Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil

  I feel shell-shocked. “Those were my exact words.”

  “Then you believe me.”

  I remember back to my time with Grant. It was brief, like Patton said, but I could see he was a quiet man, humble, not prone to boast. He led by example, he did not shout or scream at his troops. Personalitywise, he had almost nothing in common with Patton.

  Yet as I gaze at the twinkle in Patton’s seemingly ferocious gaze, and recall the warmth I felt when Grant hugged me good-bye, I know they are the same soul. Because we’re talking about souls, not personalities—that’s the answer to the contradiction.

  One changes, the other is eternal.

  Patton has come to me for a favor but he cannot know how much he has done for me. He has confirmed the truth of reincarnation, one of the core teachings of Krishna. He has restored my faith.

  My faith in what?

  It doesn’t matter. It feels good to have it back.

  Patton sees my eyes are damp and reaches for a napkin and brushes it across my cheek. He stares at me in wonder.

  “How have you lived all these years?” he asks.

  I want to give him something in return for what he has given me. Yet I don’t want to lie. “I’m alive because of Krishna,” I say. “I knew him, I sat with him, he was real. That’s why I love the Gita.”

  Patton is astounded. “Five thousand years ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “I believe you, Alys.”

  “Call me Sita. And yes, I, too, believe you. You were Grant.”

  He lets go of my hands and crushes out his cigar. “Why did Krishna grant you such a long life?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. To you, immortality might seem a great gift. But it has not always been easy. When I look at my life, there has been far more pain than joy. Sometimes I fear the grace he gave me has become a curse.”

  Patton shakes his head. “Don’t ever think that. You helped America at a critical point in its history. Today, you help us again. You might even be the key that allows us to win this war. You are blessed, you must be.”

  I smile sadly. “If only that were true. You’ve seen only my good side. Alas, there’s a darkness in me you can’t imagine. It destroys all those who get close to me.”

  “Nonsense. You’ve never harmed me.”

  I stand and lean over and kiss his forehead. “Because you’ve always had the good sense to take my advice and run. Please, don’t forget what you once knew. Let me go now.”

  He stands and hugs me. “I’ll look for you in Paris, Sita.”

  “Don’t look too hard,” I say, and know I’ll never see him again, that he’ll die in Europe. I don’t know where the intuition comes from but know it’s true.

  • • •

  Despite my high contacts with the Americans and the British, I cannot find a pilot willing to fly me back across the Channel until after the sun sets. I hear excuses why no one is available but know the true reasons. Swooping over Paris is risky enough at night—the Germans have ringed the city with antiaircraft fire—and besides, the invasion is scheduled for morning.

  I imagine there are not many pilots who want to risk getting killed on the day before the most dangerous day of the war. For a time I consider another long swim but the chill of my night’s exertion has hardly left my bones.

  Finally, though, Lieutenant Frank Darling pairs me up with Private Jimmy McHarah, a twenty-year-old Irish kid from Boston who talks my head off all the way across the Channel but has the guts to drop me midway between Paris and Versailles. I bail out at an altitude of ten thousand feet but don’t open my parachute until I’m six hundred feet from the ground. Just my luck, I land in an icy brook. By the time I reach shore I’m as wet as if I had swum back to the Continent.

  The run back to the city warms my blood. I visit Anton first, who is manically busy at one of the four French Resistance headquarters. He has not fully recovered from the torture he suffered at the Gestapo facility but is happy enough to see me that he tries dragging me into a back bedroom. I beg off.

  “It’s happening. They’re coming in the morning,” I say.

  He nods. “We received word there’s a good chance.”

  “You don’t understand. I just came from London. Come hell or high water, they are coming.” I quickly explain about Rommel’s absence and the need to hit the beaches at low tide. Anton listens carefully but acts insulted when I’m finished.

  “How come I’m only hearing about this now?”

  “You damn well know why. It’s the same reason you must keep what I’ve told you private. You’ve got a spy in your inner circle.”

  “Sita, don’t be childish. My men are all loyal.”

  I laugh. “I could not act childish if I wanted. But I warn you, what I tell you is true. Your position here is compromised. You have to give each of your leaders their assignments individually, in private.”

  “What assignments?”

  I take out a list Frank has given me in a waterproof bag. “These are updated sites the Allies need bombed. Hit as many as possible before dawn. Whatever’s left, wait until tomorrow night, then destroy the rest.”

  Anton studies the targets with a skeptical eye. “Half of these are not critical,” he quips.

  “Better minds than ours say they are. Please, Anton, this is no time for your ego to ruin your judgment. Too many people are counting on you.”

  “I know my own country.” But he stuffs the list in his pocket and I know he will do what he can. He puts his arms on my shoulders and gazes at me. “I missed you last night. I kept waiting.”

  “I was swimming with the fishes.”

  “And before that? Were you with him?”

  “Don’t be jealous. We needed the intel. And the General couldn’t have satisfied a prostitute.”

  Anton appears reassured. “The Nazi pig could not get it up, eh? What do you expect. God has cursed their dicks in payment for their sins.” He pauses. “Hungry?”

  “Starving.” For blood, not food. “But I can’t stay.” He grabs my arm as I turn for the door, his face filled with hurt.

  “Sita, tonight’s our night. You and I, together, we can hit half a dozen of the targets on the Allies’ list. You must stay.”

  I hesitate. “I have to check on Harrah and Ralph.”

  “I saw them this afternoon at the clinic. They’re fine.”

  “Then I’ll be back later.” I feel the falsehood in my words as I speak them. I don’t wish to lie to him. At the same time, I don’t know how to explain how the feeling of being watched that came over me as I left the opera the previous night has never totally left. It’s as if somehow I was marked in that instant. Just as the Jews are marked with the Star of David to make real the goal of the Final Solution.

  I leave Anton, sneaking out the back of his headquarters. Lack of blood has weakened me but I’m too impatient to stop and feed. I race to Straffer’s house, so fast a hurricane could not keep pace. Dread creeps over me when I reach his front porch. His door is unlocked and he never fails to lock his door. Indeed, I locked it when I left him twenty hours ago.

  A single step inside and I smell the blood.

  It comes from the second floor, from his bedroom.

  My climb up the stairs is slow and painful.

  I find him facedown at the foot of his bed, a pool of blood soaking the wood floor near his head. He is naked, he was not given a chance to dress, and I can tell by the odor of the blood that he died not long after I left the house.

  From the angle of his body, I know he was forced to kneel, before his executioner coolly blew out his brains. Somehow, I sense the mood of the assassin, and know he was smiling when he murdered my friend.

  “Oh, Hans,” I whisper as I pull the sheet off the bed and cover him, “You didn’t know what you were getting into when you met me. I should have warned you.” I remember what I told Patton. “I should have told you to run the other way.”

  Leaning over, kissing his head, I vow to make sure his fami
ly is safe when the war is finished. That is, if his sons survive the battles to come.

  I rush to the Levines’ flat.

  Their door lies wide open.

  “No,” I moan before I step inside. There is no odor of blood, nor is there any sign of Harrah and Ralph. The apartment has been turned upside down. The contents of every drawer have been spilled on the floor, and the cushions on the sofa and mattresses on the beds have been knifed open. The air stinks of a unique sweat I associate with fear. I search for the tiniest sign that Harrah might have left behind for me to find but there is nothing.

  The Veil of Veronica is gone.

  At my back, at the door, a voice speaks in German, startling me. Yet no one takes me by surprise. How come I didn’t hear the bastard coming up the outside stairs?

  “They’re on a train to Auschwitz,” Major Klein says. “You’ve heard the name? Good. So you know what it means, Alys.” He pauses and grins and the falseness of his face appalls me. It’s as if flesh-colored wax flows around plastic red lips. “Or should I call you Sita?”

  “It was you. You murdered General Straffer,” I reply in German.

  He holds a small metal box in his hands that has three dials on top: one red, one white, one black. Nazi colors. On the bottom is a speaker.

  Odd, but he’s left his sidearm holstered. It’s as if he treats the box as his weapon of choice. It’s clear he doesn’t fear me. He keeps the fingers of his right hand on the black dial, shrugs in response to my statement.

  “What is the death of a traitorous officer to the Third Reich?”

  I take a long step toward him. At least I know who will slake my thirst. I will drain him slowly, I think.

  “General Straffer loved Germany,” I say.

  Klein isn’t intimidated by my approach. Shaking his head, he feigns sorrow. “I fear he loved you more. That’s the only way to explain his acts. That’s how my report to the Führer will read.”

  I snicker. “As if you have your own personal pipeline to Hitler.”

  He loses his smile. “Careful, Sita. You risk a great deal by insulting me. Truly, you have no idea.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “Your name. Your origin. Your nature. The Gestapo knows all there is to know about our lovely Aryan.” It’s his turn to move closer and his gray eyes expand as he nears. For a moment I’m racked with dizziness. I fight to shake it off. It’s as if a strange lust has taken hold of his gaze and is being projected in my direction. I feel as if worms crawl over my skin. He adds in a sinister tone, “Look at your blond hair and blue eyes. You’re a perfect specimen, a true original. The forerunner of the superbeings the Führer has promised will arise.”

  “Your Führer’s a damn lunatic,” I whisper, shooting out an arm to steady myself. I suddenly recognize the source of my dizziness. It comes from the metal box he holds. He has twisted the black dial, and on the far edge of hearing I detect a shrill note permeating the flat. The tone seems to bleed out of the walls; it grates on my nerves. I doubt any human could hear it. I don’t understand how a simple speaker can be projecting such a strange sound.

  “Feeling a little weak?” Klein asks as he steps directly in front of me. I feel his acidic breath on my face, notice a faint odor of sulfur, both smells reeking of unseen flames. Raising my free arm, I try to strike him, but my arm falls down uselessly at my side. My grip on the nearby wall begins to slide.

  “What are you doing to me?” I gasp.

  “A little payment for your insults.” His grin returns as he raises the metal box before my eyes and twists the black dial again. The shrill note suddenly jumps in volume and I feel as if a molten blade has been thrust through my chest, with the heat boiling into my blood and rising to my brain. I literally feel as if my head will explode. The pain, the pain—I could never have imagined such pain. Breathing, seeing, living—all feel impossible in the face of such agony. I pray to black out, I pray to die, and I have never prayed so hard in my life.

  “Please!” I cry.

  Major Klein throws his head back and laughs. He turns the dial a third time and the torture seems to squeeze my very soul out of the top of my head and deposit me in a forsaken realm of phantoms and nightmares. I lose consciousness but it brings no relief. Far off I hear Major Klein exult.

  “Now it begins,” he says.

  THIRTEEN

  It’s while we cross over the Midwest, at an altitude of twenty-five thousand feet, that I tell Seymour and Matt the second chapter of my World War II tale. Seymour is frustrated when I stop. He insists I plow through to the end. But digging up such foul memories is taxing, and it doesn’t help that I have a good idea what comes next. It’s not like the story has a happy ending.

  “It sounds like Major Klein used Telar technology on you,” Matt says after I explain how I was taken captive in Harrah and Ralph’s flat. “But it’s hard to imagine they would have given the Nazis such knowledge.”

  “The box didn’t come from the Telar,” I say.

  “Are you sure?” Seymour asks. “Klein’s metal box sounds a lot like that Pulse device the Telar used on you in Arosa, Switzerland. Both induced rising waves of pain.”

  I hold up a hand. “The boxes only sound similar. The Telar’s device had electrodes that attached directly to my brain. The Nazis’ box used sound that only a vampire could hear to induce pain and unconsciousness. Trust me, the German scientists had their own brand of toys.”

  “Are we talking about the same scientists who joined NASA after the war?” Seymour asks.

  “There was no NASA right after the war,” Matt says.

  “Right,” Seymour says sarcastically. “America didn’t even have a space program until they recruited a few dozen Nazis.”

  Matt brushes aside the remark. “Let’s not get carried away with conspiracy theories. Most NASA employees—then and now—are good people who want nothing more than to explore the solar system.”

  “Sounds reasonable. Except we just found out that NASA’s nothing but a front for this country’s real space program.” Seymour stops to snort. “If that’s not a conspiracy, I don’t know what is.”

  “I was referring to the NASA-Nazi connection,” Matt says. “Why make a big deal out of it?”

  Seymour studies me. “If only our dear Sita would answer all our questions, then maybe we’d know if the connection is genuine.”

  “I promised to tell you everything I remember,” I say. “But you’ve got to give me time.”

  “Not too much time,” Matt says as he stands and stretches from his position in the pilot’s chair. “I’d like to take a break. Sita, can you take over? I’ve put us on autopilot. I doubt there will be a lot for you to do.”

  I take his seat. “No problem.”

  Matt heads for the door to the main cabin. “Come get me when it’s time to start our descent. This jet’s landing gear has a few quirks—I want to be the one to put us down. And try not to run into any Fastwalkers.”

  “Take a nap,” I suggest. “Once we’re on the ground, we don’t know when we’ll have another chance to rest.”

  “I’m fine,” Matt replies, meaning he’s going to do what he wants to do and to hell with my advice. I know he’s going to play the game. He’s like a heroin addict anxious for his next fix. He can’t stay away from the thing.

  Matt leaves Seymour and me alone in the cockpit.

  “I don’t understand you,” Seymour says.

  “You wrote my biographies. You understand me better than anyone.”

  “Then why are you so reluctant to finish your war story? You keep taunting us about the big revelation to come, but you never tell us what it is.”

  “Like I explained, you need to know the backstory first.”

  “So now we’ve got the backstory. Now you’ve run out of excuses. Admit it, Sita, you’re stalling.”

  “I’m not stalling. I’m . . . trying to organize my thoughts.”

  Seymour is concerned. “Are you saying you can’t rem
ember what happened?”

  “Don’t look so surprised. It was a long time ago.”

  “Bullshit! Seventy years or seven hundred means nothing to you. Or have you forgotten that you have perfect recall?”

  “You’re beginning to sound like Matt.” I turn and look away, out the window, at the endless cornfields of Iowa swooping far below. The state is mostly farmland. It’s amazing how dark it is after sunset. I add, “And like Paula.”

  Seymour is instantly alert. “What did Paula say the last time you two spoke?”

  “Nothing important.”

  “Sita.”

  “She told me that all the good I have done for mankind since World War Two was of little value.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Then she told me that if I hadn’t screwed up during the war, all the good deeds I have done since those days wouldn’t have been necessary.”

  “You know I rarely disagree with Paula. But everything you’ve told us so far about your war days tells me you were as heroic as ever.”

  “Heroic? What about the fact that I left Harrah and Ralph alone for Major Klein to grab? What about my befriending General Hans Straffer just long enough to get his brains blown out?”

  “You didn’t know Major Klein was stalking you.”

  “I suspected it. I should have taken precautions.”

  Seymour shakes his head. “Paula wasn’t referring to what you did in Paris and London. She was talking about what happened at Auschwitz.”

  “How do you know? I haven’t said a word about Auschwitz.”

  “That’s my point. You’ve done everything you can to avoid the topic. Admit it—whatever they did to you in that camp so messed with your mind that you can’t remember half of what went on.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  Seymour stares at me and waits. I stare back. The dark cornfields and dried-out scarecrows stare up at us as we soar over them through the moonlit sky.

  “All right, there are a few points I’m having trouble remembering,” I say.