Stranded in Paradise Page 6

  Chapter V

  Wednesday, April 22.

  Eva, wearing a comfortable red velvet gown, tiptoes out of the cottage early the next morning. Because the floor boards are old and rickety, she treads on them so lightly she barely makes a sound. Crossing the front yard with a handful of pills and a stein of hot tea, she opens the barn door and sneaks in.

  The yellow glow of the sun filters in through the web-covered windows in divergent vectors, illuminating the constant dust floating in the musty air. Recoiling from the grim odor of the barn, Eva places the stein and pills on a large cardboard box, quietly props opens a window, then tiptoes over to Silverleaf sleeping in a corner. Tapping him gently, he awakens and sits up. His vision slowly comes into focus.

  “Oh, morning, Eva,” he greets her. “I'm so sick.”

  “I brought you something.”

  She gets the stein of tea and pills, brings it over, and gives it to him. He swallows two pills and washes it down with the tea.

  “Thanks,” he reckons. “I appreciate this. Funny, though. Just last night you couldn't stand the sight of me.”

  “Don’t be silly. I don't hate you, but you can't stay here. It’s impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  He drinks more of the hot brew. She hands him the rest of the pills.

  “Save these for later,” she instructs him. “I have to go. You take care of yourself.”

  “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “Nein. You have enough trouble already.”

  “But I want to…”

  “Goodbye, old man,” she interrupts, then turns and exits just as abruptly as she'd entered, leaving the sickly businessman to recuperate alone.

  On the western shore, Dr. Scott and Grace awaken to the sound of another biplane flying high overhead. The plane also awakens Rochelle on the eastern shore. Getting up, she hikes quickly to the beach and looks up just to see it fly away in the distance. Her cousin, still fast asleep on the shore, hardly stirs from the din.

  Deeper inland, Wieck, Eva, and Hitler are trudging out to the water pump which sits next to a sinuous stream about 30m to the rear of the cottage in the woods. Wieck is still attired in his captain’s uniform while the old married couple is wearing rugged pant suits; Hitler’s is black and Eva’s is green. They stop walking when they hear the biplane in the sky. All look upwards.

  “Are those your Menschen, your people?” Wieck asks.

  “Nein,” Hitler answers. “They don't fly that high.”

  “This island is so small,” Eva realizes, “it's hard to spot from the clouds.”

  They watch as the plane disappears into the humid troposphere.

  “Still,” Hitler muses, “that is troublesome.”

  All three continue their trek to the pump. Nearly five feet high, the black cast iron water conduit looks like it must weigh about 300 pounds. There is a metal wheel almost two feet in diameter attached to its shaft. Long green weeds encircle its metallic, rusted girth.

  “What’s the matter with it?” Wieck asks.

  “I think a stone got through the pump and got lodged in its pistons,” Eva answers. “See?”

  She tries to turn the wheel but it doesn’t budge.

  “We have to turn it over to access it,” Hitler explains, “but it’s too heavy.”

  “This is interesting,” Wieck admits. “I wonder how it works.”

  “I watched the engineers erect this myself,” Eva asserts proudly, explaining its mechanism. “Der Kolben, or pistons as the Yanks call it, moves up and down inside when you turn this wheel. They abschlauchen…?”

  “Siphon,” Wieck translates for her.

  “Danke,” she continues, “siphon water through a tube connected under the ground towards der Strom, the stream. So, when the piston rises, water gets sucked up and drains through here.”

  She points to the drainage spout on the pump. Wieck, surprised she would know so much about its mechanism, applauds her lightly.

  “Very good,” he expresses, congratulating her. “I’m impressed.”

  “Did you think me mindless?”

  “Quite the contrary. You’ve proven to be an informative host.”

  “Let’s get on with it,” Hitler interjects.

  “What do we have to do?” Wieck asks.

  “Tip it over,” Hitler answers. “It’s too heavy for one man.”

  Approaching the pump, the two men push the top of it downwards while Eva helps guide it gently towards the ground. To Wieck’s surprise, the monstrous device moves more easily than he expected. Using a metal rod, Hitler stoops in front of the pump’s exposed innards and pries some stones loose.

  “Oh,” he remarks, “it’s worse than I thought. Eva, bring some water, bitte.”

  Complying, she dips a bucket of water from the stream and brings it to her husband.

  “Throw it in,” he tells her.

  Carefully lowering the bucket, she dashes water inside the pump. Stones and twigs wash out.

  “Try the wheel.”

  Grabbing the wheel, she turns it. The pistons move and water trickles out of the spout.

  “Wunderbar!” Hitler rejoices.

  He turns to Wieck. “Help me, bitte.”

  Using as much muscle power as they can muster, the three raise the pump back in place. Hitler turns to Wieck and bows. “Danke schone.”

  Eva places the bucket beneath the spout and turns the wheel. At first, nothing happens, and then a torrent of water flows out. They all rejoice.

  “Can this pump be prevented from malfunctioning again?” Wieck asks.

  “Perhaps if it was anchored down,” Hitler answers. “I know just the thing.”

  Abandoning the group, he returns to the cottage. Migdalia, sleeping on a blanket on the floor, awakens when Hitler enters.

  “What time is it?” she asks.

  “My dear, it's mid-morning.”

  “I overslept. Maybe I had too much to drink last night.”

  “Migdalia, mein schon rose, you are more beautiful than I thought.”

  He sashays over to her and touches her hair. She pulls away.

  “You're absolutely perfect,” he claims. “Perfect, indeed.”

  “For what?”

  “We'll talk later. Now is not the time.”

  Hitler opens a tin on a shelf and takes out a handful of huge bolts while Migdalia sits on a chair. Eva, who was peeking in through the front entrance, quickly closes the door when the old German leader turns in her direction.

  Minutes later, Hitler strides over to the newly restored pump where Eva and Wieck are standing. He shows the captain the bolts and wrench he brought back from the cottage. Wieck notices that the bearded recluse’s hands shake constantly but doesn’t address it out of respect.

  “We can force the base of the pump into the ground,” Hitler warrants. “That should prevent the elements from disturbing the inner mechanics.”

  Wieck nods, takes the bolts and wrench and commences anchoring the old steel conduit.

  Hitler turns to Eva. “The maiden is waking soon. Make her some breakfast, bitte.”

  Eva gives him a sharp look…“ja,”…then turns and tramps back towards the cottage. Hitler stares at her as she trudges off, then clasps his hands behind his back and focus on his laboring apprentice.

  Grace and Dr. Scott are hiding behind a group of thatch palms spying on a flock of scarlet ibises grazing on the beach. They watch as the crimson plumed avians use their long thin bills to scrounge for ground beetles and crustaceans in the sand. One of the ibises, stepping on a patch of leaves, suddenly falls into a hole. Grace and Dr. Scott run over. All the birds fly off leaving their trapped brother to fend for himself.

  Minutes later, the hungry duo is sitting around a hastily built spit roasting the island bird. Dr. Scott is turning the handle gently, both watching and waiting as the medium-sized wader’s succulent meat turns a golden brown. Grace, overflowing with anticipation, r
ubs her hands over and over. Looking up, she sees Silverleaf staggering out of the woods.

  “Eddie! Look!”

  Dr. Scott, spotting the weak businessmen, quickly gets up. They both race to assist the ailing traveler. Dr. Scott palpates his neck.

  “He's burning up. Must be at least 103.”

  Grace and Scott, each taking an arm, help sit him in a shaded area.

  “Are you okay,” the doctor questions him.

  “I don’t know,” Silverleaf whispers. “This must be related to that lichen I had.”

  Dr. Scott peels a papaya and gives him a few morsels of the yellow fruit.

  “Did you come through the forest by yourself?” Grace asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Where's everybody?”

  “The captain and the girl stayed behind. I’m not wanted back there.”

  “Why?” Dr. Scott asks.

  Silverleaf rolls up his sleeve and shows them the numbers tattooed on his forearm.

  “What is that?” Grace asks.

  “This is what they give Nazi prisoners of war,” Silverleaf explains. “I got mine in Auschwitz, a concentration camp in Poland.”

  Grace shudders. “That's horrible.”

  “You should've seen the others,” Silverleaf adds. “Human skeletons, every last one of them. I ask God ‘Why?’ every night, but I get no answer.”

  He reaches into his shirt pocket and takes out the pills Eva had handed to him.

  “She gave me these aspirins,” he explains. “She didn't have to.”

  Dr. Scott examines them then hands all back to Silverleaf.

  “These should serve you well,” the doctor hopes.

  Silverleaf sees the golden-brown bird roasting on the pit. “What is that?”

  Dr. Scott, suddenly reminded of the bird, runs over to check on it.

  “It’s an ibis,” Grace tells the old man. “We caught it a trap.”

  “What about all that fish we caught?”

  “The birds got to it.”

  Grace helps Silverleaf walk over to the spit then helps him sit down. Dr. Scott breaks off a roasted leg and offers it to Silverleaf.

  “Hungry?”

  Silverleaf accepts the present. “We're being reduced to Neanderthals.”

  Over in their own private area, Keith and Rochelle are tying narrow logs together with vines to make a raft. It’s proving to be a perplexing and tiresome venture as they have to first locate the saplings, remove the branches and leaves from the young trees, then find vines long and strong enough and to weave through the logs. Rochelle's face is as red as her hair.

  “I didn’t sign up for this shit!” she screams.

  Her cousin glances at her. “Oh, be quiet.”

  After lining up the logs in a row, they use stones to even out the ends. Keith then places a log across the proximal and distal ends of the logs and secures them with vines. He turns to his cousin.

  “How does it look?” he asks.

  “Like Huckleberry Finn made it.”

  “I think it will work.”

  “Yeah, if we were sailing the Mississippi.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith.”

  “This heat is beginning to get to me! This stupid raft won't float. Look, Keith. My hands are callused. My hair's in knots. Are you listening, Keith? My teeth are so crusty they feel like sandpaper!”

  “Be grateful you don't have crabs in your knickers.”

  “We’re gonna drown in this contraption!”

  “Says you.”

  “First thing I’m going to do when we get back,” she promises, “is take the longest, warmest shower known to man.” She then eyes her cousin. “And, no, you can’t watch.”

  Crestfallen, Keith gazes downward and mumbles to himself. “Dammit.”

  Wieck, Hitler, Eva, and Migdalia are sitting at the makeshift tables just outside the cottage eating lunch and drinking wine. Hercules, as usual, is by his master's side, feeding off scraps. At times, Eva sneers at the mongrel, her disdain being at an all-time high.

  She whispers to Migdalia. “I hope the hasslich mutt chokes.”

  Hitler glances sharply at her and throws another scrap of food to the dog. Eva throws her napkin down.

  “That's it!” she shouts. “I'm not eating with this mutt again. It's disgusting. I'm being reduced to the level of an insect.”

  Hitler waves her off. “So, leave.”

  She gets up…“Danke, I will!”…and runs into the woods.

  “Eva!” Migdalia yells.

  Wieck turns to Hitler. “Where's she going?”

  “Ach! Forget her. She's a child. Such a behavioral problem, that one.”

  Wieck folds his napkin and lays it down. “Maybe I should go and see if she's okay.”

  “Where can she go? The mountains? Hah! That would suit me fine!”

  Wieck gets up and exits after Eva. Hitler studies Migdalia intently. She turns away.

  “Do I make you nervous?’ he asks.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I have that quality about me. Maybe you'd like me better if I shaved, hmm?”

  Migdalia takes a sip of her wine and says nothing.

  In a clearing in the woods, Eva, deep in thought, is sitting on a stump. Tears are in her eyes. It's apparent from the neat and cultivated look of the area that she goes there often. Resembling an outdoor den, there are straight and even rows of flowers and hedges surrounding the stump. Beyond the hedges are lines of juniper trees encircling the area like a barrier against the world. Wieck approaches.

  “You must be in constant anguish living with him,” he opens.

  Wiping away tears, Eva picks up a small silver flask from the ground beside the stump.

  “As long as I have I have this,” she admits, then opens it up and takes a sip.

  “Maybe you shouldn't drink so much.”

  “Ach!” she protests. “Who cares if I do?”

  “I do.”

  She takes another swig from the flask.

  “You and I can leave here together,” Wieck suggests.

  She laughs hysterically. “You and me?”

  “Eva, we can go where ever we want.”

  “I've heard that one before.”

  “I can save you.”

  “That's a laugh. You can't even save yourself.”

  “Eva, I think highly of you. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through living at the mercy of that man. It couldn’t have been easy.”

  She rises abruptly. “You say it like it’s over.” She then sizes him up.

  “I know what you want,” the Bavarian fraulein asserts. “What do you take me for, an imbecile? All men are the same…wolves. I'm nothing to you but a piece of meat, like carrion for the crow.”

  “You are the wife of Adolf Hitler, a man of great importance.”

  “So, he's fooled you, too!”

  “Der Führer has held countries in his fist, empires he could squeeze the life out of with but a simple gesture.”

  “Do you know how many times I've tried to kill myself on account of him? There are so many I can't count. Look!”

  She exposes the area above her heart where there's an old purple scar the size of a German 5 Reichmark coin. “I did that myself with a pistol I bought on the black market. I stopped living when I met him at seventeen. Herr Wolf! I couldn't go out without an escort. He forbade it and I had no one to turn to. Every move I made was dictated by someone else. I was like a butterfly in a bell jar. Do you know what that feels like? To be locked in a prison without walls? Without freedom? Every waking minute was spent trying to be the perfect Aryan, the model of German citizenry. Walk this way, talk that way, hold your cup like so, cross your legs like a debutante, smile for the camera so not one wrinkle would show. I wasn't even allowed to engage dignitaries in conversation because they said my breeding would show. Breeding! What am I? Cattle? I tell you, I'm sick of it!” Thirsty, she takes another swig from her flask.

  At this point, Wiec
k could feel nothing but pity for her. “Eva…”

  “The students in Berlin an underground resistance movement called die Weiße Rose, the White Rose,” she continues. “I should've run away with them while I had a chance, but all Germany would've had to pay for that!”

  “You had something every fraulein dreamed of. You were Madam Hitler.”

  “Hitler! Hitler! That's all I hear! It's like a ball bouncing around my head! My name is Eva Braun!”

  Wieck lowers his head. “I don't know what to say.”

  “Please, just leave me alone. I need to be alone.”

  The captain, feeling as helpless as a rabbit in a field of falcons, simply looks down and stares at his feet, hoping, perhaps, the right words would eventually descend unto his lips.

  Somewhere in the Atlantic, the crew of the fishing yacht Mid-life Crisis is combing the waters of the Bermuda Triangle with long nets. The white 46-foot boat, sporting twin high-powered engines, a starboard side dinette area, and modest accommodations in her port side galley, makes sailing her as comfortable and easy as utilizing her nautical strength. In her bow stands a vertical compass made of fine teak, polished to shine like an Academy award.

  The fishermen drag in pieces of debris from the sea into the boat. One man pulls in a teddy bear and examines it. Another picks up a beach ball and throws it to another sailor, catching him completely off guard. A third sailor hauls in a woman’s red leather shoe and studies it closely. The captain, a bearded man in his 50’s with salt & pepper hair, strolls around the yacht examining the haul. He stops at the compass and reads it. His face looks puzzled. Thinking it to be broken, he taps its glass. When he sees the positioning needle remains still, he motions for the boatswain to come and examine it. Looking at it moments later, the sailor/electronics technician scratches and rubs his chin in utter confusion.

  On the eastern shore, Keith is putting the finishing touches on the raft. Tying a few loops around the connector logs, he fastens it to the other logs beneath. Rochelle herself is busy chasing a frog in the bushes. Somewhat repulsed, she catches it and brings it back to a pit in the ground where a few more frogs are trying to leap to freedom.

  “I can't believe I'm doing this,” she moans.

  She looks at Keith. “How many more do we need? That’s six already!”

  “Big ones?”

  “I don’t know what’s big or small.”

  “I’ll check it out when I’m finished here.”

  “I’ve got to get off this island!”

  “In due time. It’ll be worth it.”

  “Frogs’ legs?”

  “Hey, they’re a delicacy in Oklahoma. You have a better idea?”

  Over in the woods near the compound, Keith & Rochelle are hiding behind two thick-limbed sandbox trees. Quietly, they are studying the cottage. No one's in view. Hercules is sleeping beside the cottage. Slowly, they tiptoe towards the goat and chicken pen, trying their best not to awaken the dozing canine.

  Hitler, carrying a white enamel mug of clear cabbage broth, suddenly emerges from the cottage. Immediately, his muscular dog awakens. Keith and Rochelle hide at the side of the barn. Wieck comes out of another part of the forest without the Bavarian fraulein. Hitler stares at him.

  “Where's Eva?”

  “She's okay. Just a little drunk.”

  “Ach! She makes me older than I am!”

  Keith whispers to Rochelle. “Who's Eva?”

  She shrugs. “I'm just trying to figure out what's going on.”

  Evening arrives. Dr. Scott, Grace, and Silverleaf are sitting around a fire close to the western part of the island. Silverleaf appears to be stronger than before. Color is reappearing in his cheeks and his skin looks less pallid. A dark cloud rolls in front of the early evening sun. Silverleaf nods to his hosts. “I'm glad you two are looking out for me.”

  Grace pats him on the back. “You don't have to thank us. We're all together here. How are you feeling?”

  “Improving.”

  Dr. Scott looks perplexed as he hears leaves rustling coming from the forest. “What was that?” He gets up and listens intently.

  Grace listens for a moment. “I don't hear anything.”

  All three now hear the rustling of leaves in the distance.

  “Something's coming!” Silverleaf panics.

  Dr. Scott grabs a stick. “I hope it's not that damn dog.”

  Eva, nearly breathless, emerges from the woods.

  “It's her,” Silverleaf yells.

  Dr. Scott studies Eva suspiciously as she walks over.

  “I hope you don't mind if I sit,” she begins. “My legs are killing me.” Seconds later, she finds a spot near the group and sits down.

  Dr. Scott ambles to where he can face her. “What brings you here, Clara?”

  She takes a deep breath. “My name is not Clara. I am Eva Anna Braun of München in Bavaria. The gentleman you know as Wilhelm Baumann is Herr Adolf Hitler.”

  The three castaways, taken aback by this piece of information, stare at each other blankly.

  “What’s the matter?” she asks. “Do none of you believe me?”

  “You must forgive us,” Silverleaf requests, “but that’s a fantastic story.”

  “It would be if it weren’t true,” she attests.

  Silverleaf remains doubtful. “The whole world knows Eva and Hitler died years ago.”

  “Propaganda, my dears,” she insists. “We were in exile in South America for a short time like so many others, then brought here because we are too recognizable.”

  Grace throws up her hands in disbelief. “And just when I thought I'd heard it all!”

  “Oh,” Eva states, shaking a finger, “I can prove it. Unfortunately, I can't return to the cottage because my husband will kill me.

  “Why?” Silverleaf asks.

  “I poisoned the dog.”

  The quietude of the compound is broken by Hitler's piercing yell “Nein!” when he goes outside to give Hercules a handful of scraps only to discover the dog is as dead as Mayan script.