When the Doves Disappeared (30 page)

Edgar decided to shift the conversation to the improvements they’d made to the camp:

“We’ve installed a water main so that water doesn’t have to be carried in from outside anymore. The Jews were making contact with the locals when they went to fetch water, and even when we made the trips early in the morning it was still impossible to avoid these encounters. But that’s no longer a problem.”

A heavy silence settled over the room. Bodmann shook his head imperceptibly.

“Perhaps we’ll show you our methods later,” Edgar said. “Gentlemen, I’ve ordered a simple meal. Shall we go to the table?” There was a muttered affirmative.

A shot could be heard outside. Then silence. SS-Unterscharführer Karl Theiner was probably making his usual rounds, after his work at the infirmary was done. The vein along Hertz’s nose twitched and he stood up from the table, his glass untouched.

When they stepped outside, they saw a line of trembling, naked prisoners, white and dry as leather. Their hands tried to cover their genitals. Judging by the wheezing and jerking, the prisoner who was shot wasn’t dead yet, but his teeth were already gone and the artist had arrived with his pad to record the event.

All Edgar could make out on Unterscharführer Theiner’s shapeless face was his open mouth. He was quite certain that the Unterscharführer had an erection, and that after this titillating experience he had a long night of pleasure ahead of him. Oil wasn’t the Unterscharführer’s primary area of interest. This had already caused problems.

Hauptsturmführer Hertz drew back. His lighter clinked as he lit a gold-tipped cigarette. The sound of the artist’s lead on the pad and the flutter of sketch paper came to them over the coughs and wheezes. Edgar could hear Hertz mumbling something to himself. It sounded like he said power is unbecoming to anyone.

Reval, Estland General Commissariat, Ostland National Commissariat

J
UUDIT HAD JUST
come in and put her fur stole on the rack in the hallway of her childhood home when there was a knock on the door. The knock was wrong. With her heart pounding in her chest, she opened the stove; retrieved the Mauser, wrapped in a cloth, from behind the stacked wood; laid her coat over the hall stool, with the gun underneath; and threw her silver fox muff on top of it. The knock came again, impatient. Juudit looked at herself in the trumeau mirror. Her lipstick was fine, as were the waves in her hair. Maybe she should flee. But there weren’t many alternatives—the window was too high up. Maybe her moment had arrived. Or maybe someone had just forgotten the code—those things happened. People forgot crucial things when their nerves failed them. When she took hold of the doorknob, there was no feeling in her hand.

An unknown man was standing in the hallway. His overcoat was made of good fabric, the cut fashionable. He lifted his hat.

“Good day, ma’am.”

“Yes?”

“It’s unpleasant standing in the hallway. Could we talk inside?”

“I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

The man stepped closer. Juudit didn’t move. Her hand squeezed the doorknob. The man bent toward her.

“I want to go to Finland,” he whispered. “I’ll pay whatever you ask.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“Three thousand German marks? Four thousand? Six? Gold?”

“I must ask you to leave. I can’t help you,” Juudit said. The words came easily, her posture straightened. She would be all right.

“A friend of yours told me to come here.”

“A friend of mine? I don’t believe we have any mutual friends.”

The man smiled. “Ten thousand?”

“I’m going to call the police.”

She pulled the door closed. Her hands began to tremble. She could hear the man’s footsteps descending the stairs. The clock on the wall was approaching eight. The first family would be coming soon, and they’d been discovered. She had to remain calm, take a few Pervitin, think. Maybe she should just run away. There was still time to escape. Every noise from the street or the hallway made her jump, and yet she stayed where she was. What was she worried about? What did she care what the look on Roland’s face would be if she didn’t open the door? What would it matter if every person coming here was caught—all of them, one by one? She could still save herself, still warn Roland, even, but the refugees were already headed to her apartment and she didn’t know where to divert them. Roland would know, but Roland wasn’t here. She picked up her handbag and coat, hid the Mauser underneath her coat, and opened the door. The hallway was quiet; nothing lurked there but the smell of fat frying in a neighbor’s pan. She crept down the stairs, careful of the squeaking steps, and went out the back door to the courtyard and behind the shed, where she knew Roland would come, by the same route the refugees would take, through the ruins of the bomb-swallowed buildings. She would wait, melt into the wall of the shed and wait. Maybe the man had been watching her for a long time. Maybe they wouldn’t be caught—the apartment looked empty, and she hadn’t admitted anything to the man. He might just be investigating, wanting to find out the escape route. Maybe they wouldn’t plan an ambush until they knew for sure. If the man at the door was from the police, and if he knew who she was, the same information might fall into Hellmuth’s hands at any moment—but this was no time to think of
Hellmuth. Of being discovered. She should think about what she was going to do, how to get through this. The answer was clear. She wouldn’t let any more people use this apartment for a way station. She would wash the whole house with lye, even the wallpaper, put water on to boil, scrub the black streaks off the basin with borax, rub the copper until she’d polished away all the low suggestions the refugees had made to her, refugees like the man who tried to use a gold watch to buy space reserved for others and give it to his own family. When she was done, she wouldn’t remember those people anymore, people willing to leave behind their mother, their mother-in-law, their grandmother, just to bring along more junk, or a horse. Next summer she would gather goatsbeard from the woods and spread it over the floor the way she and Rosalie used to do. The air would be fresh, the floor clean, the scent of the plants would chase away the smell of strangers. That’s what she would do once she got through this.

She found a bench next to the woodshed and sat down. Her knees knocked together like a mousetrap. Roland would arrive at any moment. But the first to come through the ruins wasn’t Roland, it was a man with two children. She could tell from a distance that they were refugees; their gait was careless, they imagined the darkness hid them. She stopped them. They had the password. She told them the way to the apartment, gave them the keys. There was nothing else she could do. The next family came an hour later: another pastor afraid of the Soviets, and his young bride. No children, just small plywood suitcases. Even in the darkness she could see the tears in the woman’s eyes, the man starting at the slightest sound, flinching at shadows. They were followed by a group of boys. Two of them were already on the army’s books, but they’d deserted. Juudit couldn’t risk lighting a cigarette, for fear the burning end would be seen. She pulled her hat down over her fair hair. The day before, she’d arranged juniper branches on the table. The juniper berries had crosses on them for protection, like rowan berries and bird cherries. Next to them she’d laid a Bible and a print of Jesus on the cross—they would try anything these days, she and the refugees. Why had she agreed to this? Why had she let Roland’s wasted life ruin her own? Why had she allowed him to manipulate her, not used her elbows like Gerda did? Why put everything she’d achieved at risk, the milk and honey under her tongue, Hellmuth,
Berlin, the cook, the maid, the chauffeur, the Opel, the silk lingerie, the leather-soled shoes, the bread without sawdust? Roland could never offer her that, not any part of it; all he could offer was danger. And what if he was right, what if she was trying to hedge her bets? Was she? Didn’t she believe Germany would win? Had she ever believed it? Had the people who’d come through her mother’s apartment ever believed it? Had she believed the German promises of Estonian independence, even after she’d heard what they said over their glasses of cognac: Nine hundred thousand people can’t make it as an independent country, surely even they understand that.

Juudit got another Pervitin from her purse. It kept the scratch of the mice out of her ears. Roland was late. She didn’t dare to think what she would do if he didn’t show up. That wasn’t an option. Roland had to come, and he would know what to do, although she knew he doubted the ability of his people to act. Many of them had joined for the adventure, as if they didn’t understand the stakes at all. Roland’s words when he talked of it were full of spit and contempt. No, she wouldn’t think about such things right now. Later.

JUUDIT SENSED THAT
Roland was near before she saw him. He’d grown familiar with this night trek, his eyes were at their keenest in the dark. Juudit was learning the same skill. When his hand came to rest on her shoulder, she didn’t even flinch.

“Why aren’t you inside?”

“I was waiting for you. Something happened,” she whispered. She told him. The fine hairs on her arms stood up like a bird’s down in freezing weather. Roland was so close. He took off his hat and rubbed his hair. She could almost feel the rough dampness of it. For a fleeting moment she remembered how his hair had tickled her neck on the landing, but this wasn’t the time to think about that. If Roland would just tell her that everything was under control, she would believe him. He put his hat back on and said:

“We have to stop using the apartment. You’re freed from this job after tonight. Give me the Mauser, the one you hid in the stove.”

He was calm, much calmer than Juudit had imagined he would be. As if he’d expected this. Maybe it was an everyday occurrence for him.

“What if …,” Juudit began, her voice weak. The soothing words she’d hoped for didn’t come.

“I can’t hear you. Is your purse full? Give me the gun.”

Juudit shook her head. Roland smiled, turned away, and walked toward the back door. Juudit ran after him, grabbed his shoulder. Roland shook her off.

“Let’s not go inside. Let’s leave.”

“We have to arrange the transport.”

The words struck her in the chest, pressing down on her.

With every step Roland wanted to turn around, order her to run away, as fast as she could, but he didn’t. Being exposed made the courtyard feel like a lamp warehouse display window, and still he behaved as if Juudit didn’t matter, as if the situation was normal. This might be his last chance to tell her what was hidden in his heart, the restless feeling that he didn’t dare to name, that had started on the landing when Juudit had come too close, a restlessness unbefitting a soldier. The stairs were painted white to make them easier to use in the dark, but Roland stumbled anyway, had to wipe his knees, and, secretly, his eyes. He could still turn around, wrap his arms around his dove-eyed girl, and she wouldn’t resist, he knew that. They could run away together. But his hand didn’t reach for her, it reached to give the secret knock on the door.

JUUDIT’S NAME SURPRISED HIM,
when it came up. Edgar stared at Aleksander Kreek, a celebrated athlete and his former colleague in the political police B4 section, as they sat in the Kalevi sports club in comfortable chairs, the glass of beer Kreek had bought on the table in front of him. Edgar tried to hide his reaction, to behave as if the name meant nothing to him. Kreek had always been a grasping man, and he would ask for something if he noticed Edgar’s interest. Edgar’s collaboration with Kreek had gone well ever since they were in the B4 in Tallinn, and although Edgar was consumed by his work at the camp, he still managed to come into Tallinn now and then to meet his old contacts, including Kreek. Kreek had been worth the money he’d invested in him in the
past, and he still was. Edgar shifted the conversation to other subjects to throw Kreek off, asked about what was happening at the sports club. Since the Germans came, the club had moved back to the space the Bolsheviks had taken from them on Gonsiori Street, and Kreek showed him around enthusiastically. Everything was just as it used to be. Had Edgar really not been back to see it? As Edgar followed him around acting interested, he thought feverishly of ways to get as much useful information as possible, remembering to praise Kreek’s athletic career, his impressive shot-putting. It didn’t stop the man from asking for gold. He wouldn’t lift a finger for marks. Kreek led Edgar to the street door.