The One Man (38 page)

“Know
what,
Kurt…? You're talking idiocy.” She tried to reach for her dress. “He's just a boy. Besides, it's Thursday. Our matches are Tuesdays. And anyway, you asked me not to play with him anymore, so I've put our game on hold.”

“That's good.” Inside, he brightened. That solved one issue. Now on to the next. He removed his hat and tossed it onto the bed. He unbuttoned the top buttons on his jacket. “It's been a long time. You haven't fucked me since the night of the Von Hoellens' party. It's been months.”

“Yes, and you were drunk that night, as I recall. Anyway, Kurt, please, I need to go. They're expecting me.” She tried to twist out of his grasp.

He tightened around her from behind, one arm underneath her breast, the other on her shoulder, and pulled her into him.

“Kurt, please … Go back to the office if that's what you're here for. It's not the time for this now.”

“Not now, not anytime, it seems.” He licked the back of her ear and tightened his hold on her. He whispered in an even voice, “You'd do it for him, wouldn't you? The little yid chess player. You'd get all primped up and fuck him, right? But not me. Your husband.”

“What are you talking about, Kurt? I— And you're hurting me … Please, let me go.” She tried to wrestle away, but he gripped her even more firmly. He wouldn't let her go. She loathed him when he got like this, single-minded, bullying. Usually when he was drunk. She felt him behind her, getting hard and ready. He was right—she hadn't let him inside her in months. She could barely tolerate the random brush of him against her in bed. At their meals, she listened to the numbing details of his days: numbers in, numbers out; work completed. She went to his officers' parties and watched as he and his cronies got drunk and sang their stupid songs, all the while pretending to smile. She listened to his incessant chattering about the sacrifices for his career; his ambition and true worth; his goal to replace Hoss, who would soon be pegged for a bigger job; to use this pit of hell he was responsible for to elevate their future. All the while loathing the sound of his voice, the very touch of him against her, regretting with whatever shame she could still summon her youthful decision to have allowed herself to be swept away, to have married him. And the trap she now found herself caught in. Always scared, as he turned to her in bed, what if she became pregnant? What if she carried his child? What then?

“Kurt, no.” She would rather a reptile ran its tongue along her neck. She pushed him away.
“Please…”

“Not no—
yes,
” he replied. His tone seemed to carry a warning in it. “Today, you do not push me away. Today, it is not no, Greta. It is yes.”

“I'm not one of your prisoners here, Kurt.” She glared at him behind her in the mirror. “You do not order me around or tell me what to do.”

“But in fact you
are
my prisoner, Greta. You are my wife. And I do. I do order you.” He ran his fingertips along her arm. “There's no way that can be undone.”

She spun around in his arms and her eyes had fire in them too. “Then the answer is yes, Kurt.”

“Yes…?”
He smiled; he seemed pleased to have finally persuaded her.

“Yes, I would rather a little Jew fuck me than you.”

“You little slut!” He raised his arm as blood rushed into his face and hit her with the back of his hand.

Greta let out a gasp. She stumbled onto the bed. She touched her lip. Blood oozed down her chin. “You are a bastard, Kurt!”

“Not today, did I hear it right…?” He struck her again and she fell. “Oh, yes, today.” He kneeled over her, wedging his knees between her thighs, unbuckling his trousers. She tried to wrestle away, slapping at him, fending him off, but he pinned her, one hand under her chin, which sucked the air from her, as the other pulled down her girdle and he pushed his dick close. She glared back at him, tears forming in her eyes as he declared triumphantly, “Today, Greta,
I
get to fuck you.”

*   *   *

Later, after he had put his hand over her mouth to cover her screams while he forced her legs up and pushed himself deep inside her; after he had ripped her bra and left his dreaded ooze all over her thighs and sheets; after he left her whimpering and drying her tears, Kurt rolled off the bed and laughed, a wrathful, loveless laugh between his sated breaths.

“See,” he said, a mocking gleam in his eye. “I can still be a man to you in a way no one else can.”

“You are a bastard to me, Kurt. You are the devil.”

“Please, you give me far too much credit, Greta. I am still only Lagerkommandant. But anyway, I have a busy day and night still in front of me. Two trains. One from the West. Prague, I think. The other from Hungary.” He stood up and buckled up his trousers. “And then there's the matter of our intelligence ferret from Warsaw …
Sniff, sniff
.” He scrunched up his nose like a weasel. “He believes someone has entered the camp from the outside. And who knows, he may be right. In any case, we will have him soon. In the meantime, all it's doing is slowing our numbers for the day.” He picked up his jacket and brushed the wrinkles out. “And those numbers are our future, Greta … You know that, right?”

She did not answer. She just stared vacantly out the window. The view was not of wires and low-hanging smoke but of the forest, far in the distance. Something pleasing, green.

Far away from here.

“Anyway, we'll have him soon. His little truffle hunter.” Kurt put his arms through his jacket and tucked the lapels close. “And on that other matter, darling, I really wouldn't get too sweet on him, if I were you.” He buttoned his jacket.

“What other matter, Kurt,” Greta said distractedly. “Who?”

“Your little chess boy. It would be quite a waste, you know. Of your attention. Special arrangements are being speeded up.”

“Special arrangements…?”

“Don't be naïve, darling. You know precisely what we do here as well as I. What is it called, that little clock that times your moves in chess?”

“The game clock, Kurt,” she answered.

“Yes, the game clock. Well, you'd better turn it on, my dear. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick … Because you don't have much time left.”

She sat up, worry building inside her. She knew Kurt, and she didn't like how he sounded now. There was something in his mocking tone that sounded as if some decision had already been made. “I've already stopped playing with him, Kurt. Just as you asked. You said you would look out for him.” She pulled her dress over her breasts.

“I believe I said for as long as I could…” He looked in the mirror and smoothed out his jacket. “But now I'm afraid the matter is out of my hands.”

“You promised, Kurt.” Greta stood up. “You can still save a single Jew in this hellhole. You're just doing this to hurt me.”

“I'm afraid my hands are tied.” He shrugged and turned back. “It's all straight from Berlin. Right from the top. Tick, tock. The clock is speeded up. Right, my dear…?”

She stared, revulsion rising up in her like sweat bubbling through her skin. “Who the hell are you, Kurt?”

“Who am
I
…?” His question carried a slight smile.

“What have you become? Something I don't recognize. We used to dream of how our life would unfold. You thought you would practice law. What kind of animal are you now?”

“The same kind of animal that is all around us, Greta. You look at it every day, you just don't see it. Are you blind? Yes, a big night tonight…” He put a hand on her cheek and smiled. “And you know how I like to welcome our new guests.”

Kurt looked back at himself in the mirror and seemed pleased. He picked up his cap and put it on his head, and tilted it at just the right angle. “Now onto the matter of our little intelligence friend and his truffle hunter … Turns out, the little weasel has a sister in here. In the orchestra, of all things. But not to worry, dear, we're about to sort all that out.” He bent down and placed a kiss on her cheek, dry as sandpaper. “Have a nice afternoon, my love.” He went to the door. “Oh, and darling?”

She looked up at him, an ache throbbing in her belly like she was carrying a child she knew was dead.

“Say hello to the good doctor for me when you're at the infirmary, would you? We should have them for dinner soon, don't you agree?”

 

FIFTY-SEVEN

Blum took Leisa back to his block and hid her in the area reserved for those who were ill, near the rear.

“Lie down here,” he whispered, putting her onto a cot. He handed her a thin blanket. “Keep this over you.” It was getting late. The work details would be filing back soon. “You'll be safe back here. No one will know.”

Only one other prisoner was stretched out on a cot, his mouth open, looking more dead than alive.

“Nathan, I can't believe you're actually here.” Leisa placed her hands on his face, her eyes gushing in wonderment. “That I'm actually touching you.”

“And I can't believe that after everything, you're actually alive! For so long, I was sure that—”

“Don't speak that now.” She put a finger to his lips.

“I can't help it. To me, it's like you've risen from the dead. That I have my sister back. Do you remember the name I called you when we were kids?”

“Of course. Doleczki,” she said. “Dimples. But I'm afraid you can barely see them now. And you were Myszka. Because you were always like a little mouse. For your agility at getting yourself in an out of trouble.”

Blum laughed. “Yes, Myszka … I can hear Mother calling me that. Whisking me out of the kitchen. ‘Away, Myszka, shoo, shoo, or I'll call the big cat on you.'” His eyes lit up as he brought back the fond memory. Then he looked away. “You know I've never forgiven myself. Not for a second. For leaving. For abandoning them. And you.”

“You didn't abandon us, Nathan. Father pushed you to go.”

“If I had been there I would have never let them go out into the square. I knew ways to get around. Mr. Loracyk's apartment led out onto the rooftop of the house next door. It was an easy jump. We could have sneaked across it and then gotten out in the next building onto Cimilianska Street.”

“And then what? Run from basement to basement like criminals until someone turned us in? They would never have gone, Nathan. You know that. In the end, everyone in the ghetto was sent somewhere. Their fate would have been no different.” She tried to brush the sadness off his face. “They only looked at you with pride, big brother. They always loved you and had the highest hopes for you. That was our
only
hope in the end. That whatever would happen to
us,
at least you had made it.
You
would survive. And now look…” Tears edged into her eyes. “You're
here
 … in this camp. The same as all of us. What was the point?”

“The point is that we are both going to make it out, Leisa.” He took her hand. “You and I. You will see.”

“Just like Chaim was coming to save me?” She pushed up on an elbow. “I went to him, Nathan. Just like you asked me to. I had nowhere else to turn. And do you know where he was? On a slab. In the morgue, at Gestapo headquarters. To be tossed into a mass grave. Things happen, Nathan, things even you can't control. It's time to let Mama and Papa go.

“But enough of that. I have something to show you,” she said, her face lighting up. “I think you'll like it.” She took her shoe and slipped off a crack in the fake heel. She took out a small, tightly folded scrap of paper and gently unfolded it. “It hasn't left me since the day you left. I've hidden it, even in here. Do you remember, we promised each other…”

He stared at it.

It was her half of the Mozart concerto for clarinet she'd torn in two on the fire balcony the night before he left.

“Of course I remember,” he said, and took it into his hands.

“The Mozart A-major. We were never supposed to be without it until…”

“Until we saw each other again.” He looked at her contritely. “Leisa, it's been a long road, moving to America, and then thinking you were gone. I'm afraid I—”

“Nathan, I know.” She put her hand on his cheek. “It's okay. Don't worry. I understand…”

“I'm afraid that's why I had to hide it very carefully myself,” he said with a widening grin, reaching into the lining of his uniform and coming out with a similarly folded square, which, when opened, became the matching half.

“You are a devil, Nathan!” Leisa crowed ecstatically.

“I've never been without it for a day myself. It's been my lucky charm. I just never ever thought we'd ever be able to do this again.”

They put the torn halves on the cot and fit them together until they formed a seamless match.

Leisa's eyes grew liquid with joy.

“I can hear it in my head. La-la, la-la-la, la-la…” Blum sang, waving his hand as if conducting. “I can see Master Bernheimer himself as if he were here now.”

“Yes. Mr. Baggypants.” Leisa giggled too. “He always looked like a rumpled character straight out of a Tolstoy novel. I can see him too.”

“I bet he's dead now,” Blum surmised.

“Yes. I heard he was among the first to be taken.” Leisa nodded. “Most everyone we knew is dead now.”

He clasped her hand. “But, sister, tomorrow you will wake up, and it will all have been like a dream. This place. All that was bad. All left behind. We'll be in England.

“England?”
She blinked at him incredulously. “How?”

“I told you. There is a plane. It will land nearby. Tonight. I'm going to get us on one of the overnight work details. You will pretend to be a boy. I know it doesn't seem so easy, but it will be night and the line will be crowded. It will work. At oh thirty hours there will be an attack by local partisans. That will provide the cover for our escape. If all goes well, they will take us to the plane.”