The Madagaskar Plan (14 page)

Madeleine clamped her teeth together, every muscle in her face rigid, and pushed with an effort that left her raw.

The nurse hung up. “There’s no answer,” she said to the
Blutsschwester
. “I must fetch the doctor.” She hurried from the ward.

“Fast as you can now,” whispered the
Blutsschwester
when they were alone. “Before they come back.”

Madeleine didn’t hear her. All she was aware of was an intimate tearing. She swallowed thickly, summoned the breath in her lungs, and heaved till it felt her spine had been flattened. She screamed again, the way she had when Russell and Lyall were driving her through the fog-bound streets of London and the immensity of Burton’s death struck her.

“The head’s out,” said the
Blutsschwester
.

A final juddering contraction. And the baby was free.

*   *   *

The rain continued to beat against the window, the sound exaggerated and savage in the stillness.

The
Blutsschwester
glanced up, her eyes locked with indecision. Shudders of relief that the pain was over coursed through Madeleine and, with them, a rising panic at the silence. The
Blutsschwester
scooped up a sinewy mass from between her legs. There was a syrupy cough, and her baby began to cry.

A joyful, rattling sigh escaped Madeleine. Her muscles were spent, but she sat up and peered at the child. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

When the midwife had presented her with Alice, a pellet of failure possessed Madeleine: even though Jared never mentioned it, she wanted to give him a son. He parted the swaddling and something unfathomable slackened his brow. She spent a long time puzzling over that expression before realizing that it was relief. Relief that there would be no male to challenge him in the future.

“Boy or girl?” Madeleine asked.

The
Blutsschwester
tied the umbilical cord, cut it with a pair of scissors, and reached for a blanket. She wrapped the baby and lowered the bundle to Madeleine.

A perfect penny of a face, messy with blood but beautiful. Squirming, yelling, alive. Madeleine could see Burton in the wrinkled features before her, that look when he dozed in the orchard after a day’s work, when the late sunshine soaked his skin and napping freed him of troubles. She raised a finger to trace the child’s nose. Wanted to kiss it and breathe in the blessed scent of baby skin. She offered her arms to take the child.

A contraction tore through Madeleine, her limp body rigid again, as if a current had arced the length of her spine.

The
Blutsschwester
took the bundle away. The hollows of her eyes flowed with tears. “Forgive me,” she said. “Forgive me.”

Another contraction.

She took the baby, laid it at the foot of the bed, and smothered it. The child’s cries were stifled in the folds of the blanket.

“What are you doing?” screamed Madeleine. She struggled to sit up as another wave of pain crashed through her abdomen.

“It’s for the best,” said the
Blutsschwester
. “Trust me.”

Madeleine flayed around for something to fight with till her fingers found the enamel mug on the bedside cabinet. She struck out feebly. The
Blutsschwester
hesitated, then mumbled,
I’m sorry, I’m sorry,
and pressed harder, burying the baby into the mattress. A terrified, bewildered fury filled Madeleine. She raised the mug and brought it down on the
Blutsschwester
’s head with all her strength. The blow struck her brow, splitting the skin. She stumbled backward, and Madeleine snatched up her baby, bringing it to her breast.

She parted the blanket and found a squashed face, eyes pressed shut. Madeleine blew gently into its mouth. The baby whooped and started to cry again.

Another spasm.

After she’d given birth to Alice, the pain had stopped almost at once and an exhausted euphoria crept through her. She must have some internal injury. “I’m hurt,” she said, hoping it might placate the woman on the floor.

The
Blutsschwester
got to her feet. Lurched over to the bed and snatched at the baby, attempting to wrestle it away. Madeleine clawed her face, refused to let go. She saw Burton walking through the farm door on their final morning: his shoulders dark against the coral sky.
Never shout “Help,”
he once told her,
people will ignore you. But if you shout “Fire” …

“Feuer!”
yelled Madeleine.
“Feuer!”

“Sssh,” hissed the
Blutsschwester
. “I’m trying to help.” She put her face up close to Madeleine’s. “Listen to me. You’ve got to spare them. This is the kindest way.”

“Get off me!” Madeleine shoved her back while wrapping her other arm around the baby.

“You don’t understand. They’ll take them, like they took my babies.” Blood trickled down her forehead, darkening her tears; her eyes were frenzied pinpricks. “They do things to them. Here, in this hospital. Terrible things. Experiments.”

From the corridor came a corrugation of noises: shouts, swing doors being kicked open, boots.

“Don’t let them suffer,” said the
Blutsschwester
. She held out her arms to take the baby. “Give them a mother’s death. Both of them.”

“Both?”

“You’re having twins. That’s why the SS wants them—”

The obstetrician burst through the door, a crowd of nurses and guards with him. He strode toward the
Blutsschwester
, his white coat flapping, and tore her away from Madeleine. “Get her out of here.”

A guard dragged the woman across the ward.

“A mother’s death, not theirs. A mother’s…”

She was hauled through the doorway, still wailing. Then a thud and her voice was silenced.

“She’s deranged,” said the doctor. “Ignore her.” He examined Madeleine carefully. “Your other baby is coming. All feels well. Keep pushing, like you did before. Everything is going to be fine, Madeleine.” His voice was velvet, sharp with the reek of coffee.

She couldn’t remember the last time someone had spoken her name. Exhaustion was darkening her vision. Her body wanted to expel the other baby and flee consciousness. The SS nurse pried the bundle out of her arms. Madeleine had no strength to resist.

“We’re putting the firstborn in a crib,” said the doctor. “There’s room for another.” A smile darted across his face. “Keep pushing.”

There were nurses all around, hands swabbing and dabbing her like tentacles.

She heaved again, feeling her neck become a trunk of tendons.

And again.

Madeleine sensed her body splitting open, then a sickening hollow sensation. The cries of the second baby pierced the ward as the doctor sliced the cord between mother and child and offered the baby for Madeleine to see. Another perfect penny face, the ghost of Burton blinking at her once more.

“They look strong,” said the obstetrician. “Healthy.” His words had a mechanical ring now. “Too often conditions here stunt the fetus. This is a rare opportunity.”

The second baby vanished from her sight. She heard the wails of both children, the creak of spokes. A nurse wheeled the crib away.

“Where are you taking them?” asked Madeleine. Her head was effervescent, spinning.

“We have special facilities here,” replied the doctor. “They are the best specimens I’ve had for a long while. You will be sent back to Antzu.”

He escorted the crib from the ward. There was a gust of wind as the door opened; it rocked the lights overhead, snatched the babies’ cries. When the sound of them returned, it was already fading down the corridor.

Madeleine swung her feet off the bed, determined to follow. There was blood on the floor with a bootprint in it. A hand forced her against the mattress; straps pinched at her arms and ankles.

The sound of wailing continued to echo around the ward but was growing ever more distant. A door opened and slammed, muffling her children further. The moment when they would be replaced with silence was too much to bear.

She fought to sit up, her limbs thrashing against the restraints with such ferocity that the nurses flinched. Her stomach muscles buckled with the effort; she barely noticed. Something sharp pricked her shoulder. A cold sponge scoured between her legs. The stench of antiseptic.

Madeleine collapsed onto the plastic sheet and for a heartbeat was mute. The lights above burned her eyes. Then she opened her mouth and screamed. Screamed till her throat was empty.

PART II

ROSCHERHAFEN AND THE OAO

The Jews must pack up, disappear from Europe … It’s clearly not enough to expel them from Germany. We cannot allow them to retain bases of withdrawal at our doors. We want to be out of danger of all kinds of infiltration.

—ADOLF HITLER
27 January 1942

CHAPTER TWELVE

REUBEN SALOIS WAS executed during the Mered Ha-vanil—the Vanilla Rebellion. His final resting place was to be an isolated beach at the southern end of Madagaskar. As dawn broke, they had been forced to dig a ditch: hundreds of emaciated Jews scooping out stony sand, not a spade among them. When it reached two meters deep, the Nazis ordered them to climb out, stand along the edge, and turn toward the waves. “See how fine the view is!” shouted the Hauptsturmführer. The sky was hot, cobalt blue.

“We must face them,” said Salois, his voice serene, loose with hatred. He swiveled on his bare feet, urging the rest of the line to do the same. A few followed; most kept their eyes fixed on the ocean. The Jew at his side mumbled prayers. Salois pitied him: the heavens were empty—there had never been anyone above to hear the anguish of their tribe.

“Turn back around!” screamed the Hauptsturmführer. “Turn back around!”

Salois spread his withered arms and stared at the soldiers opposite. His pulse was hammering in his throat, but a stillness settled upon him. He had yearned for this moment many times; it was a relief finally to meet it. There were worse things than death.

“Turn back around!”

His last memory was of being blasted into the trench; the
thud-thud
of bullets raking the bodies on top of him; the distant noise of someone spitting. Then the crash and boom of the ocean fading to silence.

The Mered Ha-vanil began in March 1947 in the vanilla-growing regions of the northeast. Vanilla was Madagaskar’s main cash crop and a profitable business for the SS; it controlled 90 percent of the world market. There had been resistance groups since the first Jews arrived on the island, but few dared to challenge the Nazis or had popular support. Dissent was met with a noose for the ringleaders, a further reduction in food for any community that supported them. Two months earlier, Cyclone Eva had battered the island, submerging swaths of agricultural land, drowning thousands. Half a million were left homeless as the rainy season continued. A typhoid epidemic followed. Heydrich’s official report to the Council of New Europe estimated that 5 percent of the population had perished because of their lack of preparation; in private, and to the delight of the Reich Chancellery, the true figure was given at 15 percent.

With the vanilla crop mostly destroyed, an overseer named Sakle defended his profits by cutting his workforce’s rations to an ounce an a half of rice per day. Shortly afterward, he was stabbed in the neck. When guards were sent to round up the perpetrators, they were beaten back with dinner bowls and rocks. The Jews torched their barracks, the farm, and the processing plant. Troops arrived from the garrison at Sambava to be slaughtered by the bare hands and starving fury of men who had nothing to lose. For the first time, the Jews realized that it was possible to do something against the Germans’ will and power.

More vanilla plantations were burned, a sickly-sweet pall of smoke spreading rebellion from the north toward the heart of the island. When the eastern port of Salzig was captured by Vanilla Jews, Governor Bouhler was recalled to Germania. (He was later found in his Schwanenwerder mansion next to a suicide note.) Salzig was the disembarkation point for Polish Jews, the most numerous and despised of the Reich. More than 320,000 remained to be shipped, an operation now in jeopardy. In Britain, Lord Halifax said that support for sending away the Jews relied on a degree of security for them; deportations were temporarily halted.

Hitler raged. His vision of a Jew-free Europe had been stalled by Zionist plotting and the incompetence of the men entrusted with his dream. He censured Heydrich, who remained chief of the project; threatened to carpet-bomb the island. Finally, Himmler interceded, suggesting that the answer might be Odilo Globocnik, his disgraced protégé. He had done great things in the East and was ready for rehabilitation. “Despite all his mistakes,” said Himmler, coaxing the Führer, “I think you need to recognize the intense fervor and dynamism of this man. He is qualified like no one else.”

The new governor arrived with extended powers, three new brigades, and a fleet of Walküre helicopter gunships, the so-called Madagaskar Defense Force. His zeal was criticized by the Red Cross and American Jewish Committee, which lobbied Congress to intervene. Washington invoked the country’s neutrality while dispatching a battleship to Africa and an undersecretary of state to Germania. “Keep him talking,” Globocnik told Heydrich. “I need another six weeks.”