Gretchen stepped up to the door and addressed the three boys. “Follow them,” she commanded, pointing to Jeff and his friends. “Do whatever they say. Understand?”
The boys stared up at her. Gretchen scowled and raised her hand.
“Now!”
The boys scrambled to their feet. As confused and terrified as they were, that familiar voice cut through everything like a knife. They were not afraid of Gretchen, exactly. But
nobody—
no child or woman in the family, at least—would ever dream of disobeying her. They knew that large hand well, and everything behind it. The hand was hard. The muscles which wielded it were not much softer. But, most of all, the will which commanded the muscles was like iron itself. A steel angel, forged in the Devil’s inferno.
Satisfied, Gretchen turned away. “It will be done,” she told the duchess. “Lead us where you will.”
There were still problems, of course, in the time which followed. The women squawled again, when the duchess ordered them to remove their clothing.
It’s all we have! We own nothing else!
Gretchen silenced them with a bellow.
The duchess ordered them to place the clothing into large, metal baskets. Then, to push the baskets through a low door. Beyond, as best as Gretchen could understand, the clothes would be boiled and cleaned before they were returned.
The women squawled again.
They will be stolen!
Gretchen bellowed again. It was not enough. She raised her hand. But the duchess stopped her with her own, shaking her head. A moment later, the duchess began to remove her own clothing.
That wondrous act brought silence. The family stared, as nobility disrobed. The duchess did not linger over the task. Gretchen was surprised to see how quickly and easily the garments were removed. She would have thought a duchess needed maidservants.
She was even more surprised by the body which was revealed, once the duchess was naked. An old woman, yes. But if the breasts sagged, they were not withered dugs. If the buttocks were no longer firm and plump, they were still buttocks. And everywhere—arms and shoulders and legs and midsection and hips—the muscles were lean, almost taut. The duchess’ body, for all its signs of age, seemed to vibrate with health. If she were a man, Gretchen knew, she would find that body desirable still.
The duchess carried her clothing to one of the baskets. For a moment, she seemed to hesitate. Then, with a wry little smile and a shrug of the shoulders, she pitched the royal garments onto the rags of destitution. She turned away and marched toward a further door, waving her hand in a gesture of command. Pushing the door open, she entered a room whose floor was tiled.
Thereafter, there was no further squawling.
Squeals, yes, when the duchess turned a knob and hot water began showering down upon the family.
Moans of fear, yes. When the duchess passed out bars of—soap?—and began demonstrating their use.
The Inquisition will think we are Jews! We will be burned!
Blubbers of confusion, yes. When the duchess insisted that they scrub their hair with some harsh and caustic substance. It would kill fleas, apparently. Such, at least, was how Gretchen interpreted her words.
But no squawls. Gretchen was forced to bellow only once. That was to stop three of the children from their gleeful play, squeezing bars of soap at each other like missiles.
When the strange ritual was over, and they were all drying themselves with marvelous soft fabrics (“towels,” they were called), the duchess came up to Gretchen. She studied her for a moment, her hazel eyes ranging up and down Gretchen’s body. Gretchen wondered why. She wondered even more when the duchess started shaking her head. It seemed a wry gesture, almost rueful.
The duchess spoke softly. She seemed to be talking to herself rather than Gretchen. The tone of her voice held an unusual mixture of humor and worry.
Gretchen understood some of it.
“—this problem—what to do—dirt gone, she’s a damned—” Here the headshake grew very rueful. “—built like a brick—” The duchess tilted back her head and laughed. It was a gay sound. “Jeff”—something—“drop dead”—something—“sees her!”
The humor faded. Worry remained. The duchess’ eyes seemed to bore into Gretchen’s, as if trying to probe her soul. Or, perhaps, simply to find it.
Gretchen straightened. The existence of her soul she did not doubt. And
damn
this duchess if she thought it was not there!
Apparently, the duchess was satisfied. The frown of worry remained, but the rueful twist of the lips returned. Gretchen understood, without quite knowing why. The duchess’ concern, whatever it was, did not involve a condemnation of Gretchen. Simply a condemnation of the world which had brought her forth.
The duchess shook her head again. Not ruefully, but almost angrily. Quick, fierce phrases were muttered. “—that young man! —him straight! —be no taking”—something;
advance? adage?
—“of this poor girl!”
She turned and started to stalk away. Then, catching sight of Annalise, she stopped. Gretchen’s sister, coming under that royal scrutiny, shied away a step or two. Hesitantly, she lowered the towel. Her body was fully exposed. Naked, the strips of cloth gone with which Gretchen had bound her chest and hips for the past year, the truth was obvious.
But there was no Diego the Spaniard any longer, from whom that truth had to be hidden. Gretchen had sent the Spaniard back to his homeland. His true homeland, a much hotter place than Spain. Diego was squatting at Satan’s feet, now, leaking blood and brains over his master’s iron flagstones. Gretchen took that moment to wish eternal agony upon his shade.
There was only a duchess to see, now. Whence that duchess had come, from what homeland, Gretchen had no idea at all. But not Diego’s, of that she was utterly certain.
The duchess stared at Annalise. Turned her head. Stared at Gretchen. Ranged her eyes up and down. More muttering. “—her sister soon. Already!” She stared around the room, subjecting all the younger women to a quick scrutiny. “—half of them—that matter.”
Her eyes fell on the new farm girl. Now that the dirt and dried blood were gone, and the bruises were fading, the girl’s body did not seem quite so shapeless. But Gretchen, unlike the duchess, did not spend any time examining the body. She was much more interested in the farm girl’s face.
Yes
. There was light coming back into those eyes. Not much, but some. For the first time since Gretchen met her, the girl even managed a shy little smile.
Yes!
If anything, however, the smile seemed to increase the duchess’ obvious agitation. She threw up her hands. The gesture combined despair, exasperation, fretfulness, and—yes, still, some humor.
The duchess marched over to a metal cabinet against a far wall and opened it. Within, hanging tightly side by side, were a row of garments. Very soft-looking and luxurious. She began pulling them forth. Robes.
To the amazement of the women and children, the duchess began handing them out. Hesitantly, at first, then with cries of sheer pleasure as they felt the fabric—
so soft! so soft!
—they donned their new finery. They stood quietly as the duchess stumbled through an explanation. Gretchen interpreted as best she could. The new clothing would be theirs only for a time. Until their old clothing was returned, and perhaps—Gretchen was not certain, here—new clothing might be forthcoming. But they would wear the wonderful robes for a while. Until others came, others like them, who needed that same comfort.
For all the acquisitiveness of desperately poor people, Gretchen and her family accepted the news willingly enough. They were not Diego the Spaniard, after all, to take pleasure in the pain of others. Certainly not such others as those, who were not other at all.
When they emerged from the building, Jeff and his friends and the three older boys were already standing outside, waiting. The three boys were attired in nearly identical robes. And, like the women and children, their hair was damp with moisture.
Jeff’s friends were still dressed as they had been. But Jeff was not. He, too, stood there in a robe, his hair wet. He seemed awkward and ill at ease, especially when he saw Gretchen emerging. His eyes looked away instantly, as soon as he got his first glimpse of her.
Gretchen studied him, at first. But, soon, the study began to transform itself into something quite different. Something much softer and less calculating. Jeff, she realized, had done the same as the duchess. Quelled the fears of others by leading himself.
Something flared, for a moment, inside Gretchen. She was so
pleased
that it had been
him
, not one of the others.
She fought down a smile. He would have been awkward, she knew. Shy, fumbling, uncertain. Boylike. Embarrassed by his nakedness, of course. But much more embarrassed by his presumption of leadership.
She could see more of his body now. The robe covered much less than the mottled battlefield gear. A boy’s body. A large boy, true, with more muscle than she had realized, lurking under the plumpness. But everything about it was still soft, rounded, childish.
She cared not at all. Quite the opposite. There had been nothing childlike about Ludwig’s body. The rock-hard body of an ogre. An ogre, boasting of his manly form, and proving it by the bruises he left on his woman’s body.
The flare returned. A little brighter, lasting a little longer. She was puzzled by the sensation.
Finally, Jeff brought his eyes back and looked at her. Then, stared. He was seeing Gretchen for the first time, in a way. Clean of filth, clear of ruin; a woman in a robe, not a murderess on a battlefield. His eyes widened and widened.
Gretchen glanced at the duchess. She was not looking. She glanced at Jeff’s three companions. Neither were they.
Quickly, surely, she began to undo the sash and allow the robe to open. The center of her body would be exposed to Jeff’s gaze, from her throat down to her ankles. Everything. Breasts, belly, abdomen, pubis, thighs. Everything. Those things meant nothing to her, beyond their health and vigor. But she had seen—more often than she wanted to remember—how instantly Ludwig could be aroused by the mere sight of her flesh. Instantly and ferociously.
Midway through, something stopped her. She tried to force her fingers to complete the task. They refused. It was as if her soul was bypassing her brain, commanding her body against her will.
Why?
she demanded.
The family must be protected!
No answer came, because no answer was needed.
After a moment, she let her fingers fall away. Gretchen had made a promise. A silent one, true, but a promise nonetheless. She had promised to be his woman, not simply his concubine. The boy—the man—was not Ludwig. She would snare him if she could, but she would not trick him with mere flesh.
The duchess was leading them all away, now, back toward the school building. There would be food, food! For all the hunger gnawing in her stomach, Gretchen did not follow immediately. She lowered her head, closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Luxuriated, for a moment, in cleanliness and softness. Softness of the robe, softness of the body, cleanliness of the heart. Even the black substance beneath her bare feet felt clean and soft.
She raised her head and opened her eyes. She would give Jeff a smile before she went. That much her promise permitted. A simple sweet smile, with just a hint of promise.
But when she saw him, she almost grinned. No pawing bull, here, snorting with lust. Just a young man, standing like a stunned ox.
Gretchen had triumphed, she knew. She had him now, she was certain of it. Snared beyond escape. No trick had been needed after all.
The knowledge brought satisfaction. Some part of it was warm, some cold. Warm, because she had not violated her promise. Cold, because the promise itself was calculation.
Such was life in a maelstrom. Once again, Gretchen had done what was necessary to shelter her family. Shelter it well, she thought. Very well. She hardly knew Jeff at all, yet. But one thing she knew already. The childlike half-boy would provide far more shelter than anything provided by Ludwig the troll. Far, far more.
But—there was something else. The flare came back, again. That sensation was strange. But the sensation which came to take its place was not. Gretchen recognized it at once, of course, and drove it down.
Mercilessly. She had lived with sorrow for years. Why should today be any different?
Chapter 23
Melissa Mailey ate with the refugees, still wearing her own robe. She felt foolish and awkward in that garb, eating in the same cafeteria where, over the years, she had shared thousands of meals with thousands of students. Dressed properly! Ed Piazza had obtained fresh clothes for her, but Melissa had refused to put them on. Not, she insisted, until the refugees were settled for the night and it was time for the committee meeting. The same stubbornness which had once sent a young Boston Brahmin to share a lunch counter with black people in the Jim Crow south, caused her older self to eat a meal in a robe with German refugees. Barefoot, just as they were, even if her own toenails were painted.
She had intended, also, to be there in order to guard against the inevitable danger of the half-starved refugees overeating. But there was no need. Not with Gretchen there, watching like a hawk.
Gretchen imposed food discipline with an iron hand. Melissa winced, several times, at Gretchen’s methods of imposing that discipline. She had been opposed to corporal punishment all her life. But she did not protest.
Melissa Mailey was undergoing a conversion, as it were. Her mind was roiling, as she stolidly ate her meal.
She
still
did not approve of corporal punishment. But Melissa Mailey was not a fool, and could recognize reality when she saw it. Her eyes flinched, but she would not close them.
Gretchen,
not she
, had seen people eat grass to stay alive. Gretchen,
not she
, had seen those same people gorge themselves when unexpected plenty arrived. And then seen them die of surfeit, writhing in agony. She watched Gretchen buffet another child, stuffing food into his mouth with both hands, forcing him to sit with his hands in his lap for three minutes before he took another bite. She winced—the child’s little face would be bruised tomorrow, and he was weeping bitterly—but she did not protest. Gretchen had kept that boy alive, again, in a world which would have slaughtered Melissa Mailey like a chicken. The boy was not even hers. Gretchen’s baby was perched on her lap, feeding happily at her breast. Her own child was a rapist’s bastard. The other—who knows?
Nothing. Nobody.
A piece of dust, sent swirling across a raging landscape by the hooves of noble chargers, until by good fortune it rolled against the dirty feet of a camp follower.
Melissa winced, too, seeing the glances which Gretchen continually sent to Jeff, sitting at the other end of the table. The glances were demure, in a way. Which only made them all the more effective. Jeff was a well-bred country boy. A leering, garish, raucous street prostitute would have scared him off. A young woman in a robe, poised, self-confident—her breast exposed only to feed a child—guiding her family through a meal—
Sending glance after glance—soft, shining,
promising—
to a boy only two years younger than she in age, but eons in experience—
Melissa almost laughed.
Leave aside that incredible figure!
The conclusion was foregone. Given.
By now, Jeff would be nothing but a raging mass of hormones. Burning with desire. Would he take advantage of the offer?
Ha!
Melissa had a sudden image of herself, standing on a beach, ankle-deep in seawater. Queen Melissa—imperious, righteous—ordering the tide to retreat.
Melissa was opposed to sexual harassment. She was opposed to men taking advantage of the weaker position of women in society to satisfy their lust. She
was.
She
still
was. But—
Despair washed over her. The world she had been plunged into was so far removed from the one she had known that no answers seemed possible. How could she condemn? How could she could reprove? And, most important of all, how could she point a way forward?
The boy Gretchen had buffeted was no longer crying. To the contrary, he was smiling. Looking at Gretchen, eager to catch her eye. Utterly oblivious, now, to the bruise forming on his cheek. Melissa realized that his Gretchen-imposed time limit was over. Gretchen, as if guided by some internal clock, met his gaze, smiled gently, and nodded. The boy stuffed a handful of food in his mouth. Started to reach for another, paused, glanced warily at Gretchen. Sure enough, she was watching him. Frowning.
Angels never sleep. The boy sighed and put his hands back in his lap. The angel smiled. The eyes moved on to another child, another woman—weaker than she—to a crone, feebler than she—and then, to a large American boy at the other end of the table. The promise in those eyes was not angelic in the least.
The eyes moved on. Watching, watching. Sheltering, protecting. Steel eyes, forged in a furnace Melissa could hardly imagine. The eyes of the only kind of angel that could possibly exist in such a place.
Melissa was paralyzed. In the showers, she had been firmly determined to speak to Jeff. Warn him—in no uncertain terms!—that he was
absolutely forbidden—
Forbidden? Why? On what grounds?
The answer was a serpent, a snake, a scorpion. A cure far worse than the disease. Good intentions be damned, reality would be something different. Forbid American boys to copulate with German girls—girls who would be throwing themselves at them in order to survive—and you take the first step on the road to a caste society. The copulation would happen anyway, in the dark. On back stairs, in closets. Between
noble
Americans, and German
commoners. Whores again.
Everything Mike—and she—were determined to prevent.
So what to do? Is there any light in this darkness?
