Peter Leonard - Back from the Dead

Freeport, Bahamas. 1971.

Hess heard voices, but had to listen carefully, tune into the sound before he realized they were speaking English with a British accent. He hated the British and pictured Churchill in a newsreel, pontificating after the war, the fat man with the cigar, his righteous tone more righteous after defeating Germany. Hess opened his eyes looking up at the white blades of a fan slowly rotating above him. He was in a hospital ward, an infirmary, the last bed in a big white room filled with beds, Hess on his back, a lot of activity to his left, Negro nurses moving about, checking on Negro patients. Everyone he could see had black skin. For an Aryan who believed in racial purity this was hell, God playing a cruel joke on him.

It hurt to breathe, his lungs were burning and he had a pain in his upper chest. He touched it and felt a bandage through the hospital gown. He noticed there were IVs in both of his arms, which were badly sunburned. His last recollection was floating in the ocean, hanging onto a wood plank that had drifted by, a piece of wreckage, bobbing in the water like a wine cork, for a day at least, until someone rescued him. He remembered being pulled out of the water but his memory was hazy after that.

“You’re awake.”

A nurse approached the bed. She had short black hair that fit her head like a cap, and the darkest skin he had ever seen, the dark chocolate color contrasting her big white teeth and crisp white uniform.

“How do you feel?” She was standing at the side of his bed, looking down at him. “My name is Camille. Are you in any pain?”

The wound in his chest itched. He scratched at it under the bandage. “What happened?”

“That’s what everyone wants to know.”

In a snapshot memory he saw himself lying on the black and white tiles of a kitchen floor, a hole in his chest, blood leaking out of him, feeling light-headed, sure he was going to die, Harry Levin, his executioner, standing over him. But how? He had killed Harry in Detroit, shot him point blank.

“Where am I?” Hess said.

“Freeport, sir. The Bahamas. You were delirious, near death when they brought you in. The good news, the salt water helped heal your wound. Salt’s an anti-inflammatory, encourages the formation of connective tissue and blood vessels important to the healing process.”

Nurse Camille took a thermometer out of an apron pocket, shook it and slid it in his mouth. “Under your tongue now. That’s a good man.” She held her arm up, glancing at the watch on her black wrist. “A fisherman found you floating in the channel.” She pulled the thermometer out of his mouth and read it. “Temperature’s down.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Two days.”

“What is the date?”

“Fifteenth of October.” She paused. “What is your name, sir?”

“I don’t know. Did you check my identification?”

“There was nothing on you when you were admitted. Nothing except the ring on your left hand. A policeman was by this morning. Would like a word when you’re up to it. I have my rounds. I’ll be back to check on you.”

Nurse Camille moved to the bed next to him, attending to a gray-haired Negro man. Hess lay back staring at the fan, thinking God had spared him, brought him back to finish his work. He wanted Hess to kill more Jews. Hess thought of Eichmann saying he would leap laughing into the grave because the feeling that he had killed five million people on his conscience would be a source of extraordinary satisfaction. Hess could relate. Killing Jews had been immensely satisfying.

Day three. The trim dark-skinned man in a white short-sleeved shirt introduced himself as Inspector Johnson, Royal Bahamian Police. He held up his ID in a black billfold so Hess could read it. His full name was Cuffee Johnson. His ancestors had obviously been slaves that had taken their master’s surname. They were originally from Africa, but where? He would have guessed Senegambia on the northwest coast where Portuguese sailors started the slave trade in the 1400s.

Inspector Johnson grabbed a chair that was against the wall, brought it over, positioned it next to the bed and sat, holding a notebook and blue plastic pen in his long black fingers. He had a wide mouth, a flat nose and dark serious eyes.

“Do you know your name?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Or where you’re from?”

“No.”

“Or how you got here?”

“I have a vague recollection of being pulled out of the ocean.”

“You were in the water a long time, more than twenty-four hours by the condition of your skin.”

“Who found me?”

“A fisherman named Ousseny. He was cruising back with a net full of mahi mahi and saw you floating. Thought you were dead. Contacted the authorities and brought you here.”

“Will you thank him for me?” He was thinking maybe this fisherman could take him back to Palm Beach.

Inspector Johnson took a handkerchief out of his shirt pocket and dabbed the perspiration on his face. “Do you know who shot you?”

“I don’t remember anything.”

“Your clothing had labels from the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida. Does that ring a bell?”

“I don’t know.”

“The Palm Beach police are looking for a missing person, a salesman from Stuttgart, Germany. Disappeared three days ago. They found his abandoned rental car. His clothing and possessions still in his hotel room. Arrived the 30th of September, went through customs in Detroit, Michigan. Was issued a three-month visa.”

Hess was thinking about the key to the safe deposit box at SunTrust Bank. It was in his briefcase in the room. If they found the key and opened the box they would know who he was.

“The man who disappeared, Mr. Gerd Klaus, was staying at the Breakers. He had purchased two shirts and a pair of pants in one of the hotel shops. Does any of this sound familiar?”

Hess shook his head.

“The description of this missing person fits you. Your color hair, about six feet tall, two hundred pounds. Are you from Stuttgart, Germany?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you speak German? Sprechen sie Deutsch?’

Hess shrugged, furrowed his brow.

“Detective Conlin from the Palm Beach police department wants to talk to you. He’ll be arriving tomorrow.”

Cuffee Johnson picked up the chair and placed it back against the wall.

“Where are you from, Inspector?”

“Born here on the islands, Eleuthera. Why do you ask?” He came back to the bed, staring down at Hess.

“I mean your family, your great-grandfather or his father. He was a slave, wasn’t he?”

“Sierra Leone,” Inspector Cuffee Johnson said.

“Are you Mende?” Hess asked, guessing his tribe.

“Limba.” He closed the notebook and slid it in his shirt pocket. “But can’t remember your name, uh? I’ll check on you tomorrow. See if your memory come back.”

In the morning after breakfast, Hess lay on his back while Nurse Camille sponge-bathed him. He studied her face as she washed his naked body. She did not seem nervous or embarrassed, cleaning a complete stranger. Hess had never thought of Negro women in a sexual way. They were savages, animals. But being near this nurse with her high cheekbones, dark chocolate skin and voluptuous figure was arousing him. Now as she moved the sponge over his cock, it began to get hard and she glanced at him and smiled.