Beneath the Floors

Note: This story is a reinterpretation of the opening scene of the movie Inglorious Basterds (dir. Quentin Tarantino). The words of dialogue do not belong to me, nor do I claim that they do. The rest of the story, excluding the dialogue, is of my own creation. This is a retelling of the story from another perspective.

These floorboards are holy. Sometimes I can convince myself that G-d forged them out of the trees in that thick forest behind this house. I know every line in this wooden plank above my face, every puncture and every wound, every soft-shelled bruise. I know my brother’s hand next to mine. It lies limply in the bug-ridden dirt beneath our backs. I don’t know my mother’s touch anymore--she lies on the other side of my brother, a coarse groan slowly dribbling from her slack jawed mouth, terror a black pit bleeding down into her soft stomach. I don’t remember her eyes, the gentle curve between the peaks of her cupid’s bow. I only see her silhouette; a shadow-figure.

At night the blank sky spreads out between the slats of the wooden floor, above the thin breaks in the rusted tin roof of the house. I can see stars sometimes; if I wiggle the floorboard above my right arm to the left, snake my thumb to the left, I can make out a couple stars in the broad night sky. They’re quiet and still; blinking white, small...a terrorizing image.

It’s too dangerous to wish upon them.

During the long hours that we lie here, I allow my mind to wander. To stretch out, pressing black-marred fingertips out, reaching for edges not there. I like when I can think. When the house lulls backward into sleep, soft footsteps slowly receding, up the narrow wooden staircase. There’s a blankness that swallows. Time untouched, eyes unpeeled. It feels bold and brash, dangerous and stupid, but it’s cognizant. I am raw, a body carved open, blood and dirt, mingled matter. My body exists upon this soil.

I like to think about numbers. Counting in my head, solving math problems like I used to in school. I was good at math, before. I liked word problems the most; something about the story in it, a long winded question carved out of numbers. I like to think about our house sometimes, too. The one behind the hill. It was a tiny cottage overlooking that wildflower field, leading out to the lake. Only a short ways from this place; less than a mile. I wonder if it’s still standing.

Sometimes I think of things ugly and grotesque, a scratching in my throat. Have you ever thought something so vile and so vulgar that you’re unsure if it’s even your own idea at all? I think about killing. Not always, maybe not even often, but sometimes. I think, If they ever find me, I’ll kill. I will snap the man’s neck, spill his blood out over the wood, watch his eyes choke. In my mind, the men are faceless. Gray skin pulled over polished bones, crescent moons in sunken cheeks, colorless reprisal. My hands are strong, fingers molded from iron or steel. My eyes are open. I am awake.

In the mornings, they bring us outside. Moments before dawn. It’s only ever for a few minutes, only to piss like animals in the bushes and break the tension from our frozen joints. The yard is concave, bending inward. Cherry trees, blackberry bushes. A narrow pumpkin patch in the fall time. Every morning, I taste the air first. Tongue between my lips, I close my eyes as the air settles; it tastes fresh, golden, ripe and crisp and cool and clean. We’re only allowed out early in the mornings, before the sun has really risen. Golden thread, pulled taut against a black horizon; honey blue clouds bellied-up against an ultraviolet sky.

It’s morning now; my dry eyes crack. I haven’t slept.

I hear footsteps; it’s Charlotte. She’s the youngest one, only thirteen years old. Her houseshoes, thump-clunk, thump-clunk. I feel the sound inside my ears, like ghosts, swimming. Another pair of feet, slipping down the stairs. Her small, bare feet, hump-hump-hump. Whispers.

A piece of bread falls into the pan beside my father, beneath his right arm. Small, lumpy. I watch Charlotte’s fingers disappear above the floorboards once again.

He sighs sharply; his throat croaks.

“Good, Charlotte. Bon travail. Come eat.”

My father begins to stir, a grunting, heaving of the body.

“Miriam,” he mumbles. There are insects in his throat, graveling behind his wife’s name.

My mother shifts. There’s a brusque crackling as my father splits the bread into uneven pieces. He hands one to my mother, my uncle, my brother, and then to me. The smallest piece he keeps for himself.

A voice, whispered above my mother’s head. “We have to go outside now. Hurry, hurry, before the sun rises.”

The sound of a nail bending, the low-sounding pop and creaking of wood as the floorboard is lifted slightly; just enough for a body to slide through. We are careful not to permanently warp the old wood.

Morning air outside is brisk. The French countryside sweeps beneath me, an even coolness dampening the sky. Monsieur LaPadite stands by the door, averting his eyes as best he can. I appreciate the privacy as I bend beneath a bush, pressed backwards against the wet leaves. I cannot distance myself from the anguished shame that rises like bile in my throat, acid burning. Glancing across the yard, I see my mother using a maple leaf to clean herself; the morning dew wets the dirt on her raw skin, gritty and black.

High noon sun crests above the house. I can hear them in the pasture, their soft voices rising over the hill. When the sun reaches the spot directly above the house, it splits itself between the open slats in the floor, pouring down from the broad window above the floorboards where we lay. The light touches my skin, warm, golden, brown, sort of beautiful. It burns. I look forward to it each day, waiting for noon to staple the sun to the sky over the house, to fix it to shine on the blank and white of my body.

I hear the front door open; it hits the wall behind it, a sharp thwack. My brother’s chest falls against my back, my mother’s hand against my chest. “Shoshanna,” my brother whispers, “Why are they back? It’s too early.”

“Amos, shh,” my mother whispers. “Don’t talk now.”

The family’s footsteps cross above us, ending at the far left wall. I count them. The front door opens again; a set of footsteps I don’t recognize, heavy like lead, dark, black; my father’s arm comes over us, pinning my brother to me and me to him. The house echoes almost, a sunken sound. I hear Monsieur’s voice overhead: “Colonel Land, this is my family.”

Boots cross the room, the same dark leaden steps, clunking against the wooden floor, passing above my uncle’s ear to the far wall.

Monsieur speaks again, hurriedly. “Susanna, would you be so good as to get the Colonel some wine?”

“But no,” the Colonel insists. “Thank you very much, Monsieur LaPadite, but no wine. This being a dairy farm, one would be safe in assuming you have milk?”

“Of course, sir,” Monsieur answers. “Julie, would you mind closing the window?”

Small footsteps; window groaning against the chipped paint; and then, again, soft silence. I can barely hold my sharp, rasping breath.

“A glass of milk, monsieur.”

“Merci.” The silent house magnifies the man’s swollen gulping. Outside, a cow groans against the grassy skyline. “Monsieur, to both your family and your cows, I say, ‘Bravo.’”

“Thank you.”

“Please join me at your table.”

“Very well.”

The chairs creak, and I can only just make out the soft, muffled whispering across the table. “Monsieur LaPadite, what we have to discuss would be better discussed in private. You’ll notice I left my men outdoors. If it wouldn’t offend them, could you ask your lovely ladies to step outside?”

“You are right,” Monsieur says. “Charlotte, will you take the girls outside? The Colonel and I need to have a few words.”

The door opens again, closes. I feel somehow further trapped, suffocating beneath the Colonel’s bootsoles. My mother brushes her hand across my face. My hair falls down between my eyes, and she smiles. I don’t recognize her eyes that way.

Above us, the Colonel’s voice is sharp; proper, polite, ragged; malicious. I sense a beginning, an opening of an unknown.

“Monsieur LaPadite,” the Colonel says, “I regret to inform you I’ve exhausted the extent of my French. To continue to speak it so inadequately would only serve to embarrass me. However, I’ve been led to believe you speak English quite well.”

“Yes,” Monsieur responds, still speaking in crisp French. His voice keeps level, still.

“Well,” the Colonel continues in parched French, “it just so happens, I do as well. This being your house, I ask your permission to switch to English for the remainder of the conversation.”

I wonder why. Is it that he knows we will not understand? Does he know about my English books, the ones we used to own, before? Only I ever read them, studied, learned the shape of the sounds, the words, the brusque curve of the English sentence. He cannot possibly know. Can he?

“By all means.” Monsieur replies.

“While I am quite familiar with you and your family,” he says, “I have no way of knowing if you are familiar with who I am. Are you aware of my existence?”

“Yes.” I can imagine a soft-shelled terror in Monsieur’s face, but know he must be stoic as he stares across the table at the Colonel.

“This is good,” the Colonel continues. “Are you aware of the job I’ve been ordered to carry out in France?”

“Yes.”

A moment of silence; half a beat, if that. The Colonel prompts further, seemingly desperate for the sweet and gentle taste of a moment’s praise upon his coarse tongue. “Please tell me what you’ve heard.”

“I’ve heard…that the Führer has put you in charge of rounding up the Jews left in France, who are either hiding or passing for Gentile.”

My brother beside me croaks, a small mouth gaping; I pull him quickly into my body, his face muffled tightly against the flesh of my shoulder.

My father beside me curls, a hand falling against my hair.

My mother, her body opens, a leg lifting, an arm, she curves herself around my brother and me. I can feel something sharp in my chest, it snaps. Deep in my stomach, resting above my hips, I feel myself beginning to break.

I can almost hear the Colonel’s smile, sickening, ravenous.

“The Führer couldn’t have said it better himself.”

I am stricken, waiting for Monsieur, his soft voice.

He is uncertain, afraid. I want to reach out to him. I want to bless him.

“But, uh, the meaning of your visit, pleasant though it is, ah, mysterious to me.”

A moment’s hesitation, carefully recovered.

Monsieur presses on further, probing carefully between the folds of the Colonel’s lined face. “The Germans looked through my house nine months ago for hiding Jews, and found nothing.”

I can hear papers shuffling; a pen clicking. I imagine a fountain pen on parchment, bleeding softly.

“Yes,” the Colonel’s voice is level. “I’m aware of that. I read the reports of this area. But like any enterprise, when under new management there’s always a slight duplication of efforts. Most of it being a complete waste of time. But needs to be done nevertheless. I just have a few questions, Monsieur LaPadite. If you can assist me with the answers, my department can close a file on your family.”

The sound of the papers, shuffling and scratching, it holds me against the wall, beating itself between the edge of my ear and the floorboards above me. I feel the feathered papers inside my throat, catching and clawing. I hear the beginning scratch of a pen--no ink, scratch again, no ink, once more--it swells on the paper, pooling around the pen’s narrow tip.

“Now,” the Colonel says, his voice cold and clean, “before the occupation, there were four Jewish families in this area. All dairy farmers like yourself. The Doleracs, the Rollins, the Loveitts, and the Dreyfuses. Is that correct?”

I hear the choked cough of Monsieur; a familiar sound, a signifier of morning, of bread, of milk and coffee. “To my knowledge, those were the Jewish families among the dairy farmers.”

Another pause, short and unbearable. I beg, my mouth open, silent gasps forming, wishing for Monsieur to speak again. Please, Monsieur. Say something, monsieur, monsieur, please.

“Herr Colonel, would it disturb you if I smoked my pipe?”

The Colonel’s chuckle. It is sharp in places, rounded and soft in others. A charm, meant to placate. “Please, Monsieur LaPadite, this is your house, make yourself comfortable.”

I hear the croak of the chair, booted feet coarse and heavy against the dirty wooden floor.

Monsieur’s footsteps fall, for just a moment, above my father’s head.

The Colonel continues, adamant in his mission. I feel my head, my ears and nose, my shoulders, my stomach, hips, legs, feet, shiver down in the dirt, a body devouring itself.

“Now, according to these papers, all the Jewish families in this area have been accounted for, except…the Dreyfuses.”

I hear the creaking of the chair again as Monsieur sits.

“Somewhere in the last year, it would appear that they have vanished, which leads me to the conclusion that they’ve either made good their escape, or someone is very successfully hiding them.” I listen for the Colonel’s voice, desperate to know - What of us, sir?

“What have you heard about the Dreyfuses, Monsieur LaPadite?”

“Only rumors.”

The Colonel laughs; it’s big and rocking, a motion in a noise, cyclical and smooth. “I love rumors. Facts can be so misleading, where rumors, true or false, are often revealing. So, Monsieur LaPadite, what rumors have you heard regarding the Dreyfuses?”

I hear the shaking of Monsieur’s matchbox.

“Again, this is just a rumor, but…we heard the Dreyfuses…had made their way into Spain.”

A noise from the Colonel’s mouth, soft and curbed. “So the rumors you’ve heard have been of escape.”

“Oui,” Monsieur answers. I can almost hear the catch in his throat. “I mean, yes.”

“Having never met the Dreyfuses, would you confirm for me the exact members of the household and their names?”

I close my eyes. My hand falls across my mouth, choked cries muffled down inside my stomach.

Monsieur’s voice drops. There is a brokenness, a ghost between his words. “There were five of them. The father, Jacob. Uh, wife…Miriam. And, uh, her brother…Bob.”

“How old is Bob?” The Colonel asks, pen scratching.

Monsieur whispers, “Thirty, thirty-one.”

“Continue.”

“And the children, uh…Amos.” A pause, and then my own name. “And Shoshanna.”

“Ages of the children?”

A heavy sigh; I hear it fall, dropping like a wet blanket on the floor above our necks.

“Amos was, ah…9 or 10.”

“And Shoshanna?” The Colonel probes further. I can imagine his eyes, open and anxious, maybe even pressing his fingers against the temples of Monsieur’s head.

“And Shoshanna was…18 or 19. I’m not really sure.”

There is a silence. I feel as if I’ve been opened; a knife slipping from the crown of my head downward, stopping at the base of my hips.

There is the sound of a book snapping shut; an end, I think. “Well, I guess that should do it.” There’s a pause; a stoppering in the air, choked and sealed.

“However, before I go, could I have another glass of your delicious milk?”

“Well, of course.”

I hear the chair again; boots against the floor, heavy, I feel the pressure against my closed eyes. The steps shake dirt down over my face, filling the indent of my cupid’s bow. I leave it there, numb and afraid.

I hear the cabinets open; a creaking of old wood and cracked paint, smacking backward against the wall beside it. Clinking glasses; the refrigerator door; I hear Monsieur above us, as he begins to pour.

“Monsieur LaPadite, are you aware of the nickname the people of France have given me?”

“I have no interest in such things.”

“Ah, but you’re aware of what they call me?”

I imagine Monsieur above us, staring down at the glasses of milk. “I’m aware.”

The chair moves again; Monsieur sits. I bite my own breath.

The Colonel presses further. “What are you aware of, then?”

I hear the glass slide across the table; glass on wood; absent of obstruction.

“Merci,” the Colonel says. “What is it, then, Monsieur LaPadite, that you are aware of?”

There is a silence; it weighs on my neck. Monsieur’s voice wraps around it like a hand.

“That they call you the Jew Hunter,” he says.

The Colonel’s sigh, nearly sated. “Precisely.”

Monsieur clears his throat, and the Colonel continues.

“I understand your trepidation in repeating it,” the Colonel continues. There is a thick satisfaction in his voice, like bloated honey. “Heydrich apparently hates the moniker the good people of Prague have bestowed on him. Actually, why he would hate the name, The Hangman, is baffling to me. It would appear he’s done everything in his power to earn it. I, on the other hand, love my unofficial title, precisely because I’ve earned it. The feature that makes me such an effective hunter of the Jews is, as opposed to most German soldiers, I can think like a Jew, where they can only think like a German. More precisely, German soldier. Now, if one were to determine what attribute the German people share with a beast, it would be the cunning and the predatory instinct of a hawk. But if one were to determine what attributes the Jews share with a beast, it would be that of the rat. The Fuhrer and Goebbels’ propaganda have said pretty much the same thing. But where our conclusions differ is, I don’t consider the comparison an insult. Consider for a moment the world a rat lives in. It’s a hostile world, indeed. If a rat were to scamper through your front door right now, would you greet it with hostility?”

“I suppose I would.”

“Has a rat ever done anything to you to create this animosity you feel toward him?”

“Rats spread disease,” Monsieur says. “They bite people.”

“Rats were the cause of the bubonic plague. But that’s some time ago. I propose to you any disease a rat could spread, a squirrel could equally carry. Would you agree?”

“Oui,” Monsieur mumbles. I hear the trepidation, the crinkled fear caught between his teeth.

The Colonel seems not to notice; or at least, he does not care. “Yet I assume you don’t share the same animosity with squirrels that you do with rats, do you?”

“No.”

“Yet they’re both rodents, are they not? Except for the tail, they even rather look alike, don’t they?”

“It’s an interesting thought, Herr Colonel.” There is a finality in Monsieur’s voice; a desperation to cease talking, cease thinking, cease answering.

I reach for him, pressing two fingers against the floorboard above my face. Tears move silently down my cheeks, collecting at the point of my chin and dribbling down onto my chest. I cannot breathe, cannot gasp, cannot brace myself against the oncoming. What is it, then? What is oncoming?

“However interesting as the thought may be,” the Colonel’s voice lifts up, “it makes not one bit of difference to how you feel. If a rat were to talk in here right now, as I’m talking, would you greet it with a saucer of your delicious milk?”

“Probably not.”

“I didn’t think so. You don’t like them. You don’t really know why you don’t like them, all you know is you find them repulsive. Consequently, a German soldier conducts a search of a house suspected of hiding Jews. Where does the hawk look? He looks in the barn, he looks in the attic, he looks in the cellar, he looks everywhere he would hide. But there’s so many places it would never occur to a hawk to hide. However, the reason the Fuhrer’s brought me off my Alps in Austria and placed me in French cow country today is because it does occur to me. Because I’m aware of what tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity.”

Another pause falls between the two men.

“May I smoke my pipe as well?”

“Please, Herr Colonel, make yourself at home.”

I hear the box of matches, rattling gently between his fingers; the match strikes twice, ignites. Puffing, smoke.

“Now…my job dictates…” The Colonel speaks in between puffs, and I hold my breath. “That I must have my men enter your home…and conduct a thorough search, before I can officially cross your family’s name off my list. If there are any irregularities to be found, rest assured, they will be. That is, unless you have something to tell me that makes the conducting of a search unnecessary. I might add, also, that any information that makes the performance of my duty easier will not be met with punishment. Actually, quite the contrary. It will be met with reward. That reward will be your family will cease to be harassed in any way by the German military during the rest of our occupation of your country.”

I feel my father, my mother, my uncle, and my brother pressing into me; their bodies close, dense, and I am clouded by my own essence, the things I am made of. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die I don’t want to die I do not want to die! My chest shrivels, an open body turned ashen, unholy, nearly dead.

The silence presses on unbearably, and I can feel the beating of my heart brashen and broken against my father’s dull chest..

“You are sheltering enemies of the state, are you not?”

There is no sound; the world has gone out, radio shrunken, a void unbroken. Only the clock. Tick-tick-tick-tick. It goes, unending, brazen. I cannot count the seconds, cannot remember the moments before this place. My house, before; my brother, before; my uncle’s small studio behind the basement stairs, before; my mother’s kitchen, before. I will never know...How can I remember...

I hear Monsieur’s voice; a cracked whisper, unsteady, soft. “Yes.”

“You’re sheltering them underneath your floorboards, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” His voice splits down the middle, a choked sob breaking outward from the crease in his trembling lips.

“Point out to me the areas where they are hiding.”

The silence falls again, desperate and broken and cracking and leaking and fracking and piling and purging and striking.

I cannot see him pointing; will he point? Do they know?

Monsieur...Monsieur, don’t call my name...think of my brother, my mother, my father, my uncle...They are pressed against me...Do not take them, Monsieur...do not let this world swallow us down…

I hear a chair squeak again. A pair of boots, pounding the old and flexible wooden boards. His feet stop above my eyes; black against black, eyes staring upward into rubber and dirt.

If this is my end, I want to feel it. I want to feel my brother’s soft lips on my collarbone, my father’s hand in my hair, my uncle’s beard against my cheek, my mother’s leg against my own…

“Shosha.” My brother’s voice presses upward, his small hands touching my own.

“Shh, Amos.”

The house has gone quiet now. I hear a calf cooing in the pasture.

“Since I haven’t heard any disturbance, I assume that while they are listening, they don’t speak English.”

“Yes.”

But I do, I do.

“I’m going to switch back to French now, and I want you to follow my masquerade, is that clear?”

“Yes.” I can hear Monsieur choking, gargled breath, spiking upward through tightlined lips.

A charisma spins itself from the Colonel’s mouth, tasting his own candy vengeance. In clear French, I hear the Colonel speak again. “Monsieur LaPadite, I thank you for welcoming me into your home, and for your hospitality. I do believe our business here is done.”

A cawing anxiety drags from the tip of my tongue down into my stomach, seizing me; I can’t breathe I can’t breathe, Mama I can’t breathe!

I reach for my mother, craning my body into hers, kissing the parts of her face that I can reach. Mama...Mama, Mama please...Mama…

I want to tell her, but how can I? The Colonel would hear me, would prepare in some way for our knowledge.

The front door opens; I hear footsteps, and I think of the girls. Of Suzanne, of Charlotte, of Julie...

“Ah, ladies! I thank you for your time.” The Colonel calls out, joy unbroken.

While he is outside, calling to them, I whisper: “They know. They are coming.”

There is no reply; I cannot see if they have heard me, or if there is shock, or perhaps by some miracle they are already dead. I want them not to feel this. I want not to feel this. My body shrinks. More footsteps land above us now, heavy, that of men in combat boots.

“We shan’t be bothering your family anymore,” the Colonel says. “So monsieur, mademoiselles, I bid farewell to you and say…adieu.”

Gunfire. The sound of it seizes me, grasping, throwing me backward upon the dirt; my mother rolls on top of me, her body shoved aside by gunfire. I cannot breathe. Mama! Papa, Amos! A scream breaks out of me, violent and untouched, a fire brigade shot from a foaming mouth, acrimony built of mad terror. I am torn, a body ripped apart, seamlessly unending, a body mangled, ruptured, severed, cleaved. A bullet scorches the pit of my arm, barely a centimeter above the elbow, another above my hip; I scream again, a wailing that burns into the coarse muscles of my swollen throat.

I hear the Colonel above me, voice bent, listening “Shh!”

I press my lips together. My hand covers the wound, pressing down upon the opening with all of my strength.

Eyes open, he looks downward. Beneath my mother, my blank eyes reach his; cold, they bite into mine.

My eyes widen; cheeks swell; a bulging mouth, hacked open, gaping.

“It’s the girl.”

Pressing my hands into my mother’s body, her flaccid stomach, heavy breasts, my body heaves across their collapsed carcasses to the boarded wall. I imagine that I could dig my hands in, pull apart the wooden boards, and it could be just enough space for my narrow body. My hands claw at the damp wood, dragging my nails until it breaks, snapping from its thin frame. In a moment, I jump, propelling myself through the vacant hole out into the sunlight, the air and the grass and the sky and the birds bulging around me, pressing in on my swollen frame.

I am running, gasping, my body tearing open desperately, the earth reaching deeply into my mouth and throat, stretching deep into my stomach, squeezing, pulling, dragging, crying. My eyes burn, but I run - I run, I run, I run and run and run and run -

I imagine the Colonel and the house behind me still, desperate, coal rising in his ashen throat.

“Au revoir, Shoshanna!”