When Susannah recovers she’s pleased to find that the rest of her family are now in relatively good health too, meaning the dysentery has abated and they’re not bedridden. This means they can all work, which means more food.
But still not enough.
Every inch of Susannah’s skin seems permanently cold, and the rest of her family regularly voice the same complaint. They spend most of their non-working time huddled next to each other, covered in all the clothes they possess, or lying on the bed or the floor covered in the few dirty blankets that haven’t been stolen by other prisoners. The bed isn’t always available, because in spite of people dying the cabin is more crowded than ever due to the influx of new prisoners. They try to play cards together once or twice, but it’s a muted affair; it’s not the same when nobody cares whether they win or lose. It’s as though people have given up all hope of anything positive. They invite Ester to join in, which helps. Ester is back to something approaching her normal self – always cheerful no matter what. Even though she’s lost weight she doesn’t seem to have lost hope. However, she can’t play cards very well, and Susannah has to help her a lot with the rules.
Playing cards reminds Susannah of Uncle Paul and Aunt Helena, of the many years they spent playing bridge together in Amsterdam and in the farmhouse. She wonders what’s happened to them. Mother and Father just shake their heads when she asks if they know anything. Perhaps they’ll find out something when they leave Bergen-Belsen camp.
Then Father falls ill again, and Mother looks after him and Jacob, meaning Susannah goes to the shoe tent alone.
Inside it’s as quiet as ever, apart from the slicing and ripping of leather. Susannah tries to catch Keller’s eye. She’s heard stories that the foreign forces are making advances. Such rumours are rife in the camp, but nobody really knows how much truth is in the stories. Perhaps Keller knows more. Perhaps if Susannah strikes up a conversation with him he’ll tell her what’s happening outside. Even if he wouldn’t tell her deliberately his expression might give something away. Susannah is desperate for any news whatsoever, and now she’s almost an adult she feels she can judge character better – especially of people not much older than herself like Keller.
She looks towards him. He looks straight ahead. Did he glance at her for a split second just then?
She keeps her eyes on him, now fearlessly – she wouldn’t dare stare at any other guard.
And then she does it.
She thinks she can work without paying much attention, but with tired hands and a blank mind the knife slips and its blade – blunt and jagged though it is – runs across her other hand and scrapes off a small flap of skin.
She yelps in pain, drops the knife, and clasps her bloodied hand. As she starts to cry, she looks around. Nobody takes any notice. In fact, nobody even looks. Keller still gazes straight ahead.
She lifts her hand to assess the damage. If she can’t work there will be even less food for her family. As she examines her hand something casts a shadow over it, and she feels a strong hand lift hers.
‘Let me look,’ Keller says. He’s furtive, passing glances every few seconds to the opening of the tent. He pulls a rag out of his pocket and wraps it around her hand. ‘That will stem the flow of blood for a while,’ he says.
Susannah doesn’t feel pain anymore; she’s thinking of Keller, of why he’s helping her. Perhaps there is hope after all.
She thanks him, still breathing heavily, and looks up at him. Even now he won’t look directly at her face, only her hand. Is that an expression of pity or shame on his face? And if pity, then for whom?
Then Keller’s name is shouted from the tent opening. It’s Müller; somehow she’s crept up on them.
‘What’s happening here?’ she says, then turns and shouts Jung’s name out of the tent opening. Within seconds Jung appears, and Müller explains to him what she’s seen. Jung steps towards Keller and strikes him across the face with a gloved hand.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he shouts, his face as close to Keller’s as he can get without touching.
‘I cut myself,’ Susannah says.
Jung’s head flicks sideways to her. ‘Silence!’ Then back to Keller. ‘Well?’
Keller’s face has turned a solid pink colour. He struggles to speak.
‘I . . . I noticed she cut herself.’
‘So?’
He shrugs. ‘She’s . . . she’s a good worker. She produces a lot of leather and fabric. We need good workers.’
‘Well, let’s see how good she is.’ Jung turns back to Susannah and says, ‘You. Carry on working.’
‘But I’ve cut myself.’ She offers up the hand wrapped in the now bloodied rag.
Jung slaps her across the face once, twice, three times. With a manic twitch he grabs her hand, pulls the rag off and throws it away. He points to her knife on the floor and tells her to carry on working.
Susannah, still feeling the sting on her cheek and the ache in her jaw, obeys, and slowly starts working.
‘Faster!’ Jung shouts to her, almost screaming the words in her face.
‘I’m only human,’ she mumbles.
‘What?’ Jung grabs her grimy blouse and gives it a shake. A long rip appears in the thin material. ‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing,’ Susannah says. Their eyes meet; she sees madness in his, and looks away after a second.
He lets go of her roughly and crouches down, picking up a handful of sandy dust from the floor. ‘You see this?’ he says, standing tall and looking around to show he is now addressing Susannah, Müller and especially Keller. He lifts his hand up, opening it slowly, letting the dirt fall back to the ground. There’s an air of the theatrical to his display. Then he faces Susannah, glares at her, and lowers his voice. ‘You people are nothing more than dust,’ he says. ‘And you are one mere speck of that dust.’ As the final grains fall he blows them into her face. ‘That is the truth. Never forget it.’
He wipes his hand on his trousers and looks to Keller for a response.
For a moment Keller’s face has a puzzled expression. Then the confusion disappears, leaving a straight, stark nothingness. He steps forward.
Susannah sees his head jerk, then feels the splash of his spittle shock her face. Then she hears him say, ‘Untermensch!’ The single word is hissed but also loud and clear.
She freezes, her mouth open, her throat locked shut. She has to wipe Keller’s spittle away with the back of her hand before she believes what he’s just done. Then she bursts into tears and races out of the tent.
She hears angry shouts coming from behind her, telling her to stop.
She doesn’t care.
If they shoot, they shoot.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Star Camp is at the edge of the Bergen-Belsen complex, and so has a perimeter fence to the outside world.
Those who approach it get away from the stench and the dull drone of prisoners talking and groaning in the cabins. The nearer they get to the barbed-wire fence, the more respite they have. There it smells of grasses and pine and freedom, and the sound is of a heavenly peace where they can even hear birds chirping.
But the perimeter fence is a double-edged sword. Those who approach it also risk looking as if they’re trying to escape, and so risk being shot or hanged or perhaps only beaten.
However, when Susannah runs to the fence and collapses next to the barbed wire none of this matters to her; she has long since given up thoughts of freedom and doesn’t care if bullets pierce what little flesh she has left or fracture her weary bones.
And the cut on her hand is little more than a fading sting.
So when she hears jackboots thumping the earth behind her she doesn’t turn to see which guard has given chase. That forces Keller to step around in front of her.
‘Go away!’ she shouts to him. ‘I hate you!’
She wipes the tears from her dirty face with her dirty coat sleeve and pulls the coat around her body as a shield against the
cold wind.
‘You have to come back to the shoe tent,’ Keller says, nervously glancing back there.
‘I thought you were . . . my friend, perhaps.’
‘Your friend?’ Keller says with a puzzled frown. ‘But . . . I’m a guard.’
‘But you’re different from the other guards; you know how hard life is for us. I know you can see that.’
Keller runs a finger around the inside of his collar and pulls his face straight. ‘You must get back to the tent. You could get shot if you stay here.’
Susannah bows her head and her fist hits the ground, blowing up a cloud of cold dust. ‘Oh, what’s the point?’ she says.
Keller crouches down next to her for a second, then checks himself and appears to realize what it could look like. So he stands up again and points his rifle at her. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘This is in case someone is looking. I’m not going to shoot.’
Now Susannah looks up to him for the first time. ‘You really think I care?’ she says. ‘What hope do I have? What’s the point in doing anything here? This . . .’ She looks around her. ‘This is hell. It’s not even worth being alive here.’
Keller sighs and relaxes his grip on the rifle. ‘You know, when I started here a year ago things were better. Things are only getting so much worse because they force more and more prisoners in here day after day.’
‘Oh, I apologize,’ Susannah says, spitting the words out like a jilted lover – like someone who has had the chance to find and lose love. ‘I’m so sorry if we’re making life difficult for you.’
Keller’s frown returns. He looks all around him, his gaze lingering at the shoe tent. Then he lowers his voice. ‘You know,’ he says, ‘you’re not the only one who’s sorry.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
She waits, but Keller says nothing more.
‘Are you telling me you are sorry?’ she asks.
‘I’m telling you that many Germans aren’t happy about what’s happening.’
‘And you?’
Keller pauses as he rolls his tongue around his mouth for a moment. ‘I’m sorry about what I did to you in the tent.’
‘And everything else?’
Keller looks to the ground. His face twitches once or twice before he nods.
‘So . . . why do you do it?’ she says. ‘Why are you a part of this, doing these things to us?’
Keller shrugs and hesitates to answer, then looks up and left to the sentry guard some distance away. ‘Because there’s the hope that someone will see what’s going on and realize what madness it is, and because it’s my job.’ He looks back to the tent, and now Susannah senses despair in his voice. ‘Also because if I say these things to any other guards I know what will happen to me.’
Susannah stares at his face, trying to judge. Is he playing games of some sort?
She thinks not. Perhaps there’s a tiny ray of hope after all.
‘Please,’ Keller says. ‘Come back to the tent.’
‘And if I do as you say, then what can you do for me in return?’
He almost laughs. ‘What do you want me to do – help you escape?’
‘That would help,’ Susannah says, speaking the words slowly so there’s no chance of it being taken as flippancy.
‘You know, I don’t think it would,’ Keller replies. ‘You would be captured and at the moment that means you would be shot. And so would I.’
‘Or you could . . .’ Susannah hesitates to say it. He could say no but he could also do any number of things. Yes, now is as good a time as any to ask.
‘I want some extra food for my family.’
Keller looks shocked. ‘You know I can’t do that. I’d be shot. And food is now scarce even for Germans.’ He nods back to the tent. ‘Come on. I’ll try to make things a little easier for you when Müller and Jung are not here. But that’s all I can do for you.’
Slowly Susannah gets to her feet, her joints feeling stiff and tired even though they’re young, and starts walking. Keller points his rifle at her back, and as Jung and Müller step out of the tent he prods her with it.
‘What took you so long?’ Jung says.
Keller says nothing. Jung strikes Susannah across the face again and shoves her over towards the pile of shoes. She picks her knife up from the floor, wipes the blood off her hand, and takes a shoe from the large pile in front of her.
She keeps her head low, and she works.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
In the memorial cafeteria Susannah finished her coffee and thought about what had happened to her earlier, about her vision of the building, about seeing the cabin that was no longer there.
That was easier – thinking about it was easier than going out and facing it again.
She looked down to her tray, to the two empty sugar sachets. She stared at them for a moment, then looked around to see if anyone was facing in her direction.
Nobody was.
She picked up one sachet and poked her finger into the hole, ripping the miniature bag apart. Then she glanced around to check again that nobody was looking before lifting it to her mouth. She gave the paper a lick, tentatively at first, then quickly, almost in ecstasy, flicking her tongue, squeezing its point into the corner folds of paper in case they held a hidden grain or two. She didn’t check to see if anybody was looking when she picked up the second sachet and did the same. Only when she’d cleansed this second scrap of paper of every speck of the sweet powder did she stop, think, and quickly place it down.
What the heck was she doing?
Her mind was falling apart. Yet another sign that coming back here had been a mistake.
But no – she was upset, that was all. And why shouldn’t she be? This was never going to be easy. She was here searching for answers to difficult questions.
And she wasn’t going to find those answers by drinking coffee.
She puffed out a long sigh and braced herself to go outside again.
There, she slowly made her way back – close to where she thought she’d seen the cabin she lived in all those years ago.
Lived?
Ha! It was hardly living.
She stood still and concentrated for a few seconds. Then more details came back to her. Now she could see the cabin again, and this time it wasn’t quite as frightening. After all, it had been her home for something approaching a year.
The conditions in the camp have now worsened, and so too has the prisoners’ mental resolve. In September a traditional ram’s horn shofar was smuggled into the camp in a coffee cauldron at great risk to those involved. To celebrate Rosh Hashanah it was sounded – very softly so as not to alert the guards – spreading hope and pride. Similarly, to celebrate Yom Kippur in October, candles were smuggled in – and some manufactured through scraps of fat saved from the desperately short food supplies – and clandestine prayer services took place. By December, however, the mood had changed along with the weather. When Hanukkah arrived there was simply no appetite to do anything more than observe the holy days by saying silent prayers.
Now 1944 has turned into 1945, and an already bitter winter hardens further, cracking skin and making bones ache. In the cabins strangers huddle together for warmth. By now there are many more women in Susannah’s cabin, and somehow the bed she and Mother shared has been taken by another woman and her two young daughters, relegating them to the floor underneath. Only a smattering of straw separates them from the hard timber floor. Now Ester occasionally sleeps in the same cabin – whenever she feels threatened by the closeness of strangers in her own. It’s one more body squeezed under the bed, but also more shared warmth.
One such night – where only breath is visible, caught in the beams of light that leak through the cracks in the wall, and where the only sounds are weak coughs and despairing groans – the peace is splintered by the sounds of gunfire from outside.
Everybody in the cabin is woken. Nobody speaks or moves except for parents comforting small children who have started cryin
g. They all know it’s an escape attempt.
There are more gunshots. There are shouts. The sound of dogs barking makes the prisoners tighten their curled-up frames a little more.
The dogs.
Dogs that are better fed than the prisoners. Sometimes the guards deliberately feed their dogs in front of the prisoners just to torture them that little bit more. And Susannah once saw a guard take food from a man whose only crime was to look at him, and feed it to his dog. And so Susannah wonders whether the other prisoners are thinking the same as her –
Not: Will they escape?
But: How good it would be to have as much energy as those dogs, to eat as well as they do.
Eventually the noise stops and the prisoners quietly return to an acquiescent slumber.
In the morning the prisoners leave their cabins, braving the searing winds to visit the toilet block, to splash their faces with ice-cold water, and then gather for roll-call. As they stand there, like an array of ice statues, three carts are hauled to the front of the formation and tipped up in front of them. Everyone takes a long look at the bodies of twenty or thirty men and women, all lank, skinny and bloodied from gunshot wounds – and all naked to shame them even in death. The faces are all familiar in one way or another, like those of neighbours or colleagues who aren’t quite close enough to speak to. Everybody knows that the faces once belonged to real people who had aspirations, likes and loathings, strengths and failings, lovers and enemies.
Except that now they have none of those things. No life. No clothes. Not even dignity.
After roll-call a dozen of the younger and stronger men are picked out and told they must take the bodies out through the gates and bury them. When they return they initially say nothing, but before long reveal that the bodies that were displayed at roll-call weren’t the only ones they were ordered to bury. In fact, the majority of the corpses weren’t of people shot or hanged or beaten, but those with torsos overwhelmed by the scabs and dull red rashes of typhus.
The Sugar Men Page 12
