The Children's War (74 page)

“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad,” Katerina offered.

“No?”

“No, really. I just thought you might be interested.”

“I guess I would be, if it weren’t all so personal.” He remembered his introduction to the Vogel household, remembered Karl assuring Elspeth:
He’s quite safe.
How had he been so sure? “Maybe later, when I can put some distance between them and me, maybe then I can analyze it all rationally.”

“Yes, we’d be very interested in your responses. If they’ve become very good at what they do, we need to know. We need to prepare our people.”

“Yes, I suppose with the manhunts you are all in danger anytime you enter a town or village,” he said, wondering at the courage of the ones who volunteered to return.

“Oh, no. Usually we manage to equip everybody with papers making them essential personnel in their locale—so in general, our people don’t get taken. After they’re finished with their jobs or need a break, they just come back here.”

“Do the ten of you run all this?”

“Oh, essentially. Political parties and a parliamentary representation were maintained for some years after the Germans invaded, but that was unsustainable. We’ve maintained a political wing with all the trappings of democratic representation so that it will be easier to organize an interim government after liberation, but for the time being, we’re run on military principles and under martial law. The Council gets orders from above, but we run the day-to-day stuff.”

“Above?”

“Yes, above—and that’s all you’ll get to know about that.”

“Fair enough.” He shrugged. He had no interest in probing where he was not wanted. It was one of the hardest things he had had to learn as a young recruit: to dampen his insatiable curiosity. But the lesson had been important and he had learned. In some ways he was astonished that Katerina was so loquacious. He appreciated her answers, but worried slightly that she might be overstepping her authority or the agreed wisdom of the Council. He decided to change the subject to something less dangerous. “Isn’t ten an awkward number? What happens if you get a five-to-five split vote?”

Katerina laughed; she almost doubled over with mirth at that question. “We don’t get many yes–no type questions,” she finally explained. “I know that yours was that sort . . . well, not really—I’ll tell you all about that sometime—but anyway,
usually when we poll ten people, we get twenty different votes! I swear all we do is squabble. No, the vote never splits in half. It’d be a miracle if we ever got five of us to agree on anything!”

He nodded. Clearly Katerina was prone to exaggeration, and perhaps all that she had told him was colored by an agenda, but he found he liked her, even if, in her abrupt honesty, she was not particularly gentle. He felt tired and his eyes were growing weary, so he decided not to ask any more questions. After they had sat for a moment in silence, Katerina finally told him the point of their return to the library. “Before we finish, I want to show you some documents that we have copies of here. Perhaps you’ve seen them before, perhaps not.”

She led him over to a volume of Reich documents from 1940 and paged through until she found two separate entries. The first was a set of directives signed by Brauchitsch, the commander in chief of the army at the time, entitled “Orders Concerning the Organization and Function of Military Government in England.” It contained details of the German occupation of Britain. One plan was that “the able-bodied male population between the ages of seventeen and forty-five will . . . be interned and dispatched to the Continent.” That had indeed happened, and many had not returned. During the 1950s the policy had changed, and the internment had metamorphosed into the current six-year labor draft. Other rulings directed how hostages would be taken, how posting placards would be a capital offense, how all but the most mundane household items would be confiscated, and how ownership of a radio would be punishable by death.

Peter was familiar with most of it: he had read pieces of this and other documents, he had learned the history of his people since the war, and he had experienced the day-to-day occupation of his country all his life. There was little in the plans that had not been implemented in one form or another. He looked up from the entry, curious as to what Katerina expected him to say. While he had been reading, she had pulled down several other volumes and had marked entries in each. She indicated that he should read the second entry that she had selected and refer to the other volumes as necessary, then she sat down to wait as he did so.

The second selection was a long chapter of excerpts from diaries, logs, lectures, and directives. It told of the German plans for Poland—to convert the entire population into a slave labor colony, to annihilate the nobility, the clergy, the intelligentsia, the military and political leadership, and to exterminate any and all Jews and other “undesirables.” It spoke of how the Poles, bereft of all their leaders, could be forcibly sterilized en masse to prevent procreation and could then be safely worked to a slow collective death as slaves of the Reich. Footnotes, from later dates, sent him to the other volumes for documentation of the occupation and the plan’s implementation: gruesome experiments, enslavement, death camps, mass starvation, slaughter. There were handy charts and detailed numbers. All the sources were German officials who were quite proud of their
accomplishments, and there were numerous photographs and other proofs that their accounts were valid. The documents were horrific in their cold-bloodedness: there was no expression of dismay, no question about the direction the Reich was taking, only cold, almost gleeful, accounts of human misery.

After a long while he looked up. “Why did you have me read this?”

“I imagine that you are familiar with the realities of the first series of documents.”

He nodded.

“So you will have an easier time understanding and believing the second set.”

“I do. But that still doesn’t explain why.”

“No, it doesn’t. I won’t explain now, because that would be pointless, you are not ready to understand. But someday, remember what you read here. Remember that we, too, have our own sad tales.”

“You’re being rather patronizing.”

She smiled. “Perhaps. But now that you have escaped them, you will look for a fairy-tale ending to your suffering. It won’t happen. It never does. And in your frustration, you will look to us to bring your salvation. Do not be surprised when we are unable to deliver.”

He shook his head. “But you agreed to let me stay here! I don’t need more than that. I won’t expect anything. I’ve never depended on anybody but myself.”

Katerina looked at him indulgently as though he were a sweet, naive child, but she did not say anything.

“Is it still going on?” he asked, gesturing toward the words he had read. Anything to stop her from looking at him like that.

“Some of it—”

A spasm of pain shot up from his leg through his body and involuntarily he gasped.

“Are you in pain?” Katerina asked.

“Not really.”

“The human body does not bear such abuse well.”

“It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“I seriously doubt that,” she countered coldly. “Although they are less prone to crush bones than they once were . . .”

He heard the catch in her voice. “Who are you thinking about?” he asked gently.

Katerina frowned at him as if embarrassed, but her frown gave way to a sad smile and she said, “All these years and still I don’t forget. I was thinking of my sister. She was a courier for the Jewish Underground. She was small and slight and it was easy for her to slip through sewer grates in and out of the ghetto. She was caught by the Gestapo and . . .” Katerina heaved a great sigh. “The last we heard of her, they crushed every bone in her body while interrogating her. Naked, of course. Seems our ‘supermen’ are not above . . . The note smuggled out of the prison told us her arms were broken and the lower half of her body was in shreds.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter said, feeling utterly helpless.

“It was a long time ago. As I was saying,” Katerina continued brusquely, “unlike my sister, they did not intend to kill you, but they also had no intention of preserving your health, and consequently, you will be weaker and in pain for the rest of your life. You are, how shall we say, damaged goods? That was, after all, their intent: to
make
you inferior, so that you would be a suitable slave.”

He ducked his head, unable to deny the truth in her words.

“As a bonus, they were able to demonstrate their complete contempt for your life,” Katerina explained into his silence. “From an internal source we have, I know that the attrition rate in those reeducation programs was around fifty percent. Most of those were simply killed when they were deemed unfit for work.”

His eyes drifted nervously around the room. One out of every two. He had understood that statistic intuitively at the time, and it was no wonder that he had left their tender mercies and stepped into his new role with the Reusches so full of unnamed and unrecognized fear that he had not ever seriously considered doing anything that might cause him to be sent back.

“You must have survived,” Katerina continued relentlessly, “not for any reasons of strength or determination, but because you showed sufficient pliancy.”

“It was an act,” he muttered defensively.

“Apparently a very good one,” she chuckled. “Anyway, they’ve refined their techniques, thanks to you and your fellows, so that now they claim an eighty percent survival rate. Not bad, eh?”

“If you were already aware of these reeducation programs, why did you doubt my story?” he asked angrily.

“It is not your prerogative to question the decisions of the Council,” she answered haughtily. “However, consider this: Was it just coincidence that your owner is highly placed in the Security Ministry? Perhaps he made some sort of deal for your life. You have exhibited an incredible desire to stay alive, and by your own admission you have no loyalties left. No command structure, no loved ones, not even a God that you must answer to.”

“It’s not like that!” he insisted, but in his mind he heard himself promise:
Whatever it takes.

“Who knows?” Katerina shrugged. “In any case, we have taken an unnecessary risk in allowing you to live. Show some gratitude.”

“Ah, so I should grovel at your mercy?” he snapped, regretting his words even as he spoke. He
was
grateful, but she had managed to make him feel that he had only exchanged one form of servitude for another!

“Your anger is misdirected. It is not our job to rescue you, nor have we ever done you any injury. We owe you nothing. Our rule is, we are not guilty for their actions. And for you, I might add a second rule. You live on sufferance here, and you would do well to remember that.”

Peter glared at her but there was nothing he could say. He was grateful.
He was grateful!
But where was that fantasy ending he had always written to his
story? Where was the dream that had sustained him? The one where he was welcomed as a hero, embraced and kissed and comforted and thanked? Or even just greeted with a warm smile?

Where were the words that would have made just one hour of torture bearable? Where were the words? Without realizing it, his fingers clawed at his manacle.

“Now,” Katerina said, her eyes indicating his wrist, “let’s get that thing off you.”

2

“Y
OU HAVE SCAR TISSUE
here and here,” the physician said, running his fingers along Peter’s cheekbones. “It’s harmless, just the result of being repeatedly pounded, but it changes the shape of your face slightly.”

Peter nodded, unconcerned. Along with organizing the dental work that he had desperately needed, Zosia had insisted on a medical examination. He had reluctantly consented and allowed himself to be poked and prodded by three doctors over several days. They had discovered that he had had broken ribs on more than one occasion, but that most of his injuries had seemed to heal fairly well. They took X rays of his lungs and shook their heads ruefully at the images of scar tissue. They noted old fractures on his arms and legs and skull and told him, uselessly, that he had received a number of severe blows to the head. They also discovered that his recurrent headaches and occasional blurred vision were due to “trauma,” which was simply a way of saying he had been hit one too many times in the face. Now he was sitting through the final consultation, and these results were summarized by the staff physician—a balding, gnomelike fellow who wore an oversize lab coat and kept nervously fingering his stethoscope.

The physician pinned an X ray onto a backlit screen. “And see here, you have some damage to some vertebrae. I guess someone really whacked you pretty hard across the back, eh? Kicked you, maybe?”

His eyes drifted off the X ray to the cabinets aligning the wall. “What’s the damage?” he finally asked.

“Hard to say. Whenever you’re dealing with nerves, you never know when things are going to go wrong.”

“Thanks for the cheerful news,” he commented morosely, wondering at the wisdom of having a checkup.

“Could affect your back or your legs or your neck around this area.” The physician placed a finger at the base of Peter’s skull. “That, not surprisingly, can give you pretty awful headaches.”

“What can be done about it?”

The physician shrugged. “Painkillers.”

“Great,” Peter responded sarcastically. “What else?”

“Your legs,” the physician continued ruefully. “They healed well enough, I suppose, but I imagine they give you some trouble now and then?”

“Sometimes. Can you do anything for them?”

The physician pursed his lips.

“I know, I know. Painkillers.”

“We have these.” The physician handed him a small bottle of evil-looking pills. “Very strong, so I advise you don’t use them often. And they’re addictive.”

He nodded.

“Be careful with them, but take one if the pain gets unbearable.” Unbearable. Now there was a concept. He doubted that anything would hurt more now than it did originally, and he had borne that. After having had so many drugs pumped into him involuntarily, he was not sure he wanted to take any more, but he accepted the bottle and dropped it into his shirt pocket, thanking the doctor as he did so.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s much we can do about your vision. At least not here.”

“Where then?”

“In a properly outfitted hospital, they could do some more extensive testing. Maybe they could enact some repairs with lasers or surgery. Usually we get our people into a major hospital with appropriate papers and identifications to make sure they are important enough to get good treatment, then we see to it that our doctors are assigned to work on them. Unfortunately the hospital staff is, naturally, mostly their people”—it was clear from his tone who
they
were—“and getting you in there . . . Well, to put it bluntly, you’re a marked man. There’s no way we could pass you off as . . . well, you know, not with the scrutiny one undergoes in a hospital.”

Peter nodded, unseeing. Would he never escape the bastards? Even here, even now, he could feel their choke hold on his life. He looked up at the physician. “Am I going to lose my sight?”

The doctor hesitated longer than was comfortable; finally he said, “I don’t know.”

Peter closed his eyes, but he opened them again immediately, irrationally afraid that his sight would disappear if he failed to use it. He looked around the office, savored the view, tried to impress on himself how grateful he was for his vision, as though begging his eyes not to deny him a gift he fully appreciated.

The physician wandered over to a drawer and rooted around a bit. Finally he found what he was looking for and brought it over to Peter.“Here”—he held out a glasses case—“these might help prevent the headaches. Wear them outside and whenever the light is bright.”

Peter reached inside the case and pulled out a pair of dark sunglasses in a wire-rim frame. He put them on and leaned back to see his reflection in the mirror
that hung over the counter. He smiled indulgently at the unfamiliar image, removed the glasses, and thanked the physician. Maybe it would help. Then he looked down at his arm. “Is there any way to remove this?”

The doctor shook his head. “I’m not an expert, but I don’t think so. They really have gotten efficient at that, haven’t they? The dyes are—well, it’s not my field, but as far as I know, there’s nothing that dissolves them that wouldn’t take your skin off as well.”

“What about burning it off?”

“Ech.” The physician frowned, his bald forehead wrinkling with distaste. “I don’t think that would work. They inject the dye quite deep—don’t you remember the pain?”

“I was out. It did hurt afterward though.”

“Well, if you burned the skin off, you’d have to go quite deep; probably you’d get some muscle and nerves. I once heard something about some technique involving lasers, but if there is one, it’s not for the likes of you and me— especially you! You’d have to check into a hospital and, well, there’s the rub. Anyway, we don’t do anything like that here, we’re just a clinic really. And an occasional emergency room.”

The physician must have read Peter’s expression, because he felt inclined to continue, “I think you can understand, we usually have more pressing issues to worry about. I don’t think you could find anybody to do it for you, it’s just not that important.”

Peter ran his fingers along the numbers: one three one four seven oh eight. How many times had he run that through his mind? “It never changes,” he muttered.

“What?”

He hadn’t realized he had spoken aloud. “It never changes.” The doctor nodded in that absently sympathetic way that doctors do and then, as if to conclude, asked, “Is there anything else?”

Slightly confused by the question, Peter shook his head. Shouldn’t he be asking-that of the doctor? Then he remembered something unusual that had happened at the Vogel household and decided to ask about it. The doctor was already heading out of the room, so Peter had to call after him. “Wait! Yes.”

The doctor turned and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“Some months ago, in February, actually . . .” In February, when he had been reeling from Karl’s revenge, there had been a midday knock on the door. He had gone to answer it and had been horrified to see three officials—one a policeman, the other two in white lab coats, such as doctors wear. As they requested, he fetched Frau Vogel. She came to meet them at the door, equally mystified, and invited them in. They had told her that they had something of importance to discuss and looked pointedly at him. Frau Vogel sent him from the room with a dismissive nod, but within a matter of minutes he was called back into the sitting room. Frau Vogel was by the window, leaning over a table, signing some papers.

She did not even look up as he came into the room; instead one of the whitecoated men told him to roll up his sleeve.

A tourniquet was put on him, the white-coated man snapped a finger at a vein in the crook of his arm until it stood out, and then the other white-coated man produced a needle. The needle was injected and emptied and the tourniquet released. Frau Vogel returned the papers, the men thanked her, and they left without a word of explanation.

For the next several days, he had lived in horror of what might have been injected into his bloodstream. He had a fever and felt ill the following day, but with Karl constantly hammering him, it was rare he felt well in any case. The gossip around the town square—all the
Zwangsarbeiter,
and no one else, had been injected—was that it was some sort of inoculation against a communicable disease.

“Nothing came of it, as far as I know. I never got particularly sick or anything. Do you have any idea what they did then?” Peter asked, hoping at last for an answer to the mystery.

“I don’t suppose you used to have brown eyes?” the doctor joked.

“No.” Peter found the reference to a cruel medical experiment in extremely bad taste.

“Well, clearly they used you as guinea pigs,” the physician answered seriously. “They were probably just doing a field test on a new vaccine or something. Certainly, if there was a disease scare and they had something they knew was safe, they wouldn’t have skipped their own people. No, it was clearly a test.”

“I guessed that much myself,” Peter said, somewhat exasperated. Was this fellow good for anything? “Can you tell me what they injected?”

“Your blood doesn’t show anything really unusual. You’ve been sick with some of the normal lousy-living-condition illnesses, and any one of them could have been caused by that shot. Or none of them.” The physician looked at Peter sympathetically and added rather uncharacteristically, “Sorry. Don’t worry about it, I don’t think the shot did any long-term damage.”

After the examinations and dentistry were completed, Peter was called before the Council to discuss his skills.

Katerina began, “Clearly, you have much experience that could be of value to us—you know a great deal about the current state of German society—at least a segment of it. In a few days, a psychiatrist and a sociologist will be here to interrogate—”

“Interview,” Zosia suggested.

“—question you at length for a few weeks. They’ll report back to HQ with the information they’ve gained. After that we need to know what you can do.”

A few weeks? What in God’s name could they want to know? Although Zosia had been careful to get Katerina to reword what she had said, he could not help but feel dread at the prospect of being interrogated or interviewed or questioned
for such a long time. He remembered his conversation with Katerina in the library—clearly she was pursuing her interests to their logical conclusion. It took a moment for him to realize that everyone was waiting for him to speak. He looked at them blankly.

“Your skills?” Hania prompted.

He began with the basics. He had had reasonable weapons and assault training, but he was no longer a kid, and it was decided that he should not, in general, be used for direct assaults such as sabotage. They were equally unimpressed by his long-ago training as a sniper, though a note was made for future reference.

“We have more than enough people who know how to fire a gun,” Wanda commented archly.

“How about propaganda,” Peter suggested. “The English Underground put out a so-called German Resistance newspaper; I used to contribute articles now and then. I’m fluent and I’m experienced, so my work is easily passed off as genuine. If you want, I can organize such a newspaper for you.”

Tadek, Wojciech, and Wanda started to laugh.

He thought they were questioning his abilities, so he added, “Look, I can make it realistic, I’ve seen the genuine article. Teresa passed
The Parliamentarian
on to me sometimes, and Geerd had a copy of
The Nationalist.”
Those were both illegal newspapers genuinely originating from the shadowy German Resistance, and they were the only evidence he had ever seen of the German Underground’s existence.

Now the entire Council was laughing. Katerina finally motioned for order and stated not unkindly, “Those are ours. I’m sure you can contribute an article now and then, but we have plenty of writers. Is there anything else?”