The Visitor

by Brent Ayscough

  ***

  The phone rang in Andrew’s room. Andrew was awake, but not yet out of bed. He rolled over, picked up the receiver, and drawled out a “Hello.”

  “Eschmann here. Good morning.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Eschmann. So nice to hear from you.”

  “You don’t sound like you are awake just yet. Shall I call back?”

  “No, I’m awake. Go ahead.”

  “I’ve made the contact for you. What do you say we have brunch at the Commander’s Palace? This is Sunday, and they have nice jazz there. In two hours?”

  “Sure.”

  Andrew called the suite next door. “Shanta?”

  “Yes, dear?” The bond between them had grown.

  “Mr. Eschmann wants to take us to brunch. He has something for us. Can you make it in two hours?”

  “Yes, dear. I have been up for a long time. What should I wear to that place? I don’t have much as you know. “

  “It’s a little fancy. One of your saris will do just fine.”

  ***

  Inside the restaurant, the three of them sat at a table near a window, but it was much too hot outside for any window to be open. Jazz music saturated the atmosphere with a wonderful ambiance unique to New Orleans.

  “I’ve managed to reach the baron. No small task--you might be surprised what that took. It seems he has insulated himself from people who are trying to find him for whatever reason. He has numbers in Berlin and Taipei. When I explained who I was to one of his secretaries, he finally called me back from God knows where. I did not mention anything about what you want him for, as such topics really must not be discussed over any phone line. It was only because of our past relationship, whereby I had hired him for your father’s business, that he returned my call. I told him about you, and that you wish to see him at any place he chooses. He says he will phone me today and tell me where he will be in several days. Will that be satisfactory?”

  Andrew smiled widely at the news. “You’re the best, Mr. Eschmann. What do you think?”

  “I really can’t say. But given the nature of, and the magnitude of, your plight, this is the very best that I can do. If he can’t help, I can’t help. I don’t have unlimited resources, you know.”

  “I think you do,” Shanta said and then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Well now, I had no idea I was so good!” He laughed and motioned to a waiter for what would be, especially with Eschmann’s local knowledge of just what to order at the restaurants he frequented, a breakfast to remember.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Work Brings Freedom,” the female tour guide said, translating the sign--Arbeit Macht Frei--above the entrance gates to Auschwitz, as she took Tak on a private tour arranged by Baron. She was fifty, blonde, and somewhat attractive. “My family for several generations has lived very close by, and we have first-hand knowledge about this place.”

  Tak looked about as the guide walked her through what many consider the bowels of evil.

  “The sign you see above was placed here by Rudolf Hoss, the Commandant. It was intended to be a kind of mystical declaration that self-sacrifice in the form of endless labor does, in itself, bring about spiritual freedom.

  “The estimates are that there were, in total, between one million one hundred thousand and one million six hundred thousand prisoners here. The vast majority were Jews. Many Jews of the world contend there were more here, but this is what my family and the local historians believe. There were gypsies and others cremated here as well.”

  “What’s a Jew?” Tak asked.

  The guide assumed Tak asked the question in a philosophical sense as of the time of the camp’s operation, as no one asked such a question in present tense. The guide was an expert on the subject with the benefit of generations of her neighbors’ proximity to the death camp. She gave what she considered to be the best answer. “Well, to quote Hitler, ‘A Jew is a parasite living in someone else’s country.’”

  The guide led Tak into an underground chamber to a room with two ovens that had rails leading to them. “Here, at Auschwitz, this first crematorium was built. It was later considered too small and was torn down to build a bomb shelter. They saved the iron doors and parts, so the Polish government reconstructed the ovens you see here.”

  “Was this brought about from hatred of Jews?”

  “Actually, many think it was Hitler’s subordinate Goebbels that truly hated Jews, but clearly Hitler, as ruler, deserves the majority of the credit for the mass murders. The intent of the Reich was to purify the races of Europe and to do so by the elimination of inferior races.

  “The people were gassed in the room we just came through with Zyklon B, a hydrogen-cyanide poison gas. Then other prisoners, used as workers, loaded them into the ovens.

  “Himmler inspected Auschwitz on March 1, 1941, which led to an order for five three-retort ovens. The new ovens were constructed at Birkenau instead of Auschwitz. Those together burned five thousand people a day.”

  “Amazing,” Tak said. “Killing and cremating five-thousand members of a race of a people in a day. And in such small ovens. How could they do that with so small and so few ovens?”

  “Initially, they loaded two corpses in each oven. As time went on, to reduce loading time and increase efficiency, four or five corpses were loaded in an oven each time. It took twenty minutes to cremate three corpses, and it was learned that it was more efficient to spend twenty five to thirty minutes to cremate four to five at a time and to reduce loading time. There were a few times when the Nazis wanted to cremate more than the ovens could handle, and so they burned them in a pile outdoors nearby. My parents, now dead, recalled the stench of the burning bodies on those occasions.”

  ***

  At nearby Birkenau, the guide continued. “As you can see, although much larger, there is less of Birkenau left. The brick entrance arch remains, with the train rails in place. Inside you can see the field with the foundations of where there used to be wooden barracks, which were burned by the fleeing Nazis. In the rear, you will see the remains of the gas chambers and krematoria that the Nazis exploded when they left.

  “Auschwitz had twenty-thousand prisoners, whereas at Birkenau had over one hundred thousand. There were three-thousand-five-hundred German soldiers here to run the camps and guard the prisoners.

  “Many think that the most evil man here, and also in the world, was Doctor Josef Mengele. He was known for carrying a riding crop, and there is a picture here of him inside with it.

  “To study what was hereditary and what was learned from the environment, he thought answers existed in studies of twins, and so he haunted every arriving convoy he could, in search of twins. He was obsessed with the controversy of environment verses nature--he wished to demonstrate that heredity counted for the important things, as opposed to the environment. Since, sometimes, ten thousand new people arrived daily, he had a large censes to find twins for experiments.”

  “Mengele performed experiments on one-thousand-five-hundred pairs of twins,” the guide continued as they walked through the camp. “He believed that which was identical must be hereditary, and any difference was from environment. His experiments involved injections into eyes, spines, and inner organs, incestuous impregnations, removal of organs and limbs, injections with lethal germs, transfusions of blood from one twin to the other, and exposure to various stimuli. The tests usually ended in dissection of the body for examination.

  “On January 18, 1945, as the Soviet Army was near, Mengele fled and lived in Paraguay and in Brazil, receiving money from his German family, until January 24, 1979, when he drowned while swimming in the ocean in Bertioga, Brazil.”

  Walking to the back, they came upon the gas chambers and krematoria. “These have been maintained as they were left by the Nazis,” the guide said. “Although blown up with explosives, you can clearly see the gas chambers and the rails to the ovens.”

  They walked back along the railroad tracks to where the
car and driver were waiting. About half way to the gate, Tak stopped.

  “What is it?’ the guide asked.

  “I feel something here in time. Something happened here, involving many souls.”

  “This is where the train stopped and let out the thousands of prisoners nearly every day,” the guide said. “It is from this spot that they were told to go to the back, which is the gas chambers, or the other direction, which was for forced labor. Do you have a special sense for such things?”

  “I do have a special connection with time,” Tak said.

  On the return trip in Tak’s private car, a hired, black Mercedes sedan, Tak asked the guide, “How, in just the span of a human life, could there have been such brutal extermination of so many of one people by another?”

  “There was much suffering then,” the guide answered. “Even those that were not prisoners had hard times. And the death camps were only a small number of the total people killed in the war. The Russians lost over twenty-six million in battles and, in some cases, starvation.”

  “Do you think that humans have changed very much since the time of the death camps?” Tak asked her.

  “I belong to an informal association of local guides,” the guide said, “and they encourage us to be cautious when rendering personal views and opinions that are outside the objective, historical facts of the historical monuments that we guide tourists through.”

  Tak looked her in the eyes, trying to determine what she was concealing.

  The guide realized that Tak could detect her deceit. But then, as she made more from tips than from her modest salary, she decided to please her client and answer. “There are many Jews that come here from all over the world on prayer missions for lost ancestors and they treat the entire camp as a highly solemn event. However, there are others, not Jews, who come just to witness what Hitler did with the Jews. It would be fair to say that some of the clients actually find the experience stimulating.”

  ***

  The phone rang in Tak’s suite. “How was the tour?” the now-familiar voice asked.

  “Stimulating.”

  “Stimulating? Well, I hope you enjoyed it. Would you like to meet in the lobby bar for a drink in about half an hour? I have your currency.”

  Tak went down early to see if there were any interesting people in the lobby that she might observe. A group of Hasidic Jews were occupying most of the lobby area, having just arrived to go to Auschwitz for special prayers for lost family members. They wore their characteristic black outfits, hats, beards, and long hair. Even the sideburns were very long, hanging down below their chins. To her, they appeared alien, compared to the other humans she had encountered.

  She concluded the all-black outfits were uniforms, having seen the black uniform outfits of the guides at the salt mine. She decided to ask and sat at a table with one of the Hasidic Jews who was sitting alone.

  “May I ask what that uniform signifies that you do?” she asked.

  “I’m a Jew, here on a special prayer mission.”

  “Oh yes, I learned about Jews today. You are a parasite living in someone else’s country.”

  The Jew’s eyes opened wide, and just as he was about to say or do something, Baron fortunately approached. “Tak!”

  She looked at the angry Jew. “Excuse me, I must go now.”

  She got up and went to greet Baron, who had unknowingly rescued her, and who was already generating looks by his elegant presence in the lobby.

  Baron led her to a quiet table at a widow overlooking the river, away from others, where they could talk. He handed her a large, stuffed, manila envelope.

  Inside was a huge stack of Euros. “Oh, thank you, Baron. How much do I owe you for what you have spent for me?”

  “Nothing. The room is on me. But I see you are hardly impoverished.”

  “I did promise to repay you,” she said.

  “Oh, no, I insist. Now, let’s have a drink. What would you like?”

  Tak had not the slightest clue what to ask for. “Whatever you are having.”

  Baron ordered for them. “So tell me about your day.”

  “Auschwitz and Birkenau were fascinating and the history of just such a relatively short time ago was very informative. Has anything like World War II occurred since 1945?”

  “Did they not teach you history in school?”

  “My studies were not of Earth’s history, but rather of human behavior in the present to determine the predictable future. But it occurs to me that, after the tour of the activities of Auschwitz and Birkenau, I should acquire knowledge of any similar events since that time, as it might affect my predictions as to probable future conduct. Are you knowledgeable on the subject?”

  “I am no historian. But I have some knowledge of the history of wars since World War II.”

  “I would appreciate hearing from you on that subject.”

  “Well, the history of war over even such a relatively short period of is no small question. How to put together such an answer without taking all night? There are libraries of books on the subject. But, yes, there have been many wars since World War II.”

  “Would you mind imparting some of your knowledge to me on the subject of wars since World War II?” Tak positioned her wrist computer more prominently in front of her so as to be able to record the lesson she hoped to learn--a lesson in human behavior.

  “Well, let’s see...as just a short history, to be sure, there has been much of the same sort of activities since 1945, but not on such a large scale. Although not a war, the Soviets and the United States have had thousands of nuclear missiles pointed at each other since just after World War II but which were never used. But there have been numerous actual wars or conflicts. Just to name a few, the Chinese killed many in the communist takeover and the later so-called ‘Cultural Revolution’ starting just after World War II. The Muslims from Pakistan fought with the Hindus in India just after their independence from England in 1947, and there have been numerous clashes since, including presently in Kashmir. There was the Korean War in the early fifties with people of the same race killing each other over differing forms of government, involving a war of allies of democracy fighting North Koreans, Chinese soldiers, and Russians pilots. There was the Vietnam War from the mid-fifties to about 1975, followed by political violence and many executions, with several hundred thousand ‘boat people’ dying at sea, trying to escape, with an estimated total of 3.8 million Vietnamese killed.

  “There was wholesale murder in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979, by execution, starvation, and forced labor, killing 1.7 million people, about a quarter of the population. The Arabs fought Israel in wars off and on that were nearly thirty years long, and fighting continues regularly between Israel and some Arab states. There has been fighting in the north of India in the Punjab on several occasions. Groups of Catholic Irishmen were blowing up English Protestants with terrorist bombs to keep alive a vendetta for decades in retaliation for past horrific acts of the British against them. There were race riots between the Chinese and Malay in Singapore in 1965, followed by the riots in Malaysia a year later. There was the Falklands Island war of 1982, between Argentina and the British, which was actually decided by Gurkhas, like my driver Lachhiman, who, working for the British, landed on one side of the island and chased the Argentine Army across the island to defeat. Clashes in Africa occur regularly, with hardly any country there able to run itself. There has been massive slaughtering in some African nations, like the racial slaughtering there between the tribes of Hutu and the minority Tutsi, both blacks but of different tribal origins.

  He paused to take a quick breath. “There was fighting and extermination of races not far from where we are now, in Bosnia-Herzegovina with the Croats, Muslims, and Serbs fighting among each other, resulting in an accord in 1995, dividing up Yugoslavia into new territories and creating the Serb-controlled Republika Srpska. There is much hatred there among those groups, and it is only the presence of the NATO-led for
eign troops that keeps fighting from breaking out again. Then there is the routing out of the Chinese by the Muslims in Indonesia not long ago. The US president Carter turning over Iran to Muslim radicals was the precursor to Muslim terrorism. There was Iraq with its leader Hussein killing Kurds in the north of the country, using anthrax on his own countrymen, funding terrorists in other countries, and then sending his army into Kuwait. US presidents made war to rid Kuwait of occupation, then to rid Iraq of Hussein, and they to continue to war in Afghanistan. There is much warring presently in many parts of the world by Muslims intent on killing innocents that are not Muslims, or that are not of the same Muslim sects, fueled by religious fanatics. In Russia, and other places, Muslims attack non-Muslim Russians often over who is the true God, the Muslim Allah or the Orthodox Christ, although that is just an excuse for killing. There are about eleven million illegal Muslim immigrants in Russia. Muslims now bring their terror in the form of suicide bombers to civilized places and blow themselves up along with innocent victims in many countries. There are also wars over who is to control the country, such as in Syria.”

  “Have Muslims always done these things?”

  “Well, if you go back much farther than World War II, there is a huge history of religious wars, and not only Muslims. But your question was concerning matters since World War II. Much of the cause of current terrorism stemmed, or at least began, from US President Carter, arguably the worst US president ever, giving up Iran to medieval religious Muslins by withdrawing support of the Shah of Iran years ago, for what he called a poor civil rights record. Muslim fanatics learned they could then control countries, especially those with oil reserves.”

  With that, he leaned back and sighed. “I’m sure I have left out many.”