The Book of Dirt

by Bram Presser

  The suitcase lay open on her bed, its contents scattered across the mattress. Three times already Gusta had been made to distil her life like this, to strike the balance between the needs of her body and that of her soul. Each time she grew more compact. She found that value was, by nature, transient; it could depart one object and embed itself in another. That which remained—a threadbare blouse, a sturdy pot, a pair of leather shoes —held the accumulated worth of all that came before. And so it was again. She would share out what she could not take, let her presence linger in what was left behind, just as it had in the village, the city, Prague.

  At first light, Daša ran to the Hannover Barracks with the paper balled in her fist. The ghetto had already lurched to life, set in motion by machine memory. Soon a train would roll through the southern gate, ready to ferry its load to the next world. Birkenau. All transports from Terezín went there. Depending on what the local engineer could spare, it might be a third-class carriage or freight or cattle carriages. For now though, the tracks lay bare, straps of wood and steel warming in the morning sun. Daša ran from them as fast as she could, up Badhausgasse, into Lange Strasse. Around her, a familiar routine: those unable to sleep, who had packed through the night, resigned to their fates, now filled the streets, dragging their suitcases, their backpacks, their bedrolls, circling the Hamburg drain.

  She found Jakub outside the latrine on the second floor. He smiled and self-consciously patted at his damp hair. She could not speak, the breath rushing from her chest, her mouth hanging open as she gulped at the stale barrack air. She held up the paper strip for him to see. Jakub took in the details: his mother’s name, a new number—DZ-1211—a time to report for transport. She had less than a day. ‘It is possible she is in the reserve,’ he said. ‘They always call up more than they need.’ From the latrine door they heard the crotchety snarl of the hygiene attendant. Jakub continued: ‘Go back. Help with her preparations. I’ll go to the Council and plead her case.’ Daša took his hand and held it to her cheek. His lips twitched as if anxious to keep talking, but he pulled away and headed for the door.

  A great bazaar fills the courtyard. They hawk their wares from tables and chairs; rags flutter in the wind, wooden spoons clang against steel pots. The ghetto town has contracted until it is just this: a tempest of beggars and thieves. A rumour: there are some who still have gold. Take only what you can carry. Gold is light. Gold is small. Gold has lost its meaning. A case. A backpack. A hamper. Shoes. That is what they want. That is what they will pay for most of all. Gold. Gold for shoes. Bigger cases will be loaded as cargo. Lighter bags can be carried by hand. Shoes. Gold. Food. Be sure to keep them with you at all times. There is no security in cargo. No guarantee that you will see your cases again. Take only what you need. Take only what you can bear to lose.

  Jakub returned without news. The man had dismissed his plea before he’d even finished. The camp’s Kommandant—its third, its most vicious—wanted too many this time and the Council could not supply them without reaching into the pool of the privileged. Compromises were made but it still wasn’t enough. Jakub explained that those whose protection was only by association were no longer exempt. ‘The train leaves tomorrow. I’m sorry.’

  Gusta pulled the case from her bunk. It landed with a thud. From inside, the muffled clatter of metal. Gusta bent over and tested its weight. Jakub reached for it. ‘Please,’ he said.

  They streamed into the western wing from the gate, from the courtyard, from the floors above. The train had not yet arrived. Hamburg was choking. Those who came in the afternoon could not get near the assembly hall and had to wait in the adjoining arcades. Members of the transport kommando worked their way through the crowd, checking names off lists, distributing labels, wading through the desperate horde. If only they could hold off until after curfew, when the numbers would thin, when husbands, wives, children and lovers would return to their barracks, not to sleep, but to listen, listen.

  For the final time they ate as a family. Jakub stirred his spoon through the discoloured broth, watching potato peel and onion stems swirl up in its wake. The ghetto cooks had taken pity on the deportees and filled the vats with more scraps than usual. Those left behind would make do with a thinner broth for a day, if only to assuage their guilt. They went with food in their bellies. The kitchen hands, accustomed to skimming liquid from the top, plunged their ladles until they could feel solids collecting in the scoop. On that night, all who ate in the limbo of the Hamburg Barracks were favoured, all were privileged. Jakub plucked out the larger pieces with his fingers and dropped them into his mother’s bowl. Daša surprised them with a heavy loaf she had baked from crushed chestnuts, salt and water. It softened in the steaming liquid and expanded like a bread dumpling. Irena, too, brought what she could: a stick of butter sent from Prague, sitting misshapen in the corner of a cardboard box. They slurped and licked, savouring the hints of flavour.

  Daša woke in a pile of unfamiliar bodies. They had shifted in the night: those who would soon be gone and those who could not let them go. Only Gusta seemed at peace. Sitting on her case, she pulled out slices of dry sausage and stale crackers from her knapsack. The girls had packed it with enough for the journey—knots of black bread, jam, onions, turnips, crackers, a sausage and two tins of sardines from the Red Cross. She ate unhurriedly, from habit not hunger, her eyes fixed on the rear gate, the sluice through which Daša knew she was eager to pass. The train had still not come.

  From across the room, Irena scrambled towards her, tripping on bedrolls and pillows. She must have woken early to get coffee from the warm-up kitchen. She clasped a metal cup in each hand, one for herself, one for Gusta. Nothing for Daša. Tepid liquid splashed over the rims, waking those who still slept.

  Gusta’s gaze did not shift. She reached out when the girl drew near, let the cup come to her hand and then brought it back to her lap. Irena crouched beside her, nestling against the woman’s legs. They stayed like that, a single organism, mouths sipping the same murky swill, eyes staring off in different directions. Daša edged forward, stepping over an old man, asleep, his body wrapped around a beaten suitcase. As she passed, he kicked out and grunted. Daša skipped out of harm’s way, landing softly by her sister. Still Gusta looked towards the gate. Daša cleared a small space with her foot and sat down.

  ‘Maybe there’s no train,’ said Irena, her voice a whisper in the morning bustle.

  ‘It will come.’ Daša shuffled closer.

  ‘Do you think we’ll go?’

  ‘Not today. No.’

  ‘But later?’

  ‘No.’ A pause. Then: ‘No.’

  ‘I can work.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’m strong.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘They…’ Irena looked around the room. ‘It’s not fair. To make them work. It should be us.’

  ‘It is not our place to say. The Council…they have their reasons.’

  ‘And Auntie Gusta?’

  ‘She will grow strong. With Shmuel she will find strength. Yes, with him she will grow tall and fat and strong.’

  ‘And young?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Daša slid a hand through the crook of her sister’s arm. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You slept?’ Jakub crouched beside his mother and kissed her on the forehead. Gusta flinched. Daša watched Jakub, sensing his despair, the knowledge of his own failing.

  Whatever he might have said was drowned by a cacophonous shrieking from around the hall. Ghetto Watchmen and gendarmes had started filing through the sluice door, the signal for the transport kommando to reach for their metal whistles and call the waiting deportees to order. German soldiers also appeared, although they were careful not to step inside. Voices rose to a tumult then fell to a murmur. From the crackling speakers, a voice rattled out instructions nobody could understand. Outside, dogs were barking. And, in the background, the unmistakable chug of a train snaking its way through the southern gate towards the barrack siding that had, on
ce again, become a platform.

  Perched on top of an upturned crate, a gendarme raised a loudhailer to his mouth.

  Attention, attention…

  They are called in groups of one hundred. The first ones must push through the hall towards the men who wait by the gate with lists and pens and officious glares. This place is no longer their home. They are setting off for where it is said they are needed to fill the labour shortage brought about by a war that refuses to end. Men, women, children. The elderly, the sick, the infirm. Irena is right. It is not fair. But what is fair anymore? To stay or to go? It is for each passenger to create his destination. Why choose despair? Why not give yourself over to the conviction that the next place will be better? Birkenau. A word of beauty, of hope. Where they could toil on wooded hills. Where mothers might once again hold their sons under the birch trees for which the land is named. Birkenau. Life.

  The slurry of syllables. Daša Roubíčková tried to pick out the sounds that would call Gusta away. An air of resignation had settled over the hall. Deportees waited patiently, stepping forward when their group was called, leaving orphaned cases for the transport kommando to load. Clutching their bedrolls and knapsacks, they assembled in line, flanked by friends and family, who would escort them as far as the rear gate. There, the Ghetto Watchmen would shout their transport number again and cross them from the list. One last kiss, one last embrace, and they disappeared behind the barrier.

  In the far corner, the gendarme was calling through the loudhailer: DZ-1000 to 1099, please step forward. Daša looked at the tag on Gusta’s case. Only two more groups before her.

  ‘…for the journey!’

  Daša turned around to see Jakub shaking Gusta’s knapsack. Gusta snatched at it but he stepped out of her reach. They had been huddled together, spitting whispers in each other’s ear. Daša dared not move closer. It was not for her, this squabble of departure. Gusta slumped back onto her case and crossed her arms. To her, the affair was over. Jakub held the knapsack out to Irena and then to Daša. ‘She can’t go like this,’ he said. ‘She has given the food away. We have enough here. She must take more.’ The girls looked at Gusta, but said nothing. Jakub reached down, grabbed Irena by the arm and pulled her up. ‘Here,’ he said, shoving the knapsack into her chest. ‘Take it. Go to your room and fill it. Whatever you can spare. And if that isn’t enough, go to my room too. In my case there are supplies. Please. Just go.’ He pushed her with a force that frightened Daša. ‘Hurry.’

  DZ-1100 to DZ-1199, please assemble now…

  Irena disappeared behind the procession. Jakub, too, stormed off in the direction of the sluice gate where two members of the Transport Committee had just appeared with a sheath of rescission papers. They swatted away the encroaching throng as they made their way to the Ghetto Watchmen. For a moment the boarding stopped. All eyes were on the four men as they shuffled through the papers, looking at their clipboards then the sheath and back again. When they called out a series of numbers, great wails of relief resounded through the hall. Otherwise, curses. Daša moved herself behind Gusta and pulled the woman’s head to her bosom. She could feel the warm, measured breaths, each one a sigh of surrender. A tug at her sleeve. Daša hunched until she could hear Gusta. ‘Forgive him. Please, forgive him. It is against himself that he rages.’

  DZ-1200 to DZ-1299, please assemble now…

  Gusta readied herself, pushed her hands into her knees, and stood up. ‘It’s time,’ she said. Daša checked the buckles on her case. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Irena—’ But Gusta had already moved to take her place in line. Daša held the bedroll under her arm; the worn horsehair prickled her skin. Jakub was at Gusta’s side by the time Daša reached her. He held her in his arms, a protective shield. It was not how Daša had rehearsed it in her mind. Over a year the woman had found space in her heart for two more daughters. But here, in the assembly hall, Gusta had only one child, imperfect as he was in his parting. Daša saw how she looked at him: the inevitable realisation that, in the hope of reuniting with one son, whose only presence was an occasional, cryptic postcard, she was sacrificing the certainty of another. This man who had cared for her, protected her from the worst ravages of the fortress town, was once again just a boy, confused by a world over which he had lost the illusion of control. For the first time Daša saw Jakub cry, his face propped against his mother’s shoulder as he muttered words of comfort. Lies. And Gusta, too, replied with the words a mother is supposed to use to calm a child. Daša could watch no more. She would not have the opportunity to say goodbye. She would merely place the bedroll at Jakub’s feet and step away.

  Daša Roubíčková leaned against the far wall. The deportees shuffled past, disappearing through the gate. In their wake, husbands and wives, children and friends, craned so as not to lose sight, then shrank back, collapsing into something less than they had been before. They filed out from the Hamburg Barracks, a single, continuous line, and disappeared into the dusty streets. Daša rested her head against the cold concrete. Bohuš. He was there, somewhere. In the Small Fortress, on the train. How was she to know? Prisoners do not pass through the sluice. Yes, Bohuš was there, but only when she thought of him: a memory.

  Daša listened to the numbers. There was an oddly comforting randomness to it all. Whoever came was called. It slowed the process, the shuffling of pages, the search for each one. DZ-1243. Hurry, hurry. Okay. DZ-1261. Daša spotted Jakub in the crowd near the gate, his head jerking as he looked around for Irena. Gusta marched beside him in pixie steps. DZ-1204. Across the hall, Irena appeared and began pushing through the crowd. DZ-1211. Jakub stepped up to the man, pleaded for time. DZ-1211. Jakub reached out and pulled Gusta to his chest. She stiffened then slumped into him. For a moment they were one, a child returned to his mother’s womb. Then: a visible shudder. She reached up and held him. He crouched, whispering behind her ear. DZ-1211, now. The Watchman was insistent. He grabbed Gusta by the arm but she brushed him off and stood straight. She would leave when she was ready. She looked around, at the Watchman, at Daša, at Jakub and, lastly, at the large, open gate. A moment of freedom. Now she was ready. As Gusta stepped into the sluice, Irena crashed through the pack and thrust the bloated knapsack into Jakub’s hands. ‘Mama!’ Jakub called, lunging forward, past the Watchman. The gendarme, still standing on the crate, scrambled for his whistle but Jakub was already backing away. She had taken the knapsack and pulled his head to her lips for one last kiss. Then she turned around and walked on. She did not look back.

  Daša Roubíčková stabbed the paring knife into the potato’s flesh, its blade sinking to the wooden hilt. Bubbles of creamy white dribbled through the fissure. Daša pulled at the handle, felt the potato split in her palm. She had come straight from the station, leaving Irena at the wooden partition that hid the platform from the street. Jakub, too, had rushed out when Gusta was gone. Daša chased after him but he was too fast. She watched him run up Badhausgasse, his hat bunched in his hand, and disappear in the direction of Südstrasse. Without Gusta they would be a burden for him. To stand by the bunk where his mother had slept would only remind him how his was a lesser privilege, a privilege that could, after all, be tossed away or forgotten. Around them, his power was diminished. Around them, he was less of a man.

  What remained of the day passed like any other. The vats’ deep gurgle erupted to a sputtering hiss, clouding the room with a heavy, earthen brume. The women wiped at their brows with their muddy forearms, peeling, scraping, potato skins falling at their feet. There were turnips too, and onions, all from the sunken garden beds on the shores of the fortress moat. Here there could be no waste. It all went in, the skins, the peels, the stalks, the roots. Pan Durák needn’t have worried. There was little to steal anymore. Even the filth that collected on the ground was now scooped up and tossed into the slop. It seemed a formality that their pockets and socks were checked as they left. The kitchen supervisor looked bored by it all. At the end of the day, Daša held out her empty palms for inspection. S
he received a nod, and she was gone.

  The other women stood clear of her bunk. Daša froze at the door, taking in the disarray. The sheets had been pulled from her mattress and were hanging from the wooden struts. Shredded stuffing spewed from the torn pillows. Her case was open, its contents strewn across the slats. Daša looked at the other women. Surely she would have heard had there been a raid. On Gusta’s bed, an unfamiliar woman sat against the rear board, her legs crossed like a child, picking from a bag of lentils. Judging by her twitches and tremors, the woman must have just been discharged from the hospital in the Hohenelbe Barracks. Or worse, the Kavalier madhouse. Daša saw how the others looked at her, expecting the worst. This thief. This beast. Daša charged forward and jumped at the muttering witch. The woman scurried back but Daša was already upon her, clumps of hair clutched in her fist. The lentils fell from the bunk and scattered across the floor.

  ‘Roubíčková!’ Daša bucked at the hands on her shoulder. ‘Roubíčková!’ A searing pain across her cheek, the force of an open hand. Daša tumbled into the wall. Above her stood Magda, arm cocked, ready for another blow. ‘I’ll not have this in my room,’ said the warden. ‘I should report you. Now get off that bed. Leave the poor woman alone.’ Daša slid from the bunk. Magda grabbed her by the shoulder and swung her across the narrow aisle. ‘It was your friend,’ Magda said. Daša scrunched her brow. ‘The boy.’ When she saw the hope in Daša’s eyes, she shook her head. ‘Jakub.’ Daša clambered up the ladder and knelt on her bunk. She righted the case and began to sweep up her scattered belongings. Magda climbed the first rung and held on to the sideboard. ‘He came here in a fit. Poor thing, his mother gone and all. We tried to stop him, but…’ She pointed to the mess. ‘Irena came in. He was screaming at her, angry words, hurtful words. He shook her. She ran away. I thought she’d run to find you.’

  Daša dumped what she could in the case. ‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘If Irena comes, tell her to wait here for me.’