Thirst No. 5 (32 page)

“Enjoy your warm shower!”

“Wash your hair carefully!”

“Use plenty of soap!”

“Fresh clothes await you on the other side!”

I can’t help myself. Knowing it is useless, I scream anyway.

“They are taking you to die! Fight! Fight back! They are going to gas you!”

My voice can be loud, when I put my power into it, and a few appear to hear me. They cast a dark look in my direction. But none of them listen. I can’t blame them, most can hardly walk. God knows how long they’ve been imprisoned on the train.

The line to the stone building stops. The thick steel doors are shut tight. The SS guards back off. Even a whiff of the gas hurts the lungs and they know the routine—how many thousands of gallons of poison are about to be poured into the bodies of the women and children.

Filthy gray fumes begin to spew out of the vents. Inside,
the screams begin. They start and don’t stop. I don’t understand why. The gas should kill them within minutes. But a half hour after the doors are locked shut, I swear I still hear women crying in agony.

Finally, though, there is silence.

The doors to the stone building remain shut.

A third line—this one of naked men—begins to trek from the first building to a smaller stone structure behind the one where the women and children were killed. The SS guards no longer shout their lies. There would be no point. The men have heard the death screams of their wives, children, sisters, and mothers. Their faces are stamped with the black mark of total despair. All hope has been lost. They are the walking dead. At this moment, from their point of view, the death of their bodies is a mere formality.

They enter the smaller of the stone buildings.

The gas is turned on. They know what is coming but gassing is a terrible way to die. Basically the tubes in their lungs are scorched to the point where they rupture and bleed out.

I can’t listen. I am forced to listen.

But I close my eyes and hang my head—an hour later, after all the gas had been pumped from the buildings—when they haul the bodies into the third gate of hell, the ovens. I can’t watch, because my earlier guess was accurate. The guards refuse to dirty their hands. They use Jews to dispose of the Jews. I don’t know why, but I feel this is the Nazis’ greatest sin of all.

The black smoke of the burning thousands chokes the entire camp. The stink makes me vomit, although there is nothing in my stomach. The rain of ash is like a snowfall in Hades. How I swore at the freezing rain during the night, and how I pray for it now. If only to be rid of this foul coat of sin. To be so close to such an atrocity, to witness it and to do nothing—even though I can’t—makes me feel I am no better than the Nazis. Now it is I who feels cursed, and I curse the mind behind this camp for making me a part of this nightmare.

Suddenly, I feel I can’t die. Not until I avenge this crime.

It takes hours to cremate so many bodies. While the stacks continue to spew out a steady stream of black smoke, I have visitors. Major Klein has returned with Frau Cia, and they have brought a guest. The second most powerful man in the Third Reich. The head of the SS, chief of the Gestapo, and the one person, besides Hitler, most responsible for the creation of the concentration camps.

Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler.

His uniform is tidy, it is dry, although his boots are muddied from the hike to my cage. He is heavier than his pictures, the war has been good to him, and his brown mustache is something of an afterthought—it hardly reaches to the edge of his lips. He is not an ugly man, but he feels foul. It’s his eyes, of course, and I thought Major Klein had sick eyes. Himmler’s are not mere windows into a dark soul, they are holes into the abyss.

This man is not a man.

I feel it the moment we meet. There’s something inside him, some kind of creature that has come from the outside, using him.

But outside where? I don’t know. I feel the evil inside him more as an absence of human qualities rather than as a tangible thing. He feels like a walking pit. I hate his companions and yet a part of me wants to shout out to them, to warn them to stay away. I fear if any of us get too close to this creature we will disappear. He has only to look at me, to stand near, to make me feel weak.

While an SS guard sets up Major Klein’s favorite fold-out table—he has brought the same tools as before—Klein completes the introductions. The falling ash seems to have improved his mood. He sounds positively jovial.

“Reichsführer, I’m proud to introduce our guest. The woman we have been seeking all these years. Sita.” Klein pauses. “Sita, in case you don’t recognize our esteemed visitor, permit me to introduce Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler.”

Himmler bows in my direction. “It’s an honor, Fraülein.”

I almost spit in his face. There is time. I smile instead.

“Herr Himmler,” I say. “Your reputation precedes you. A friend of mine, General Hans Straffer, often spoke of you.”

“I’m sure in glowing terms,” Major Klein interrupts hastily, looking a little worried. Naturally, I’d like to tell Himmler that when Straffer did talk about him he referred to him as “the Führer’s asshole.”

“He said you have tremendous organizational skills,” I say, which is true.

Himmler nods. “I remember Straffer. A good man. I’ll send for him the next time he’s in Berlin.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Our dear Major Klein had him executed.”

Himmler slowly turns toward Klein. “True?”

Klein stammers. “He was feeding her secret information that she was passing on to the Resistance.”

“Not true. General Straffer was loyal. He would have never betrayed Germany.” I say this with the hope Straffer’s family will not be punished for Klein’s lies.

Himmler shrugs. “It matters not. It’s not why we are here.”

Major Klein stands near his master. He smiles in my direction. “Sita doesn’t understand why she is here,” he says.

Himmler is surprised. “You don’t know?”

“No,” I say.

Himmler comes close. If there were the least bit of play in my chains, I would strike him dead and to hell with the consequences. But I am a bug pinned to a pole. Himmler studies me with eyes that remind me of an insect. I sense the many facets of the mind behind his gaze. It is as if the strange being inside him inhabits others as well. All thinking as one, all plotting to ruin mankind, and yet, paradoxically, all empty as well. This man’s cruelty does not arise out of anger or bitterness. It comes from nothing.

He is like . . . nothing. An empty vehicle.

“I have been told you refuse to explain what you did during the Battle of Kurukshetra,” he says.

“Not so. I explained to Major Klein that on the opening day of the battle I stood on the side of the Kauravas so I could catch a glimpse of Krishna. Then, after seeing him, I retreated to the surrounding woods while the battle raged on for four days.”

“You did not leave until the battle ended?” Himmler asks.

“That is correct.”

“Did you fight in the battle?”

“No.”

“But a devotee such as yourself, who loved Krishna so much, you must have been tempted to help the Pandavas—Arjuna and his brothers. Why didn’t you help them?”

“My creator, Yaksha, fought on their side. With his help, I knew they couldn’t lose.”

“Did Krishna take part in the battle?”

“Not directly. He played the role of Arjuna’s charioteer.”

“Why do you speak this way? Why do you say he played a role?”

I shrug. “The whole world was nothing but a playground to Krishna. Even a major battle did not disturb him.”

Himmler nods. “Understandable.”

Major Klein interrupts. “You are still avoiding the question. What did you do during the four days of the battle?”

“I have answered that question several times. I did nothing.”

Klein snorts. “But watched and waited for another chance to see Krishna?”

“Yes.”

“Tell us about the Kauravas,” Himmler says.

“They had the larger army. The Pandavas had been in exile a long time. The people had grown used to Duryodhana and his hundred brothers, the Kauravas, ruling the country. They may have been an evil family but the average person did not see that evil. Duryodhana brought stability. When the Pandavas showed up, everything was thrown into disorder. For that reason, the Kauravas had at least twice the men.”

“Would you say that war was similar to this war?” Himmler asks.

“No.”

“Why not?”

I nod in the direction of the smokestacks. “Soldiers died in those four days. Not innocents.”

“Do you consider Jews innocent?”

“They are like everyone else. No better, no worse.”

Himmler brushes my hair from my eyes. “I’m disappointed to hear you say that. Your features are perfect—your blond hair, your blue eyes. Clearly you are one of the original Aryans. You may have been born in India but it was your ancestors who conquered it. They were great. Even your precious Krishna spoke of their greatness when he warned of the
need of the caste system. Certain people are born to be slaves, others to be merchants, still others to be warriors. Only a few can lead.” He pauses and gestures to the smoking stacks. “Then there are the untouchables. They should never have been born at all.”

“Krishna never taught a caste system. That was a lie the Brahmins added to the Vedas three hundred years after Krishna left the world. They did so for one reason—so they could rule the land. If you’re basing your persecution of the Jews on the theory that you are purifying the major bloodlines of mankind, then you are deluded. Krishna spoke of the oneness of mankind. And like Christ, he said there was no greater power than love.” I pause. “A pity your Führer got it wrong at the start. Had he just talked to me, he could have saved us all a lot of grief.”

Himmler smiles, or, I should say, he tries. His expression looks more like a snake before it swallows the mouse. “You sound sure of yourself. So arrogant.”

“Just telling you the way it is,” I reply.

He tugs at my hair, lightly at first, then harder. His smile fades and he speaks in a sudden harsh tone. “How did the Battle of Kurukshetra end?”

There’s a power in his voice that makes me jump. “In fire,” I say, the words leaping out of my mouth before I realize it.

“What brought the fire?” he asks.

I hesitate. “I don’t know.”

“Is it that you don’t know? Or is it that you don’t remember?”

I briefly close my eyes, trying to escape, for a moment, from his eyes. I feel as if they have begun to work inside me, although I have yet to see anyone, even Frau Cia, reach for the metal box.

The thing inside Himmler has power. It’s not a human or vampiric power. It feels more primal. It comes from the earth, not the sky, from the ground far below us: the dirt the giant reptiles used to walk upon.

Whatever has ahold of Himmler is ancient.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“But you did see a ball of fire on the final day of battle?”

“Yes.”

“How big was it?”

“Huge.”

“Large enough to destroy an army?”

“Yes.”

“A town? A city?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Where did it come from?”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“Which side did it strike? The Kauravas? Or the Pandavas?”

I shake my head. His quick questions hit like blows to my brain. I find it hard to think. “I don’t know.”

He practically pulls my hair out by its roots. “Which side did it strike?” he demands.

“It hit the Pandavas.”

“Then it destroyed them. They lost the war.”

“They won the war.”

“How?”

“It’s there in the Mahabharata. Arjuna defeated Duryodhana.”

“But how? You just said the ball of fire struck the Pandavas.”

“It was aimed at the Pandavas. But it struck . . . in between the two armies.”

“You saw this with your own eyes?”

“Yes.”

“Where did the ball of fire come from?”

I turn my face away, not caring that he pulls out a lump of my hair in the process. “I’m not sure. I think it came . . . it came from the sky.”

There is a sudden silence. Himmler lets go of me and steps back beside his partners, Major Klein and Frau Cia. I notice then that the three are connected. Himmler is their leader, that’s clear, but they all share a puppetlike quality. Something distant pulls their strings. They nod in unison.

“You are doing well, Sita. We are making progress,” Himmler says. “Tomorrow we will have a breakthrough.”

With that the three of them leave.

• • •

Ralph Levine comes to me in the middle of the night. He surprises me; I am trying to sleep. But my sleep is nothing more than a continuous nightmare. It’s a relief to see his kind face,
although he has lost all his hair and dropped so much weight his head looks like a medical lab’s skull. I loved Ralph the instant we met. He is one of those people, before I even spoke to Patton, who gave me faith in reincarnation. My feelings for him make no sense unless I’ve been with him in another time, another body. He feels like an older brother, just as Harrah feels like a younger sister.