Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil

by Christopher Pike

  But outside where? I don’t know. I feel the evil inside him more as an absence of human qualities rather than as a tangible thing. He feels like a walking pit. I hate his companions and yet a part of me wants to shout out to them, to warn them to stay away. I fear if any of us get too close to this creature we will disappear. He has only to look at me, to stand near, to make me feel weak.

  While an SS guard sets up Major Klein’s favorite fold-out table—he has brought the same tools as before—Klein completes the introductions. The falling ash seems to have improved his mood. He sounds positively jovial.

  “Reichsführer, I’m proud to introduce our guest. The woman we have been seeking all these years. Sita.” Klein pauses. “Sita, in case you don’t recognize our esteemed visitor, permit me to introduce Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler.”

  Himmler bows in my direction. “It’s an honor, Fraülein.”

  I almost spit in his face. There is time. I smile instead.

  “Herr Himmler,” I say. “Your reputation precedes you. A friend of mine, General Hans Straffer, often spoke of you.”

  “I’m sure in glowing terms,” Major Klein interrupts hastily, looking a little worried. Naturally, I’d like to tell Himmler that when Straffer did talk about him he referred to him as “the Führer’s asshole.”

  “He said you have tremendous organizational skills,” I say, which is true.

  Himmler nods. “I remember Straffer. A good man. I’ll send for him the next time he’s in Berlin.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Our dear Major Klein had him executed.”

  Himmler slowly turns toward Klein. “True?”

  Klein stammers. “He was feeding her secret information that she was passing on to the Resistance.”

  “Not true. General Straffer was loyal. He would have never betrayed Germany.” I say this with the hope Straffer’s family will not be punished for Klein’s lies.

  Himmler shrugs. “It matters not. It’s not why we are here.”

  Major Klein stands near his master. He smiles in my direction. “Sita doesn’t understand why she is here,” he says.

  Himmler is surprised. “You don’t know?”

  “No,” I say.

  Himmler comes close. If there were the least bit of play in my chains, I would strike him dead and to hell with the consequences. But I am a bug pinned to a pole. Himmler studies me with eyes that remind me of an insect. I sense the many facets of the mind behind his gaze. It is as if the strange being inside him inhabits others as well. All thinking as one, all plotting to ruin mankind, and yet, paradoxically, all empty as well. This man’s cruelty does not arise out of anger or bitterness. It comes from nothing.

  He is like . . . nothing. An empty vehicle.

  “I have been told you refuse to explain what you did during the Battle of Kurukshetra,” he says.

  “Not so. I explained to Major Klein that on the opening day of the battle I stood on the side of the Kauravas so I could catch a glimpse of Krishna. Then, after seeing him, I retreated to the surrounding woods while the battle raged on for four days.”

  “You did not leave until the battle ended?” Himmler asks.

  “That is correct.”

  “Did you fight in the battle?”

  “No.”

  “But a devotee such as yourself, who loved Krishna so much, you must have been tempted to help the Pandavas—Arjuna and his brothers. Why didn’t you help them?”

  “My creator, Yaksha, fought on their side. With his help, I knew they couldn’t lose.”

  “Did Krishna take part in the battle?”

  “Not directly. He played the role of Arjuna’s charioteer.”

  “Why do you speak this way? Why do you say he played a role?”

  I shrug. “The whole world was nothing but a playground to Krishna. Even a major battle did not disturb him.”

  Himmler nods. “Understandable.”

  Major Klein interrupts. “You are still avoiding the question. What did you do during the four days of the battle?”

  “I have answered that question several times. I did nothing.”

  Klein snorts. “But watched and waited for another chance to see Krishna?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell us about the Kauravas,” Himmler says.

  “They had the larger army. The Pandavas had been in exile a long time. The people had grown used to Duryodhana and his hundred brothers, the Kauravas, ruling the country. They may have been an evil family but the average person did not see that evil. Duryodhana brought stability. When the Pandavas showed up, everything was thrown into disorder. For that reason, the Kauravas had at least twice the men.”

  “Would you say that war was similar to this war?” Himmler asks.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I nod in the direction of the smokestacks. “Soldiers died in those four days. Not innocents.”

  “Do you consider Jews innocent?”

  “They are like everyone else. No better, no worse.”

  Himmler brushes my hair from my eyes. “I’m disappointed to hear you say that. Your features are perfect—your blond hair, your blue eyes. Clearly you are one of the original Aryans. You may have been born in India but it was your ancestors who conquered it. They were great. Even your precious Krishna spoke of their greatness when he warned of the need of the caste system. Certain people are born to be slaves, others to be merchants, still others to be warriors. Only a few can lead.” He pauses and gestures to the smoking stacks. “Then there are the untouchables. They should never have been born at all.”

  “Krishna never taught a caste system. That was a lie the Brahmins added to the Vedas three hundred years after Krishna left the world. They did so for one reason—so they could rule the land. If you’re basing your persecution of the Jews on the theory that you are purifying the major bloodlines of mankind, then you are deluded. Krishna spoke of the oneness of mankind. And like Christ, he said there was no greater power than love.” I pause. “A pity your Führer got it wrong at the start. Had he just talked to me, he could have saved us all a lot of grief.”

  Himmler smiles, or, I should say, he tries. His expression looks more like a snake before it swallows the mouse. “You sound sure of yourself. So arrogant.”

  “Just telling you the way it is,” I reply.

  He tugs at my hair, lightly at first, then harder. His smile fades and he speaks in a sudden harsh tone. “How did the Battle of Kurukshetra end?”

  There’s a power in his voice that makes me jump. “In fire,” I say, the words leaping out of my mouth before I realize it.

  “What brought the fire?” he asks.

  I hesitate. “I don’t know.”

  “Is it that you don’t know? Or is it that you don’t remember?”

  I briefly close my eyes, trying to escape, for a moment, from his eyes. I feel as if they have begun to work inside me, although I have yet to see anyone, even Frau Cia, reach for the metal box.

  The thing inside Himmler has power. It’s not a human or vampiric power. It feels more primal. It comes from the earth, not the sky, from the ground far below us: the dirt the giant reptiles used to walk upon.

  Whatever has ahold of Himmler is ancient.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “But you did see a ball of fire on the final day of battle?”

  “Yes.”

  “How big was it?”

  “Huge.”

  “Large enough to destroy an army?”

  “Yes.”

  “A town? A city?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “Where did it come from?”

  “I told you, I don’t know.”

  “Which side did it strike? The Kauravas? Or the Pandavas?”

  I shake my head. His quick questions hit like blows to my brain. I find it hard to think. “I don’t know.”

  He practically pulls my hair out by its roots. “Which side did it strike?” he demands.

  “It
hit the Pandavas.”

  “Then it destroyed them. They lost the war.”

  “They won the war.”

  “How?”

  “It’s there in the Mahabharata. Arjuna defeated Duryodhana.”

  “But how? You just said the ball of fire struck the Pandavas.”

  “It was aimed at the Pandavas. But it struck . . . in between the two armies.”

  “You saw this with your own eyes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did the ball of fire come from?”

  I turn my face away, not caring that he pulls out a lump of my hair in the process. “I’m not sure. I think it came . . . it came from the sky.”

  There is a sudden silence. Himmler lets go of me and steps back beside his partners, Major Klein and Frau Cia. I notice then that the three are connected. Himmler is their leader, that’s clear, but they all share a puppetlike quality. Something distant pulls their strings. They nod in unison.

  “You are doing well, Sita. We are making progress,” Himmler says. “Tomorrow we will have a breakthrough.”

  With that the three of them leave.

  • • •

  Ralph Levine comes to me in the middle of the night. He surprises me; I am trying to sleep. But my sleep is nothing more than a continuous nightmare. It’s a relief to see his kind face, although he has lost all his hair and dropped so much weight his head looks like a medical lab’s skull. I loved Ralph the instant we met. He is one of those people, before I even spoke to Patton, who gave me faith in reincarnation. My feelings for him make no sense unless I’ve been with him in another time, another body. He feels like an older brother, just as Harrah feels like a younger sister.

  Ralph glances around in the dark, holding a brown paper bag in his hand. “Do guards patrol this spot?” he asks.

  “You’re lucky your wife warned me you might show up. The Nazis assigned four guards to me this evening, two in front of me, two behind me. I called over a couple at a time and flirted with them. You know I know plenty of dirty German words. After a few minutes of flirting I caught their eyes and suggested they take a nap.” I nod over my right shoulder. “The four of them are snoring in that shed over there. They’re not going to wake up anytime soon.”

  Ralph nods as he studies the area. “It’s odd how they’ve caged you out here in the open.”

  “It’s part of their psychological attack. They want me tied to this spot so I can see how easily they destroy thousands of lives. Everything they do is geared toward impressing upon me how powerful they are, and how helpless I am.”

  “I’ve brought something that might change the equation. Major Klein’s girlfriend, Frau Cia, eats with the officers. Harrah told you about our friend Father Bob. He works in the kitchen that feeds the officers. Well, tonight he gave her a hearty bowl of beef stew, her favorite. Only he laced it with liquid morphine. She barely made it back to her room.”

  “The key! You’ve got her key!”

  Ralph shakes his head. “Father Bob snuck into her room an hour after dinner. By then most of the morphine would have hit her bloodstream. She was out cold. Only he couldn’t slip her necklace over her head. The necklace was too short, or her head too big.”

  “How the hell do they use the key, then?” I ask.

  “Who knows? Maybe she only rips it off in an emergency. We’re lucky Father Bob doesn’t panic easily. He returned to the kitchen and quickly threw together some type of dough concoction, harder than normal, and snuck back into her room. She was still fast asleep. He was able to make an impression of the key.”

  “Was he able to make a copy of the key from the impression?”

  “A crude copy. Before he could pour boiling metal on the dough, he had to bake it first to make it hard enough to withstand the heat. He used yeast-free dough but it still expanded. Just as bad, the baked dough was still porous.” Ralph reached in the bag and withdrew a black key. He held it up for me to see. “He filed it down as best he could but it’s still got plenty of rough edges.”

  “How are you going to get it to me?” I ask. A practical question—the edge of my wire cage is over fifteen feet away.

  “With this.” Ralph pulls a garden hose from his bag. “Father Bob also takes care of a flower garden on the west side of the camp.”

  “Flowers grow in this hellhole?”

  “Sita. They have a school over there for the officers’ kids.”

  “Tell me about it another time. You got tape?”

  Ralph pulls out a roll of black tape. “I’ll tape it to the tip of the hose and feed it to you. But we should go slow. If we drop the key we’re doomed.”

  “Wait. Ralph, I know this is a lot to ask but . . . can you climb on top of the cage?”

  “I was thinking the same thing. The hose isn’t as stiff as I’d like. It’s better if I come at you from above.” Ralph kicks off his muddy shoes. “I’m glad they didn’t use barbed wire when they built this thing.”

  “Hurry. Climb,” I say.

  Ralph is more nimble than I would have expected, but he’s hampered by the bag he carries. I tell him to leave it on the ground, to just carry the hose and key, but he ignores me. Twice he slips and almost falls, but after a tense two minutes he’s hanging like a bat over my head. Resting his body atop the wire mesh, he carefully tapes the key to the end of the hose.

  “Ready?” he asks.

  “Yeah. But I can hardly move my hands. You’re going to have to guide the key directly to my fingers.”

  “I can’t see your fingers. I can’t see your face.”

  “Oh.” I often forget that normal people cannot see in the dark. I lean my head back as far as the pole will allow. “I’ll guide you. You’re already off to a bad start. Feed the hose through a hole in the wire a foot higher. Then try to go straight down.”

  “The hose has a major kink in it.”

  “I have taken that into account. Trust me, do what I say.”

  The distance from the roof of my cage to my pinned hands is only six feet. Ralph bangs the pole a few more times than I would have liked but it is not long before I have the key in my hands.

  Shit! He wasn’t exaggerating when he used the word “crude.” The two sides are relatively smooth but the most important parts, the edges, are rough. Plus the key is made of iron, not steel. I understand why. Iron melts at a much lower temperature than steel. The priest could never have mixed boiling steel with baked dough. Frankly, I’m amazed he was able to get any kind of key out of such a miserable mold.

  Still, the iron content worries me. It would worry me if I were trying to break out of an ordinary stainless-steel lock. But with this alloy, if there is any resistance the key will not be able to withstand the pressure. It will bend.

  All those problems, though, don’t mean a thing if I can’t fit the key into the handcuff lock. I know exactly where it is. The tips of my fingers have sweated over it for weeks.

  Unfortunately, my hands have been so deprived of a normal supply of blood for so long my fingers barely work. Several times I come close to dropping the key. Just as bad, I can’t stretch my cramped fingers far enough—and hold on to the wide end of the key—to straighten the key so that it slips directly into the lock. I keep trying to slip it in at an angle. It is all I can manage.

  “Does it fit?” Ralph asks. He is staring right down at me but to him I’m a disembodied voice.

  “So far it’s me that’s the problem,” I whisper.

  “Can I help you?”

  “You can help by being quiet.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Shh. Let me concentrate.” Finally, I feel the key catch hold and slowly shove it into the hole. Immediately I run into a bump, but I can’t tell if it’s a normal obstacle or if the key is seriously deformed. The only way to be sure is to apply greater pressure to the top of the key. Even though my hands are cramped, I’m still strong. Strong enough to easily warp a two-inch-long piece of iron.

  I push gently. Nothing happens.

&n
bsp; I push a little harder. Nothing.

  I push hard. The key slips past the first obstacle.

  It goes halfway in. Then it hits another bump.

  “Damn,” I whisper.

  “It doesn’t fit?”

  “Shut up, Ralph. Please.”

  I press hard enough to where I can feel the key beginning to bend. It’s then I realize the truth. The problem is not because the key is made of iron. It’s the wrong shape. On the positive side, by feeling the edge of the key before I slipped it in the hole, and feeling the resistance I’m now running into, I can envision what has to be done to the key to fix it. I pull it out and tell Ralph I’m taping it back onto the hose.

  “We let you down,” he says, sounding crushed.

  “No. We’re close. The second protrusion from the tip has to be filed down six millimeters. No more, no less. Also, the tip of that spot must be made rounder, less sharp-edged. Give these instructions to Father Bob, and thank him for me for risking his life to save us.”

  “The way the guards talk about you, he thinks you’re an avenging angel.”

  “After today I wouldn’t mind playing that role.” I have secured the key to the hose. “Get ready to pull it up.”

  “Not yet. I have to give you something else.”

  “What?”

  “Put the end of the hose in your mouth.”

  “Ralph! I told Harrah not to donate any blood!”

  “I didn’t let her give any. But I gave what I could and so did five other men where I sleep. I have a quart here and it’s still warm.”

  “What the hell did you tell them?”

  “I told them that you were an alien from another planet and you needed blood to survive.”

  “Bullshit. Tell me the truth.”

  “That’s what I said. They believed it, or they wanted to believe it. What matters is I got the blood. Now open your mouth and let me recharge your batteries.”

  “I won’t forget this, Ralph,” I say before slipping the tip of the hose in my mouth, my lips barely avoiding the taped key. A moment later a gush of pure ecstasy fills my mouth. The blood is warm, fresh, human. It fills every cell in my body like grace-charged ambrosia. I gulp it down, yet I don’t drink so fast that I miss why the blood feels almost sacred. It was given in love, in faith and hope. Another reason why I must do everything I can to save the people trapped in this camp.