Child of the Journey

by Berliner, Janet

  He began to sob, dangerously loudly.

  "Hush, Mishele. Let me think."

  Heart aching for the child, Sol stared across the sea, to the coastline. Could it be possible? A can containing the boy might drift that far, or maybe Misha could float part way, then climb out and swim. Sol lifted the lid of the can and, filled with desperate hope, buried his arms elbow-deep into peelings and newspapers and grease. There was enough cushion there to protect the boy--

  He stopped dreaming. The sea was deceptive. What looked like a couple of kilometers was likely to be twenty or more. Even if he could figure out the tide, the currents might carry the boy further out to sea instead of toward shore.

  "Action Stations!" a voice crackled from loudspeakers.

  Sol shoved Misha back into the darkness. "Stay down!"

  Activity aboard the Altmark turned feverish. Naval officers ran to and from the bridge, ordering seamen to carry or collect various items. Two sailors climbed aboard from their painter's platform against the hull, where they had been busy changing Altmark to Sogne.

  "Ship ahoy!" said the loudspeaker. "Smoke north-northwest!"

  Solomon clung to his garbage can, using his body to shield Misha from sight, as seamen rushed to the rail, bumping past him. Officers sprinted to the bridge.

  The engines thrummed and shuddered; exhaust from flues filled the air with diesel stench as the Sogne retreated, charging and lifting, blinding sparklers of sunlight dancing across the waves.

  "If it's a British cruiser those Beefeaters will sink us sure if they find out what's in our holds," one sailor told another as he loaded his carbine and checked the safety.

  "We should be arming the Jews," his companion said. "It's their goddamn war, after all."

  "They would turn against us in a minute."

  The flag of Norway was run up. Solomon peered toward the horizon in the hope of seeing the pursuing vessel. He could make out a column of smoke. A warship, silhouetted by the sun.

  If the ship following them were British, would the English rescue them? Beneath their airs and dress of tolerance, were they or any other race less prejudiced than the Germans?

  How long could he and Misha hang onto the can and tread water if the captain threw the prisoners into the sea?

  A light from the silhouetted ship blinked rhythmically.

  "Morse code," a sailor said. "Gustav...Sophie."

  "Gustav Sophie!" the loudspeaker screeched.

  The officers on the bridge began to applaud, and understanding dawned on the enlisted men. Jumping up and down, cheering, they watched their signalman blink back confirmation. Some of them rushed inside the ship's superstructure and emerged with cameras.

  Gustav Sophie. The Graf Spee!

  The pocket battleship approached with amazing speed. Sol could see it clearly in the center of his tunnel vision. Slashes of gray and green camouflaged its upperworks and turrets and false bow wave; its gun tower was massive and, above the bridge, the war mast stood bulked like an automaton. Beyond the powerful superstructure stood a crane, and above the funnel a catapult. Doubtless beneath the tarps lay a reconnaissance seaplane, which the crane could pluck from the water after a mission.

  The Sogne's boats were lowered in a series of splashes. Metal clattered, and sailors swung down with the agility of gymnasts to wait as cargo cable and the head of a six-inch oil line were snaked down. The first boat, carrying Erich, took off toward the Spee,

  Feeling relatively safe from scrutiny, Sol moved the cans aside and stooped to see Misha. "I can't do it, Mishele. I...just can't." He struggled to keep his voice from cracking with hurt. "It's too dangerous. Right around the corner is a door that leads inside. I'll tell you when it's safe to go back."

  Misha looked up at him, eyes brimming with tears. "Kill me, Herr Freund. Kill me and then throw me overboard."

  "Hush now," Sol whispered, thankful that he had heard voices directly above him and had to stop talking. He looked up. Dau stood on the bridge, watching Perón and Bruqah, Miriam between them, walk toward Solomon. She had one arm resting on the sleeve of Perón's green uniform, the other holding the Malagasy's cloth-draped arm as he moved along using his constant companion, his carved lily-wood walking stick. She wore a crisp white seersucker dress and a floppy matching sunhat, and was chatting as amiably as a Tiergarten stroller.

  How beautiful she was, despite the swollen belly that had transformed her balls-of-the-feet dancer's walk into the slightly awkward one typical of pregnancy, Sol thought. His heart did a schoolboy somersault.

  As if she had heard it, Miriam stopped walking. Tilting her head at a coquettish angle, she laughed sweetly, lifted the edge of her hat, and observed the man dumping slops.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Calling upon every last reserve of inner strength she could garner, Miriam avoided Sol's gaze. If she looked into his eyes, she would have to embrace him, and she dared not do that. Not now, not here...no matter how long she had waited.

  "Oh, Domingo, Bruqah, look," she said. They would surely know that her performance was directed at Dau, she thought, glancing quickly up at the silver-haired man on the bridge. "A Jew doing an honest day's work! How amusing! I'm going to talk to him."

  She moved forward and touched Sol's shoulder. He jerked away and slammed the can-lid shut.

  "Tsk! Testy aren't we," she said, giving a bravura performance.

  "Let the man be." Perón distanced himself from her as if to show his disapproval, and raised his voice. "Have you not punished him enough?" Bruqah looked at her, nodded as if to tell her he understood, and left.

  "You are so rigid sometimes, Domingo." She pouted, holding onto the rail. "Do I know you, Jew? Tell me your number!"

  "My camp number, Frau--?"

  "I would hardly be asking for your telephone number!"

  "Come along, please. This is foolishness," Perón said.

  She glowered at him darkly and, ignoring his admonition, opened and raised the camera that hung by a cord from her gloved wrist. "Let me get his picture. His head reminds me of a doll I played barbershop with as a child." Finger on the camera's button, she looked straight at Solomon. "Say your number!"

  "Three seven seven zero four."

  Midway through the number, she snapped the picture, then looked down at his forearm. "Three seven seven zero four," she repeated. "Looks like Hölle--Hell--upside-down." She laughed delightedly. "Someone must have singled you out for special treatment! I must inform my husband that there is a Jew named 'Hell' on board. It will amuse him. Tell me, did you request that number?"

  "Request?" He laughed bitterly. "The number belonged to the last prisoner who--who passed away before I entered the camp."

  "A special number," she said. "You must be a special person."

  "I am a Jew."

  "Nothing else?"

  "Nothing important."

  Perón tugged gently at Miriam's elbow. "They are waiting for me on the Spee. Allow me to escort you to your cabin."

  "I am quite able to find my own way back," she said arrogantly. "I may look like an elephant, but I do not need a trainer. I have been cooped up there long enough."

  He opened his mouth as if to protest, but she cut him short. "I can assure you, I'll not fall overboard," she said, her voice rising, "though perhaps I'll amuse myself by having this special prisoner thrown to the fishes."

  After trying a final time to convince her, Perón gave in. She rewarded him with a smile and a "Heil Hitler!" He looked up at Hempel. "Ready to escort me, Captain?" he called out.

  "Right away," Dau answered, and disappeared off the bridge.

  Perón went on his way, stopping only once to look back.

  "Forgive me. It was necessary," Miriam said under her breath. "Are you well, Solomon? You look terrible. Oh God, I've waited so long for this moment, and now I don't know what to say except that you must trust me and you must live. You must!"

  "That sounds like one of Erich's ultimatums." His voice sounded flat. "I too hav
e waited, Miriam. And for what? This?"

  "I have kept you alive, Solomon. It wasn't easy for me, either. You're aboard this ship because of me."

  "I know."

  "I have not betrayed you, Solomon," she said quietly.

  "The child--"

  She clutched his wrist. "We have very little time. The charade Perón and I played out is worth a few minutes, no more. Once we reach Madagascar, we'll find a way--"

  "We?" Solomon looked at her belly. "You, me, and the child? And Erich? Whose child is it, Miri?"

  Her eyes held his for a long time before she looked down. When she finally spoke, the words sounded empty--rehearsed--even to her. "You were the one who told me to go to Erich. I am his, at least for now." She gripped his wrist more tightly. "I have to go."

  She glanced around anxiously, then kissed her fingertips and touched them to his lips. "I thought I heard Hempel's voice." She looked terrified. "The man's an animal. The way he treats Misha..." Her tears broke and flowed freely. "The boy is being brutalized, Solomon. When he wakes up, when he lies down, in the shower, with the dog sometimes." She tried not to sob, but could not help herself. She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve. "He begged me to throw him into the sea, and let it swallow him."

  Solomon straightened up and took a deep breath. "Hempel's been abusing him a long time."

  "What can I do to help him!"

  "Probably nothing."

  The sound of a motor broke the stillness. Miriam looked down to see a boat crossing from the Spee. It was carrying Erich and several other officers. "I must go before Erich sees me," she said. "He claims you're dead. Maybe he even thinks so himself. It's all so terribly complicated! That day they took you away, I thought my world had ended." She stopped. "A few days before we sailed, Erich showed me a death certificate. God knows where he got it, but his grief seemed genuine, Sol, it truly did. If it hadn't been for Domingo to set me straight..."

  "He knows," Sol said quietly. "He knows I'm alive. The day we sailed, he saw me coming on board, carrying the Torah. We spoke."

  And he never said a word to me, Miriam thought. Erich's lies suddenly took on a new dimension that made her head swim. He thought she believed that Solomon was dead, and he was going to leave it that way. What did he intend to do, she wondered, throw Sol overboard before they reached Madagascar? Have him quietly murdered? Or had he simply not been able to face me with the news?

  "I don't understand. Why hasn't he told you! What difference would it make?" Sol asked.

  "None, I suppose," she said softly. "Or maybe it would. Maybe it would make all the difference in the world."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Much as Erich had longed for the feel of solid ground beneath his feet, his return to terra firma was less than satisfying. It had taken him several days to find his sea legs; now, to everyone's amusement except his own, he swayed like an old sea dog.

  More disappointing still was the fact that Lüderitz was little more than a village. The town, whose sands he had imagined littered with diamonds, was cloudy with copper dust that turned the faces around him into golden-red masks and lined his scalp with grit.

  It did, however, have a bar. There, surrounded by bullflies and curious Negroes in rags and peppercorn hair, he, Perón, and Leni listened to Bruqah talk about Lüderitz--and about Africans.

  "Is it always so hot?" Erich batted at an insect on his neck.

  "This the cool season, Herr Oberst." Bruqah downed a warm beer shandy in three gulps and raised his walking stick for another. "You think it is bad here? Wait for Madagascar!" He grinned. "The rain pour, you pray for sun. Humidity she come, you pray for rain." He laughed and gulped the beer.

  Not only was the heat oppressive, Erich thought, but there were such a lot of Blacks! They made him uneasy. Compared to them, Bruqah looked brown, almost bronze. He was glad he was packing his Walther, gladder yet he had not allowed Miriam to come along.

  In contrast to Perón and himself, Leni looked annoyingly fresh, as young as she had more than ten years ago in her mountaineering-movie phase. He had seen her in The White Hell of Pitz Palu, among others, and had found her far more attractive than the mountains, the real subjects of the film. When the mountaineers had conquered peaks, he had imagined himself conquering Leni...just as he had promised himself he would do with Miriam Rathenau.

  So far he had not done too well on either count.

  "When I live here, natives they call me Tsama-Melon." Bruqah cupped a hand on each side of his mouth. "'Hey Tsama, hey you come help me plant!' they call. In Madagascar I plant travelers' trees. They always have water for thirsty people. Because of that, they call me Tsama. These people here are Herrero, mostly. The Bushmen, they live beyond the sandveld. Nine maybe ten month they go without water." His lips were chapped from the days out at sea. When he grinned, blood showed in the cracks. "Only tsama melon juice, is all." He indicated with forefinger and thumb. "So life, she is precious to Bushmen. Precious, like this." He poured a drop of beer onto his hand, and held it out.

  A tall, sinewy-muscled Black who had been staring at Erich put a hand on Bruqah's shoulder. Bending, he whispered in the Malagasy's ear. Bruqah nodded, and the man stepped back.

  Erich feigned disinterest.

  "What did he want?" Perón asked irritably, but quietly.

  Bruqah leaned across the table toward Erich. "I tell you, Herr Oberst, if you promise you don't go fly off the stove." Apparently not expecting Erich to answer, Bruqah said, "This man and the others...they want to see your hand."

  "It's none of their goddamn business." Erich spoke without emotion. As was his habit, he held his right hand over his left.

  "They think your hand is magic."

  Erich moved both hands off the table without revealing his dead fingers and unsnapped the holster strap of his pistol. Fear and anger displaced curiosity in the faces around him.

  Leni touched his forearm. "They mean no harm." She flashed him a look that said, Stay calm. For me.

  He slid his left hand beneath his leg and snapped his right fingers for another beer. Another infantile female contradiction, he thought. She would be more impressed if he controlled himself than if he sent the bunch of them hurrying outside so there could be some peace and privacy inside. Women relied on men for protection, then condemned them for taking a stand against a possible threat.

  The Blacks drew together. Some were murmuring. Suddenly, everyone was quiet. Erich followed the tallest one's gaze outside.

  A bare-breasted woman with enormous buttocks came padding down the dirt street. A crowd of followers seemed to be encouraging her to do something.

  Leni stood up and trained her camera on the woman, who raised her arms, heavy with bracelets, over her head.

  Fingers interlocked, the woman began a slow, shuffling dance, weaving in and out of the lacy shadows of an acacia tree. A gray-haired Black threw a smoldering stick onto the ground; others added twigs and small branches...the beginnings of a fire.

  Without looking away from her camera, Leni felt for her camera bag, opened it, and handed Erich various pieces of equipment. He wiped off the table with his sleeve before setting them down.

  "Herreros and Bushmen don't usually dance together," Leni said with excitement.

  "Here in Lüderitz, oh yes," Bruqah said. "When German people take this country, the Herreros flee into the Kalahari. Many died--no water. Five and fifty thousand out of seventy thousand. Bushmen helped many survivors. So they be friends here, now."

  The crowd around the woman began to clap and sway. The woman, her head uptilted and only the whites of her eyes visible, stamped her feet against the dust. She was chanting softly. Her huge buttocks jiggled beneath her loincloth, and dust puffed around her.

  "Janha Janha Jan-ha!" the crowd chanted. She snaked her hands over her breasts, neck, face. Her fingers gripped her peppercorn hair, released it, started again; breasts, neck, face, hair...

  Linking arms, the crowd started moving in a circle, clockwise first
, counter-clockwise, clockwise...

  Leni crouched as if on a battlefield, and scurried close, jabbing and feinting with the camera as she tried to snap pictures between legs.

  "What's happening?" Erich attempted to follow her as she wormed her way through the growing crowd, but she was too agile. The press of spectators quickly filled up the empty space she had created. He tried to peer over everyone but couldn't see a thing. Wrinkling his nose at the Negroid stench, he pushed his way after her, his hands together like a wedge.

  One Black looked down at Erich's hand and anxiously leaned away to let him by. Soon the others were nudging each other, intent on letting him through without their touching the mangled hand. About time it came in useful for something, he thought, easing his way through the crowd.

  The tall, very black Herreros gave way to an inner group--tiny brown Bushmen with thick, flattened noses and small perforated gourd-rattles around their calves.

  Four Bushmen, imitating young gazelles by holding gemsbok horns against their foreheads, jumped through the inner ring and into the center of the circle. Gyrating, they approached the woman and retreated, approached and retreated. Pelvises pulsing and shoulders rolling, they yowled and grunted and gesticulated to the moaning of the other Bushmen and the pounding hands and feet of the Herreros, who rushed from the outer edges of the crowd to the inner circle to throw imaginary spears at the dancers.

  "Watubai na! Ha! Watubai na!"

  Her breasts bouncing as she rolled her head, the woman in the center patted herself as if she were cooling flames breaking through her flesh. She made a nasal sound and clicked her tongue.

  Leni repeated the sounds. Without taking her eyes off the woman, she motioned Erich to hurry forward.

  "What is it!" Erich shouted above the noise of the dancers as he pushed his way toward her. The Bushmen were more difficult to get through despite their smaller size. His hand did not seem to trouble them.

  Leni drew a word in the dust: n/um. "I think that's what she's saying!... The slash represents the tongue click." Her eyes shining with excitement, Leni pronounced the term, clicking her tongue in the middle of the word. "It's a fire-hot power they claim boils up from their bellies," she said as she stood up, nearly having to shout for him to hear her. "Fills their heads like steam. Helps them talk with the gods and perform healings. Kai-healing, it's called."