The Barbed Crown (The Vatican Knights Book 13)

by Rick Jones

  Chapter Forty-Three

  There were no filled tins tonight, no tepid water or cubes of potato. Bellies would go empty as punishment to everyone inside the camp, even though it had been two days since everyone inside Ayana’s barrack last ate.

  She was sitting on the edge of her bunk thinking, while absent-mindedly toying with the hairs of straw between her fingers. Her eyes were distant with deep thought—miles away, in fact. So when Ala took the spot next to her, Ayana didn’t notice her until she heard the raw edginess of the woman’s voice.

  “Ayana,” she said simply.

  Ayana leaned her head into Ala’s shoulder, and Ala swept her close.

  “But we did give it a try, didn’t we?” Ala told her, the pride evident.

  Ayana eased away from Ala and began to toy with the straw once again. Her eyes, however, continued to look at a phantom point somewhere in the distance. “Dror was very brave, don’t you think?” she finally asked.

  Ala nodded. “Very.” Then she saw Ayana playing nervously with the straw hairs. “Ayana, it’ll be all right. You’ll be safe.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” she told her. She continued to play anxiously with the straw. And then: “He told me he was different.”

  “Who?”

  “Herr Becher.”

  “Your German boyfriend?”

  Ayana snapped back at her. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “I see. So what changed your mind about him?”

  When Ayana tried to speak, she found it difficult with a sour and painful lump deep inside her throat. Then her face began to break.

  “It’s all right, Ayana.”

  And then: “He kicked the stool out from under Dror.”

  “That was him? That was your Herr Becher?”

  She nodded. “He said he was different.”

  Ala pulled Ayana close, could feel her trembling. “I have something to tell you, Ayana, and you’re not going to like what I have to say.”

  Ayana continued to focus on whatever distant point she was looking at.

  “Several weeks ago,” Ala began, “a young girl by the name of Talitha was hanged from the very same gallows as Dror. She was the sweetest thing, Ayana. She was bright and pretty and filled with dreams of becoming a ballerina. All she wanted to do was dance. But she was pulled from the line, had the wire looped around her neck, and the stool kicked out from beneath her feet. And just like that she was gone.” Ala hesitated. “And it was your Herr Becher who did that, Ayana. He was the one who ended Talitha’s life. I was there when it happened. I was standing beside her when he pulled her from the line. And then I prayed for her death to be a quick one. But it wasn’t. Her final dance came by way of swinging in lazy circles at the end of a cord.”

  Ayana finally broke, her chest and shoulders heaving and pitching with quiet sobbing.

  Ala held Ayana tight. “Like I told you before, Ayana. He’s not unique or different. He follows orders like all the rest.”

  Ayana looked at Ala with a tear-streaked face. “Then when they come for you, Ala, I want to stand by your side. I want to be with you and Roza. I want to be with my family. This isn’t living.”

  Ala took Ayana in an embrace that was more like a mother holding her daughter in order to comfort her, knowing that Ayana was still a child in many ways. “When I first met you, Ayana, I hated you because you reminded me so much of myself when I was your age. You enjoyed the company of this soldier the same way I loved my man, a German who grew to hate me because I was a Jew. But Roza liked you. She said that you could be trusted and she was right about that. She saw in you what I could not, because I was blinded by my own jealousies. Here was a young and handsome man so much like my own showing you the respect that mine did not. And I hated you for that. But in the end, Ayana…” She let her words trail, refusing to finish off with: they’re all the same.

  Ayana, now sitting straight, was beginning to collect herself.

  “And Dror,” Ala continued, “became both messenger and martyr as he stood with his chin held high and his voice so loud. He rekindled hope in many, telling them not to give up and that our day is coming. And I believe him, Ayana. That day won’t be coming for me, but it will for you. Do not let the words Dror has passed on dwindle and die. Keep them alive and promote them. Die standing on your feet instead of on your knees.”

  Ayana, so pretty with eyes the size of communion wafers and so lustrously brown, was able to manage a feeble smile. “I promise you, Ala, to keep the sparks burning.”

  Ala nodded and gave a smile of her own. “And that, my dear, is how great fires are born. It always starts with an ember, and then you give it breath to make it grow.”

  Then Ayana fell into her and hugged her, the two becoming one in the shadows.

  Two days later, in a purge of those who worked inside the munition’s factory, Ala was no more.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  On the day that Ala was executed along with several others, Frederic Becher had worked the courage up and beckoned to Ayana to join him behind the garment factory. For the past two days he’d been going over many scenarios of discussions with her in his mind’s eye. And in these scenarios he saw himself apologizing to her and then explaining his actions by way of reason, trying to justify what he had done. Then he would see the rejection in Ayana, could hear her voice growing distant and cold, his reasoning having almost no weight to them. Then he thought of different approaches, different angles, all to fall short. Ayana, by the way she walked away from the gallows, he knew, had figuratively turned her back on him.

  Outside the facility with the air having a chill to it, Frederic Becher fidgeted from foot to foot not because it was cold, but because he was nervous.

  “Ayana,” he said, though she stood there as if the cold had no effect against her, “I’ve much to explain. You have to understand that I didn’t want to do what I was commanded to do. You have to believe that.”

  She pinned Becher with frosty measure.

  “Ayana.” When he reached to grab her hands into his, she pulled them away.

  Wounded deeply by this, Becher said, “Please, Ayana, did you not see that the SS sergeant pulled a gun. It wasn’t for the Jew. It was for me. Surely you saw that.”

  “Is it not better to die standing on your feet than it is on your knees?” she said to him.

  Becher was taken aback by this. Had Ayana just called him a coward?

  “Look. I know you’re angry with me, Ayana. I understand that. But I had no choice. You have to believe me.”

  “You told me that you were different. You told me that you weren’t like the others.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me about the time you pulled a girl from the line and kicked the stool out from underneath her feet?”

  Becher hitched a slight breath at this, the remark hitting him like a stunning revelation.

  “Her name was Talitha,” she added harshly. “And all she wanted to be was a ballerina. And you, Herr Becher, robbed her of that.”

  This was not going well, thought Becher. Ayana was firing back with little concern for her welfare by the way she spoke to him, along with the lack of respect and the measure of resistance.

  “Ayana, I hate being here. I do. It’s wrong and places like this should never exist. But it does and I’m nothing but a link in a chain. If they find out I’m the weakest link, they won’t hesitate to replace me with someone who’s unyielding. If they find out that I don’t have a shared faith, they’ll kill me. I’ve seen it before, Ayana. I’ve seen them line up SS guards and shoot them.”

  Ayana’s face, however, didn’t appear to be moved by this.

  “Ayana,” this time when he placed his hands on her shoulders, she tensed, “I wish you could find it in your heart to understand and forgive me. I know it’s difficult. But I want you to know that I’ve thought long and hard about what I’m about to do.”

  Now she appeared baffled by this admission,
a first show of interest. “And what is it, Herr Becher, you plan to do?”

  “I’m going to run,” he told her. “I’m going out there” He waved his hand to an imaginary point beyond the fence—“to let everyone know that camps like this exist. And that something needs to be done. And I’ll be back for you, Ayana. I promise. With help. I’ll come back to free everyone.”

  “Like the way you planned to take me to Paris wearing a tailored dress?”

  Frederic Becher’s shoulders fell. She didn’t believe him.

  “This is going to happen, Ayana. I’m going to run.”

  “You can’t run,” she told him. “They’ll hunt you down using the dogs. You can’t outrun the dogs. No one can.”

  “I’ve thought about that,” he said. “And there’s a way.”

  “Really?”

  “Ayana,” his grip became firmer, but not restrictively so, “I know it’s hard to forgive me. But I don’t do this for me. I do this for you. If they catch me, they will kill me for sure. But I would rather look inside the pointed barrel of a rifle from a firing squad, than to see sadness and hate in your eyes. I know this now.”

  “They will catch you, Herr Becher.”

  “Please call me Frederic like you used to.”

  “Only if you command me to do so.”

  Another stinging remark to Becher. “I won’t order you to do anything you don’t want to do,” he told her.

  With this, Ayana became less tense under his hold.

  Becher, releasing her, took a step back and reached inside his pocket. He pulled out a small black-and-white photograph and handed it to her. “I have one of my own,” he said. “This one is for you.” He handed it to her.

  When she studied it, she noticed that Becher was holding his carbine, his face so handsome. And she, looking so proud and defiant in times of adversity, never realized her hidden strength, her underlying will to press her resolve without fear of consequence.

  “Keep it,” he told her. “Please. It may be the only thing left of me after I run.” Then he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, their first and only kiss. And she did not flinch at this or find it vulgar, just surprising.

  Giving her a smile and a wink, Frederic Becher went to prepare himself for his run from the camp.

  * * *

  Ayana stood there with photo in hand, the picture bunched within her closed fist. Becher was different but he wasn’t, always giving in to the German command under the threat of his own welfare. But now he was making a choice.

  And for that, Ayana was able to pare her lips back into a smile just enough to show beautiful rows of teeth.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Frederic Becher wasted little time. His mind was made up, his cowardice abandoning him. His singular cause was to protect people like Ayana and those like her, those who could not protect themselves. He had gathered foods from the kapos’ vacant dormitory while the kapos worked their details, taking cheeses and meats and jars filled with olives. He took whatever rounds he could pilfer for his Luger. And he policed the grounds just beyond the perimeter of the gates for a simple item, the seeds from a maple tree.

  The seeds in themselves were worthless for his needs and summarily discarded, leaving the segments that appeared like the wings of a dragonfly. Taking these divided sections and placing them inside a pestle, Frederic pounded and grounded these leafy parts until they were filaments equal to the width of human hair. For hours he continued to pound and grind, then he cut the residue into particles so small it appeared like powder by night’s end. After he was satisfied, he poured the contents into a tiny wool satchel and tied the end, securing it. Then he placed it into his palm to weigh it. Here it was, a natural element broken down to its finest form of a concentrate. But it wasn’t just any powder. It was itching powder.

  And Ayana was right about the dogs. They would track him down quickly since their sense of smell was forty times greater than a human’s. But the contents within this satchel would mask his trail.

  Frederic Becher smiled. I have a chance, Ayana.

  I have a chance.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  On the third day of Dror’s hanging, Weiner and Avraham removed the body from the gallows and placed him inside the cart. His skin was beginning to take on a waxy appearance—that stage of adipocere—when dying flesh turns white and begins to flake and peel. The flesh surrounding Dror’s wounds had swelled around the burrowing points of the barbed crown, so the spurs became firmly lodged and anchored to the point that the circlet was an immovable object from his skull.

  “Leave it,” Weiner told Avraham, who was trying to move the coil of wire with obvious difficulty. “The flames will burn it free.”

  After Dror was stripped and placed on the tray by a Sonderkommando, and with his hands across his chest in peaceful and gentle repose, he was slid into the oven.

  “When it’s over and done with,” Weiner told the Sonderkommando, “I want the crown.”

  The Sonderkommando gave Weiner a questioning look. “You want a coil of barbed wire?”

  Weiner pinned him with a hard look. “It’s more than a coil of barbed wire,” he said. “It’s a king’s crown.”

  The Sonderkommando shrugged. “It’ll be here, if that’s what you want.”

  “It’s what I want.”

  Six hours later, when Weiner and Avraham returned with another pushcart, the barbed crown was sitting on top of an urn that held Dror’s ashes. When the Sonderkommando saw them he didn’t say a word, he simply pointed. Weiner, grabbing the circlet as if it was a religious icon, hid it within the cart, and smuggled it inside his barrack where he hid it beneath a loose floorboard.

  To him, to Avraham, and to others who knew Dror and his spirit, and hearing him call out with the fortitude of courage while staring Death down, he offered hope just as the last spark dwindled in some, while being rekindled in most.

  Weiner, placing the barbed crown within its recess, saw this as a symbol of hope. As long as the crown existed, so would the memory of Dror, who would become the catalyst for others to seek freedom no matter the cost.

  And on October 7th, 1944, there was another insurrection, one that was better planned. And though this coup failed as well, they did manage to achieve two things. One: no matter what, the Jews would never stop fighting for the cause. And two: they successfully managed to take down the chimney to Crematorium I. Though Weiner and Avraham lost their lives in the attempt, those who survived knew that they, along with Dror, were smiling down at them from the heavens.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  With Ayana deep in his thoughts, Frederic Becher made his run for freedom.

  On the third night, as the moon was providing enough light to move through the fields under the cover of quasi-darkness, Frederic Becher ran as fast and as far as his legs would take him. At first he took a marked path that he’d laid out the day before in order to avoid the mines. Then he took to the tree line and disappeared into the shadows, only to emerge from the other side of the tree copse where he entered an open field.

  His legs kicked. His lungs burned. And all he could see was the face of Ayana in his mind, the image of her becoming his motivation.

  Then he heard it, the distant sound of a klaxon going off.

  Now that the guards would be trailing him with their dogs, Frederic Becher ran like the wind.

  PART II

  RUNNING FROM THE DEVIL

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Frederic Becher had run until the first showing of light illumined behind him on the east horizon, though he was running west. His legs were becoming heavy and leaden, with each stride becoming an effort of advancement. And his lung endurance was all but exhausted.

  Behind him, the dogs were closing the gap. He could tell by the growing volume of their barking.

  Then he looked skyward and saw blue instead of gray, a wonderful sight. And within the few scudding clouds that maneuvered about, he could have sworn that he saw Ayana’s
face within the billows, her coaxing image telling him to press on.

  “I’m trying, Ayana. I’m trying.”

  The dogs were pressing closer, their yelping becoming amplified as they neared his position.

  Then Becher reached a small brook, the knee-deep water rushing quickly.

  The dogs.

  Becher reached inside his backpack for the small satchel, found it, and then he undid the string.

  Through the thicket he could see the shepherds bounding over hedges with canine agility, their jaws snapping. Behind them—though Becher could not see them—he recognized the voices of his unit, most particularly from Corporal Dieter and Herr Wagner, the SS unit calling out to one another as a means to keep the group tight while making their way through the brush.

  Three dogs, their teeth wicked and keen looking, some salivating, drew a bead on Becher as he stood along the edge of the brook. Becher quickly poured the contents inside the satchel along the ground with bits of meat, tossed the satchel aside, then started to make his way across the stream.

  “Herr Becher,” it was Dieter. “You’re just another coward for the firing squad!”

  His movement in the water was slow, the course of the buffering stream retarding his pace.

  There was a crack of gunfire. “Becher, stop!”

  He didn’t. Becher kept moving, often glancing over his shoulder to see that the dogs had taken the bait. The meat had pulled at their senses, causing them to sniff the area surrounding the morsels and to inhale the powder. Within minutes they acted as if crazed, the powder inside their sinus passages an itch that became unreachable, a maddening sensation. The canines then pawed desperately at their muzzles and whined, the scent of Frederic Becher no longer their concern.