The Keep

  Professor Cuza pushed the book away from him as soon as the door closed behind the captain. He rubbed the fingers of his hands one at a time, each in turn.

  Mornings were the worst. That was when everything hurt, especially the hands. Each knuckle was like a rusted hinge on the door to an abandoned woodshed, protesting with pain and noise at the slightest disturbance, fiercely resisting any change in position. But it wasn’t just his hands. All his joints hurt. Awakening, rising, and getting into the wheelchair that circumscribed his life was a chorus of agony from the hips, the knees, the wrists, the elbows, and the shoulders. Only by midmorning, after two separate doses of aspirin and perhaps some codeine when he had it, did the pain in his inflamed connective tissues subside to a tolerable level. He no longer thought of his body as flesh and blood; he saw it as a piece of clockwork that had been left out in the rain and was now irreparably damaged.

  Then there was the dry mouth which never let up. The doctors had told him it was “not uncommon for scleroderma patients to experience a marked decrease in the volume of salivary secretions.” They said it so matter-of-factly, but there was nothing matter-of-fact about living with a tongue that always tasted like plaster of Paris. He tried to keep some water at hand at all times; if he didn’t sip occasionally his voice began to sound like old shoes dragging across a sandy floor.

  Swallowing, too, was a chore. Even the water had trouble going down. And food—he had to chew everything until his jaw muscles cramped and then hope it wouldn’t get stuck halfway to his stomach.

  It was no way to live, and he had more than once considered putting an end to the whole charade. But he had never made the attempt. Possibly because he lacked the courage; possibly because he still possessed enough courage to face life on whatever terms he was offered.

  He wasn’t sure which.

  “Are you all right, Papa?”

  He looked up at Magda. She stood near the fireplace with her arms crossed tightly over her chest, shivering. It wasn’t from the cold. He knew she had been badly shaken by their visitor last night and had hardly slept. Neither had he. But then to be assaulted not thirty feet from her sleeping quarters…

  Savages! What he would give to see them all dead—not just the ones here, but every stinking Nazi who stepped outside his border! And those still inside the German border as well. He wished for a way to exterminate them before they exterminated him. But what could he do? A crippled scholar who looked half again his real age, who could not even defend his own daughter—what could he do?

  Nothing. He wanted to scream, to break something, to bring down the walls as Samson had done. He wanted to cry. He cried too easily of late, despite his lack of tears. That wasn’t manly. But then, he wasn’t much of a man anymore.

  “I’m fine, Magda,” he said. “No better, no worse than usual. It’s you that worries me. This is no place for you—no place for any woman.”

  She sighed. “I know. But there’s no way to leave here until they let us.”

  “Always the devoted daughter,” he said, feeling a burst of warmth for her. Magda was loving and loyal, strong-willed yet dutiful. He wondered what he had ever done to deserve her. “I wasn’t talking about us. I was talking about you. I want you to leave the keep as soon as it’s dark.”

  “I’m not too good at scaling walls, Papa.” Her smile was wan. “And I’ve no intention of trying to seduce the guard at the gate. I wouldn’t know how.”

  “The escape route lies right below our feet. Remember?”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh, yes. I’d forgotten about that!”

  “How could you forget? You found it.”

  It had happened on their last trip to the pass. He had still been able to get about on his own then but had needed two canes to bolster the failing strength in his legs. Unable to go himself, he had sent Magda down into the gorge in search of a cornerstone at the base of the keep, or perhaps a stone with an inscription on it…anything to give him a clue as to the builders of the keep. Magda had found no inscription, but she had come across a large, flat stone in the wall at the very base of the watchtower; it had moved when she leaned against it. It was hinged on the left and perfectly balanced. Sunlight pouring through the opening had revealed a set of stairs leading upward.

  Over his protests she had insisted on exploring the base of the tower in the hope that some old records might have been left within. All she found was a long, steep, winding set of stairs that ended in a seemingly blind niche in the ceiling of the base. But it was not a blind end—the niche was in the very wall that divided the two rooms they now occupied. Within it, Magda had discovered another perfectly balanced stone, scored to look like the smaller rectangular blocks that made up the rest of the wall; it swung open into the larger of the two rooms, permitting secret ingress and egress from the bottom suite of the tower.

  Cuza had attached no significance to the stairway then—a castle or keep always had a hidden escape route. Now he saw it as Magda’s stairway to freedom.

  “I want you to take the stairs down to the bottom as soon as it is dark, let yourself out into the gorge, and start walking east. When you get to the Danube, follow it to the Black Sea, and from there to Turkey or—”

  “Without you?”

  “Of course without me!”

  “Put it out of your mind, Papa! Where you stay, I stay.”

  “Magda, I’m commanding you as your father to obey me!”

  “Don’t! I will not desert you. I couldn’t live with myself if I did!”

  As much as he appreciated the sentiment, it did nothing to lessen his frustration. Clearly the commanding approach was not going to work this time. He decided to plead. Over the years he had become adept at getting his way with her. By one method or another, by browbeating or twisting her up with guilt, he could usually make her accede to whatever he desired. Sometimes he did not like himself for the way he dominated her life, but she was his daughter, and he her father. And he had needed her. Yet now, when it was time to cut her free so that she could save herself, she would not go.

  “Please, Magda. As one last favor to a dying old man who would go smiling to his grave if he knew you were safe from the Nazis.”

  “And me knowing I left you among them? Never!”

  “Please listen to me! You can take the Al Azif with you. It’s bulky I know, but it’s probably the last surviving copy in any language. There isn’t a country in the world where you couldn’t sell it for enough money to keep you comfortable for life.”

  “No, Papa,” she said with a determination in her voice that he could not recall ever hearing before.

  She turned away and walked into the rear room, closing the door behind her.

  I’ve taught her too well, he thought. I’ve bound her so tightly to me I cannot push her away even for her own good. Is that why she never married? Because of me?

  Cuza rubbed his itching eyes with cotton-gloved fingers, thinking back over the years. Ever since puberty Magda had been a constant object of male attention. Something in her appealed to different sorts of men in different ways; she rarely left one untouched. She probably would have been married and a mother a number of times over by now—and he a grandfather—if her mother had not died so suddenly eleven years ago. Magda, only twenty then, had changed, taking on the roles of his companion, secretary, associate, and now nurse. The men about soon found her remote. Magda gradually built up a shell of self-absorption. Cuza knew every weak spot in that shell—and could pierce it at will. To all others she was immune.

  But there were more pressing concerns at the moment. Magda faced a very short future unless she escaped the keep. Beyond that, there was the apparition they had encountered last night. Cuza was sure it would return with the passing of the day, and he did not want Magda here when it did. Something in its eyes had caused fear to grip his heart like an icy fist. Such an unspeakable hunger there…He wanted Magda far away tonight.

  But more than anything else he wanted to stay here by himself and w
ait for it to return. This was the moment of a lifetime—a dozen lifetimes! To come face-to-face with a myth, with a creature that had been used for centuries to frighten children. Adults, too. To document its existence! He had to speak to this thing again…induce it to answer. He had to learn which of the myths surrounding it were true and which false.

  The mere thought of the meeting made his heart race with excitement and anticipation. Strangely, he did not feel terribly threatened by the creature. He knew its language and had even communicated with it last night. It had understood and had left them unharmed. He sensed the possibility of a common ground between them, a place for a meeting of minds. He certainly did not wish to stop it or harm it—Theodor Cuza was not an enemy of anything that reduced the ranks of the German Army.

  He looked down at the littered table before him. He was sure he would find nothing threatening to the being in these despicable old books. He now understood why they had been suppressed—they were abominations. But they were useful as props in the little play he was acting out for those two bickering German officers. He had to remain in the keep until he had learned all he could from the being that dwelt here. Then the Germans could do what they wished with him.

  But Magda…Magda had to be on her way to safety before he could devote his attention to anything else. She would not leave of her own accord…but what if she were driven out? Captain Woermann might be the key there. He did not seem too happy about having a woman quartered in the keep. Yes, if Woermann could be provoked…

  Cuza despised himself for what he was about to do.

  “Magda!” he called. “Magda!”

  She opened the door and looked out. “I hope this is not about my leaving the keep, because—”

  “Not the keep; just the room. I’m hungry and the Germans told us they’d feed us from their kitchen.”

  “Did they bring us any food?”

  “No. And I’m sure they won’t. You’ll have to go get some.”

  She stiffened. “Across the courtyard? You want me to go back out there after what happened?”

  “I’m sure it won’t happen again.” He hated lying to her, but it was the only way. “The men have been warned by their officers. And besides, you’ll not be on any dark cellar stairway. You’ll be out in the open.”

  “But the way they look at me…”

  “We have to eat.”

  A long pause as his daughter stared at him, then she nodded. “I suppose we do.”

  Magda buttoned her sweater all the way to the neck as she crossed the room, saying nothing as she left.

  Cuza felt his throat constrict as the door closed behind her. She had courage, and trust in him…a trust he was betraying. And yet keeping. He knew what she faced out there, and yet he had knowingly sent her into it. Supposedly for food.

  He wasn’t the least bit hungry.

  SIXTEEN

  THE DANUBE DELTA, EASTERN ROMANIA

  Wednesday, April 30

  1035 hours

  Land was in sight again.

  Sixteen unnervingly frustrating hours, each one like an endless day, were finally at an end. The red-haired man stood on the weathered bow and looked shoreward. The sardiner had chugged across the placid expanse of the Black Sea at a steady pace, a good pace, but one made maddeningly slow by the sole passenger’s relentless sense of urgency. At least they had not been stopped by either of the two military patrol boats they had passed, one Russian, one Romanian. That could have proved disastrous.

  Directly ahead lay the multichanneled delta where the Danube emptied into the Black Sea. The shore was green and swampy, pocked with countless coves. Getting ashore would be easy, but traveling through the bogs to higher, drier land would be time-consuming. And there was no time!

  He had to find another way.

  The red-haired man glanced over his shoulder at the old Turk at the helm, then forward again to the delta. The sardine boat didn’t draw much—it could move comfortably in about four feet of water. It was a possibility—take one of these tiny delta tributaries up to the Danube itself, then chug west along the river to a point, say, just east of Galati. They would be traveling against the current but it had to be faster than scrambling on foot through miles of sucking mire.

  He dug into his money belt and brought out two Mexican fifty-peso pieces. Together they gave a weight of about two and a half ounces of gold. Turning again, he held them up to the Turk, addressing him in his native tongue.

  “Kiamil! Two more coins if you’ll take me upstream!”

  The fisherman stared at the coins, saying nothing, chewing his lower lip. He already had enough gold in his pocket to make him the richest man in his village. At least for a while. But nothing lasts forever, and soon he would be out on the water again, hauling in his nets. The two extra coins could forestall that. Who knew how many days on the water, how many hand cuts, how many pains in an aging back, how many hauls of fish would have to be unloaded at the cannery to earn an equivalent amount?

  The red-haired man watched Kiamil’s face as the calculations of risks against profits played across it. And as he watched, he, too, calculated the risks: They would be traveling by day, never far from shore because of the narrowness of the waterway along most of the route, in Romanian waters in a boat of Turkish registry.

  It was insane. Even if by some miracle of chance they reached the edge of Galati without being stopped, Kiamil could not expect a similar miracle on the return trip downstream. He would be caught, his boat impounded, and he imprisoned. Conversely, there was little risk to the red-haired man. If they were stopped and brought into port, he was sure he could find a way to escape and continue his trek. But Kiamil at the very least would lose his boat. Possibly his life.

  It wasn’t worth it. And it wasn’t fair. He lowered the coins just as the Turk was about to reach for them.

  “Never mind, Kiamil,” he said. “I think it might be better if we just keep to our original agreement. Put me ashore anywhere along here.”

  The old man nodded, relief rather than disappointment showing on his leathery face at the withdrawal of the offer. The sight of the gold coins held out to him had almost turned him into a fool.

  As the boat nosed toward shore, the red-haired man slipped the cord that tied the blanket roll with all his possessions over his shoulder and lifted the long, flat case under his arm. Kiamil reversed the engines within a foot or two of the gray mixture of sand and dirt overgrown with rank, wiry grasses that served for a bank here. The red-haired man stepped onto the gunwale and leaped ashore.

  He turned to look back at Kiamil. The Turk waved and began to back the boat away from shore.

  “Kiamil!” he shouted. “Here!” He tossed the two fifty-peso gold pieces out to the boat one at a time. Each was unerringly snatched from the air by a brown, callused hand.

  With loud and profuse thanks in the name of Mohammed and all that was holy in Islam ringing in his ears, the red-haired man turned and began to pick his way across the marsh. Clouds of insects, poisonous snakes, and bottomless holes of quicksand lay directly ahead of him, and beyond that would be units of Iron Guard. They could not stop him, but they could slow him down. As threats to his life they were insignificant compared to what he knew lay a half day’s ride due west in the Dinu Pass.

  SEVENTEEN

  THE KEEP

  Wednesday, 30 April

  1647 hours

  Woermann stood at his window and watched the men in the courtyard. Yesterday they had been intermingled, the black uniforms interspersed with the gray ones. This afternoon they were separated, an invisible line dividing the einsatzkommandos from the regular army men.

  Yesterday they had had a common enemy, one who killed regardless of the color of the uniform. But last night the enemy had not killed, and by this afternoon they were all acting like victors, each side claiming credit for the night of safety. It was a natural rivalry. The einsatzkommandos saw themselves as elite troops, SS specialists in a special kind of warfare. The regula
r army men saw themselves as the real soldiers; although they feared what the black uniform of the SS represented, they looked on the einsatzkommandos as little more than glorified policemen.

  Unity had begun to break down at breakfast. It had been a normal mess period until the girl, Magda, had shown up. There had been some good-natured jostling and elbowing for a place near her as she moved past the food bins, filling a tray for herself and her father. Not an incident really, but her very appearance at morning mess had begun to divide the two groups. The SS contingent automatically assumed that since she was a Jew they had a preemptive right to do with her as they wished. The regular army men did not feel anyone had a preemptive right to the girl. She was beautiful. Try as she might to cover her hair in that old kerchief and bundle her body in those shapeless clothes, she could not conceal her femininity. It radiated through all her attempts to minimize it. It was there in the softness of her skin, in the smoothness of her throat, the turn of her lips, the tilt of her sparkling brown eyes. She was fair game for anyone as far as the regular army troops were concerned—with the real fighting men getting first chance, of course.

  Woermann hadn’t noticed it at the time but the first cracks in the previous day’s solidarity had appeared.

  At the noon mess a shoving match between gray and black uniforms began, again while the girl was going through the line. Two men slipped and fell on the floor during the minor fracas, and Woermann sent the sergeant over to break it up before any serious blows could be struck. By that time Magda had taken her food and departed.

  Shortly after lunch she had wandered about, looking for him. She had told him that her father needed a cross or a crucifix as part of his research into one of the manuscripts. Could the captain lend her one? He could—a little silver cross removed from one of the dead soldiers.

  And now the off-duty men sat apart in the courtyard while the rest worked at dismantling the rear of the keep. Woermann was trying to think of ways to avoid certain trouble at the evening mess. Maybe the best thing to do was to have someone load up a tray at each meal and bring it to the old man and his daughter in the tower. The less seen of the girl, the better.