Thirst No. 5 (24 page)

“I was hoping to spare the South decades of Yankee revenge.”

“It was a nice sentiment. Too bad it didn’t work.” He stares at me. “You haven’t aged a day since then.”

“It’s easy to see you as General Grant. You fight the same. Above all else you believe in concentrating your forces. You sacrifice however many men it takes to end a battle as fast as possible.” I stop. “But how can you be sure?”

“Am I right about our meeting?”

“How can you be sure?” I repeat.

He hesitates. “I’m not delusional. I put it to the test. I had my wife, Bee, buy his autobiography. I had never read it myself. I asked her to study it, and ask me questions about what Grant said or did when I least expected. I didn’t want my mind getting in the way of what my heart knew. I wanted my answers to be spontaneous. I got one question right, then another. She asked me stuff off and on for two weeks before it happened.”

“What?”

“The entire life came back to me. Like I had just lived it.” He stops and takes my hand. “Alys, I only spent ten minutes with you in that life. But I remember the red dress you wore, the gold necklace, how you kept your hair long and loose like
it is now. The thing you told me before you left was, ‘General, Lee is tired of fighting. He wants the war to end. If you give an honorable way out for him and his men, he’ll take it.’ ”

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 family 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.