Midnight Plague by Gregg Keizer

Author:Gregg Keizer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

JUNE 4 , 1944

Sunday

’Tis certain they died by heaps, and were buried by heaps, that is to say, without account.

—DANIEL DEFOE, 1665

Thirteen

Twice they backtracked when they stumbled on Germans going door to door. Both times Brink and Alix tucked behind a corner or stepped into a side street to watch. Bullying the townspeople, yelling in a strange mix of a little French and a lot of German, the soldiers turned everyone outdoors. One shoved a heavyset man from a backlit doorway, then raised his rifle and banged the big man on the face with its butt to send him falling into the rain-slick street.

The strange thing was that the Germans all wore rubber aprons and had masks pulled over mouths and noses. They’re afraid the town’s sick.

Brink wasn’t afraid, but he was worried. If the Germans feared the plague, it meant that for all the needle marks on Jews, they must not have a working antibiotic. If they did, they’d be pricking people. But Alix didn’t let him linger on it, since she kept moving down the narrowest of streets and squeezing through greenery between buildings. And eventually, she got them to her house, the only place he could think to hide until they figured out what they should do next.

The rain was cold and solid now and he was soaked. He took off the flat cap, wrung it out as he stepped into the narrow shelter of the doorway. He brushed the water off his forehead and out of his hair. Alix was at a door, this door at the rear of the small house, the house jammed against others on both sides. She tried its latch, and stepped out of the rain.

It was a kitchen. Light from the hall, another wick lamp like at Clavette’s, shone into the room. “Mama?” Alix called. The house was as quiet as the back of the truck behind St. Richards, but it smelled of Grootvader’s and Grossmama’s, like baked bread. It was so warm inside that his face itched.

“Mama? Alain?”

There was a heavy plate on the table that filled the kitchen’s center. A thin crust of bread was the only thing on that plate. It could have been home; his kid brother Donnie had always left a scrap even when he was hungry, like he was set against clearing his plate.

“Mama?” Alix called, and moved into the short hallway. That blocked the light. At the same time Brink heard a knock, the sound like a heavy foot on the floor above. He wiped his forehead with his cap. Alix ran down the hall and stamped up stairs he couldn’t see.

“Mama! It’s Alix! Mama!”

Brink trailed her upstairs, hoping not to find her mother blue like Clavette or black like Tardif. He took two narrow steps at a time. Alix stood in the doorway of the room on the right of the landing, hands pressed against its jambs. An outline of water spots on the wood floor marked her place.

Brink peered over her shoulder. They were alive.

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