LESLIE EPSTEIN
125
jujitsu, that's what I needed, the ability to remain detached, f10ating in
nonchalance above the foe. Alas, it was just that Asian aplomb that desert–
ed me now. At any second I fel t that my chilled heart would burst, the way
a bottle of milk will explode in the freezing compartment of a refrigera–
tor. My breath, vibrating in my chest, sounded like the seeds in a gourd
shaken by Xavier Cugat. As I stumbled on, past the first storey, up to the
second, the whirring sound, the whining, continued to echo in my ears.
Suddenly I recognized it. The machinery of Hitler's elevator!
With a groan I pulled myself down the hallway, past one shut door
after another, until I came to the metal portal set into the grillwork of the
shaft. There was a buzzer next to the handle. On impulse I pressed it.
There was no answering bell. Through the mesh of the screen I could see
the steel cables tremble with exertion. There, well below me, the cage
itself, swishing and sighing, was on the rise. I went back to the door and
peered through the round metal porthole, which, it turned out, matched
an identical window on the lift itself. Thus, for a half second, I could look
into the dimly lit interior as unhesitatingly it glided by. That was enough
time for me to see that the metal box was occupied. I thought I had seen
a woman. I thought she had been wearing a veil.
Up, up, up went the elevator, until even the dangling ropes underneath
it disappeared from view. At the same time the whir of the engine high
above also ceased: not because the elevator had stopped - on the contrary,
I soon saw that it was once more descending; but because the tramp–
tramp-tramp of the jackboots upon the soft stone of the stairs drowned it
out. A search party! The SS! Panting now, I staggered back to the buzzer
and jammed my finger against it. I pressed my bug-eyed face to the win–
dow. But the cage, with its mysterious occupant - not so mysterious; it
must be Magda - f1ickered for an instant, porthole to porthole, and then
sank out of sight.
What could I do? The ring of the boots on the stairway was louder.
They were on the first landing; they were marching to the second. With
my finger, it was numb now and tingling, I signaled the lift yet again.
In
due time the taut cable shuddered, stopped, and hauled itself upward. How
long had Magda been locked wi thin this cage, rising, descending, rising
once more? For an instant I thought of something I'd read somewhere, or
seen in a movie: a bird, not a hummingbird, but more f1amboyant - bird
of paradise? - that died when it came to rest. Poor Magda! She was no less
frightened than I of the SS.
Once more I pressed my man-in-the-moon face against the circle of
the window. All hope was draining away. Two tiny blades, that's what it
felt like, were sawing at my wrists. The pins and needles had reached as
far as my toes. My eyelids, made from asbestos, fell over my eyes.
