F. Paul Wilson - The Keep

"And no fortune."

Josefa lifted her narrow shoulders. "Sometimes the tarot reveals. Want to try?"

"No. Thank you, but no." She didn't want to know what the future held. She had a feeling it could only be bad.

"Please. A gift from me."

Magda hesitated. She didn't want to offend Josefa. And after all, hadn't the old woman just told her that the deck usually told nothing? Maybe she would make up a nice fantasy for her.

"Oh, all right."

Josefa extended the pack of cards across the table. "Cut."

Magda separated the top half and lifted it off. Josefa slipped this under the remainder of the deck and began to deal, talking as her hands worked.

"How is your father?"

"Not well, I'm afraid. He can hardly stand now."

"Such a shame. Not often you can find a gadjé who knows how to rokker. Yoska's bear did not help his rheumatism?"

Magda shook her head. "No. And it's not just rheumatism he has. It's much worse." Papa had tried anything and everything to halt the progressive twisting and gnarling of his limbs, even going so far as to allow Josefa's grandson's trained bear to walk on his back, a venerable Gypsy therapy that had proven as useless as all the latest "miracles" of modern medicine.

"A good man," Josefa said, clucking. "It's wrong that a man who knows so much about this land must... be kept ... from seeing it ... anymore..." She frowned as her voice trailed off.

"What's the matter?" Magda asked. Josefa's troubled expression as she looked down at the cards spread out on the table made Magda uneasy. "Are you all right?"

"Hmmm? Oh, yes. I'm fine. It's just these cards..."

"Something wrong?" Magda refused to believe that cards could tell the future any more than could the entrails of a dead bird; yet under her sternum was a pocket of tense anticipation.

"It's the way they divide. I've never seen anything like it. The neutral cards are scattered, but the cards that can be read as good are all on the right here"—she moved her hand over the area in question—"and the bad or evil cards are all over on the left. Odd."

"What does it mean?"

"I don't know. Let me ask Yoska." She called her grandson's name over her shoulder, then turned back to Magda. "Yoska is very good with the tarot. He's watched me since he was a boy."

A darkly handsome young man in his mid-twenties with a porcelain smile and a muscular build stepped in from the front room of the wagon and nodded to Magda, his black eyes lingering on her. Magda looked away, feeling naked despite her heavy clothing. He was younger than she, but that had never intimidated him. He had made his desires known on a number of occasions in the past. She had rebuffed him.

He looked down at the table, where his grandmother was pointing. Deep furrows formed slowly in his smooth brow as he studied the cards. He was quiet a long time, then appeared to come to a decision.

"Shuffle, cut, and deal again," he said.

Josefa nodded agreement and the routine was repeated. This time with no small talk. Despite her skepticism, Magda found herself leaning forward and watching the cards as they were placed on the table one by one. She knew nothing of tarot and would have to rely solely on the interpretation of her hostess and her grandson. When she looked up at their faces, she knew something was not right.

"What do you think, Yoska?" the old woman said in a low voice.

"I don't know... such a concentration of good and evil... and such a clear division between them."

Magda swallowed. Her mouth was dry. "You mean it came out the same? Twice in a row?"

"Yes," Josefa said. "Except that the sides are different. The good is now on the left and the evil is on the right." She looked up. "That would indicate a choice. A grave choice."

Anger suddenly drove out Magda's growing unease. They were playing some sort of a game with her. She refused to be anyone's fool. "I think I'd better go." She grabbed her folder and mandolin case and rose to her feet. "I'm not some naive gadjé girl you can have fun with."

"No! Please, once more!" The old Gypsy woman reached for her hand.

"Sorry, but I really must be going."

She hurried for the rear door of the wagon, realizing she wasn't being fair to Josefa, but leaving all the same. Those grotesque cards with their strange figures, and the awed, puzzled expression on the faces of the two Gypsies filled her with a desperate urge to be out of the wagon. She wanted to be back in Bucharest, back to sharp, clear lines and firm pavements.

NINE

The Keep

Monday, 28 April

1910 hours

The snakes had arrived.

SS men, especially officers, reminded Woermann of snakes. SS-Sturmbannführer Erich Kaempffer was no exception.

Woermann would always remember an evening a few years before the war when a local Hohere SS-und Polizeiführer —the high-sounding name for a local chief of state police—held a reception in the Rathenow district. Captain Woermann, as a decorated officer in the German Army and a prominent local citizen, had been invited. He hadn't wanted to go, but Helga so seldom had a chance to attend a fancy official reception and she glowed so when she dressed up, that he hadn't had the heart to refuse.

Against one wall of the reception hall had stood a glass terrarium in which a three-foot snake coiled and uncoiled incessantly. It was the host's favorite pet. He kept it hungry. On three separate occasions during the evening he invited all the guests to watch as he threw a toad to the snake. A passing glance during the first feeding had sufficed for Woermann—he saw the toad halfway along its slow, head-first journey down the snake's gullet, still alive, its legs kicking frantically in a vain attempt to free itself.

The sight had served to make a dull evening grim. When he and Helga had passed the tank on their way out, Woermann saw that the snake was still hungry, still winding around the inside of the cage, looking for a fourth toad despite the three swellings along its length.

He thought of that snake as he watched Kaempffer wind around the front room of Woermann's quarters, from the door, around the easel, around the desk, to the window, then back again. Except for his brown shirt, Kaempffer was clad entirely in black—black jacket, black breeches, black tie, black leather belt, black holster, and black jackboots. The silver Death's Head insignia, the SS paired thunderbolts, and his officer's pins were the only bright spots on his uniform ... glittering scales on a poisonous, blond-headed serpent.

He noticed that Kaempffer had aged somewhat since their chance meeting in Berlin two years ago. But not as much as I, Woermann thought grimly. The SS major, although two years older than Woermann, was slimmer and therefore looked younger. Kaempffer's blond hair was full and straight and still unmarred by gray. A picture of Aryan perfection.

"I noticed you only brought one squad with you," Woermann said. "The message said two. Personally, I'd have thought you'd bring a regiment."

"No, Klaus," Kaempffer said in a condescending tone as he wound about the room. "A single squad would be more than enough to handle this so-called problem of yours. My einsatzkommandos are rather proficient in taking care of this sort of thing. I brought two squads because this is merely a stop along my way."

"Where's the other squad? Picking daisies?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes." Kaempffer's smile was not a nice thing to see.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Woermann asked.

Removing his cap and coat, Kaempffer threw them on Woermann's desk, then went to the window overlooking the village. "In a minute, you shall see."

Reluctantly, Woermann joined the SS man at the window. Kaempffer had arrived only twenty minutes ago and already was usurping command. With his extermination squad in tow, he had driven across the causeway without a second's hesitation. Woermann had found himself wishing the supports had weakened during the past week. No such luck. The major's jeep and the truck behind it had made it safely across. After debarking and telling Sergeant Oster—Woermann's Sergeant Oster—to see that the einsatzkommandos were well quartered immediately, he had paraded into Woermann's suite with his right arm flailing a "Heil Hitler" and the attitude of a messiah.