Children of the Dusk Read online

  How extraordinarily beautiful she had been, Sol thought. Not that she was any less beautiful now, just older, wearier.

  He blinked open his eyes and sat up to find the canvas-covered area around him filled with activity. He realized his reverie had been deeper and longer than he'd supposed. Squinting in the direction of the music, he saw Bruqah, valiha in hand, seated cross-legged in the path that ran between the Jewish sleeping area and the main fence.

  The Malagasy listened intently to the music box, then plucked out a reasonable rendition.

  "Must you?" someone asked.

  "Maybe some of us enjoy the music," a different voice said. "Close your ears if you do not wish to hear it."

  The valiha and music box lifted Sol on a wave of sentiment and set him down, like a castaway, in a Berlin separated from the real world. He lay for a moment beneath his eiderdown, in the bedroom whose ceiling with its three cedar beams hovered in the haze of life without his glasses. He'd been young, then. At least he saw himself that way. He tried to manipulate the memory--to cast himself a dozen years later, Miriam beside him, but to no avail. Dread and doubt ticked loudly in his mind, and he found himself eyeing the Malagasy suspiciously.

  What motive, he wondered, lay behind Bruqah's apparent devotion to Miriam and, to a somewhat lesser extent, to Sol? The voyage--a free ticket home--that much was understandable. But Miriam had said that the Malagasy had refused all offers of money, and not only from Erich, but from her as well. So what did he want? After all, the instant Erich stepped on Nosy Mangabéy, he was invading Bruqah's country, unless Bruqah was truly a collaborator intent on some future, greater reward.

  In which case, befriending Jews made no sense at all.

  Sol scrutinized the valiha player. Bruqah was so engrossed in his attempt to imitate the music that he scarcely looked up from the strings except to stare disconcertedly at the box and try another chord. After a dozen measures, he frowned and shut the box lid. He reached beneath his lamba, removed a small ring-tailed lemur from next to his stomach, and tucked the box in its place. Squinting toward the dogs, who were pacing and yapping nervously, he patted the lemur on its rump to shoo it toward the fence. It went hesitantly, constantly looking back, like a raccoon loathe to give up food found at a campsite. At the fence it lifted its tail and, as if aware that the shepherds were chained, sauntered with a diffident air between the wires.

  "I awoke him too early. He is social, that one."

  "Like you?" Solomon asked.

  Bruqah laughed lightly as he placed the valiha across his knees. "This Bruqah neither alone nor part of a pack. I be traveler's tree."

  "You refresh whoever needs help," Solomon said rhetorically. He knew the traveler's tree legend. Symbol of all Madagascar, it provided water and sustenance to those who might otherwise perish.

  Bruqah shook his head. "Not willingly."

  When he looked at Solomon, the Malagasy's eyes were so deep with meaning that Sol felt fear ripple up his back, as though he were arching like a cat.

  "He who thinks Zanahary, the Prince of Creation, made land solely to serve man will awaken to find himself buried beneath it," Bruqah said.

  "Then why are you here?" Solomon asked in a hush. "Why do you stay with us now that you're..." To his chagrin he found it difficult to say the word. "Now that you're home," he managed.

  Bruqah leaned forward, thumb and forefinger of his right hand outstretched as though he meant to reach between the wires and snare Solomon's nose--a child's game. Instead he carefully took hold of a barb and turned it to and fro, as though in scrutiny.

  "Fence is fady," he said.

  Fady. Taboo. There was no longer music in his voice, and the glimmer in his eyes had gone from flat to fierce. Solomon realized the fady that Bruqah now referred to was not the fady of which he so often spoke. Fady to eat white on Wednesdays, fady to sit with the feet extended toward the east, fady for a woman not to wear a skirt. This fady was of a different, deeper quality. More basic, Sol sensed. And not just to Bruqah.

  "Why is it fady?" Solomon probed. "Because Nazis strung it?"

  Confusion showed in the Malagasy's face. "Your people strung it, Rabbi. Are you also Nazis?"

  "You know what I mean. Don't play coy, Bruqah." Sol cautiously put a hand atop Bruqah's fingers, on the wire. "Why is the fence fady?"

  "Lines turn the forest back--and black," Bruqah said.

  "You talk in riddles." Seeing that the remark appeared to trouble the Malagasy, Sol added, "...my friend."

  "I am supposed to. I am mpanandro--an astrologer."

  Sol tightened his hold on the Malagasy's hand. "Tell me, mpanandro, what the stars say about why a Vazimba named Bruqah befriends Vazaha--we Europeans."

  "If I told you, would you believe? Sometimes, stars lie." Bruqah's thin lips twisted into a wry smile.

  "More often, astrologers are charlatans."

  "There is that."

  Out of the corner of his eye Solomon saw Pleshdimer approach with his enormous bucket on his shoulder, as if bound toward the kennel area to feed the dogs.

  "Tell me!" Sol whispered.

  Bruqah's eyes flicked in anger toward the Kapo, then turned in earnest toward Solomon. "You have dwelled in dreams too long not to know the answer, Rabbi. Why does a traveler's tree grow beside a path? Why are some men fato-dra, bound by blood, or the spirit of the newborn dead restless until it is exalted through the feast of tokombato?... Fa fomba vao, because it is custom. I know not how else to answer you, Rabbi." Leaning closer to the fence, he said, "Would your temper be untroubled if I told you I seek the child?"

  "My child? Mine and Miriam's?"

  "Yes, if it be your child."

  "But why would you want the baby? I don't understand."

  "And you call yourself 'Rabbi'!"

  "I am not a rabbi. Nor have I ever claimed to be. It's just an honorary title that the others--"

  "In that case, you are a fool."

  Glaring, Bruqah drew back as Pleshdimer came to stand between them. "Buggering each other through the wire?" he asked Sol. He lifted a shoulder-high strand. "When she's hot, we'll let you Jews close as you want to the fence."

  "The Oberst"--Sol had started to say 'Erich'--"won't stoop to that. He knows we are men of our word."

  "Not a Jew born that can be trusted," Pleshdimer said soberly and a little sadly as he set down the galvanized bucket. On top of a pile of what looked like skinned rats lay an undercooked, reddish-gray haunch, days old and crawling with maggots. Sol's stomach wrenched.

  Bruqah looked at the animals in the pail in horror. "Lemurs!" he said.

  The Kapo picked up a stringy hunk of meat. Drooling as he chewed, he lowered himself to a sitting position and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I would offer you some, Rabbi, but it isn't koshered." He laughed uproariously at his own cleverness, pulled an uncooked lemur breast from the bucket, and offered the meat to Bruqah. "Want some of your own kind, monkey man?"

  "Zanahary did not create His creatures so you could fill buckets," Bruqah said.

  "It's not for me, Neger." Pleshdimer patted his ample belly. "Sturmbannführer Hempel personally sees to it that I get the best meat. Nothing is better eating than dog, except..." He winked and snorted. "...except woman." Nodding toward the kennel area, he used his teeth to twist off another enormous bite, and dropped what remained into the bucket. "The shepherds dine fancy tonight!"

  He stood, lifted a leg to fart loudly, and sauntered along the fence. Sol stayed inside the sleeping area and moved laterally to keep up with him. "Does the Oberst know about this?" he asked. "Do the trainers know you're feeding the dogs lemur?"

  Pleshdimer picked meat from between his rotted teeth, and worked his jaws as if to exercise them.

  "Why should they care what goes in those dogs' mouths and comes out their butts?" he said finally. Belching, he ambled across the grass, leaving Solomon to clutch the fence.

  Well, let the dogs eat the lemurs and each other! Sol thought. The shephe
rds weren't any concern of his and, besides, the meat was probably good for them. Why should Erich care? Why should he, Sol, care even if Pleshdimer did give them something that wasn't proper or--he mentally grimaced--or kosher. As far as he knew, the only thing that differentiated those dogs from the ones at Sachsenhausen was the hand controlling the choke chain.

  He gripped the fence so tightly that the wire cut into his palm.

  ...the hand controlling the choke chain.

  Erich's hand.

  His was the hand that controlled the wireless key, with its connection to Berlin and the Sicherheitspolizei; held the lifeline of the hundred and forty some Jews, including the one in the womb...if indeed the child was the progeny of Jewish parents.

  His papa's voice came to him from the past: "There is no such thing as being half Jewish."

  He thought for a moment about what he had just seen and about the uses to which he could put the information. If Erich did not know what the dogs were being fed, reporting it could possibly put him in Sol's debt. Even if he did know, telling him could do no harm. Either way it was a sign of good faith that might ultimately stand the Jews in good stead.

  "Jew wishing to exit on an errand!" he called out as he ran toward the guard at the gate. "Jew begging permission of his betters!"

  Erich had made certain concessions to keep the guards happy.

  After Sol explained that he had important information meant for Erich's ears only, he was allowed to walk alone toward the HQ tent, the guard's glare drilling into the back of his neck. Of the Jews, only Sol had the freedom to move about the camp with relative ease. The soldiers--even the trainers--resented it, and in a way Sol couldn't blame them. He was an enemy, after all. When not pulling guard duty, the soldiers stacked their rifles tripod-style in front of their tents. And the supply tents, crowded with boxes of ammunition and weapons, were within reach if a man bent on destruction were not carefully watched. Once the generator was in full operation, the radio could transmit messages to French forces at Diego Suarez or to the capital, Antananarive, if HQ could be accessed for a few minutes. Even Erich's gun--

  "A gift for you, Rabbi." Bruqah's voice was low and emotional as he emerged from the latticework shadows cast by the sleeping area fence.

  Sol glanced furtively to see if the guard was watching. He was. The man shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

  "If it is not important, may dô snakes slide from my ancestors' eyes!" Bruqah said, passing his hand across Sol's and leaving something metallic in Sol's palm. The shape was familiar, but he dared not look down, for fear the guard would come running.

  "It was in the box of music," Bruqah whispered. "Lady Miriam say it yours. Germantownman would love to possess it, I think."

  Suddenly the shape made sense. Sol passed his thumb across the object, his mind immediately atumble with painful memories.

  Papa's medal.

  "That's an Iron Cross," he whispered. He wiped the mud from both sides and ran a fingertip down it. He could feel the inscription, etched into the back so lightly that the casual observer would miss it.

  He remembered how Jacob Freund had gone over the original engraving, cutting deep into the metal for fear someone might attempt to delete it.

  Solomon seized Bruqah's wrist and wrenched the Malagasy closer. "Where did you get this!"

  "Germantownman take it from music box drawer. He say, 'This was my father's.' Lady Miri say he lie."

  "Erich told you this was his?" The depth of Erich's self-deceit made Solomon feel weak. Suddenly, the world of Erich Alois made sense. By taking the Iron Cross Sol had left with Miriam, Erich had rid himself of one father and given birth to another. He no longer had to think of himself as the son of a guttersnipe raised to entrepreneur by a Jew. He was reborn out of his own Imperial-German imagination, his patriotic heritage fashioned as easily as he had forged a new surname. Born Erich Weisser; reborn Erich Alois to ingratiate himself with Adolph Alois Hitler.

  "This belongs to me," Sol said quietly. He gripped the Iron Cross and squinted toward the headquarters tent.

  He heard an undercurrent of sound beneath the noise of the generator and the jungle. It seemed to emanate from along the fence. He looked in alarm toward Bruqah, who put a finger to his lips.

  "Look!" Bruqah whispered.

  Along the perimeter of the fence stood a gathering of lemurs, too numerous for a single group. Sol had seen them move through the forest when he and other workers had cut the jungle's slender trunks to build the compound, but he had never seen them like this, prancing around with eyes as huge as eternal questions.

  "My friends," Bruqah said, smiling. He scanned the forest. "Me and lemurs share a past. We the same, me and these," motioning back and forth with a hand. Lifting his eyes, he looked intently at Sol, "Dreams be mirrors, and mirrors dreams, Mister Rabbi. You must dance there...among your dreams."

  A whirlwind of images swirled out of Sol's memory. "I know you, Solomon Freund," a Gypsy said. "I am a dancer in the dwelling place of dreams." An old blind man with a lemur called an indri asked him, "Are you a dog-headed boy, Solomon? Is that what your dreams say?"

  Solomon looked at the Iron Cross. "Who are you, really, Bruqah?" he asked. "Can you help us...help me?"

  "Only man who help himself win battle, Sollyman," Bruqah answered, turning toward the last rays of sunlight. "Child will come soon," he said. "The Kalanaro have been waiting."

  Solomon spotted the natives in the fringes of the jungle. As black as the Zana-Malata, they were pushing forward through the foliage, coup-coup machetes and assegais in hand. They looked like small warriors, bodies pulsating with smeared mud in the sudden darkness of dusk.

  For a moment Bruqah stared earnestly toward Solomon. "Luck to all, Rabbi. Danger find you, you find island's hill," Bruqah whispered in a hurried staccato. "Burial place. Sacred with lemur soul. Even Germantownman would not disturb."

  The Malagasy turned away. In seconds he had disappeared into the blackness of Solomon's peripheral vision.

  "Come back!" Sol rasped, turning to follow the other, but he could not find him. He noticed, instead, that a guard had left the gate and was starting toward him. Being caught with the medallion could mean death. Who would believe that he had acquired it by means other than theft?

  The HQ tent. His only chance: hide the cross, let Erich discover it. Sol hurried on, pretending to be oblivious to the guard's presence.

  As he neared headquarters he heard a voice slur from the medical tent beyond.

  "Can you ever forgive me?" Erich asked.

  Sol approached the HQ tent with the elaborately played respect one would expect from an underling...from a Jew. Cap clutched in armpit, head bowed, shambling steps. He raised his knuckles to knock quietly against the tent post holding up the front canopy. And all the while, his ears were tuned to the voices in the medical tent.

  "It's not my forgiveness you really want, Erich," Miriam said.

  "Solomon's?"

  "Your own."

  "Would Solomon follow your lead--if you could find it in your heart to forgive me?"

  The cold muzzle of a rifle touched the nape of Solomon's neck. "Move, or I'll kill you."

  "Would you want him to forgive? Would you debase yourself so much, Erich Alois?" Miriam said. "It would surely be debasement in your view, would it not?"

  Solomon stood with hands lifted, the medallion clenched in his palm, as the guard walked in a semi-circle, faced Sol, and peered into the HQ tent.

  "The Herr Oberst isn't here," the guard announced, eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Not the radio operator, either. No one." He moved around Sol with the cautious wrath of a cur sniffing a rival. "Just what did you think you could get away with here, Jew?"

  He jammed the barrel into Sol's gut. Sol doubled over in pain but managed to keep the medal concealed.

  "Get back to your sty! Sturmbannführer Hempel will hear about this!"

  "The Oberst is next--"

  "Silence!" The guard swung the
rifle butt-first, missing Sol's forehead by a centimeter.

  Sol staggered toward the sleeping area. He hesitated as he entered the gate, allowing the guard time to kick him because a boot was better than a bullet, and crumpled, groaning, onto the matted grass. As he lay with his face in the sod, trying to wheeze air into his lungs and drive out the fear and humiliation, he wondered if he should get word to Erich about the incident. The colonel's orders had been explicit: no beating or berating of prisoners unless they deserved it. The problem was that Sol could not say anything without revealing that he'd overheard the conversation in the medical tent, and Erich was not beyond killing him for being privy to his weakness.

  The pain subsided and the guard drifted into shadows to smoke a cigarette. Sol crawled over to the edge of the fence. He felt the paralytic fear instilled in him in Sachsenhausen. The only difference was that here the unfinished construction made in-compound movement relatively easy.

  Then a knee bore down against Sol's back and a guard gripped his hair, forcing up his head. Grinning, the guard slapped the flat of his bayonet against Sol's cheek.

  "Did you summon them, Rabbi?" the man said, directing Sol's vision to the lemurs. "You and your Jewish sorcery?"

  "Stick him!" another voice said.

  The guard lifted the weapon. "What, and spoil the fun? The Sturmbahnführer has plans for him."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Erich thought he remembered Taurus calling him sometime during the night. Remembered staggering to the medical tent, collapsing to his knees before the dog and wrapping his arms around her warm neck, mentally begging her to forgive him for bringing her to this terrible place. He remembered standing over Miriam, she lying beneath netting as hazy as a wedding veil.

  "Can you ever see it in your heart?" he thought he had said.