Children of the Dusk

by Berliner, Janet

  For now, he must ready the bread they had saved and the honey they had gathered--symbolic of their joy and gladness in the Lord.

  Deep in thought, he did not immediately see Miriam standing near the outer fence. Seconds later, panic rose in him, though not at the sight of her there, or of the half-a-dozen Kalanaro armed with spears who danced, and glowed, in the dusk.

  What caused his pulse to quicken was the sight of Dr. Judith Bielman-O'Hearn, standing large as life at Miriam's side. He could see her clearly in the sentry tower's spotlight.

  Sol blinked and tried to focus with weak eyes, wondering if this could be another of the visions that had plagued him since childhood, the visions that had become so much more terrifying after he had witnessed the assassination of Miriam's uncle.

  But there had been no cobalt-blue light to presage this vision, as there had always been before; and, despite the shadows and his eyesight, the woman's figure had a clarity to it that had never been true of his amorphous ghosts.

  The Kalanaro leaped and cavorted and spun in silence, brandishing their weapons, their heads like hairy coconuts, their eyes charcoal-rimmed and too big for their faces. Mouselemur eyes.

  Forcing his focus, it became apparent that the Kalanaro were covered with a white substance that appeared to pulse and wink--

  "You all right, Reb Solomon?" the man next to him asked, placing a light hand on Sol's arm.

  "May you be written down for a good year," Solomon said, choosing to use the traditional Rosh Hashanah greeting in the hope that it would lend him strength.

  "Prisoner three-seven-seven-zero-four!"

  Hearing his Sachsenhausen number, Sol jerked his attention to the left, moving his whole head rather than his eyes to compensate for his lack of peripheral vision. Pleshdimer, his fat carp mouth downturned in a sneer, stood beside the spring.

  "I'm talking to you, Jew!"

  Solomon shoved the bowl and bread into the nearest man's hands, raced toward Pleshdimer, and snapped to attention. Erich had ordered the Kapo not to speak to the prisoners in a derogatory manner, but Sol knew that beneath Pleshdimer's fat was a strength that could break a man's neck like a twig. Erich's orders or no, it was life-threatening to treat the Kapo with anything but the greatest show of respect.

  Sol saluted. "Yes, Herr Kapo Pleshdimer!"

  "Herr Kapo Rottenführer Pleshdimer!" the man bellowed into Solomon's face. "I'm army now, you know."

  "Yes Herr Kapo Rottenführer Pleshdimer!" Were the pygmies still there? Sol wondered. Were they watching? Was Judith?

  He glanced from the corner of his eye; as usual he saw only dark gray where his eyesight failed him. He turned his head, slightly. The dancers were gone.

  Judith was gone.

  Pleshdimer hit him.

  The punch came from the side. Sol heard a cartilaginous crackling in his left ear even before he felt the pain. Then something roared through his head and he slumped sideways to his knees, struggling to hold himself up with his right hand.

  Pleshdimer kicked him beneath the chin, snapping Sol's head backward and catapulting him onto his shoulder blades. He lay there, schooled by the terrible lessons of Sachsenhausen into knowing he had to arise immediately or face further punishment.

  "You will look at me when I speak to you, scum!" Pleshdimer boomed from above.

  He squatted and stuck a cigarette butt between Sol's lips, then scooped up red mud from beside the spring and mashed it against Sol's mouth, rubbing hard with the heel of his hand.

  Solomon managed to rise to his knees and struggled to stand, careful not to spit out the cigarette nor wipe off the mud. Let no man refuse what gifts Wasj Pleshdimer gave; Solomon had learned that the hard way, too.

  "Yes...Herr Kapo...Rottenführer...Pleshdimer, sir," Sol forced himself to say. He felt blood coming from his left ear, trickling down beneath his collar.

  "What's going on here!"

  He looked up through eyes half-shut in pain to see Erich striding toward him, pistol in hand. He's going to shoot me, Sol thought. So be it. He would not again endure what he had been through in Sachsenhausen. He would not.

  "This Jew scum...disrespectful! Disobedient!" Pleshdimer lowered his voice toward the end, as if suddenly less sure of himself. "I found this!" He pointed, shaking with anger, at the cigarette butt hanging from Sol's lip.

  Erich took the butt and flipped it away in disgust. He cocked the pistol, glared at Sol--and abruptly swung the barrel toward Pleshdimer. "I don't care what you found! You ever touch one of my Jews again without my consent, I'll tear your eyes out and stuff them down your throat."

  "Rottenführer Pleshdimer did not find the offensive item." Major Hempel ambled into Sol's tunnel vision. "I did. Captain Dau and I discovered it days ago near the mess tent--obviously, and probably purposely, overlooked by your colonists." The major said the last word as though it made him want to spit.

  "Are you saying that the Jews improperly policed the area?" Erich asked.

  "I have yet to see them maintain any part of this camp to my satisfaction," Hempel replied.

  "We both know what your standards are, Herr Sturmbannführer." Erich spoke with equal animosity. "Jew blood to fertilize the flowers. Jew flesh as fodder for pigs. Except this isn't Sachsenhausen. We have no prize hogs here on Mangabéy." Erich barely came up to the major's lapels. Without tilting up his head, he looked into Hempel's eyes with a withering glare that made the major look small. "A Jewish child to warm your bed," Erich continued. "That you have had here, and at the boy's insistence will have again." Erich holstered his gun. "That is my one concession to you," he said. "Watch yourself, Herr Sturmbannführer, or you'll be left without any concessions."

  "Don't threaten me, Herr Oberst."

  "No threat, Herr Sturmbannführer. A promise. Your proximity to Himmler means nothing to me here. My orders to create this camp came directly from the Führer himself."

  "Through Reichsführer Himmler," Hempel reminded him.

  "It matters little which postman delivers an envelope," Erich said. "Only who signed the letter."

  As if fighting to save face, Hempel switched subjects back to the original point of contention. "What about the cigarette, Herr Oberst."

  "What about it."

  "I believe you will find many more butts by the mess," the major said in a raised voice. "Ones your precious Jews failed to police."

  Solomon glanced toward the mess and saw two or three of Hempel's men, watching the proceedings, flip cigarettes to the ground. Before looking back at the confrontation, he caught a glance from Miriam. Her stance reflected raw fear, though whether for him or herself he could not tell. He did know that if Erich lost this or any other fight with Hempel, it would be the beginning of the end. Erich held the better hand, but he was running out of cards. Hempel was not one to be cowed, and if Erich failed to have the prisoners police the area again at once, he would in effect be countermanding his own orders regarding the Jews keeping the camp spotless.

  "Herr Oberst! Herr Sturmbannführer!"

  Johann, the radio operator, burst from the HQ tent, waving a piece of paper. Solomon knew the type well: young, Aryan, eager to please and to rise in the ranks of the Party. He was blond and boyish, with that youthful enthusiasm Solomon had in the past decade too often seen translated into Nazi fervor.

  "Our troops have laid siege to Warsaw!" the boy called out.

  The fact that Hempel took the note and did not give it to Erich, the senior officer, did not escape Sol's attention. He was sure that Erich noticed the slight, but the colonel remained aloof, almost implacable, as if fully expecting the major to pursue the matter and report to him in turn.

  Hempel visibly brightened as he read. "Seems the prayers of your Jews are in vain." He handed Erich the message. "The Reich is unstoppable."

  "Your implication concerning the Jews is obscure, Sturmbannführer." Erich scanned the message. "As always."

  "Then perhaps you are not aware that your Jew dogs are committing sacrilege
," Hempel said evenly.

  "Sacrilege?"

  Hempel touched the top edge of the paper with an index finger. "Subhumans bowing before a dead god on the eve of the Reich's triumph!"

  Drawn by the announcement, Hempel's men began gathering. They watched Erich as hungrily as they had the zebu. Solomon knew Erich's dilemma had suddenly worsened. If he allowed the Service to continue, he would appear to be elevating the status of the Jews above that of the Reich; stop the prayers, and Hempel had won an easy round.

  Erich stepped back and lifted his head in what was clearly a poised, staged effect, like that of a great orator. He seemed to be calm, but Sol knew Erich Alois was steaming.

  The colonel looked from man to man.

  "You've no answer?" Hempel asked.

  Erich put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. He was not the relaxed, intuitive thinker that Solomon himself was, but one who either arrived at a conclusion from a logical base--or spun off into anger. Sol knew from long experience that Erich's control at this moment was a fragile thing.

  "I do not believe I was asked a question, Sturmbannführer," Erich said, his contempt evident.

  A nonplused Hempel opened his mouth to reply, but Erich shrugged and stepped toward Solomon, who straightened as rigidly as a statue. "Free laborer Freund," Erich said, "you are to close your service tonight by praising the Fatherland and praying to the fiction you call God that this latest German endeavor will bring its rightful due. Is that understood?"

  "Ja, mein Oberst!" Sol knew he must do everything within his power to keep Erich in control. If that meant vowing eternal allegiance to the Reich and to Erich Alois in particular, he would acquiesce without a second's thought. Had he not, after all, once licked horse manure from Hempel's boots back in Germany, to keep himself alive? Humiliation meant little. Once endured, he merely locked it up in some small part of his psyche he never re-examined unless forced to do so. It was the physical humiliation he could no longer abide...and not just his own. Watching the torture and slow, painful dying of friends was so much more horrific.

  "When you are through, you will personally lead a detail to scour this compound for cigarette butts."

  "Ja, mein Oberst!"

  "Dismissed."

  Solomon did an about-face, stepped up before the other Jews, formally summoned them to arise, and standing at attention guided their voices in prayer. Learning to weed substance from irrelevancies, he thought. A light rain, more mist than drizzle, had begun. It made Miriam's clothing cling to her skin.

  "That was a trick," Hempel was saying behind him.

  "Any fool knows that Jews are too devious to be duped," Sol heard Erich say, his voice receding.

  Solomon smiled at Otto Hempel's minor defeat. That's one for you Erich, he thought--and one for the rest of us.

  PART II

  Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters.

  --Frederick Douglass

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Erich grew increasingly edgy throughout the next days. Hempel had not made any move to avenge himself for having lost out to him about the Rosh Hashanah Service. Except for the detail roster, followed by minor complaints--the kind of thing all commanders had to endure--the days following the Rosh Hashanah Service had been uneventful. That Hempel would take his revenge was a certainty; what form that revenge would take was anybody's guess. This business of making Erich wait for the other shoe to drop had become part of a pattern.

  The two of them had faced off twice. Erich had emerged one morning to find the Jews digging a trench around their quarters. The major had apparently come up with some unbelievably stupid idea of having them actually move into and sleep in the trench. Not only were there vocal objections to the idea of preparing the ground for what looked like a mass grave, but there was the question of standing water in a tropical environment--a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes and all manner of disease-bearing insects and fungi.

  He had put a stop to that immediately, with surprisingly little resistance from the major.

  There was also the matter of electrifying the fences around the Jewish quarter. He had consistently told Hempel that he would not countenance this, yet perhaps doing so would allow vigilance to be relaxed a little, giving him more free time, or at least relieving some of the mental pressure. The generator could certainly handle the extra load: he was glad, for the first time, that he had agreed to take the behemoth, despite the difficulty they’d had--even with the tank for assistance--dragging it up the hill.

  For now, what was weighing most heavily upon him was his concern for the dogs, the two sick ones, particularly Taurus, but also the others. Despite his best efforts, they were not responding properly to him or to the trainers. He knew they missed the leadership of Taurus, but that was not enough to account for their constant vacillation between restlessness and sluggishness.

  He, too, felt restless and sluggish. Mostly, Erich decided, he was bored. By the time he went to bed and fell asleep, cradling a bottle, he had filled his day with what seemed like a thousand things--none of them relevant to him. Miriam provided no companionship. She acted drugged half of the time and disinterested or angry the rest. Although as their officer he felt close to the trainers, he had no real friends among them, and drinking alone was hardly a substitute for camaraderie.

  "I wish to speak to you about the fence, Oberst."

  Erich had arisen at dawn despite a hangover and was standing in the center of the camp, watching the Jews ascend the water tower to continue filling the tank. He braced himself as the major approached, but Hempel appeared surprisingly at ease.

  "The matter of the fence has already been discussed," Erich said.

  "Insurrection will come from the inside!" Hempel said. He pointed toward Solomon, who was emerging from the medical tent and heading toward the Jewish sleeping quarters. "Just look at how lax your security is. That Jew...number three-seven-seven-zero-four...coming and going as he pleases. Like he's at some kind of social event."

  That Solomon might have spent part of the night ministering to Miriam renewed Erich's anger, but he struggled not to show it. "How is it you recall his number so easily, Herr Sturmbannführer?" Erich asked. "Have you an interest in him? His name is Freund. Solomon Freund. And no, we will not electrify the sleeping area." Erich made a final decision. "What danger exists comes from without. Did you not see those two Kalanaro, dancing and taunting us from the edge of the forest last night? Not that you spend enough time in the compound to worry about security! You don't give a hog's damn about security, Sturmbannführer. All you care about is Jews. And that goddamn Zana-Malata."

  "Do not use his name in vain, Herr Oberst. Don't you...dare!"

  Hempel abandoned all pretense of congeniality. Giving Erich a hard smile, he turned on his heel and was gone.

  Wishing he had forbidden Misha to return to Hempel, Erich strode to the medical tent. He greeted Miriam indifferently and went over to the dogs. Taurus' condition remained unchanged, but Aquarius lay with his head hanging over the edge of the grass-filled box Müller had fashioned. The dog's ragged panting boomed in Erich's ears.

  "Misha," Miriam muttered.

  "Sir, my dog is dying and no one is doing anything to help," Ernst Müller said, entering the tent. "There must be something...."

  Erich defined Ernst in simple terms: dog trainer; brother to Ursula Müller, the school girl who had taunted half the boys at Goethe Gymnasium, Erich among them. Her conduct had caused her brother much pain.

  Maybe that was why Ernst loved his dog so much. Why Erich and all trainers loved their charges. Because the love was simple, without pain. Without reproach.

  Aquarius' breathing grew louder and more ragged, as if the dog were trying to suck the tent sides in and out, struggling to draw the dusk into weakening lungs. Then he gasped--a bellowy exhale that ended in choppy breaths. And stopped bre
athing.

  Memories from the training center in Berlin assailed Erich. Aquarius, the most respectful and obedient of all the dogs, approaching his food dish with doe-eyed gratitude. First to conquer the horizontal training ladders at the estate; everyone so happy that Ernst yelped with joy and threw his hat high in the air. The dog leaping from the apparatus to grab the cap in his mouth, leaping into the sun....

  Ernst stooped before his dog, arms around the animal, crying.

  "Stop it," Erich said softly. "Get a hold on yourself."

  Müller shook his head.

  "You think I don't know what you're going through?" Erich's voice rose in pitch. "You don't think I've lost a dog before?"

  "I don't care...what you think." Ernst spoke in cobbled, sawing breaths. "You're not...me. You're not...any of us, no matter what...you say." The corporal raised his head and added quietly but sincerely, "You bastard. You brought us here. You'd like everyone to think it was Himmler's and Goebbels' idea to bring us to this hellhole," he said after a moment. "Maybe even you believe that. But you wanted it. You wanted to prove yourself. Prove us. The team. But we're not a team anymore, are we, Herr Oberst! Hempel's wolfhound...dead. And now Aquarius...dead."

  Erich turned away to stare outside.

  "Perhaps you're the one who should get hold of yourself, Herr Oberst," Müller said.

  "Under the circumstances I will overlook your words," Erich said. "Have the body of your canine soldier ready for a memorial service in exactly," Erich checked his watch and turned to face the corporal, "one hour. Is that understood?"

  Apparently in no mood for military etiquette, Müller simply nodded.

  "Heil Hitler," Erich said.

  "Heil...," Müller lifted himself to his feet and returned the salute even less enthusiastically than it had been given. "Hitler."

  Erich ducked through the tent flaps and was almost bowled over by the syphilitic, who pushed past him and went straight to the dog's side.