The countess barely blinks. “Certainly,” she says.
Father’s aim is good. He slaps once, loudly, and the louse is dead. It falls to the floor, and a moment later, Mother sweeps it up.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a lump of sugar in your tea?” Father asks the countess.
Petr Kien never looks up from his work until at last he puts down his charcoal. “Come and tell me what you think, Anneke,” he says.
All the adults crowd around the sketch, making impressed-sounding noises. “Such a talent and in such a young man,” the countess gushes.
My legs feel stiff from sitting for so long. The adults clear a path for me. They are eager to see my reaction.
Of course I’m curious. I haven’t seen my own reflection—except in a dirty window—since I came to Theresienstadt. But when I see the girl that Petr Kien has sketched, I back away. Where is the smiling Dutch girl with the round face?
The girl Petr Kien has captured is a stranger to me. Her face is thin and anxious, pasty-looking. Her chin is pointy, her cheeks are hollow and her hair is stringy. There are dark circles under her eyes. Only the eyes themselves are vaguely familiar.
“What do you think of yourself, Anneke, dear?” the countess asks.
“It’s—it’s good,” I say, nearly choking on the words.
Father pats Petr Kien’s shoulder. “You have a remarkable talent, Kien,” Father says. I know that means the likeness must resemble me. If I cry, they’ll think I am ungrateful. So I fight back the tears. Whatever good looks I once possessed are lost. It’s one more thing the Nazis have robbed me of.
The word “transport” spreads like fire through Theresienstadt. Since mid-morning no one has spoken of anything else. I notice the lines on Frau Davidels’ forehead as she talks to a prisoner who mops floors in the diet kitchen. She lowers her voice, but I can still make out the dreaded word.
Through the window, I can see a group of old people gathered outside, clinging to each other, their eyes full of fear. “Do you think our time is up?” I hear an old woman cry out.
Though we have no telephones or newspapers, news travels quickly through Theresienstadt. And though the adults do their best to prevent us from learning the worst, in the end, there are few secrets in the camp.
The rumors about the transport begin when a Nazi official in a smart wool coat is spotted stepping out of a limousine in front of the commandant’s headquarters. He is flanked by two more Nazis, and when the three of them march up the stairs, Commandant Rahm himself comes to meet them. We all hate Rahm, an ill-tempered man with veiny cheeks and angry eyes set too close together.
“They say Rahm—that bastard—looked as if he might pee himself meeting the great Adolf Eichmann,” one woman in the diet kitchen tells Frau Davidels. On an ordinary day, the thought of the commandant peeing in his pants would make me cry with laughter. But this is no ordinary day.
An hour later, Eichmann and his henchmen emerge from Rahm’s headquarters. Eichmann is upset. There is mud on the bottom of his coat. One of the henchmen goes to fetch some soapy water; then he kneels down on the steps to wipe the coat clean. Once that is done, Eichmann claps his hands and steps back inside the limousine. People who see the car drive off say Eichmann, who sits in the backseat, keeps his eyes on the road in front of him. “He’d already forgotten about the lot of us,” they say.
“Forgotten?” someone cries out. “You can’t forget people you never noticed in the first place. To the Nazis, we’re less than nothing.”
Within a quarter of an hour, the members of the Council of Elders are summoned to Rahm’s headquarters. Their faces are ashen, their shoulders stooped as they enter the building. They know they have a grim task ahead: to supply the names of a thousand inmates who will leave on the next transport. In two days’ time.
I hate the members of the Council of Elders. When I pass one of them on the street, I look away. “They’re almost as bad as the Nazis,” I tell Father. “All they care about is keeping their own names off the transport lists.”
Father disagrees. He argues that if it weren’t for the council, the Nazis might liquidate Theresienstadt. “We need to have compassion for the council members,” he says. “Imagine having to do what’s been asked of them.”
Hours pass, and people keep careful watch over Rahm’s headquarters. But there is no sign of the council. That confirms everyone’s worst suspicion: Work on the latest list has already begun.
For the Nazis, the transports are a way to clean up Theresienstadt, no different from Mother’s dusting. Theresienstadt is overcrowded, throbbing with Jews. With every new trainload that arrives at Buhosovice, the fate of the camp becomes clear: There will be more transports.
And so for the next two days, we hold our breath. We go to work, we line up for soup, but we think of nothing other than Wednesday’s transport. At the end of the day, we walk into our barracks or our rooms, scanning our mattresses for the thin strip of paper which means our name is on the list.
Hannelore and I barely say a word as we walk back from the diet kitchen. We hear terrible weeping coming from one of the men’s barracks. But this time, we don’t try to listen in or watch. No, we know exactly what this weeping means.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say, squeezing Hannelore’s hand when I leave her at the women’s barracks. When we peer in together, my heart beats double-time. But there is no strip of paper on her mattress or her mother’s. For now they’ve been spared.
The next morning, the skin around Hannelore’s eyes is pink and puffy.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, reaching for her hand.
“My Uncle Fritz...” She can barely get the words out.
I gasp. “Perhaps there’s still some way...”
It is sometimes possible to get a name removed from the transport list. This explains why there is already a long line of people shuffling outside Commandant Rahm’s office. Since yesterday afternoon, they’ve been waiting for an audience with the head of the Council of Elders. If a strong enough case can be made, you or whomever you are petitioning for might be spared. Though everyone knows that if a name is dropped from the list, another will have to be added.
Then there are the horror stories about what has happened to some of the prisoners who petitioned directly to the Nazis. Herr Adler, who was in charge of Father’s studio, was devastated when he learned that the names of three of his artists had been added, at the last moment, to a transport list. Adler rushed to the train and pleaded with one of the Nazi guards. “Please, I beg of you. You have three of my workers. Talented, hardworking men from my studio. Their names are...” The Nazi grabbed Adler by his collar and threw him onto the train. “If you’re so eager to be reunited with your comrades,” he snarled, “go join them now.”
Adler didn’t even have a chance to say good-bye to his wife and children.
And though it is a terrible thought, I knew we benefited from what happened to Adler. The Council of Elders promoted Father to chief of the studio, and because of that, we’d been able to move to our quarters on Jagergasse.
When Father was first offered the new position, he told us he had tried to decline. “Look what happened to Adler!” Father had told Dr. Epstein, the head of the Council of Elders.
But Epstein shook his head. “Van Raalte,” he said in a tired voice, “don’t you see? You haven’t any choice.”
All this is one more bitter truth about life in Theresienstadt: One person’s agony often means someone else’s gain. And though I am sorry to see others suffer, another part of me—a bigger part— is relieved it isn’t me. I know it’s awful, but that’s how it is.
Some other family, perhaps even the Adlers, had lived in our room on Jagergasse before us. They left the rickety plywood table behind. But I didn’t want to think about them, or where they might be now. No, I was just glad I was out of the barracks, away from the other women’s moans and shouting in the middle of the night.
“But your uncle is an arc
hitect,” I say to Hannelore while we are scrubbing our cauldrons. Today, with so much tension in the air, Frau Davidels forgets to chide us for talking, even when a Nazi officer drops into the diet kitchen and sniffs at the contents of one of the cauldrons. “Isn’t your uncle on the prominent list?”
Hannelore sniffles. “Uncle Fritz’s health has been so poor, what with his asthma and arthritis, that lately he hasn’t been strong enough to work.”
So, Hannelore’s uncle has been removed from the list of prominent prisoners. I don’t say what I am thinking: Everyone whose name is on the list can protect up to four family members. Does that mean Hannelore and her mother are no longer protected? My throat tightens and for a moment, I have trouble breathing. Hannelore has become my closest friend, closer than any friend I’ve ever had, and I can’t imagine a day in Theresienstadt without her.
We have made plans for after the war. We’ll correspond and visit each other during school holidays. When we have children, they will be close friends. If one day, I have a son, and Hannelore has a daughter, they’ll fall in love and marry. What a wedding it will be!
Hannelore laughs when I tell her this. Then she wags her finger in the air. “If there is an after the war,” Hannelore says.
And now, I wonder, if indeed there will be an after the war for Hannelore and her mother, and for me and my family. If names can be taken off the protected list, what guarantee is there that Father’s name will remain on it?
By Tuesday evening, the mood changes. I’d seen it happen before, always the night before a transport. “For all we know,” Countess Bratovska tells Mother and me when we are lining up for soup, “those people leaving tomorrow are going to a better place, one that’s less crowded and where they’ll have better dinners than this miserable soup.”
“There’s not even a scrap of meat in it tonight,” says a man standing closer to the front of the line.
“Let’s hope for those poor souls on tomorrow’s train that you’re right,” Mother whispers to the countess.
A woman wearing a skirt made of rags that have been sewn together elbows the countess. “With a thousand fewer people in the camp tomorrow, there may be meat in tomorrow’s soup.” Her eyes gleam as she speaks.
Mother hands me a small bar of gray soap and a pile of our filthy clothes. “But it isn’t laundry day,” I protest. Because of the shortage of clean water, we are only permitted to wash clothes every six weeks— and then only up to four kilograms of laundry—which doesn’t amount to much when you consider there are four of us.
“Father sold a sketch to one of the women at the washing fountain. In return, she’s letting us do an extra wash. Go quickly to the fountain and see how much of this you can get done. I’d do it myself, but your father isn’t feeling well.”
My stomach turns. “He isn’t?”
Mother pushes me toward the door. “Go,” she says. “He’ll be fine.”
The bundle Mother has given me is large and hard to carry. I can barely see over it and items of clothing—a tattered undershirt, an old sock—keep falling off. Soon I’m sweaty from trying to keep the bundle together. The insides of my elbows ache.
Franticek is at the corner. I have no free hand to wipe the sweat off my face, so I try brushing it against the pile of clothes. The stink of sweat burns my nostrils. Now my face will smell too. And I can feel rings of sweat forming under my armpits. If I keep my arms close to my chest, Franticek may not notice.
I feel ashamed of the soiled clothing I am carrying. What if he sees my underpants? What will he think of me then? If only I had a free hand for him to hold!
But Franticek laughs. “Imagine my good fortune, running into you,” he says, playing with the piece of black leather he wears around his neck.
“Do you believe in luck?” I ask him, suddenly feeling bolder than usual.
“A little,” he says, casting his dark eyes down to the cobblestone street. “But we make our own luck. That’s why sometimes I wait for you here at night.”
“You do?” I feel myself blush.
Franticek follows me to the fountain. At first I refuse his offer to help me wash the dirty laundry, but when he insists, I give him a pair of Theo’s socks. The socks, it seems, have more holes than wool in them. “You’d better have a strong nose,” I warn him.
When Franticek laughs, his dark eyes light up. As he scrubs the socks, I think how Franticek is not only handsome, but kind.
“Anneke,” he says, “I need to tell you about my feelings for you.”
I can practically feel my heart skip a beat. Just the way they say it happens in storybooks. Only usually the girl isn’t washing underwear, rubbing the soap so hard the skin on her knuckles breaks. And usually the boy doesn’t go off with someone else into cubbyholes. No, I tell myself, this is wrong. All wrong.
“What about your lady friend?” I ask, my voice suddenly growing shrill. “The one with the two children?”
This time, Franticek blushes. Does he really think I’ve never seen them together?
“I don’t love her,” he says, his dark eyes on mine.
He doesn’t love her? That only makes things worse! If he doesn’t love her, why does he take her to the cubbyholes? I look Franticek straight in the eye. “I’ve seen the two of you go off together...on Sunday afternoons. And doesn’t she have a husband?” I pick at the skin around my fingernail. I’ve said too much. Now Franticek will know for sure that I’ve been watching him.
Franticek sucks in his breath and meets my gaze. “What she and I do together,” he says, “are just animal things.”
“Animal things?” I say as I turn back to my scrubbing. I feel hot tears prick at the corners of my eyes. Animal things? How can he say something so rude? I’m no animal, I’m a human girl. I won’t let him speak to me like this.
“Go away,” I mutter, without looking up. “Just go away.”
As I scrub, I keep my eyes on his feet. He is wearing a pair of scuffed gray boots. The boots don’t move an inch. Franticek isn’t going away. I could insist, but I don’t. I think of Franticek’s dark hair and eyes. And though I shouldn’t, I think of his calloused hands running across my body, touching my face, my neck, my arms. I know it’s very very wrong, but I can’t help wondering what it would be like to be in one of the cubbyholes with Franticek. For a moment, a wave of guilty pleasure washes over me.
There are holes at the big toes of both of Franticek’s boots. Underneath, I can see a flash of worn red socks. The boots are obviously too small. And suddenly, my feelings change and I am sorry for Franticek with his too-small boots and his worn red socks. Who am I to judge him?
Franticek must feel the change in me, because when he speaks again, his voice is calm. “You have to understand,” he says, “I’m not proud of it, but a person...well, a person has to survive. And in a place like this,” he lifts his eyes toward the tall gray ramparts that surround us, blocking our view of the outside world, “sometimes a person has to take what he can get. Just to feel alive.”
My head is reeling. Certainly this business about animal things is all wrong. Yet what Franticek says makes a kind of sense. And another part of me is simply curious. What are these animal things exactly, and do they have anything to do with how I feel when Franticek holds my hand: the tingling sensations, the ones that start low in my belly and create a heat that courses through my whole body?
I scrub even harder now. So hard the soap flies out of my hands and into the fountain.
If I don’t get it back quickly, it will dissolve. Then what will Mother say?
Franticek reaches into the fountain and retrieves my piece of soap from the gray water. The ends of his dark eyelashes are wet. “Here,” he says, smiling as his hand touches mine and he gives me the soap. There it is again, the tingling feeling. Only it’s even stronger this time. So strong, I can feel it in the soles of my feet.
Franticek kneels down on one knee. “Anneke,” he says, “I love you.”
I laugh. Franticek
looks as if I’ve given him a smack. “You don’t even know me,” I tell him.
“You’re wrong.”
“How could you know me?” I ask him, laying the soap on the edge of the fountain.
“You can know a person from looking in her eyes and from the sound of her laughter. I’ve heard you laugh, Anneke. With your friend from the diet kitchen.”
I look into Franticek’s dark eyes. Perhaps he is right. Perhaps I know him too. I’ve looked into his eyes, and I have heard his throaty laugh. He has even helped me wash my brother’s socks.
“I want to give you this.” Franticek loosens the thin strip of leather from around his neck. “It isn’t much. But it’s all I have to give.”
“No,” I protest, “I can’t take it.” In the ordinary world, the piece of leather Franticek is offering me has little value. But in the camp, it can be used for a shoelace. Shoelaces that aren’t frayed or torn to bits are in great demand in Theresienstadt.
“I want you to have it,” Franticek insists. “So you’ll always remember me.”
“Remember you?” What does he mean by that? “Franticek,” I say, my voice breaking, “you’re not...”
Franticek’s eyes drop to his boots. I get up from my spot and move toward him, so close I can reach my arms around his back. He is so thin I can feel his bones. My arms and legs are trembling. Franticek trembles too. I hold him a little closer.
He ties the leather strip around my neck, careful not to let it catch in my curls. The little hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I feel his touch.
When Franticek brings his lips to mine, I don’t object.
Frantickek’s lips are rough chapped, but for some reason I can’t quite understand, his mouth tastes sweet. Sweet and somehow earthy at the same time. I am thinking too much. Stop all this thinking, I tell myself, as I part my lips and let myself sink into the kiss.
Franticek is right. People need to take what they can. People need to feel alive. This kiss is what I need to take to feel alive. When it finally ends, and Franticek brushes one finger against my lips, I can feel tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. Franticek wipes them away. Then he brings his finger to his mouth and tastes my tears.
What World is Left Page 6
