Black Cross wwi-1

by Greg Iles

  Rachel looked down at the cloth badge sewn onto the left breast of her tunic. It was made of two triangles, one superimposed upon the other to form the Star of David. The top triangle, which was red and pointed up, bore a large “N” on its center. Beneath this was a bright yellow triangle pointing down.

  “The red triangle,” Frau Hagan explained, “means Political Prisoner. It’s nothing to do with anything you’ve done, it’s just a convenient tag for the Germans. They think they have to label everything in sight or it doesn’t exist. The big capital letter marks your country of origin. Same with all foreigners. Yours is ‘N’ for Netherlands, see? Mine is ‘P’.”

  “I see.”

  “You’ll see a lot of green triangles, too. Green marks the criminals, people who were actually convicted of crimes before they got here. Not all the greens are bad, but don’t cross any of them. They stick together.” Frau Hagan scowled suddenly. “Keep your boy away from the pink triangles. Pink marks the homosexuals. Keep him away from any man who gets too close. There are pederasts here, Dutch girl, and they aren’t required to wear badges.”

  As Rachel absorbed the import of Frau Hagan’s words, Hannah began to stir. Her movements woke Jan, her three-year-old, who reached into his pocket and took out a small wooden dreidl. Rachel had managed to smuggle the top all the way from Holland. Neither child could really spin it yet, but the dreidl was a reminder of a safer place and time. She started a game where the children slid it back and forth between them. Frau Hagan glanced at them.

  “You haven’t told them what last night meant?”

  “No,” Rachel whispered. “Their father told them he was going on a long trip. To work. There is nothing to be gained by telling them otherwise.”

  Frau Hagan seemed to agree with this judgment. “I’m surprised they let you keep your son,” she mused. “Young as he is, and blond. It’s a miracle he wasn’t taken away to be Aryanized.”

  Rachel shivered in horror. “Marcus’s grandfather was blond,” she said. “A Gentile.”

  Frau Hagan had already forgotten the children. She silently counted off badge classifications on her fingertips. “Black,” she said. “Black marks the asocials. Don’t trust them. You’ll also see an armband with the word Blöd. It’s worn by the feeble-minded. Retards. They’re generally harmless. Jehovah’s Witnesses wear purple triangles. They’re kind, but don’t make friends with them. They don’t last long in here. They’re too hardheaded.” Frau Hagan sighed. “There are other badges and colors, but you can’t learn them all in a day.”

  The big Polish woman fell silent at a sudden rapping on the barracks wall. The other women scrambled for their bunks. Frau Hagan pointed at Benjamin Jansen. “Under the bunk!”

  The old man rolled under Rachel’s bed and tried to conceal himself as best he could. An inmate at the window whispered, “It’s all right! It’s only Anna!”

  Rachel heard a collective sigh of relief. A half dozen voices murmured, Nurse Kaas! like a speaking round. Rachel watched in fascination as a small group of prisoners — almost like a delegation, with Frau Hagan at their head — lined up to receive the revered visitor. There was no knock. The door was simply thrust open and left that way despite the winter wind. A tall, shapely blond woman wearing a white uniform with blue trim stepped inside and pulled a small parcel from beneath her skirt.

  “We thank you most humbly, Fraulein Kaas,” Frau Hagan said, taking the package and passing it to another inmate.

  Rachel was shocked by this formal speech from the woman who had only moments ago ridiculed her own courtesy.

  The blond nurse looked slightly embarrassed. “How is Frau Buhle today?”

  Frau Hagan shook her head. “No better, I’m afraid. But she holds on. If you could possibly take time to examine her—”

  “Not today. We’re quite busy in the hospital.”

  “Of course.”

  Rachel stared at the two women. The physical differences between them were startling. Next to the blond nurse, Frau Hagan’s skin looked gray and dry as a dust rag. It suddenly dawned on her that Nurse Kaas was German. She was part of the camp staff!

  The nurse glanced anxiously at the open door behind her. “Perhaps just a quick look,” she said.

  Frau Hagan led her to a bunk at the far end of the barracks. Camp veterans melted away before them, as if yielding a path for an earthly saint, then closed in behind. When the nurse knelt down, Rachel lost sight of her.

  Rachel was curious about the nurse, but she remained beside her own bunk. Better not to interfere. She took advantage of this break to rest her eyes a bit. The last seven days had been a blur of withering terror and unspeakable indignity. The cattle car had been the worst. Endless hours sitting without heat or food on frozen railroad sidings, Marcus fighting like a dog for a handful of water for the children. Both of them sleeping standing up in the press of filthy bodies as the train crossed into Poland, each with a child in their arms. Holding Hannah naked and feverish over an overflowing bucket while she emptied her roiling bowels, then squatting herself in the filth. And finally, choosing a space among the dead for her family, not bothering with the bucket or anything else anymore, but only with breathing and keeping away those who had lost their reason.

  The stop at Auschwitz had been a merciful deliverance. A silent man in a business suit pulled them out of a glassy-eyed throng queuing before a doctor and loaded them into an open truck which carried them to another train. That train hauled them northwest for three days, back into Germany, and finally disgorged them in a bomb-shattered marshaling yard in Rostock. And from there by truck to this place — Totenhausen — the place where Marcus died.

  So I am a widow, she thought with a strange detachment. The idea did not seem difficult to grasp, considering the totality of transformation she had been forced to endure in the last thirty hours. She could still feel the bite of the shears as they scissored her hair to the skull. She remembered the last feeble protest of her dignity as she was forced to strip naked in the snow beside a barbed-wire fence and parade before snickering SS troops who called the dehumanizing procedure a “medical inspection.” Then in rapid succession came delousing, the tattooing of her inner forearm, the distribution of striped uniforms and wooden shoes, the application of badges to the uniforms, and the taking of a detailed medical history. And now — with seeming inevitability — widowhood. The tears had stopped a little while ago, and Rachel had vowed not to let them return. She had to force herself to think, to concentrate on one thing only. Survival.

  It was a skill she had learned while very young. As a German Jewish child orphaned during the Great War, she had been sent to Amsterdam to live for a while with a childless Jewish couple. She had grown to love them, but more importantly, she had made sure they grew to love her. Even at four, she knew she never wanted to be hungry again. She quickly mastered the Dutch language and manners, and when the time came for her to return to Germany, the couple had adopted her. Her marriage to Marcus Jansen — a native Dutch Jew — had completed her transformation from German orphan into Dutch wife.

  When the Nazis invaded Holland in 1940, and her family was forced to go into hiding, she adapted to the attic room above the Christian family’s shop with such grace that her whole family was able to follow her example. She had actually given birth to Hannah in that attic. But the events of the last week — beginning with the bloodcurdling sound of the Gestapo beating down the door of their hiding place — had stretched her adaptive capacity near to breaking.

  “She won’t last much longer,” said a voice in German.

  Rachel opened her eyes to see the German nurse moving toward her, instructing Frau Hagan as she walked. The nurse carried a stethoscope in her right hand. “Her ration will not help her now,” the nurse was saying. “Share it amongst yourselves. Just keep her warm and—”

  The blond nurse froze in midstep. “What’s he doing in here?”

  Rachel followed the nurse’s gaze. She was staring at Benjamin Jansen, wh
o was trying unsuccessfully to hide under Rachel’s bunk.

  “He only got here yesterday,” Frau Hagan explained. “He sneaked in here to visit his grandchildren. We’ll boot him out as soon as you’re gone.”

  “You’d better. If Sergeant Sturm catches him here, he’ll be on the Tree by nightfall.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Frau Hagan promised. “What about the selections? Last night was the worst yet.”

  Nurse Kaas seemed suddenly in a rush. “We can only pray the worst is past.”

  Frau Hagan nodded. “You’d better go.”

  Before stepping outside, the nurse straightened her luxuriant hair with both hands. To Rachel, she looked like a knight adjusting armor.

  “We pray you will come again soon,” Frau Hagan said hopefully.

  “Don’t expect too much.”

  “Only what you can do. Auf Wiedersehen.”

  Anna Kaas was gone. Frau Hagan turned and marched like a sergeant major back to Rachel’s bunk. “Get up from there, old man!”

  Benjamin Jansen rolled out from beneath the bunk and stood beside Rachel.

  “Listen to the rest, then get your ass out of my barracks for good. You heard the nurse mention the Tree?”

  “Yes. But I have seen no trees inside this camp.”

  “It’s not a real tree, glupi. It’s a tall post driven deep into the ground. There are two crossbars nailed to it. One down low, another up high. You’ve seen that?”

  “To the side of the hospital?”

  Frau Hagan nodded. “The Germans call it the Punishment Tree. We just call it the Tree.” She motioned for a woman to move Rachel’s children out of earshot. “There are three official punishments in this camp. All are administered at the Tree, and all can be fatal. There’s the whip, the rope, and the dogs. The whip is for a first infraction of the rules. They take you to the Tree, tie your hands, and make you let down your pants or lift your skirt in front of the assembled prisoners. Then they bend you over the lower crossbar and lash you with a horsewhip. They lash you until you’re bloody, with the whole camp staring up your backside. The tough ones survive it, others don’t. Some die from exposure, some from shock.

  “The rope is worse. They tie your hands behind your back, then loop a heavy rope around the first one and hoist you up to the top crossbar by your hands. Your shoulders pop out of joint immediately. If you lose consciousness — and most people do, after fifteen minutes of agony — the SS throw buckets of water on you to revive you. The rope can drive you mad or it can kill you. In winter it can kill you very quickly.”

  Rachel glanced fearfully at her children, who sat silently against the far wall with wide eyes.

  “And the dogs?” Benjamin Jansen asked.

  Frau Hagan chuckled bitterly. “I think you can figure that out. There’s a set of manacles on a chain attached to the lower crossbar of the Tree. They strip you, manacle one ankle, then Sergeant Sturm sets his dogs on you.” The Pole made a sudden snapping gesture with her hand, like canine jaws. Ben Jansen jumped. “No one survives the dogs, old man. Sergeant Sturm feeds and trains them, and he’s honed them to a fine pitch of killing. It’s a gruesome sight. Sturm was a dog master with an Einsatz-gruppe in the East. One of the SS ‘hunters.’ His duty was tracking stubborn Jews into cellars and sewers, then killing them. He brags that he has even trained one of his shepherds to rape women who have been tied down.”

  Rachel felt her stomach flip over.

  Frau Hagan’s bland face hardened. “If you hear screaming during the night, don’t get up. And when morning comes, don’t let your children look toward the Tree. What they’d see there would be worse than your most terrible nightmare of what Hell could be.”

  Rachel buried her face in her hands. “Where in God’s name have they brought us?”

  “Forget about God,” Frau Hagan advised. “He’s forgotten about you. There is some good news, though. This camp is better than some. We’re guinea pigs here, not work slaves. You were brought here for Herr Doktor Brandt to experiment upon, and Brandt likes his guinea pigs in reasonably good health. That means the food is edible and we don’t have to sleep in our own shit. Of course, this paradise lasts only until the day you’re selected. Or until you break a rule. Sturm and his men are always watching for infractions. The rule-breakers are their source of entertainment.”

  “But what are the rules? Where are they posted?”

  “In the Germans’ heads!” Frau laughed harshly. “That’s why it’s so hard to stay within them! You’ve got one mark against you already, little Dutch girl.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re too pretty. You haven’t been starved yet, so you’ve still got your breasts.” The big Pole reached out and ran her hand over Rachel’s skull. Already a fine coat of black stubble had sprung up. Rachel instinctively jerked away. Frau Hagan laughed again. “Yes, someone might get very creative to get you into a bed. Schörner is drunk most of the time, but sometimes he perks up. His drinking is the best and worst thing about him. Sergeant Sturm is the one to watch out for. He’s a pig. I advise you to start looking as ugly as you can as soon as you can, although I’m sure they already noticed you during the medical inspection.”

  Rachel shuddered at the memory.

  “The SS may be animals, but remember one thing.” Frau Hagan glared at Benjamin Jansen. “You too, old man. It’s the unwritten law of every camp: The prisoner’s worst enemy is the prisoner!”

  The Block Leader squinted at Rachel, as if trying to gauge whether any of her hard-earned wisdom had taken root. “You know, I survived Auschwitz for three years,” she said. “I have no tattoo number. You know what that means? I am less than zero. I helped build that stinking place. I was a kapo there, a good one. I saw a lot of Dutch, and they never lasted long. Especially the women. They couldn’t accept the change. They never bathed, never ate. I hope you’re different, Dutch girl. At Auschwitz the Dutch women became musselmen after only two weeks.”

  “What is a musselman?”

  “A bag of bones, princess. A bag of bones that doesn’t care if it eats anymore. A walking corpse.”

  “But I have seen no one like that here!”

  “I told you, this camp is different. They didn’t bring you here to work you to death. They brought you here to work on you.”

  “But what can you mean?”

  Frau Hagan glanced at the children. “You’ll find out soon enough.” The big Pole placed both hands on her wide hips. “Do you understand these things I’ve told you?”

  Rachel nodded uncertainly.

  “Rations in two hours. Guard your shoes, spoon, and cup with your life. Keep your children’s things yourself. Eat your bread as soon as you get it. Your stomach is the best safe against thieves.” She grabbed Ben Jansen by the collar. “Out you go!”

  Rachel watched in amazement as the Block Leader hauled the old man to the barracks door and shoved him out into the snow. She darted to the doorway. As her father-in-law plodded toward the Jewish Men’s Block, she heard a rapid shuffling behind her. When she turned, she saw Frau Hagan passing out small sausages from the parcel Nurse Kaas had brought. The Pole met her starved gaze, but did not offer her a sausage.

  Rachel turned away. She felt sure that a diamond would buy a few sausages for Jan and Hannah. But they were not starving yet. She would have to use the stones more wisely than that. With luck, they might last through the war. She wondered what the shoemaker would say if he knew that when he found her hiding in the shadows by the fence, she had not been sneaking out to the Appellplatz to search for the lost diamonds, but sneaking back. It had been a frightful risk to leave Jan and Hannah while she searched, but the three diamonds she had found — plus the two the shoemaker had given her — made five, and she had no regrets. Clearly, life inside the camp functioned on the same principle as life outside: economics.

  She had told her father-in-law nothing about the diamonds, and she never would. He had proved last night that he was no judge of whe
n to expend his treasure. He had been desperate, of course, but Rachel was sure that the diamonds could not have saved Marcus from the selection. Bribery was not a public business. She would need allies to survive, and she would choose them very carefully. Someone like the shoemaker, perhaps, or even Frau Hagan. The Block Leader would soon learn how far a Dutchwoman would go to survive.

  As she walked across the floor toward her children, Rachel kept her genital muscles flexed. It was probably not necessary, but she had no experience in such things. She would walk that way until she knew the diamonds were as secure as if locked inside a vault. She might not yet know how best to spend them, but she would have them to spend when the time came.

  14

  Jonas Stern lay on a threadbare mattress and stared sullenly at the stained ceiling of his jail cell. It had been five days since he and Brigadier Duff Smith drove to Oxford to speak with the American doctor, and Stern had spent four of those in a cell. Where the hell was Smith? After McConnell refused the brigadier’s request, Smith had driven Stern back to London and dropped him at a rooming house run by “some good friends of mine.” Stern soon realized that Smith’s “good friends” were off-duty London policemen. But evading British police had become second nature to him in Palestine, and the London variety proved no more adept at surveillance than their Middle Eastern cousins.

  Stern had passed most of that first day in various London pubs, where he ran into more than his share of American soldiers. With Allied troops massing for the invasion, GIs were thick on the ground. It wasn’t long before Stern began trying to take out his anger at McConnell on the nearest Americans to hand. He survived one brawl in Shoreditch without serious damage. Then he ran into a squad of marines outside the entrance to the Strand Palace Hotel bar. The liquored-up gyrenes did not take kindly to being called pacifistic dilettantes, especially by a suntanned civilian with a German accent. The military police found Stern lying flat on his back with two glowing shiners and the fragments of a chair scattered around him.