K Jeter - The Kingdom of Shadows

“So he came here.” Pavli had begun to understand. “This Mengele – he came here. Because of us… because of the Lazarenes…”

“I’d warned him off. I told him there would be hell to pay if he tried to snatch any of my heterochromes for his stupid experiments. He wouldn’t be able to resist – his obsessions have reached the point of madness by now. That’s why I gave specific orders to all the guards here. If Mengele turned up with transfer orders for any of my research subjects, nothing was to be done in my absence; it didn’t matter from how high up the orders came, how urgent he made them sound.” Ritter laid his hand on the jar’s curved stopper. “Whatever he used to bribe that fool Jurgen, to let him in here and take away those twins, I hope Jurgen found the price satisfactory.”

The things of which Ritter spoke still sounded dreamlike. It was as if he and his rival dealt in some rare form of livestock, an unusual breed of rabbits to be kept in cages at the back of their laboratories.

“This time, however, that quack Mengele overreached himself.” A thin smile formed on Ritter’s face, his eyes half-lidded, as though contemplating some pleasant memory. “I don’t think he realized how highly my research is regarded by the officers of the Ahnenerbe. The greatest degree of personal support is afforded to me by Reichsfuhrer SS Himmler himself. And why wouldn’t it be so? Mengele amuses himself, down there in that little hellish empire he has created in his Block Ten, with his muddleheaded injections and dissecting sprees; that is all that having power over human lives means to him. While I…” Ritter nodded slowly, savoring his own words. “I will penetrate to the heart of that life. The seal of the scrolls will be broken, and every mystery will be read out to me…”

The doctor’s voice dwindled to silence. In his nervousness, Pavli had drunk most of the fiery alcohol in his glass. Its warmth spread across his chest and through his limbs. The room seemed bigger now, its walls fallen away, leaving him and Ritter in a space bound by the glow of the desk lamp. At the center was the jar with the child’s eyes inside, turning and gazing upon them in wordless judgment.

“Do I frighten you with such wild talk? My apologies.” The alcohol made Ritter clumsy; his hand knocked over his empty glass, and he watched it roll off the desk’s edge and fall to the floor. “You must understand, Iosefni… there is no one else to whom I can speak of these things. Not of how they really are. I’ve managed to convince Himmler of their importance, so we won’t be bothered by that butchering clown in Auschwitz again. But Himmler – he’s a simpleminded mystic, always listening for voices from beyond. He can’t tell the difference between what I’m doing and all his collection of ancient runes and horoscopes; it’s all the same to him. The entire Ahnenerbe is that way; there’s no one who understands. But you, my invaluable photographer…” Ritter leaned forward, head lowered to the level of his shoulders, his face heavy with drink. “ You understand… because you and I are so much alike…”

“What…” Pavli’s tongue thickened in his mouth. “What do you mean?”

“We are both so close… to knowing.” Ritter spread his hands against the desktop, to keep himself from falling forward and knocking over the jar. “I have spent the better part of my life studying the Lazarene Community. Everything that could be learned, from the outside. The history, the legends, the lies. And you, Iosefni… you were born in it. You are of the Lazarene blood. Yet neither one of us knows. The secrets… the truth. Mysteries.”

The other man’s words sobered Pavli. He felt a touch of fear, as though he had been walking in a dark forest and had spotted, far off among the dense, moss-covered shapes, another shape, one that moved and then disappeared. “Perhaps…” Pavli spoke carefully, treading in silence, waiting to see if that distant figure would show itself again. “Perhaps there is nothing to know. Perhaps it’s all just… nothing. Nothing at all.”

“You show a commendable loyalty to your brethren.” A lopsided smile twisted Ritter’s face. “But you can’t fool me. My study of the Lazarenes extends to you as well, Iosefni. I can sense how you feel. How you look at the other ones, the words – or the lack of them – that pass between you and the rest. How it must feel to have been cheated that way… to have had the great pearl of knowing snatched away from you…”

He spotted the figure in the darkness again, closer. “They did that… they did it to protect me.” He stopped himself from saying the words from you.

“Yes… of course they would say that. Your brother would tell you that, wouldn’t he? Even if – let us say – even if they weren’t concerned about you at all. About what happens to you. Perhaps they’re just concerned about their precious secrets. The secrets of their faith. And if they thought that you were weak… that you couldn’t be trusted with those secrets… that you could be made to tell them… to me, let us say…” Ritter raised an eyebrow as his smile widened. “Then that’s different, isn’t it? From what they told you.”

He could almost see its face. “But… that’s not true. It’s not. My brother didn’t lie to me.”

“Very good.” Ritter nodded appreciatively. “I should have expected as much from you. This loyalty. Just like the rest of your tribe, you are a tough nut to crack, Iosefni. Come -” He stood up, grabbing the back of the chair to steady himself. “I have something else to show you.”

Pavli followed the doctor into the rooms behind the office. He had only caught glimpses of these before, through the doors opening, then swinging shut. Now he found himself surrounded by the white-tiled walls, the air itself smelling of disinfectant, the odor of asylums. Ritter turned on the lights, the sudden glare dazzling Pavli. He could just make out a narrow, chrome-legged table in the middle of the room, with a small tray next to it, filled with what at first seemed to be kitchen cutlery. When he blinked away his tears, he could see that the glistening objects were surgical tools.

“I had an airplane sent down there, to pick up the remains.” Ritter leaned over the table, parting a small cloth-wrapped bundle. “I didn’t want that fool Mengele to have any souvenirs to add to his collection. They brought the jar back – and this.” He gestured to Pavli. “Come and see.”

He stood at the edge of the table as Ritter folded back the last bit of cloth. A naked child, only a year or two old, lay there as though sleeping. On its side, legs drawn up – its skin seemed white as porcelain, touched with pink at the center of the little fist tucked against its cheek and in the creases of its elbows and knees. Beneath the fall of blonde hair across its brow, marks had been made around one closed eye with a grease pencil.

“Pretty little thing.” Ritter stroked a fingertip along one of the small corpse’s eyebrows. “A waste, really.”

Pavli wished that he were dreaming. That it were possible to be dreaming.

Ritter’s hand gently moved the fragile arm, exposing the underside of the wrist. “Unmarked, of course; as is to be expected in one so young. That’s what makes you so unusual, Iosefni – that you came of age and yet didn’t receive the ritual tattooing. So you are Lazarene and yet somehow not.”

He remained silent. There was too little oxygen underneath the cloying asylum smell for him to breathe and speak.

“I wonder…” Ritter drew his hand over the small breastbone. “I wonder how much more you know than I do. I wonder if you’ve seen the things that I have only heard about. The old stories about the Lazarenes… the secret that Christ or the Devil whispered into a pale gypsy’s ear…”