Berlin Free University, West Germany, Fall 1989

Professor Abraham Setrakian continues his story:

'…when I first met Dreverhaven, he was standing in the middle of the floor watching us shower.' There was a definite shudder from Professor Setrakian, Sandra noted. 'Just watching... With a faint smile on his face. I heard him referred to as "Herr Doktor" and I wondered if he were performing a crude health screening but, as I say, he just watched us until we were dressed in our "new" uniforms, our numbers written in pen until we could sew them on. We tried not to catch each other's eyes, never mind those of the guards, but his stare was like a fishing hook. I glanced up once, my gaze seeking a blank piece of tiled wall to focus on, and I caught him surveying me and Jacob from top to, er… bottom with that disconcerting smile…'

His voice petered off and for a long time the old professor just sat and stared into the distance, seemingly enveloped in that Dreverhaven-induced shadow.

'What then? Sandra asked, a little too breathlessly for Corey's liking.

He drew the photo of Werner Dreverhaven towards him and began to doodle on it sulkily.

Having begun to remember, too vividly, his death camp experiences with Dr Dreverhaven, Abraham Setrakian fervently wished a change in subject. But he had crossed the ocean and left Miriam behind (all that he had left of her, at any rate) to tell this very story. To give evidence to the young Mossad agent about two high-ranking Schutzstaffel officers who still evaded justice. And to try to educate him, and his more receptive young lady, as to why they would likely continue to do so.

He summarized and sanitized his account:

'Jacob's quick-thinking in volunteering us for carpentry detail had protected us from immediate selection by the sadistic camp doctor. I heard rumors later that the doctor was selecting twins for cruel experiments.'

'What experiments?' Corey had raised his head briefly.

'I will discuss them later. Suffice it to say, their scientific value was dubious at best.

'Apparently, the doctor had asked the registrar about us. We were neither twins nor unassigned prisoners free for the taking, thanks to Jacob. As "court Jews" we might be noticed missing. It didn't deter Dreverhaven completely though. He would sneak up behind us at roll call or meal-times and murmur wetly in one ear or another that he would have us eventually. Worse, he would suddenly appear in the communal changing room and towel us down after showering. In front of other prisoners and the laughing guards, I hasten to add. All this attention seemed to be leading to an inevitable assault. There was no sense that we could avoid it and it was just a question of when the doctor would haul us out of the barracks or the workshop. Would it be this roll call, this health inspection, this shower time interruption?'

Both of his students were gazing in awe and horror by now but Sandra's mouth and eyes were three huge circles. There was an indefinable quirk to the corners of her mouth though that Setrakian found unsettling. She couldn't possibly be enjoying this tale, could she? The professor dismissed the idea and continued.

'My cousin bore his fair share of the pestering and when I lost Jacob to the Mast…, to the barracks monster one night…No, please allow me to continue. When Jacob died, my grief was compounded by finding the Doctor's attentions toward me had doubled.

'So, I stole an offcut of wood and began to carve a protective amulet when I was certain I was unobserved. I smuggled the finished hamsa back to the sleeping quarters in my underwear. I told myself I'd done it solely to ward off the creature that had sucked Jacob's blood and snapped his neck, but evil manifests in human form also and part of me hoped the talisman might protect me from Dreverhaven as well.

'In a way, I supposed it did, via a very unlikely angel…'

Corey protested that Setrakian's testimony had gone wildly off track, but Sandra begged him loudly to go on. She was the stronger personality, even at this young age, and, as he really wanted to push on to the conclusion and be done with this memory, he obeyed the girl. The young man shrugged and resumed his scribbling with a scowl at the other two.

'Jacob and I worked side by side as carpenters until his death and then I was befriended by David, the late occupant of this office, in his place.

'One morning, as I was looking longingly at the metalworkers in their cage, wondering how I might get in there for silver… Not as currency to steal, you understand, but my bubbeh had told me that silver burns the strigoi, as does daylight, by the way, but not holy water…'

'…and not garlic nor crucifixes…'

The professor smiled, 'Very good, Miss Edwards. At least someone was paying attention yesterday.'

'I make notes,' she waved her pad. 'I took a shorthand course at school one term.' She leaned in and whispered with a wink, 'The teacher was gorgeous.'

The smile dropped off the old man's face and he became serious and stern again. 'Other popular fallacies are that a strigoi needs an invitation to enter an owned property. However, they are indeed unable to cross running water, including bridges and the open sea, without human assistance. They can be killed by destroying the brainstem, either by decapitation or by a bullet or sharp weapon in the brain. And having one's blood consumed by a vampire is not a pleasant experience, contrary to popular culture. That is to say, it does not look pleasurable, no one has yet survived to tell. Strigoi inject bloodworms whenever they feed, so a victim is killed by the draining of the blood and resurrected as a strigoi about 48 hours later. Mostly, though, a human meal will be destroyed before this resurrection or 'Turning' can take place. This is to keep the population low enough to remain a secret even in the modern world. Why have you stopped writing?'

'I'm sorry' she said, closing her mouth and resuming the note-taking.

'Now, where was I…? Ah, yes. I was in the workshop with David and the other carpenters, observing the silver in the locked Precious Metals cage, when we were yelled to attention moments before the commandant himself walked in…'

'Eichhorst?' asked Corey.

'Yes,' frowned Setrakian.

'Eichhorst was your angel?' breathed Sandra.

'Only in comparison with Dreverhaven. He was still a Nazi and, if you listen without further interruption, you will understand why your fiancé is so unwisely keen to apprehend him.

'Mhm. The other officers were always so rough and pitiless, so it was a surprise to find ourselves being addressed as "gentlemen" by a smiling, courteous man who then complimented us for "contributing so diligently to the war effort". He puzzled me, although I knew not to trust the polite façade.

'It was terrible news. They had found my khamsa.'

Gasps were ignored.

'Eichhorst was remarkably knowledgeable about Jewish mysticism. He realized that it was a talisman, but he later gave it a name I hadn't heard since childhood: The Hand of Miriam.

'I knew I would be done for, if discovered, because he accused the maker of stealing oak from the Third Reich. No one else knew about it, so I decided to keep schtum, despite him looking at it admiringly and praising the craftsmanship. He showed his true colors the next moment by shooting Ben Weiss in the head and announcing that he would shoot us all, one at a time, until "the perpetrator" stepped forward. His eyes seemed to go somewhere else as he aimed and he seemed sad after the shot...'

Setrakian paused and seemed to be dwelling on this incident. Sandra assumed he was wondering about Eichhorst's strange, almost compassionate, reaction to the murder but the professor's next remark suggested he was perhaps a little uncertain that he remembered the shooting of Ben Weiss correctly. He was certainly ashamed that he didn't confess before.

'It had all seemed, to me, to happen in a bit of a blur. But that is no excuse for my waiting to own up until Eichhorst's pistol was against my friend David's temple. At least I did confess then, to save my friend, but I couldn't tell if Eichhorst was disappointed or relieved as he lowered his weapon. His demeanor toward me certainly changed very quickly. He asked me where I'd learned my craft and then eagerly asked to see my hands. I held them out palms down and he made a twizzling gesture for me to turn them up the other way. I really didn't know what to make of him. When I obeyed, he examined them, trembling with what I can only assume was excitement. It was as if he beheld the hands of an artist and was experiencing a strange elation at doing so. Of course, I was no such thing. Although I had put heart, soul and desperate fear into carving my talisman and it was a nice item. I wish you could have seen it. I wonder what happened to it…

'Anyway, Eichhorst pushed my sleeve up to see my tattoo (I thought he was unnecessarily handsy about it) and he read it out like it was a name. He smiled nastily but was polite as he invited me to go with him. Thinking of Dreverhaven's threats, I followed him with trepidation but he led me to another workshop cage. There was sorted silver cutlery stored securely in the adjacent cage, but, on the worktable, there were large panels of solid oak and some blueprints for a carved cabinet. The patterns were disturbing: grotesque imagery and macabre scenes, but Eichhorst only described it as a special project with lots of detail work. I was to focus exclusively on this task and was therefore excused regular duties. It transpired that I was now considered so important (or rather that this bizarre piece of furniture was) that I was assigned a guard and Dreverhaven was apparently warned off me from that time onward. As long as Eichhorst was around, I was safe. Untouchable…'

Setrakian tailed off into a dark cloud as thoughts of Dreverhaven breaking through Eichhorst's protection intruded briefly. He pushed them back deep into the special place in his soul where the worst of the repressed horrors were buried.

Setrakian cleared his throat and resumed. 'Eichhorst dropped in often to check on my progress. He was clearly eager to see it finished but he didn't pressure me. In fact, he even stayed to chat many times. The encounters were always prefaced by a nasty smile and by addressing me by number but, provided I responded respectfully, he was gracious and agreeable. He appeared interested in me as well as my work. I think, yes, I think he may have enjoyed my company…'

Sandra and Corey exchanged a loaded look but the old professor didn't notice.

'One visit, early in the project, he praised the quality of my work and asked me something I thought very odd: he asked me if I was enjoying it. I didn't know quite how to answer. What did it matter to him so long as the work was done well? So I pointedly said it was a welcome distraction from the camp. The truth was that I did, in a way, enjoy getting lost in it, absorbed in the detailed carving to the exclusion of everything else that was happening around me.'

'What did Eichhorst say to that?' asked Sandra.

'He didn't say anything at first, just nodded, perched himself on the opposite corner of the worktable and sighed. It was the last thing I expected the camp commandant to do but I was frankly astounded by what he did next.'

Sandra was on the edge of her seat by now.