“ Bist du fertig?” Ritter used the familiar mode of address, the way one would speak to a child. “I hope you are ready, that you’re done fiddling around with that device. We’ve all waited long enough.”
Pavli nodded quickly, as he rotated the take-up spool until the film had tautened snug inside the camera body. He made the adjustments to the lens and shutter, estimating the brightness of the overhead windows’ light by the edge of the shadows cast upon the floor. One of the guards shoved the first naked Lazarene into place.
“Hands at your side,” instructed Ritter. “Turn your wrists outward so the markings may be seen.”
The Lazarene complied, maintaining his dignity by the lack of expression on his face. In the camera’s mirrored viewfinder, Pavli adjusted the upside-down image until it was precisely centered, then cocked and triggered the shutter. He breathed a small prayer, hoping that his skills hadn’t left him, that he’d remembered all his uncle had taught him. That the picture would come out perfectly exposed and in focus, and precisely what Herr Doktor Ritter wanted…
“Turn and face the other wall.” Ritter’s voice sounded behind Pavli. “Raise your arm above your head.”
The stigma of Christ’s wound, the cut of a Roman centurion’s lance rendered in blue ink, was revealed upon the Lazarene’s ribs. Pavli advanced the film and took another shot.
“Bring the next one forward.”
His hands, his fingers, became things separate from him. Clever things, that went about their business as he watched from a greater and greater distance. They would serve him well; they would save him. They were useful, at least; Herr Doktor Ritter would see that.
“Turn…”
The line of naked men shuffled forward, their bare feet making tiny noises against the slick floor. In silence, without protest, as though their cooperation were the price of the contract into which they had entered. They merely had to do as they were ordered, and a thread of hope was extended to them.
“The next one…”
Pavli didn’t hope. He dreamed as he let his hands go on automatically with their tasks. He dreamed even as his brother’s face, inverted, appeared in the camera’s viewfinder. His thumb tripped the shutter.
Hours later, he saw his brother’s face again, the image of Matthi standing unclothed and somber-faced, slowly emerging in a shallow pan of chemicals in the darkroom. When the photograph had finished developing, Pavli lifted it out with a set of wooden tongs and hung it on the thin line with the others.
In the room’s red light, Herr Doktor Ritter inspected the photos. He nodded with satisfaction. “These will do very well indeed.” He turned to the Scharfuhrer beside him. “As soon as the boy is finished, take him down to the men’s dormitory. He’s earned his rest.”
The hallway outside the room had been kept completely dark. Ritter paused as he opened the door, directing his thin smile back to Pavli at the workbench. “You’ve saved me the trouble, and the delay, of having another photographer sent to this project. Your continued efforts will not go unappreciated.” He stepped out and closed the door behind him.
Pavli put the developing chemicals back onto the darkroom’s shelves, working carefully and taking his time. Until he could delay no longer, and he had to let the single remaining guard take him back to where the other Lazarene men were sleeping.
He heard a key turn in the lock behind him, and the echoes of the guard’s heavy boots retreating down the corridor. His fatigue and the thin cold light of stars and moon sliding through the high, barred windows told him that the time was well past midnight. All he could see were rows of bunk beds, each with a human form beneath thin blankets. Snoring, muttering, the protests and entreaties of those mired in dreaming. Despite those sounds, he knew that some of them were awake; he could feel their unseen gaze turning toward him, heads lifting from pillows to study him, to mark the one who had fallen even farther from their number.
“Pavli…” His brother’s whisper slid through the low noises. He saw a hand silhouetted in moonlight, beckoning to him. Silently, he made his way through the narrow spaces between the beds.
“Here.” Matthi reached out and took hold of his forearm. “You can sleep next to me.”
He sat down on the edge of a thin, hard mattress and rubbed his legs. His muscles ached from standing so long behind the camera and in the darkroom.
Matthi raised himself, wrapping an arm around Pavli’s shoulders. “It’s all right.” He brought his whisper close to his brother’s ear. “Everyone understands. It’s why you weren’t brought into the faith. If this Ritter and all the others should be lying… if the worst should happen… you might at least have a chance.”
Nodding, Pavli slowly began unbuttoning his shirt. He wasn’t so tired that he couldn’t wonder about the things of which Matthi spoke. “But why?” He kept his voice low. “Why would it matter? If all the rest of you were gone, and I was left behind…”
The words were like a kiss, breath against the curve of his ear. “If our blood survived… even just a little bit of it… then perhaps He would still come someday. Even without the marks of His suffering, without the knowledge of the true faith… still, one would be waiting for Him. You would still be waiting, and bearing your people’s blood.”
Perhaps that was true. He didn’t know; he’d like to believe what Matthi told him, but he couldn’t think about it now. The weariness claimed him, dragged him under its slow, dark waves. Half-undressed, he lay down on the hard, narrow bed. With the last of his strength, he bent his knees and pulled his boots from his feet. He rolled to the other side, toward the wall, so that even his brother couldn’t see what he was doing.
His fingers pried apart the leather at the top edge of one boot, and pulled out the treasure hidden within. The papers, a few newspapers clippings, and a glossy photograph. Bent and wrinkled, but in good shape otherwise.
Pavli laid his head on his arm. In the blue light of the moon and stars, the night sky’s thin radiance seeping through the high windows, he gazed at the face of the angel. The angel of the shop window…
SIXTEEN
For a moment, as Ernst von Behren gazed up at the faces before him, he felt that he had just woken up from dreaming. He slouched down in the screening room seat, his thoughts drifting to memory. The sunshine of Hollywood, the palm trees like a child’s drawing of what a tree should look like, the flowers like bright soft wounds, achingly beautiful… and, of course, the money. Even though he had gotten just a taste of that, the little bit that the powerful ones such as Herr David Wise doled out to their faithful underlings, it had still translated to that pretty cottage in the hills, and a car with a driver from the studio, and restaurant meals where the bill never came, just more strangely weak American coffee, poured by a smiling waiter from a silver pot.
He sighed, feeling an ache of longing in his heart. Beyond the walls of the screening room – and a cramped little space it was, a far cry from the airy, cushioned spaces he had gotten used to at the Wise Studios – were all the rest of the buildings of the UFA complex, and beyond that was the suburb of Neubabelsburg, and beyond that, the city of Berlin. Just as though he’d never left.
When he’d been in Hollywood, one of that band of happy exiles, those smart enough to bless their luck rather than curse it, all of this had seemed to be the dream, a bad one. The kind from which you woke with gratitude, bathed in sweat. It still amazed him that he had made this return journey voluntarily.
“So you should always remember, dear Marte -” A moment of silence had come on the film’s soundtrack, just long enough to tempt him into speaking aloud. “You should remember that I do love you, in my own way.”