He would sleep comfortably tonight as he did every night, his conscience clear. He felt his eyelids growing heavy when he was surprised to hear the door opening again. He looked across the gloom of the chamber. She stood there silhouetted against the darkness.
“Barbara?”
2
SHE CAME FORWARD after locking the door behind her. As she drew closer to the bed he could see that she was wearing only a cotton robe that barely covered her thighs and dipped low around the chest. Her tanned skin peeked out at him from several angles, except at the flap of the robe. There he could see the paleness of her revealed hip. She had loosened her hair and now it swept around her shoulders. She was also barefoot.
She slipped onto the bed next to him.
“Barbara?” he said, his heart beginning to beat faster. “What are you doing here?”
“I know you want me,” she said in German. “I can see it in your eyes.”
He whimpered as she took his hand and drew it inside the folds of her robe, near her breasts. “But I’m an old man, I can’t satisfy you. I… I can’t.”
“I will help you. We’ll take it nice and slow.”
“But the guard? He’s outside the door. I don’t want him to…”
She gently stroked his head. “I told him it was your birthday and I was your present.” She smiled. “I told him to give us two hours, at least.”
“But my birthday isn’t for another month.”
“I couldn’t wait.”
“But I can’t do it. I do want you, Barbara, but I am too old. Too damn old.”
She drew closer, touched him where he hadn’t been touched for decades. He moaned. “Don’t do this to me. I tell you it won’t work.”
“I’m patient.”
“But why would you want me?”
“You’re a very rich and powerful man. And I can see that you were once very handsome.”
He seized on this statement. “I was. I was. I have a picture.”
“Show me,” she said. “Show me,” she moaned into his ear as she moved his hand up and down inside her robe.
He pressed the panel, extracted the photo, and handed it to her.
Her gaze lingered over the image of him and Adolf Hitler. “You look like a hero. Were you a hero?”
“I did my job,” he said dutifully. “I did what was asked of me.”
“I’m sure you were very good at it.”
“I’ve never shown that picture to anyone else. No one.”
“I am flattered. Now lie back.”
He did so and she straddled him, unloosening her robe so he could see her body more fully. She also removed the call device from around his neck.
He started to protest.
“We don’t want the buttons to be pushed accidentally,” she said, holding it away from him. She bent down so her breasts were close to his face. “We don’t want to be interrupted.”
“Yes, you are right. No interruptions.”
She reached in her pocket and held up a pill. “I brought you this to take. It will help with that.” She motioned to his crotch.
“But I don’t know if I should. My other medications-”
Her voice dipped still lower. “You will last for hours. You will make me scream.”
“God, if I only could.”
“All you have to do is swallow this.” She held up the small pill. “And then take me.”
“Will the pill really work?” In his excitement a bit of spittle appeared on his lips.
“It has never let me down before. Now take it.”
She handed it to him, poured out a glass of water from a carafe on the nightstand, and watched as he swallowed the pill and greedily slurped down the water.
“Is it getting bigger?” he asked eagerly.
“Patience. And in the meantime I have something to show you.” From the pocket of her robe she pulled out a slim camera. It was the one that had been tossed to and caught by Barbara at her window when the power had gone off and the security system had disarmed.
“Barbara, I feel funny.”
“It is nothing to worry about.”
“Call the doctor to come in. Press the button for him. Do it now.”
“It is fine. It’s merely the effects of the pill.”
“But I can’t feel my body. And my tongue-”
“It feels large? My goodness. The pill must be working on your tongue and not on your other part. I will have to register a complaint with the manufacturer.”
The old man gurgled loudly. He tried to point to his mouth but his limbs wouldn’t work anymore. “Push the but-”
She moved the call device farther away and pulled her robe tight, cinching it up. She settled next to him. “Now, here are the pictures I want you to see.”
She turned on the camera. On the small screen an old black-and-white photo of a face appeared.
“This young boy was David Rosenberg,” she explained, pointing to the youthful but gaunt face on the screen; the hollow cheeks and glassy eyes indicated that death was not far away. “He never made it to his bar mitzvah. Did you know that before you ordered his death, Herr Colonel Huber? He was already past thirteen, but of course in the camps Jewish rites of passage were not observed.”
The old man continued to quietly gurgle, his terrified gaze still on the photo.
Barbara pressed a button and a young woman’s face appeared on the camera screen. She said, “This is Frau Helen Koch. She was killed by a rifle bullet to the belly fired by you before your first cigarette of the morning. By all accounts she only suffered for a mere three hours before expiring while your men kept back all attempts at aid by her fellow Jews. In fact, you killed two people that morning, since Frau Koch was pregnant.”
While the rest of his body remained immobile, the old man’s fingers started to claw the covers. His gaze was on the call device, but though it was only two feet away, he couldn’t reach it. She tilted his chin back and held it there so he had to gaze at the screen.
“You have to focus, Colonel. You remember Frau Koch, don’t you? Don’t you? And David Rosenberg? Don’t you!”
He finally blinked his assent.
“I would show you the pictures of the other people you condemned to death, but since there are over a hundred thousand of them, we don’t have time.” She pulled a photo from the pocket of her robe. “I took this from the frame on the piano in your beautiful library.” She held the picture in front of his face. “We found your son and daughter and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren. All these innocent people. You see their faces. Just like David Rosenberg and Helen Koch and all the others. If I had time I’d tell you in exact detail how each will die tonight. In fact, seven of them already have been butchered simply because of their connection to you. You see, Herr Colonel, we wanted to make certain that there were no monsters left to reproduce.”
He started to cry, his mouth making little mewing sounds.
“Good, good, tears of joy, Herr Colonel, I’m sure. Maybe they will think our sex is so good you cry. Now it’s time to go to sleep, but keep your eyes on the picture. Don’t look away. It is your family after all.” When he closed his eyes, she slapped his face, forcing his eyes open. She leaned down and whispered into his ear in another language.
His eyes widened.
“Do you recognize it, Herr Huber? It’s Yiddish. You heard that phrase often in the camps, I’m sure. But in case you never knew the translation, it means, ‘Rot in hell.’ ”
She placed a pillow over his nose and mouth but did not cover his eyes, so he could see his doomed family as his last image during life. She pushed down with considerable strength. The old man could do nothing as his oxygen vanished. “This is a far easier way to die than you deserve,” she said as the pump of his lungs quickened, seeking air that wasn’t there.