The Death's Head Chess Club

by John Donoghue

‘I am pleased, of course I am. But somehow it seems less important to me now.’

  Mrs Brinckvoort put her head around the door. ‘There’s a fish pie and potatoes in the oven, if you haven’t eaten,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Willi replied. ‘We haven’t. We came straight here.’

  ‘I’ll come down,’ Meissner said, hopefully.

  One look from Mrs Brinckvoort was enough to tell them she would not permit it.

  ‘The doctor said you must rest,’ Emil said.

  ‘The doctor is a lunatic. He knows I don’t have much time left but instead of letting me make the most of it, he wants me to sleep or dribble the rest of my days away. Well, I won’t have it.’

  ‘I can bring food up on a tray,’ the housekeeper offered.

  ‘Good. And please, stop acting as if you have to protect me from knowing the worst. I know it already. I’ve known it for months. The only question is when. I’ve received absolution, and I’m ready to meet my maker so let’s stop pretending, and talk about what’s important.’

  ‘Which is?’ Emil asked.

  Meissner looked him straight in the eye. ‘Your wife.’

  August 1944

  Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-I

  Rosa Clément is in a solitary confinement cell in the prison block. She has been there for days with no idea of why she was taken there. Ordered to follow the SS man from the K-B, she was made to climb onto the back of an open-topped lorry and driven away from the stark chimneys and the death stench of Birkenau to another camp, where the blocks are tall and made of brick and the prisoners do not have quite the same look of starved hopelessness.

  Nobody speaks to her. Three times a day her cell door opens and the normal rations given to the Häftlinge are pushed in: for breakfast, the bitter liquid that passes for coffee, coarse black bread and a smear of margarine; and noon and evening, a bowl of soup made from cabbage and potato peelings. In the morning she carries her slop bucket to a latrine and pours its contents in. At least she is not made to work. After a few days the durchfall stops, but she is no closer to knowing why she is there.

  ‘She’s disappeared,’ Eidenmüller said, mystified. ‘According to my pal, Connie Lammers, she was taken from the K-B in the women’s camp by an unknown SS officer. It has to be Hustek. But where she is now, he has no idea.’

  ‘She’s in the prison block in the Stammlager,’ Meissner said, ‘She has to be.’

  ‘You can’t just take someone and put them in there, sir,’ Eidenmüller objected. ‘There are procedures that have to be followed – grounds for detention, records that have to be completed. Even Hustek couldn’t get away without sticking to at least some of the rules.’

  ‘You want to bet? The Watchmaker is a Jew. That means his wife is, too. They have no rights. So what if Hustek has broken the rules? Who’s going to discipline him over it? Bär? I think not. But that gives us an advantage. Hustek thinks he’s safe. He has no idea that we know what he’s done, and in war, as he’s about to find out, intelligence is the key to victory. We’ll have her out of there in no time.’

  ‘We?’

  Meissner was smiling. The adrenaline of battle was already coursing through his veins. ‘Yes, Ernst, we.’ Eidenmüller looked at him askance; the Hauptsturmführer had never called him by his first name before. ‘Look,’ Meissner continued, ‘we have to face facts. The war is lost. Anyone with half a brain knows it. And what do you think the Allies will do when they discover what we’ve done at Auschwitz? Pin a medal on us? We all of us need to think about what’s going to happen to us after the war. We are going to need friends. Friends who will be prepared to testify that we weren’t the ones herding helpless Jews into the gas chambers. Friends who will testify that, on the contrary, we tried to help them. If we rescue his wife from Hustek’s clutches, don’t you think the Watchmaker might be grateful?’

  Eidenmüller shook his head. ‘But Hustek? He’s Gestapo. It doesn’t do to cross those bastards. What if we get caught?’

  ‘I’ll take full responsibility. You were only following orders. But it won’t come to that. Brossman despises Hustek too, and he’s promised to help. Between us we can do it. Trust me.’

  Night watch in the prison block is easy duty. A Scharführer is in overall command, plus two troopers on each floor, making a total of seven. Nothing ever happens at night. Apart from whimpers and occasional howls, there is not a sound to disturb the balmy August air. The SS men take it in turns to sleep – strictly against standing orders – but this is Auschwitz, and all its enemies are contained within its electrified fences. There is simply nothing to fear.

  Hauptsturmführer Brossman’s night inspection is a complete surprise. He arrives with a squad of ten troopers and angrily demands an explanation for why the Scharführer is asleep on duty, along with three of his men. Brushing aside the Scharführer’s protestations, he insists on conducting an impromptu inspection.

  The Scharführer protests. ‘I’ll have to get permission first.’

  Brossman feigns outrage. ‘Permission? From whom?’

  The officer nominally in charge of the prison block is a Gestapo Obersturmführer, but everybody knows it is Oberscharführer Hustek who calls the shots.

  ‘Oberscharführer Hustek, sir.’

  ‘If I have anything to do with it,’ Brossman growls, ‘you’ve just signed your request for a transfer to the Eastern front.’

  Despite the subdued light, the Scharführer pales visibly. To hell with Hustek. ‘At y-your service, H-Herr Hauptsturmführer,’ he stammers. ‘What can I do to assist you?’

  Brossman actually smiles. ‘That’s better. Now, it has come to my attention that a prisoner is missing from the women’s camp. The Rapportführer concerned has been somewhat dilatory in bringing it to my notice and has been disciplined. According to him, the prisoner was brought here, but I cannot ignore the possibility that she has escaped. As I’m sure you’re aware, the Kommandant takes a very dim view of escapes, and it’s my responsibility to prevent them. So I want to see the paperwork for every prisoner detained here, while my men inspect the cells.’

  ‘I assure you, sir,’ the Scharführer says solemnly, ‘at this moment, there are no women in the cells.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, Scharführer, for your sake.’

  It takes only minutes to go through the detention records. The Scharführer has spoken the truth. There is no record of any female prisoner.

  ‘Thank you, Scharführer,’ Brossman says. ‘It looks like we’ve been sent on a fool’s errand.’ Then a shout comes up from the lower level.

  ‘There’s a door down here, sir, but nobody seems to have the key.’

  ‘A door with no key?’ Brossman looks at the Scharführer, who shrugs. ‘That doesn’t seem right. Let’s take a look, shall we?’

  The door is solid wood and is set flush into a metal frame. There is a peephole near the top, and hinges and a lock made of what looks like cast iron.

  ‘Who’s in there?’ Brossman asks.

  ‘According to the records, nobody, sir.’

  ‘Then why is it locked? Unlock it at once.’

  ‘I don’t have the key, sir.’

  ‘Who does?’

  ‘Oberscharführer Hustek.’

  Brossman nods, as if the answer to an elusive mystery has been revealed.

  At the end of the lane that leads to the prison block, Meissner and Eidenmüller are waiting in an SS staff car. Eidenmüller is on edge, but Meissner is feeling better than he has for months.

  ‘If we get caught, sir, we’ll both be for the high jump, I know it,’ Eidenmüller says, through clenched teeth.

  ‘Relax. What’s the worst that can happen?’

  ‘We could be sent to the Eastern front.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve been there. It’s better than here, I promise you. Someone with your talents would be a godsend. You would be in your element.’

  Eidenmüller cannot believe what he is hearing. ‘In my element? Getting
shot to fuck by the fucking Bolshies? Not on your life – sir.’

  ‘Get down,’ Meissner hisses. The two men sink low in the car as one of Brossman’s troopers jogs by.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ Eidenmüller whispers.

  Meissner does not answer. Moments later, the trooper runs back carrying a sledgehammer.

  Inside her cell, Rosa Clément is listening to the commotion in the corridor with mounting apprehension. Suddenly somebody hammers on her cell door. ‘Who’s in there?’ a voice yells. ‘Answer me.’

  Rosa does not know how to reply. She is not sure who she is any more. The light goes on. She blinks, trying to adjust to the brightness. Then she sees an eye at the peephole.

  ‘Take a look for yourself,’ Brossman says to the Scharführer, who is beginning to realize how much trouble Hustek has landed him in. ‘According to your records, there is nobody in the cell, but quite clearly there’s a woman in there. Even the Gestapo cannot imprison people without due process. I can only conclude that Oberscharführer Hustek has abused his authority with regard to this prisoner for his own personal reasons.’

  ‘There’ll be hell to pay over this.’

  ‘How right you are,’ Brossman agrees. He turns his attention to the door again. ‘You, in there – what is your name?’

  They can barely hear the reply. ‘Rosa Clément.’

  ‘How long have you been in there?’

  ‘I’m not sure. A week, perhaps longer.’

  It takes the trooper only a few minutes to return with a sledgehammer. The lock is smashed off and the door opened. The woman seems confused that her rescuers are SS men. ‘Be silent,’ Brossman orders. ‘Follow me.’

  He leads her to the waiting car. ‘You took your time,’ Meissner says.

  ‘A slight problem with the door.’

  ‘How long will it take to get to Mauthausen?’

  ‘Ten or eleven hours, I would guess. But take your time.’ Brossman looks back towards the prison block. ‘I’ll keep these beauties out of harm’s way until you return.’

  They headed south and east, towards Austria. In the back of the car, Rosa struggled to understand what was happening. Everything seemed unreal, as if she were in a dream. Her senses were heightened: voices too loud, lights bright, colours vivid. The glass of the window against which she rested her face seemed strangely cool and yielding. She tried to focus on the blur of shadows that streamed past but everything was moving too quickly. Until a week ago, her life in the camp had been brutal but mostly predictable; then the SS had put her in a cell and now other SS men had taken her out. It made no sense. Questions raced through her mind: was she to be freed? Or, more likely, was she simply a puppet in some game the Germans were playing? She wondered where she would be by morning, whether she would still be alive.

  It was some time before she asked, ‘Where are you taking me?’

  The SS man in the passenger seat did not turn around when he answered: ‘We are going to the K-Z at Mauthausen, in Austria. It’s a work camp. You will be safer there.’

  ‘Safer? How?’

  ‘There are no gas chambers in Mauthausen.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’

  ‘I can’t tell you. It is better that you do not know.’

  The answer made Rosa feel a little calmer. Wherever she was going, it could not conceivably be worse than the horror that was Birkenau.

  The SS man offered her coffee from a thermos and a hunk of bread. This small act astonished her; tears rose to her eyes. Saying nothing, she blinked them back and reached hungrily for the bread.

  It was the second miracle of the night, as unexpected as the first: real bread, soft and white, aromatic; not the hard, sawdust-filled pig-food that she had become used to. She held it, hardly daring to believe what she possessed. It was like treasure – if only there were somewhere safe she could hide it . . . but she was too hungry for that. Still she hesitated. It was such a simple, everyday thing, yet so utterly out of reach; if she put it in her mouth it would be gone . . . Then she was chewing ravenously, her heart beating quickly and her breathing heavy, as if she were with a lover. The bread was soft, moist and delicious; she wanted it to stay in her mouth for ever. As long as she had bread in her mouth she would never be hungry again. And the taste . . . she had never tasted anything so good. It tasted of breakfast in her favourite café on the corner of the Rue de Maine, of a rich dark sauce mopped up from a plate, of the sharpness of mustard spread thick on roast beef; it tasted of before the war, of summer evenings when she would promenade with friends along the Tuileries, of the heady scents from the perfumerie on the corner of the Rue Danton, of coffee in Montmartre, of champagne in Le Chat Noir.

  It tasted of freedom.

  ‘More bread?’ Meissner asked.

  She stared suspiciously as he passed the loaf, stiffening herself like a cat ready to pounce in case he was playing with her, teasing only to snatch it back.

  Now it tasted of the south, of a bright spring day strolling along a river path with Emil and Louis and Marcel, the boys yelling with delight as they threw bits of stale bread to the ducks.

  The spell was broken. The bread congealed in her mouth to a claggy dough, which she had no saliva to soften. A wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm her, and she had to spit the bread out into her hands, coughing and spluttering. She had come back to the real world, to this car with its booming engine and two SS men headed for God alone knew where.

  Dawn found them on the outskirts of Brno. ‘We take the road south,’ Meissner said, consulting a map on his knee.

  Eidenmüller, at the wheel, disagreed. ‘Don’t you think we’d be better sticking to the main roads, sir? Less likely to be stopped.’

  ‘You think so?’ Meissner examined the map again. ‘Possibly, but it would take us too far out of our way.’

  ‘If we get caught with her, we’ve had it.’

  ‘What are you saying? That we should ditch her and run?’

  ‘No, sir. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is . . .’

  Rosa lifted her head. ‘I need to pee,’ she said.

  They pulled off the road into a copse of trees.

  Rosa got out of the car, making for the trees. Meissner followed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I must insist on going with you. I cannot take the risk that you might run away. Please do not try. It would give me no pleasure to shoot you.’

  Rosa squatted behind a bush. To pass water is such a basic human act, but this was the first time since her arrest that she had been able to do it in a place that was not surrounded by barbed wire. It gave her a strange feeling of liberty, as if she could simply get up and walk away from this place and never stop until she reached the ends of the earth.

  It was almost exhilarating, but it was short-lived.

  ‘What’s she doing in there?’ she heard Eidenmüller muttering.

  The men relieved themselves, then Meissner took over at the wheel, determined that they would follow the southern route.

  From the back seat Rosa looked out on the countryside, mesmerized. The road was lined with trees in full leaf, swaying gently in the morning light; hedgerows brimmed with flowers; and fields were heavy with produce, nearly ready for harvest. She tried to think back to the last time she had been able to look upon such a landscape – was it really only a year ago?

  She dozed on the back seat and woke only when they stopped to fill the petrol tank from the jerry cans strapped to the side of the car. ‘Where are we now?’ she asked.

  They had been passing through hamlets with German place-names for some time. ‘In Austria, heading for Linz.’ Eidenmüller took the wheel again. Towns passed by: Hagenberg, Pregarten, Altenhaus.

  Meissner was staring out over the countryside, trying to keep his eyes open, when Eidenmüller gave an almost inaudible groan: ‘Oh, shit.’

  Ahead was a patrol of soldiers, one of them waving a hand for them to stop.

  ‘Get down, right down into the foot well,’ Meissner
ordered Rosa. Hurriedly, he pulled a blanket over her.

  As they drew closer they could see it was a squad of four Feldgendarmerie, led by an Obergefreiter. ‘Relax,’ Meissner told Eidenmüller, ‘even you outrank him. Besides, we’re SS. He has no jurisdiction over us.’

  ‘Thank Christ for small miracles,’ Eidenmüller muttered, pulling the car to a halt.

  Meissner rolled the window down. ‘Yes?’ he snapped.

  The Obergefreiter jerked to attention and saluted. He was barely out of his teens.

  Meissner raised his right hand, palm outwards. ‘Heil Hitler. Now what is it? I haven’t got all day.’

  ‘Beg pardon, Herr Hauptsturmführer, we are looking for some deserters. Somebody reported seeing them in this area.’

  ‘Army deserters?’

  ‘Yes, Herr Hauptsturmführer.’

  ‘Then you’re wasting your time with us, aren’t you?’

  The Feldgendarmerie NCO swallowed. ‘Beg pardon, Herr Hauptsturmführer, but I must ask to see your papers.’

  The NCO was rewarded with a look of disdain. ‘Eidenmüller, show him your papers.’ Meissner made no attempt to retrieve his own. Instead, he reached for a cigarette and popped it between his lips. He gave the NCO the full force of a glare from his ice-blue eyes. ‘Well? What are you waiting for? Don’t you have any matches?’

  ‘Of course, Herr Hauptsturmführer. At once.’ A match flared. Meissner reached out to steady the NCO’s hand as he puffed to light the cigarette.

  Eidenmüller passed his identity card over. The NCO perused it nervously. For long moments it seemed they were cocooned in a bubble of silence, but the slow ticking of the car’s engine penetrated, louder and louder until, to Eidenmüller, it seemed as deafening as a steam-hammer. From the hedges along the road, the cheerful chirping of sparrows seemed unreal and out of place.

  Meissner recognized the electricity that fills the air before battle, yet he drew steadily on his cigarette, with an air of irritation at the unnecessary and intolerable delay.

  ‘Auschwitz?’ the NCO eventually said. ‘You’re a long way from home. What are you doing here?’

  Meissner reacted angrily. ‘That is none of your business and I have had enough of this nonsense.’ He flicked the cigarette at the NCO’s feet and turned to Eidenmüller. ‘Take this man’s name and unit number.’