by Bram Presser
Rumours began to spread that the boy was now in the company of the Green Triangles. He was seen running errands for Böhm. Whatever the case, it was short-lived. A few days after Jakub had given up on him returning, the barracks door swung open to reveal a bloodied Flusser, with his hair bunched in Tadeusz’s fist. The Green Triangle dragged him halfway down the aisle, grunted, and threw him forward into a stack of benches. ‘Heil Hitler,’ Tadeusz said with a laugh and bounded from the barracks. The instructors rushed across to pick up the boy and whisk him into the cramped cubicle near the entrance. Arnošt Flusser remained silent while they tended to his wounds. He did not wince when they wiped at the cuts on his body, nor did he cry out as they tried to staunch the flow of pus and blood from his face. Only when they tried to help him from his clothes, loosening the string around his waist, did he flinch. Felix Baum took a damp cloth and dabbed at the spatter of dried blood and shit that streaked his inner thighs. The boy stayed silent.
Splotches of blue and purple on his body served to remind them all of what Arnošt Flusser had endured. The other children continued to ignore him as they had before. It was as though the strange boy absorbed their suffering. ‘I will make Earthly Tadeusz,’ he said, when the puppet show was announced. Erwin Glaser saw his lips move and hushed the others. The arguing stopped, freeing the air for his tiny voice. The children looked around anxiously. ‘Master Flusser?’ said Glaser. ‘I will make Earthly Tadeusz,’ Arnošt Flusser said again. ‘There is no Tadeusz in heaven.’
‘Oh,’ said Jakub. ‘I was just admiring…’ He held out the puppet, tilting it so the boy would not have to look at its face. ‘You have quite a talent.’ Of all the instructors in the Children’s Block, Arnošt Flusser had chosen him. Could he sense all Jakub had lost? It was said from the start that the boy had powers, that he could see beyond this world. Langer believed it. And Redlich. But they, too, were dreamers. Was it not simple familiarity that drew the boy to his old teacher when his faith in others had been so violently crushed? Jakub could not wipe the boy’s blank stare from his memory, a look that gave nothing and pleaded for nothing, as if he had left his broken body while the instructors pieced it back together. At the time he thought the boy was looking straight through him, but the stare continued long after the wounds had healed. No, the boy was not looking through him. He was looking into him, piercing the corporeal divide. Jakub would not have it. Who was this child to preside? No, he would not submit to the court of the innocent.
From somewhere outside, a low moan of wind gusting between the barracks. ‘Can I be excused.’ A statement more than a question.
‘You needn’t ask, Master Flusser,’ said Jakub. ‘You are old enough.’
‘There will be a storm. I must gather the dandelions.’
‘I’m sure your friends will appreciate it.’ Your friends. Jakub did not intend the offence in his words. Jakub often saw the boy sitting in the patch near the fence, gathering the weeds, when all the other children had run to meet their parents. What he picked he brought to Erwin Glaser for dandelion soup.
‘They will blow away.’
‘Yes, I understand.’
The boy rubbed his eyes. ‘Doctor?’
‘What is it, Master Flusser?’
‘Nothing.’
That night Michal was restless. ‘It’s absurd,’ he said. ‘To live through your own death. I counted down the days, readied myself for what was to come. What a mockery, to make peace with it all for nothing. And you too. Were you not aching to be rid of me? It’s okay. I don’t take it personally. We’d all kill to make room, just to stretch out for one night. How do you think I felt when you came? God, I wished all manner of ills on you. I really didn’t think you’d last a week.’
Outside, the wind howled, clattering against the barrack walls. Georg pulled off his shirt and wiped it across his forehead. ‘You might still get your wish. For days I’ve dreamt of stracheldraht. Can you imagine?’
‘But you live,’ said Michal. ‘I am the ghost who eats your bread. I no longer know how to sleep because I despair each passing moment. What is it your children say? Heavenly Auschwitz? I can tell you it’s not the same. It’s worse. Death is no release.’ A great crash nearby. ‘There,’ Michal continued. ‘The wind seeks to punish us. We have failed this world. We have refused its natural order.’
‘And what of us?’ said Jakub. ‘We who remain in Earthly Auschwitz and are forced to resent the dead? Every day I meet my poor mother, I see how she withers away, and still I take the crust she has saved for me. Yes, it’s true. I blame you. I blame you for staying here when you are supposed to be gone. I blame you that you share in what is supposed to only be ours. And most of all I blame you that my body aches, that my hunger plunges the dagger into my mother’s chest. But I am grateful too. When I suck on the stale bread, feel it soften in my mouth, I thank you for absolving me of my crimes. That is the thing. Earthly Auschwitz cannot exist without Heavenly Auschwitz.’
‘Well, I’m glad you are here,’ said Michal. ‘Dying is a lonely business. Your anger, your resentment. They are my anchors. I know it sounds strange, Jakub. But I don’t think I’m ready to leave.’
Morning.
The whispers and moans of waking. Jakub turned restlessly and waited for the call to muster. Michal woke with a start. He looked at Jakub in fright and vaulted from the bunk. ‘Today,’ he said and ran off down the aisle. All around, a rising tide of voices. Jakub shuffled across and stretched into the new space. Georg was stirring, his eyes easing open then falling shut again. A single voice rose above the others: the block elder. An announcement. Jakub could not make out the words. He leaned across the side rail and looked towards the front. The barrack doors had not been opened. Georg sat up and crawled to the edge. ‘What’s happening?’ said Jakub. ‘Michal…I think it’s begun.’ As if conjured by the mention of his name, Michal appeared again beside the bunk, grinning like a madman. ‘It’s Tadeusz,’ he said between breaths. ‘Someone’s killed the bastard.’
Jakub and Georg pulled Michal back up into the bed. ‘Last night,’ he continued. ‘In the dust storm. An SS patrol found him this morning. The son of a bitch attacked a boy over near the fence. Poor kid was still alive, lying naked in the dirt, covered in blood. Someone must have seen it, come to save him.’
‘After curfew?’ It was Georg.
‘I know. They can’t make head or tail of it. Who’d have the strength to strangle that brute, anyway? We, who are starving?’
‘Strangled?’
‘Yes. Can you believe it? Big, muddy handprints around his neck. Crushed his throat.’
The barrack doors were opened at noon. The men spilled out onto the camp road, kicking up the dirt that had settled in the night, and hurried towards the assembly ground. The day would be spent at attention. The jubilation at Tadeusz’s demise was tempered by the news that soon followed: the boy had died. In the barracks, some spoke of him as a martyr: the one who had given his life so that the world could be rid of a monster. Arnošt Flusser died picking flowers, they said, as if freeing him from the savagery of his death.
Jakub turned against the flow of bodies. He ran between the barracks towards the fence that separated the Family Camp from the quarantine blocks. When he came to the dandelion patch he fell to his knees. Around him, a scuffle of boot prints. The patch was bare. If there had been dandelions, the boy must have picked them. Jakub saw that the dirt was raised. In his head, a familiar chant. AH, H, AH, AV, V, AV.
He thrust his hand into the dirt.
9
BIRKENAU BIIe, THE FORMER GYPSY CAMP
Their bodies no longer radiated the warmth of the living and so they huddled together five, six, seven to a bunk to stave off the chill. Each night a new battle raged, to be the furthest from the wall, from the wind, to find the one who had eaten well, whose heart beat a little stronger, whose skin was not bursting with pustules, whose rags were not stained with brown dysenteric slop, who could be trusted not to try, when everyone e
lse was asleep, to prise away a small soup tin or serviceable shoes, who might not, when the siren sounded before dawn, be found stiff against the straw.
They counted the days by the stubble on their flaking scalps and the angular shadows of their protruding bones. They knew it was an imperfect measure, that the body’s regenerative ability slows as it starves, that there comes a time when the skin is just a paper sail across hardened calcium masts and it can retreat no further. Only those who had recently arrived still possessed a sense of real time. So it was that Daša Roubíčková knew she had been in Birkenau for three weeks. The bruises had almost healed, a swamp of yellowed puddles. She brushed her hand across the numbered cloth patch on her shirt then reached over to pull Irena close.
Tomorrow they would know if they had been selected.
When the door slid open at the platform, she could see nothing. For almost a day they had been locked inside, standing, pitching to and fro with every jerk of the train. It had been dark, the tiny window slats obscured by heads craning upwards for air. Her eyes adjusted with the dawn, drawing faces on the shadows around her. They were all the same, exhausted, desperate for this journey to end. She looked to the back wall. Irena was sitting on her case, her face buried in her palms.
A blast of icy wind threw her backwards into heaving flesh. From outside, a savage explosion of dogs and, behind it, the barking of men. And the air: heavy, sweet, rancid.
‘Out! Out! Leave everything where it is. Out! Raus! Raus!’
Batons clanged against the sidings. Sobs, screams. The noise spilled over them as a thousand prisoners tumbled onto the platform. At the door, men in filthy striped suits and caps reached out to help the straggling few. She felt a cold hand against hers, a violent pull. Then a voice, surprised, choking. ‘Daša?’
She looked into the man’s face, his darkened cheeks, his wild eyes. ‘Can it be—’ the man exclaimed.
‘Bohuš?’ said Daša.
‘Listen…’ A swarm of SS pushed through the crowd, snarling, hitting bags from hands. ‘You are twenty. Irena is eighteen. You are both hard workers. Remember, Daša, please.’
From a loudhailer nearby: ‘Attention. Form two lines on the platform, men on one side, women on the other. If you are ill or do not have the strength to walk, identify yourselves and you shall be taken by ambulance…’
‘Daša,’ continued Bohuš. ‘Be smart. You must appear strong, whatever it takes.’ A guard drew closer. Bohuš pinched Daša’s cheeks, first one, then the other. Traces of pink appeared in her face. ‘Your father is here. I will tell him you’ve come. Look out for me near the trains, I will find you.’ He pushed past her, began to climb up. ‘Daša,’ he whispered, eyes locked on her finger. ‘The ring. Swallow it.’ And with that he disappeared into the carriage.
The line moved forward at a slow, steady pace. At the front, a thin man in a deep green uniform glanced at the arrivals, pointing left or right. Occasionally, he stopped one, asked a question, considered the answer, looked them over again, then pointed. He was, she could see, deaf to their pleas. Couples who arrived holding hands were sent in opposite directions. Parents and children too. They would cry, scream, but he ignored them. All around, SS men watched on, talking to one another, joking, laughing.
‘Age?’ The man stared through her. His black hair was slicked down on his scalp, the widow’s peak pointing at her in accusation. Bolts of lightning flashed on his collar.
‘Twenty. I come from the country, a hard worker.’ She spoke slowly, to make sure he could understand, but more so for the pain of metal in her parched throat. The rumbling splutter of an engine, a momentary distraction. The man turned away then back to her. He pointed to the right. ‘My sister—’ she began but a guard shoved her aside. Daša walked towards the huddled mass, checking over her shoulder. Irena skipped up to the man. Daša could see that she was pointing, nodding in earnest. The man pointed. Right. Daša felt the ring dislodge, slip down her gullet.
Neither one could remember the last time she’d seen the other naked. Daša did her best to shield Irena from the lurid gazes of those who came to leer. It was enough that the girl was still at the age of misplaced shame and bodily confusion. But to be stripped, to have all her hair shaved—it was too much. They stood in the vast chamber and waited. When it was full, the door slammed shut. All around, silence, then frantic whispers. Someone began to cry, then another. Low moans. The shema, sung in a soft, rising undertone, trapped in concrete.
From above: creaks and pops, then a long, steady hiss. Daša looked up to the network of copper pipes and held her breath.
Water. Scalding, blessed water.
The block supervisor, a surly Slovak with charcoal teeth, took an instant dislike to her.
‘That’s the problem with you mischlinge,’ the woman said on the first night. ‘Part of you believes in their nonsense. You think yourself above us, that your Aryan blood somehow makes you superior. And goddamn it, you’re right. Look at you: plump, proud, strong. But stay here long enough and I swear…’ And with that, the Slovak slapped the soup tin from Daša’s hand, splattering her feet in brown muck. Daša scraped out the dregs and pushed them between her lips.
The breakfast ration stabbed at her gut and Daša hurried to the latrine block at the end of the camp. She shoved open the door, the odour of burning flesh overwhelmed by the stench of shit. The fumes of quicklime scorched her eyes and through her tears she could just make out the rows of figures crouched over holes along a concrete plinth. Daša found a place and squatted over the putrid hollow, clenching her anus until she could reach underneath and make a net with her fingers. Watery slop dribbled through. She closed her eyes and pushed. A terrible cramp gave way to an explosion of sludge. And then, something hard on her palm. Daša snatched her hand away, rubbed the ring against her shirt then slid it under her tongue.
The morning passed in a daze. They were unable to make sense of this place that was not Theresienstadt. Daša kept watch over her sister. ‘I thought maybe it would be over when I woke up,’ the younger girl had said when they first woke, her hand rubbing her naked scalp. Daša had no words to comfort her. She thought instead of Bohuš and wondered if he had merely been a spectre. Would it be the same with the others? Ludvík? Auntie Gusta? Jakub? Shmuel? As she was led back from the shower, Daša had been overcome by the vastness of the camp. Buildings, fences, soldiers as far as the eye could see. Through it all, a procession of phantoms.
She climbed onto the bunk and nestled in beside Irena. ‘Daša?’ said Irena, but Daša lifted her finger to her lips. ‘Today we rest,’ she said. They drifted off to the hum of muffled chatter and the fluttering of the coarse sheets that hung from each bunk. Before sleep claimed her, Daša thought of Žižkov and how Marcela and Hana might also be asleep behind the gauze. Her mind conjured the smell of svíčková, and then nothing.
Panicked shrieks jolted them awake. Outside, the howl of a siren then an almighty explosion. The bunk rattled, throwing the two girls against the wall. The barrack lights dimmed and brightened with a buzz. Nearby, the mutterings of prayer. Daša pulled aside the sheet and swung her legs over the bunk’s edge. ‘Come,’ she said to Irena, and jumped to the ground. Another blast followed by volleys of gunfire. The earth shook. She joined the stampede towards the barrack door, pulling Irena behind her.
They spilled into the afternoon light, their hopes hitched to the sound of fearsome battle. ‘Liberation!’ shouted one as if the word itself would set her free. ‘The Red Army!’ cried another. A loud cheer went up. Hurrah! The forest beyond the barbed wire was aflame, grey smoke billowing to the sky. Along the road outside the camp, a convoy of flatbed trucks roared by, German soldiers poised with pointed guns. The women rushed at the wire, stopping only at the last moment, when reason returned to temper their frenzy. Daša pushed her way through the scrum. ‘The chimney,’ said the women next to her. Daša looked out at the forest and saw the chimney was gone. The earthen spire that had only yesterday spouted ash was now it
self consumed by flame. A crescendo of gunfire, another blast, some lone shots and then silence. Only the crackle of burning birch. The women looked around, waited. Then: trucks rumbling slowly back along the road. By nightfall it was quiet. Whatever had happened, it was over. Better to forget.
Days of filth and boredom, the unforgiving monotony of suspended existence. They were not here to work, nor were they here to die. They were here only to wait.
Twice a day they left the barracks to be counted. An hour, two, they stood, stripped to the waist, the rain like daggers on their skin. The SS men counted with deliberation. They had sickened of the starving female form, but these new arrivals were different. There was still enough of a shape on them to bring to mind their women back home. Some they made jump or skip or dance or run or just fall to their knees in the mud. The skinny ones, the sickly, the damned—those who had become one with the place—they simply marked off in their folders and moved on. Occasionally there was a selection: for reassignment, for transport, for death. When it was over most of the women returned to their bunks.
Waiting, they sewed, scrubbed and scraped. They talked of home and family, averting their eyes from the smokestacks beyond the forest that, once again, were breathing fire. They talked of war, of shifting fronts, approaching freedom. From it they learned a new language, more useful than any other. Even here it was possible to gain privilege if you knew how, who. This Kapo, that guard. They listened out for voices at the fence, the barking of dogs, the approaching ruckus of another transport. Together, they rushed to the edge, called out to those who had arrived, for food, for water, for clothes, for anything that could be thrown over the wire.
