A Dreadful Aspect - Part 1

A Penny Dreadful in Four Acts

It was night again in bunkhaus acht, and the skeletons were whispering amongst themselves at the north end of the building.

Vlademar sighed to himself. You would think the unbearable cold would have some effect on the others, but they were determined to continue their kangaroo court. Huddled together to extract the maximum amount of warmth from the three candles lit at the far end of the bunks, the grotesquely thin inmates had formed a comittee to arrive at a consensus about him.

Although they were almost 40 yards away from him, Vlademar could hear them as if they were standing right above his bunk.

“I tell you, he can’t be trusted!” That was Jacob Dekel. The Rabbi. The leader of this pathetic corner of human refuse. “His existence is blight in the eyes of God. Even if he wasn’t a Roma, he is an abomination! He doesn’t even have a soul!”

Vlademar turned his bright yellow eyes toward the group, and they fell into hushed whispers. They all had eyes yellowed with tetanus, but Vlademar’s were much brighter.

Much brighter indeed.

Vlademar’s eyes could see in the darkest night.

“I have a soul” he replied, in a quiet dignity that belied their surroundings. “I feel it. It is within me, among the many things unnatural to humankind, it is here. I nurture it. I care for it. Every indignation I suffer at the hands of others is the mortar, every sin I commit is the brick. Every day, I build it a little more. Every day I turn from the darkness of man, my heart finds the light of God.” Vlademar sat up in his bunk and swung his legs over the side, causing several of the less faithful among the group to shrink back. He fixed his stare at the Rabbi, who was holding the Star of David between them. “I have a soul.” He glanced at the small metallic religious symbol clutched in the nervous little man’s fingers “Also, those things have no effect on me. Like the crosses some of you wave around when I’m near. That’s just a myth.”

“There was a time I would have thought your kind, also, were a myth” the Rabbi replied “But I see evil can manifest itself in many ways. Even the Germans are closer to God than you must be!” Jacob Dekel looked upon the man with the glowing eyes in disgust. “You know, among our tribe, we have a saying for people like you. It means ‘sins you should die for instead of commit’.

“Chillul Hashem” Jacob nearly dropped his Star of David when the monstrosity uttered the words. Vlademar smiled at the group, and allowed his fangs to show. “Yes, I know your language, Jacob. I have had ample time to learn it, I can assure you”

Vlademar lowered himself to the floor and took two steps toward the group, pausing at the edge of his bunk. The Rabbi stepped forward in defiance of his intrusion, barring the path between the monster and the rest of the bunkhouse inmates. “Unclean creature! You will not corrupt those of us who live without the sin of abomination! Crawl back into your hole, filth!”

Vlademar’s eyes narrowed, giving the illusion of a six-foot tall cat. “I have lived for almost 200 years now, holyman, and I have never met the man was, as you put it, “without sin”. Vlademar turned his yellow-within-yellow eyes towards the others nearby “I have seen many a man profess such, though. Perhaps in the hope that it will somehow act as a subterfuge into heaven.”

Jacob shook with righteous indignation “And you think yourself my better?” he demanded.

“No” Vlademar shook his head “But I am not your lesser either. Also, I am not encumbered by delusions.”

“Delusions?”

“You think yourself wise, holy, perhaps above the others. I can tell you this; You are not. You, like myself, are no more than this to the eyes of our creator: A worm.”

“See how it tries to sway our minds to it’s will!” Jacob liked to speak about Vlademar as if he weren’t standing within earshot “This creature would have us believing it’s foul words by slander of God himself! We are the chosen. You are the one cursed as a worm, demon. Doubly cursed, a Gypsy and a monster. Your sins will carry you like an anchor to hell.”

“Have you looked around, Jacob? WE ARE IN HELL! This isn’t a work camp, it’s a place where people come to die! Death covers the ground here.” Vlademar closed his eyes and tilted his head sideways for a moment “I…I can smell it. It’s everywhere.” He looked back at the group “We are all here together. I have given you my solemn oath that I won’t touch any of you. Why must you continue this foolish debate over what to do about me? Even weakened as I am, I still have ten times the strength of any of you. Probably all of you.”

Jacob didn’t answer. Turning from Vlademar, he pulled the others tighter into a circle and they resumed their discussion. Vlademar sighed and shook his head sadly at the group. He chose to remain silent rather than argue over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin as long as they were in this place. It seemed a pointless argument now. After 197 years of wandering the Earth night after night, he had long since given up on the hope of finding a place he could live in peace. But he had hoped that he could find a measure of salvation, if he tried hard enough, truly repented of his sins and denied his soul the dark delight of feeding.

But the world was changing, and for the worse. War had broken out across the world, and with it came the madness of mankind. A true Gypsy, Vlademar had hidden himself among the villages of lower Timisoara, not realizing his mistake until the Russians began their raids on his country.

And when Antonescu had thrown Romania in with the Germans, he knew his days were numbered. Nobody separated the Roms from the Jews these days, and to protest any indignity was to call unwanted attention to yourself. Attention that was more often than not specially tailored to misery, suffering and death.

They had caught Vlademar with a caravan of Roms fleeing into the Carpathian mountains. Packed like cattle in trains until they reached the borders of Transnistria, when they were forced to walk to the prison camps.

And when Transnistria was unable to take on these already too many outcasts, they had been sent to the nearest camp that could.

Belzec, near the Polish border.

Perhaps there was a God after all. The sense of humor here was truly cosmic. Vlademar inhaled deeply, the biting cold not affecting him, and laid back down. Presently, he rolled over in his bunk, his backside to the group as he always slept. It didn’t matter.

None of them ever came within 10 feet of him anyway.