My Enemy's Cradle

  "I think the last time she went was six or seven years ago. You'd be surprised, though, at what she still manages to cook. Like these"—he reached for the box he'd kept away from me and opened it—"amaretti. Almond macaroons."

  I took one. It was small and pale gold, like Anneke's favorite spekulaas. I put it back in the box. "Maybe later," I said.

  I helped Karl put away the food. We broke the rest of the loaf of bread into crumbs and sprinkled them along the stone wall for the birds, then cleaned our fingers in the little pools of rainwater that had collected in the cupped stones. We wandered back to the blanket, drowsy with food and wine and the sudden warmth of the afternoon.

  Karl poured the last of the wine into our glasses, then peeled off his sweater and undershirt and stretched out on his stomach. I lay back with my wine, looking up at the drifting clouds. The sun felt wonderful on my face and arms, prickling my skin at first and then melting into the wine's warm flush. I sat up and took off my stockings and then unbuttoned my blouse and untied the little satin ribbons wrapping my slip around me to let the sun fall on the top of my belly. It glowed, the heat of the sun reaching down to meet my baby's heat, the hot engine of his growth. I slid the elastic of my skirt down a little. A little more.

  Karl rolled over and looked at me. He smiled and eased the elastic down until my whole belly was basking in the sunshine.

  "Do you think she can feel the sun?" he asked.

  I lay back with my eyes closed, his fingers caressing my belly lightly. I laid my hand over his, sealing it to me. The sunlight glowed through my lids, dappled red and yellow. "Yes," I decided. "Yes, he can."

  Karl laid his head lightly over my belly, pretended to listen to something. Then he raised his head to look at me, his face grave. "She says to tell you she's a girl. And you'd better get used to that."

  Then he placed his hand back on the top of my belly, warm from the sun, warmer under his hand. He traced the tautness of my swell with gentle fingers, and I kept my eyes closed to feel it better, the loveliness of it. "You look like you've swallowed the moon," he said. "And it's rising inside you."

  "I'm as big as the moon." I wove my fingers into his hair. Mine to touch.

  "You're as beautiful as the moon." Karl leaned in to me and began to kiss me, his fingertips drifting lower. I felt myself flooded with something hot and bright, like a tide of molten gold. I melted into it. Then he rose and I felt his lips on my skin—he kissed my belly, kissed my baby. I stretched back and offered him more. I was ripe.

  He rose to his knees and stroked me with both hands now, slowly and grave with concentration, and my skin was newly born. For the first time I understood that touch was a language, too, and that the things he was saying I had been waiting all my life to hear. He freed my breasts from the satin slip and in the cool air I felt a heat rise between my legs. When he lowered himself to lie over me, his mouth on my mouth, his hands caressing my breasts so softly, I was lost in yearning, I thought I could never want more than this.

  And then I did want even more. I began to moan. He lifted my skirt and moved to kneel between my legs. I kept my eyes closed, but I could feel him watching me as he caressed me, asking me something. "Yes," I breathed—whatever it was, the answer was yes. He bent over to lift me and put his lips to me, and I told him things with my secret mouth that I had not known I knew. Then he eased my hips up his thighs until our bodies met, and this time I was softened and I took his hardness like a kiss. I know you, I know you, we said with every movement, and the joy of that shook us at the same time.

  Karl fell gently beside me, our limbs tangled and loose. He smiled into my dazed eyes. "It's supposed to be like that." He reached over me to brush the torn grass from my fingers and kiss my dry lips closed. "It's supposed to be like that." Then he closed his eyes and rested his head on my shoulder, his hand cupped over my breast in a way that brought me excitement and peace at once.

  I turned my head to look through the apple blossoms at the clouds swimming through the impossibly blue sky. I could almost see the green leaves unfurling, they were so eager to burst. And bees! Drifting lines of them, clustering and breaking apart in the pink shell blossoms; drunk on pollen, mad with abundance. My eyes closed and just before I fell asleep, I saw the image of the beekeeper again, covered in bees. How could I ever have thought them dangerous?

  I woke up with a dream crouching over me, a cold shadow just out of sight. In the dream there was something I had forgotten, and Isaak had been angry with me about that. As my mind cleared, I recognized his face as the one he'd worn that last night. When he'd found out what had happened to me.

  I looked at the man beside me, suddenly a stranger. I pulled away from him and tied my slip around me. Karl woke. He remembered and smiled. I looked away.

  "What's wrong?" he asked. He put his hand on my knee, stroking softly. I pushed it away.

  He sat up, awake now. "What's wrong, Cyrla?" he asked again.

  "I don't know what this is," I whispered at last. "What do we call this?"

  "Why do we have to call it anything?"

  "I need to know what it is."

  Karl nodded as if he had expected this answer. "You and your words. You have to label everything, dissect it into words. I build boats. For me, something just has to work. If it's beautiful and it works, that's more than enough."

  "I just want to know—what is it we're doing?"

  "I think some things are better unlabeled." He pulled his clothes on as though they were armor against me and we were about to go into battle. "And I wish you'd stop labeling me. When you label me Anneke's boyfriend, you feel you're betraying An-neke. And when you label me a German, you feel you're betraying your family. So you're judging me by what I am to you, Cyrla. Not who I am."

  I couldn't deny it.

  "Look, I don't know what this is, either. There are no words for some things. So could we just not ask the question for now?"

  "But it happened. I can't ignore it."

  Karl looked at me as understanding dawned. When I saw my thoughts reflected in his face, I realized too late how hurtful they were. "Ignore it? Why would you want to ignore it?" He studied me and I wanted to take everything back, start over. But I couldn't. "You're trying to excuse it. As if it's something you feel guilty about. You want me to help you say it was a mistake. It was the wine, it was the day? Well, I don't feel guilty about it. And I don't want to be some mistake you have to rationalize."

  "Karl, I just asked what this was."

  "Well, then, fine. We can call it love."

  "No. It can't be love."

  "What do you mean, it can't be? There are rules? Do rules make you feel safe, Cyrla? Because I don't think that's the point."

  I gathered my skirt and shoes and dressed also. Somehow, we were indeed in battle. "You have no right. What have you ever lost?"

  "Enough, Cyrla. Maybe not as much as you. But enough. I think the question is what have you ever gained? Do your rules keep you safe?" He stood. "It's late," he said, without looking at his watch. "I'll take you back."

  I glanced at the sky. It couldn't be much past five. But I didn't argue.

  Karl gathered the things we had brought and packed them in the car. I sat beneath the elm and watched him erase all traces of what had happened from the barn and the meadow. I locked my arms around my knees.

  We rode the whole way in cold silence. Still when the home came into view, I didn't want to be there. It seemed wrong that the tall granite wall looked the same, now that the world it was keeping out was so different.

  Karl pulled the car to the curb across from the gates and turned the engine off. He took the keys out of the ignition and sat without moving in the new quiet, staring down at them in his palm. Not looking at me. "I lost a child. Do you ever think about that?"

  I couldn't answer, but I felt shame rise in my cheeks.

  "I won't come anymore. Until it's time to take you out. If that's what you want."

  I looked away then, too. "Fine,"
I lied.

  I didn't wait for him to open my door—I just got out and crossed the street without looking back. I heard the car engine start.

  And then I ran back to him.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  That last week of April and the first week of May, Karl came every time he could steal away for a few hours. I didn't know what I needed so much—that with him I didn't have to pretend to be someone else, that it was the only time I felt safe, or that only when his fingers touched my skin was it alive—but I needed it fiercely. I needed him fiercely and I didn't care how naked my desire was: His shoulders were raked raw with my nail marks, and once I drew blood from his lip when I kissed him. Each time, we drove to the abandoned farm and wrapped ourselves in the hay and blankets and came together. Only after that would Karl talk about what was to happen in mid-May, as if he could only think about my absence after he'd reassured himself of my presence.

  Each time, the conversation began the same way: "Cyrla, have you given any thought to—"

  Each time, I told him I wasn't going to change my mind. Karl would sigh and then go over whatever new piece of information he had brought—a map, a list of the border stations, train schedules. His hands never left my body while we talked. He made me practice the things I might say if I were questioned. Over and over he made me promise that if I were caught, I would reach him, even if it meant naming him as my accomplice. We worked out a code for the letter I would write to Erika once I reached Leona in Amsterdam. Each time we talked about the plan, I became more uneasy.

  We met for the last time on the second Saturday in May—eight days later, on the seventeenth, we would leave. We lay down on the blanket and held each other—we didn't make love and we didn't talk. I understood he was saying good-bye. After a long while, he began the ritual: "Cyrla, I still think you should—"

  I put my finger to his lips. "No more. Tell me something unrelated. Tell me something wonderful."

  Karl hesitated, looking worried. Then he nodded and lay back and I curled myself over his chest. With his free hand, he worked his wallet out and pulled a photo from it. "My boat."

  "The one you built? It's beautiful."

  "She's beautiful," he corrected me. He took the photograph back and gazed at it, and his look was in fact that of a man gazing at a woman. "A channel cutter, ten meters. And she's as beautiful to sail as she is to look at."

  "You sound like you're in love with her."

  Karl smiled. "I guess I am. When you're sailing the perfect boat on the perfect sea, it's like making love. All the pieces fit, and you can't tell where the boat ends and the water begins."

  "Where do you keep her?"

  "The Elbe. There's a place where the river makes a hairpin turn. Hills sliding down from the east and flatlands on the west shore. The current's so strong at the corner, it's scoured a pool at least five fathoms deep. She's there at the bottom of that pool."

  "What? It sank?"

  Karl grinned. "Like a rock. Imagine that: I opened the seacock and she went down."

  I raised myself up to look at him. "You sank your boat on purpose?"

  "'Scuttled' is the term. Lie back down with me."

  I eased myself back into the curve of his arm, my head over his heart. "But you love that boat."

  "Exactly. I love that boat. More than I love having her. So I couldn't risk the Nazis finding her. Taking her, using her. Ruining her."

  "You sank it yourself."

  "Yes. The day before, I stripped her. I'd already taken the rig down—that's the mast and the boom and the running rigging—and buried it. Then I timed the slack tide and rowed out with a pair of sweeps. I made everything ready, opened the seacock, and swam in to shore. I sat there on the bank in the dark with a bottle of wine and watched her go down. It took an hour."

  "That must have been awful."

  "Yes and no. It felt like I was cutting off my own leg. But there was a sense of satisfaction about what I'd prevented. And it was beautiful in its way. I know that sounds strange, but I sat there watching and it was beautiful. So dark—there was no moon—and so quiet. She went down silently, until the very end."

  "And then?"

  "And then she just sighed and went under. There was no trace. I love that about water—it's so mysterious. It's transparent, but all we can see is the surface. The Nazis could cruise over that pool a thousand times and never suspect."

  "It must have just about killed you to lose her."

  "But I haven't lost her. Just hidden her for a while."

  I sat up again. "What do you mean?"

  "When it's over, I'll raise her."

  "You can do that?"

  Karl pulled me back down and wrapped both his arms around me. Motes of dust drifted in the bars of sunlight slanting down through the barn siding. I listened to the beat of his heart, thinking, I am happy. Thinking how unusual that felt. How good. Thinking that it was the last time.

  "Someday this will be over. No matter how it ends, it will end. As soon as it's safe, I'll get a couple of friends to help me. We'll use a barge with a crane. I'll dive down and find her—I know exactly where. Exactly. I'll hook two sets of straps around her hull, fore and aft, and then we'll raise her."

  I found Karl's hand and wove my fingers through his. "And then what? Tell me everything." Don't let this time end.

  "Well, dirt will be the main problem. Everything will be covered in sediment. But I dogged the hatches and screwed the companionway shut, so the interior won't be too bad. She'll need a complete scrubbing after we haul her out, but that's just cosmetic. After the cleaning, I'll open everything up. She'll have to dry for a while—under a tarp or indoors, no direct sunlight. It might take six months to do it right, so there isn't too much warping. Then I'll refinish her: sand her down, varnish and repaint."

  "And then you can sail her again?" I squeezed Karl's hand and rubbed my thumb down the warm, smooth shaft of his wrist.

  "Well, I'll need to replace the fastenings, rebuild the engine, and put it back in. I soaked it in oil and wrapped it in canvas before I buried it, so it should be all right. Then I'll have to put up the rig again. The whole thing could take a year. But yes, then I'll sail her again."

  I pulled my head back so I could see his face. "And where will you go? When the war is over, where will you go in this boat?"

  "Oh, away from here. Away from anyplace gray and from any mark of war. To an island, maybe. Someplace warm and green. Where will you go, Cyrla?"

  "Home," I said immediately.

  "Where's that?" Karl asked it gently, as if he knew what wounds his question would tear open.

  "I don't know," I whispered. "I don't know. I don't know!" I began to cry.

  Karl pulled me to him and held me tight while my grief flooded through. Then he raised himself up to wipe the tears from my face and stroke my hair.

  "Sometimes I dream I'm walking through a field of sunflowers," I told him. "And they are always all facing away from me."

  "You'll find a home. You'll make a home with your baby," he said. "It's going to be all right."

  But it wasn't going to be all right. And I knew why. I had known it all along, but I hadn't been able to face it. And now I needed to tell Karl, but I couldn't make the words come out. Instead, I told him it was time to leave.

  We drove in silence, Karl sliding sideways glances at me as if he knew I was struggling. The words built up. We turned a corner and the tower to the home came into view. I pointed to the side of the road—my eyes filling up and my throat sore. Karl pulled over.

  "Why did you tell me about your boat?" I asked him.

  "Why? What do you mean?"

  "Never mind." I pressed my fists to my eyes and steadied my breathing. Then I looked back at him. "I've changed my mind."

  Karl looked at his watch and then tipped his wrist to me. "We can't stay out much longer."

  "No. I mean"—it became hard to take a breath, as if something had been cut from my heart and the pain left no room for air—"Karl, p
romise you'll take care of him for me! You'll be there when he's born—I'll need to be able to reach you when it's time—and if anything's wrong, or if ... you'll take him, you'll keep him safe. Promise me."

  "Cyrla, are you saying—"

  "And I have to meet your sister. Can you take me to her? Please, I need to talk to her."

  "Of course, of course. And you can see Lina, too. This is the right thing. You know I'll make sure nothing happens. And we'll get him back to you soon. You just find a safe place."

  "And you'll hold him. And Erika will hold him. And when he cries—"

  "Cyrla, calm down. It'll be all right." Karl pried my hand from his sleeve and held it. "We'll take care of him for you."

  But I couldn't calm down. I cried harder, as if I could feel it already, my baby being pulled from my arms. "And photographs. You have to take photographs for me. And you have to show him pictures of me so he knows I'm his mother."

  Karl squeezed my hand. "Shhhh. It's going to be fine. We'll send pictures—we can do that, you know, because now you won't need to hide. Have you thought about that? You'll be safe in Holland now, with good papers."

  "And his name. I'll tell you what to name him—"

  "Cyrla, stop." Karl voice was firm, but he was smiling. He wiped the tears from my face. "We have a month now. No, you're staying. So five weeks, right? Maybe six."

  At first I was puzzled. Then I understood. And finally I relaxed. "We have time."

  "But not now," Karl said. "I'll come back as soon as I can and we'll talk about all of it. But you have to go in now." He started the engine and we drove up to the entrance. On the front steps, I kissed him. For a long time.

  And I was struck with something: Isaak had never kissed me. I had kissed him once, on my back step, and then again that first time, on the roof. But in all the times we'd lain together, he had never found my lips and opened himself to me.

  Inside, everything looked different to me. The walls, the guards, even Frau Klaus looked protective, not threatening. Walking down the hallway, I had a sudden urge to see Neve or Leona. But not Eva.