L8

L8

Judith was one of the  very few prisoners left  standing. After the war in Europe when Judith had been sufficiently deloused and scrubbed, and had demonstrated her status as  a British subject to the satisfaction of the Occupation, she was placed on a ship and sent home to her father.

She met him on a dock  at Portsmouth. Judith gazed upon him as though  across  a  great  gulf  which  was  the  memory  of  the unspeakable ordeal she  had somehow  survived. They were utter strangers to  each  other. When he  took  her  home  Benjamin tearfully begged his  daughter  to tell  him  what happened  to Edith. The girl said nothing. Every time he pressed, she would only shake her head. But the beach bungalow was very small, and it was not very long before Benjamin caught a  quick glimpse of the mass of whip scars on his daughter's back.

Even a year after the war she stayed wide  awake every night on the back porch of her father's beach cottage, watching the coast with her war surplus Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifle for Nazis who would never come. Who did come was strange man who loomed higher than anyone she had ever seen, perhaps a full  eight feet tall. The man watched Judith draw near with the rifle. At ten yards he said, "I offer no threat to you, Judith Margolies."

Her eyes narrowed at that. "How do you know my name?"

"I know much more than your  name. I know that  your father was used by the government to deceive Hitler as to exactly where the invasion was  going to take  place. I  know you and  your mother were taken to camps on the Continent by German special forces. I know they tattooed the number 271828 on your arm and I know that you have come  through such suffering and  human degradation and evil that  words cannot embrace  it. I  came to ask  whether you would hunt  real enemies  of Jews  throughout the  world, rather than ones you imagine might come here."

Judith unchambered the round and slung the rifle over her back. It was just before dawn, and in the light that was beginning to gather, Michael could take a better look at Judith. The girl had just reached adulthood, but there was an aged look in her hollow eyes, as though she  had already lived  four lifetimes,  and it haunted  him. A kind  of  Darwinian process  in  the camps  had produced a girl who  was able to  outwit, bribe,  or intimidate anyone to get  what  she  needed to  survive. Michael saw the results on Judith's face. The work camps had emaciated her body, but when she returned home and was fed by her father, the weight came back in the form of strong, wiry muscles. She was eighteen but looked twice that.