Exodus - Leon Uris [220]
Karen took a step toward him. He was stubble-bearded and his face was scarred. Suddenly the pounding within Karen’s heart eased. This is all a mistake, she thought ... this man is a stranger ... he is not my father ... he cannot be. It is a mistake! A mistake! She was filled with the urge to turn around and scream out ... you see, you were wrong. He is not Johann Clement, he is not my father. My father is still alive somewhere and looking for me. Karen stood before the man on the floor to assure herself. She stared into the crazed eyes. It had been so long ... so very long, she could not remember. But the man she had dreamed about meeting again was not this man.
There was a fireplace and the smell of pipe tobacco. There was a big moppy dog. His name was Maximilian. A baby cried in the next room. “Miriam, see to Hans. I am reading a story for my girl and I cannot be disturbed.”
Karen Hansen Clement slowly knelt before the hulk of mindless flesh.
Grandma’s house in Bonn always smelled of newly-baked cookies. She baked all week getting ready for the family on Sunday.
The insane man continued to stare at the opposite wall as though he were alone in the room.
Look how funny the monkeys are in the Cologne Zoo! Cologne has the most wonderful zoo. When will it be carnival time again?
She studied the man from his bare feet to his scarred forehead. Nothing ... nothing she saw was like her father ...
“Jew! Jew! Jew!” the crowd screamed as she ran into her house with the blood pouring down her face. “There, there, Karen don’t you cry. Daddy won’t let them hurt you.”
Karen reached out and touched the man’s cheek. “Daddy?” she said. The man did not move or react.
There was a train and lots of children around and they were talking of going to Denmark but she was tired. “Good-by, Daddy,” Karen had said. “Here, you take my dolly. He will watch after you.” She stood on the platform of the train and watched her Daddy on the platform and he grew smaller and smaller.
“Daddy! Daddy!” Karen cried. “It’s Karen, Daddy! I’m your girl. I’m all grown up now, Daddy. Don’t you remember me?”
The doctor held Kitty in the doorway as she shook from head to foot. “Let me help her, please,” Kitty cried.
“Let it be done,” he said.
And Karen was filled with remembering—“Yes! Yes! He is my father! He is my father!”
“Daddy!” she screamed and threw her arms around him. “Please talk to me. Please say something to me. I beg you ... beg you!”
The man who was once the living human person of Johann Clement blinked his eyes. A sudden expression of curiosity came over his face as he became aware of a person clutching at him. He held the expression for a tense moment as though he were trying, in his own way, to allow something to penetrate the blackness—and then, his look lasped back into lifelessness.
“Daddy!” she screamed. “Daddy! Daddy!”
And her voice echoed in the empty room and down the long corridor—“Daddy!”
The strong arms of the doctor pried her loose, and she was gently dragged from the room. The door was closed and locked and Johann Clement was gone from her—forever. The girl sobbed in anguish and crumpled into Kitty’s arms. “He didn’t even know me! Oh, my God ... God ... why doesn’t he know me? Tell me, God ... tell me!”
“It’s all right, baby, it is all right now. Kitty is here. Kitty is with you.”
“Don’t leave me, don’t ever leave me, Kitty!”
“No, baby ... Kitty won’t ever leave you ... ever.”
Chapter Nine
THE NEWS OF KAREN’S FATHER had spread through Gan Dafna before she and Kitty returned. It had a shattering effect on Dov Landau. For the first time since his brother Mundek had held him in his arms in a bunker beneath the Warsaw ghetto, Dov Landau Was able to feel compassion for someone other than himself. His sorrow for Karen Clement was, at last, the ray of light that illuminated his black world.
She was the one person he could trust and care for. Why of all people on earth did it have to happen to her?