The Keep

The cheeping of the hungry baby birds outside her window and the dull throb of pain in her left knee had awakened her this morning. She had found herself alone in her bed, fully clothed, under the covers. She had been so terribly vulnerable last night, and Gle

Magda cringed inside, unable to comprehend what had come over her, shocked by the memory of her own braze

Why should she feel slighted? She had never valued herself in terms of her ability to seduce a man. And yet, there was that nasty whisper in a far corner of her mind hinting that she lacked something.

But maybe it had nothing to do with her. It could be he was one of those ... those men who could not love a woman, only another man. But that, she knew, was not the case. She remembered their one kiss—even now it caused a wave of welcome heat to brush over her—and remembered the response she had felt on his part.

Just as well. Just as well he had not accepted her offer. How would she have faced him again if he had? Mortified by her wanto

Last night had been an aberration. A chance combination of circumstances that would not repeat itself. She realized now what had happened: Physical and emotional exhaustion, the near escape from the soldiers, the rescue by Molasar, Papa's rejection of her offer to stay by his side—all had combined to leave her temporarily deranged. That had not been Magda Cuza lying next to Gle

She had passed his room this morning, limping from the pain in her knee. She had been tempted to knock on his door to thank him for his aid and to apologize for her behavior. But after listening a minute and hearing no sound, she hadn't wanted to wake him.

She had come directly to the keep, not solely to see that Papa was well, but to tell him how much he had hurt her, how he had no right to treat her in such a ma

Then Papa appeared at the entrance to the tower with a soldier pushing his chair from behind. One look at his ravaged face and all the anger and hurt went out of her. He looked terrible; he seemed to have aged twenty years overnight. She hadn't thought it possible, but he looked more feeble.

How he has suffered! More than any man should. Pitted against his countrymen, his own body, and now the German Army. I can't side against him, too.

The soldier pushing him this morning was more courteous than the one who had wheeled him yesterday. He brought the wheelchair to a halt before Magda, then turned away. Wordlessly, she moved behind and began to push Papa across the causeway. They had not gone a dozen feet when he held up his hand.

"Stop here, Magda."

"What's wrong?" She didn't want to stop. She could still feel the keep here. Papa didn't seem to notice.

"I didn't sleep at all last night."

"Did they keep you up?" she asked, coming around to crouch before him, her fierce protective instincts kindling anger within her. "They didn't hurt you, did they?"

His eyes were rheumy as they looked into hers. "They didn't touch me, but they hurt me."

"How?"

He began speaking in the Gypsy dialect they both knew: "Listen to me, Magda. I've found out why the SS men are here. This is just a stop along their way to Ploiesti where that major is going to set up a death camp—for our people."

Magda felt a wave of nausea. "Oh, no! That's not true! The government would never let Germans come in and—"

"They are already here! You know the Germans have been building fortifications around the Ploiesti refineries; they've been training Romanian soldiers to fight. If they're doing all that, why is it so hard to believe that they intend to start teaching Romanians how to kill Jews? From what I can gather, the major is experienced in killing. He loves his work. He will make a good teacher. I can tell."

It couldn't be! And yet hadn't she also said that Molasar couldn't be? There had been stories in Bucharest about the death camps, whispered tales of the atrocities, of the countless dead; tales which at first no one believed, but as testimony piled upon testimony, even the most skeptical Jew had to accept. The Gentiles did not believe. They were not threatened. It was not in their interest—in fact it could well prove to their detriment—to believe.

"An excellent location," Papa said in a tired voice devoid of emotion. "Easy to get us there. And should one of their enemies try to bomb the oil fields, the resulting inferno would do the Nazis' job for them. And who knows? Perhaps the knowledge of the camp's existence might even cause an enemy to hesitate to bomb the fields, although I doubt it."

He paused, winded. Then: "Kaempffer must be stopped."

Magda shot to her feet, wincing at the pain in her knee. "You don't think you can stop him, do you? You'd be dead a dozen times over before you could even scratch him!"

"I must find a way. It's no longer just your life I worry about. Now it's thousands. And they all hang on Kaempffer."

"But even if something does ... stop him, they'll only send another in his place!"

"Yes. But that will take time, and any delay is in our favor. Perhaps in the interval Russia will attack the Germans, or vice versa. I can't see two mad dogs like Hitler and Stalin keeping away from each other's throats for too long. And in the ensuing conflict perhaps the Ploiesti Camp will be forgotten."

"But how can the major be stopped?" She had to make Papa think, make him see how crazy this was.

"Perhaps Molasar."

Magda was unwilling to believe what she had just heard. "Papa, no!"

He held up a cotton-gloved hand. "Wait, now. Molasar has hinted that he might use me as an ally against the Germans. I don't know how I could be of service to him, but tonight I'll find out. And in return I'll ask that he be sure to put a stop to Major Kaempffer."

"But you can't deal with something like Molasar! You can't trust him not to kill you in the end!"

"I don't care for my own life. I told you, there's more at stake here. And besides, I detect a certain rough honor in Molasar. You judge him too harshly, I think. You react to him as a woman and not as a scholar. He is a product of his times, and they were bloodthirsty times. Yet he has a sense of national pride that has been deeply offended by the very presence of the Germans. I may be able to use that. He thinks of us as fellow Wallachians and is better disposed toward us. Didn't he save you from the two Germans you blundered into last night? He could just as easily have made you a third victim. We must try to use him! There's no alternative."

Magda stood before him and searched for another option. She could not find one. And although she was repelled by it, Papa's scheme did offer a glimmer of hope. Was she being too hard on Molasar? Did he seem so evil because he was so different, so implacably other? Could he be more of an elemental force than something consciously evil? Wasn't Major Kaempffer a better example of a truly evil being? She had no answers. She was groping.