The Madagaskar Plan (26 page)

In the dingy light of the train’s toilet, Madeleine flowed with sweat. She was wearing the factory uniform of sallow-gray pajamas; on her feet were the hobnailed boots she’d stolen from one of the Polish workers. They were a size too big and she had no socks, but they were stout enough to take her miles. She was hacking into the urine-soaked planks around the hole. If she could cut through two of them, she’d be able to pry up the others and get under the railcar.

The first slat had almost given way when someone tried to open the curtain. Madeleine cursed Jacoba, who was supposed to be keeping watch, and grasped the screen.

“You going to be much longer?” asked a man’s voice.

“I’ve got the shits,” she replied, startled by her own ferocity.

“You’re not the only one.” Beneath the curtain she saw a pair of bopping feet with twisted black nails.

“Give me a couple minutes.”

Her arm pumped more vigorously. She sucked in mouthfuls of stinking air and ignored the blots in her vision. The last thing to pass her lips had been a bowl of broth so meager she’d counted the rice in it, all twenty-three grains; that had been hours ago. The knife continued its creeping journey through the wood. Madeleine had lifted it from the factory; it had a serrated edge and was meant for pig flesh, not three-inch timber. Her palm was blistering. Beyond the curtain, she heard the desperate pad of feet.

When she judged that she’d cut enough of the second slat, she released the blade from the wood and yanked at the board. After the first tug it gave easily; another plank and she would be free. She removed it and eagerly stared down at the ground below: the rush of crossties, the smell of damp stones and steel.

The wood slipped through her fingers and bounced on the filthy floor. The bottom of the railcar was reinforced with a row of iron bars. Even a child wouldn’t be able to squeeze between them. A deadening crept through her, a deep despondency like the one that had overcome her two nights earlier, in the abattoir.

Madeleine never knew if it was spontaneous or long planned. There had been no whisperings in the barracks after lights-out, despite rumors of revolt elsewhere on the island. Her first sense that her escape might be jeopardized was when the alarms started to shriek. From somewhere in the factory came the ring of single gunshots; later, shouting and automatic weapons. Soldiers arrived at the chutes—agitated, screaming—and ordered the workers to the parade square. Already Madeleine was cursing whoever was responsible for this nonsense; in the coming days the guards would be more vigilant.

They stayed in the square all night, beneath curtains of drenching rain. At dawn there were two volleys of gunfire in quick succession; a helicopter arrived. Madeleine and the hundreds of other workers continued to sit outside through a magic lantern of sunshine, downpours, and stars. Next morning, before the sun rose, they were herded through the factory to the transport pens where the pigs and cattle arrived. An empty livestock train waited for them.

Madeleine replaced the floorboards. She hoped the guards would think it too demeaning to check the shithole. If not, she would accuse one of the Poles. The ease with which she blamed others continued to shock her. Whenever she felt guilty, she heard Burton encouraging her: survival had its own rules.

“Hurry up!” pleaded the voice beyond the curtain.

Madeleine dropped her trousers and tied the knife to her inner thigh. Smuggling the weapon on board the train had been a risk. Some guards were repulsed by frisking Jews; others groped with a dedication the Reichsführer would not have extolled. She pulled the waistband back up and sedately opened the curtain. Outside was an old man, clutching his belly. He resembled one of her father’s colleagues from the clinic, except tatty and starved.

“Sorry,” she said and let him pass before making her way to Jacoba.

The cattle car was misty with the coughing and sneezing of two nights in the rain. Jacoba lolled beneath one of the high grilled windows that let in ventilation and a wan light. She was fanning herself with a large reed hat and wore her usual look of repulsion; she hated being close to so many bodies. “You were gone a long time. Gripes again?”

“I wasn’t using the toilet.”

A sigh. “Do you remember bathrooms? I mean proper ones, a lavatory seat that was your own and a bath—wallowing up to your neck in water. Hot water!”

Jacoba shifted on the floor, making a space for Madeleine—but she didn’t take it. She stood on tiptoe and stared out the window. Through the bars she saw a valley crowned with hills and knee-deep grass. Several hours earlier, they had passed Tana and she’d glimpsed the governor’s palace, white as a sugar cube, atop the city’s highest hill. After that she counted the miles till she figured they must be in the Mandritsara region. That’s when she hurried to the toilet, the knife rubbing against her thighs.

Mandritsara: the constant, aching void in her. Mandritsara: the hospital where her babies had been stolen..

Madeleine grabbed the bars and rattled them, tears scalding her eyes. Then a voice from above:

“Was machst du da, Jüdin?”

A hatch in the ceiling opened, letting in drizzle. Blocking the sky was a guard in a khaki-spotted poncho, aiming his rifle at her. Each car had a soldier riding on the roof, in addition to the contingent of troops at the rear of the train. Madeleine had glimpsed their car as she shuffled on board: wide windows revealing padded seats, baskets of fruit, a steaming canteen. The scent of coffee and warm milk tortured her stomach.

The guard flicked the muzzle of his rifle.
“Abstand halten.
”

Madeleine wanted him to pull the trigger, to be embraced by the same darkness that had swallowed Burton. Then she heard the wail of her babies fading down a hospital corridor and she uncurled her fingers from the bars. She stepped back, made a display of her open hands, and slumped to the floor.

“You look like you’ve got a fever,” said Jacoba, flapping her hat in Madeleine’s direction.

Fetid wafts of air cooled her face. She thought she had been so clever, waiting for Führertag to escape. “I should have gone as soon as I was ready,” she said bitterly. “I’d be free now.”

“I’m glad you didn’t. Imagine being on this stinking train alone.”

Madeleine glared at the woman opposite. She had no idea how old Jacoba was—too old to bear any more children. She had a witch’s chin, made sharper by emaciation, and a tobacco-croaky voice, though she couldn’t have smoked in years. Cigarettes were banned for Jews: the Nazis didn’t want them to benefit from their soothing effects in the humid air.

“We’re heading north,” continued Jacoba, “which means the Sofia Reservation. I’ve heard it’s easy enough if you keep your head down. We can live together, keep an eye out for each other.” She glanced around the train car. “Because none of these Poles will.”

“I’m going to escape.”

“Not from the reservations. That’s why they’re sending us there.”

“What about your daughter, getting back to Antzu?”

“They call this railway the ‘Line of Fates.’ It decides where you’re taken, who lives or dies. What your future holds.” Jacoba rubbed a filthy sleeve across her nose. “Perhaps I’m not meant to see my daughter again.”

“The Nazis worship fate. I never have. I’m not giving up.”

“You’re kidding yourself,” replied Jacoba softly. “Wherever you break out, you’re still in Madagaskar. The sooner you accept it, Madeleine, the sooner every one of us accepts it, the simpler life will be. There’s no way off this island.”

Madeleine didn’t want to speak after that. If Jacoba tried to reminisce—about Berlin or the apple macaroons she used to bake—she ignored her. Even when Jacoba mentioned her husband—he’d been a horse trainer, had died in 1932 and been spared the future—Madeleine met her with silence.

She gazed at the blank steel sky, her mind creeping toward her babies but not daring to imagine what might have happened to them. She thought of Alice and was ashamed of the crushing realization that the twins meant more: they were the reliquary of all she had treasured with Burton.
They. Them
. She hated thinking of her own children as nameless bundles of newborn flesh and screams. Never before had she appreciated how a few letters gave substance to the soul.

During their final morning together, before Burton left for Africa, they had discussed what to call the baby. To her surprise, Madeleine had slept deeply, waking only as Burton slipped out of bed. She sensed that he had watched the dawn break.

“Burton?” she called after him.

“You sleep.”

She put on her nightgown and followed him downstairs, to the chilly kitchen. In Hampstead it was the domain of the servants, a room she rarely visited. Soon all her mornings would begin here. She found the thought humbling and wholesome. Burton made them breakfast: toast and butter, quince jam from the pantry, black coffee from Kamerun. Jared refused to have German groceries in the house; Madeleine approved except for coffee. The Germans were better at it, the Nazis’ one contribution to the world. The only time she drank
Kaffee aus Deutsch-Afrika
was at the farm.

Burton was gazing at her.

“Are you sure you’re happy about the baby?” she asked.

He nodded.

She saw gold in his eyes, hesitant but happy. When she’d been pregnant with Alice, her excitement had been cautious. Carrying Burton’s child filled her with dance and birdsong. “What about names?”

“Depends if it’s a girl or a boy.”

“A girl,” said Madeleine. “I want another girl.”

Burton paused. Laughed apologetically. “I can’t think. What about you?”

“I like Calliope. For the muse of poetry—it means beautiful face.”

“What if she inherits my looks?”

“Or Josephine. Or maybe we could name her after your mother,” she said. “Or your father if it’s a boy.”

Burton’s voice was quiet: “No.”

“How about Jane?” She knew how much he loved the Tarzan films. “Or … or…” She couldn’t summon a single other name.

He offered his hand across the table and she took it, their fingers interlacing. The kitchen grew brighter, the August morning streaming through the windows. Eventually Burton stood and made his way upstairs. Madeleine heard floorboards creaking, the flush of the toilet, the clock in the hallway striking six. It was ten minutes fast; Burton could never get it to keep time. Such ordinary sounds, and yet that morning, each one made her heart shrink. Then another noise, something unfamiliar.

Whump
.

Madeleine strode to the hallway. Through the window she could see a car approaching, black as a hearse.

“My ride,” said Burton from behind her. “I’m going to get Patrick. He’ll watch my back, make sure I get home.”

She threw her arms around him, hugged him till she knew it was hurting.
Calliope,
he whispered,
it’s beautiful
. Burton had brushed his teeth, and when she briefly tasted his mouth, the mint burned. All her reasoning against going to Kongo and killing Hochburg shrieked in her chest again. That neither the truth about his mother nor revenge mattered.

“Mummy!”

Alice was between their legs, tugging at her nightdress. Her daughter’s face was blotted with sleep.

“Elli and Cally,” said Burton, forcing the joke. “Heaven help us.” He squeezed her hand, then moved to the door. “I’ll be back on the eighteenth. I promise.”

After that, Madeleine’s memories grew indistinct. Their parting words were lost in a haze; she couldn’t recall her final glimpse of him. All she remembered was watching the empty driveway for what seemed like hours, trying to convince herself that he would be safe but hoping he’d change his mind, that any moment the black car would trundle back into view. Sunlight pressed coldly against her; Alice told her not to cry. Standing there, she couldn’t fathom his need to go to Africa and chase ghosts. Such inconsolable vengeance was a mystery to her.

Only now did she understand why he wanted to own Hochburg’s last breath.

On the train, Madeleine squeezed her thighs together and felt the rough handle of the knife. Despite Jacoba’s warning, she planned to find a way to Mandritsara and to escape this accursed island. Then one day she would stand before Jared Cranley again, knife in her hand. And bury the hilt between his ribs.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

16:00

MADELEINE WAS HURLED forward. Other bodies flailed around her in the gloom. Shouts of panic. There was a long, sparking screech of train wheels. For several seconds Madeleine was squashed into Jacoba’s bony chest; then the forward momentum slackened and she tumbled backward.

The train shuddered and stopped. Silence except for the wheezing beat of the engine.

From the roof came the thud of boots, guards yelling. Madeleine struggled to stand and pressed her face against the window bars. They were in a valley: rugged hills with taller peaks in the distance, a scattering of mango trees. It was no longer raining, though the sky remained dark.

“What’s going on?” asked Jacoba, picking herself up. She swatted the air around her with her hat. Others were crowding around the grille to look outside. A solid reek of sweat-stained uniforms.

Madeleine ducked as troops sprinted past on the ground below. “Something’s blocked the track,” she whispered. “I can’t see what.” She heard the splatter of more boots dashing to the front of the train. Then a voice, feeble and blood-spotted:

Don’t stop! It’s an ambush!

Madeleine’s eyes darted round the cattle truck. “Danuta,” she said. “Come here.”

Danuta was one of the orphan girls who had shared the same barrack block with Madeleine in the abattoir. Five hundred women crammed into a space fifty meters by eight. The first night Madeleine lay there was the only time she wished she hadn’t met Burton Cole; that when they had gone to Germania and discussed the future, she had jilted both their hopes. She yearned to be curled up in the snowy down of her sheets in Hampstead, grateful for everything Jared had given her. Mosquitoes drilled in her ears; her back was hard against solid slats. And all around, the ceaseless coughing and snoring and corkscrewing of so many bodies that she thought she’d never sleep again. (After a few weeks, she dropped easily into unconsciousness.) With so many women left childless, Danuta was a favorite, always being given extra scraps of food; Jacoba was teaching her German. She was a few years older than Alice, with a boy’s crew cut and eyes as wide and watchful as an owl’s. Madeleine rarely spoke to the girl; she found it too painful.