Jacob's Oath (19 page)

He looked up. Sarah seemed to have shrunk into her chair, she was a crumpled heap.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, pushing across the box of tissues, but Sarah’s eyes were
dry. She was staring at the floor, her head moving slowly from side to side as if
she couldn’t believe it. Instead it was Captain Monahan who needed the tissues. Is
there no end to their suffering? he thought. What a sweet and lovely girl. If only
he could help her. He wiped his eyes.

Sarah was thinking: So he didn’t even go to Auschwitz, thank God he was spared all
that. But all the time I was hiding in Berlin, he was there too. I could have visited
him, hidden near him. We could have been together. I could have slept by his grave.

She had always known. But now she knew. “Does it say where he is buried?” She couldn’t
think of anything else to say. She felt all her energy drain from her.

“No. No, it does not. Sarah, I’m so terribly sorry to have to be the bearer of such
news.”

SEVENTEEN

Heidelberg,
May 22, 1945

When Jacob returned from the castle at midday he found her clothes strewn across the
floor and Sarah in bed. The room stank. She had thrown up in the sink and left the
mess. “Ugh,” he said to himself. “Yech.” He opened the window and left the street
door open. He took a piece of paper and wiped all the hard bits from the sink, and
scrubbed it with more paper. He worked quietly, trying not to wake her.

Couldn’t have gone so well with the chaplain, he thought. I was right, it must be
news about Joe. Or her family. He’d only talked about possible jobs so that she wouldn’t
worry. If the chaplain had waited for half an hour he knew it could only have been
very good news or very bad news. And there wasn’t much chance of good news. He picked
up her clothes and hung up the dress, coat, and blouse. He tried to smooth out the
creased beret and stuffed some socks in it to give it shape. A tiny voice came from
the bed. “Sorry.”

He sat next to her and stroked her hair. He waited for her to add something, but she
didn’t. He cupped her forehead with his hand. “Whoa, you’re hot,” he said. “I think
you have a fever, how do you feel?”

He felt her body tense. “I want to be sick.” She rolled to the side and retched over
the floor, but nothing came up but spit and bile. She lay back panting, wiping her
face with both hands. Jacob held a washing-up rag under the cold water and held it
to her forehead and dabbed her cheeks and neck. “I’m sorry, this is all I can find.”

“Thank you.” A feeble Aaiinnkhuu.

“That’s all right. Did you sleep?”

“I tried.”

“When did you get back?”

“Don’t know. What time is it?”

He looked at his watch. “Three twenty.”

“Oh. Head hurts.” Eehhuurrrtss.

“Don’t talk. Try to sleep.”

Sarah slept for the best part of three days. She sat on the toilet with her head leaning
against Jacob’s chest. Jacob found the chaplain, who brought a doctor who examined
her in her groggy state. “There’s nothing seriously wrong with her, the fever will
come down by itself,” the doctor said. “She’s just exhausted, that’s all. After everything
she’s been through, the body is just catching up. The more sleep she gets, the better.
You must keep her hydrated, though, make her drink lots of water, ten glasses a day
at least. The dashing of hope can be debilitating. What about you?” he said to Jacob.

He shrugged. “I feel fine.”

“Huh,” the doctor said. “After three years in Bergen-Belsen, you feel fine?”

“I didn’t have any hope in the first place,” Jacob said.

“Hah, that’s a good one,” the doctor said, “I’ll remember that. Well, if you need
me, Captain Monahan knows where to find me, I’m never more than an hour away.” He
glanced at Sarah snoring in the bed. “And don’t worry, she’s a strong young woman.”

“Thank you doctor, and thank you very much, Chaplain. Also for the chocolate. I’ll
keep it for Sarah.”

“I doubt it, from what she told me.” They laughed.

Days and nights were as one. Sarah slept curled like a fetus until she would suddenly
stretch and moan and throw her hands out as if calling for help. She would lie on
her back and abruptly toss herself to the side and mutter, groaning and talking to
herself. Jacob made out the odd words: Stop it; come back; Hoppi. Several times she
shouted “No!” and her whole body twitched. She slept best when curled on her left
side, facing the wall. In that position her breaths were long and even, not short
and fast, as if she were panting. Then Jacob would lie next to her on the dank sheet,
hugging her from behind, but mostly he slept on the floor wrapped in a sheet.

Whenever he could, and that was when Sarah was at her most restless, he would pull
her up and hold a glass of water to her lips. Sometimes she gulped it, other times
he had to push the rim between her lips and tilt her head back and pour in the water.
Some would dribble down her chest, and he dabbed her dry so that she wouldn’t lie
in a cold damp pool.

Frau Braunschweig knocked several times a day, bustling in with cleaning rags and
advice and twice, until Jacob asked her firmly to desist, with pots of foul thin gruel.
She called it meat soup: “Good for you.” There was more meat in the soup in Bergen-Belsen.
He’d said to her, “I wouldn’t like to deprive your family of your food.” And she’d
said, as he expected, “Oh, it’s all right, I made this especially for you.”

It was never quite clear to Jacob. Was she concerned about the health of a sick girl
or was she worried disease would seep through her walls? She kept her distance from
Sarah, looking at her as if assessing a lettuce in the market, standing by the door
or walking in a loop to the bathroom to hang up the towels she found on the floor.
Once she washed out a couple of rags and commented on the weak water flow. “We’ll
have more water soon, they said so. Hot water too, the boiler’s back up in a day or
two. Things are looking up.”

On the first day, Sarah had turned a waxy yellow and when she opened her eyes they
were dull like stone. Jacob had tried to ask her how she felt, what was wrong, what
had happened, and in a few barely lucid moments, that first night before the doctor
came, he had been able to exchange some words with her. “Hoppi,” she said, as if that
was all he needed to know.

It was. He understood that even though she had known he was dead, had lost hope, still,
there must have been a ray, a final glimmer, that had not yet been extinguished, like
the very last pink rim of the sun before it finally sinks over the horizon.

We all live with delusion, he thought; it is our best weapon of survival. If we don’t
delude ourselves about ourselves, how can we live with ourselves? In the middle of
one night she told him what she knew, as she squeezed his hand, and once said, “Hold
me,” and he did, even though she was hot and clammy and smelled of musk.

On the second day, he had spent six hours searching and bartering until he found a
reasonable set of sheets in a shop. It would have been easier if Frau Braunschweig
had given him some but she shook her head, she didn’t have any spares.

Jacob gave Sarah weak tea and helped her to the bathroom, where she sat on the toilet,
and once, instead of supporting her, he spread her feet on the floor and left her
to slump forward with her head on her knees. He stripped the bed of the sodden sheets
and threw them into a corner, and as he turned the mattress over, Maxie came to him.
He wished he had been able to care for him like this. Maxie was sick most of the time,
he became so frail. Yet instead of calling for a doctor they had to hide him from
the Rat. And here I am, in my private room, complaining about Frau Braunschweig’s
meat soup and that it took me six hours to find some sheets. How quickly we get spoiled.
In Bergen-Belsen half the people had fever and disease and slept in the dust on the
floor, and if they complained they were kicked and beaten. He sighed. Oh, Maxie, I
tried to wipe your brow but I didn’t have any water.

When Sarah was ready he helped her out of her shirt for the first time, unbuttoned
the front and pulled the sleeves from her arms. She sagged forward, uncaring, as he
removed her bra and freed her breasts. He wet the old sheet from the tap and in gentle
circles wiped her shoulders and back and arms and stomach and, finally, her chest,
with the cold wet cloth. Then he helped her into a clean shirt and took off her panties.
He wet another part of the sheet and washed her feet and ankles and legs up to her
knees. He wet it again and did the same to her thighs as high as he could. Now Jacob
helped Sarah to her feet and supporting her with one arm around her waist, with her
head lolling against him and her hair across his chest, he spread her legs and slid
the damp cloth across her bottom and between her legs and wet it again until she was
clean.

She groaned with fatigue as he helped her into a pair of clean knickers, laid her
on the clean bed, and covered her with the fresh sheet up to her neck. He sat by her,
holding her hand, as she sighed, and within moments she had turned on her side and
fallen into a deep sleep. He arranged her hair, each strand a bewitching memory of
her silky skin, her helpless womanhood.

Jacob kissed her fingers and let them go. He walked to the window, opened it to smell
the night air, and stared out into the street. It was raining and pools of water glinted
in the moonlight, raindrops dancing in them. He saw a man’s shadow with a ball on
top followed instantly by a man in a hat walking by with an umbrella. He was out in
the curfew. He must be some kind of official. Jacob leaned out and looked after him.
Who is he? What does he want? Where is he coming from and where is he going? A grim
smile came to Jacob’s lips. Good questions. Who among us knows?

He looked over his shoulder at Sarah, who turned with a groan. Jacob sighed, his thoughts
confused.

On the afternoon of the fifth day, Sarah woke to feel Jacob’s hand caressing her,
his fingers trailing gently from the nape of her back the length of her spine and
at the last moment lifting his hand and doing it again. And again, and again. She
shivered. Lower … please … After a few minutes she turned around to see Jacob lying
facing her, smiling. Their noses almost touched, and she winked.

“You’re back?” Jacob said. “Good afternoon.”

Sunlight streamed in at an angle, forming a triangle of glaring light on the whitewashed
wall. Sarah raised her hand to protect her eyes and said, “And good afternoon to you,
sweet nurse.”

Jacob jerked back. “Uffff.”

“What?”

“Excuse me, but I think you need to brush your teeth.”

Sarah jumped up and fell down again. “Oh, I’m so dizzy.”

“You’ve been out for five days.”

“What? Really?”

“Let me check.” He placed the inside of his wrist against her forehead and held it
for a moment, then nodded in satisfaction. “It’s gone. The fever.”

Sarah sat up and stood slowly, deliberately, waiting for the floor to stop rising
and falling, and walked carefully to the bathroom, where she closed the door and locked
it. Jacob walked over and called out through the door, “It’s a bit late for modesty,
you know,” and laughed.

He heard the lock shift and the door opened a crack. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing.”

The door closed but there was no locking sound.

He heard the sound of flushing, and running water from a tap, followed by a shriek.
He pushed the door open. Sarah was kneeling by the bath in her shirt, holding her
hand beneath the tap. “Guess what? It’s hot. There’s hot water. Can I have a bath?”

“I guess so. Sure, why not? If there’s enough water.”

Even in the hospital the only hot water was in the operating rooms or brought by the
nurses in little pans. “I haven’t had a hot bath in years,” Sarah said. “Years!”

“So it’s all yours.”

Jacob closed the door with a tender smile. She’s so beautiful, he thought. It was
all so fast. She had suddenly fallen sick, slept for nearly a week, and just as suddenly
woken up like a bear from hibernation. The doctor was right. A strong young woman.
And what a woman. So beautiful in just a shirt. Even better without it. He smiled
at the thought of washing her soapy breasts.

And what about me? When was the last time I had a hot bath? he wondered. A real bath,
not that torture in the Human Laundry. The face of Hans Seeler intruded for the briefest
instant, but he banished the image. My last bath? he thought. It must have been before
we were rounded up. In October 1940. That must have been his last hot bath. October
1940. Almost five years ago. But come on. Think of Maxie, and all the others. And
I’m whining about a hot bath. I’ll never be able to complain about anything for the
rest of my life.

He sighed, emptying most of his lungs. He knocked on the door. “Please don’t let the
water out when you finish. Save the water for me.”

“Pardon? I can’t hear.” The water was running. He opened the door slightly and put
his lips to the crack, “Don’t let the water out when you finish. I’ll have a bath
after you.”

He felt the door tugged from his hand, revealing Sarah in all her shirtless glory.
She tried to raise a coquettish eyebrow like Marlene Dietrich. “I have a better idea,”
she breathed. “Don’t have a bath after me. Have a bath with me.”

EIGHTEEN

Heidelberg,
May 26, 1945

Jacob stared at the closed door in disbelief. No. No! What an idiot! Why did he say
no? What did he actually say? “Oh, uh, that’s all right, you go first.” What a cretin!
“Oh, uh…” And then he’d closed the door.

In her face. She’d never forgive him. That was it, he had had the chance, and he’d
blown it. She’ll be hurt, insulted, who wouldn’t be? She’ll think I don’t really like
her, not in that way, but like a brother. My sister knew your sister. You nincompoop!

Would you like to have a bath with me? Yes. Yes! A thousand times, yes!