Jacob's Oath (34 page)

“Thirty-one.”

“Thirty-two in six weeks. Why don’t you stay here, see if you like her, please, it’s
such an opportunity, girls like that come by once in a lifetime … Hans. Don’t go away.
You’ll be all right here. You’ve only been home a few weeks. Please.” Her eyes were
red again and the tears traced her plump cheeks. She leaned toward him as if to kiss
him, pleading with her wet eyes. Wolfgang placed his hand on her arm and squeezed,
as if to say, it’ll be all right, my dear. It’ll be all right.

Hans was burning to tell them, but he couldn’t. It would endanger everything. There
were at least another fifty like him doing the same thing, and many more in the pipeline.
It hurt them now but the pain would wear off and later, as soon as possible, he’d
be in touch and let them know where he was living and what his new name was and then,
one day, when it was safe, he’d come visit.

He had to keep it to himself. They thought he was running to Argentina, that the organization
would take care of him there, and that was true for the most senior SS. But for the
junior ranks it was a cover story. He was going somewhere else, and not so far. In
two days he would leave on what looked like a journey of ten thousand kilometers,
but that would take him barely three hundred.

With genuine new papers, a new birth certificate, a new name, everything for a new
identity, a new story, he would be traveling only as far as a small town in the Black
Forest where a post as Hauptwachtmeister awaited him in the Steinkirchen police force.
Low- to medium-rank SS servicemen with new identities were being inserted into the
police across the country. They were protected. And sworn to silence. Until summoned
to the cause, which would rise again when the time was right, when the so-called victors
finally understood who the real enemy was: the Communists.

He could throw them a bone, though. “Yes, she is very nice,” he said. “Who knows,
maybe we will fall in love. But she will have to come join me over there, at least
in the beginning.” He raised his eyebrows at his mother. A simple woman.

Beautiful Gertie Haas, he was thinking. They fell for her. What I could do to that
body. A smooth talker. His face hardened as he remembered last night. Tonight would
be different. Lying bitch. She thought she was so clever, but then they all do. Lying,
just to get a job. Licking his ass for the money. He could smell a Jew from the other
side of the street. They’re all the same. And they’ll all get the same.

We’ll see how smart she is back here with my belt in her mouth.

THIRTY-FOUR

Heidelberg,
June 13, 1945

The big man leaned back with his legs apart, his hands folded on his stomach, and
a satisfied smile across his face. From his shaded café table on the corner of Apothekergasse
his eyes flitted from pretty girl to pretty girl in the noisy crowd in the market
square. Each day there seemed to be more people and more cheer in the air. More young
men, too. German soldiers were drifting home, some still in uniform, some on crutches.
The American occupiers moved in groups, spreading chocolate and nylon stockings, buying
souvenirs and women. Even the refugees looked sharper in their donated clothes, especially
the girls. But he was looking for one pretty girl in particular.

He tensed but before he could jump to his feet he realized how little the hands were
that covered his eyes from behind. He pulled them free and forced the hands to his
chest, bringing Sarah’s body over his shoulder. He kissed her on the cheek.

“You got my message, then,” she said. Her closeness woke another image: Sarah’s contorted
face, torn clothes, filthy and smelly, cowering in the corner like a beaten dog, whining
for help. It went as quickly as it came. Her hair was washed and shiny, and in a simple
white blouse and black cotton trousers, smiling and relaxed, she looked as if she
had not a care in the world.

“Well, well, Sarah Kaufman, I do believe you are the most beautiful girl in Heidelberg,
and I should know because I have been sitting here for half an hour ogling most of
them.”

“And thinking of your wife, I hope.”

“Thank you, Sarah. Yes, as a matter of fact, thinking of my wife. This damned war
is over but I still won’t get home for months, maybe a year, who knows. I hardly remember
what she looks like. Three years it’s been, more. I wonder how many children she has
now.”

Sarah took his hand. “She is such a lucky woman. I wonder if she knows.”

“She knows I am a soldier, that’s what she knows. She probably thinks I have syphilis
by now.”

Sarah snatched back her hand. “Do you?”

He roared with laughter. “You can’t catch syphilis by holding hands.”

“Do you?”

“Of course not. Have a drink?”

She drank a coffee. She added real milk, not because she liked coffee with milk but
just because they had some. “When are you leaving?” she asked.

Isak sighed. “In a day or two. We’ve done what we came to do, some coordination work,
now we’re trying to delay going back to Berlin for as long as we can.”

“I can imagine.” Sarah let her eyes wander the market until they settled again on
Isak. She gazed thoughtfully at him and slowly closed her eyes. A teardrop clung to
her eyelash, and Isak took her hand back. “I was just thinking, Isak. I owe you everything.”
She placed her other hand on his, until all four hands formed their own little tower
of trust on the table. “How did you find me? Who sent you to me? What angel cared
for me?”

Isak squeezed her hands.

“I think it was Hoppi, I really do. It was Hoppi who sent you to me.” Sarah took back
her hands and wiped her eyes. She had put on mascara and now the back of her hand
was black and her cheeks were smudged. Isak leaned forward, spat on his hand, and
wiped her cheek clean.

“Ugh,” Sarah said.

“It’s good luck, where I come from.”

“Yes, I can see, you’re so lucky.”

He laughed. “Yes, yes I am, so far anyway.”

“Isak, there’s something else, an idea I have, something else I have to ask you…”

*   *   *

In their room that afternoon Sarah was surprised that Jacob didn’t show more interest.
“They’re coming this evening,” Sarah had told him. “I met Isak to say good-bye, he’s
going back to Berlin, and he knew about it. Eighteen Jews from Theresienstadt, just
like you said you heard, remember? They’re coming tonight.” She had thought Jacob
would be excited. Isak hadn’t known their names or where they had come from but it
stood to reason that some of them would be from Heidelberg, or why else would they
come here at all? Jacob may know some of them. She grew up out of town in a farming
village but Jacob had lived right here in the middle of the old Jewish quarter.

But his mind was somewhere else. He was barely listening. He was staring at nothing,
his jaw twitched, and he was drumming with his fingers. His lips moved.

“Jacob, are you talking to yourself? Did you hear me at all? Why don’t you go to welcome
them? There may be someone you know, and think how nice it would be for them, to meet
a Jew here? I’d go myself but I have to be in the restaurant.” She wanted him to be
at the Volkshochschule when their bus arrived, that’s where Isak had said they would
be taken. The freed prisoners would be given beds in the high school, food, money,
and clothes. Chaplain Monahan would be there too, and a few Jewish soldiers from the
Sixth Army.

“Why do you want me to be there so much?” Jacob had said.

“I already told you.” She nagged and nagged until Jacob promised faithfully. “All
right, all right, I’ll go there,” he said.

“And wait till they come. You should get there early, they could come at any time.
Be there about seven o’clock.”

“All right, all right.”

Sarah kissed him. “And you’ll wait till they come. Whenever. Promise?”

“What’s so important? Promise.”

She kissed him again. Anything could happen. He might need the alibi. And she might
need the time.

THIRTY-FIVE

Heidelberg,
June 13, 1945

As the minute hand labored from five to six o’clock in the afternoon, Jacob sat down,
rose, sat down again, rose and paced nervously in the small room, and muttered to
himself. “What is it, stop it,” Sarah said again. His pacing stopped her from sleeping,
not that she could anyway. She was as wound up as he but hid it better. He gave her
one glass of water followed by another. He boiled the kettle. “Here,” he said, “have
a cup of tea.”

To himself he said: Sarah, go pee already!

He needed to go to the alley. He was ready. But he couldn’t get his club. It was under
the bed and Sarah was on it.

After an hour of mounting anxiety it occurred to him to go to the bathroom and leave
the water running, a suggestive background tinkle that soon had its effect. Sarah
rolled to her side and sat with her feet on the floor before heaving herself up, saying,
“Darling, you left the tap on.”

“Oh, sorry.”

She went to the bathroom and sat down. Jacob lunged under the bed and called from
the door, “I’ll go now, don’t want to miss them, see you later,” and closed the door
behind him. At the doorstep he sucked in air and sighed in relief, tapped the steel
hidden along his leg, and set off for the alley by the Lutheran church on Bergheimerstrasse.

He should have said good-bye properly, but how could he? Even though anything could
happen now. Would he come home tonight? His stomach had been feeling more and more
knotted, his throat constricted, and now that he was working his way fast through
the aimless afternoon strollers, pulling to the side and accelerating as he overtook
each shuffling couple, perspiration began to dampen his forehead. His hand gripped
the steel through his pocket.

His face hardened as he walked. He felt as if he were about to cast off an unbearable
burden. He was about to strike a blow for all those who never could or would. Heaven
and hell demanded it. He had been thinking too much for too long, he told himself,
now was the time for action. He heard Sarah: Don’t do it, Jacob, revenge is wrong,
it will ruin you, it will desecrate you, it is the path to moral destruction, we are
not the killing kind.

Be quiet, he told her shrill voice. After all we have been through, and you still
don’t know how to hate.

Nearing the alley, Jacob thought, But I do.

As the sun sank across the river and the shadows lengthened in the city streets, the
narrow alley darkened and dusk crept across the road. Perfect, Jacob thought, lurking
in the shade, an obscure outline in the gloom.

*   *   *

Strange that he just slipped out, Sarah thought. He’d been distracted. She was sure
he was worrying about the Rat. She was sure he was planning something that he didn’t
want to tell her about. Of course he was, he was running out of time. She had to act
quickly, before him. As she walked along Neckarstaden to the wharf, she fiddled with
her blouse and opened the third button. She glanced down to see her bare skin, and
her lips set in grim purpose.

She hated what she was about to do, hated it with all her soul, and feared it too,
but she saw no other way. If Jacob attacked Hans, he would be either killed himself
or caught afterward. If he was caught, he would be sent to jail, and German prisoners
could beat him to death in the cell. Or at best he would serve many years in prison.
What else could happen? Plenty, and they all meant the same: Their life together would
be over. She would lose him. Just as she had lost Hoppi and the baby, her family,
her happiness. She had lost everything, more than a soul could bear, and then she
had found Jacob, dear Jacob, so busy making money and organizing their life and planning
their future, and yet so consumed with hatred and lust for revenge.

She hadn’t stopped Hoppi from leaving, she had learned her lesson the hard way. Now
she must stop Jacob.

And this was the only way. She glanced at the watch that Jacob had given her with
some tale of what he had bartered with this person to get that from that person and
in the end here it was, a pretty Swiss timepiece that she didn’t want or need. Who
had it belonged to? What suffering had they endured to make them part with this family
heirloom? What had it bought them: a piece of meat to feed the children, for how many
days? Two?

It was ten to eight. She looked toward the wharf and saw ahead the gap in the river
wall where the steps went down. Was he waiting? Her heart, fast until now, began to
pound and she breathed in short sharp bursts as her body absorbed what was about to
happen. What, you just understood? she told herself. You just realized? Calm down.
She gripped the wall and leaned against it with both hands, supporting herself and
taking large gulps of river air.

She resumed her walk along the wall until she reached the steps. This is it. It’s
all or nothing now. She couldn’t do any more. She took a deep breath, touched her
hair, adjusted her beret, and took the steep steps carefully. She didn’t want to fall,
but still she felt shattered. Her heart was broken.

This is where she should have been meeting Hoppi.

*   *   *

“Where is the bastard?” Jacob said to himself as he paced from the corner to the alley
and back again. He’d been waiting for an hour, looking at the corner where the Rat
would come from if he was leaving the hotel, and the other direction, where he would
first see him if he was coming home from the beer garden. Either way he’d pass him,
if he was on this side of the road. He’d been getting cold in the alley, he hadn’t
realized that it acted as a wind tunnel, funneling a blast from the open space at
one end to the main street where he was standing. He should have brought his coat
but that would have got in the way. He raised his right shoulder and rolled it in
its socket, stuck out his elbow and rotated his wrist, keeping his striking arm limber
and loose. He brought out his steel club to feel the weight, get used to its heft
in his grip. It was warm after being close to his skin. Smooth and deadly. It’ll go
through bone like a hammer. Maybe he should have got a hammer? Would a hammer have
been better?