Mila 18 - Leon Uris

“Dr. Koenig is too generous with his liquor. I think I’ve had one too many.”

“Why don’t we get a breath of air, Chris?” Gabriela said.

“Good idea.”

Horst von Epp watched them leave, intrigued with the pretty little thing. He sized her up for bed. Koenig’s busy aide whispered in his ear that he was invited to the conservatory, where the girls were about to amuse them.

The doorman closed Chris and Gabriela into his Fiat. He fumbled for the ignition switch. “You’re a damned fool walking into this nest,” he mumbled.

Chris drove aimlessly at a crawl, checking the rear-view mirror constantly to see if he was being followed.

“What I want to say is, things have changed.”

“I should say that’s rather obvious.”

“Gaby, you don’t understand.”

“I do understand, quite well. I told Andrei it was a waste of time and that you wouldn’t come.”

“Gaby ...”

“If you gave a damn for him you wouldn’t have let two and a half years go by,” she said.

Chris wanted to tell Gaby he had tried to see her during the past year but had lost track of her when she changed flats. But he could not say it.

“Where is he?” Chris blurted impulsively.

“A hotel room near the yacht club in Saska Kempa.”

Chris sucked in a lungful of air, grunted, looked in the rear-view mirror once more, then made a U turn and drove on the Third of May Boulevard directly for the Poniatowski Bridge. In Saska Kempa, Chris concealed his car in a teamster’s stable several blocks from the shabby hotel.

A meek handshake, an avoiding of Andrei’s eyes. Unbearable small talk. Chris sagged into a hard-backed chair, studying the designs in the linoleum on the floor.

“How have you been?”

“Just fine.”

“Seen Deborah?”

“Yes. She is all right.”

“The children?”

“They are all right.”

“Do you have a glass of water? I’m all dried out.” He sipped and looked up at them. “A hell of a reunion, isn’t it? Well, I’m here. Gaby said it was something desperate.”

“We’ve needed you many times in the past two and a half years,” Andrei said. “But I wouldn’t come to you unless it was something so important we had to come to you.”

He watched Chris go through uncomfortable mannerisms. “What is it?” Chris looked to Gabriela, but she gave no solace in her expression.

“Chris,” Andrei said in a voice filled with an unfamiliar pleading, “tens of thousands of people are being murdered every day in extermination camps. We have put together an authentic report, detailing the locations, the names of the personnel and commanders, the method of operation. We have gone to the Home Army and begged them to get this out to the government in exile, but they won’t help us. Every day means twenty, thirty, forty, fifty thousand human beings. Chris—you’ve got to carry this out for us and get it into the world press. We’ve got to stop this blood bath. This is the only way.”

Chris pulled himself to his feet. “I’ve heard this talk, but I don’t believe it. Germany is a civilized country. The Germans aren’t capable of doing what you claim—it’s a lie.”

“I’ve just come from inside Majdanek. If you care to interview your friend Baron von Epp, I’ll gladly supply you with some very leading questions.”

Chris sank back into the chair again in a stupor. Andrei lay a typewritten book of a hundred pages before him. Chris glanced at it out of the corner of his eye but pulled his hand back. “I’m not your man,” he whispered.

“Chris, you and I have spent too many hours together putting this lousy world under our microscopes. I know how you’ve been pulled apart these last two years, but I’ve always known with all my soul that in the crucible you are unable to walk away from the cries of the anguished without destroying yourself as a human being.”

“I told you, no! Why the hell did you ask me here?”

“Chris! Chris! Chris! You and I believe in the final nobility of man! You can’t turn your back on us!”

Chris’s fist drummed against the table with a monotonous thudding repetition. “I’ve cried for justice before, Andrei! I cried rape and murder in Spain and it fell on deaf ears.”

“My God, Chris! Men have always destroyed each other. They always will. You can’t pull out because you’ve been hurt once.”

“Do you really believe that goddamned world out there is going to be moved by this report? It’s you who is the fool, not me. No one’s going to care about murdered Jews or starving Indians or floods in Holland or earthquakes in Japan so long as their stinking bellies are full! Your goddamned conscience of man is a myth, Andrei.”

Andrei hovered over Chris. He shook Chris’s shoulders, but the man would not unbend. Andrei slowly sank to his knees. “Chris, I beg you on my knees to help us.”

Gabriela jerked angrily at Andrei. “Get off your knees!” she commanded. “Get off your knees! You will never do this again before any man!”

Chris turned his sweaty face up to her enraged expression. He tried through bleary eyes to beg her to stop.

“You sanctimonious son of a bitch,” Gabriela quivered. “You sit up there on your throne and watch all us little ants scramble in fright to survive and you make your terse comments and your snide observations. I present to you, Christopher de Monti—champion of the press! Oh God, no. Don’t dirty your precious hands with our blood.”

“All I ever wanted is for Deborah to live—that’s all—that’s all I’ve ever wanted. I know she’ll never see me again, but I want her to live—that’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Your sister is a very fortunate woman, Andrei. In a single lifetime she has had two upstanding men like Paul Bronski and Christopher de Monti who would sell their souls for her.”

Andrei was limp with weakness and humiliation. “My sister is a woman,” he whispered. “She will take her life and the life of her children before she allows you to save her at the expense of a betrayal to the Nazis.”

“That’s enough, Andrei,” Gabriela said. “Look at him. He is completely degenerated.”

Andrei gave up. He walked to the door. “You were right, Gabriela. We should not have asked him. I’d like to spit on you, Chris, but I must save my strength.”

Andrei left the room.

“You’re not worthy of his spit,” Gabriela said, and followed.

Chris slumped over the table, weeping, choking on his own saliva and tears. His hand fell on the report. He pulled his head up. He gained control of himself and turned the first page.

COMBINED JEWISH ORGANIZATIONS’ REPORT ON EXTERMINATION CENTERS IN OPERATION WITHIN THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF POLAND, JULY 1942

We are able to authenticate firmly the existence of four centers in the General Government Area created for the sole purpose of conducting mass exterminations. In addition, two combination concentration-extermination camps are in existence. There are five hundred labor camps in Poland, of which a hundred and forty are reserved for Jews. All of them contain some sort of murder facilities.

The only conclusion to be drawn is that a master German plan is in effect for the absolute destruction of the Jewish people. In the beginning, mass starvation, disease, and executions decimated the various ghettos by tens of thousands. After the invasion of Russia, Kommandoes of four Special Action groups massacred additional hundreds of thousands. The culmination of this plan is now assembly-line murder. The master plan, it must be concluded, comes from Hitler through Himmler and Heydrich. The actual execution is performed by the so-called 4B section of the Gestapo (Jewish affairs) under the direction of SS Sub-Colonel Adolf Eichmann.