Child of the Journey (29 page)

Perhaps even more startling than its plants and animals was the fact that the island, only two hundred and fifty miles from the mainland, had remained uninhabited until five hundred BC Even then, the settlers arrived not from Africa but from Java, three thousand miles to the east. Only later came the people of what were now Mozambique and Somalia, followed by Arabs and, finally--the last to add people on the island--waves of pirates, mostly British.

"Why Madagascar, Herr Professor?" a man asked on the third day.

The remark was a miracle, Sol thought, for the silence of the past days had been that of men who had lost the will to question. He hoped that the one question would trigger a barrage of others, but his hope was in vain. The hush that followed made him wonder if the others remained quiet because they had lost the will to question
anything
. Were they disinterested, or simply more interested in the question than the questioning?

"We Jews are to be given a homeland," Sol said, choosing not to argue about the man's means of address.

"He who gave us Sachsenhausen has had a change of heart?" the man said.

With a brisk movement of his fingers, Sol motioned everyone closer. As they scooted forward, it occurred to him how natural it felt for him to be before them in this manner. He had always been shy, but he felt no shyness now. Satisfaction warmed him.

"I think Hitler, our Führer," he raised his voice to make it easier for eavesdroppers or in the likely event that there was an informer among them, "wishes to exercise control," he had to restrain himself from saying
seize control
, "of the Indian Ocean's shipping lands...not to mention helping the Italians maintain their presence in Ethiopia, the southern entrance to the Red Sea. Couple that with the larger picture. Would not world opinion side with a beneficent Führer more readily, a Führer who gave bedraggled Jews a place of their own? Who, truly, could object? The French control the island, but I have learned from Bruqah that the idea of sending Jews there
began
with them. The British have already blockaded us from emigrating to Palestine. The Arabs would surely think our presence in Madagascar less a burr than if we returned to Jerusalem. And the South Africans, our nearest powerful neighbors, have welcomed Jewish settlement.

He watched the quiet faces.

"Then only the Malagasy might object," someone said, more wistfully than sarcastically.

"Yes." Solomon fought to keep the emotion from his voice as he looked at Bruqah. "Only the Malagasy."

"I
'll be waiting to hear every detail," Miriam told Erich.

He could not possibly know how profoundly she meant those words, she thought. Nor should he.

She modulated her voice carefully, making sure it contained no urgency. "Enjoy your moment. You deserve it."

"Shall I send your regards to Perón?"

"Do that." Pleased that his tone lacked any hint of the sardonic, she added, "You might even think about asking him to the estate for dinner. It wouldn't do you any harm to humor him."

A frown darkened Erich's features, but his annoyance was directed at the tie he had knotted and unknotted several times. "Do this for me, would you? I can't seem to get it right."

Relieved, she retied the knot. "Good luck," she said again, kissing him lightly. "Now go."

He put on his jacket. "I may even come to like that Perón of yours," he said. "Last time I saw him, I asked how he felt about the church. He said, 'The priest who serves best, serves dinner.'"

She laughed. He looked surprised and happy, as if he could not quite believe she might let him go without so much as a single invective about the Party. Her tongue never would be as sharp around Solomon, she thought as Erich left the room. Or would it?

Maybe Erich was right about marriage being purely a female-endorsed institution designed to annoy men. He had once asked her why women packed away romance with the wedding pictures, to be peeked at when they deigned--and then only for an instant.

As if romance had anything to do with
their
being together!

There had been moments, transient as the dream of a better tomorrow, when she had tried to believe the lie of love between them. But then the longing for Solomon returned, or her fears for him, or her guilt at living like this. There was nothing she wanted she could not have...except Solomon, and the freedom to be a Jew.

She stood at the window and watched the lights of Erich's car disappear as he drove off the estate. When she was reasonably certain he was not coming back for something he had forgotten, she finished dressing and went to the garage.

Konrad was already behind the wheel. When they got to the Zoo Station, Werner Fink was pacing impatiently beneath the clock.

"Werner!" She kissed him hurriedly on the cheek. "Sorry I'm late. We only have a few minutes. I had to wait for Erich to leave." She looked at him more closely. His eyes spoke more than ever of hatred, and of a need for vengeance. She took hold of his arm. "What's wrong? Is it Sol?"

"I got word that my brother is dead. They said he signed a paper requesting castration.
Requesting!
My brother? They showed me the death certificate. It said,
"Adverse reaction to anesthesia during voluntary surgery. Cause of death: Heart Failure."

Miriam glanced at the station's clock. Eight. Thirty minutes from now Perón was due at the Reichschancellery.
 
Time enough to hear about Solomon and about the underground, and to be a friend. She reached for Fink's hand.

"If I could blow up this whole country, I would!" he said.

To add one word was an exercise in redundancy, Miriam thought. Of the people in her life, only Erich did not fully comprehend the extent of her hatred for Germany.
 

"Come, I'll walk you to the car." Fink moved her through the people thronging the Zoo Station. "About Solomon--"

An iciness enveloped Miriam. What good was her planning and scheming if something had happened to Sol? She placed her free hand on her belly as if to reassure the unborn child.

Fink watched her and smiled sadly. "A new generation," he said. "Why do we do it, Miri? In a world like this, why does the human race keep propagating?"

They exited the station. She could see Konrad waiting for her across the street. "I am so terribly sorry about Hans," she said simply. "I wish there were something more I could say, or do--"

"There isn't, darling." He paused. "Look, forgive me for being so wrapped up in myself today. It's not your fault that those bastards--." He stopped. "You have been very patient with me, Miri. Let me tell you about Sol. I would not have kept you waiting had the news been anything but encouraging."

"Thank God!" Miriam let out her breath.

"When I heard about Hans, I went storming into the Bureau...in fact, the way I carried on, I can't really understand why they didn't arrest me at once. I suppose it's because I'm a public figure...one of their token gestures to the free world, at least for the moment." His tone was heavy with bitterness. "Anyway, while I was there, I asked about Solomon and they told me."

"That simple?" Miriam laughed. "I can't believe it! Erich insists he has tried everything. Poor man. Occasionally, on my better days and when he is attempting so pitifully hard to please me, I even succeed in feeling a little sorry for him. He appears to truly believe that I am deluded and that Sol is in Amsterdam."

"Maybe so." Fink sounded unconvinced. "The ways of the German bureaucracy are not to be questioned. Nevertheless, I tell you, that's exactly how it happened. I asked--and I received. Sol and a contingent of other prisoners, excuse me--
free laborers!
--have been moved from Sachsenhausen to a holding area--"

So Perón had succeeded! Miriam felt a stab of guilt at having doubted him, tempered by annoyance that he hadn't managed to let her know. "Where? I want to see him!"

"Hold on, young lady. Not so fast. They haven't released him. They have the prisoners under heavy guard at an old, abandoned farm on the outskirts of Oranienburg. It would be far too dangerous for either one of us to go there, but I did send one of our people--a local farmer--to snoop around. The prisoners are being fed, bathed, and rested. He said it almost looks as if they're conducting some kind of school in the farmhouse. He saw Solomon--at least, the man thought it was Sol."

"How did he look?"

"How should he look? If I were you, I would prepare myself for a very different man than you knew." Fink glanced around. He appeared to see something that made him uneasy. "We don't have much longer," he said.

"Have our people found a new safe-house?" Miriam asked. Since Sol's arrest and the loss of the sewer as a safe-house, she had entered a new network. Bigger. More dangerous. Without the double-blinds which, though safer, were more cumbersome. However, her role was smaller than before. She delivered messages from Werner to Konrad, who passed them on somewhere, to someone...

"Safe-houses have become as difficult to find as a Nazi who can laugh at himself." Fink's grin held a little of his old wry humor.

"We must go," Konrad said, approaching them.

"Go, and God bless." Fink kissed her cheek. "I've told you everything I know. If I learn anything new, I'll be in touch."

Before she could say anything more, he was gone.

"Where are you meeting with Colonel Perón?" Konrad asked, opening the car door for Miriam.

"We are to pick him up at the Hotel Adlon and drop him off near the Reichschancellery."

"And then?"

"The estate. Tonight is Erich's big night--and mine. I have to be rested when he gets home. My head needs to be clear."

"Aren't you pushing yourself a little too hard under the circumstances, Lady Miriam?"

"I'm not pushing myself hard enough!" She looked down at her belly. "Our lives are at stake!"

Juan Perón was waiting for them outside the Adlon. He was talking to a tall, café-au-lait man wearing a white caftan. In one hand the stranger held a polished, carved walking stick; in the other, a roll of ivory-colored paper.

Miriam opened the window.

The brown man stared at her and bowed as if to acknowledge that he knew her. He walked toward the car, his movements graceful and rhythmic, like a dancer moving to secret music in his head.
 

Both men slid onto the back seat, Perón first. She moved over to the far side, fighting a combination of anger that her friend had allowed her to suffer for longer than was necessary and irritation at a stranger's presence. What she and Perón had to discuss was private, and not a little dangerous. Nor could the discussion be left for another time. What was he thinking of!

"This is Bruqah," the colonel said. "Bruqah...Miriam Rathenau Alois."

The man called Bruqah smiled and put out a brown hand. "So you are Miriam," he said. His voice was soft and husky, with that same trace of music she had sensed in his movements.

Despite her resentment of his being there, Miriam smiled at him. She turned to Perón. "Getting a little paunchy around the middle, aren't you, Domingo? Too many dumplings, I think."

"Domingo?" Bruqah sounded puzzled.

"My middle name." Perón eased himself into a more comfortable position.

"Where I come from, we do not have what you call middle names. We have given names and earned names, which are something like your nicknames."

"Where is that you come from?" Miriam was fascinated by his ability to speak German without the guttural quality which most foreigners, and so many natives, imposed upon it.

"Bruqah is from Madagascar," Perón said, answering for him.

"I suppose the missionaries taught him German?"

"Missionaries taught that to save a soul, one loses life. Not so good an arrangement, I think." As if he now saw the humor in what he had said seriously, he chuckled. "I learn your language at Lüderitz, in German South West Africa. Now I study at your university...where your colonel found me."

"You're studying German?" she asked.

"Souls of plants. What you call 'botany.'" He grinned, showing his teeth.

It was Perón's turn to chuckle. "I've never heard you voluntarily loquacious before, my friend." He looked at Miriam. "Nor have I forgotten your comment about my corporation. Are you not, perhaps, calling the kettle black?" He patted her stomach, then lifted her hand and kissed it. "Only joking, of course. You are as beautiful as ever."

"And you, Domingo, are a beautiful liar. You remember me thin and beautiful, and I try my best to preserve the illusion. The truth is, I'm fat and I'm clumsy--"

"And beautiful!" He lifted her hand and kissed it again.

"I feel fat and ugly. And tired." She fought to keep her rising panic out of her voice. Perón was studiously avoiding talk of Sol, perhaps because of Bruqah's presence, but more likely because she had been right about him in the first place. He enjoyed her company, which could have been reason enough for his agreement to try to help her and for the secret meeting and rendezvous. Sol's transfer to the farmhouse was probably a coincidence.

"Relax," Perón said. "I have not forgotten the reason for this rendezvous, though I would prefer it were a romantic tryst."