F. Paul Wilson - The Keep

She watched as he held his hands out to the fire, rotating them back and forth against the warmth as best as his stiff joints would allow. She knew he could feel nothing in them now—too cold and numb. But once circulation returned he would be in agony as his fingers throbbed and tingled and burned as if on fire.

"Look what they've done to you!" she said angrily as the fingers changed from white to blue.

Papa looked up questioningly. "I've had worse."

"I know. But it shouldn't have happened at all! What are they trying to do to us?"

"They?"

"The Nazis! They're toying with us! Experimenting on us! I don't know what just happened here ... it was very realistic, but it wasn't real! Couldn't have been! They hypnotized us, used drugs, dimmed the lights—"

"It was real, Magda," Papa said, his voice soft with wonder, confirming what she knew in her soul, what she had so wanted him to deny. "Just as those forbidden books are real. I know—"

Breath suddenly hissed through his teeth as blood began to flow into his fingers again, turning them dark red. The starved tissues punished him as they gave up their accumulated toxins. Magda had been through this with him so many times she could almost feel the pain herself. .

When the throbbing subsided to an endurable level, he continued, his words coming in gasps.

"I spoke to him in Old Slavonic ... told him we were not his enemies... told him to leave us alone... and he left."

He grimaced in pain a moment, then looked at Magda with bright, glittering eyes. His voice was low and hoarse.

"It's him, Magda. I know it! It's him!"

Magda said nothing. But she knew it, too.

FIFTEEN

The Keep

Wednesday, 30 April

0622 hours

Captain Woermann had tried to stay awake through the night but had failed. He had seated himself at the window overlooking the courtyard with his Luger unholstered in his lap, though he doubted a 9mm parabellum would help against whatever haunted the keep. Too many sleepless nights and too little fitful napping during the days had caught up with him again.

He awoke with a start, disoriented. For a moment he thought he was back in Rathenow, with Helga down in the kitchen cooking eggs and sausage, and the boys already up and out and milking the cows. But he had been dreaming.

When he saw the sky was light, he leaped from the chair. Night was gone and he was still alive. He had survived another night. His elation was short-lived, for he knew that someone else had not survived. Somewhere in the keep he knew a corpse lay still and bloody, awaiting discovery.

He holstered the Luger as he crossed the room and stepped out on the landing. All was quiet. He trotted down the stairs, rubbing his eyes and massaging his stubbled cheeks to full wakefulness. As he reached the lowest level, the doors to the Jews' quarters opened and the daughter came out.

She didn't see him. She carried a metal pot in her hand and wore a vexed look on her face. Deep in thought, she passed through the open door into the courtyard and turned right toward the cellar stairs, completely oblivious to him. She seemed to know exactly where she was going, and that troubled him until he remembered that she had been in the keep a number of times before. She knew of the cellar cisterns, knew there was fresh water there.

Woermann stepped out into the courtyard and watched her move. There was an ethereal quality about the scene: a woman walking across the cobblestones in the dawn light, surrounded by gray stone walls studded with metallic crosses, streamers of fog on the courtyard floor eddying in her wake. Like a dream. She looked to be a fine woman under all those layers of clothing. There was a natural sway to her hips when she walked, an unpracticed grace that was innately appealing to the male in him. Pretty face, too, especially with those wide brown eyes. If she'd only let her hair out from under that kerchief, she could be a beauty.

At another time, in another place, she would have been in grave danger in similar company—five squads of women-starved soldiers. But these soldiers had other things on their minds; these soldiers feared the dark, and the death that unfailingly accompanied it.

He was about to follow her into the cellar to assure himself that she sought no more than fresh water for the pot in her hand, when he spied Sergeant Oster pounding toward him.

"Captain! Captain!!"

Woermann sighed and braced himself for the news. "Whom did we lose?"

"No one!" He held up a clipboard. "I checked on everyone and they're all alive and well!"

Woermann did not allow himself to rejoice—he had been fooled on this score last week—but he did allow himself to hope.

"You're sure? Absolutely sure?"

"Yes, sir. All except for the Major, that is. And the two Jews."

Woermann glanced toward the rear of the keep, to Kaempffer's window. Could it be...?

"I was saving the officers for last," Oster was saying, almost apologetically.

Woermann nodded, only half-listening. Could it be? Could Erich Kaempffer have been last night's victim? It was too much to hope for. Woermann had never imagined he could hate another human being as much as he had come to hate Kaempffer in the last day and a half.

It was with eager anticipation that he began walking toward the rear of the keep. If Kaempffer were dead, not only would the world be a brighter place, but he would again be senior officer and would have his men out of the keep by noon. The einsatzkommandos could come along or stay behind to die until a new SS officer arrived. He had no doubt they would fall in right behind him as he left.

If, however, Kaempffer still lived, it would be a disappointment, but one with a bright side: For the first time since they had arrived, a night would have passed without the death of a German soldier. And that was good. It would boost morale immeasurably. It would mean there was perhaps a slim hope of overcoming the death curse that blanketed them here like a shroud.

As Woermann crossed the courtyard with the sergeant hurrying behind him, Oster said, "Do you think the Jews are responsible?"

"For what?"

"For nobody dying last night."

Woermann paused and glanced between Oster and Kaempffer's window almost directly overhead. Oster apparently had no doubt that Kaempffer was still alive.

"Why do you say that, Sergeant? What could they have done?"

Oster's brow wrinkled. "I don't know. The men believe it... at least my men—I mean our men—believe it. After all, we lost someone every night except last night. And the Jews arrived last night. Maybe they found something in those books we dug up."

"Perhaps." He led the way into the rear section of the keep and ran up the steps to the second level.

Intriguing, but improbable. The old Jew and his daughter could not have come up with anything so soon. Old Jew ... he was beginning to sound like Kaempffer! Awful.

Woermann was puffing by the time they reached Kaempffer's room. Too much sausage, he told himself again. Too many hours sitting and brooding instead of moving about and burning up that paunch. He was reaching for the latch on Kaempffer's door when it swung open and the major himself appeared.

"Ah! Klaus!" he said bluffly. "I thought I heard someone out here." Kaempffer adjusted the black leather strap of his officer's belt and holster across his chest. Satisfied that it was secure, he stepped out into the hall.

"How nice to see you looking so well," Woermann said.

Kaempffer, struck by the obvious insincerity, glanced at him sharply, then at Oster.

"Well, Sergeant, who was it this time?"

"Sir?"

"Dead! Who died last night? One of mine or one of yours? I want the Jew and his daughter brought over to the corpse, and I want them to—"