Alma stood, looking after him, a lone figure in the creeping, silvery shadows, with sudden infinite longing. A mad idea possessed her, as though it was all predestined, as though that very meeting had been written by some omnipotent and invisible hand long before she was born, long before he was born; that they were brought here together on purpose. The past had virtually ceased to exist—the past without him in it—and that last thought terrified and excited Alma to the bone and left her trembling violently, not from the cold, but from the sudden realization of it.
Chapter 18
November 1943
At the end of November, the days grew gradually shorter. The indifferent sun shone onto the inmates’ bowed heads only for a few pitiful hours a day, if it deigned to make an appearance at all. After lunch, while her girls were sleeping, Alma could see the prisoners’ ghostly figures through her little window. Barefoot, they shuffled toward their barracks holding their wooden clogs in their hands—utterly useless footwear in winter that only made one slip and break the formation. Officially, the beatings had been prohibited by the new administration, but old habits died hard.
Alma used to stand outside and smoke, staring pensively into nothing, but after Dr. Mengele had caught her snubbing her naptime in such an infamous manner, Alma remained confined to her room from then on. Unlike the other girls, she couldn’t sleep, but to pacify Herr Doktor, she pretended that she was getting enough rest.
He still wasn’t deceived.
“You’ve lost more weight,” he remarked to her in a businesslike manner after she finished playing Schumann’s “Träumerei” for him on the Block’s new grand piano.
“I’m planning to become a fashion model in Paris after the war is over,” Alma replied with mock-seriousness.
She had learned by now that this was precisely what the most feared SS physician preferred—from her, at least: stony-faced gallows humor and just a bit of insolence to spice things up. He appreciated that sort of humor because he, himself, was prone to it.
“You may as well.” Dr. Mengele rose to his feet and picked up his uniform cap from the chair. As always, he was immaculately turned out, not a hair out of place, handsome and just as ruthless—a perfect product of the Party. “Parisian couturiers will need new ones after we have chased through the chimney all the old ones.” He motioned toward the instrument: “That piano is very good.”
“I should imagine it would be. It used to belong to Kommandant Höss.”
Dr. Mengele barked an unexpected laugh. “How things change in this place! Well, good riddance to bad garbage, if I’m entirely honest with you. He was the most intolerable, self-important raven one could have had for a superior.”
Things did change, and they hardly changed at all.
Obersturmführer Hössler stopped by every other day with his Alsatian, which lay at his feet panting while Alma played solos on her violin for him. He always brought her something—smuggled sweets from the SS canteen or even bones for his own dog, wrapped in a napkin, so she could feed them to the dog. He began bringing them along after Alma had mentioned that she used to own an Alsatian as well and that his name was Arno and that he used to ride with her in her white convertible along the Prater, the famous Viennese public park, and people recognized her right away, just by that white car and black dog in the passenger seat. Soon, Hössler’s shepherd migrated from under his master’s feet to Alma’s. The camp leader didn’t seem to mind.
Mandl appeared one afternoon, depositing a stack of postcards on the table where the copyists worked and announced that all Aryan members of the orchestra were allowed to receive parcels from home according to Kommandant Liebehenschel’s new directive.
“What about Jewish girls?” Alma looked at the Birkenau Lagerführerin.
Mandl simply regarded her as if she had just said something incredibly idiotic. Alma herself realized what it was just then: the Jewish girls’ families had all been gassed upon arrival and if they hadn’t, they were in hiding someplace that didn’t have a return address.
“Jewish inmates shall be receiving aid directly from the Red Cross, so that when the Swiss come here with the inspection, they can’t say that we’re not treating you right,” Mandl said in response before taking her leave.
Naturally, such SS goodwill was purely self-serving—a convenient façade to present to the world through the Red Cross inspectorate’s reports—but Alma was grateful for the additional rations all the same. Inside the Red Cross parcels, there were cookies, smoked sausage, bread, and even tinned sardines in oil. Alma distributed the contents of the packages evenly among the girls and shared her own with Miklós. They ate the golden sardines straight out of the tin, holding the glistening, sleek bodies by their tales and swallowing them whole, their eyes closed with pleasure. The heavenly, long-forgotten taste, rich and almost decadent after the Auschwitz austere diet, made their taste buds nearly explode with sheer delight.
“Pure luxury,” Miklós commented after they wiped the oil from the tin with the bread until the metal was bone-dry. “Reminds you of the Ritz, doesn’t it? Only a silver bucket with champagne is missing.”
“What impertinence to say there is no bucket!” Alma play-protested and kicked the aluminum bucket that stood next to the table with the tip of her boot. “This is the Music Block; we run a high-class establishment here. And there’s drinking water in it that won’t send you to the sickbay with dysentery, so that classes us with the camp elite.”
“That much is true. I really must apologize, Countess.” Following her act, Miklós humbly pressed his hand to his heart. “It was never my intention to insult you in such a manner. Indeed, I ought to be more grateful. The SS provided me with foreign travel and free board and I’m pining for the luxuries of the past. But that can’t be helped. I fear, this is my greedy, capitalist Jewish nature that upsets all of their SS reeducation efforts,” he said with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
“I thought we were dirty socialists who wish to bring about the Bolshevist revolution?” she countered.
“No, we are the all-powerful Zionist organization that secretly rules the world from Wall Street and accumulates possessions by robbing the honest German folk. The Minister of Propaganda Goebbels has just made a new speech about it. By waging this war, they’re trying to save the world from our clutches.”
“That’s odd. In his previous speech, he said that they’re waging the war against the Comintern and the Marxist Jews that had invented the entire idea of communism. He said, we Jewish scum wish to take the honest Aryan folks’ money and redistribute it among the masses.”
“That was before the United States entered the war.”
“Quite so. My mistake.”
Miklós struggled to keep his face straight but couldn’t contain himself any longer and exploded. He had a wonderful laugh, rich, if somewhat cynical, and almost inappropriately careless in a place like Birkenau, but Alma was secretly glad to hear it. In the golden light cast by the lamp, his gray eyes shone like shards of broken glass, piercing and clear.
“How long have you been here?” Alma asked him.
He considered. “Too long. Sometimes it feels like my entire life, and sometimes, as if I had only arrived yesterday.”
“Some inmates know the exact count of days.”
“The Green Triangles, because they have a chance of getting out of here.”
“You don’t believe you shall ever get out of here?”
“I will, one way or another.” The playful manner in which he tossed his head in the direction of the crematorium turned Alma’s stomach. Aware of her painful grimace, he changed his tone—and subject—self-consciously. “I got myself a new job. I was about to tell you all about it, but you seduced me with your sardines and, after that, I couldn’t quite think straight. And don’t fret; I’ll still be tutoring your girls. I shall be working the odd shifts, from what they told me.”
Alma grinned, grateful for the distraction. “A good detail, I hope?”
“One of the most kosher ones in the entire camp,” Miklós confirmed. “SS kitchen detail.”
Alma stared at him, unable to conceal her amazement. “Just how did you manage to get yourself there? I thought it was reserved only for the German Green Triangles?”
“It is.” Miklós nodded. “Their Kapo approached me himself after he saw me pass through the SS checkpoint with my Ausweis. A rather queer fellow, let me tell you! A German Green as well; a giant of a man with hands so big, he could crush my entire skull in them. Frightened me something terrible when he descended upon me like a hawk. He was interrogating me worse than the Gestapo for a good fifteen minutes—about my status, my camp pass and the reason why it was issued, my access to different work details, my political inclinations and whatnot. But it was after I recounted the details of my arrest that he suddenly became very amiable and announced that I would be most welcome in their detail and that he would settle all of it with the SS himself.”
“What is so particular about your arrest that made him so eager all of a sudden?”
“Nothing, to be truthful with you. Though, it could have been the circumstances of it…” He pondered something before continuing, “I was arrested in 1942, in Prague.”
“What were you doing in Prague?”
“Playing the piano,” he replied with all seriousness.
Alma discovered that she was grinning again, in spite of herself.
“In 1939, we didn’t have the Nazis in Budapest yet, but we had the Arrow Cross Party and they were no better. Same song, different words. After they adopted their so-called Second Jewish Law, I was dismissed from the Philharmonic due to my racial status. Vienna was out of the question—you already had your own Nazis parading down the Prater there. I had a diplomat friend in Prague who invited me there to work for the local radio. Prague was already a capital of their so-called German Protectorate, but the acting Reich Protector, von Neurath, happened to be good friends with my friend, whose protection I enjoyed. For a time, I was pretty much left alone. On the radio, they never credited me with the music that I played, but it was fine with me as long as I could play it at all.” His steel-gray eyes now had a faraway look to them. “I was arrested right after they shot that second Reich Protector, Heydrich, in his car. Or they threw a grenade at it—I don’t recall exactly what happened, but what I do remember is that the SS put the entire city on lockdown and the Gestapo were at my door the very next day.”
“Why you?”
“Because I’m a Jew and we’re the perfect scapegoats for that sort of thing, no?”
There was no arguing the point. It was perfect Gestapo logic. Alma caught herself chuckling, despite herself.
“At any rate, they took me down into some basement and began demanding the names of my accomplices.” His eyes began to shine with mischievous mirth. “Well, seeing that they were so firm in their conviction that it was I who must have orchestrated the entire affair, I didn’t wish to disappoint them and gave them all the names that sprung to my mind—Berlioz, Sieczyński, Schumann, Benatzky, and I didn’t forget to add Mendelsohn for the even count. They disappeared with the list but returned soon after; one of their superiors must have been more educated musically and explained to them what the joke was.” He cringed theatrically. “I need hardly add, the Gestapo don’t take kindly to Jews making fools out of them before their own higher-ups. It was then that my nose made a close acquaintance with their knuckledusters. They held me there for another week or so, stopping by my cell periodically to give me a kick in the ribs. But then they caught the real perpetrators and shipped me here just for being a Jew and having a long tongue.”
Without the orange glares of the crematorium dancing in the room, his face stood out, pale and noble, against the shadows. Suddenly, Alma felt overcome with a desire to reach out and touch his cheek, just to ensure that he was indeed here with her. “How brave you are,” she whispered, and meant it.
He shook his head, concealing yet another grin. “I’m not brave. Those Czech patriots were brave. I was simply a harmless Jew, too pitiful to even waste the bullet on.” For a moment, he lapsed into silence but then suddenly said, “‘Fortunately, fate is famous for giving second chances and even a harmless Jew can prove himself useful.’ That’s what the SS kitchen detail Kapo said. And, you know, I want to believe him.”
Alma didn’t like that kitchen Kapo one bit. There was something extremely vague and secretive about the entire manner in which he had accosted Miklós. It was Greens, Reds, and the Sonderkommando that were never up to any good compared to the terrified and therefore passive general population of the camp. It was their kind that swung from the gallows more often than not. Unlike regular inmates, in which all thoughts had been replaced by an obsession with life-saving crumbs of bread and sheer survival, these privileged kinds still schemed and plotted against the SS with a truly obstinate determination. Their stomachs were full; they still had strength in them and thus they could occupy themselves with other matters. To be sure, they got caught and executed, but that was an acceptable sacrifice in their eyes. In place of the dead heroes, new ones invariably closed ranks, and something told Alma, the kitchen Kapo was among them—the elusive camp Resistance—tortured, maimed, hanged and fired at, and yet, oddly immortal. She didn’t like the kitchen Kapo one bit, but she couldn’t help but respect him.
“Let’s drink to that.” Alma dipped her aluminum mug into the bucket of water and offered it to him.
Miklós didn’t take it; only made a sign for her to wait a moment. “I have something better,” he declared with a look of a conspirator about him, dug into the inner pocket of his civilian jacket and produced a small porcelain cup with a mark on its bottom Alma instantly recognized.
“Limoges!” she cried in amazement. “Where did you get it?”
Setting the expensive cup aside as carefully as possible, he held up his index finger once again. Under Alma’s incredulous gaze, Miklós extracted a saucer to complete the set. “I’ll trade you this set for your mug.”
“No, I can’t possibly accept it… It must have cost you a fortune in rations…” Alma tried to protest, but Miklós would have none of it.
“You will oblige me, truly. You see, I’m allergic to porcelain.”
Alma looked at him and couldn’t help but wonder how she survived this entire time without his jests.
“Where did you get it?” she repeated, turning the cup this way and that in her hands.
“That’s not important.” He gently took the cup in his hand and scooped water into it. “Here, Countess. Now, you have a suitable set to take your morning coffee. Prost.”
“Prost, Count. Here’s to second chances.”
“Here’s to leaving this place on our own two feet.”
For some time after that, the crematoriums stood suspiciously still. From the camp office, Zippy brought the rumor about the new Kommandant obstructing the extermination orders from Berlin. Then, one morning, Alma woke up to the familiar smell and saw the orange glare reflecting in the glass of her window.
Kommandant Liebehenschel walked in that very evening, sat in the very back, as was his habit, with his doe eyes downcast and requested a funeral march to be played.
Miklós played it for him, a gut-churning piece that made one want to howl with despair. Liebehenschel sat for a while after it was over, rose to his feet a bit unsteadily, thanked him in a soft voice and walked out, discreetly wiping his face with his sleeve.
Things changed in the camp, and they didn’t. Time itself stood still.
Chapter 19
“Typhus.”
Alma stared at Dr. Mengele as though unable to comprehend the meaning of his words.
“Yes. A regular case. Nothing to be done,” he repeated and motioned Violette out of her bunk. “All of you shall stay in the Sauna for a time, during which your barrack will be disinfected.”
Before he could take another step, Alma moved swiftly to stand between him and her youngest charge—Violette-f
rom-Paris, favorite composer Vivaldi. “Where are you taking her?”
He looked at her mockingly. “Where do you think?”
“I won’t allow it!” The words were out of her mouth before Alma realized what she was doing. Her hands balled into fists, she stood before the most feared man in the camp. Her entire body was trembling, yet she refused to take a single step back. An image of the twin boy in Dr. Ránki’s quarters appeared before Alma’s eyes; she must have seemed just as harmless and thoroughly amusing to Dr. Mengele with her pitiful defensive stance. And yet, the desire to protect had surged up in her, overwhelming even the instinct of self-preservation. “She’s an essential member of my orchestra and I won’t allow it!”
Dr. Mengele regarded her, slightly annoyed but impressed nevertheless. “I’m taking her to the sickbay,” he finally said slowly. “Not the gas chamber. And now, off to the Sauna you go. I want to see if there are more cases among you before I take her to the Revier.”
Alma stared at him with great mistrust. “She’s an excellent violinist. You heard her play. It won’t be easy for me to replace her.”
“In that case, I advise you to step away, so I can take her to the sickbay as soon as possible so she can get the medical attention she needs.”
A phenol into the heart? Alma wouldn’t budge from her spot.
“Dr. Švalbová shall be treating her. Well?” He flicked his riding crop against his boot impatiently. “Out with all of you, now! Do you wish to catch it too?”
With great reluctance, Alma signed for the girls to follow her outside.
In the usual formation, five abreast, they marched to the Sauna in tense silence. But it appeared their ordeal was far from over. As soon as they stepped through the doors of the anteroom with rows of hooks lining its walls, Dr. Mengele immediately motioned the women towards the benches under those very hooks.
The Violinist of Auschwitz: Based on a true story, an absolutely heartbreaking and gripping World War 2 novel Page 19
