Sentimental Journey Page 21

  “You shouldn’t scream when you’re rolling in the sand.”

  “Thank you for that advice.” She picked the sand from her tongue, then asked, “What was it? A scorpion? I already know every desert insect on a first-name basis.”

  “No. A snake.”

  “A snake?” She got up quickly.

  “Don’t worry. It was on the other side of the dune. Damned thing came side-winding over the hill right behind you.”

  She moaned and rubbed the sudden chills on her arms.

  “Look. You wait here. I’m going to go get it.”

  “Get it? What on earth for?”

  He was already climbing back up the sand dune. “We have no food. We need something to eat. A snake is fresh meat.”

  “I’d rather have fried chicken, thank you.”

  “One of the first things you learn about survival, Kincaid, is to forget about those things that make life worth living, and concentrate on the things that make life possible.”

  There was nothing she could say to that; it made perfect sense. She turned toward his voice. “I just thought of something.”

  “What?”

  “Are you certain that snake is still up there? What if it comes slithering around the other side? I can’t see anything, remember?” She waited.

  No answer.

  “Hey! Am I safe here?”

  “It can’t come toward you without me seeing it.”

  “Oh. Good.” She listened to the shh-shh of his feet walking farther and farther away. “Cassidy?”

  “Now what?”

  “What if it bites you?”

  “Then bury me deep, so the vultures can’t pick at me!” he called back down at her.

  “You are such a comedian,” she muttered, and plopped back down onto the hillside. She rubbed her feet as she waited. After a minute, she turned her face to the sun. It was hot and going to get hotter. She pulled her slip out of her belt and tied it on her head again, fanning the lace hem over her face.

  She got a good whiff of herself. Soap and water would be really nice. She sat there, daydreaming about a hot bath with a huge bar of hand-milled soap, big fluffy white towels and starched sheets, clean underwear and cleaner hair.

  Cassidy slid down the dune. “I’m back.”

  “With or without the snake?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Just keep it away from me.”

  “I cut the head off. It can’t hurt you.”

  “How are you going to cook it? Drag it behind us and let the sunshine bake the heck out of it?”

  “Not a bad idea, Kincaid.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “I know. Look, I think we can make it to harder ground if we go on for a few more hours. I could see scrub and flatland through the binoculars. Scrub burns pretty well. We’ll rest there, make a fire, cook and eat this thing. We need food. We’ve got to get over those mountains.”

  She got up. “Okay, then. Let’s go.”

  Three hours later he was true to his word. They’d made it to harder ground, and when he finally stopped, she sat down and picked the fleas off of her. Her legs were raw from scratching at bites and as if that weren’t enough, flies swarmed everywhere. They buzzed at her mouth and nose and lit on her face. They were relentless. She was miserable and tired and hot. And Cassidy said he was pulling up bushes to burn.

  “I can’t believe we’re building a fire when it must be one hundred and ten degrees. Where was the scrub brush last night when we needed it?”

  He was whistling and stopped. “You want to eat the snake raw, we can.”

  “Good grief, no.” She drove a hand through her knotted hair and winced, scratching her scalp. “These fleas are everywhere.”

  “Fleas in the day. Mosquitoes at night. Flies all the time.”

  “You’d think it would be too blasted hot for them.” She took a deep breath and almost swallowed a fly. She wiped her lips. “I always knew insects were stupid.”

  “The smoke from the fire should help repel ’em.”

  A few minutes later she heard the crackle of burning brush. The smoke came at her, so she moved to her right. Before long she heard a sizzle. She could smell the snake cooking. She tried to decide if she was hungry enough to eat a snake. She was awfully hungry. It actually smelled like food.

  He came over to her and squatted down in front of her, “Here. Take it.” He placed something crispy in her palm. “That’s the skin on the bottom.”

  She winced.

  “Pretend it’s fish skin.”

  Snake was snake. Dead, cooked, or alive.

  “It tastes like chicken. Try it.”

  “That’s what my brother told me when he ordered frog legs for me one night at the Brown Derby.” She picked at the cooked meat. It was stringy and warm. She raised it to her nose and smelled it. Not too bad.

  “You didn’t like the frog legs?”

  “They didn’t taste like chicken any more than the escargot he made me eat tasted like steak. Dessert was great, though. Baked Alaska. It tasted nothing like an igloo.”

  He laughed.

  “Do you like frog legs?” She finally took a bite.

  “Sure, and escargot. It’s food. Good food. You have to think of it as the meal, not what it was when it was alive.”

  She ate some more. “I couldn’t catch a fish and then eat it. Used to drive my family nuts.”

  “What’s your favorite breakfast?”

  “Hmmm. Scrambled eggs and a thick slice of ham.”

  “Chicken fetus and a pig leg.”

  “Oh. That’s awful!” She groaned. “I’ll never be able to eat breakfast again. Why did you do that?”

  “Just trying to put things into perspective. Your problem is that you’re a picky eater.”

  “I’m eating your snake, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah. You are. So, what’s it taste like?”

  “Burnt snake.”

  He laughed. “You know, Kincaid. You’re a real doozy.”

  “I don’t quite know how I should take that.”

  “It’s a compliment, sweetheart.” He got up again and walked a few feet away; then she heard the fire crackle from fresh bushes he’d tossed on it. He stood there and he was whistling again. Amazingly, he sounded wide awake, and after they had been walking all night and half of the morning

  “Don’t you ever get tired ?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t you ever get scared? On a mission like this?”

  “Everyone gets scared. Fear keeps you alive. It’s fear of the unknown that gets to you.” A moment later he asked, “You want some more to eat?”

  She shook her head. “No. Right now, all I want to do is sleep.”

  “Hand me the rest of that meat; then we’ll fix you up a bed here in a minute.”

  She gave him the snake meat, wiped her hands on her skirt, and leaned back on her palms. She arched her back and groaned, “I’m sore everywhere. Sleeping on the ground isn’t going to help any.”

  He walked around and stood behind her.

  She turned and spoke up toward him. “What are you doing?”

  “Making us comfortable.” He sat down behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, and massaged them really hard.

  “Oh, my . . . I’ll give you an hour to stop that.”

  He laughed and spread his legs on either side of her. “Lean back. You can sleep against me.”

  “What if there are more snakes around here?”

  “Then we’ll have our dinner.”

  She sighed tiredly. “You have an answer for everything.”

  “It’s my job, Kincaid. Remember?”

  “Is it? I thought you came to rescue me.” She lay her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes.

  “I did.”

  Every muscle in her body hurt. “I should thank you, I know, but I have a little problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m not sure how much more of your rescuing this po
or body can take.”

  “HOCH AUF DEM GELBEN WAGEN”

  The RAF planes stationed in Malta had managed with uncanny regularity to destroy German supply ships crossing the Mediterranean with fuel, food, munitions, and mail for the Afrika Korps. Estimates were that as much as fifty percent of the cargo lay at the bottom of the sea. This is what the supply officer told Rheinholdt when the lorries finally arrived, so many days late.

  Inside his tent, not long after the supply trucks had driven away, he opened the last of his three letters and read it as he smoked a cigarette and walked toward his cot:

  Dearest Frederick,

  I have only just sent you a letter, one I wrote yesterday. I must now write another. I have very bad news. Joseph’s family is gone, everyone. The SS came and took him, his father, his mother and sisters. They are still in Berlin, but no one will say where. I have heard that once anyone is on the trains to the camps, it is impossible to get them released. There are terrible rumors. I do not know if you have heard what they say about the internment camps, but it is so horrible I cannot write the words.

  They did not take Liesel and the children. They were not home at the time. But they have disappeared. No one knows where they are. I wonder did they pick them up on the street? We do not know and cannot find out.

  Frederick, I do not understand this. Your father saw this coming. What kind of men do these things to people, to Germans, to women and children?

  Rheinholdt read the last line of the letter and for a moment did nothing. His jaw grew tight, and he wadded the paper into his tight fist. He threw the cigarette on the ground and crushed it with his boot.

  This letter should have been on one of the ships that went down. It belonged on the ocean floor. He took deep, long breaths to control the anger that made his hands shake. He wanted to hit something.

  His little sister and her beautiful children. His niece and nephew were just four and two.

  He sat down for a moment because he felt suddenly empty. His friend Joseph, his brother by marriage. He ached for the family that had been so much a part of his life that he always thought of them as his good friends. That they were Jewish did not matter. That anyone was Jewish did not matter!

  He felt a good million miles away and completely impotent.

  His father had been right. He had become part of those politics. His feeling of shame was so intense his face grew hot. His hands still shook, his knuckles were white, his breath shallow. He turned, pulled his satchel out from under the cot, and dug furiously through it before he pulled out a bottle of schnapps, opened it, and took a long drink that burned down his throat.

  He rested his head in his hand for a minute. There were tears in his eyes. He told himself they came from the schnapps. He took another drink, then put the cap back on the bottle and dropped it on his cot. He stood. He needed air and walked outside into the sun, which was setting and turning the sky a deep red that made everything look orange.

  Hell must look like this, everything colored orange by the flames.

  Somewhere in the camp, a gramophone was playing “Lili Marlene” and some of the men were singing along.

  “Out of the land of my dreams, your loving lips call to me . . . Lili Marlene.”

  The nightly fires were already burning. They dotted the campsite, and the men congregated around them in close-knit groups. Rheinholdt kept himself aloof; for an officer, that was important.

  He sidestepped the wooden crates of mortar shells and new cans of ammunition just delivered by the supply caravan and walked around two lorries parked nearby. Nearby, a group of men were laughing.

  Laughter. Why did it hurt to hear it? He listened to their banter and talk. At that moment he did not know if he would ever laugh again. As he watched them, he wondered if this was the way dead souls must feel when they watch those they’ve left behind—distant, useless, and perhaps with some envy.

  Some of them were tearing open parcels from home as if it were Christmas. Shaving soap, magazines, and razor blades; cigarettes, chewing gum, baked goods, and candy. These were things sent from Germany and Austria, and in the fresh hygiene kits sent down from Berlin.

  “Look here! In the Army they give us condoms for free!” A young private who was new to the unit held up the condom package as he rummaged through his kit.

  “Ja, Rolf. But there are no women for five hundred miles!”

  “I saw a female.”

  “Only in your dreams, my friend.”

  “I did!”

  “When?”

  “When we passed the caravan.”

  “Were you looking at the old woman or the camels?”

  They laughed again.

  “That woman was eighty if a day!”

  “Ja. And she needed the razor more than you do.”

  “Look!” Young Rolf held up a piece of white paper. “There is an important notice in my kit.” He unfolded the paper. “It is from Generalmajor Mueller-Gebhard.”

  “The war must be almost over if the Generalmajor has nothing better to do than to send letters to privates.”

  “Read it, Rolf. Perhaps it will tell you where you can find a woman so you can use that condom.”

  The others all thought that was quite amusing.

  Rolf skimmed the notice, then looked up and said, “Do not laugh. Listen to this: ‘For members of the German Armed Forces, (officers excepted) only the brothel at Number Four Via Tassoni in Tripoli is available.’ “ He frowned and looked at the others. “Why is that?”

  “It is staffed only with Italian women.”

  “It says here that ‘use of other brothels, including those licensed to serve the Italian Armed Forces, is strictly forbidden. Attention is drawn to the penalty provision of the German Race Acts.’ “

  “That means the other brothels have Jews.”

  “With our luck, the first brothel we will find when we leave the desert will be Italian.”

  “The Italians have mobile brothels. They bring women to the soldiers.”

  “Ja, but the women who work in them are Syrian, French, Tunisian, and Jews.”

  “That would not stop me. A brothel’s a brothel. The Generalmajor also says in this notice that we are to wear long trousers, a field tunic, shirt and tie, and belt. Or shorts with long socks and shirt and tie. Look at us! I have on a British shirt and Italian boots! You, Bernard, are wearing clothes from the South Africans. Tell me this. Who wears a tie when the temperature is a hundred and twenty degrees? What do I care for Berlin’s silly orders? Let them come here in the desert and wear a tie for a day.”

  Veith stepped stiffly into the group. “If you have extramarital intercourse with a Jewish woman, you can be reported.”

  “It would not be illegal for me. I’m not married.”

  The men laughed.

  “It is the duty of all of us to keep the German blood pure. The Jews, they soil us all. Have you forgotten who are our enemies? Germany must fight capitalist imperialism. We are here for the Lebensraum.” Veith turned to Rolf, his manner bristling with Nazi choler. “You are a fool if you listen to these men. They will get you into trouble.”

  As Rheinholdt watched Veith, he was glad, for the first time in his life, that he had no son. A boy would be raised in Hitler’s Youth and become what Veith was, a soldier with his mind soured and his humanity lost.

  There was a loud rumble and raindrops splattered down. Everyone looked up at the sky.

  Rheinholdt stepped into the group. “Move the camp to the high ground on the other side of the ridge. Do it quickly; you do not want to be here if this wash fills with water.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Leutnant.” The men scattered quickly, but as young Rolf was moving away, a white piece of paper drifted behind him and to the ground.

  Rheinholdt bent down to pick it up and saw the white condom envelope was also left on the ground. He retrieved them. On the condom wrapper was printed: Tropenfest, for “tropical-issue,” and Achtung! “Attention,” along with a warning to use with
regard to the German Race Acts and its penalty provisions.

  He glanced at the paper with orders from Berlin.

  9. Do not buy anything from Jews. The non-Jewish shops are clearly marked.

  The rain began to come down in huge splats, pelting his head and face and making the fire sizzle. Rheinholdt glanced at the fire and dropped the condom and the paper into the coals; then he stood there watching until the words burned into nothing.

  In his mind’s eye he saw Joseph laughing with him as they bought soft cheese and fresh bread for a picnic in the mountains one summer day, when they spent the afternoon canoeing their girlfriends—soon to be their wives—around an icy blue alpine lake with a hundred butterflies in the sweet air. He remembered riding bicycles to concerts in the square near the Biergarten, where he and Joseph laughed, drank, and sang. He remembered playing chess, both of them so equally matched that many times they were still playing when the sun came up.

  Sweet was the memory of the day when Joseph’s father shook his hand and gave him his job at the bank. Rheinholdt thought of his father, who he knew would point out the irony that, for years, Joseph’s family banking business had been good enough for the German government accounts, in the days before the politics and the SS.

  There were happy dinners in those days, and plays shared with the families; he remembered every one, but more than that, he could see so clearly the joyous look on Liesel’s beautiful face when she married Joseph, a look that stayed with her for years.

  He could not imagine what look was on her face now.

  “WITH THE WIND AND THE RAIN IN YOUR HAIR”

  Someone was calling his name.

  “Cassidy. Wake up!”

  Kincaid.

  She shook his shoulder.

  “You sleep like a dead man.”

  He opened his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  She was standing over him, one hand palm out. “It’s raining.”

  A drop or two landed on his head.

  “Feel it?”

  He looked up. The sky was stone gray. Dark clouds obscured the distant mountaintops. All he could see was the bone-bare foothills. Rain sprinkled down, pattering the ground and his clothes with raindrops as big as half-dollars. By the time he stood up, the storm had broken loose. It was pouring.