She vaulted up the front stairs. Banged on the door. “Mr. Sentry! It’s Rebecca Temple! Please let me in!”
No answer. Damn him! She turned around, searching for the man in the street. Was he hiding? She tried the door knob. It opened.
She leaped inside and closed the door behind her, locking it. Her heart beat wildly, her breath shallow. Had it just been someone walking home quickly for dinner? She wasn’t taking any chances. She tried to calm down and remember where the phone was. The kitchen?
“Mr. Sentry?”
She peered into the living room from where she stood. In the lamplight she could see books and photos all over the floor. Hadn’t the Sentrys picked things up after the break-in?
She crept down the hall toward the lit kitchen. Where was he? The phone was on the wall, like she remembered. She picked up the receiver and dialed for the operator. No sound. She pushed down the lever to get a dial tone. Silence. Not an empty silence. A bleak silence filled with inevitability. The phone was dead. She felt her armpits go clammy beneath the coat. Pulling on the wire to see where it attached to the wall, she looked down: the cut end hung loose in her hand.
She had to get out! Now! There was a back door off the kitchen — she remembered Mrs. Sentry stepping out of it the night Birdie died. Rebecca was creeping toward it when she heard the groan. Oh God. Someone was hurt — was it Sentry? Where did duty to others end? Should she risk her life to give medical attention? What if it was a trap?
She stopped. She couldn’t just walk away.
“Mr. Sentry?” she whispered. “Is it you?”
She tiptoed to the living room. This time she stepped inside. Then she saw him. He was sitting on the floor, leaning against a bookcase, legs stretched out in front between two upholstered chairs. Blood stained his shirt around one shoulder. His eyes were closed, his face the colour of putty.
“Mr. Sentry? Can you hear me? I’m going to go out and call an ambulance.”
He shook his head. “Run!” he whispered hoarsely.
“Good advice,” said a familiar voice behind her. “But I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”
She whirled around. “Dr. Salim! What’re you doing here?”
He held a sword in his hand pointed toward her, his grey cashmere coat open.
“Take note, doctor, that this is not one of those foils with a rubber tip. My old friend was thoughtful enough to collect a real sword and hang it on his wall. The police will see it as an opportunistic weapon for an intruder. The end is very sharp, I assure you. As you can see by the wound it delivered. One needn’t take fencing classes to inflict grievous injury. Lucky for me.”
“You’re behind this?”
Salim’s eyelids lowered partway. “You should’ve stayed home, doctor. Eisenbaum convinced me that you didn’t know anything and I was prepared to leave you alone. Of course that’s impossible, now that you’re here. I’m surprised that someone so smart can be so stupid. I knew someone else like that once. In fact, you remind me a lot of her.”
“Brenner! Halt den Mund!”
“Brenner?” she echoed.
“The way she used to be, anyway. When she was young and exquisite. She had ... the deepest brown eyes.”
“Don’t you dare speak about her, you filthy murderer! You killed my sister.”
The reverie in Salim’s face went blank. The sword lowered a few inches. “She wasn’t your sister anymore. Your sister was a shining beauty, a woman of intelligence. The creature in that yard was a shell. Unrecognizable.”
He paused and pressed his lips together. “I came to check out the house — it wasn’t so easy to find where you lived. And there was this old woman in the yard. When she began to speak, I recognized her voice. You should’ve told me, Eisenbaum. It was such a shock when I realized who she was. What she had become.”
He shook his head slowly. Rebecca wondered how many more martinis he had consumed after she had left. Who was he? He had killed Birdie. Why?
“Ultimately I blame you, Eisenbaum, for abandoning her in your backyard. People treat dogs better.”
“Shut your filthy mouth!” Sentry roared. “You killed her in cold blood — you bludgeoned her to death, and you have the gall ...”
“You don’t understand at all. I idolized your sister. I loved her from the first time I saw her in the hospital in Berlin. Look!”
He pulled a photo from his coat pocket and held it up for Rebecca to see. The young Sentrys stood behind a sad, beautiful woman holding a child on her lap. The photo from the mantel. He’d removed it from the frame.
“This was the woman I remembered. When I found out she was at Ravensbrück — I risked my position to bring her to the sub-camp. How long do you think she would’ve survived if I hadn’t taken her to work in my lab?”
“You were in Ravensbrück?” Rebecca said.
“She didn’t work with you! She kept the records!” Sentry cried. Then he groaned with pain, his voice dropping. “She was blameless. So big deal, you’re human! You wanted her, so you saved her.”
“No!” He stared down at the photo. “I loved her! When love between us was forbidden. She appreciated the danger of my position.” He levelled half-lidded eyes at Sentry. “And then to see her dirty and unintelligible ... It tore me apart. She wouldn’t want to live like that, the woman I knew. I couldn’t bear to see her like that. I set her free.”
“Ha! She couldn’t tell you where the record book was, so you eliminated a witness.”
“Are you purposely obtuse? A witness! She made no sense. What kind of testimony could she give? I left in a quandary, very distraught. When I came back, she began to shout. I tried to speak to her, make her listen — but she was completely mad. I was afraid the neighbours would come out. I knew what I had to do. I picked up the rock ...” He stared at the floor. “And I prayed to Allah.”
“Allah! You hypocrite! You expect me to believe you have a heart? You thought she might have the book, but you couldn’t find it because I took it away from her. If you kill me, you’ll never find it. You want it, you know my terms.”
“You’re blackmailing him?” Rebecca said, her voice rising.
“None of your business,” Sentry replied, his head back against the bookcase.
“All of this because of money? What the hell’s in the book worth killing for?”
Salim tilted his head. “On the other hand, maybe it doesn’t exist. You’ve always been good at bluffing. Did you think I’d just take your word and pay you?”
“I have a photocopy. For insurance.”
Salim sucked in his cheeks. “Where?”
Sentry leaned his head back tiredly against the bookcase. “Dr. Temple. If you come on the other side, you’ll see my gear case. Reach down inside. You’ll feel a plastic bag.”
She stepped over his legs. Salim raised the sword again, pointing it at her. She wondered how much force it would take for him to penetrate her coat. Her purse still hung on her shoulder, the can of Mace inside. It was useless unless she could get close enough to spray it into his eyes.
She kneeled down and unzipped the long leather gear bag. When she put her hand inside, the first thing she felt was Sentry’s foil. Her mind whirled. A weapon! She looked up at him. Their eyes locked. She tried to read his expression, but mostly she wanted to know: how could she combat a real sword with a foil that ended in a rubber tip?
“Well?” said Salim.
She felt around beneath the steel foil. Her fingers pulled out a plastic shopping bag containing a wad of paper. She peered inside the bag — vertical lines divided a page into columns like a ledger, writing in between.
“Hand it over!” Salim demanded.
She’d have to rummage in her purse with her left hand to find the Mace. It would be obvious and he’d have more than enough time to run her through. She’d have to wait.
She stood up and reached out to give him the bag. “Get back there. Sit down beside him. On the other side.”
She stepped back and sat down on the floor. Salim must have known there was a foil in the gear bag. He also knew the rubber tip rendered it useless, otherwise he’d have pushed it away.
He held the plastic bag under his sword arm and pulled a few pages out with his other hand. “Hmm. March 12, 1943. Prisoner numbers. Amounts injected. Procedures. And so forth. All in Dr. Eisenbaum’s perfect handwriting. We destroyed everything before the Russians came,” Salim muttered, studying the pages. “I’m impressed your sister managed to hide this.”
“She was a resourceful woman.”
“I can’t imagine why she kept this rubbish all these years. Was it a memento, Eisenbaum? To remind her of what was done to you?”
Rebecca glanced sideways. What had Sentry been through?
“You mean what you did to me, Brenner.”
“You were a Nazi doctor?” Rebecca asked, incredulous.
Salim tilted his head, his face shiny with perspiration. “That was another life. It wasn’t me. I mean the me now. I’ve climbed to the highest echelon in my adopted country. Did you think I’d let you jeopardize all that, Eisenbaum? You always were greedy.”
Sentry rallied to the challenge. “We could finish the whole affair if you got your brother-in-law to wire you the money. Just tell him the lab here asked you for it. It’s all really his fault anyway. He was the one who shipped the venom to the camp. He found the drying process, otherwise it would spoil, all that distance. Frieda told me all about it. Do you ever think of that at family gettogethers in Egypt? That your brother-in-law’s shipments helped you torture people? Even he would think of the money as the price of doing business.”
“Mohammed thinks of himself as a humanitarian. He only sent the venom because I asked for it. The Nazi doctor supervising the sub-camp — he didn’t understand anything. He got his diploma from the Party. They were only interested in their obsessive theories of race. They wouldn’t let me do my own research. I was forced to compromise my integrity and use the venom in their experiments.”
“The same venom that’s in your new drug?” she asked.
“Absolutely no connection. We’re developing a drug for pain.”
“It’s the same venom,” Sentry said. “Your brother-in-law a humanitarian! Don’t make me laugh. He knew what they used it for.” He glanced at Rebecca. “The obsessive theories of race the esteemed doctor mentioned. They included sterilizing undesirables. The lower orders. In other words, anyone but them. Mostly with radiation and surgery, no anaesthesia, of course. But the Herr Doktor added another element to the torture. He injected venom into the testicles.”
“That’s a lie! I went against Nazi policies and used it to alleviate the pain of the surgery. I couldn’t say that. But Frieda knew. She kept it to herself to protect me.”
“You’re dreaming this up. The guilt is making you hallucinate.”
“If I wanted to work, I had to go along with them. I had no choice. You survived, didn’t you?”
“One of the few.”
“How do you think that happened?”
“Frieda wouldn’t sleep with you unless you let me live?”
Salim blinked, speechless. Rebecca felt her heart shrinking.
Sentry addressed her. “The others were all killed. How do you say? Sacrificed, after the experiments.”
The hair on her neck stood up.
“It was a different world,” Salim said, finding his tongue. “We needed results. The only way was to get postmortem data. You see, you can’t operate like that today. That’s why it takes so long to develop the research.”
“If I go public with the book, you’re finished. The new wonder drug — first used to sterilize concentration camp prisoners! Your investors will dump you like a hot potato.” Sentry grimaced. “All the pain and suffering that went into getting that data. Kiss your drug goodbye.”
Salim shook, trying to control his anger, his fist hard around the handle of the sword. “There’d be no drug if I hadn’t used it on prisoners first!”
Rebecca looked at Sentry beside her. Had he been one of the subjects?
Salim read her mind. “Yes, Herr Eisenbaum was there. You’re wondering, if he was sterilized, how does he have a son?”
“Shut up, Brenner. Shut up.”
“Frieda saved your life when she persuaded me to transfer you from the main camp. I can’t tell you how many guards I had to bribe. She didn’t know what would happen to you. Only that you had a better chance with us.”
Sentry lowered his eyes.
“So you see, you owe me. Where’s the real book?”
Sentry’s eyes were closed. “Why should I tell you? Then you can kill me.”
“You think my hands are tied? I don’t need to kill you. I can kill the doctor.”
Did she hear him right?
“This beautiful young woman’s death will be on your head if you don’t tell me where the record book is.”
Sentry opened his eyes and searched her face as if seeing her for the first time. A chill went through her.
“You don’t believe me,” Salim said. He took a step toward her, pointing the sword at her chest.
Images of her lifeless body swirled in her head. “You haven’t changed, if you’re still capable of such a thing,” Sentry said.
“We’re all capable. Didn’t you see in the war? Everyone can kill. It’s only human. It just depends on what’s at stake. You understand, if the record book becomes public, my life is over. So I have nothing to lose.”
He raised the tip of the sword to Rebecca’s neck. “Where is it?”
“Mr. Sentry!” she gasped. “Tell him!”
Sentry opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“Where is it?” Salim cried. Eyes blazing, he lifted the sword in the air and whipped it down on her arm, the edge of the steel cutting through her coat sleeve and stinging her skin. He lifted the sword again, threatening another blow.
“Stop!” Sentry yelled. “It’s in the mantel!”
Salim kept the sword raised and turned his head to look at the fireplace. “Where?”
“The wood lifts off. The book’s underneath.”
“The doctor will go fetch it,” Salim said. He motioned with the sword for her to get up.
She stood up, holding her hand over the painful left arm. Salim moved to one side, letting her step into the middle of the living room and toward the fireplace.
She began to remove the photos from the mahogany mantel, placing them on the stone hearth. She had to keep him distracted. Once he had the book, he’d kill them both.
”Someone else is looking for it,” she said. “They’ve already gone through the house.”
“Just the incompetent moron I sent.”
“You sent? The same one who came after me?”
“You said Frieda told you things you didn’t understand. I was afraid you’d figure it out.”
“The same man who ran down Mrs. Sentry?”
Sentry’s eyes popped open. “You bastard! You tried to kill my wife!”
“No, no. Just trying to scare you off. He was only supposed to graze her. It really is hard to find decent help nowadays. You see, if you hadn’t come after me for the money, your sister would be alive and your wife would be cooking dinner in the kitchen.”
“You hired a man from the Muslim Brotherhood?” Rebecca asked.
“It’s a good thing these fanatics are incompetent. Otherwise they’d rule the world.”
“I don’t understand. Isn’t the Brotherhood your enemy?”
“Egyptian politics are very complex. My brother-in-law supports them because they feed the poor before handing them guns. But it’s not politic to back them, in some circles. And since you never know whose side someone is on, it’s pragmatic to make everyone think you’re on their side.”
“You’re good at that, playing both sides,” said Sentry. She grasped the wood with both hands. “How does it come off?”
“Just lift it straight up.”
She pushed on the square edges from below, though her arm hurt. The mantel moved. She lifted the slab of mahogany off and leaned it against the wall. On the unfinished wooden base beneath lay a notebook with a faded green cardboard cover.
“Move away from it!” Salim said. “Sit back down. Where you were.”
She knew they had little time left. She didn’t like the picture that presented itself in her head: she and Sentry lying dead on the living room carpet, lights blazing. Instead of stepping over Sentry to follow Salim’s instructions, she stopped on the side where the long gear bag lay. Salim’s attention was fixed on the record book. He didn’t notice when she bent down beside Sentry, pretending to minister to his wound. Keeping her body stiff, she inserted her right hand into the bag.
“The neck!” Sentry mouthed, bringing his good hand to his throat.
What damage could she do with a foil that ended in a rubber tip? She had an idea that would require speed and surprise.
Glancing sideways, still in a crouch, she saw Salim flipping pages with the thumb of the hand that held the sword. She quietly drew the foil out of the bag. Adrenaline pumped through her. She had to act while he was distracted.
Holding the foil, she moved between the two chairs, lifted her weapon high over her head with both hands. Salim raised his head in surprise, affording her a clearer shot at her target. He had no time to react before she whipped her foil sideways with all her strength, the rigid edge of the steel catching his neck. She felt sick to her stomach.
The book tumbled to the carpet. She thought he would fall, but he stayed upright, cradling his bleeding neck with his hand. Moaning in pain, he stumbled forward onto the sofa, still holding the sword. His eyes were closed in a grimace as she stepped toward him. With one quick movement, she pulled the sword from his hand.
As she stood, her chest heaving from the effort, someone opened the front door.
“Dad?”
Erich appeared at the entrance of the living room in his navy jacket, blinking in bewilderment.
“Go next door and call an ambulance!” Rebecca shouted. “Get the police!”
“What’s going on?” He looked at the sword in her hand and Salim bleeding on the sofa. “Did you do that?”
“It’s a long story,” she said.
“Where’s my father?”
Salim took a deep noisy breath and opened his eyes. “Look who’s here! Where is your father? An excellent question.”
The blow had just stunned him. But she had his weapon.
“Erich!” Sentry shouted. “Dad?”
“He’s hurt but he’s all right,” Rebecca said.
Erich rushed behind the chairs to where his father lay on the floor. “Did you do this?” he cried at Rebecca.
“Don’t be stupid!” said Sentry.
“He stabbed you?” Erich said.
“It’s astonishing that he looks like you, Eisenbaum. Since that’s impossible.” Salim removed his hand from his neck. The bleeding had stopped. “I’ve been thinking about that and I’ve come to a remarkable conclusion. It’s a family resemblance. He looks like Frieda. Am I right? When’s your birthday, Dr. Sentry?”
Erich hesitated. “What?”
“Your birthday, please.”
“November 30, 1945.”
“My God! Let me look at you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Erich stood up to stare at him.
Salim gaped, running his eyes over the younger man’s face. “That means you were conceived in winter. Yes. A very cold February. I remember the wind blowing outside through the pines.” He blinked away the memory. “You have to believe me — I never knew. When the Russians were close, I ran for my life. She understood. Your mother was the bravest woman I ever knew.”
“My mother?” Erich’s eyes narrowed with puzzlement. “You know my mother?”
Salim said to Sentry. “You never told him?”
“Told me what?”
Sentry’s eyes were closed, his eyebrows arched together, as he sat against the bookcase.
“Told me what?”
Even as he stood, the information was probably filtering into Erich’s brain like a trickle of dirty water. Slow but inevitable, it would find a path into meaning.
“Who are you?” he asked Salim.
“That’s not so easy to answer. I was someone else when I knew your mother.”
“How did you know my mother?”
“We worked in the same hospital.”
“When did she work in a hospital? She was an athlete.”
Salim peered at Erich with irritation. “It appears we’re not speaking about the same woman. You must face the truth, son.”
Erich shrunk away, crouching down over Sentry again. “What’s he talking about, Dad?”
Sentry leaned his head back against the bookcase, weary. “You can’t remember her the way she was. She was so beautiful. And brilliant. She was too sensitive to survive the war intact. Not meant for this evil world. She sacrificed herself for so many. This is what you should remember.”
“Aunt Frieda? My mother?” Erich’s face went pale. He stared fixedly at the wall. “I used to have these dreams. Or maybe they were memories. She was rocking me to sleep in her arms. She called me Erich-mouse. She was the only one who ever called me that. I’d forgotten.”
“That was our grandmother’s pet name for us,” said Sentry. “Frieda-mouse. Wolfie-mouse. Luise-mouse. So many gone. Another life.”
The fondness for mice, thought Rebecca, recalling the children’s books. Not rodents, but a connection home.
“I wish I’d known while she was alive.”
“I’m alive,” said Salim.
Erich rose to his feet and turned to face Salim. “You were in the camp? What were you to my mother?”
Salim glanced at Rebecca and Sentry, neither of whom rushed to speak. “I loved her. She loved me. That’s the important part.”
Rebecca realized their silence was meant to protect Erich. “The phone’s not working,” she said. “Please go next door and call the police.”
“I’m still confused.”
“I’ll explain later.”
After Erich left, Salim clasped his neck with his hand again and fell back into the sofa, eyes closed. Sentry moaned behind the chairs. Holding onto the sword, she found a clean tea towel in an open drawer of the buffet and stepped toward Sentry. She kneeled near his injured shoulder, cleaning the wound with the towel.
“You okay?”
“I feel like a fool.”
“You are a fool!” Salim said from the sofa. “You had everything you needed. You should’ve left well enough alone.”
“Look who’s talking! A German Egyptian! You changed your whole identity.”
“I had no choice. I was running for my life. When the Russians were close, I threw away my uniform and put on a prisoner’s jacket. Berlin was destroyed. The buildings, the people I knew. I had no family. I made my way to Hamburg and got on a ship. Mohammed had often invited me to his home. This time I went. They are a remarkably generous people, the Egyptians. Friendly to a fault. I felt at home there. More than in my original home. Mohammed took me under his wing. I fell in love with the culture. And his sister. My friend became my brother-in-law. I converted to Islam. I’ve been fortunate to have two lives.
“Maryam was past marriageable age in Arab society. They were very grateful to me for taking her off their hands. I just had to convert. It’s really very comforting, having religion. The Arabs say only Allah is perfect. They accept that man is weak.”
“You expect me to believe you’re different? A leopard can’t change its spots.”
“I’m not who you remember. When you learn a new language and culture, you become a different person, even in your gestures. You give yourself up, your old self, and create a new image, one you could never have imagined. Even your body moves differently. It’s like a rebirth. Then when a time comes that you’re forced to speak the old language, it’s like someone else’s mouth moving. That man is a stranger to me now. So you see, I can’t go back.”
These last words came from right behind her. While she was tending to Sentry’s wound, Salim had kept talking and crept toward them.
“Look out!” Sentry screamed.
She turned sideways to see the glint of metal in Salim’s hand as he lunged at her. She rolled away, the knife grazing her thigh as he thudded to the ground. She’d been stupid. She’d forgotten he had killed the cop outside. Of course he had a knife.
While he struggled to get to his feet, she grabbed for her purse. On her knees now, she rummaged inside the bag until she felt the cool metal can. He was lifting himself up, his hand holding the knife in a tight fist, about to strike again. In a second, she flicked off the top of the can, pointed it at his face, and pushed down hard on the nozzle. A triangle of spray hit his eyes.
“Ahgghh!” He dropped the knife and brought both hands to his eyes. “Ahgghh! Help! Help!” He groped blindly toward the kitchen. “Water!”
She collapsed on the ground beside Sentry. Her heart was racing. She saw blood trickling down her leg from the cut. It must have hurt, but she was too numb to feel it.