The Sugar Men

by Ray Kingfisher

  ‘Look,’ Paul says, gasping with excitement. ‘She’s moving!’

  ‘And is that a smile?’ Helena says. She makes a spitting noise, gasps a couple of times, and starts to cry too.

  ‘Nurse!’ Paul shouts out, this time without taking his eyes off Susannah, and then he stammers and says a few words in what Susannah recognizes as broken English.

  A nurse comes, says she speaks German, and there’s more talk between the three of them. The nurse says they have to leave now, that this is too much excitement and the patient must rest. Paul agrees and says that they’ll return tomorrow. Helena wipes tears from her cheeks and holds her face close to Susannah’s, putting a supporting hand behind her head and kissing the top of it. She tells her to fight.

  Fight?

  That is funny.

  Then Paul squeezes her hand, they both look at her for a few seconds, then turn and leave.

  For a second Susannah wants to cry out, to beg them not to go, but the nurse talks to her instead, saying a few words in German: ‘Rest’ – ‘Tomorrow’ – ‘You will see them.’ Then there are more words in English. Susannah understands a little English and concentrates to understand, but fails because her mind is fuzzy. However, she knows by the tone of the words that they’re helpful and comforting. The nurse takes her temperature, nods, then closes the slatted blinds at the top of the bed.

  Yes, the nurse is right. The excitement has taken its toll; Susannah closes her eyes and is soon asleep again.

  It’s early in the morning when Susannah wakes again, and she has the energy to sit up in bed.

  With a clean nightdress and starchy white bed sheets the whole scene has a synthetic feel to it. Like the birdsong at the edge of the camp, there’s a heavenly, ethereal quality to everything here.

  Wherever here is.

  Within half an hour a nurse arrives with a small bowl of warm porridge and places it in front of her. But what should she do with it? She sniffs it and retches, making the nurse pull it away from her. The nurse waits a few moments, then lifts a spoonful of it up to Susannah’s face. She tells her to open her mouth and close her eyes, which she does. And then the nurse is telling her to swallow, but she takes no notice, almost choking on the porridge before spitting it all back out. She wipes her mouth and looks up to the nurse, who tells her it’s all right, and that they can try again tomorrow. Then she gives Susannah an artificial smile – the sort of flat smile Mother gave her on their last day in Berlin. Susannah starts to apologize for spitting the food out, but needs three attempts to get her vocal cords working. The nurse shakes her head, gives her a proper smile, then leaves.

  Susannah spends a few seconds looking all around the room. Then she thinks of Mother’s smile again.

  Mother? Where’s Mother?

  She must be somewhere.

  She tries to swallow the residual taste of porridge in her mouth, but it hurts her throat, and she lies back and closes her eyes.

  Then she hears six shots ring out and it jolts her eyes open.

  Then she hears nothing, thinks she must have imagined the six shots, and closes her eyes again.

  Within seconds she’s asleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Another day – perhaps the next day – Susannah wakes again and the nurse brings more porridge. It still tastes horrible and she still can’t swallow properly, but she forces down a few mouthfuls before retching and almost bringing it back up. The nurse tells her it’s all right, that she’s doing well, and gives her another smile. Is this Mother?

  No.

  So where’s Mother?

  She looks around the room again, beyond the other beds, while the nurse says they’ll try again tomorrow, and also says a few more words Susannah doesn’t understand.

  When the nurse has gone Susannah starts to feel sick and nauseous. She leans back on the pillow and tries to keep still and calm to keep the food down. It feels horrible and she feels the urge to expel the substance, but somewhere in the back of her mind she knows she has to eat.

  But where’s Mother?

  And Father and Jacob too. Where are they?

  The next time Paul and Helena visit, Susannah is able to greet them properly, which lights up their faces. They talk over one another in their excitement to speak first, and now Susannah can make sense of the words.

  ‘You look so much better than yesterday,’ Paul says. ‘How are you feeling?’

  Susannah goes to speak. Again her voice is weak; she speaks slowly and needs to rest after every few words. ‘Not very well,’ she says.

  Paul frowns in sympathy and tells her it’s understandable.

  ‘We couldn’t believe it when we saw you,’ Helena says. ‘There was so little left of you.’

  ‘Where’s Mother?’

  Paul and Helena freeze.

  But it’s a simple question, isn’t it?

  ‘And Father and Jacob too. Where are they all?’

  Paul looks away. Still there’s no answer.

  ‘Are their beds nearby?’

  Paul and Helena look to each other, then to Susannah.

  ‘Are we all back in Berlin?’

  ‘Susannah,’ Paul says. ‘There’s no easy way to tell you this. You were in the concentration camp, in Bergen-Belsen. The British found you when they liberated it. You were close to death, but you’ve survived. And that’s nothing short of a miracle.’

  ‘Yes,’ Helena adds. ‘So many people died there. And still, even now, they keep dying.’

  And then Susannah realizes just why the room, the bed, the food and the people seem so heavenly. She struggles to comprehend that this isn’t heaven after all, but she knows. Her jaw drops and she lets a few gasps in and out of her mouth.

  Paul holds her hand tightly. ‘Your mother and father and Jacob . . .’

  ‘No,’ Susannah says. ‘Please don’t say it. Please!’

  Paul, himself breathing heavily and starting to cry, says, ‘They didn’t survive. They were . . .’ His face cracks and he splutters the last few words out: ‘They were shot by the guards.’ Then he starts to cry.

  Susannah hears nothing else, but bursts into a tearful, knowing anguish.

  It may be because she knows the memories she has been having of those six shots are there for a reason.

  Six shots?

  And then she starts screaming. ‘The guards! The guards!’

  Paul is talking but the volume of her screams drowns out his voice.

  Paul and Helena try their best to comfort her, but their attempts are worthless. Nurses and doctors are called. In one or two words of German they tell Paul and Helena to leave, that Susannah needs rest. She feels a sharp jab in the top of her arm and then nothing.

  She feels a sense of the passive, calming her and soothing her worries. Far and near blur to the same. The only colour she senses is white. No, not white, but every colour. Her feet are bathed in warm water, and then she notices the figures appearing in the distance, all in dazzling white robes. There are three of them. They approach, almost floating, and, yes, Mother and Father and Jacob are waiting for her, all bright and pure and clean and content. Beyond the world of suffering.

  They are so bright they are the light. Then Susannah’s heart feels heavy because something isn’t right. The figures don’t speak, yet she hears them all mention her name as they smile astral smiles. She wills them to come closer – to where they belong.

  But something is wrong.

  The robes are no longer brilliant white, but have red marks, which grow and consume the whole, dripping onto the earth. Then Susannah sees marks on their faces – marks that weren’t there before – and their smiles turn to fear and panic. One of them screams and now has a pale and gaunt face. They all scream, and now they are little more than cadavers, covered in scabs and pockmarks.

  The first figure, his face now filthy and purulent, pulls apart the top of his robe to expose a torso engulfed in yet more scabs and rashes, the skin pulled taut over bones.

  Still Susa
nnah wants them to come closer, begs them. But they float away, back into the distance.

  When Susannah wakes again she knows within seconds that in spite of the starchy sheets, clean floors and nice people this is no heaven – not without Mother, Father and Jacob. But now she doesn’t have the energy to scream.

  As she lies on the bed, woozy from too much sleep and chemicals that numb her emotions, she runs through the events in her mind, wondering how they all came to be shot. Was it something to do with her? There was sugar involved, and a guard – a guard with a crooked tie and a kindly face.

  When Paul and Helena next visit the talk is subdued and kept to an efficient transfer of information. For Susannah it’s like listening to a news report on the radio, where the facts are stated as if people – real people with feelings and loves and loved ones – don’t come into the equation.

  But Susannah has no choice but to listen to the information. She learns that the Allied forces marched deep into Germany. The Führer committed suicide and what was left of the Third Reich surrendered. The war in Europe is over. The German officials – including most of those from Bergen-Belsen – have been imprisoned and are awaiting trial. The scenes inside the camp were filmed by the British and have been broadcast all around the world so that there can be no denials, no doubt, no accusations of exaggeration. And, like everyone else, Paul and Helena watched the footage with incredulity and disgust.

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ Susannah says after thinking the information through. ‘Where am I?’

  Paul speaks slowly, as if it’s complicated. ‘You aren’t far from the camp,’ he says. ‘This place is a makeshift hospital unit set up near Bergen-Belsen.’

  ‘Am I alone?’

  Paul’s jaw quivers and he gives a few very hurried nods. He goes to talk but stops to wipe away a tear. ‘I’m afraid so,’ he says. ‘And I know it’s terrible, but your mother and father . . . and Jacob . . .’

  Susannah starts crying again and doesn’t hear the rest. But Paul and Helena stay and comfort her. Eventually she calms down, this time without the help of an injection.

  ‘But you’re here, Susannah,’ Helena says. ‘That’s a good thing. You have to look to the future.’

  ‘Future?’ Susannah shakes her head. ‘I don’t want the future.’

  ‘I know it’s hard,’ Paul says. ‘But it’s like the authorities here say. Although we have to respect the victims who perished, above all we must concentrate our efforts on helping those who survived, people like you.’

  ‘And we almost feel like your parents,’ Helena says. ‘I know it’s not the same, I really do, but after our time together in Amsterdam and the farmhouse I almost feel like you could be my daughter.’

  Susannah thinks for a moment. The farmhouse? Yes, that came after Berlin and Amsterdam, but before Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen.

  ‘I enjoyed the farmhouse,’ Susannah says.

  ‘So you remember it?’

  ‘I remember the warm milk, the honey, playing in the stream with Jacob. It was the last time I felt free.’

  Paul leans in, his face inches from hers, a look of resolve on his face. ‘You’re free now, Susannah. Whatever happened to you in the past, you’re free now.’

  That’s difficult to believe.

  In the camp Susannah felt free in her mind. Now she might be free in body but she feels imprisoned in her mind. She can’t escape from the bad thoughts.

  But she can try.

  ‘What happened to you?’ she says.

  ‘We stayed at Westerbork,’ Paul says. ‘I’ve no idea why. We knew you all had been taken away but didn’t know whether you’d gone to Bergen-Belsen or Auschwitz-Birkenau.’

  ‘We heard terrible things about both places,’ Helena says. ‘We prayed for you every day.’

  ‘Yes,’ Paul adds. ‘The rumours of what was happening were unspeakable.’ He shakes his head. ‘But, as it turned out, they actually underestimated the horror of it all. And when we were liberated by the Canadian forces we started getting some information. We got access to the records showing where you’d been taken.’

  Helena continues, ‘It was only a few days after we were freed that Bergen-Belsen was liberated too. When we heard about it we asked to visit.’

  ‘It was awful,’ Paul says. ‘When we discovered what had happened to . . .’ He swallows and takes a deep breath. ‘We found out what had happened to the others at the punishment block, but there was no trace of you. It was only by chance we found another girl who told us she knew a Susannah Zuckerman who was still alive. We spent hours searching, and eventually found you; the British had got your name wrong.’

  ‘Not that we blamed them, of course,’ Helena says. ‘What mattered to us was that somehow you had survived, even though doctors told us you might not live for long.’

  ‘You know, so many people are still dying,’ Paul says. ‘Their bodies are so weak.’

  At that moment a nurse arrives and tells Paul and Helena they must now leave, that Susannah needs her rest.

  As they get up to go Susannah stops them, holding onto Helena’s hand after they have embraced each other. ‘I have a friend,’ she says. ‘A friend called Ester. Was that the friend you talked to? Was she the one who told you about me?’

  On hearing the words Helena turns and covers her face. She whimpers and walks away, her heels causing more of that regular cracking on the floor.

  Paul kneels down at the bedside. ‘Tomorrow. I’ll tell you tomorrow. You’ve got to get some rest.’

  ‘No, Uncle Paul. I want to know now. What’s happened to Ester?’

  Paul closes his eyes and struggles to hold the tears back. ‘She was a good friend to you, wasn’t she?’ he says, then sniffs.

  The words make Susannah’s ears tingle red with fear. ‘But you’ve spoken to her?’ she says. ‘So she survived. She must have survived. She must have been the one who told you about me. I remember now, she came to tell me the camp was being liberated. Was it her?’

  Paul nods. ‘You’re right; she was the one who . . .’ He paused and swallowed deeply. ‘It was purely by chance, because she heard that we were Zuckermans too. She came over to us and said her best friend was a Susannah Zuckerman, that you definitely had survived.’

  ‘She’s very talkative, isn’t she?’ Susannah says.

  Paul covers his forehead with the palm of his hand and gives a deep sigh.

  Susannah sits up, giving him a suspicious sideways look. ‘She is well, isn’t she? She was strong for me when I’d given up hope. I don’t think I could have survived without dear Ester.’

  ‘Listen, Susannah. Yes, she . . . she survived the camp, but you see . . . she was very sick. Her body was . . . was just too weak.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Susannah. But . . . Ester’s heart gave up two days after the liberation.’

  As Susannah’s head starts to spin, Helena reappears, and she and Paul both hold tightly onto her again. Because it’s like hearing about Mother, Father and Jacob all over again. At least somewhere in the dark corners of her mind she knew what had happened to them, and could comprehend it. But Ester? Playful, energetic Ester with the large warm eyes? Ester, who fed Susannah during those final weeks in the camp? The Ester who kept her alive?

  Susannah screams out to anyone listening, she screams that she can’t live like this; that she wants to die; that she wishes she had died.

  Helena holds her tightly and rocks her as she would a baby.

  But it doesn’t help. Nothing helps.

  Again, a doctor arrives with a sedative, and as it takes effect Susannah feels a welcome relaxation that blanks out all feeling. The last thing she hears is Helena telling her twice not to give up, and that they’ll see her again tomorrow.

  Then she dreams again of the bright world where she can be with the people she misses and they can all comfort one another.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  When Susannah wakes up from the sedative it’s
the middle of the night. She feels woozy but her head has had its fill of sleep. Aunt Helena’s words run around in her head, and she wonders whether she ever wants to eat again, or whether she really would prefer to give up. Or whether she has any choice in the matter. All she wants to do is dream of her eleventh birthday – the last one she celebrated in Berlin – at her home. She still has those precious memories. Ester told her that in your mind there’s no prison, and she was right. Nobody can ever take away those memories of playing in Rose Park with her friends on her eleventh birthday, or of the meal Mother had spent most of the previous night preparing, of the home-made cakes and pfannkuchen. After all she’d been through she still had all of those memories.

  But what should she do with those memories? And what would Mother and Father have wanted her to do now? She takes some time to think about these questions, and also about the strange dream of the white world.

  Gradually the answer becomes clear. They would want her to be strong, to survive.

  To give up would be betraying them.

  The next day, when Susannah talks with Paul and Helena again, there are no tears. And the sad thoughts they all have merely bubble underneath talk of Susannah putting on weight, of Reuben doing well at school in America but also desperate to meet the parents he hasn’t seen for four years, and of the plans they have for Susannah to continue her education once she recovers fully, which she will.

  She thinks for a moment about the last of these, then nods in agreement.

  After that there’s a lull in the conversation. There are heartfelt smiles, there are hands holding hands, and there are fond glances between all three.

  ‘And to think,’ Helena says, ‘we were led to believe we’d lost you too.’

  Paul sighs. ‘I still don’t see how they could have got your name wrong.’