Children of the Dusk Read online

  After a long silence, she had answered, "Someday, perhaps. If you think my forgiveness would help."

  "And Solomon?"

  "What about Solomon?"

  "Would he follow your lead?"

  "Do you believe he could? Would you really want him to?"

  He awakened to a false dawn heavy with humidity. It made his sinuses swell and brought on a headache behind his eyes. When he dragged himself out of the chair he'd slept in and looked outside the tent, there seemed to him to be a sheen to the air, as though the sky had fractured and fallen. He winced and closed his eyes, wanting nothing more than to shut himself in for the day--alone with his military books and maps, the smell of dusty canvas, and what was left at the bottom of the bottle.

  "Bastards," he said, with the triumvirate of Hempel, Pleshdimer, and the syphilitic clearly in mind. "We'll see about you after the dogs and I get through with you."

  He had no intention of using his dogs for guarding the Jews. That was the job of Hempel's...boys, as Miriam was fond of calling the guards. Erich had never seen the dogs as guard dogs but as sentry dogs and combat troops. With Taurus and Aquarius out of action, he was loathe to do much training; the dogs needed to acclimate to the heat. Much to the anger of the guards, he had placed the dogs and the trainers on light duty.

  A hand touched his shoulder "It's the animals, sir! Come quickly!" Fermi's voice sounded like a megaphone.

  Suddenly fully awake, Erich followed the trainer. He felt himself running as though through glue to the kennel area, a feeling of renewed despair sticking like sweat against his skin. The trainers were each struggling to bring a raging shepherd under control. Pisces had wrapped his chain around his run-pole and was up on hind legs, straining against his bonds, jaws snapping and eyes filled with frenzy. Snarling, Gemini was sprinting the length of her run with such force that each time she reached the end she was thrown off her feet and lay squirming and growling, tugging her head against her collar.

  "They're fevered, sir. I think this damn humidity's got to them." After great difficulty Fermi managed to snap a choke chain onto Pisces' collar and lift him to the dog's full height, temporarily controlling the animal while Erich, squinting against the urge to sleep, clamped Pisces' jaws together and slipped on a muzzle. "Feel his nose, sir! Hotter than a nipple on a French whore. All the dogs' are."

  Shivering and gnashing his teeth against the leather restraint, Pisces abruptly twisted from Erich's grasp and insanely pawed the air as Fermi fought to control him.

  "It's not distemper, is it?" Fermi was clearly worried.

  "They wouldn't all have it." Erich's voice sounded outside himself. He realized he was watching himself as if from a distance. "You see?" He knelt and lifted the upper gum, revealing the canines. "No pink froth." He anxiously searched the forest. "Something outside the compound has them riled. The Kalanaro, maybe?"

  "Kalanaro, sir?" asked Holten-Pflug, Sagittarius' trainer, a chubby staff sergeant with a boyish face.

  "Those pygmies with the glowing face paint." Erich silently cursed himself for having spent the night with the bottle. He tried to think about the Kalanaro as he rose to his feet and peered around the jungle perimeter. He thought he recalled digging through books from his footlocker earlier in the night. He had found no mention of the Kalanaro in the military literature or the supplemental guides. He had counted eighteen tribes--plus the Vazimba and Zana-Malata, who functioned as individuals rather than in groups. In his mind's eye he remembered demographic maps; he had even found the location of the Mikea, a tribe so small and mysterious that they had been considered mythical until a decade ago.

  The Kalanaro were not among the eighteen.

  They were not listed among the sub-groups: the clans and moieties. Nor among the lists of non-Malagasy peoples inhabiting the country.

  Bruqah had proved no more enlightening. "Kalanaro," was his only answer. "They not hurt you. They be spirit-guardians of Madagascar."

  "Spirits, my ass," Erich had said, but the Malagasy had refused to say more.

  Returning to the moment, he said, "No, I don't think this has anything to do with the Kalanaro. The dogs all seem to be straining toward the main gate."

  "What, then?" Fermi asked, going to help Virgo's trainer.

  "I'm not sure," Erich said over his shoulder.

  Virgo struggled in the trainer's arms and gnashed her teeth. Her eyes bulged, but at last, within his loving arms, she briefly settled, whining and quivering. Erich followed the dog's gaze. She was glaring past the ghetto and the compound gate--glaring toward the hut.

  Emerging from the doorway, the Zana-Malata stepped aside as several guards filed out and, in a mob, headed toward the compound. Hempel was in the lead, with Misha trotting alongside, leashed by a choke chain. The syphilitic followed. The two guards at the gate snapped to ready arms and saluted when Hempel entered.

  Nostrils flaring and eyes so intense they seemed about to pop from her skull, Virgo renewed her frenzied, deep-throated growl. From the medical tent, he heard Taurus. Trying to tell him something.

  That's it, isn't it, girl! When I was at the crypt, you sensed trouble and wanted to warn me.

  More guards had emerged from their tents and were joining Hempel, several smacking truncheons against their palms as, a mob now, they marched toward the Jews.

  "Let the dogs go," Erich said.

  Totenkopfverbände: Death's Head Unit. He'd show Hempel what death was all about!

  "Sir?" Fermi questioned.

  "Do as I say!"

  Fermi looked from his commander to the oncoming mob, and then suddenly, like the precision squad that they were, the trainers sensed their predicament at the same time. They were weaponless but for the dogs. Between themselves and their rifles, stacked outside their tents, were Hempel and his men on the one side and, on the other, over a hundred and forty Jews who would tear any German soldier apart if they had the chance.

  The guards began to chant. "Kill the Jews! Kill the Jews!"

  With perverse pleasure Erich saw the faces of his men harden. He had trained them well--though they were untried in battle, he was sure they could be as savage as the dogs. Fermi's face shone with fierce delight as he unmuzzled Pisces.

  The Jews, seeing two packs of jackals doing battle over hunks of meat--them--started running around within the sleeping area and yelling to one another, searching for anything with which to defend themselves.

  "Release...now!" Erich commanded. Then, mentally, he ordered the dogs to restrain the guards.

  Slavering and crazed, ten of the twelve dogs of the zodiac raced indiscriminately toward anything that moved.

  "Get the guards!" Erich screamed.

  "KILL JEWS!" the guards intoned.

  Instead of responding like Erich's trained killing machine, the dogs behaved like sharks in a feeding frenzy.

  "Herr Oberst!" Holten-Pflug shouted above the din. "The dogs' water dishes! It looks like someone's dribbled blood--!"

  No wonder the shepherds were going crazy. Having tasted blood, they wanted more. Now controlling them would be a thousand times more difficult.

  "Who fed my dogs blood!" he called out when he was near enough for Hempel to hear.

  Hempel's men stopped their approach and grew silent, all except Pleshdimer, who shouted, "I did!"

  Erich felt heat rise into his cheeks. "Shoot that man," he said to the guard closest to him.

  The guard did not move.

  "Rottenführer Pleshdimer is SS, and thus not subject to your orders." Hempel withdrew a cigar from his pocket and moistened it by drawing an end over moist lips. "None of the guards are. You are Abwehr, we are Totenkopfverbände." After lighting the cigar with a match, he held the red end before the mouth of the Zana-Malata.

  The syphilitic encompassed it with gnarled flesh that once had been lips, and inhaled deeply, a look of pleasure entering his eyes.

  "You may do as you wish with your shepherds and Abwehr chimps," Hempel said, "but my unit is mine."


  "Then command your unit to conduct the execution. Or do it yourself. You are still subject to my orders."

  With his holster strap unsnapped and one hand on the grip of the Walther, Erich glared at the Zana-Malata, who must somehow be responsible for this insurrection. Hempel was crazy, but he was not stupid, certainly not stupid enough to pull this kind of maneuver so early in the game. Play the professional, he reminded himself. If they see chinks in the armor, they may crumble the castle.

  He drew his pistol and kept the weapon steady as he pointed it at Hempel. "Or do you intend to disobey your commander, Sturmbahnführer?"

  Hempel smiled a reassuring smile, as though he intended to gather Erich in and grace him with his confidence.

  "So you are, officially," Erich said in a tight, hard voice, "disobeying a direct order?"

  "That is correct."

  Erich's finger tightened on the trigger.

  Puuuh.

  The Zana-Malata had craned his neck so that his head was level with the gun when he blew the smoke ring. Tinged with blue fire and writhing with worms, it floated around the barrel and fastened onto Erich's flesh. His skin burst into flames. He screamed, fired, and dropped the pistol.

  The bullet went wildly astray.

  Slapping at his good hand with his dead fingers, he tried a roundhouse kick at the Zana-Malata. Off balance, he missed.

  "We each have our units to command," Hempel said.

  "We'll see about that! Guards, arrest those three!" he shouted, trying to be heard above the barking and growling. When no one moved to obey, he added, "They're to be shot for treason against our Führer!"

  The men did nothing. It was as if they did not even know that he was there. Disregarding the pain in his hand, he grabbed a tall man by the shirt. "You heard me! Arrest them!"

  The guard stared past him, making no effort to respond.

  With the back of his dead hand Erich struck the guard across the face. Blood burst from the man's nose. Erich looked at his hand in horror. Oh my God, I've struck an enlisted man.

  The man appeared hardly to notice. From somewhere close by, Erich heard again the sound of rubber against flesh. He swore to himself, pushed past the guard, and headed for his tent--and his MP-38 submachine gun. He would take all of them on himself, he thought irrationally. Behind him, he heard Hempel issuing orders and speaking to the Zana-Malata.

  "Our revered Herr Oberst has struck an enlisted man," he said. "Calm the dogs, my friend. You men are dismissed. We have won."

  You have won nothing yet, Erich thought. What he needed was more manpower. A guerrilla force. The Kalanaro, perhaps, who were forever popping up with that bird-shit on their faces like targets in a shooting gallery. But he wanted mercenaries who would act like soldiers, he thought, not like a bunch of gibbering monkeys.

  The "sit and wait" military order, he figured, was not a Führerbefehl--a direct order from Hitler, not to be questioned--but had come from Goebbels. As a field commander, he had a certain latitude. The guards were young and, in their demented way, idealistic; they wanted to do battle, not oversee Jews creating a matriculation center in the middle of nowhere. Promise them that they could march on Antanarivo, the capital nestled in the country's cool, central highlands, and they would abandon Hempel like fleas from a dead dog. The take-over of Madagascar with a handful of untested German troops and support from local tribes, that would appeal to them.

  He burst into his headquarters tent and grabbed the submachine pistol.

  A few of his trainers and their dogs--all of whom were to be trusted since they were Abwehr--could stay behind to maintain the island base camp, with its superior radio and secure position. They would also provide protection for the corpsman and Miriam and the child. Erich would take Taurus and the rest of the trainers and shepherds.

  As he turned to leave he spotted the bottle of schnapps, not quite empty from the previous night.

  One drink, to settle his nerves. As he poured the amber liquid, it occurred to him that playing the hothead was what Hempel wanted of him. Well, he wouldn't fall into that trap. Otto Braun had taught him to disappoint his enemies. The secret of guerrilla warfare, Braun had said, was to out-think your adversary.

  He sat down and put his feet up on the desk. Drinking the alcohol he had poured, he reached out, drew aside the tent flap, and saw that the compound was clear. The Jews had settled down again, the dogs were back in the kennel area, the guards had dispersed. Hempel was surely stewing in his own juices right now, upset that the young colonel had proven too cool-headed to rise to the major's bait.

  He settled back again, chuckling at his wisdom, and closed his eyes, imagining his troops marching into Antanarivo, the windows of the city's whitewashed buildings open, women waving flowers and men cheering.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Misha pretended he was somewhere else, not on a log beside a fire pit outside the Zana-Malata's hut, but on his father's knee in an easy chair in the tiny apartment off the Ku'damm.

  In his imaginings, his father, a rabbi, was reading to him again about how Abraham did not hurt his son but prayed to God, and about how Abraham knew Sarah and also knew things about Hagar who had a son named Ishmael and slept by a well. He told himself that when the story ended it would be bedtime, and his father would shut the book with a dramatic snap and kiss him goodnight. Misha would be ushered off to bed by his mother, happy that life was good.

  The boy could only sustain the illusion for a short while before reality intruded. He shifted position, straddling the log and using his hand to tug at the leash so that he would have more room. With his other hand he pulled bark from the log, wondering what he could do to cause something bad to happen to Hempel, like a fire to consume the hut while the major slept.

  When they were in the hut together, the Zana-Malata dawdled at similar things, using roots and sticks and powders and impressing Hempel with the uses he found for them. Surely something could happen if he, Misha, kept working at it.

  The Zana-Malata was only the second black man he had ever known. He didn't like him, but not just because he was ugly. His papa had taught him that no man was ugly unless his heart was evil. Ugliness, like beauty, papa had said, was something that lay beneath what was visible.

  How unlike Bruqah the Zana-Malata was, the boy thought. Hempel said the Vazimba was just another nigger African, no more trustworthy than a hyena, but he was wrong. Bruqah was wonderful.

  The Zana-Malata eased from his sitting place and, leaning forward, seemed to pull a thimble from midair. He passed it three times around the perimeter of the smoke, eyes closed serenely, appearing to savor the smell. He put his face into the smoke and slowly slurped from the thimble, then offered it to Hempel, who had squat-crawled forward, his hand on the black man's back. The thimble was still full. Hempel took it and looked at the Zana-Malata with solemn eyes before he drank, tipping his head back and tossing the liquid toward the rear of his throat, like Misha had seen his real father do sometimes with schnapps.

  Hempel handed back the thimble to the Zana-Malata, sat on the ground, and laid his head against the log. He looked up at the stars and sighed contentedly. "Do you know," he said to no one in particular, "that I once stood in a sleet storm all night at parade-rest, without a coat, just because I knew that Reichsführer Himmler would sometimes look down from his window? There must have been a hundred of us, men of all ages, and we kept up the vigil without ever planning it among ourselves or debating whether we should continue once we'd started. It was during a winter solstice celebration, at Wewelsburg Castle. After a book burning. God what a night that was!"

  He stretched out his arms, seemingly lost in thought. Misha watched him. He didn't know what to think about Hempel anymore. He remembered hating him, but lately he didn't feel anything at all except shame. He had learned to separate himself from the pain and hatred that had at first overwhelmed him when the major did the thing.

  "Bring me some wine, boy," Hempel said, letting go of the leash attached
to Misha's collar. "On second thought," he picked up Erich's Walther from where it had been lying in the grass, emptied out the bullets, and placed the gun between Misha's teeth, "the Oberst is certainly asleep in a drunken stupor by now. Sneak this into his hut and bring back whatever's left of that good schnapps he's been drinking."

  Misha dropped the gun, which was far too heavy for him to carry in that manner. "Pick it up and carry it," Hempel conceded. "If he wakes up while you're in there, don't speak to him. And be quick about it."

  Obediently, Misha set off through the tall grass that bordered the hut site. "I said be quick," the major called out, and threw a rock at him.

  He wouldn't go any faster, Misha thought. If it meant more rocks and worse, which it surely would, that was the way it was. He knew it was a small rebellion, but it was enough to lend him the courage to stop en route to the compound and dig up the zebu horn the guards had left after they hacked up the animal. It had looked so much like the Shofar that the cantor had used at his father's High Holy Day Services that he had buried it at the base of the tanghin tree, hoping to get it to Solomon in time. That way, though he couldn't be there himself, he'd be there in a kind of way.

  He tucked the Walther into his waistband, and holding the Shofar in his hand headed around two prisoners who stood between him and the HQ tent.

  "That damn leash and collar. We should take it off," one of the prisoners said, reaching for Misha.

  The other man grabbed his friend by the wrist. "Don't be a fool!" he said. "You think it would make things better for any of us? You think it would make things better for the boy?"

  Misha held up the horn. "A Shofar," he said, coughing, his voice hoarse from disuse. "For Herr Freund."

  The first man took it from him. "I'll make sure it gets to the rabbi," he said.

  Misha saw tears glisten in the man's eyes. He made a weak attempt at a smile and went on his way, guided by the quarter moon which hung in the sky like a grin and shone down on the Panzerbefehlswagen which Goldman and Bruqah were working on. He remembered Hempel saying that it should be used to blow the hell out of the devils they would encounter on the mainland, and Colonel Erich saying...he could not remember what the colonel had said.