandoned his plan and cut through the woods. Pines, beeches, and hemlock rose into an orange Easter dawn; mushrooms had proliferated from the spring rains, and their smell permeated the air. He stopped to examine one of them, wondering if he could still tell the difference between mushrooms and toadstools. He was crouching near the ground when voices claimed his attention. Curious, he followed them out to the road and found the good people of Oranienburg, released from work by the holy day, gathered along the Waldstrasse.
"An Easter Parade?" he asked one of them pleasantly.
"Might call it that." The man grinned and pointed at a column of men just coming into view.
"Who are they?" Erich asked.
"As if you don't know!" The man stared at Erich's uniform.
"Haven't been around this area for a long time."
The man shrugged. "Whatever you say. It's the labor detail from Sachsenhausen on their three-kilometer stroll to the quarry. Mostly political prisoners--but enough Jews to make it worthwhile!"
Erich's stomach clenched as the sorry group headed toward him, herded by rifle butts and billy clubs. They looked beaten and starved. As the head of the column passed him by, he saw those who appeared to be the oldest of the men--though it was hard to tell--squeeze to the center of the human cage without breaking rank. Their comrades supported them as best they could.
"Blüt für Blüt!--blood for blood!" shouted a townsman in a lederhosen and a green felt hat decorated with a red feather.
Next to him, a woman in a tight-bodiced dirndl took up the chant. She smiled companionably as she raised her Brownie to photograph the Easter entertainment
I didn't know, he wanted to shout at the ragged column. The prisoners looked half alive--skeletons staring out of skulls whose eyes had seen too much death.
God! I didn't know.
The woman with the camera hurled a stone into the ranks.
Soon everyone was claiming the right to kill a Jew for Jesus before sunrise Ser
vices. Blows were rendered with clubs and broomsticks, with fireplace pokers hurriedly gathered from neat little houses, with stones plucked from gardens seeded with berries and beans. Young children hurled eggs and insults, their obscenities drowned by the shrieks of the prisoners as their rifle-bearing masters beat and shot them into submission.
The men along the outside of the column peeled off like old paint, skeletons performing a ghastly dance; they fell and were trampled by others fighting inward in their battle to survive.
"No," Erich whispered. The rumors about the detention centers, the abuses, the humiliations--true. All of it. Holy Mother of God, they were true.
Could Hell be any worse?
An elderly man next to Erich spat in a laborer's face and shook his fist. "It was because of you that our Lord was crucified!"
The inmate straightened his shoulders and wiped off the spittle on the striped sleeve of his prison uniform. A rock bounced off the temple of the man next to him. He swayed. His friend held him up and they staggered on.
Erich looked around. At least Sol was not here, facing the good people of Oranienburg--so blind to all but hatred. Their tile and shoe factories loomed unmanned, the machinery silent--and why? To commemorate Easter in a Germany that had officially declared the Christian god a manifestation of the Jewish disease. Yet the claptrap continued about Jews killing and bleeding Aryan infants for Passover rituals...and they went on blaming the Jews for the death of Christ. Were they stupid, bloodthirsty, or simply naïve?
He did not know; all he was sure of was, when the truth of this surfaced, not one of them--neither man, woman, nor child--would admit to having been here this day.
Nor, he thought sadly, feeling sick, would he.
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