Bluebird, page 11
The man in the faded stripes holds the door open for her, and Inge sucks in the fresh air. The sunshine.
“I knew you would not see him,” he says.
“They were prisoners?” Inge whispers. “Like you? Prisoners of … the Nazis?”
He nods.
“Who are they?”
“Jews. People who tried to save them. Anyone who disagreed, or was … different. Mostly Jews …”
Like Ruth. Who moved away. All of them moved away. It’s hard to breathe. Hard to get her words out.
“Did anyone … did any Nazi try … to help them? The … doctors?”
At the word doctors, the man grimaces. “Never the infirmary,” he whispers. “Better to starve, or be flogged, or be hung by your wrists …”
He glances sideways, and Inge sees tall poles, with ropes hanging off their tops, and what is unmistakably a gallows.
“Tell me your Papa wasn’t sent to the doctors, little girl?”
Inge shakes her head.
“I got sent to the doctors …” He fingers the two remaining buttons on his filthy shirt, and Inge sees the beginnings of a pink scar, not long healed, running longways down his chest. “They don’t care about pain there, the Nazi doctors …”
“But what about … a man named … von Emmerich?”
The former prisoner squeezes his eyes shut. “The others … they tortured and killed … they liked it. But the Doctor, he was … curious. He wanted to know what he could make you say. Make you do. How much you could endure. He made sure you were crazy, before you died …”
“Who … did?”
“Von Emmerich. The Doctor. They just called him … the Doctor …”
She shakes her head. Where is the air? Why isn’t there air?
“But why? Why would he … do … those things?”
“Lab rats,” the man whispers. “We were rats. Unworthy of life …”
Her head jerks around to the barracks. Unworthy of life. Like Papa’s book.
But who gets to decide? Which people are more and which are less? Who had decided Ruth was less?
Why had she never asked who got to decide?
The man in front of her is still talking. Eyes closed, singsong. “He will give our life meaning, the Doctor said. We will contribute to the noble pursuit of science. Because if the minds of lesser beings can be controlled, we can become productive. Useful. No need for wars and messy camps. We will help him make the world better. We, you see, we could make it all go away …”
A glorious war. A scientific pursuit.
We will teach them to be useful, my Vögelchen, productive. And won’t that be a better world …
The different parts of herself buzz, freeze, flame. Collide in confusion. The world has inverted. Turned inside out. Right is wrong and wrong is right. Nothing is real. Nothing is true.
Except that Hitler was a liar.
Her father is a liar.
Because this is not a better world.
“What happened to him?” Inge whispers. “What happened to von Emmerich?”
The former prisoner suddenly opens his eyes. “What did you say your Papa’s name was?”
Inge takes a step back. “What happened to von Emmerich?”
The man smiles. “They were arrested. The commandant, the officers. They will hang them, I think. For crimes against humanity.” Then he frowns. “But the Doctor wasn’t here …”
Inge backs away, past the barracks, past the poles with the ropes, and the gallows.
“Wait,” calls the man. “What is your name?”
She turns and runs for the gate, pebbles biting into her bare feet. Someone calls out in Russian, but she doesn’t look back. The anger that had scorched her insides twists, turns. Roars. Finding a new fuel for its hate.
“What is your name?” the man yells.
I am Inge … I am Inge …
But she isn’t.
She doesn’t want that name.
Not anymore.
“THIS IS OUR stop,” says Jake, grabbing the back of the seat. Eva clutches her purse. She can feel her pulse in her ears.
Cruickshanks had said there would be others. Others who will want her father just as much as the United States. And for the same reasons.
She has been so stupid.
They step down off the bus, people already pushing forward to take their place. The hospital is tall, pale brick, with dozens and dozens of glints of window glass winking at them in the sun. Jake takes her down a broad sidewalk, curving around a semicircular drive to double doors beneath an arch. He opens the door for her, then lets it close again.
“Are you okay?” When she doesn’t answer, he asks, “Are you nervous?”
She’s not nervous. She’s furious. Because she’s been stupid. Because she knows better than to trust. And because anger is more useful than the fear, or pain, or guilt.
Jake opens the door and this time she walks through, into a waiting room with chairs and benches, the hum of electric fans circulating the smell of bodies and disinfectant. They pass a nurse at a desk, talking on the telephone, her fingernails bitten to the nub in a disconcerting way, and then to an elevator, stepping inside as soon as the door slides open. Jake pushes the number twelve.
“Are you afraid of hospitals?” he asks when the door closes. They’re alone, machinery clicking and squawking as the elevator lifts. “There was a man once, Mr. Gravinsky. From Poland. He still shows up for coffee sometimes. He wouldn’t set foot inside one, because he’d been in a hospital at one of the camps.”
The elevator bell dings, one for each floor, and the question sits between them like an unpinned grenade.
Were you in a camp, Eva?
Yes, Jake, she could say, I was in a camp. For a little while.
She can see Jake in the mirrored reflection of the walls, brows together, hands in pockets. And she can see herself beside him. Small. Big-eyed. And straight-backed.
Oh yes, she had been in a camp.
And that thought incinerates the others.
She will find Schneider. She will find her father and there will be justice. She’ll do what she came to do, and she’ll do it in spite of this boy standing next to her.
Whoever he is.
The sliding wheel of numbers at the top of the elevator car reaches twelve. The bell dings and the door opens. Eva walks out first, briskly, turning to wait for Jake.
“Hey,” he says, “you were right not to say anything. It’s none of my business. But if you were in a camp over there, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, okay?”
He knows nothing of her shame.
They walk down a bright hall with a shiny white floor, past men with clipboards and lab coats, and rows of closed doors. Jake stops in front of one, knocking once before he turns the knob.
“What?” The voice inside is abrupt. Surly. And Jake waltzes through like he’s been invited. “Oh, so it’s you!”
“Hi, Uncle Paul.” Eva takes two steps into the office. “This is Miss Gerst.”
Dr. Greenbaum is big, beefy, with eyebrows that stick out in all directions. But his hands are very clean, soft-looking, and oddly delicate, twirling a pen. His fingernails are perfectly trimmed. He turns his dark eyes on Eva.
“Gerst? Any relation to the Gersts on East Twenty-Third? No? Good. Those Gersts are schmucks.”
“Mind if we sit?” Jake asks.
Dr. Greenbaum waves a hand, and Jake gets two chairs.
“So where are you from, Miss Gerst?” Dr. Greenbaum asks.
“Germany,” she replies. “Berlin.”
“So you’re Jewish?”
Eva gives her head a tiny shake, and Jake’s brows come down, puzzled.
“Hmmm,” says Uncle Paul. “Well, Jake told me what you’re looking for and I’ve got him.”
Eva looks steadily at Dr. Greenbaum. And there comes her pulse, a little heartbeat in her ears.
“Dr. Holtz,” he says. “Psychiatrist. Been in the country less than a year. Think he practiced somewhere near Berlin. Fluent German, of course, and he said he’d be pleased to have a talk.” For a moment, Dr. Greenbaum looks just like Jake, handing Eva an ice-cream cone. He pushes back his chair, lifting himself heavily from the desk. “I’ve got him waiting. Let me grab him.”
“Thanks, Uncle Paul,” says Jake.
Eva only nods, mute as Dr. Greenbaum leaves, shouting at someone down the hall. The pulse in her ears picks up, pounding in her chest. A German psychiatrist. Here for less than a year. Dr. Schneider had gotten her father a job. It’s today. The time is now.
Justice is now.
She gets up from her chair and goes to the window. There’s nothing to see outside but another brick wall. She sets her purse on the little ledge and unsnaps the clasp.
She hadn’t thought it would be now.
“When the doctor comes,” Eva says, “I would like to speak with him alone.”
There’s a pause, and she hears the wood of Jake’s chair creak. “I’ll be out in the hall.”
The door to the office shuts, and Eva reaches into her purse, finds the slit in the lining, feels the cool blade of the bread knife.
She breathes. And breathes.
She says the names. Twenty-seven names. Quietly. Under her panting breath.
She frees the bread knife from the purse lining, the handle tight in her grip.
Justice is now. It’s up to her. And whatever happens next must come.
And then the door is opening, Dr. Greenbaum’s voice booming somewhere in the hallway. It shuts again with a gentle click. But she can feel the presence of the man behind her. She can hear the rustle of a trouser leg. Blood rushes hot through her veins. She has her purse in one hand, the knife held inside it with the other. The German voice behind her is strong and soft.
“Guten Tag. Nett sie kennen zu lernen …”
Eva spins around.
INGE RUNS. SHE runs and runs. But how can you escape from what’s inside your head?
Moved away, that’s what Mama had said. Why had she never asked where “away” actually was? Had they all gone to a camp like her father’s? Where “make them loyal” had meant “stop feeding them until they die”? Where “make them productive” had meant using them like lab rats? Worse than rats.
Was Ruth dead? Were they all dead? Were they all put in ovens?
That couldn’t be true.
Only, anything evil could be true. And anything good could be bad. The shattered pieces of herself crash, fly, a whirlwind of confusion.
Papa loves her. Doesn’t he?
Papa is a monster.
But could he love her, and do all those things? What she’d seen? What she’d heard? He’d said Mama loved her, and Mama had shot her own children.
Except her. Mama hadn’t shot her.
Was that love, or not love? Inge runs faster.
You can’t escape from your head, and you can’t escape from your blood.
Brown water billows her skirt; her cuts and scrapes burn. Sting. She’s swimming the river. But she has no breath. Her legs are shaking. Her arms are weak.
The current swirls gently, undulating. Smooth and steady. The river isn’t good and the river isn’t bad. It just is. And there is no escape.
Inge stops swimming.
And the world becomes cool, dark brown, gurgling. Suspended. Still and quiet with a sparkling surface. Sun streaming down through the murk. Like ribbons of light. Like plaits of yellow hair.
And Inge’s body jerks.
Annemarie.
She’s forgotten Annemarie.
She swims. Breaking the surface with a sputter and a cough. Pushing herself toward the bank, dragging herself from the mud. She stumbles to the canal, across the rubble bridge, and there is the bombed factory, the crates, the car underneath charred canvas, leaning on its deflated tire. Inge pulls back the canvas. Yanks open the door.
Annemarie is lying flat on the back seat, eyes open, unblinking, staring at the roof of the car. But she is not a skeleton in the pile. Her chest is rising. Little moans coming from her mouth.
Relief pours through Inge’s chest. Water on a fire. Inge watches Annemarie breathe and makes a decision. Not everyone is going to die. Someone is going to live. Annemarie is going to live. And there is no one to keep Annemarie alive.
No one but her.
She will splinter into pieces later.
Inge unties Annemarie’s shoes. Annemarie has soiled herself, lying there, but it doesn’t matter. The shoes are tough leather lace-ups, for working around the farm. Much too big, and much better than nothing.
Inge can’t imagine, anymore, leaving behind something as valuable as her shoes. She can’t imagine being so stupid.
She scavenges the yard. A tire iron. A can of rusting nails. A chunk of concrete with a bit of metal inside it, a piece that fits well in her hand. She puts this in her pocket, then takes the bottle from the farm and an empty gas can and hauls water from the canal.
Annemarie’s eyes are closed now, but she swallows the water. And she swallows more. This is good. Then Inge strips off Annemarie’s clothes, washing Annemarie and the seat with a blouse and water from a can that smells of gasoline. Annemarie doesn’t like this. She frowns. Cries out, but Inge doesn’t mind. She’s glad to see Annemarie doing anything at all.
The wound on the back of her head has bled again, and her thighs, belly, and chest are mottled with bruises that run one into the other like a vine of ugly flowers. Inge takes her soiled clothes to the canal and scrubs them beneath a sunny sky with no planes. No bombs. A sky so quiet, it’s unnerving. Unsettling. Wrong.
And Inge realizes there are no birds. No birds anywhere.
Annemarie’s wet clothes get laid out to dry on the dashboard and through the missing windshield onto the hood. Skirt, blouse, socks. She doesn’t have any underthings. It’s hot underneath the canvas, stale and steaming. Annemarie is asleep again, curled up and naked on the wet seat. And then Inge notices papers, scattered all over the passenger-side floor.
The file. With her name on it.
She gathers them up, shaking off bits of broken windshield. They’re wrinkled, out of order. Journaled notes written in her father’s slanted hand. Inge finds the first page, marked with the date November 1933, and a name.
Observations: Anna Ptaszynska.
Inge stares at the name. And she throws down the papers.
It’s the wrong file. The soldiers knocked the files off the desk. Mixed them all up. Whatever Papa had decided to write about her is gone.
Everything is gone.
Inge leans back against the seat. Her stomach is cramping, empty except for the canal water she drank. The last time she’d eaten or slept, Adolf and Erich had been alive. She is alone. Lost. Hollowed out. Why should she care what her father wrote about her? It doesn’t even matter. They will hang him if they catch him, like they’ll hang the commandant. For crimes against humanity, like the prisoner had said.
Inge sits up.
What evidence does a court need to bring someone to trial? Her father hadn’t died, because he wasn’t there. And she’d seen the witnesses piled up against the camp wall. Dying in the barracks. And where would the survivors be, after the war?
She gathers up the papers again, reading.
Race is the ultimate factor in determining the potential of the individual …
… noble yet misguided intentions, that the subspecies of Jews and Slavs could be improved upon by careful training from childhood …
Anna Ptaszynska had been the child of arrested Polish Communists. Taken at the age of four years, four months. And there are two pages of a chart, chronicling her behaviors.
NOVEMBER 11: Speaking Polish: Beaten.
NOVEMBER 11: Speaking Polish: Food Withheld.
NOVEMBER 13: Mention of previous parent: Beaten.
NOVEMBER 15: Speaking German: A toy.
NOVEMBER 16: Speaking Polish: Food Withheld.
… believe it may be possible to split the human personality, to create a new persona. In this way, previous habits and defects, objectionable traits, can be set aside, or wholly erased …
The punishments increase in severity. An emetic drop, given to make her vomit when referring to her previous home or parents. Sensory deprivation. And rewards. Cake after a day without food, for saying cake in German. A hug for using her proper name. But eventually, Anna Ptaszynska stopped speaking at all. She stopped eating.
And then,
Anna Ptaszynska died July 11, 1934. She is gone now. She is no more.
… and while the racial defects of the subject were observed and recorded, there were other areas of interest that arose from …
And there’s no more. His notes end there.
Inge throws down the papers. Digs her nails into the back of her neck. And where had she been when little Anna Ptaszynska was dying in 1934? The Baltic Sea, probably, where they’d spent every July before the war. Playing on a beach.
Her father is a man who let innocents suffer by the hundreds. By the thousands. Who causes their suffering. A man who ruffled her hair and tickled her with his beard and kills little girls.
This is her father. And it is not understandable.
She draws her knees into her chest. Curls into herself. Closes her eyes.
She can’t bear to say her name.
She doesn’t want her name.
And when Inge wakes up, the air has gone chilly. Her neck hurts, propped up unnaturally against the steering wheel. And someone is moaning behind her. She twists around. Annemarie is huddled on the back seat, eyes closed, naked and shivering. Inge shakes out the blanket she’d been sitting on to drive and throws it over her. Annemarie shudders and settles.
Annemarie must not die.
Annemarie needs a doctor.
Annemarie has to eat. Soon.
Outside the canvas, the sky is golden to the east, the littered ground damp with dew. Inge finds a place near the fence for a toilet. Her legs are shaking. There are no people anywhere. Not a voice or a call or the sound of a motor. She checks for the lump of concrete in her pocket, picks her way across the yard, and climbs through a hole in the wall of the ruined warehouse.
Not a warehouse, she sees. A factory. An enormous room of broken glass and machinery half-buried by the fallen roof. She can still smell the fire. A plane flies low, shaking the air, and one or two bricks tumble from the broken wall, crashing in puffs of dust. Inge hurries over, under, through the debris, to a door on the far end. She pries it open.
