Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil

by Christopher Pike

  I feel a huge ache when the flow suddenly stops.

  “Had enough?” Ralph asks hopefully.

  “Plenty!” I lie. I’m so depleted, I could have drunk a gallon. Yet within seconds of consuming the blood, my pain begins to diminish. The first to go is the cramping in my diaphragm. I can breathe again! For the night, at least, my slow crucifixion has halted. My frame of mind takes a big jump in the positive direction and I’m able to think clearer. As Ralph carefully pulls the key back up, I come up with an idea.

  “Ralph, I told you, they’ve brought me topside to see you and Harrah, and to experience firsthand the horror of this place. But that underground room where I first woke up was built for me. It’s the one cage they know I can’t break out of. I bet they put me back there tomorrow. For that reason, after Father Bob modifies the key, I need you or him to place it on top of the pole down there. There’s a flat spot at the top that I can just reach.”

  “Will the guards see it?”

  “I doubt it. The top of the post is taller than any guard. And they won’t be looking for it because it’s not missing. People generally don’t see what they don’t expect to find. The key must be left on the top side near the door. They usually have me pointed in that direction. Now, repeat what I told you about the outline of the key.”

  Ralph repeats my instructions word for word.

  “Perfect,” I say. “Now get out of here before anyone sees you.”

  “God must be on our side to get this far,” he says as he climbs down. As he turns to leave, I almost tell him that five thousand years of experience has taught me that God doesn’t work that way.

  But I like to think that if Auschwitz has no other purpose, then at least it exists to test the faithful. It’s a childish thought to have while covered in the ash of a thousand ghosts. I feel shame that I even try to frame such pain in my mind. Still, a part of me struggles to make sense of what I have seen.

  It’s as if the agony of those on the train cries for answers.

  Or for a reason.

  I can’t block out the memory of the screams I heard today when the gas poured down on the women and children. I can’t imagine what they felt in those last minutes. I can only hope in the midst of such unfathomable cruelty that a spark of something decent—call it God’s grace or simply a quick blackout—came to them. More, much more, I pray that their final prayers have been answered and they have been lifted up to a paradise where there’s no suffering, not even the memory of this . . . their last day on earth.

  “Krishna,” I cry in the dark, saying his name over and over again. As is often the case, between cursing and pleading I try my best to envision his dark blue eyes. But sadly, in such a place they elude me, and I’m left with the empty feeling that he is far, far away.

  I fear the Nazis are going to beat me.

  • • •

  The next day I’m still locked in the wire cage when Major Klein, Frau Cia, and Himmler come to question me. Again they bring the table and their torturous tools. They place the table four feet in front of me and set down a bulky tape recorder between the knife and the bottle of gasoline. It must run on batteries. Himmler does not turn it on before facing me.

  “Time to tell us what we want to know,” he says.

  “I have told you everything I know,” I reply.

  “Everything you remember?” he says.

  I hesitate. “Yes.”

  “Your first answer was a lie. Your second, the truth.” He nods to himself as he circles the pole. “You know it is possible for a human being to know something and not remember. It is common when there is a major trauma associated with the memory. For example, I have no memory of how my mother died, although I was ten at the time. I had just come from school and found my parents arguing. It seems my father had caught my mother in bed with another man. He was furious, of course, and I was worried he was going to hurt my mother. But I was also angry with her, very angry.” Himmler stops. “The next thing I knew I was at my mother’s funeral. Three days had passed.”

  “That must have been quite a shock,” I say.

  “It was, yes, a terrible shock. Especially when I heard my father and other relatives whispering to each other as we walked back to the car. Do you know what they were saying?”

  “No.”

  “They were discussing how I was the one who killed my mother.”

  His answer stuns me. He’s telling me the truth, and yet I know from reading about his life that he was close to his parents, and that both were supposed to have survived until he was an adult.

  Of course, it is the Nazis who have written the story of his life.

  Lies. It is all lies, and now he’s telling me the truth.

  Himmler stops and picks up a knife from the table before continuing. “To this day I don’t recall where I got the knife I used to stab my mother in the back. I must have secreted it away at some point. The facts speak for themselves. She was dead, we had just buried her.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?” Himmler sounds genuinely puzzled.

  “You were a child. You couldn’t have known what you were doing.”

  He smiles faintly and I feel a disturbing chill. “On the contrary, later I was to realize I experienced a moment of brilliant clarity when I pulled out the knife and stuck it in that bitch’s spine.” He pauses. “But it took years for the memory to come back to me.”

  How can I respond to such insanity? I remain silent.

  “I think your situation is similar. You know what happened at the end of the Battle of Kurukshetra but it traumatized you and you have blocked it out. I also think that another trauma, equally devastating, will bring the memory back.” Himmler approaches with his knife and gently scratches the tip of my nose with the blade. “What do you think, Sita?”

  “I think you hated your mother long before you put that knife in her back.”

  Himmler is pleased. “You’re right. Almost as much as I hated my father. He died when I was sixteen. Bled to death in his sleep. Someone cut his throat.”

  Another blip in his traditional life story.

  “Lovely,” I say.

  He brushes the knife over my eyelashes. “But if I were to do that to you, it would not do us much good. So I’ll have to be more careful. Move slowly, let you enjoy every sensation.” He stops. “Or.”

  “Or what?”

  “You can start talking now.”

  I consider his proposition. I could lie, I could make up almost any kind of story, but there is something about this man—he can smell a lie.

  “I can’t,” I say.

  He nods as if he expected no other answer and hands the knife to Major Klein. Himmler steps back, perhaps to spare his clothes, while Klein approaches with enthusiasm. The man is a sadist—he obviously gets pleasure from causing others pain.

  “Ready, Sita?” he asks.

  Like his question deserves an answer.

  He stabs me two inches to the right of my left shoulder. The blade sinks in perhaps three inches and shreds the nerve bundle there. The pain is instant and total. Honestly, it is hard to imagine it could get any worse.

  Until he stabs me two inches to the left of my right shoulder.

  Blood leaks over my filthy shirt but it does not gush. Klein has been careful not to sever a major artery or vein. They need me alive. They need to know what happened to me five thousand years ago. But despite the trauma of the present, I cannot recall what I saw or did back then.

  “Let her recover!” Himmler snaps as Klein prepares to slice into the side of my left rib cage. The major takes a step back and waits beside his boss while Frau Cia stands like a statue in the rain. The drizzle from the gray sky starts again, and the cold water, as it trickles over my front, causes a shallow pool at my feet to turn red.

  Slowly, my wounds begin to heal; it is slow for me. Because of my awkward position, because I cannot breathe properly, the pain is magnified. I try not to let it show but am unsuccess
ful. Himmler looks on as if he is watching how an animal reacts to having its tail chopped off. The man appears devoid of even the slightest trace of empathy, and it is that lack, spread throughout the rank and file of the men and women of the SS who herd the Jews to their deaths, that is the engine that drives this camp.

  How strange to think of a lack of a quality as a driving force.

  Himmler is a complex mass of emptiness.

  “Again,” he says to Major Klein when I have stopped bleeding. This time Klein stoops low and rolls up my trousers past my knees. There is no question he has studied anatomy. He knows where the nerve bundles are. Taking the tip of the knife, placing it not far below my knee, he slowly slips the tip between my shin bone and calf muscle, before suddenly yanking down.

  I let out a piercing cry. I can’t help myself.

  He does my other leg. Oh, God, he’s never going to stop.

  But he does stop, each time he cuts, just long enough for me to stop bleeding. Himmler insists on the recovery periods. Nevertheless, the red in the pool at my feet grows darker. There is only so much blood in my veins. Whatever strength Ralph’s transfusion gave me last night is long gone.

  My sight begins to dim as my thoughts dull. It’s possible I pass out, I’m not sure, but I notice that a long period of time goes by without a fresh burst of agony. When I finally do open my eyes, I see a fourth person has entered the wire cage. A man in the same prison garb that Harrah and Ralph were wearing.

  Anton. They have captured Anton.

  I stare at him in utter despair.

  “Why?” I cry. “Why did you come?”

  He shrugs. “You came for me.”

  I shake my head. “Oh, darling. Do you never think?”

  Himmler moves to my side and speaks so softly only I can hear. “I’m not surprised at your ability to resist pain. You are ancient, you have been through so much, suffered so many traumas. It’s obvious you cannot be broken with physical torture. But your emotions, the silly things you still feel—those surprise me. I assumed you would have outgrown such nonsense. Clearly I was wrong. Still, I’m glad you possess this weakness, you should be as well. Together we can use it to restore what you have lost, and once we have the truth of those days, nothing can stop us.” He pauses. “I hope you appreciate what I am offering you, Sita.”

  “Heinrich,” I say, calling him by the name his parents gave him. “Go to hell. I will tell you nothing.”

  Himmler nods seriously. “We shall see. We shall see.”

  Guards are called for. They bring another pole, one made of wood, that they pound into the mud in front of me. Anton is strapped to it and the guards leave. All the while Major Klein paces, excited. He can hardly wait for Himmler to give him the word.

  When all is set, Himmler approaches again and speaks quietly. “We are going to repeat the experiment, only this time on him. It will be much harder. He will not heal, his blood will not stop pouring out on the ground. Even though we will try to draw it out as long as possible, he won’t last forever. You have to accept the cost of your refusal to cooperate.”

  “How can I tell you what I can’t remember?” I plead.

  He nods sympathetically. “How indeed?”

  Himmler nods to Klein, who picks up the knife.

  The major does not repeat the “experiment” exactly. No, Anton would die too quickly from the wounds Klein has given me. Instead the major chooses to slowly skin Anton alive.

  He starts with the back of his hands and works upward.

  Anton screams and screams. He can’t stop, and the sound, the pain, it seems to resonate in every lump of mud, every brick in every building in the whole camp. Anton is my friend, my lover. Yesterday, I did not know the people the train brought to die. Yet I hear their screams in his. They are sewn into the fabric of this hellish place that no sane God should ever have allowed to be created.

  I curse God then. I curse Krishna.

  With all my heart, I hate the one I love most.

  Until I remember something he said long ago.

  Himmler sees that I remember and turns on his recorder.

  He orders Klein to stop cutting and me to talk.

  We both obey.

  • • •

  The battle is three days old and the Pandavas are close to defeat. The Pandavas have Arjuna’s fearsome bow on their side, Bhima’s great strength, Yudhisthira’s strategic mind. They even have Krishna with them, acting as Arjuna’s charioteer. But it is not enough. The Kauravas outnumber them two to one. In the end, the enemy will outlast them.

  Working as a nurse to the injured Kauravas, I watch the battle from the surrounding woods and see that even with Yaksha fighting on the side of the Pandavas, they are being driven back. It’s amazes me that anyone can resist him but studying the battle, I notice that three men on the Kauravas’ side are able to thwart Yaksha: Duryodhana, king of the Kauravas; Bhishma, who taught the Pandavas and Duryodhana and his brothers how to fight; and Karna, the half brother of the Pandavas.

  Legend has it that Duryodhana is really a demon, although he has ruled India fairly. I know for a fact that Yaksha was born of a yakshini, a type of demon. Perhaps I should not be surprised that Duryodhana is able to stand up to my creator.

  Besides Krishna, Bhishma is the most beloved soul on the battlefield. He is a master to the Pandavas. They can’t kill him because they don’t want to kill him. Yet Bhishma fights, he’s not afraid to slay those who stand before him, and so the Pandavas are losing.

  And Karna: Krishna himself has said he is the first and greatest of the Pandavas, although his brothers have forsaken him because he was born of a different mother. It doesn’t seem to matter how many arrows Arjuna lets fly in his direction, Karna dodges them.

  All but one.

  On the third day Karna takes an arrow in the leg.

  His guards bring him to the doctors’ tent and the surgeon in charge is able to remove the shaft, but Karna is in tremendous pain. At heart, because Krishna supports the Pandavas, so do I. The only reason I’m acting as a nurse is so I can stay near the battle and possibly see Krishna. Something about Karna draws me, however. I sneak up on him while he dozes after drinking an opiate concoction. He is barely conscious and yet I feel his kindness. On impulse, I open a vein and let several drops of my blood splash over his wound. He heals in minutes and opens his eyes.

  “Who are you?” he asks.

  “My name is Kunti.”

  “You took away my pain.”

  “The doctor did. He removed the arrow.”

  Karna is not fooled. “It was you,” he mumbles as he falls back asleep.

  I leave the tent in a hurry. Touching Karna has only intensified my longing for Krishna, and I run to the edge of the woods. But it is hard to get a glimpse of him in the chaos. The dusty battlefield is vast. I stand five miles from the front lines, a long way for even me to spot Krishna’s eyes.

  Yet I feel him, out there in the midst of the bloody mayhem, silently calling to me, and on the night before the fourth day of battle, I put aside my fear of Yaksha and steal across the lines and enter the Pandavas’ camp. The moon is full, it stands almost straight overhead, and a thousand fires burn beside a hundred thousand weary soldiers. So many men, so many tents, where am I to find Krishna?

  Then I spot a strange woman. Her skin is bronze, her eyes black as her long hair, and she is dressed in clothes I have never seen before. Her gown looks as if it has been woven of gold and silk.

  Yet none of that matters. It’s the way she moves that catches my eye. An ordinary human would not notice, but I can tell she can move from one place to another in the blink of an eye. At first I assume she’s a vampire and wonder why Yaksha has not destroyed her, especially with Krishna nearby. Then I hear the beat of her heart. It is powerful, but human, too.

  She is something new. I ask a soldier, a captain of men, if he knows her name. He hesitates and then whispers in my ear. “Umara. Some say she is a witch. She comes from across the sea.”<
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  The instant he says her name, I notice the woman watching me. Then, beckoning for me to follow, she leaps into the woods. I chase after her, fast as I can, and yet I’m unable to catch her. She doesn’t halt until she reaches a campfire deep in the forest. There she sits on the ground beside Yaksha, across from Krishna.

  Seeing my Lord, I sink to the ground where I remain hiding in the woods. The small group around Krishna is full of questions.

  “Maharaj,” a man says to Krishna. “Last night, while I was resting, I saw lights in the sky. Like stars, only brighter and larger. They moved very fast.”

  “I saw them as well,” another man says.

  Krishna picks up a stick and pokes at the fire, shaking the embers on the burning logs. A metal spit hangs over the flames but whatever they were cooking earlier has already been eaten. I have not eaten and ordinarily the smell of food would make me hungry. Yet it is enough, for me, to be near Krishna.

  “This is the battle of this age,” he says. “Many have gathered to fight. But this battle is being fought on many worlds—realms that can’t be seen with the eye. It is because of the time. This age is drawing to a close. It will end when my life ends. Then a new age will dawn, the age of Kali Yuga.”

  “What will Kali Yuga be like?” someone asks.

  Krishna reaches down and lifts up a handful of dirt. “Kali Yuga is the dark age. It is a time when men’s senses and minds will tell them but one truth—if it is true at all—that this earth is all that they are. Consider this point deeply. You are born of the earth, and when you die your body goes back to the earth. In Kali Yuga people will believe this is the ultimate truth. They will lose all touch with their spirit.”

  “Will they no longer believe in God?” a man asks.

  “Many will continue to believe in God. But belief is of no value if one loses the joy of the soul. In the years to come saints and seers will be replaced by priests and preachers. They will talk about nothing but God. But their God will always be outside them, far off in a distant heaven, and they will curse those who refuse to worship their form of God.” Krishna drops the dirt on the ground. “Fools. They would be better off believing in the earth.”