Children of the Dusk Read Online Free PDF

the long, dark voyage in the Altmark's hold?
    The dogs shook themselves and pranced about like pups, sniffing the intruders. Except we are the intruders here, Miriam thought.
    "Solomon?" she asked again. "What did you see?"
    "A blue fog broken by sentry towers," he said. "Within the fog, people moved amorphous as ghosts. I felt ringed by darkness, by the fog, and by the moving bodies that stayed at the center of my sight, like players on a stage. Then bats winged past, hundreds of them, smelling of oranges--"
    "Bats?" Miriam shuddered.
    "I was holding a machine gun. I could feel the vibration of it. I squeezed the trigger, once, twice, three times, unable to stop, and laughed as spent cartridges flew from the weapon. Below, people shrieked and swore, and always there were the bats, soaring into the line of fire, bursting like balloons--"
    He stopped, and she realized he was not looking at her. She followed his gaze and stared upward, transfixed, past the foliage.
    Sweeping in arcs across the waning light were fruit bats. She had seen them in the half light of predawn, when the Altmark weighed anchor in the lagoon. They had hung like black lingerie from the trees just inside the forest perimeter, and Bruqah had regaled her with tales of what delicious stew they made, pungent with the odor of the fruit on which they gorged.
    But they had not come to gorge on fruit.
    They had come for the grasshoppers.
    Grateful for his protection, Miriam allowed Sol to cover her head with his arm as the bats wheeled down to feast. Though she knew they had not come to hurt her, this was hardly her idea of a day at the Tiergarten.
    She closed her eyes.
    When she opened them, her fear having given way to curiosity, she saw that the grasshoppers were still feeding on the grasses, oblivious or uncaring that they in turn were being eaten.
    "I'm all right now, Sol," she said.
    He removed his arm from her head and started to rise. As if on signal, the insects took flight.   The flurry, followed by the bats again taking wing, nearly bowled him over. He sat down hard on the ground.
    Miriam chuckled. "I don't mean to laugh at you, Sol," she said, "but this is all too crazy for words. What else can one do but laugh?"
    When the last of the bats had flitted away into the shadows, she turned over and sat up. She felt amazingly calm as Bruqah helped her to her feet.
    "I suppose you're going to tell me those were the spirits of the dead on this island where the dead dream," Miriam said, her voice almost jocular.
    "Perhaps," he replied, "they be messengers from the dead."
    She shook her head in exasperation and brushed herself off.   Bruqah took hold of her wrists.
    "You are bonded to the child you carry, Lady Miri," he said seriously. "Bruqah is bonded to this land." His eyes searched hers. "Maybe you chase away ghosts, you and Solly and the baby. But do not think the grasshoppers they come by--how do you call it--by coincident. Nothing happen by accident here."  
    Sol nodded, and Miriam felt the echo of her own earlier musings. Maybe Solomon was right. Perhaps there was a reason for everything, and if so, perhaps this insanity would eventually make sense.
    But all of that notwithstanding, right now it was not reason that she sought. What she really wanted was a hot bath, a loofah to scrub away some of her weariness, and a real bed with a real mattress.
    All of which, she thought, labeled her--and not Solomon--as the ultimate dreamer.

CHAPTER THREE
     
    E rich stood in the middle of the compound, watching the Jews use block and tackle to hoist logs for the three sentry towers. Other Jews were building the tall crib that would serve as a water tower. The camp would never survive on the meager spring at the bottom of the knoll.
    He was oddly proud of the efficiency of the Jews, managing to complete so much work in two days.
    The Jews!
    Next he'd be calling Hitler the Savior. Had he allowed the Party, with its insidious and constant propaganda, to infect his