Children of the Dusk (14 page)

"Herr Oberst Alois? Ready for your inspection, sir!"

Goldman stood at attention, his welding mask crooked in his arm, the look in his eyes--or so Erich thought--one of respect. Or was he deceiving himself, he wondered. One could never tell with Jews.

Now I'm sounding like Hempel.

He moved around the machine, pretending to inspect the welds but unsure what he should look for. Who but a master welder or engineer could determine without testing if the blade arms, made from two of the tank's side plates, would not buckle at the first full load? He would need a whole motor pool of machinery to create a full-fledged landing facility on the mainland, once base camp was well-established here on Mangabéy, but for now the converted Panzerbefehlswagen would do. It would have to.

He stepped back as more men gathered. Jews on in-compound duty, mostly, and a couple of trainers with their dogs, which sat panting against the morning heat, watching curiously. The guards avoided the converted tank, walking out of their way to keep from crossing too close.

Erich caught himself on the verge of praising the Jew, and sliced short the near compliment by declaring, "See to it that it's perfectly maintained. I'm holding you personally responsible!"

"Yes...sir!" Goldman all but smiled.

Erich relented. "Good job," he said. "Is there some small favor I can grant you to show my...the Reich's...gratitude."

"The Torah, sir," the man said without hesitation. "We need it for the Service tonight."

"I will see to it," Erich said, remembering that Sol had asked for it when he'd requested the Service, but without the vaguest idea where it had been placed.

As if Goldman had read Erich's mind, he said, "I believe it is in the black man's hut...sir."

"
Where
?!"

"You kick the bejesus out of jungle with this, Mister Germantownman!" Bruqah said, popping his head out of the turret. He grinned and slapped the machine.

As I would like to kick the bejesus out of you for perturbing my land,
Erich thought he saw the Malagasy's eyes say. He wondered if Bruqah had been inside the tank the entire time Goldman was welding, but that too became secondary as the Panzerbefehlswagen rumbled into life, spitting blue exhaust.

"I drive you!" Bruqah shouted.
 

Erich leapt onto the machine, ready to tear the Malagasy's head off, but no sooner was he close than Bruqah clutched his wrist. The African had amazing strength for one so thin, Erich realized. The grip was near to cracking his bones.

"I good driver," Bruqah said in a voice just loud enough for Erich to hear. He gave the guards, emerging from beneath the mess canopy, a broad, theatrical grin.

Erich pried the Malagasy's fingers from his wrist. "Where on Earth did you learn...?"

Bruqah continued to grin at the guards. "German Southwest Africa, where I learn to speak German. War with South Africa. Many, many battles."

Erich knew about Bruqah's having lived in the German protectorate where he had earned or was given a trip to Berlin. Botanical study at the university, or some such thing; until now, Erich assumed it had been political, an excuse to train another African operative. How and why Bruqah had left Madagascar, Erich was uncertain. He made a mental note to try and find out. Perhaps Miriam would know. She and the Malagasy had been close aboard ship. Too close, in Erich's estimation.

"I take you...how the North Americans say? Around the blockhead. We take Lady Miri, too, maybe? Or does Mister Germantownman plan to lazy around here all day like a pet lemur?"

Erich stood on unsure legs as Bruqah dropped back into the turret and drove the machine toward the gate, the soldiers parting like a sea. "Pretty good ride, eh Germantownman?" the Malagasy shouted from inside.

The tank lumbered around the compound, kicking up dust and grass.

"We go back for Lady Miri, like I say?" Bruqah asked. "Ride she and baby?"

"No," Erich said. But an image of Miriam as a young girl, riding with him on the Ferris wheel at Berlin's Luna Park, induced him to change his mind. Soon Miriam was propped as comfortably as possible on the Panzer.

Standing in the turret, Erich directed the driving. It was a heady feeling, as though he were leading an armored charge. His headache, lately a regular morning event, became a tolerable throb, and he did not let the sight of Solomon being marched off with a detail of woodcutters spoil his festive mood. Everyone merely had to be patient, himself most of all, he decided. Things would work out for the best, if the Panzer was any indication. Who but a Jew could see a plowshare in a sword?
That
, if for no other reason, was why the Madagascar Experiment would succeed!...because he, unlike blind fools such as Hempel and Hitler, understood the value and purpose of the Jewish people.

They had three months to secure Mangabéy as a base of operations and build a dock and receiving station on the mainland, at the mouth of the Antabalana River. If they failed, Goebbels would send no more Jews.

Well, he'd meet the deadline with weeks to spare.

He leaned nonchalantly against the turret as Bruqah drove the machine across the compound yard, and signaled for the gate to be opened. Then they were in the meadow proper, spewing chaff and dirt as Bruqah ran in the
savoka
stubble alongside the forest.

Erich motioned straight ahead, feeling like the commander of an armored division going into battle.

They neared the Zana-Malata's hut.

In an inspiration born of hate, Erich banged his fist against the turret to get Bruqah's attention. "There!" He pointed toward the hut. "Go there! Knock it down!"

The tank stopped. Bruqah ground the gears, but the machine only wheezed and sat still.

"What's the meaning of this!" Erich yelled.

"Zana-Malata protect his home." Bruqah cranked up the engine again and jammed the tank into gear. Within meters it stopped again.

Erich grabbed the Malagasy by the edge of his
lamba
and, surprised by his own strength, fairly yanked him from the driver's seat. Bruqah arose choking, flailing his arms ineffectually against his assailant. Erich jumped into the driver's seat and positioned himself. How to begin? he wondered. It angered him that, despite his years in the military, he had no working knowledge of armor. As a member of the Abwehr, the intelligence sector, he'd had less opportunity for combat training than did a line officer, and even most of them lacked specialized skills regarding most weapons, but it infuriated him that he knew so little. He hit the accelerator. The tank ran in reverse. He braked, left the machine in idle, and climbed from the turret.

"Take us home," he said to the Malagasy, who was reclined across the top plating.

The words were scarcely out of Erich's mouth when, from inside the hut, there came a piteous screech of terror so penetrating that it rose even above the noise of the tank. At first he thought it was a dog, or one of those fox-lynxes that intermittently emerged from the rain forest. Fossas, it had said in one of the books he'd brought. He had a footlocker full of books. Madagascar, tactics,
The German Shepherd Dog in Word and Picture
by Rittmeister Max von Stephanitz. The one book he’d had since boyhood.

A moment later Misha's small form hurtled from the hut, rose to all fours, and crawled toward the smoking ashes of the fire pit. A simmering anger displaced Erich's sense of bravado.

Jumping down from the tank, he stalked over toward the boy. The child swiveled and backed up, bare feet stepping through the fire pit, face distorted with such terror that one might have thought the tank was chasing him. The taste of bile swilled into Erich's mouth--residue of last night's drinking, he assured himself; as a soldier he could stomach
anything
.

Except for a dog collar and a pair of ragged, cut-off pants, the boy was naked. Furious, Erich flashed back to his own youth and his years in the Freikorps, with Otto Hempel as the youth group's leader. He remembered the night he ran away from home and came across Hempel and two boys who were no more than children. He remembered the man's grunts, and the snap of a whip against one boy's fleshy pink buttocks in that Ku'damm alleyway.

"Come here, Misha," Erich said, his hatred of Hempel rising to new heights.

So terror-filled a moment before, the boy's face became suddenly, inexplicably blank. He ceased backing and bowed, mechanical as a tiny wooden monkey held between two sticks. "I am a filthy Jew not fit to kiss your feet," he said. The dog paws danced against his chest. Tears brimmed and began trailing down his cheeks. "Filthy and not fit!" he said again. Coughing, he lowered his face, striking the top of his head with angry fists, as if attempting to beat his own brains in.

"Stop it!"

"...to kiss your...feet!"

"Stop it, I say!" Erich seized the boy by the shoulders and shook him.

"...to kiss your feet...
sir
!"

The boy's eyes rolled up and he slumped sideways. Erich caught him by the waist, and the child doubled over like a sandbag. Lifting him up, Erich started for the hut, then changed his mind and carried the boy to the tank. Hempel's property or no, the child was
not
going to endure again whatever had just transpired in that shack. The hell with Hempel: a man who did not own his own soul had no right to own anything else.

Then he remembered the Torah.

He handed the boy to Bruqah and strode quickly toward the hut. As he drew near, a pungent odor of overripe oranges hung in the air. He saw one of the Kalanaro creep up to peer beneath the doorway's tanhide and watched him retreat, whispering and pointing, as another joined him, nodding excitedly. Seeing Erich, they skittered away behind the tanghin tree--pygmies with heads like hairy coconuts and mouselemur eyes too big for their faces, shining black as boot polish. Their lurking and scuttling along the edge of the
savoka
gave him the creeps, but he renewed his intention to find out if they were trainable.

Wrenching aside the zebu hide, he entered the hut, squinting against the smoke rising from the brazier. As his vision cleared, he saw the major seated on a mat and bent over the Torah that had been carried aboard ship and used in the documentary being made by Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s favorite propaganda-film producer. The silver scroll-caps had been pried off. Hempel held one; the Zana-Malata, the other. The syphilitic was wearing a breast-covering of crocodile skin trimmed with tufts of bright feathers. He sat in a crude raffia chair, legs apart, his breechcloth lumped in his crotch.

He cackled as if in response to something Hempel had done, and bent to slurp a mouthful of sea urchin that overflowed his other palm, gumming the soft meat like a toothless crone. After licking his fingers, he raised the scroll-cap and chortled.

"
Prosit!"
Hempel toasted, lifting the second silver cap. With his other hand, he picked up a stick and stirred the contents of a large cast-iron pot that sat among the brazier's coals. Steam and an aroma reminiscent of Grand Marnier drifted from the pot.

Hempel inhaled deeply. "Flavored with fruit bat. At first I found the idea revolting, like something out of the Middle Ages, but it's delicious."

Smiling, he looked up at Erich through bleary eyes that reflected the brazier's glow, and lifted the liquid-filled scroll cap. "
Rano vola
," he said. "The national drink. They add water to the leftover rice that sticks to the bottom of the cooking pot, and boil it."

He sipped, then with forefinger and thumb lifted out a sauce-covered wing. Popping it into his mouth, he crunched down on the tiny bones, smacking his lips. "Just what we should do to your Jew friends. Use them as flavoring. Do you know how sweet human fat smells?"

He laughed and, closing his eyes, flared his nostrils in mock anticipation. "But pardon my manners, Herr Oberst." He gestured for Erich to sit down. "Pull up a mat. Luncheon in Madagascar is a delightful event."
  

Finishing the drink, Hempel put down the scroll cap and, ducking his head to the Zana-Malata's lap, used the edge of the breechcloth to dab his lips, which sent the syphilitic into renewed gales of laughter.

Straightening, Hempel held up a hand as if to halt an accusation before the senior officer had a chance to speak. "No, Herr Oberst. Not drunk.
I
have never in my life been drunk, nor shall I ever be. I am merely
contented
."

He stretched up an arm and ran his fingertips along the Zana-Malata's dark, chaffed cheekbones, like a photographer sensing the spirit in his model before a session. "He's shown me my dreams."

Erich's stomach turned, and he fought to contain his anger. The major needed a straight jacket, he thought. Insubordination was no longer the issue; evidence for a firing squad lay at his feet. Taking the Torah could be construed as theft, a capital offense on a combat mission.

Looking from the Torah's de-jeweled sheath to the tiny pyramids of sapphires and pearls that gleamed in the sockets of the water buffalo skull in the corner, Erich asked, "By whose authority have you stolen and desecrated Party property?"

Hempel laughed sarcastically. "By yours and God's, or do you consider those to be one and the same?"

"You disgrace the uniform of the Reich."