Children of the Dusk (18 page)

"No," Misha said quickly, remembering the burning stuff that the Zana-Malata had given him. "To cure your cough," Hempel had said. Only it hadn't cured a thing, and it had given him terrible nightmares. He remembered the Zana-Malata, face streaked with glowing white slashes, tilting Misha's head sideways and up and pouring a thimble full of fiery red liquid between his lips. When some had dribbled from the corner of his mouth, the Zana-Malata caught it up with his index finger and forced it back inside his mouth. He choked, and the syphilitic's watery eyes mocked him. The man had pinched Misha's lips shut to keep him from spitting up. He'd gagged, but could not pull away.

The fire had filled his veins, making his skin burn as though from the inside and yet giving his body an easy, drowsy feeling at the same time. It was as if he could take a razor blade, slice open his flesh, and step out of it, like a clown passing through a papered hoop and into the ring of the Berlin circus. His mind had sped up the more his body slowed. He had seen images: two fossas watching him from the hut's corner; the skull of a water buffalo, stubby candles burning in its eye sockets.

He remembered lying on the floor of stripped saplings, a breeze fluttering the edge of the zebu-hide door, and then the hut dissolved. The walls shimmered, wavered, undulated into air. He'd felt himself floating above the meadow. The forest canopy blended into a crenelated green cap covering each of the island's two hills, and around Mangabéy white wavelets shuddered against black and tan shores. The bay was aquamarine, shiny as satin and underlain with the dark irregular shapes of reefs and ledges. Further beyond, the broad crescent of rain-forested land rose felt-green up steep slopes, to lap at pinnacles that jutted above the jungle canopy like peaks of a ragged crown. He was free. He remembered closing his eyes, feeling the sun against his cheeks and the wind in his hair, and thanking the Zana-Malata and the fiery drink.

Then he was back in the hut. The good, warm feeling was gone and the Zana-Malata stood over him. He wore a rattan hat, brimless, its fringes dancing darkly in the shaft of sunlight that penetrated the hut's dark interior. Misha had felt like crying. But he would not cry, he never cried. On the morning after he left the fire escape, where Papa had secreted him and climbed back into the shambles that had been his home before the Gestapo broke in, he had promised himself he would never cry until he and Papa were united once more. Still, he'd heard the whimpering in his own throat and felt the trembling as the Zana-Malata squatted before him, seized his wrist, and brought forth a short dagger he had been holding hidden against his side.

The Zana-Malata had pulled him slowly forward. He'd allowed himself to be drawn like an object at the end of a rope. The black man's eyes had flickered and he'd brought the dagger tip against Misha's neck and cut into his flesh.

Laughing all of the time.

Laughing...

They were sitting in the shade, but the combination of heat and inactivity was making Misha drowsy. In a few minutes, he was fast asleep and dreaming--of Hempel, and Pleshdimer, and the Zana-Malata. In his dream, he lay on Miriam's lap on the jouncing tank, watching the clouds and wondering if he were not in fact up there, watching some other boy lying on the machine as it plowed across the meadow.

"We should go, Misha," Miriam said, shaking him gently.

He looked around. He was seated amid daisies and tall grasses. Through a break in the surrounding foliage he could see down to the shore. Shadows and sun flicked across his face, and he felt himself sliding into sleep again.

"Lady Miri, Misha, Germantownman say it time to go."

Bruqah's voice filtered through the bushes. Misha stirred lazily.

"Go, Misha. Tell Bruqah I could use his arm to lean on."

Misha stood up and offered Miriam his arm. She smiled and thanked him, and they moved in the direction of Bruqah's voice. They found him easily, and he took over the role of escort, motioning to the boy to go ahead. Misha could see the tank through the foliage and ran toward it, but he was seized by a fit of coughing and tripped over a rotted log overgrown with passion-flower vines and covered with thornbugs and zebra butterflies. Picking himself up, he saw that he had stumbled into a grove of pitcher plants, as whitish-yellow and velvety as a midsummer moon. The remains of beetles and ants floated in translucent syrup.

Looks like honey, he thought, poking his finger into the stickiness above the plant's curled lip. He licked it off.

His pleasure at its sweetness lasted only a moment. He began staggering in a circle, gargling and gasping for breath. He could see Erich racing toward him from one side, and Bruqah from the other.

"What is it?" Erich demanded. "What!"

Misha could not answer. He pointed toward his mouth; the gagging grew more pronounced, and he fell to the ground.

Erich gripped Bruqah by the wrist. "What the hell!"

"Faking," Misha heard a guard say. "I've seen similar tricks."

"They pulled stunts like this back at camp, we'd pee on their faces," another guard said. "
That
brought 'em around."

Misha wheezed so heavily that it sounded to him as if he had an entire string orchestra locked inside his chest. He could see Pleshdimer waddling toward him.

"Stay away from him," Miriam said, placing herself between Misha and Pleshdimer. She knelt awkwardly and took Misha's head in her lap. He looked up at her fearfully.

"Oh God, what's that on his face? Some kind of a rash."

"You're going to be all right," Erich said softly.

Terrified, Misha quivered and lay still. He could hardly move, but he was fully aware of what was going on around him.

Bruqah squatted and pressed his fingers against the boy's throat, testing for a pulse.

"Is he...?" Miriam asked.

"Dead?" Bruqah shook his head. "Sometime easier, that. Dead forget pain." Looking up at Erich, he said, "Get water."

"Give him your canteen," Erich ordered over his shoulder.

No one moved.

"Water!"

"Here." The guard held out a canteen begrudgingly. Erich tore it from the man and started back toward Misha.

Bruqah put a hand on Erich's, halting him. "Water good?"

"How the hell do I know! Of course it is!"

"It not
Rano vola
, but it do, if Erich-man say it be pure," Bruqah said.

"You heard me say it is," Erich replied angrily.

Bruqah lifted the canteen from Erich's grasp.

"Now what are you doing!" Erich burst out.

"What I must," Bruqah said. "Am I not
mpanandro
-Vazimba...an astrologer? I warn Sollyman, pitcher plants most bad for some people."

Standing before the pitcher plants, he bowed his head. Then he extended his hand and, mumbling words Misha could not comprehend, sprinkled water into each of the elongated cups.

Erich grabbed Bruqah by the hair. "What the hell do you think that's going to do to help--"

Miriam put a hand on his wrist and he let loose of the Malagasy who ministered to the last of the section of pitcher plants, letting the water dribble across his tilted palm and into the cup. The mumbling never ceased.

"What happened?" Misha sat up and inhaled noisily.

Bruqah stood, grinning, and lifted the canteen as if in a toast. "Spirits happy now," he said. He drank deeply and smacked his lips. "Incantations make Bruqah thirsty."

He handed Misha the canteen. The boy drank deeply.

"Even the rash is gone," Miriam said. She hugged Misha to her.

"I feel fine, now," he said.

Taking him at his word, Erich led the way to the tank. They settled themselves, Misha again on Miriam's lap at her insistence.

He was sitting awkwardly upright when they passed the hut and, looking the other way, he saw Herr Freund, in a cage like an animal at the zoo.

"Stop," he said, jumping up and stepping right on Miriam's foot. "Please. Stop."

Erich looked in the direction of Misha's finger. "Stop the tank," he shouted.

He jumped off the machine at a run. Misha followed close behind, leaving Miriam sobbing and clutching at Bruqah who had emerged to find out what was going on.

"Not to worry. I bring Torah," Bruqah yelled.

Then they were at the cage and the Herr Oberst was issuing orders, and there was arguing, and finally Herr Freund was released. His skin was bright red and blistering.

"Who did this?" Colonel Alois asked in that loud whisper Misha had heard his own papa use when he had gone beyond anger.

The question was at first met by silence. Then Herr Freund looked right at the Herr Oberst.

"Who do you think did this? He thought he was punishing both of us," Herr Freund said.

"Come with us," Erich commanded.

Then Misha was in Bruqah's arms, the colonel in front, pushing back the flaps of the medical tent to admit Sol and the rest of them. The corpsman was inside with the sick dogs. He was the man called Franz, who used to sneak him chocolate and bread during his Sachsenhausen days.

Through half-closed eyes Misha saw Miriam, Franz, and Bruqah move toward the supplies, gathering things. Bruqah left, saying he was going to gather petitboom and Christmas-bush leaves so that they could boil them up and make tea for the boy's cough.

Erich hovered close, and there was angry pain in his eyes. He glanced toward the others, as if to assure himself that they were not watching, and with his fingers combed back Misha's hair.

"Otto Hempel won't hurt you again," he whispered. "I'll see to it."

Misha shook his head. "I have to go back, Herr Oberst," he said.

"No!" Miriam took hold of him and held him so tightly he could barely breathe. "I won't let you return to those...those monsters!"

"I must," Misha said, when she loosened her hold.

He wanted to tell her why, but somehow he knew that if he did his resolve would weaken. No matter what they did to him, Hempel and Pleshdimer and the Zana-Malata, being near them would make it easier for him to do what he had to do.

In his mind's eye, he conjured up his list.

Kill
, it read next to each of their names.

Kill
.

M
iriam looked at the sleeping boy. He blinked and twitched, but the soporific was working; in all probability, he would not wake for hours. Sleep would not dispatch the trauma he had endured, nor would it change his mind about returning to those animals, but at least he would be away from it for a little while.

She closed the mosquito netting around him and, after nodding thoughtfully toward Franz, went outside the tent to join Erich. He stood smoking a cheroot, looking off toward the west.

"Hempel has got to be stopped," he said. "Somehow I've got to break him."

"The whole operation has to be stopped," Miriam said. "This entire Madagascar insanity."

"What alternative would you suggest? Leave all of Europe's Jews in Hitler's hands, and let him annihilate them?"

"Things will be different here? Everyone will be penned on the island, with no way to escape. At least in Europe there's the chance that they can flee
somewhere
."

"Once the bulk of the Jews have left Europe, Hitler will have fulfilled his promise to the German people, to cleanse the continent of them. And he'll have what he really wants--the property they leave behind."

"You Nazis are all alike...simplistic answers for everything."

He tilted his head and blew a long stream of smoke. "You haven't been yourself, lately. The voyage, the pregnancy, getting settled here. I'll treat your remarks accordingly." He looked at Miriam and narrowed his eyes. "But don't overstep too often, Miriam Alois. You may find yourself on the wrong side altogether."

"When have we ever been on the same side?"

He lifted an insolent brow as if condescendingly letting her rant, and returned to smoking his cheroot.

A runner stopped at the gate, raised his arms, and let the guards frisk him. Panting, he marched toward Erich. It was Max, youngest of the prisoners, other than Misha. During one of several brief conversations, he had told Miriam that they had arrested him when he'd gone to get help for his wife, about to deliver. He had never learned the fate of his wife or unborn child, for he had refused, despite torture, to reveal their whereabouts. Due to her own condition--and perhaps, Miriam had to admit, to his exceptional good looks--he had a special place in her heart. She found herself smiling at him as, gasping, he saluted and delivered his message.

"I got permission to look for you at the crypt, but you had already left, Herr Oberst, sir!"

"And? Why did you wish to speak to me so urgently?"

"To tell you what they had done to Solomon Freund, sir."

"Rest easy, young man," Erich said. "Your
rabbi
has been released. Tell me, did you see Sturmbannführer Hempel on your travels up and down the hill? Has he assessed the hill as a forward post?"

"I would not be privy to such information, sir. The last time I saw Sturmbannführer Hempel he was headed down the other side of the hill, toward the lagoon. He left Kapo Pleshdimer--Rottenführer Pleshdimer," Max did not try to mask his disgust, "in charge."