Child of the Journey

by Berliner, Janet

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  "I'll be waiting to hear every detail," Miriam told Erich.

  He could not possibly know how profoundly she meant those words, she thought. Nor should he.

  She modulated her voice carefully, making sure it contained no urgency. "Enjoy your moment. You deserve it."

  "Shall I send your regards to Perón?"

  "Do that." Pleased that his tone lacked any hint of the sardonic, she added, "You might even think about asking him to the estate for dinner. It wouldn't do you any harm to humor him."

  A frown darkened Erich's features, but his annoyance was directed at the tie he had knotted and unknotted several times. "Do this for me, would you? I can't seem to get it right."

  Relieved, she retied the knot. "Good luck," she said again, kissing him lightly. "Now go."

  He put on his jacket. "I may even come to like that Perón of yours," he said. "Last time I saw him, I asked how he felt about the church. He said, 'The priest who serves best, serves dinner.'"

  She laughed. He looked surprised and happy, as if he could not quite believe she might let him go without so much as a single invective about the Party. Her tongue never would be as sharp around Solomon, she thought as Erich left the room. Or would it?

  Maybe Erich was right about marriage being purely a female-endorsed institution designed to annoy men. He had once asked her why women packed away romance with the wedding pictures, to be peeked at when they deigned--and then only for an instant.

  As if romance had anything to do with their being together!

  There had been moments, transient as the dream of a better tomorrow, when she had tried to believe the lie of love between them. But then the longing for Solomon returned, or her fears for him, or her guilt at living like this. There was nothing she wanted she could not have...except Solomon, and the freedom to be a Jew.

  She stood at the window and watched the lights of Erich's car disappear as he drove off the estate. When she was reasonably certain he was not coming back for something he had forgotten, she finished dressing and went to the garage.

  Konrad was already behind the wheel. When they got to the Zoo Station, Werner Fink was pacing impatiently beneath the clock.

  "Werner!" She kissed him hurriedly on the cheek. "Sorry I'm late. We only have a few minutes. I had to wait for Erich to leave." She looked at him more closely. His eyes spoke more than ever of hatred, and of a need for vengeance. She took hold of his arm. "What's wrong? Is it Sol?"

  "I got word that my brother is dead. They said he signed a paper requesting castration. Requesting! My brother? They showed me the death certificate. It said, "Adverse reaction to anesthesia during voluntary surgery. Cause of death: Heart Failure."

  Miriam glanced at the station's clock. Eight. Thirty minutes from now Perón was due at the Reichschancellery. Time enough to hear about Solomon and about the underground, and to be a friend. She reached for Fink's hand.

  "If I could blow up this whole country, I would!" he said.

  To add one word was an exercise in redundancy, Miriam thought. Of the people in her life, only Erich did not fully comprehend the extent of her hatred for Germany.

  "Come, I'll walk you to the car." Fink moved her through the people thronging the Zoo Station. "About Solomon--"

  An iciness enveloped Miriam. What good was her planning and scheming if something had happened to Sol? She placed her free hand on her belly as if to reassure the unborn child.

  Fink watched her and smiled sadly. "A new generation," he said. "Why do we do it, Miri? In a world like this, why does the human race keep propagating?"

  They exited the station. She could see Konrad waiting for her across the street. "I am so terribly sorry about Hans," she said simply. "I wish there were something more I could say, or do--"

  "There isn't, darling." He paused. "Look, forgive me for being so wrapped up in myself today. It's not your fault that those bastards--." He stopped. "You have been very patient with me, Miri. Let me tell you about Sol. I would not have kept you waiting had the news been anything but encouraging."

  "Thank God!" Miriam let out her breath.

  "When I heard about Hans, I went storming into the Bureau...in fact, the way I carried on, I can't really understand why they didn't arrest me at once. I suppose it's because I'm a public figure...one of their token gestures to the free world, at least for the moment." His tone was heavy with bitterness. "Anyway, while I was there, I asked about Solomon and they told me."

  "That simple?" Miriam laughed. "I can't believe it! Erich insists he has tried everything. Poor man. Occasionally, on my better days and when he is attempting so pitifully hard to please me, I even succeed in feeling a little sorry for him. He appears to truly believe that I am deluded and that Sol is in Amsterdam."

  "Maybe so." Fink sounded unconvinced. "The ways of the German bureaucracy are not to be questioned. Nevertheless, I tell you, that's exactly how it happened. I asked--and I received. Sol and a contingent of other prisoners, excuse me--free laborers!--have been moved from Sachsenhausen to a holding area--"

  So Perón had succeeded! Miriam felt a stab of guilt at having doubted him, tempered by annoyance that he hadn't managed to let her know. "Where? I want to see him!"

  "Hold on, young lady. Not so fast. They haven't released him. They have the prisoners under heavy guard at an old, abandoned farm on the outskirts of Oranienburg. It would be far too dangerous for either one of us to go there, but I did send one of our people--a local farmer--to snoop around. The prisoners are being fed, bathed, and rested. He said it almost looks as if they're conducting some kind of school in the farmhouse. He saw Solomon--at least, the man thought it was Sol."

  "How did he look?"

  "How should he look? If I were you, I would prepare myself for a very different man than you knew." Fink glanced around. He appeared to see something that made him uneasy. "We don't have much longer," he said.

  "Have our people found a new safe-house?" Miriam asked. Since Sol's arrest and the loss of the sewer as a safe-house, she had entered a new network. Bigger. More dangerous. Without the double-blinds which, though safer, were more cumbersome. However, her role was smaller than before. She delivered messages from Werner to Konrad, who passed them on somewhere, to someone...

  "Safe-houses have become as difficult to find as a Nazi who can laugh at himself." Fink's grin held a little of his old wry humor.

  "We must go," Konrad said, approaching them.

  "Go, and God bless." Fink kissed her cheek. "I've told you everything I know. If I learn anything new, I'll be in touch."

  Before she could say anything more, he was gone.

  "Where are you meeting with Colonel Perón?" Konrad asked, opening the car door for Miriam.

  "We are to pick him up at the Hotel Adlon and drop him off near the Reichschancellery."

  "And then?"

  "The estate. Tonight is Erich's big night--and mine. I have to be rested when he gets home. My head needs to be clear."

  "Aren't you pushing yourself a little too hard under the circumstances, Lady Miriam?"

  "I'm not pushing myself hard enough!" She looked down at her belly. "Our lives are at stake!"

  Juan Perón was waiting for them outside the Adlon. He was talking to a tall, café-au-lait man wearing a white caftan. In one hand the stranger held a polished, carved walking stick; in the other, a roll of ivory-colored paper.

  Miriam opened the window.

  The brown man stared at her and bowed as if to acknowledge that he knew her. He walked toward the car, his movements graceful and rhythmic, like a dancer moving to secret music in his head.

  Both men slid onto the back seat, Perón first. She moved over to the far side, fighting a combination of anger that her friend had allowed her to suffer for longer than was necessary and irritation at a stranger's presence. What she and Perón had to discuss was private, and not a little dangerous. Nor could the discussion be left for another time. What was he thinking of!

/>   "This is Bruqah," the colonel said. "Bruqah...Miriam Rathenau Alois."

  The man called Bruqah smiled and put out a brown hand. "So you are Miriam," he said. His voice was soft and husky, with that same trace of music she had sensed in his movements.

  Despite her resentment of his being there, Miriam smiled at him. She turned to Perón. "Getting a little paunchy around the middle, aren't you, Domingo? Too many dumplings, I think."

  "Domingo?" Bruqah sounded puzzled.

  "My middle name." Perón eased himself into a more comfortable position.

  "Where I come from, we do not have what you call middle names. We have given names and earned names, which are something like your nicknames."

  "Where is that you come from?" Miriam was fascinated by his ability to speak German without the guttural quality which most foreigners, and so many natives, imposed upon it.

  "Bruqah is from Madagascar," Perón said, answering for him.

  "I suppose the missionaries taught him German?"

  "Missionaries taught that to save a soul, one loses life. Not so good an arrangement, I think." As if he now saw the humor in what he had said seriously, he chuckled. "I learn your language at Lüderitz, in German South West Africa. Now I study at your university...where your colonel found me."

  "You're studying German?" she asked.

  "Souls of plants. What you call 'botany.'" He grinned, showing his teeth.

  It was Perón's turn to chuckle. "I've never heard you voluntarily loquacious before, my friend." He looked at Miriam. "Nor have I forgotten your comment about my corporation. Are you not, perhaps, calling the kettle black?" He patted her stomach, then lifted her hand and kissed it. "Only joking, of course. You are as beautiful as ever."

  "And you, Domingo, are a beautiful liar. You remember me thin and beautiful, and I try my best to preserve the illusion. The truth is, I'm fat and I'm clumsy--"

  "And beautiful!" He lifted her hand and kissed it again.

  "I feel fat and ugly. And tired." She fought to keep her rising panic out of her voice. Perón was studiously avoiding talk of Sol, perhaps because of Bruqah's presence, but more likely because she had been right about him in the first place. He enjoyed her company, which could have been reason enough for his agreement to try to help her and for the secret meeting and rendezvous. Sol's transfer to the farmhouse was probably a coincidence.

  "Relax," Perón said. "I have not forgotten the reason for this rendezvous, though I would prefer it were a romantic tryst."

  "Can you tell me...?" She glanced at Bruqah.

  Perón did not miss the implication. "He is part of the plan. Like Konrad, he is that rare creature--a trustworthy ally. Must be the Christian influence."

  "I am Malagasy," Bruqah said, bristling. "We know of honor."

  "The plan?" Miriam urged, determining that she would not let him know quite yet that she had already been informed about Sol's transfer to the farmhouse. "Tell me you have arranged everything, that Sol and the child and I are going to live happily ever after."

  "Now you are asking me to play God," Perón said. "I have power, yes, but it is not absolute." He looked at her and smiled. "All right, my lovely and persistent Miriam. Let me tell you what I have been able to achieve. I spoke to Hitler and his cronies and planted my ideas...our ideas. They listened, closely if I may say so."

  "And?"

  "And, sweet Miriam--" He laughed at her impatience. "And my words have taken root. Solomon has been moved to a holding area--"

  "I know. Werner told me."

  He looked disappointed, like a child whose surprise had been spoiled.

  "What else?" she asked insistently.

  "I will tell you that my destination is Lüderitz. Yours is Nosy Mangabéy, a tiny island at the mouth of a bay on Madagascar's northeast coast. The roll of paper Bruqah is holding is a series of topographical maps. I used your rationale to manipulate Solomon into the advance party. In fact, the others call him the Professor. Bruqah has been going to the farmhouse to teach him about Madagascar, and Solomon, in turn, teaches the others--"

  "You saw Solomon?" They were approaching the area of the Reichschancellery, and there were so many questions she wanted to ask.

  "There is no time left for conversation," Perón said. "I have not seen Solomon yet. I must not seem to be too enthusiastic. However, Bruqah tells me Solomon, like all of the others, is thin, sad, but alive and functioning. Tonight Bruqah and I will show the maps to everyone concerned with this plan, including Erich and the Führer. Your Erich will be bringing home the details to you tonight--that is, provided the great German bureaucracy has not already changed its mind."

  "But Juan--"

  "Enough! You will have to wait for the rest...unless you wish to go to your other sources."

  His voice reflected mild annoyance with her for having spoiled his dénouement, and much irritation with Hitler, whom he found to be a distasteful, officious little man invested with too much power. In Miriam's judgment, the Argentinean appreciated the Nazi Party but was not enamored with it; he did what he felt was right for Argentina and for himself. Clearly, he had political aspirations. Clearly, too, she would hear no more today until she heard it from Erich later tonight.

  Not by any means for the first time in her life, she wondered why she attracted men with such volatile personalities. Javelin Men, as Erich called them, whose need for prowess outweighed their sensitivities no matter how hard they tried. Erich and Perón had that in common. They were the Magellans, the Vasco De Gamas and Columbuses, explorers because of a need to prove themselves to the world rather than simply because they were internally driven.

  Sol's explorations were metaphysical and philosophical, though in their own way just as demanding. With him, however, she could be the volatile one, the balance between other-worldliness and pragmatism. She could hardly wait, she thought, to be that for him again, and for herself. Playing a part on the stage was one thing; playing it day and night, around the clock, was another.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Moonlight drenched the renovated Reichschancellery's marble steps. Ascending them, Erich felt blessed by the light and wonderfully dwarfed by the building, its Doric columns lifting into shadows like sentries. He was Alexander, claiming his territory.

  When he entered, a corporal took his hat, cloak, and gloves, bowed stiffly, and escorted him through huge doors into a hall tiled in aquamarine mosaic. In the next room, round and domed, stood other officers, clustered in groups. Most were SS, with whom he had little in common, among them Otto Hempel--who had dallied briefly at the Oranienburg labor camp in preparation for his present assignment at Sachsenhausen.

  A demotion would have been more satisfying, he thought, acknowledging Hempel's greeting with a cursory nod. The man inevitably threatened his good spirits. But not tonight. Not when he expected to be the only one being honored with a double-promotion. He must create an impression of strength and imperturbability.

  The other officers were smoking nervously or sipping cognac brought by a woman whose hourglass shape drew many second glances. One golden cordial, in a thin-stemmed, tulip-shaped liqueur glass, remained on her tray. Erich took it. In the doorway of the great gallery, said to be twice the length of Versailles' Hall of Mirrors, after which it was modeled, he toasted himself.

  The corporal opened the gallery doors to Adolf Hitler and a phalanx of functionaries. The Führer stood with Goebbels, Bormann, Hess and Eichmann, the four framed in moonlight muted by the windows' deep niches. Standing slightly apart was Colonel Perón.

  The assembly snapped to attention with an echoing clack of boot heels. Arms sprang to salutes. Feet squarely planted, eyes keened as though he were reviewing a parade, Erich joined them.

  "Heil Hitler!"

  At once he felt uncomfortable, as if he did not quite fit into his own skin. Just words, he reassured himself.

  The Führer and his entourage returned the salute. His soldiers waited for a signal that would indicate his mood of the mo
ment.

  Eyes gleaming, cheeks puffed, Hitler gave them their cue.

  "Glory to the Fatherland! We must promise obedience, industry, honesty, order, truthfulness...sacrifice!" Jerking his arm to his side, he clenched his hand into a tight fist and opened it, slowly, reluctantly, as though by doing so he relinquished some of his power over the gathering. "Gentlemen, let us dine."

  He wheeled and walked up the hall; the order of functionaries reversed, the rest of the assembly following like migratory birds. Erich could detect a communal nervousness as they entered Hitler's living quarters which, to Erich's surprise, proved warm and inviting. The architect obviously had respected the apartment's Bismarkian past; he had kept the beamed ceiling and wainscoting. In contrast to the cold ostentation of the receiving areas, a fire burned in a fireplace graced with a Florentine Renaissance coat-of-arms, and leather-upholstered chairs the color of bittersweet chocolate completed a look of male domesticity.

  Entering the dining room, Erich thought fleetingly, and not without regret, of his bachelor quarters above the Landswehr. He had given them up as a gesture to Miriam, though not at her request.

  Civil servants and soldiers mingled without regard to rank, a violation of protocol Erich found distasteful. He watched the surge toward the food, laid out on a sideboard of palisander wood against the far wall. Oxtail soup--rich, brown, and gelatinous. Silesian Heaven casserole of dried fruit, pickled pork, and dumplings. A peach tart accompanied by Pilsner, and a Rhenish wine.

  Past three glass doors that formed the opposite wall lay a garden with a startling profusion of roses.

  "Beautiful roses, mein Führer," he heard someone say. "The new hybrid from Sachsenhausen?"

  "Centurions," Hitler said. "Remarkable species."

  As was his custom, Hitler waited until the company had almost finished the meal before he ate--his fear of being poisoned was well-known. After picking at his meal, vegetables garnished with minced white radishes, he remonstrated about the decadent French infatuation with hors d'oeuvres, sauces, and pastries, and boasted how fasting, combined with a vegetarian diet, gave him strength.