F. Paul Wilson - The Keep

When she came up from the cellar with her bucket of water, they were waiting for her in a thick semicircle, pushing and shoving toward the front for a good close look at her. They were calling to her, moving before, beside, and behind her as she tentatively made her way back to the tower. One of the einsatzkommandos blocked her way but was pushed aside by a regular army man who grabbed her bucket with exaggerated gallantry and carried it ahead of her, a clown footman. But the SS man who had been pushed out of the way snatched at the bucket; he only succeeded in spilling the contents over the legs and the boots of the one who now held it.

As laughter started from the black uniforms, the face of the regular army man turned a bright red. Woermann could see what was coming but was helpless to stop it from his position on the third level of the tower. He watched the soldier in gray swing the bucket at the SS man who had spilled the water on him, saw the bucket connect full force with the head, then Woermann was away from the window and running down the steps as fast as his legs would carry him.

As he reached the bottom landing, he saw the door to the Jews' suite swing shut behind a flash of skirt fabric, then he was out in the courtyard facing a full-scale brawl. He had to fire his pistol twice to get the men's attention and had to threaten to shoot the next one who threw a punch before the fighting actually stopped.

The girl had to go.

As things quieted down, Woermann left his men with Sergeant Oster and headed directly for the first floor of the tower. While Kaempffer was busy squaring away the einsatzkommandos, Woermann would use the opportunity to start the girl on her way out of the keep. If he could get her across the causeway and into the inn before Kaempffer was aware of what was happening, there was a good chance he could keep her out.

He did not bother to knock this time, but pushed the door open and stepped inside. "Fräulein Cuza!"

The old man was still sitting at the table; the girl was nowhere in sight. "What do you want with her?"

He ignored the father. "Fräulein Cuza!"

"Yes?" she said, stepping out of the rear room, her face anxious.

"I want you packed to leave for the inn immediately. You have two minutes. No more."

"But I can't leave my father!"

"Two minutes and you are leaving, with or without your things!"

He would not be swayed, and he hoped his face showed it. He did not like to separate the girl and her father—the professor obviously needed care and she obviously was devoted to caring for him—but the men under his command came first, and she was a disruptive influence. The father would have to remain in the keep; the daughter would have to stay in the inn. There was no room for argument.

Woermann watched her cast a pleading look at her father, begging him to say something. But the old man remained silent. She took a deep breath and turned toward the back room.

"You now have a minute and a half," Woermann told her.

"A minute and a half for what?" said a voice behind him. It was Kaempffer.

Groaning inwardly and readying himself for a battle of wills, Woermann faced the SS man.

"Your timing is superb as usual, Major," he said. "I was just telling Fräulein Cuza to pack her things and move herself over to the inn."

Kaempffer opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by the professor.

"I forbid it!" he cried in his dry, shrill voice. "I will not permit you to send my daughter away!"

Kaempffer's eyes narrowed as his attention was drawn from Woermann to Cuza. Even Woermann found himself turning in surprise to see what had prompted the outburst.

"You forbid, old Jew?" Kaempffer said in a hoarse voice as he moved past Woermann to the professor. "You forbid? Let me tell you something: You forbid nothing around here! Nothing!"

The old man bowed his head in resignation.

Satisfied with the result of his vented anger, Kaempffer turned back to Woermann. "See that she's out of here immediately. She's a troublemaker!"

Dazed and bemused, Woermann watched Kaempffer storm out of the room as abruptly as he had arrived. He looked at Cuza whose head was no longer bowed, and who now appeared to be resigned to nothing.

"Why didn't you protest before the major arrived?" Woermann asked him. "I had the impression you wanted her out of the keep."

"Perhaps. But I changed my mind."

"So I noticed—and in a most provocative manner at a most strategic moment. Do you manipulate everyone this way?"

"My dear Captain," Cuza said, his tone serious, "no one pays much attention to a cripple. People look at the body and see that it's wrecked by an accident or wasted by illness, and they automatically carry the infirmity to the mind within that body. 'He can't walk, therefore he can't have anything intelligent or useful or interesting to say.' So a cripple like me soon learns how to make other people come up with an idea he has already thought of, and to have them arrive at that idea in such a way that they believe it originated with them. It's not manipulation—it's a form of persuasion."

As Magda emerged from the rear room, suitcase in hand, Woermann realized with chagrin, and perhaps a touch of admiration, that he, too, had been manipulated—or "persuaded," to give the professor his due. He now knew whose idea it had been for Magda to make those repeated trips to the mess and the cellar. The realization did not bother him too much, though. His own instincts had always been against having a woman in the keep.

"I'm going to leave you at the inn unguarded," he told Magda. "I'm sure you understand that if you run off it will not go well with your father. I'm going to trust in your honor and your devotion to him."

He did not add that it would be courting a riot to decide which soldiers would do guard duty on her—competition for the double benefit of separation from the keep and proximity to an attractive female would further widen the existing rift between the two contingents of soldiers. He had no choice but to trust her.

A look passed between father and daughter.

"Have no fear, Captain," Magda said, glaring at her father. "I have no intention of running off and deserting him."

He watched the professor's hands bunch into two thick, angry fists.

"You'd better take this," Cuza said, pushing one of the books toward her, the one he had called the Al Azif. "Study it tonight so we can discuss it tomorrow."

There was a trace of mischief in her smile. "You know I don't read Arabic, Papa." She picked up another, slimmer volume. "I think I'll take this one instead."

They stared at each other across the table. They were at an impasse of wills, and Woermann thought he had a good idea where the conflict lay.

Without warning, Magda stepped around the table and kissed her father on the cheek. She smoothed his sparse white hairs, then straightened up and looked Woermann directly in the eye.

"Take care of my father, Captain. Please. He's all I have."

Woermann heard himself speaking before he could think: "Don't worry. I'll see to everything."

He cursed himself. He shouldn't have said that! It went against all his officer training, all his Prussian rearing. But there was that look in her eyes that made him want to do as she asked. He had no daughter of his own, but if he had he would want her to care about him the way this girl cared about her father.

No ... he had no need to worry about her running off. But the father—he was a sly one. He would bear watching. Woermann warned himself never to take anything about these two for granted.

The red-haired man sent his mount plunging through the foothills toward the southeast entrance to the Dinu Pass. The greening terrain around him went by unnoticed in his haste. As the sun slipped down the sky ahead of him, the hills on each side grew steeper and rockier, closing on him, narrowing until he was confined to a path a scant dozen feet wide. Once through the bottleneck up ahead he would be on the wide floor of the Dinu Pass. From there on it would be an easy trip, even in the dark. He knew the way.