The Sugar Men

by Ray Kingfisher

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ were pretty much Judy’s first words.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Susannah said, closing her eyes at the lie. ‘It’s . . . it’s been worth coming.’

  ‘So where are you now?’

  ‘Oh, here and there.’

  There was a long silence. The heavy flutter of a wood pigeon came from above Susannah’s head and she watched the creature land and strut about as if it, too, thought there was something missing. Its stuttering gait added an air of authenticity to the act. It made Susannah smile.

  ‘But . . .’

  Susannah knew what Judy was going to ask; she wanted to know where her mother had been and when, and who she’d talked to and why. And what she’d been eating. And how far away the medical facilities were. Susannah knew all of this from that single ‘but’. It was a legacy of her upbringing. Archie had always said she’d been obsessive and almost neurotic about the safety of their children, wanting to vet every friend and manage every hobby to ensure no harm came to them. Archie had been right, of course, but he’d also let her do it because he was someone who knew. It might have taken an almighty struggle for both of them before he fully understood – but he did know. And that was why she could read so much into her children’s words.

  ‘I’m fine, Judy. Don’t worry – I’ve done enough worrying for the whole family. Tell me, how are things with you?’

  ‘Don’t ask me how I am, Mom. You know I’m good.’

  ‘All right, so how’s David? How’s his business bearing up?’

  There was more hesitation from Judy, her voice stalling at the beginning of every word.

  ‘Not so good, huh?’ Susannah said.

  ‘Well, since you ask – no, not good at all.’

  ‘But how is he? I mean David my son, not David the businessman.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s taking it very well,’ Judy said. ‘And it’s a part of him, he’s spent twenty-five years building that operation up.’

  ‘Judy, could you be a darling and do me a favour?’

  A suspicious pause, then: ‘What?’

  ‘Tell him he’s wrong. His business isn’t a part of him – not to me, and not to anyone who’s a friend. Tell him there’s always a future – no matter what. And if he doesn’t agree with that, tell him to ring me.’

  ‘Okay,’ Judy said. ‘I’ll tell him what you said.’

  ‘You do that please. Now I have to go. I’ll ring you again later, I promise.’

  After the call, Susannah stood up and started walking to where the punishment block once stood.

  And, again, she readied herself for memories of years gone by.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  In the dark hours of that same night, while Susannah sleeps soundly with her mother on the straw-covered wooden floorboards, she’s woken by loud noises and struggles to stir herself. She lifts her head in order to listen more eagerly. She has no idea of time, but in the back of her mind she has a fear that hangs onto her like a disease that simply will not give up the fight.

  Has her hour come?

  The noises settle for a while, as if they’re happening further away. But they never completely stop, so Susannah is fully awake when the angry shouts and the barks come from just outside the cabin. But it still comes as a shock, and she immediately goes to shake Mother awake.

  Before she manages to do that the cabin door is flung open and beams of light flash through the room, highlighting the thickness of the dust and the clouds of icebox breath coming from the mouths of the startled prisoners. There are screams and cries for mercy as the shots of light fall on face after face. But eventually the light finds its quarry, and soon Susannah feels a boot knocking her hip. She sees more flashes of light, then hears more angry talk – some from her mother – and is dragged to her feet. Blankets are pulled away sharply. A chamber pot rolls away spreading its filth. A soup bowl is tossed into the air, bouncing off huddles that flinch but determinedly stay as huddles. Before Susannah has even had time to stand up, two guards are hauling her and Mother to their feet and towards the door. Susannah hears Mother ask for an explanation; the answer is the crack of rifle butt on her skull.

  The guards shout orders, and there’s no time to think whether or not to obey; in a flash of panic they’re both outside and breathing in the freezing air that shocks and pains their lungs. Then light falls on Jacob and Father. Each of them has a guard gripping an arm, and Father has blood pouring from his eyebrow and down the side of his face.

  Now it’s clear what’s happening – what the four of them have in common. One of the guards searches each prisoner, and gives a cry of triumph as he comes across the bag of sugar, ripping Susannah’s pocket away as premature punishment. He holds the triumph aloft and there’s more shouting. Then they’re all marched away – to a place Susannah hasn’t been to before. The guards shove them towards a set of gates and the guard on duty there laughs and lets them through. The closest any of them gets to resistance is Father’s reluctance to move as quickly as he is kicked.

  Then Susannah starts to cry. There’s the fear of punishment but something more: the camp she’s been imprisoned in has been her home for over six months, and she’s nervous because she doesn’t recognize the familiar landmarks like the washing pool or the toilet block or her own filthy cabin.

  They turn a corner and head for a wall. Then they go through a wooden gate in the wall and enter a square courtyard, with a curiously ornate brick building on one side and a large wooden structure on the other, with another wall straight ahead on the other side. A floodlight positioned high above on one of the watchtowers lights up the courtyard, and all Susannah sees is that the centre of the square consists of gravel rather than mud, with concrete walkways linking the buildings. That means this is somewhere important. And then, just as Susannah is rediscovering her senses, there’s a commotion behind them. She turns to look but a shout and a rifle butt grinding into her shoulder-blade return her attentions to the front.

  However, she’s already seen the two figures staggering out of the wooden building behind her. Keller, in a grey vest and long johns, is crying like a distraught widower – one with the barrel of a gun rammed into his spine. Jung is holding the rifle, and also shouting at Keller – no, not just shouting, but screaming abuse. And that’s as much as Susannah sees and hears before she’s guided into the other building.

  They enter a corridor – clean and nowhere near as cold as outside. The heat gives the place an air of importance – and terror. Shouted orders echo in the confined space, making Susannah’s ears throb with pain, and before she has time to think they’re all bundled into a large room with wooden benches, painted plaster walls and a polished tile floor. Its most telling feature is a fireplace, with glowing chunks of pine cracking and popping in the tense air. Susannah steps close to it and the strength of the heat makes her shudder.

  Her thoughts are confused ones. It really does seem as if they’ve found a paradise of sorts, albeit one with an ominous portent.

  There are six other people in the room – three prisoners, each with a guard behind them. All of the prisoners are men; one is unmarked but the other two both have blood pouring from head wounds, partially clotted to dark streaks down their faces. The one with the unmarked face appears to have a black hand, but as Susannah stares at it she sees the fingertips are dripping with treacle-like blood. All three have their heads bowed down towards the tiled floor; one has his hands together and his eyes closed and is mumbling a prayer to himself.

  There’s also something else Susannah hasn’t seen for some time – a clock on the wall. Susannah has to think to work out the time, and think again to realize what this means – that it’s an hour past midnight. Their crimes are clearly so terrible that punishment can’t wait until the morning.

  Somehow they all concur that talking here would not be wise.

  As Susannah is thinking of her crime a single shot rings out from the courtyard. Susannah’s senses are heightened for a time, t
here are frightened glances between the prisoners, but still no words are spoken.

  For almost an hour there’s silence. Although there are eleven people in the room, and although Susannah has Mother, Father and Jacob by her side, it’s as if each person is alone with their thoughts. Susannah, at least, feels that way. Do the others consider their loves and regrets, their guilt and fear?

  Obviously these feelings are not punishment enough.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  A female SS guard enters the room, breaking the silence, breaking Susannah’s train of thought on her loves, regrets and guilt. But the fear in her throat won’t leave, as the guard reads out the four Zuckermans’ names and the four guards behind them prod them out of the room. They cross the corridor and enter another room. This also has an open fire at one end, but is much more luxurious, with upholstered chairs at the sides and a large desk in the middle with a man behind it. There are also pictures on the walls, all of uniformed men. Susannah squints to try to make out whether the one in the middle – also the highest on the wall – is Adolf Hitler. Then the man sitting at the desk stops writing, calmly places the cap back on his pen, and looks up. He gives them all a stern glare, one by one, and Susannah feels a chill when his eyes – grey and stony – fall on her; there’s no mistaking the resolve on this man’s face.

  ‘You get me out of bed for this?’ he says in a gentle voice, monotone but for the final word, which is screeched.

  ‘Not just these, Kommandant,’ the guard says. ‘There’s also been an attempted escape.’

  ‘And they weren’t shot?’

  ‘They surrendered, Kommandant. The guards thought it would be best to try them.’

  The Kommandant sighs and gives his head a slight shake. Then he looks to the front, and again Susannah feels the steel of a stronger power in his stare. ‘What’s the charge?’ he says.

  ‘Breaking food distribution rules,’ the female guard says, holding up the sugar bag – just as Susannah had left it, with a few spoonfuls left for Ester.

  Then there’s some quieter talk between the two of them, with occasional glances back to the Zuckermans.

  ‘So where’s Keller?’ the Kommandant says.

  ‘Already been dealt with, Kommandant,’ the guard replies.

  ‘Excellent.’ He looks over to the Zuckermans and speaks the words as if reciting his favourite poem. ‘We have food for prisoners and we have food for staff. Supplies are getting scarce and have to be carefully managed. You are charged with breaking food distribution rules, and this is treated as theft from staff. Do you all understand?’

  Nobody spoke. He asked the question again, this time more loudly.

  Susannah’s father cleared his throat to speak. ‘Please. It was only half a bag of sugar shared between the four of us. We have all—’

  ‘Just answer the question. Do you understand the charge?’

  ‘We understand, but we’re all so hungry and weak. You don’t feed us enough.’

  ‘Mr Zuckerman, the whole of Germany is hungry. Food is scarce and we have priorities. Hence we have rules governing food distribution.’

  The Kommandant starts writing again, stops briefly to think, sighing through his nose as he does so, then writes some more. There’s more whispering between him and the female guard, then he sits bolt upright and pushes his shoulders back.

  ‘Your case has been carefully considered, and you have been found guilty of breaking food distribution rules. The penalty is half of your rations for the next two weeks.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Susannah’s mother says. ‘Please no.’

  ‘Take them out,’ the Kommandant says. He takes a rubber stamp and brings it down hard on the sheet of paper he has been writing on.

  Susannah’s father takes a step forward and a guard grabs his arm and pulls him back. But it doesn’t stop him speaking.

  ‘But you can’t,’ he says. ‘We were just trying to get enough to eat. We’re all starving to death!’

  ‘Mr Zuckerman. You stole from a guard.’

  ‘But he gave it to us!’ Father says, now raising his voice and struggling to loosen his arm from the grip of the guard, who immediately digs his rifle into his prisoner’s ribs.

  Then the Kommandant waves the protest away with the back of his hand and shouts out, ‘Next case!’

  Father huffs and puffs, but before he can force out any more words the prisoners are jostled out of the room and forced outside into the courtyard.

  Susannah, Jacob and their mother and father veer towards the gate in the wall, back towards their cabin. But anger at their punishment turns to confusion as they’re pulled towards the dark wooden building opposite – the building that must be the punishment block.

  And as they turn they all see it – and their confusion becomes blind terror.

  In the distance, near the wall, a body is slumped on the ground, its grey vest and long johns streaked with dark red splashes. Susannah gasps and starts to cry as she recognizes Keller’s face, the blood still seeping from the hole in his temple. She collapses onto the floor, and is dragged the rest of the way, getting to her feet only as she reaches the door of the punishment block.

  The next few minutes are lost to Susannah in a haze of sadness and resentment, but she realizes she has to think quickly or she will head for the wall too. As she’s shoved into the building with the others she wipes her face and looks around. Five prisoners are already there, two of them grown men in tears. The building itself is a complete contrast to the one they’ve just been in.

  Only a few strands of light come through splits in the wooden walls, but enough to highlight the uneven soil floor littered with dirty grey blankets. A few wooden-framed beds line the edges, two smashed and sprawled like the ends of a broken bridge. On the far side of the room is a gap leading to a corridor.

  Susannah steps across, and looks along its darkness, seeing a pile of discarded clothes, and then shoes, and also a few pairs of spectacles. But then she hears the grind of boot on gritty earth and turns round sharply.

  ‘Why are we here?’ Susannah’s mother asks the guards.

  They don’t reply.

  Susannah’s father tries again. ‘You heard the punishment, half rations for a week. Why won’t you let us go back to our cabins?’

  This time the guards exchange glances. One shapes his mouth to speak but another glares at him and gives his head the briefest of shakes, silencing his colleague.

  And then they’re all alerted by more noises from the courtyard, and the three prisoners that were the ‘next case’ join them, accompanied by three guards.

  Once they’re in the room, Jung appears at the door as if he has been standing there all of the time. He enters and closes the door behind him, darkening the room yet more.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Susannah’s father asks him, his heavy breathing giving his voice a childlike quality. ‘Our punishment is half rations. Nothing more.’

  A few of the guards start to laugh at this, and Susannah’s father turns to them, his jaw dropping, bloody saliva dribbling from one corner of his mouth.

  ‘You’re here for a delousing procedure,’ Jung says with a politeness none of them has even known before.

  ‘But . . . how can that be? There are no showers here.’

  The guards laugh once more, then fall silent again when Jung glances at them.

  Susannah’s father drops to his knees in front of Jung. ‘Please, I’m begging you. Spare our children if nothing else. Susannah is a fifteen-year-old girl. Jacob is only thirteen. What harm have they done? Please, if you do nothing else allow them to return to their cabins. Please.’

  Jung steps back from him and starts shouting orders to the other guards. There’s a lot of movement. It all seems so efficient, as if it’s been carried out a thousand times before.

  They’re all shoved towards the corridor. First the five prisoners before them, then the three that have come in after them. Then it’s the turn of the Zuckermans.

  They hear
shouts, and just about see through the dusty gloom the eight who have gone before them taking their clothes off. There are more shouts and they move out of view.

  Susannah notices beams of light being broken and hears cruel laughter. But both of these halt whenever she twists and tries to home in on the source. Father, Mother and Jacob walk towards the corridor, but Susannah waits where she is.

  She runs back to the entrance and pulls on the handle of the wooden door. It does nothing more than rattle in the gloom. She hears a shout from behind her and turns. Now, as dimness gives way to half-light, she cries out and falls back onto the door, feels her spine catching the rough wooden edges, but doesn’t care.

  Jung stands in front of her in full smartly pressed uniform. He stands a foot taller than her, with neatly trimmed hair and a cap perfectly set on top.

  ‘You!’ He grabs her arm and pulls, spinning her away from the door. ‘Clothes. Shoes. Off!’

  For a few seconds her whole body trembles, but she says and does nothing.

  He shouts at her again, then points his rifle at her. ‘Clothes off! Time for your delouse! In the shower!’

  ‘Delouse?’ she says. ‘We all know you’re lying.’

  And then the sound of five gunshots makes them both freeze for a second. Susannah’s throat turns dry and sticky, and she starts to cry again.

  ‘So we’re lying,’ Jung says with a slow and deliberate cadence. ‘Now. Take your clothes off.’

  Then, slowly, from where Susannah doesn’t know, a feeling of charged energy washes over her. She stops crying and wipes her face. Her shaking stops and she stands up straight, with shoulders pressed back and head held high. For the first time in months she feels some strength coursing through her body. She has nothing to lose; she realizes she has – just this once – power.