The Devil's Playground (39 page)

in motion.

‘What happened at the end? How did you escape?’

‘I didn’t escape. There was no escape from that place, no earthly

escape that is. By the beginning of January 1944, the Red Army was closing in. On the seventeenth they entered Warsaw. We knew that

they would be in the camp in a few days. The orders were to

evacuate. To evacuate and to destroy all evidence. That morning I

accompanied Dr Werner as he went into the infirmary and performed

his final duty at the camp. The patients looked at us with a strange expression as he shot them in their beds. They did not know the

Red Army was but miles away. Those that could walk were gathered

together by the Kapos and would follow them to Germany, there

were still camps there, work that needed to be finished. I suppose I was one of the lucky ones they thought they needed back in the

West.

‘We marched across huge deserts of snow, stretches of white

dotted with the dark smear of bodies. All the way there were bodies, Jews shot on the marches, those that weren’t strong enough to make it. There were thousands of corpses on that road, twisted and frozen in place.

‘We passed the skeletons of villages and towns, bombed and

burnt, as we headed towards the border. Smoke billowed and twisted from the black hills. Not much had been left to stand. The churches were gone, their spires, brick and rubble strewn on the streets,

everything pocked and cratered like a moonscape and I knew then

that I was seeing the new Europe, that below me lay the future and that something would rise from this rubble, something new and

tainted.

‘We met with others, sometimes marching with them at night

through dangerous territory. I remember one morning the most

amazing sight. Me and my companions were coming down from a

low set of hills and we could see a march in the distance, a group of twenty or so small figures, holding hands, walking two by two, slowly making their way through the snow. We climbed a ridge and viewed

them through our binoculars. They were all Mengele’s twins, what

was left of them. They had broken out and were marching themselves to freedom. No one said anything. The Germans let them pass.

The next day I was on a train bound for Buchenwald. I was there

until the Americans liberated it. All hell broke loose that day. Young American soldiers, eighteen and nineteen, came face to face with

the piles of bodies that the Germans hadn’t managed to burn, with

the living who were not really living any more. They went berserk.

They cried and cried and hugged those that were still alive. Can you imagine that, Midwestern farmboys putting their arms around Jews,

crying wildly? Well, that’s what happened, at least, at first. Then they went round and hanged any Germans they could find. They got the

prisoners to pull out all Germans that were pretending to be Jews, their fat faces hiding behind the striped burlap. The Americans let them torture them for days. Their screams filled the nights. It was a horrible scene. I was held in an internment camp for several days

where they questioned me, processed me and then they let me go.’

‘Was that when you wrote the book?’

‘No. I moved to a small village near Munich. There was never any

question of going elsewhere. Germany was where I was born, where

I received my education. I could not go to Israel, the United States these were as foreign to me as the South Sea islands. I was a German, a Jew, yes, but always a German too.

‘I set up a practice and, when the old doctor died, I became the

town’s doctor. I was Dr Kaplan. No one ever commented on the fact that I was a Jew. No one talked about the recent war. There were many things that were left unspoken in those years. I lived there through the fifties, watching the country grow back, the buildings going up, memories fading away or consigned like unwanted toys to a dusty attic somewhere. I was bored practising medicine in a small

town. I had to deal with coughs and flu and children’s diseases. You can imagine how it felt after being in Auschwitz. I saw that my life was gently petering out and that I would have to do something about it, something wildly unusual, or be dragged down. So I began writing the book. I would write between patients and at night in my small

house. It took me three years.’

‘Let me tell you a final story … you know people sent me a lot of correspondence in those days after the book came out and one thing I remember to this day. I got this letter from an Israeli. He had fought in the war of independence, ‘48. He told me the guns that the Israeli army used to keep their statehood were all stamped with swastikas

and iron crosses. Wehrmacht guns were going cheap in Europe I

guess, but the point is the State of Israel was won with Nazi guns, the same guns that had been used to kill the nation of Israel.’

The image blacked out and the CD stopped. Jon tried to

access it to see if there was anything else but that seemed

to be the end of the recording even though it obviously

wasn’t the end of the conversation. He punched the monitor

screen, glad of the pain that spread around his knuckles.

He then lit a cigarette and thought about what he’d seen,

thought about the Council involvement and, most of all,

about Jake.

Jon had found it disturbing not seeing Jake’s face, just

hearing his voice off-camera, cool and academic. He had

wanted to see the old man’s reactions to the Doctor’s speech,

thinking maybe that would help him understand. What was

the purpose of this? Did Jake see Kaplan as some lost,

missing father? Someone who had gone through all the

horrors that Jake had himself escaped? Did Jake merely want

to record the vile old man’s reminiscences or was he trying

for something more? Jon would never know. And who was

the third person who filmed the event, the ghostly presence

behind the camera, silent and unwavering? Jon had his suspicions.

He

smoked another two cigarettes and drank half his

bottle of duty free. He punched the wall a couple of times.

When he was sufficiently drunk, he began going through all

his Grateful Dead CDs, opening each case to see if there

was another TDK left by Jake, another ending to the tale.

He spent all night going through his discs, leaving them

scattered, uncased, on the floor, but all he found was his

hangover, and in the morning he packed his bag, put Jake’s

two discs into it and ordered a black cab to take him to

Heathrow.

‘A small hole was punctured on a temporal latitude marked

1945, and through that hole rushed the black future, curving

around on the horizon like a boomerang and then threading the

present.’

— Steve Erickson

29

‘You were lucky, very lucky.’

The face smiled down at him. He tried to move but found

that his arms had been strapped to the bed. His mouth felt

dry and rancid, his body soft, his mind unclear.

‘Nothing important damaged, just surface wounds. Looks

a lot worse than it is.’

The doctor smiled. Van Hijn tried to smile back but he

couldn’t move his mouth. He watched the doctor walk away.

Tiredness overcame him and he fell into a restless and

haunted sleep.

He awoke in the middle of the night. He couldn’t breathe.

He pressed the button for the nurse but no one came. He

heard far-off screams from another ward, the rattling and

scrape of metal beds being wheeled along the grey corridors,

muffled voices speaking behind doors and the ever-present

bleeping of the machines that he was connected to, like a

facsimile of his heart.

At some point his arms had been freed, or perhaps they

had always been so and earlier he just couldn’t move them.

He slowly and carefully touched his side where he’d been

punctured, but all he could feel were the rough edges of the

gauze that covered most of his abdomen. He noticed that his

stomach was flatter than he remembered it. Small pleasures

indeed.

‘Nurse, I need some cheesecake.’

The nurse looked at him as if he were a child who’d just

asked to see the Wizard.

‘It’s three in the morning, detective.’

‘I need cheesecake,’ he repeated, trying to sit up, but he

felt everything drain from him and he collapsed into the bed.

‘The doctor will see you in the morning,’ she replied,

turned, and left.

He didn’t think about what had happened. Not at first.

The last thing he remembered was making his way to the

flat. Next, he woke up in the hospital. They told him that

he’d been attacked on the street. Stabbed with a small dagger.

He’d lost some blood. No organs were touched. The doctor

said it was a miracle. Van Hijn the human sieve. He knew

what he’d have to face when he went back to work, the

catcalls and jokes, he was used to it by now but that still

didn’t make it any easier.

‘Hi.’

He looked up. It took him a few seconds to focus. Another

few seconds to recognize her from the first piercing parlour

he’d been to. Annabelle. So different out of her white smock.

She looked elegant and beautiful as she placed the flowers

beside his bed.

‘I read about it in the papers, thought you might appreciate

some company.’

He tried to smile and this time almost succeeded. It hurt

but it was worth it. He knew that it would take too much

effort to talk. He wanted to tell her how happy he was to see

her, to see anyone, but nothing came. She sat with him,

holding his hand. They watched the day collapse outside.

She read to him from a James Sallis book that lay by his bed.

It wasn’t his and he had no idea how it had got there but he

was content to listen to her soft voice, to watch her face

darkening in the twilight. He fell asleep to her words.

‘Detective.’

He awoke to the pit bull-like visage of his commander,

Beeuwers, a stout and solid man, immovable as a stone

monolith and with about the same sense of humour.

*We caught some kids. Junkies. Stiletto blade on them.

Your blood type. Thought you’d be happy to know.’

‘It wasn’t kids,’ he managed to say.

Beeuwers shook his head slowly. Y^ou don’t even remember

where you were when the attack happened, detective.

Don’t worry, we have them in custody.’

‘It wasn’t kids.’ He tried to get up, felt Beeuwers’ hand

like a weight settle upon his shoulder. ‘Who found me?’ he

gasped.

The captain smiled. ‘One of Zeeman’s men. Lucky for

you. Blood was leaking out pretty fast from what the doctors

said.’

Van Hijn remembered the phantom that had been following

him the last few days. ‘You fuck.’ He groaned. ‘You had

him tailing me, didn’t you? All this time?’

Beeuwers stared at him like a parent trying to make a child

understand something very, very simple. We had to make

sure that the case was being investigated in the proper way,’

he said.

Van Hijn wanted to scream. All the information he’d

collected, the leads and dead-ends, all this had been typed

and handed to the captain, laughed over in meetings. Discussed

and filed. He was glad that he hadn’t put his real ideas

down on paper.

Beeuwers smiled, so sincerely that Van Hijn knew he was

in for some bad news.

‘You’re off the case, detective. You need to rest, recuperate

for your hearing. We have something less demanding for

you. I’m sure you’ll find that Zeeman will continue ably

enough.’

Van Hijn stared at him. Wishing he could get up out of

the bed and strangle the fucker.

Beeuwers patted his shoulder. ‘Not my decision. Higher

up. They don’t think you’re getting anywhere. They don’t

think it’s good for you, this case. You know they still hold

February against you.’

‘The man was guilty,’ Van Hijn said but he knew it was

futile. All the decisions had already been made, stamped and

double stamped, and approved and, as a courtesy, they were

telling him.

Beeuwers nodded, enjoying the scene tremendously. ‘Perhaps

next time we should let the courts decide that.’ He put

one hand, thick and meaty as a prime piece of steak, on Van

Hijn’s shoulder, squeezed it, not a friendly squeeze but full

of grip and irritation and ire. ‘Take a few days off. Relax.

Forget about all this. We have some good men on the

case. Go away some place, Ronald. Wait for your hearing

somewhere else.’

‘I don’t want to.’ He felt utterly helpless, like a small child

in the shadow of his father, lying in bed, hardly able to talk,

unable to move. He knew that this was it. That somehow

the attack had only justified their opinions and that the

pension hearing would not go well. He closed his eyes. Tried

to remember Annabelle’s face. He heard Beeuwers talking

but he no longer listened to what he said. Finally the chief

grunted something and the door slammed.

Then darkness came, and with it, at last, silence.

3°

Climbing the four floors up to her apartment rather than

waiting for the lift had been a bad idea and it took Jon a

couple of minutes to regain his breath before ringing Suze’s