Children of the Dusk Read online

  Abruptly, the tank stopped.

  "Look there, Mister Germantownman."

  Bruqah's voice sounded icy. Ducking a branch, Erich looked down to see the Malagasy, eyes rigid with fury, pointing into the thick of the forest. Ahead, behind layers of greenery bursting with orchids and snaked through with lianas, Erich could discern the shapes of the Jews, working amid the undergrowth. The thuk thuk thuk of machetes and axes rose above the idling of the engine. Though he could make out a guard standing with his gun across an arm, he could hear no voices, no shouted commands or other harassment. He felt gladdened that the guards seemed to be obeying his orders regarding the Jews. You do not train a dog by beating it, he had reminded Hempel's men.

  "Looks fine to me," Erich said.

  Bruqah lowered his hand, but his angry mien did not change.

  Startled--the Malagasy usually was so easy-going--Erich followed Bruqah's gaze into the brush. His eyes were directed toward something much more immediate than men clearing the jungle. He tried to figure out what it was, but flowers and ferns kept drawing his attention, softening his resolve as if their colors were infusing him with their beauty. "Tell me!" he ordered at last, exasperated.

  The Malagasy shook his head as though in disbelief, climbed from the driver's seat, and dropped to the ground. He walked into the foliage, moving with the grace of a lemur.

  Erich swore under his breath and went after him, pulling apart brush the Malagasy had passed through seemingly without effort. Veils of moss brushed against his face with the mockery of a woman's hand. A liana's large inflorescences scraped like grotesque fingers across his shoulders.

  In a grotto of undergrowth swarming with mosquitoes and so suffocatingly hot that sweat burst from beneath his hairline in itchy rivulets, Erich caught up to Bruqah, huddled, head down, before a totem no thicker than a woman's wrist. It was broken off at an angle about a meter above the ground. The Malagasy had his eyes pinched shut and his face was drawn with emotion.

  "You promised, Germantownman," he said in a sad voice. "You said island's past would be persevered."

  "Preserved," Erich corrected testily, rummaging among the shattered branches and forest duff for the rest of the totem. To Bruqah, each mention of the past seemed inviolate. No sense arguing with the Malagasy over the loss of an artifact; he had made the statement, which was meant to be taken in a broader context. The hill abounded with hidden markers radiating in an indecipherable pattern from the taller ones surrounding the limestone crypt site at the hilltop. Destroying a few was unavoidable as the necessary paths and clearings were cut.

  "Here it is." Erich held up the length of totem he had found. The broken end had sheered off strangely. The lily-wood totem was cleanly broken, as though it were shale. It looked as if percussion, instead of the blast itself, had severed the stick. He guessed that the forest--capable of intensifying blast waves as well as blocking them--had caused the break: an effect similar to that of an opera singer shattering crystal.

  The totem otherwise was not damaged. Its arabesque of curling leaves reminded Erich of the intricate, petal-like candles so popular at Easter. A more representational series of carvings--lemurs balanced atop one another's backs and looking at him with huge, whorled eyes--formed the middle. A set of miniature zebu horns, common on other totems he'd seen, adorned the top.

  "You want me to have it put back together?" Erich asked. "Some of the Jews are excellent craftsmen."

  "The damage is done."

  Best to let the matter drop, Erich decided. If Bruqah did not want the totem repaired, it would make a good walking stick. Erich tried it out for size as he pushed back toward the tank. Just the right height and heft. It gave him a feeling of balance and power. No wonder, it occurred to him, the members of Germany's Old Order had relished such things.

  From behind him came a screech and Bruqah emerged onto the track, a ring-tailed lemur riding merrily on his back, its arms around his neck. He was climbing back onto the tank when Pleshdimer came waddling toward them, waving his arms as he stumbled over cut-but-uncleared brush and tree trunks. "Herr Oberst, come quickly. Time for the uncovering!" the Kapo said breathlessly.

  "Surely all the surrounding brush hasn't been pushed aside already!" With an irritable gesture toward the downed trees among which they were standing, Erich added, "Look at this!"

  Pleshdimer hunkered down his head, like a turtle retreating into its shell, and gazed greedily from the tops of his eyes. "Good enough, the others say, mein Oberst. Plenty of time for clearing after the uncovering's done."

  The protuberant eyes, the oily lips, the neck's rolls of fat filled Erich with disgust. He followed slowly.

  Increasingly narrow and confined, the path enclosed them. Soft, spiky stamen of crimson browneas dusted Erich with pollen as he ducked through the last of the foliage and into the sunlit gravesite.

  He had expected to see the two guards sitting and smoking on the crypt's grass-covered mound while around them the Jews carried away the brush and saplings they had delimbed. With its towering, delicate totems of mahogany and lily wood, this was no place that the tank could plow through after the initial clearing was done. Work here had to be slow and methodical--no blast cord, no mistakes.

  Instead, the guards were digging as madly as the Jews, looking not in the least resentful.

  A great scallop had been dug out along the front of the grave, exposing the stone entrance. Erich intended the crypt to be a pillbox--his west-end protection. It would have a good view of the bay and an excellent field of fire toward the crescent-shaped lagoon below, where the Storch was parked.

  Pleshdimer waved a finger toward the digging. "The jungle told me we'll find gold and treasures inside," he said.

  "The jungle," Erich repeated. "What next--voices from a burning bush?"

  "He thinks he heard the wind whisper," Bruqah said softly, coming up behind Erich. The Malagasy's eyes glittered impishly. "Ravalona's resting place has been so long forgotten, my patience grew weak-willed."

  Erich grinned. Seeing the guards shoveling frantically gave him perverse pleasure. According to Bruqah, the grave was empty--of bones, not just gold--a fact Erich had emphasized before any of this had begun.

  "This only crypt on Mangabéy," Bruqah said. "Many more over there." He pointed toward the mainland. "Fancy. One has big airplane," he stretched his arms wide, "like dead man ride in life."

  The crypt they were about to open was unadorned except for the surrounding totems and a shroud of mossy grass that did not seem indigenous to Mangabéy. It was built, Bruqah had said, as Ravalona would have wanted it; she was said to have appreciated simplicity above all else. Perhaps that much was myth, Erich thought, an outgrowth of the sadder part of real history: a native princess captured, along with her maidservant, during the slave trade and shipped to the island of Mauritius. What had perhaps begun as a kidnap-and-ransom attempt had ended in tragedy, for the young woman had died of a fever and never returned home. Her body had gone unclaimed, despite Benyowsky's efforts to rescue her alive and, that having failed, to retrieve the corpse.

  The guards had apparently not heard Erich's words regarding the tomb; or, at least, were not heeding them--a small slight, but one of many. Whispered innuendoes, eyes that went blank during salutes, personnel switches on his posted duty rosters because Hempel had approved the change, or claimed to.

  Let them dig, he thought. Maybe it'll teach them to listen.

  Shovels scraped limestone. The chiseled, discolored blocks emitted a fine yellow dust that sprinkled across the upturned red soil each time a guard brought a blade down the side of the crypt to dislodge dirt. The guards spoke in rapid whispers, their eyes avoiding Erich's; they swore and shooed away Goldman when he asked if the white rocks at the bases of the totems were to be kept or cleared. With a small smile and a nod Erich indicated that the rocks were to remain, and Goldman resumed his work.

  That was the difference between the guards and the Jews, he decided. The former were paid not to
think; the latter never stopped, as they had proven in the camps by staying alive.

  Aristida bunch grass had grown in the long, unbroken vertical line of rock that indicated a door in the crypt; the tomb had not been opened for a very long time. It occurred to Erich that that was a good thing, though he was uncertain why. Perhaps because he too liked his history inviolate, he thought.

  The grumble of the Panzer interrupted his reverie. The tank came crashing through the underbrush, bending and then snapping saplings. Resolutely Erich stalked toward the machine and signaled for a halt. The tank stopped. Bruqah poked up his head.

  "Were you not told to leave this machine where it was?" Erich demanded. "You complained about the ruination of the hillside artifacts, yet you endanger the tall ones here."

  Bruqah shrugged. "Damage already done," he said. "I forgive you." He climbed down and put a hand on Erich's shoulder.

  Erich shrugged it off. "Where did you leave Miriam and the boy?"

  "Misha awoke. They walk a bit to here." Bruqah disappeared down the turret and shut off the tank, which stopped idling with an angry huff. The Malagasy walked over to where the entrance was being uncovered.

  Bruqah pulled up a lump of grass and, holding it by its knot of dirt and roots, ran his fingers through the coarse strands as if through a head of hair. "The dead inside tomb dream of daylight," he said.

  "Are you attempting to provoke me?" Erich asked in a low voice. "You said the tomb was empty."

  "Except for longing." The Malagasy placed his hand upon the stones, a wistful look creeping his eyes. "To be buried away from home is to be lost. When body cannot come to family burial grounds, stone is raised beside highway or main path so soul can find way home." He stopped and scratched his head, as though searching for words to match complex thoughts. "For common man is enough," he went on, "but for Vazimba...." He stopped again. "People given untruth after Ravalona die. Servant said Princess soul enter Count. People bow at him. French soldiers come--"

  "I know the rest," Erich said. Benyowsky was by then without power. Learning the truth, the people fled from him and he was killed by his friends the French--and did not rise from the dead three days later as he'd promised.

  "Crypt was built in hope that queen come home," Bruqah said. "She come soon."

  "She died a hundred and fifty years ago," Erich said.

  "As you measure time."

  The guards, fingers crammed into crevices and backs bent in effort, were attempting to open the stone entrance. Waving his arms for work to cease, Bruqah approached them. The guards moved aside tensely and suspiciously.

  "He'll claim you have to know magic words," one of them mocked.

  Bruqah gave him a patronizing smile. From somewhere beneath the lamba--a pocket, Erich supposed--he pulled out a piece of gristle. "Witness, Zanahary," he said to the sky, "this offering from a tender and well-raised zebu killed only yesterday."

  Closing his eyes, he tossed the meat high into the air. It came down among a group of Jews, who dodged it. The guards broke into nervous laughter.

  Bruqah took out a second piece of meat and held it up in his palm. He swung his hand to and fro, as if toward the corners of the earth, saying, "Witness, O Ancestors. Though we cannot mention you all by name, yet all are included in this prayer! Do not make yourselves spirits without homes. Save your children from witchcraft! Bless we all!"

  He cast the meat at the feet of the nearest guard, who backed up apprehensively.

  "Witness, O Earth. We give to you because you give to we."

  The calling of the birds and insects and the breathing of the other men pulsed in Erich's ears, and in that instant he was transported home. Father Dahns genuflected before the altar, bronze figures of Mary and Joseph looked down from their niches at a little boy standing wide-eyed between his parents while they likewise genuflected, he gripping their hands and wondering about the Holy Mother and her carpenter husband.

  "Damn you," Erich said under his breath as the Vazimba sat down on his haunches, head bowed, arms limply hanging.

  "What? No more mumbo jumbo?" a guard asked, leaning against the stone work. A boa constrictor slithered out between his legs, its back reticulated with red and orange, and the young soldier cried out, dancing aside as though trying to stamp out a fire. He shivered as he watched the animal sidewind into the taller grass.

  "Dô snake," Bruqah said. Crossing quickly through the grass, he cut off the snake's departure. Finding feet in front of itself, the serpent lifted its head, burrowed forward, and coiled once around an ankle. The Malagasy looked at Erich and, teeth clamped together, grinned widely as he lifted the leg, the snake dangling. "They vessels of the souls of the dead," he announced.

  "I thought you said this crypt was empty," Erich said again, and immediately felt the guards' angry glares.

  "I am not always right, Mister Germantownman." Bruqah pulled the snake off his leg and, after holding it out at arms' length to appraise it, shucked it, curling, off his arm and dropped it unceremoniously amid the weeds. "Open it, we find out."

  The guards quickly jumped to and pried at the door with all their strength. The stone moved easily, surprising the men and throwing them off balance.

  He's nothing more than a poor man's magician, Erich thought, less able than the syphilitic but probably also less evil. He stared down the guards and strode toward the tomb. They looked away to avoid his eyes.

  Moving sideways through the narrow door, he entered the crypt. Cool darkness swathed him, bringing a sense of relief after so much humidity. For a moment he stayed still, drinking in the calm and feeling wonderfully separated from the world outside, with all its heat and tempers.

  "Bring me a flashlight," he ordered finally, half-expecting that, when he flicked it on, he would see Solomon peering up from the musty blackness, arms cradling a terrier in the sewer hideout of their youth.

  Instead, the light revealed a molding corpse in a soldier's uniform, reclining in a raffia and mahogany chair suspended by frazzled ropes from the ceiling. Erich could see that the body was rotted. Gray flesh mottled with age had given way to brown bone along the cheeks and nose. The eye sockets were empty except for dark pulp at the bottom of the round. The lips were gone, the teeth uneven.

  Erich accidentally nudged the chair as he moved closer to examine the body. The head nodded forward, chin against chest, what was left of the wig nearly slipping from the skull. Over a shirt of heavy muslin the corpse wore an embroidered dress coat, threadbare with age, wrist-length sleeves ending in cambric ruffle showing their tatter, the coat's once-gleaming metal buttons glinting dully in the light. Tiny buckles at the kneecaps embellished the black-velvet breeches. The bottoms of the legs, tucked beneath the rest of the body rather than dangling, were outfitted in close-fitting high boots and gaiters decorated with white, woven cloth.

  "Benyowsky," Erich guessed in a low breath. His heart pounded with such excitement that his usual fear of the dead seemed to vanish.

  The dank low-ceilinged room proved to be empty save for the near-skeleton and three small ceramic bowls, scrimshawed with blue ships upon a blue floral sea. The bowls sat upon a stone pallet which protruded from a side wall and was perhaps meant as a resting place for a body. The floor was also stone, though furred with a fine, wet moss. When he touched it, Erich made a face and brushed his hands clean against his trouser leg.

  Bruqah entered.

  "You know who that is," Erich said, sensing the Malagasy's lack of surprise.

  Bruqah picked up a wrist as if checking for a pulse, and set the arm down again.

  "I thought you said Benyowsky had been buried at the far end of the bay, near the mouth of the Antabalana River," Erich accused.

  "Entombed," Bruqah corrected. "Not buried. And please to remember my people remove and re-shroud the dead whenever the lambamena needs replacing--or when living spirits feel the need."

  "For Malagasy dead, yes, but for Europeans?"

  Bruqah moved slowly around the corpse, scru
tinizing it. "Was Count never Malagasy? Had he no roots in this our land?" He looked at Erich. "Was he never Ampandzaka-be?"

  The words chilled Erich. Just the dankness of the tomb, he told himself. He drew his shoulders closer together, crossing his arms. "Someone brought the body here. Who would go to such trouble?"

  "Zana-Malata awaits return of soul of Princess."

  "And you?" Erich asked, as the guards peered in the doorway. Erich lanced his light toward them. "Out!"

  Muttering, they withdrew.

  "I, too," Bruqah said softly. "I, too." More loudly, he added, "Body faces east, where spirits of our ancestors rest. Legs are tucked. Forbidden to extend feet to east. Carefully done, all right."

  "Someone went to a lot of trouble," Erich said, hesitant to divulge his suspect for fear Bruqah might disagree--and whatever small sense Erich had made of the matter would unravel.

  "Count has waited long years for his woman to return. He yearns for her, I think. He knows she near, I think."

  "You know too much," Erich said sternly. "Or at least you think you do."

  Using the flashlight as if it were a lance or staff, he ushered Bruqah from the tomb. Glancing back, as the lamp passed the bowls, he thought he glimpsed rice and what looked like chicken fat within two of them, but subsequent sweeps revealed only that the bowls were empty. He emerged, squinting, into the light and heat of the day.

  "We want to look," a guard said. "See for ourselves."

  Erich gave him the light, and the two guards crowded toward the crack. "If I find you've touched him or searched his pockets, I'll court-martial both of you," he warned.

  He sent the Jews packing, shovels over shoulders. When the guards exited the grave, he dismissed them as well, and told Bruqah to go and find Miriam and the boy. Alone at the site, the world, even this new world, seemed very far away.