The Madagaskar Plan (22 page)

Behind the workers, the road ended abruptly: a tarmac precipice, then fifty kilometers of dirt to the Betroka Reservation. This was part of Globus’s Idle Hands project: to build a highway linking Tana with the southern port of Daufin. During the dry season, the unbroken ground was like flint; this morning, a man might drown in the mud. On the verge were tents for the guards and a bamboo structure with a frond roof to shelter the Jews. Cauldrons of boiling asphalt sweetened the air.

“I’m looking for number 1215132,” boomed Hochburg as the Jews fell into ranks.

When no one stepped forward, the Untersturmführer ordered them to raise their arms. Hochburg checked the first few tattooed wrists before realizing it was pointless: their skin was too filthy to read.

Water trickled down his skull. The Ark might have given him 1215132’s location, but his investigations in Germany had furnished him with the details. The Gestapo had a file on the man, including a photograph taken in 1931. It showed a full, smooth-chinned face, brittle white collar, belly pressing against the buttons of a double-breasted suit. Feuerstein addressed the camera with the arrogance of a man who thought his world would last forever. That mien belongs to us now, thought Hochburg. We pose in our uniforms as if we rule the very light that immortalizes us.

He lowered the picture and studied the gaunt, scabby Jews in front of him. There must have been a hundred men, their bodies hidden beneath striped uniforms. The photograph would be useless.

“Which one of you is Julius Feuerstein?” asked Hochburg.

He tucked the file behind his back and walked down the ranks, his jackboots squelching. The Untersturmführer followed, along with a guard carrying a BK44.

“Dr. Julius R. Feuerstein. Born Vienna 1900, Marc Aurel Strasse. Attended the Akademisches Gymnasium and then Franz Josef school; top of your class in mathematics. Left 1915 to enlist but turned down because of your age. Traveled to Munich a month later and this time lied. Served three years with the Bavarian Army, Tenth Infantry Division. Wounded at the Battle of the Marne, awarded the Iron Cross, second class.”

Hochburg scrutinized the faces. None stirred; they were all bowed toward the mud, their shoulders slumped beneath sopping uniforms.

“Scholarship student at Munich University 1919, studied under Professor Somerfeld. Doctorate from Heidelberg 1927. Two years later, a professorship—till the Nuremberg Laws were introduced. Granted an exit visa to the United States 1938.” Hochburg glanced at the guards, took in their barbed-wire expressions and dripping rifles. “A wiser man would have used it. Interned Mauthausen 1941, then Trieste transit camp. Arrived Madagaskar July 1945.” Hochburg slipped the file inside his mac. “Married to Evelyn, and father of five.”

A decrepit Jew stepped out of rank as Hochburg passed.
“Apfelsaft,”
he said.

“What?”

“Apfelsaft.”
Apple juice.

Hochburg shoved him back in line. “I don’t have time to waste.”

The Jew stumbled, his hands vanishing to the wrist as he landed in the mud. “Give us our apple juice and I’ll tell you where the doctor is.”

Mumbles of dissent from the other Jews.

“What’s he talking about?” Hochburg asked the Untersturmführer.

“This one’s a troublemaker.”

The old Jew pushed himself up and stood half-hunched. “The JDC send us juice from America, but the guards steal it.” JDC: the Joint Distribution Committee, a Jewish organization that dispatched food and medicine to the island.

“Is that true, Untersturmführer?”

“We keep it as a reward. An incentive to make the prisoners work harder.”

Hochburg turned to the Jew. “Tell me who Feuerstein is and the apple juice will be yours.”

“Juice first.”

The Untersturmführer slapped the old Jew, knocking him back to the ground. “How dare you! Shall I have him whipped, Oberstgruppenführer?”

“Not today. Bring them their apple juice.”

When the Untersturmführer was gone, Hochburg lifted the Jew out of the mud; he was as flimsy as a girl. “Where is Feuerstein?”

“Don’t tell him, Papa.”

A boy stepped in front of the old man. Hochburg swiped his pistol from its holster and prodded it against the youth’s forehead. “A live Jew or a dead Jew, it makes no difference to me.” He swiveled his good eye back to the old man. “Where?”

A familiar pride flitted across his features. He whispered something to his son, then said, “I am Feuerstein.”

“You’re lying.”

“Look at your dossier. I refused my visa to America because it didn’t include my family. How could I know that?”

“An educated guess.”

“Why make it up?”

“Perhaps you think I’m here to save you.”

“Or murder me, like so many others.”

Hochburg looked at him more closely. “You’re too old to be Feuerstein.”

“This island would wither any man. I was born on the twenty-first of April, 1900.”

Hochburg checked the date. “The very same day as Governor Globocnik. He’s holding a party—perhaps you’ll be invited: the Jew of honor.” He motioned to the guard, and Feuerstein was led away.

So this striped sack of bones and sores was the man to change his fortunes. The man to help him win back Africa. Hochburg followed, watching the Jew move: his hunched gait, the way his arms swung loose like an ape’s. On his feet was a pair of brogues obese with mud, the soles flapping.

They headed toward the guards’ tents; the largest belonged to the Untersturmführer. Hochburg had ordered it cleared of everything except a table and two chairs. They entered through a flap. The interior was lit with lamps, the air dry and heady with kerosene. From the roof hung two dozen shaving mirrors, dangling on cords at face height. The scientist was unlikely to be biddable, so Hochburg wanted him to see the depths to which he had descended. It would foster compliance. A draft rolled through the open flap, rocking the mirrors. They clinked off each other, the sound reminding Hochburg of Eleanor and her wind chimes. Pendulums of half-reflected light skipped along the canvas.

Feuerstein gazed at the mirrors, reached out for one. Stilled it. He glanced at his image, angled his neck to examine his profile, but offered no reaction other than a passing grimace.

Hochburg commanded him to sit, then took the chair opposite. In the enclosed space the Jew stank, his soggy uniform radiating all the odors a body could produce. Hochburg thought back to the man’s photo: the spotless starch of his collar, hair slick and scented. How long had it been until the shame was nothing, till he no longer noticed smelling worse than a navvy’s pig? How long would any man take?

“
I have borne it with a patient shrug,
” he said,
“for sufferance is the badge of all our tribe
.”

“An educated Nazi,” replied the doctor. “Whatever next?”

Hochburg leaned forward, the leather of his raincoat creaking. “You speak bravely for a Jew.” His voice was low, intense. “I could have you shot for less—”

“At least you didn’t ask if I had hands, dimensions, passions.”

“You and every man out there.”

“But you won’t, Oberstgruppenführer.”

“Such confidence.”

“I know why you’re here. I knew that if I survived, eventually one of you would seek me out, no matter what your Führer says.”

“Go on.”

“There’s nothing for the guards to do here but beat us and gossip. We know about the war in Kongo, the victory of the British at Elisabethstadt.”

“We’re turning the tide,” said Hochburg defensively. “Stanleystadt is ours again; the rest of Africa will follow.”

“But you’re not convinced. The Reich has reached the edge of its power. Now you need more—why else would you be sitting opposite me?” There was a faint smirk on Feuerstein’s lips. “I refuse to help you.”

“Then you should help yourself.”

Hochburg whispered an instruction to the guard, who brought in a trolley laden with flasks and serving dishes, crockery, cutlery, and wads of napkins. “Leave us,” said Hochburg and lifted off the nearest lid. The aroma of roast chicken and ginger swirled around the tent.

Feuerstein made no effort to hide his contempt, or his hunger. “You think you can buy me with a plate of dinner?”

“Nothing so crude, Herr Doctor.”

“Unlike your mirrors. This is no revelation.” He tugged on a bristly jowl. “I’ve seen what I’ve become. Seen the reflection of a beast in puddles.” He folded his arms. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

Hochburg was silent for a long moment, the wet gauze of his bandage pressing against his eyelid. Above them, the rain beat on the canvas. “I’ve insulted your intelligence,” he said at last. “For that I apologize. But it’s no reason not to dine with me.”

Feuerstein’s eyes flicked over the dishes; the corners of his mouth oozed saliva.

Hochburg reached for the flask and filled a bowl with steaming water. He placed it before the scientist. “You will want to wash.”

The Jew slipped his fingers below the surface, closing his eyes in instinctive pleasure as they were enveloped in hot water. Then he remembered where he was and opened them with a jolt. The water had turned black. When he was finished, he withdrew his hands, chewed on a nail like a cat pulling a claw. Hochburg tossed him a napkin and served them on two plates: grilled rooster (its neck had been wrung upon Hochburg’s arrival), steamed rice, a salad of beetroot and tomatoes.

Feuerstein didn’t bother with the cutlery. He shoveled the food in with his hands, each mouthful a mess of sucking meat and clacking.

“Do Jews disgust you, Oberstgruppenführer? Do I disgust you?”

Hochburg took his fork, buried it in the other man’s rice, and ate.

Feuerstein laughed, splattering the table. “I’ve lived like this for ten years now, the last two on the roads. I’ve seen men much stronger than me fade in weeks. You know how I survived?”

Hochburg shook his head. “Intellect?”

“It’s worthless here. No, savagery. I realized I’m no longer a man: I’m an animal.” He took a drumstick and ripped the meat from it. “With all the primitive instincts animals have to survive.”

“Men can be as base.”

“Not like a beast.”

“And what is it you wish to survive for, Dr. Feuerstein?”

“My boy out there. To see my other children. Hold my wife.”

Hochburg chewed on his chicken—the meat was all leathery sinew—and decided to be frank. “When I was in Germany I spoke to a colleague of yours, Professor Mannkopff. I wanted information, something to coax you with. He said there would be no leverage with your family.”

“Once he was right,” replied the scientist. “They were the accessories of my position. But Madagaskar taught me more than university ever did.”

After that, Hochburg let him feast in silence. When Feuerstein finished, he began to lick his plate. Hochburg stopped him, piled on more food. He continued to eat ravenously till his hands dripped sauce and his beard was studded with rice.

“I want to save some for my son.”

Hochburg filled a napkin with the remaining chicken, cleared away the dinner things, and slid a box onto the table.

“They may be a little stale,” he said, opening the lid, “but I doubt you care.”

Feuerstein peered inside, putting his fingers to his lips. “Mannkopff talked a lot.”

“He sends his regards. He’s sorry for what happened to you.”

Feuerstein snorted and reached inside the box.

After Europe had been declared
Judenfrei,
there remained a taste for Jewish cuisine in Germania. Delicatessens served salt herring and hamantaschen with furtive glances; cholent was available from illicit nosheries. Hochburg had gone to a baker on a side street off the Ku’damm where it was rumored Göring sent his chauffeur to buy “Jew treats.” Dressed in black, he strode to the curtain at the rear of the shop, swished it aside, and descended to the basement. The girl at the counter had been shaking as she placed the
Mandelbrot,
almond biscuits, in the box. Hochburg was so amused he gave her a fifty-mark note and told her to keep the change.

The scientist chewed slowly, savored. “You’re wise enough to realize that biscuits are more persuasive than a fist, Oberstgruppenführer. But it won’t make any difference. I will not do it for you.”

“Surely you know you are going to die here. Not just you or your kith—every last Jew on this island. Humanity has abandoned you.”

“That may be so, but I don’t want the responsibility of destroying it.”

Hochburg thought he heard some of the man’s former arrogance. “Is it truly that powerful?”

Feuerstein fished out another biscuit. “Do you know why I started work on it? It was after Versailles. I remember our utter humiliation, the years that followed. I wanted us to be great again.”

Hochburg had never felt such bitterness toward the peace treaty; it had transferred Germany’s African colonies to Britain, which brought him to Eleanor. The carnage of the trenches was a fair price to pay for that.

“When I began my postgraduate research,” continued Feuerstein, “I soon understood the implication of what my generation was working on … It’s more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

Hidden at the back of the tent was an attaché case. Hochburg retrieved it, aware that he had little to threaten the Jew with. A human body—especially one as abused as Feuerstein’s—could endure only so much before it expired. Then he would be denied the one mind capable of developing this new weapon. Hitler had forbidden the pursuit of “Jewish physics”; most of the scientists Hochburg quizzed were ideologically bound to say it was impossible. Professor Mannkopff was a voice of dissent. He spoke of a secret program from the 1930s that was later canceled by Himmler; he believed that the Americans might be working on something similar. Although Mannkopff’s position excluded him from any further research, he had suggested Feuerstein as one of the few physicists gifted enough to deliver.

Hochburg removed a notebook from the case and placed it on the table. “Touch it,” he encouraged Feuerstein. “Feel it.”

The Jew’s fingers hovered over the leather, his face a bewilderment of emotions. “I … I want to clean them.” Hochburg poured him another basin of hot water; this time, Feuerstein methodically washed each digit.