K Jeter - The Kingdom of Shadows

She wondered what she was going to do now. If she held very still, breathing slowly and carefully so she didn’t start the racking cough again, she could hear the little caravan of wagons and people, the creak of the wheels and the muddy ice cracking beneath the slow boots, fading in the distance. Even at their laborious pace, they would be gone soon, beyond any chance of her catching up with them. In some ways, that was what she wanted, to never have to see any of those beaten-down, hunched-over human figures again. She had felt them all dragging on her arms and shoulders, oppressing her with their sullen weight, their envy and malice; they wanted to make her one of them, another broken and frightened refugee, scrabbling for bits of food, clothes and skin turning the dun color of ingrained dirt. There were a few women in the caravan who had come the same way with Liesel, fleeing from the SS housing estate when the war’s front had suddenly surged closer, the German military units being pulled back almost overnight, with no warning. They had been left on their own, a disorganized band of women and children and a few elderly shopkeepers, to make their escape as best they could. Some of the women had been too paralyzed to move, hunkering down in their flats with the curtains drawn, minds blanked with fear as they waited for the Russians to come pouring over the hills to the east. The ones who had set out on foot, tugging their children with them, the ones who hadn’t dropped by the wayside – those jealous bitches enjoyed seeing her ground down to their level. They had always been envious of her beauty and the privileges it had rightly brought her. Now, to see her transformed into a shapeless, bedraggled lump like themselves – of course, they were all enjoying that. She was sure she had heard, through the daze of the fever, their cruel laughter as she had fallen with her son. They had gone on laughing as they had trudged on, leaving her sprawled across the frozen mud with the two little boys.

Perhaps more soldiers would come along; they were at least still capable, no matter how ragged from their own long marches, of seeing what she was, desiring her, helping her. Even if they did no more than slap her and hike the layers of her skirts up around her hips – that at least proved she was still beautiful to them. For anything more, such as the coat, she had to be quick about it, to catch them while the lust still ebbed in their blood. Afterward, they were useless, thinking only of themselves and saving their own skins. They were all like that; it was why the abandoned women and children were on foot. The army had requisitioned all the trains and motorized vehicles for their own evacuation, even the horses that might have pulled the wooden carts. The peasants from the village near the estate had yoked their thin-flanked cows to the carts and plodded with them over the fields and the narrowest lanes; the main roads were unpassable with broken tanks and heavy equipment left behind. One silly SS wife had kept on crying and sobbing about how her husband should have been there with her, to rescue her and their children, instead of sitting in some warm and cozy headquarters barrack in Berlin. All that useless fussing had gotten on Liesel’s nerves. She had least been spared that illusion, that she had anyone to rely on but herself; she had received the notification of her Heinrich’s death, and a tiny box of his medals from somewhere outside Stalingrad, nearly a year ago.

Thinking of other people’s deaths, Heini’s and the ones yet to come, those stupid laughing women who had been her neighbors, cleared Liesel’s head a bit. She regained enough balance to stand on tiptoe, scanning the direction from which she had come and to either side. There was no sign of any soldiers in the vicinity. The only indications of life in the wintry landscape were the sounds of the refugee caravan, even fainter now from the other side of the hill’s rise. Even at their slow, head-down pace, the others would vanish entirely. Nightfall was only a few hours away; then she would never be able to find them.

“ Mutti…”

She didn’t bother to cuff the child away. “ Sei ruhig,” she ordered. “Your mother has to think.”

Her own child was dying; she could see that, anyone could. That had to figure into her calculations. The frailty of the small body disgusted her. Perhaps he had inherited weak lungs from his father; the SS couldn’t be expected to weed out every genetic flaw. The boy certainly hadn’t gotten it from her; feverish as she was, and even hacking up blood, she knew that would pass, she would survive. So would her child, if there was a doctor with medicines, perhaps even a little clinic bed with clean, warm sheets, in whatever village might lie ahead of the trudging caravan. But what were her chances of getting him there, or the doctor and all the villagers not having already fled themselves? They were all such cowards…

If only there had been any more soldiers in sight, ones with a truck or even a commandeered automobile. She could have played on their sympathies for the little boy; that, and the usual trade in kind, might have accomplished everything. But without them, she knew she couldn’t carry him all that way, however far it was, not in her present weakened condition. It would kill her to try, and what good would that accomplish?

And there was the other child to consider, the one watching her with his rounded, apprehensive eyes of two colors. The Mischling

…

It was painful to admit, but he was more valuable than the product of her own womb. There was his real mother, the scheming little bitch she remembered from the Lebensborn hostel, who had cheated her once and gone on to become such a famous actress – it still amazed Liesel that there were so many men who’d want to sleep with such a drab and skinny thing, men who’d be willing to advance her career. Though it only took one, if it were the right one, and everybody in the Reich knew who that was. So this child had powerful protectors, perhaps even more powerful now than the dark godfathers who had brought about his birth. Reichsminister Goebbels was interested in the child’s welfare; she had found that out from his agents who had come prowling around the SS housing estate, cameras in hand. Liesel had entered into a small conspiracy with those men – it was always so easy to do that – making sure that they got the photographs they needed of a happy, laughing – and healthy – child. One that was being well looked after…

That was a worry. The Mischling had gotten so pale since they had started walking, and had now picked up a cough, not as bad as her own son’s, but placed the same, deep in the chest. His mismatched eyes were rimmed with red, and he constantly wiped his nose across his sleeve. Going hungry hadn’t helped; when Liesel had gotten the bits of spoiled potato from the soldiers, that had been when she had first thought of what a waste it was, to give any to the weakest among them. The least likely to survive…

He had started to suck his thumb, hunkered down in his misery. He stared sightlessly before himself, no longer listening to the faint noises of the other refugees in the distance.

She had come to a decision. The only possible one. She gathered her strength, enough to reach down once more and gather up her own son. She knew the other boy was watching her as she carried the small burden toward the tangled bushes a few yards from the side of the path.

Her son woke up from his feverish dreaming as she laid him down. She had hoped that wouldn’t happen, that he would have gone on sleeping until she gone, and after as well. He clutched her arm, trying to pull her closer, so he could see her face.

“No, no; it’s all right…” She laid her hand against her son’s cheek; it was like touching a red-hot oven. She controlled her reaction to snatch her hand away, stroking his cheek and brow until his eyes closed again. “It’s all right… everything will be good again.” She crooned the words as though they were the last whisper of a lullaby. “ Mutti just needs you to wait here… until she comes back. That’s a good boy…” Her shoulder trembled the branch above him, and a dusting of snow fell across his face; she brushed it away. “You go to sleep now. That’s right…” He was quiet for a few moments, his grip relaxing from her forearm. She stood up and hurried back to the other child.