Thirst No. 5 (30 page)

At the end of the fortieth day Major Klein stops by.

He brings with him a woman. Someone I have seen before, long ago, in different clothes and with different hair. Her features were dark before; now she is a blonde. It’s odd but I can’t recall where I met her.

“Hello, Sita. How are we feeling today?” Klein asks cheerfully.

“Wonderful.”

“Good, very good.” He has brought with him a small folding table, which he sets up not far from my pole. He has
also brought a black bag, the contents of which he places on top of the table: his metal box with the three dials; a jagged-edged knife; a plastic spray bottle filled with a sickly yellow fluid; another spray bottle filled with water; a box of wooden matches; and a hammer.

He smiles when he sees me studying the items.

“I hope these tools don’t frighten you,” he says, gesturing to his toys.

“As you’ve probably guessed, Herr Klein, I don’t frighten easily.”

He nods. “Of course, it says so in your file. But still, you are not so different as you think. You are very old, strong, you need blood to survive. But none of that makes you a monster, at least not to us. You are human, too. Look at you. You are pretty, you have a sharp mind, an alluring figure. Why, I bet you are closer to being a person than those filthy Jews we’re exterminating two hundred feet above your head.”

It’s true I haven’t been able to hear their screams, but I have sensed them: the pain of thousands dying. That’s why the room feels like hell, and why Major Klein looks like a devil.

I sense no exaggeration in his words. Two hundred feet is a great distance to tunnel into the earth. Have they done all this for me? They must want something very important.

“Most of the Jews I know are wonderful people,” I reply. “While most of the Nazis I know are scum.”

He smiles again, quickly, but this time it’s forced.

“Fräulein Sita insults us again. I’m surprised. I thought my little demonstration in the Levines’ flat would have taught you better.”

I shrug as best I can for a person who can hardly move. “You’re going to torture me no matter what I say. I may as well speak the truth.”

He nods and moves closer, while his partner stays at a distance. Major Klein may act like a robot but she’s in a class by herself. The way she stares, her dark eyes so vacant, I’d swear there is no one at home.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Klein says. “There’s no reason for you to suffer anymore. All we require is for you to talk. And when you’re done talking, you’ll be set free. Does that sound fair?”

“What do you want me to talk about?”

“A few things from your past.”

“Go on.”

Klein nods pleasantly and turns away, strolling around the room. “Before we get into specifics, it’s important you know how detailed our file on you is. We know you were born around 3000
B.C
., and that at the age of twenty you were transformed into a vampire. Yaksha, the greatest of all vampires, created you.”

“Where did you get this information?” I ask, stunned.

“Later, all that can be explained. Particularly if you choose to join us, which I think you will. For now let me present you with a few more facts. At the age of a hundred you met
a teacher by the name of Krishna. He lived in the forest of Vrindavana with the five Pandava brothers: Arjuna, Bhima, Yudhisthira, Nakula, and Sahadeva—all of who were married to the same woman, Draupadi. True?”

“I see you’ve been reading the Mahabharata,” I reply.

“I’m asking if it’s true that you met these people?”

“Maybe.”

Klein stops and stares. His face goes blank and he says two words. “Frau Cia.”

Picking up the hammer, the woman walks toward me. I fight against the cuffs to no avail. Without blinking, she raises the hammer and strikes my left kneecap. The pain is incredible; it rockets up my leg into my brain. She raises the hammer again and breaks my right kneecap.

“All right, damn you, I met them all!” I cry.

“Thank you, Sita,” Klein says as he resumes his stroll around the room. “See how easy it is to make us happy? All you have to do is talk. Just tell the truth. Now, the reason I bring up the Pandavas is because of the important role they play in the Mahabharata. And you are right, I have read the book, many times, in its original Sanskrit. The Führer has as well—he has made a life study of the book.”

“I know he has read the Vedas,” I whisper, my body slowly trying to absorb the shock of the two blows. In my mind, the mystery surrounding the woman keeps growing. She has phenomenal strength. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she
was a vampire. But she can’t be—I can tell by the sound of her heartbeat. The beat is strong but not as rhythmic as mine. I add, “That’s where he got the swastika.”

“True. It’s a sacred symbol in India.”

“Not the way your Führer uses it.”

Klein halts. “I don’t understand?”

“He inverted it and tilted it on its side. It’s like what the satanists do when they hang the cross upside down.”

Klein smiles broadly. “Are you implying that we’re satanists?”

“I’m just making an observation.”

“An interesting one at that.” Klein resumes his stroll. “Where were we? Oh, yes, the Pandava brothers, the heroes of the Battle of Kurukshetra. When you get down to it, that’s what the Mahabharata is all about. ‘The war to end all wars.’ Did they really use that phrase in those days?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Ironic, don’t you think? Of course you know who the Pandavas fought?”

“Their cousins, the Kauravas.”

“Very good. Did you have any personal contact with the Kauravas?”

“Very little.”

“Please, Sita, be precise.”

“I stood with the Kauravas on the first day of the battle.”

“Why didn’t you stand with the Pandavas?”

“I was afraid I might run into Yaksha.”

“You were avoiding him?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We have time. Nothing but time.”

“Yaksha had promised Krishna he would destroy all the vampires. I knew he had been hunting them.”

“You were afraid for your life, then?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did you go to the battle in the first place?”

I hesitate. “To see Krishna.”

“No other reason?”

“No.”

“Did you get to see him? Talk to him?”

“I saw him that day, from a distance. He played the role of Arjuna’s charioteer and rode out into the center of the field before the battle.”

“Why did Krishna do this?”

“You’ve studied the Mahabharata. You must know why. Arjuna was upset on the eve of battle. He didn’t want to fight and kill so many of his friends and relatives.”

“The Kauravas were his friends?”

“They were related but they were enemies. The point is that Krishna took time with Arjuna to explain that the war was just and that he should fight. Their dialogue formed the core of the Bhagavad Gita, India’s most sacred book.”

“Were you able to hear Krishna and Arjuna speak from where you were standing?”

“No.”

“Why not? With your vampire ears, you should have heard everything they said.”

“I thought so too. Krishna—he must have done something to shield their dialogue.”

Klein comes near, and I fear he is going to call on Frau Cia again. He speaks in my ear. “Did he talk about exotic weapons?”

“I told you, I couldn’t hear them.”

Klein backs off a step, standing behind me. “Did you fight with the Kauravas that day?”

“No.”

“What did you do?”

“When the fighting started, I left the field and hid in the trees.”

“That doesn’t sound like you, Sita, to run from a fight.”

“It wasn’t my fight. The Pandavas and Kauravas were fighting over land. Who would control the country. I had no interest in who won. I knew I would be leaving India soon.”

“Why?”

“I told you, to get away from Yaksha.”

“Because you were afraid of him?”

“Yes.”

Klein moves in front. “How many days did the Battle of Kurukshetra last?”

“Four days.”

“In the Mahabharata it says it lasted longer. Two weeks.”

“Distortions crept into the book over time. It lasted four days.”

“What did you do during the battle?”

“I just told you.”

“No. After Krishna spoke to Arjuna you said you retired to the woods. What did you do there?”

“Nothing.”

“You hid in the woods for four days and did nothing?”

“I stayed in the area on the off chance I might see Krishna again.”

Klein comes close and speaks in a sympathetic tone. “He must have meant a great deal to you. To go to all that trouble just to glimpse him in the distance. To risk running into Yaksha.”

I shrug. “Like I said, I was leaving India. I thought it would be my last chance to see him.”

“Not what one would expect from a monster.”

He hasn’t asked a question so I choose not to answer.

Klein points a finger at me. “Let’s be honest with each other, Sita. You have a big heart. You love deeply. How else could you be so devoted to Krishna?”

“That was a long time ago.”

“It doesn’t matter, you haven’t changed. You’re a fool in love. Look at the way you watched over the Levines the past
two years. Two filthy Jews and you felt obligated to protect them. What devotion!”

He stops, waiting. But he hasn’t asked a question. I wait.

“Have you nothing to say?” he demands.

He knows I want to ask if they are still alive.

“What is your question?” I say.

“I’m trying to get you to admit something. Why is it so painful for you? I said it at the start. You may be a vampire but you are still human. Indeed, you are more human than most of humanity.”

“Why is that trait so important to you?” I ask.

“It means you can join us! You can be one of us. You can help us win this war and reclaim the world.”

He shakes with the energy of his pronouncement, his marble eyes bulging from his waxen face. Blood fills his cheeks but it’s strange how lifeless it makes him appear. His thick lips twitch.

“You’re insane,” I say, even though I know what it will get me.

This time he doesn’t say her name, merely gestures with his hand. Frau Cia picks up the bottle of light yellow liquid and the box of matches and walks toward me. At the last instant, just before she sprays it on my hands, I smell the fluid and know what it is.

Gasoline.

Frau Cia sprays so much that it drips down my bare arms
and stains my rolled-up sleeves. She lights a match and I blow it out. She doesn’t mind. Taking a step behind me, she lights another one and touches it to my fingers.

My arms transform into torches.

Burn, burn forever, that is what the Christians say happens to all those who reject Jesus Christ. The threat is powerful; it has steered western civilization for two thousand years. It is also clever. Who could imagine a hell worse than eternal flames?

I can’t imagine it. Nor can I stand it.

But I do not beg for mercy. Not from him. Never.

Still, the pain defeats me. It causes me to black out.

I regain consciousness a minute or two later. I am still on fire but Frau Cia is spraying water on my hands. It takes many squirts to put out the flames and by then my skin has blackened and begun to peel. The lumps of flesh drip in my hair, in my face, in my eyes. I hang my head and close my eyes and try not to feel the pain.

Klein steps beside me. “I have to go now, Sita. But when I return you will tell me everything you did during the four days of the battle. You will remember everything you saw. Everyone you spoke to. Understand?”

“I suppose,” I whisper.

I tell myself it is not the same as saying yes.

“Good girl.” He pats me on the back and turns for the door. But he stops before leaving, Frau Cia by his side. He
sniffs the air and frowns. “I hate to say this but you smell no different than a stinking Jew when it burns. I’m disappointed.”

He leaves. Thank God he leaves.

• • •

I don’t know what day it is. I don’t know if I blacked out or if I was driven into unconsciousness. I only know that when I raise my head and open my eyes I’m no longer in the concrete dungeon.

The Nazis have moved me aboveground, to a low bluff at the far end of the concentration camp. I am chained to an identical pole, with cuffs that feel no different from the previous set. I believe they are the same cuffs. I can’t break them. Around me, on all sides, is a dome-shaped wire cage. I stand in the center, like before, with my arms pinned above my head, the toes of my feet barely touching the muddy ground. A light rain falls. The sky is gray and dismal.