Read The Madagaskar Plan Online
Authors: Guy Saville
Burton placed the picture in the woman’s hand, closed her fingers round it, and rested it on her chest. There was one other thing he wanted to know.
“Maddie was pregnant. What happened to the baby?”
“She had twins.”
“Twins.” He experienced a moment of elation that was gone in a heartbeat. His joy would be lifeless until his fingers were entwined between Maddie’s again. “Boys, girls? What happened to them?”
“That’s for Madeleine to tell.”
She closed her eyes to avoid any more questions.
There was a gurgle of thunder, and one of the horses whinnied. Burton slipped out his Beretta.
Jacoba’s eyes opened. “You will bury me,” she said.
“I have to catch up with Madeleine.”
“Please. I don’t want to be carrion.”
“I promise,” Burton lied.
She closed her eyes and let herself drift, her breathing shallow but steady and refusing to dwindle. Burton leveled his Beretta at her temple, flicked off the safety, and averted his face. It would be instant, painless. The only bit of luck that matters, Patrick used to say.
He remained there for several moments, his finger the tiniest squeeze from firing. He was thinking about his children and the two half brothers he’d never known from his father’s first marriage: they had been identical twins. As a boy he used to marvel at the photo of them in Father’s study. Their symmetry was uncanny, miraculous; Burton demanded to know where his duplicate was. Something hereditary had passed this on to Madeleine. A knot deep inside him relaxed, one he hadn’t been fully aware of. It was physical proof that Cranley had lied when he said the baby was his.
Burton released the trigger without firing.
Tünscher was under the mango tree, next to the horses, rattling his packet of Bayerweeds. His skin looked paler, his lips gray; shadows ringed his eyes.
“The shot will make too much noise,” said Burton lamely. “It might bring someone.”
Tünscher sighed. “You lousy bastard.”
He snatched the Beretta from Burton’s hand and stepped into the gloom. Moments later there was a single gunshot. He returned with a cigarette wedged miserably in his mouth.
Neither of them spoke. They watched the final mustard streaks of the day fade. The horses grazed behind them, swishing their tails. When Tünscher had finished his Bayerweed, he peered despondently into the packet. “Only two more left.”
“And when they’re gone?”
He sank into his uniform. “Things are going to be worse.”
Nachtstadt
20 April, 20:15
A TOTENBURG STOOD on the hilltop above Nachtstadt. Designed by Wilhelm Kreis in 1942 as victory beckoned, memorials to the German dead like this one were scattered across the breadth of the Reich, honoring those who had fallen in the locality. Each one was identical, no matter whether it was driven into the permafrost or had to be swept clear of sand every day: four granite towers, thirty meters tall, chiseled with the names of the fallen, set in a square enclosing either a bronze obelisk or a pillar topped with a bowl of eternal fire. After the first rebellion, Globocnik insisted that every soldier who had sacrificed his life in Madagaskar be immortalized in stone.
Madeleine was woken by hushed arguing, like those low voices she occasionally heard in Hampstead and believed it was her duty not to eavesdrop on. She had been dozing beneath one of the towers. She sat up, her shoulder numb. There was a hint of barbecued meat in the air. From the valley below came accordion music and raucous, drunken laughter.
“… it’s that or nothing,” said her brother. “I can’t let her go alone.” He meant to sound uncompromising, but she picked up on the desperation in his voice. Madeleine wondered if Salois heard it, too.
“We have to draw in the Americans,” he replied. “Especially with what happened to the Ark, and now Antzu. Diego is the only way.”
“I don’t doubt it; I wish I’d had the idea myself. But I can’t fight for the island if it means turning from my own.”
“We both know what it means if she goes to Mandritsara.”
“You try and stop her.”
“Your sister’s a brave woman,” said Salois.
“She always got her own way, even as a girl.”
Madeleine joined them. They were crouched by some rocks overlooking the farm. The sky continued to flare with lightning, though no rain fell.
“We’re not going to Diego,” said Abner.
She glanced from him to Salois. “I gave my word.”
“We’ll never cover the ground from Diego to Mandritsara in time. If you want your children, we have to leave tonight.”
“And the boat? We need to escape after. That was the promise.”
She had quizzed Salois about the boat before sleeping. It was a cargo vessel sailing from Singapore to Durban, South Africa. In five days it would approach Kap Ost, send out a distress signal, and make a rapid detour into German waters, coming right up to the Rings of Madagaskar before steaming away on its original course.
“Find me the explosives,” said Salois, “and we’re even. There’ll be a place for you. Both of you.”
Madeleine was flooded with inarticulate gratitude. She grasped his hand and squeezed; it felt like winter. To her surprise, he squeezed back. Something passed between them, she couldn’t explain what. It wasn’t charity or friendship or even pity, simply a moment of human connection.
“What’s your first name?” she asked him.
“Reuben.”
He let go, dragged over his rucksack, and shared out the bread he’d taken from the synagogue. Madeleine tore off a chunk and ate hungrily. It had a faint tang of canvas, but Hochburg had been right: it tasted good.
Salois chewed and surveyed Nachtstadt. Men were singing along with the accordion, their voices hoarse and out of tune. “Where are the explosives?”
“Down there,” replied Abner around a mouthful. “Among the swine. It’s one of the biggest herds on the island.” He gulped down the bread. “Do you know what
Madagaskar
means?”
“The island of wild pigs,” replied Madeleine. She had discovered it during her days scouring books and articles for details about her family’s fate.
Abner flicked her an irritated, you’re-such-a-know-it-all look.
At the base of the hill, contained by wire, were several hectares of mud and row upon row of pens, some with corrugated tin roofs, the majority thatched. Thousands of pigs snuffled around them, their hides ghostly against the dirt. Beyond the animals was another fence and the industrial sector of the farm: barracks for the workers, a veterinary hospital, barns and sheds and an assortment of other buildings, one topped with antennae. A lamp on the tallest aerial blinked red.
“Where do they slaughter them?” asked Madeleine. She didn’t recognize any of the meat-processing facilities she was familiar with from the abattoir.
“It’s not done on-site. They’re transported to a factory in Tana. From there, I heard, the meat goes to Europe.” Abner indicated a pair of water towers at the far end of the facility, where the camp merged into the darkness; beneath them were two parallel threads of steel. “It’s a spur,” he told Salois. “It leads to the main Tana–Diego line, so you can pick up your train.”
“How far?”
“From here? Five kilometers.”
Salois nodded, absorbing the layout below.
“What about the party?” said Abner.
“It’ll help. I can’t see many guards.”
At the farthest point from the pigs, separated from the rest of Nachtstadt by a brick wall, was a cluster of houses and living quarters built around a cheerily lit square. Madeleine could make out red bunting, a spit roast, and trestle tables laden with bottles and steins of beer. Men were drinking and dancing.
While Salois continued to familiarize himself with the farm, Madeleine went to check on the horses. They were tethered behind one of the granite towers and more important than ever if she and Abner were going to ride to Mandritsara. She made sure the knots were secure, then peered into the darkness, half-expecting Jacoba to appear. When she had insisted they search for her, Abner’s response was callous but true. Every minute spent looking for Jacoba was a minute she denied her children.
Madeleine hoped her friend had simply become separated from them and headed back to Antzu, all the while knowing that she must have fallen, maybe “gone to America.” Like with so much she’d experienced on Madagaskar, the only way to cope with this was to deny her heart. The lack of security and sanitation wasn’t the only way the Nazis had stripped millions of their humanity. She swore to tattoo Jacoba’s number on her unmarked wrist.
Before she returned to the others, Madeleine squatted by one of the towers and urinated. There had been a time when she had been unable to go in the presence of other people, even Burton. The abattoir had changed that. Now she let out a steady stream, taking pleasure in pissing on the SS dead.
A crude flight of steps had been carved into the hillside, from the farm to the Totenburg. The three of them descended, skirting the perimeter fence, until Abner told them to stop. An infrequent searchlight roamed the darkness.
“It’s been a while since I was here,” he said. “I need to check things.”
He bolted into the darkness while Madeleine and Salois pressed themselves against the dirt, their shoulders touching. Drunken roars drifted through the air. Madeleine was thinking about the names she had just defiled, unable to explain the shame creeping over her. Salois kept still, so still that Madeleine felt an irrational fright that he had stopped breathing.
“Why did you change your mind?” she whispered. “About needing my help.” She wanted proof that he was alive as much as an answer.
“I had a child once.”
“What happened?”
He looked at her with eerie eyes, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I never even held him. It’s not right to know that emptiness. That’s why you should go to Mandritsara.”
She had the urge to reach out for him again but kept her fingers in the ground. “You’re the first person not to warn me off.”
Abner returned and guided them along the fence to a ditch choked with vegetation. He parted the foliage to reveal a drainage pipe barely wide enough to squeeze through.
“The workers are mostly convicts,” he said, “or from the Eastern Sector. But over the years a few Vanillas have ended up here, too. One of them escaped and told us about this. We’ve been using it since.”
“Why not somewhere easier?” asked Madeleine.
“The Jupo. They kept finding our stores and destroying them, to stop the rebellion. They’d never think of searching here.”
Salois went first, driving his rucksack ahead of him, then Madeleine. A stream of water flowed through the pipe; Madeleine thought it might carry anything—snakes, rats. She took a deep breath, keeping her chin high and eyes fixed in front, and squirmed through the sludge. Her dress was black when she emerged on the other side.
“At least you’re camouflaged,” said Salois as he helped her up.
They were on the other side of the fence, among the pigpens, the air caustic with shit. Abner waded ankle-deep among the sties, checking for a sign the way he had on the approach to Antzu, until he ducked inside one. Madeleine and Salois followed, stooping beneath the corrugated roof. A huge sow lay in the corner; she watched them with a glistening eye and looked so sad Madeleine wanted to stroke her.
Abner stamped on the ground, his boots squelching with every footfall until there was a hollow bang. He knelt, clearing straw and muck away. “Another reason why we use this
nachtstadt
”—his nose was screwed up against the smell—“no Nazi is going to root around in this.”
He eased up a trapdoor to reveal a damp cavity that concealed four tea chests. Abner lifted the first lid—empty—then the second and found a case of dynamite. He broke it open, handing a bundle over to Salois. “Still dry,” he said.
A strenuous satisfaction tightened Salois’s face. He glanced down at the crate; it was stenciled in Gothic German letters. “You said the British supplied you.”
“They do. But imagine what would happen if they were caught. That’s why they use this Wehrmacht stuff.”
Salois placed the dynamite in his rucksack while Madeleine helped her brother unload the rest. Her eyes watered; her chest was constricted. The stench and sounds of the pigs brought back the comatose grief of the abattoir and the fear that she would never escape. Abner asked if she was okay; she nodded unconvincingly.
“It’s not enough,” said Salois when they had transferred all the explosives.
Abner checked the other crates. In the third were some old rifles (no ammunition); the fourth was empty. “There are other stores,” he said closing the trapdoor and covering it with straw.
They returned outside, Abner creeping forward, checking the sties till he found whatever informed him of the treasures within. He banged the hollow ground and lifted another trapdoor.
Salois remained outside, gazing toward the building with the aerials. “I need to use the radio. To contact my other team.”
Abner tutted. “Too risky.”
“It’s a chance I have to take.”
“What about the rest of the dynamite?”
“I need the same amount again. Then meet me by the railway.”
“Take Leni.” Her head was tilted to the clouds, counting the beats between the lightning flashes and thunder; she sucked in fresh air. “You’ll need someone to keep an eye out.”
The two of them bent low, using the pigs as cover, and made for the fence that divided the livestock from the rest of the farm. The stench was still intolerable, but Madeleine was relieved to be moving. There was a metal gate in the fence with a hut and a single guard pacing outside. As they approached, Salois pushed her to the ground and sneaked round the sentry box from behind.
A deep rumble of thunder rolled across the sky. Madeleine expected the first drops of rain to hit her face. Nothing. When she looked back, the guard was gone. Salois beckoned her with a bloody hand. They slipped through the gate—Salois careful to close it behind them—and onto a rutted track. On one side was a line of barns, on the other a razor-wire fence and the workers’ barracks. They kept tight against the barns until Salois stopped unexpectedly.