Amerikan Eagle (35 page)

“Police inspector, city of Portsmouth.”

The man looked up. “Religion? You don’t look Jewish. What be you, then?”

“Catholic.”

The man scribbled again. “Thought so. All right, fellas, you know the drill. Get ’im through.”

His arms were twisted up, and they pushed him past the counter. Sam thought sourly of how many times he had brought prisoners to be booked back in Portsmouth, back when he was in charge, back when the prisoners weren’t people, weren’t anything save the offenses they had done: public drunkenness, brawling, petty burglary. Sam’s offense? A simple one, a new one, of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A smaller room, also made of concrete and soiled plaster, stinking of chemicals, another drain in the center of
the room. Lockers and laundry baskets and another blow to the head. “Here. Strip.”

Sam didn’t move.

Another, harder blow. His knees sagged and then the cuffs were freed, and he was lifted back up. A Legionnaire said, “You’re gonna be naked here in a sec, and your choice whether you’re gonna be bleedin’ hard or not.”

Sam fumbled at his buttons while three Legionnaires watched him, and he had a quick, sharp memory of his first time in a locker room in high school, his first time being naked in front of other men, feeling awkward, shy, embarrassed, like everybody was staring at him.

He stripped. Stared at a brown spot on the far wall that looked like old blood spatter. His legs started shaking. “Stand still,” and a hand on his shoulder, the hum of an electric razor, and his hair was on the floor. “Keep still.” A man with a hose in his hand stood in front of him, laughed. “Poor bastard’s hung like a hamster,” and sprayed him with a cloud of dust. Sam coughed, his legs shaking harder, and some clothes were tossed at him. Thin cotton, not even thick enough to be called pajamas, striped blue and white, and his shoes fell at his feet.

“Feeling generous today,” one of the men said. “You get to keep your shoes.”

“But no socks!” another one called out. “Don’t want people think we’re goin’ soft.”

Sam awkwardly put his bare feet into his leather shoes. “Guys, let me make one phone call, to the FBI, a guy named LaCouture, and—”

The Legionnaire who had disinfected him raised his truncheon. “Shut up or those new clothes of yours, they’re gonna be stained. Now let’s go. And it’s your
lucky day, asshole, our tattoo man is gone for the day. So no number on your wrist. Tomorrow.”

Aches and pains everywhere, Sam walked out into the cloudy sunshine, the sound of the equipment thumping in his brain. Up ahead, a gate opened at a fence, and he was pushed in.

“Barracks Six, your new home. Work hard, and you’ll have a nice life.”

More laughter, and he walked unsteadily forward, by himself knowing he was no longer Sam Miller, police inspector for the city of Portsmouth. He was cold, he ached, and his ribs and jaw hurt. He was inside the camp for real, in an area filled with barracks, the ground packed dirt. In the distance the walls of the quarry rose up on three sides, smoke and dust in the air. He stood before one of the barracks, shivering, the thin clothing providing hardly any protection. He rubbed at his eyes, crusted from the stone dust in the air. Barracks Six, the numeral painted in dark blue. It was made of rough-hewn wood and built on square concrete piers. His new home. He opened the door. It creaked.

Darkness.

Strong stench of unwashed bodies, other odors as well.

He took a step in, his eyes adjusting to the weak light. There were bunks crammed tight, floor to ceiling, four beds up. Movement as well, as men turned to stare at him, raising their thin shaved heads. He took a step forward, winced at the sharp pain in his ribs and hips.

“Hello?” he said.

Voices murmured in his direction. He took another step forward, the boards creaking underfoot.

The heads turned away. He kept on walking, trying to
breathe through his mouth, to block out the stench that seemed to surround him like an old blanket as he went deeper into the barracks. Two small coal stoves with chimneys going up through the roof, more bunks, and in the very rear, what had to be the latrine, for the stench was thicker there. By the latrine was an empty bunk. He saw a bare mattress, a single blanket folded at the end, and a threadbare pillow.

One man unfolded himself from a nearby bunk and came over, favoring one hip. “You new, eh?” the man said.

“Yeah, I am,” Sam said.

“Thought so. Look too clean, too fresh. American?”

“Yeah.”

The man was about six inches shorter than Sam, his head close-shaved. He had a thin dark beard and a prominent Adam’s apple. His prison uniform hung like old laundry on his thin body. “My name is Otto,” he said.

“I’m Sam. Are you German?”

Otto shook his head. “Netherlander. Dutch. Though originally German. Are you
Juden
?”

“Excuse me?”

“
Juden
. Jew.”

“No, I’m not.”

Otto looked nervous. “Ah. So why are you here?”

“Because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and asked the wrong questions.” Sam looked at the faces and said, “Why are they staring at me?”

Otto glanced back and said, “They are nervous. You are clean, an American, and you say you’re not a Jew. They think you are a spy. An informer. Who can blame them?”

“And you?”

The Dutchman cocked his head. “Not sure. Maybe I’m more trusting. Who knows, eh?”

Sam said, “Look, are you all Jews here?”

“Of course.”

“From where?”

Otto shrugged. “Everywhere. Germany. Poland. Holland. Even some English in another bunkhouse, all Jews.”

“How did you get here?”

Another shrug. “How else? We were taken from other camps, brought into trains and then ships. Ships across the Atlantic. All of us got very sick. And then to a military port. Virginia, I think, and then another train here.”

Sam could barely believe what he had just heard. “You mean you all came here from Europe?”

“Yes, of course.”

“But why are you here?” Sam asked.

Otto smiled, his lips twitching mirthlessly. “We all volunteered.”

“Volunteered? To come here to this camp?”

Otto’s smile remained. “Of course. Why wouldn’t we?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Why would you volunteer?”

“America. We were told we would come to America to work, to survive, and even if we came here to work, who would not want to come to America?”

Sam looked to the man’s wrist.

It bore a series of tattooed numbers.

Sam was in his bunk, breathing in the stench, listening to the wheezing and snoring from his bunkmates. Every now and then somebody would crying out in a dream in a foreign language. His shoes were off and tied about his neck—earlier Otto had warned him, “Thieves everywhere, so keep your shoes close”—and he stared up into the shadows.

At last he knew the secrets of the camps. Refugee Jews from Europe were being transported to America to work in quarries, mines, and forests. Slave labor, long hours, long days, and all they got was poor food—supper had been oatmeal and chunks of stale bread—and a place to sleep. They had all volunteered to come here.

Petr Wowenstein had escaped from a research facility in New Mexico and had been murdered in Portsmouth.

But why?

Sam rolled into his pillow, his shoes striking the side of his face, trying to get comfortable and failing.

Did it matter anymore?

Petr Wowenstein had escaped from a camp and ended up in Sam’s hometown.

Investigating his murder had brought Sam to the same kind of camp. But as a prisoner, not an investigator.

* * *

He woke with a start, hitting his head on the overhead roof frame, the shoes nearly strangling him. Men were shouting, banging gongs, yelling, “Out! Out!
Raus! Raus!
Everybody out!
Jeder heraus!
”

He dropped out of his bunk, pulled his shoes off his neck, and struggled to put them on his swollen feet. The bunkhouse was still unlit, so he bumped into his bunkmates as he moved outside into the assembly area. The morning air was frigid and he started shivering, rubbing at his arms. He could not believe what he saw. Long’s Legionnaires were there, overseeing the rows of prisoners, but they had been joined by German soldiers … No, not soldiers. Their uniforms were black, with polished black boots, caps with skull symbols in the center. SS. German SS were there, helping the Legionnaires, laughing and joking, carrying short whips.

“Bunkhouse Six, Bunkhouse Six, at attention!” yelled a tall, thin Legionnaire who was joined by an SS trooper who yelled out,
“Bunkhouse Sechs, Bunkhouse Sechs, an der Aufmerksamkeit!”

The Legionnaire counted out the number of prisoners before him, making notes, and Sam kept on shivering, thinking,
This can’t be real, cannot be true
, German SS and Long’s Legionnaires, stormtroopers from each side of the Atlantic, cooperating and working together as one in the mountains of Vermont. There had been a few news reports of Long’s Legionnaires traveling to Germany to visit their compatriots, but never had there been mention of the reverse. It was like some nightmare that his upstairs neighbor would be writing for one of those fantasy magazines.

The Legionnaire yelled something to a camp official,
and then Sam joined his bunkmates as they marched out to the quarries, flanked by Long’s Legionnaires and SS stormtroopers.

* * *

His job was simple. By an area where cutting tools and drills made incisions into the marble wall, he had a shovel to scoop up marble chips that were processed later for some other use. The stone reared above him for scores of feet, and other prisoners scrambled up and down scaffolding, carrying tools. Only a few Legionnaires and SS men watched, content to sit in wooden chairs and gossip among themselves. Sam’s hands quickly blistered as he shoveled marble chips into open wooden wagons. Once during the morning, he had a few words with Otto, who was carrying lengths of wood scaffolding.

Sam said, “You volunteered for this?”

The man laughed. “It is easier work than before, over there. The food, not good, but enough. And here, the guards are forbidden to shoot us unless we try to escape. We may be beaten here and there, but to live, we are living here better than in the camps in Germany and Poland. And you? Why are you here?”

Sam shoveled up some chips. “I’m a cop. From a city called Portsmouth. In New Hampshire. Came here investigating a murder back home.”

Otto said, “You should have stayed home, eh?”

Sam coughed, leaned on his shovel. “Maybe so. What about you?”

Otto’s face darkened. “Ach, we are the lucky ones. You see there are no women and children here, eh? Only we
capable of work were allowed to leave. Our family members, left behind. For them, who knows how they are …”

The Jew scurried away. Sam picked up his shovel and went back to work.

* * *

Breakfast came after two hours of work, a soup wagon pulled by a tired horse, ribs showing, plodding along. Thick oatmeal, cold toast smeared with foul-tasting margarine, and a mug of weak coffee. It was filling but something Sam would have sneered at earlier.

God
, he thought,
earlier
. He went back to the marble chips, picked up his shovel, waited a moment. Look at what doing his job had gotten him. Right in the very heart of hell. His brother, Tony, would probably bust a gut laughing. Tony the hell-raiser, the criminal—Tony was a free man. And his Eagle Scout and high school football star brother, his Goody Two-shoes brother, he was in a camp, a place worse than Tony’s, a place where—

The blow to his back knocked him to the ground, the marble chips shredding his clothing, bloodying his knees. He got back up quick, shovel held up, facing the SS officer who had just belted him with his whip. The officer had fair skin, blond hair, and a sharp nose, and snapped,
“Zurück zu Arbeit, Juden!”
Beside him was a Legionnaire wearing glasses and a thick mustache, his uniform muddy and worn. Sam choked out, “I don’t know what that fucking Nazi just said.”

The Legionnaire laughed. “Man, I guess you’re not from away, ’cause no guy here would raise a shovel to a Kraut. He said, ‘Back to work, Jew,’ so I suggest you do
that. Even if you are an American, you ain’t an American here.”

Sam was going to say that he wasn’t Jewish but didn’t. He lowered his shovel.

Lunch wasn’t as rushed as breakfast. The prisoners were allowed to sit and stretch their legs and eat from metal bowls of stew with water and chunks of stale bread. Again Sam found himself next to Otto, who was leaning up against a pile of lumber. Sam said, “What did you do before the war?”

“Before the war? Ran a business in Amsterdam. Nice, safe, boring job. Someday I hope to be picked for my skills and get away from this stonework. They do that, you know. If they have a need—electricians, plumbers, university professors—they get picked and sent where they’re needed at special camps.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Eight months. Before that, I was somewhere in the South. Very hot. We cut trees in the swamps. Lots of bugs, too.”

“And before that?”

He shook his head. “Don’t want to remember that. It was a camp in Poland, very bad. Then one day an officer came in with an American in a nice suit. Volunteers for labor in America. Who would go? All of us, if we could, and here we are.”

Sam shoveled in a few more spoonfuls of stew. “What happens to the marble? Or the wood that was cut? Where does it go?”

“Trains,” Otto told him. “Loaded on trains. And why do we care? We work, we survive, we even get paid.”

“Paid? Money?”

“Yes, one dollar a week. We can use the money to buy things at a camp store on Sunday. Like soap. Razors. Tea.”

Sam finished his stew and wiped the bowl clean with a piece of bread. “Otto, have people escaped?”

“There have been attempts, yes. But how far can someone go, someone who is a stranger here? Eh? And dressed like this?”

“Have any attempts succeeded?”

Otto stared at him. “Are you thinking of escaping then, eh?”