Roots of Evil

by Sarah Rayne

  The women in the Polish hut were waiting for her; they drew her in, exclaiming over the little one who must be hidden from the Angel of Death, whispering volubly of their plans. For what was left of tonight, madame and the baby would stay in the little roof space – it was uncomfortable, but it would suffice. And then tomorrow, after morning roll-call, the small one could be smuggled into the laundry block – they had it all worked out. An armful of linen from the guards’ quarters to hide him: no one would suspect. The three who worked in the laundries would keep him occupied in a quiet corner – there were many such places in that block – and no one would know he was there. And after that, perhaps the kitchens.

  ‘No,’ said Alice, thankful that despite Maria’s warning some of them understood a little German. ‘No, I can’t impose on you after tonight. We’ll take him somewhere else. But your help tonight means more than I can possibly express in words.’ She thought they only understood about half of this, but she knew they understood all of the sentiment behind her words.

  The space in the roof was smaller than she had been expecting, but it was sufficiently large for the two of them to curl up against the wooden rafters. Someone handed up a blanket, and someone else handed a half-cup of some warm substance; Alice could not tell what it was, but she drank it gratefully and gave Alraune a few sips. Tomorrow, after roll-call, she would set in motion yet another masquerade, and this time lives would depend on it. She would report Alraune as missing to the guards, and she would play the distraught mother. Would it work? Would Mengele be fooled? The timing was not good – it was too pat, too near to those schedules Ilena had seen, but it could not be helped. This was the best they could do. The guards would search for Alraune, and if they did not find him it was possible that Alice would be suspected of some plot, and would be executed.

  She glanced down at Alraune, and reminded him that this was part of the new game, and that they must be quiet. Again he appeared to accept this, although his eyes rested on her suspiciously, and when Alice put her arm around him to make him more comfortable he resisted for a moment.

  But then he leaned against her, and fell quickly into an apparently untroubled sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  It was the sound of the guards marching across the yard outside that roused Alice from her shallow uneasy sleep. She sat up abruptly, memory returning. I’m in this tiny space over the Polish women’s quarters, and Mengele wants Alraune, and I’ve got to keep him hidden.

  It was one of Auschwitz’s dreariest days; rain drummed ceaselessly on the roofs of the huts, and the stench of the stagnant wastelands seeped into everything.

  Alice had decided to report Alraune’s disappearance after the morning roll-call. She considered how she ought to behave. Tears and anxiety, followed by sullen acceptance? Yes, for all of the commandants and most of the guards would probably know what had happened at Buchenwald; they would know that Alraune was not some beloved child of a lost husband, but the living reminder of a violent rape. But not too many tears, thought Alice. I’d better not overdo it; this is real life not a film set. And some annoyance as well, I think – wretched child, I can’t be watching him all the time…How should I know where he goes or what he gets up to…? I just thought you ought to know he’s run off…

  Yes, that should strike the right note. A little distress, and then a sulky anger.

  It seemed that it did strike the right note. Alice squeezed out a few tears, and then grew sullen. No, she had no idea where the child might be. Yes, he had been in the hut with her before morning roll-call. Yes, she would let them know if he turned up. She saw that they thought it relatively unimportant – children were always wandering off; they were inquisitive creatures. Some sort of search might be made later in the day, but for now she was to return to her own part of the camp.

  They don’t know about Mengele’s plans, thought Alice, going cautiously across to the laundry block. That’ll be the real testing time. Will Mengele order a thorough search? How interested is he in having Alraune in his experiments?

  The Polish women had been as good as their word: Alraune had been carried, unprotesting, in a bundle of sheets, and put into a tiny stone-floored room at the end of a long narrow passage. There was not very much in the room; several scrubbing-boards and two huge mechanical mangles standing over drain-holes. A drum of scouring powder of some kind, smelling faintly of old-fashioned lye soap. Alice thought it a terrible place, but it seemed safe for the moment. The two Polish women would spend as much time with Alraune as they could, and Alice would try to slip back here unnoticed during the afternoon. If the women heard the guards coming there would be time to get him out, they said. They would be very watchful.

  Alice returned to the laundry block after the midday meal, doing so openly and unconcernedly, so that any of the guards watching would think she had been assigned to duties there. Concealed in her sleeve she had a slab of bread and a square of rubbery cheese for Alraune to eat. The two Poles who worked in the laundry glanced at her, nodding almost imperceptibly to indicate that all was well, and Alice went down the passageway to the grisly stone room. There was still a trickle of light from the small windows, but the shadows were starting to edge across the floor, and in the gloom the huge mangles took on the aspect of malevolent beasts: creatures that would snap at your hands and ankles, and chomp you up in their rolling maws…Your blood would drip through their rollers and down into the drain directly beneath…Alraune had been shut in here all day – had he watched those machines? Had he seen their sinister qualities as Alice had, and been frightened?

  Alice set herself to create a light-hearted atmosphere; she had brought one of the slates on which Alraune liked to scribble meaningless patterns, and the coloured chalks they had managed to cajole out of one of the guards. She wove cats’ cradles for him as well with a length of string, and sang the nursery rhymes of her own childhood, keeping her voice low, although the thick walls of the room would muffle any sound. All the time her mind was considering plans for their next move, thinking that he could spend the night in the kitchen block and that she could slip out again to be with him – he could not be left by himself in the dark. And then the next day was Wednesday, the day Mengele wanted him. She wondered if she dare risk the laundry-basket ploy to get him out after all. How much of a gamble would it be?

  There was no means of telling the exact time, but it must just be coming up to the evening roll-call, and she was just thinking that she would have to slip out and be in her place for that, when there was a flurry of activity beyond the stone room. Alice’s heart leapt in fear, and she backed into a corner of the room at once, drawing Alraune with her.

  ‘We’re still playing the hiding game,’ she said. ‘So we’ve got to be quiet – like little mice.’ Puzzlement flared in the dark eyes at this. ‘But tomorrow,’ said Alice, hating herself, ‘it’ll be our turn to be the big furry pussycats who do the chasing and that’ll be a very good game indeed.’ Absurd to talk like this – he had never seen a cat in his life. ‘You’ll have a cat of your own one day,’ she said. ‘A lovely black furry one with green eyes. It’ll be all your own, and it’ll purr and curl up in your lap. But until then, we’re two little mice, and we won’t even make a squeak.’

  The guards were outside now – they must have entered so abruptly that there had been no time for any warning. No time to smuggle Alraune out. It was no one’s fault. But would the guards go away or would they search everywhere? Alice clenched her fists. Please God, please God…Doors were being opened and closed – had that been the main outer door? Were they going away again? For the space of twenty seconds she dared to believe the guards had gone. And then, like a blow across her heart, came the metallic ring of boots on the stone floor of the passage outside. Hateful sound. She pressed down into the corner behind the largest of the mangles, her arms around Alraune, one hand lightly over his mouth, because there was just a chance – just a faint, faint chance – that even if the guards looked in here they wo
uld not see the two fugitives crouching in the shadows. And if they could remain silent, if Alraune did not cry out…Don’t let them come in here, prayed Alice. But if they do, don’t let them see us…

  She stayed absolutely still, her own heart pounding, aware of Alraune’s warmth against her shoulders, pressing back against the wall and trying to shrink the two of them, like people in the fairy-stories of her childhood. Like that other Alice who had fallen down a rabbit-hole, and drunk something that had made her tiny. If only I could do that now…If only I could do what children do, and believe that if I close my eyes no one can see me…

  The door was flung open, and light streamed in. Two guards stood in the doorway, both holding machine-guns. Alice flinched and felt Alraune shiver.

  ‘There she is,’ said one, pointing. ‘And the child.’

  They moved forward and Alice saw that a third man was with them. He remained in the shadowy passage, but when he turned his head a trick of the light caught the side of his face, and she saw the disc of glass over one eye.

  ‘You are such a fool to try to outwit me,’ said Leo Dreyer looking down at her. ‘I will always – always – defeat you.’

  He signalled to the guards, and they twisted Alice’s arms behind her back and half-dragged her out of the laundry block and across the yard. As she went, she saw Dreyer stand looking down at Alraune for a long moment, his face unreadable. And then he picked Alraune up and followed them.

  Alice was never to know if she had been betrayed, but when she could reason again, she thought she had not. She thought it was more likely that once Mengele heard that the child he had planned to use in his experiment had vanished, he would have ordered a very thorough search. The guards had probably been looking for them for several hours before they were found, and for once they had been stealthy, giving no warning, simply entering the various buildings, and ransacking them.

  After the first impact of shock she was not so very surprised to see Leo Dreyer. If he had not known about Alraune’s birth at the time, he would have known soon afterwards. Had he been secretly watching Alraune growing up? Perhaps pointing him out to Mengele – saying, Why not use that child in your work? Didn’t he care that Alraune might be his son?

  Alice had expected to be hanged or shot; at best she expected to be taken to the punishment block and beaten. She had not quite reached a stage where she no longer had any feeling, but she was very close to it. Even so, she was still aware of a deep aching regret that despite everything she had not saved Alraune. And now I will die, and they will be free to do whatever they want to him. And afterwards – if there is an afterwards – it will be up to Maria or Ilena to take care of him.

  But she had reckoned without the warped passion that drove much of Josef Mengele’s work. Never waste anything, Mengele would say to his team. If there is anything – any situation, any remnant of humanity – that can be utilized, then do so.

  And Josef Mengele was about to utilize the woman he thought of as Lucretia von Wolff in one very particular aspect of his work.

  Alice was not taken to the yard with the infamous bullet-ridden brick wall, nor was she taken to the dreaded gas chamber. She was taken to a small private office in the medical block, with a large square inner window looking into one of the main surgeries. An observation room? Yes, of course. The blood began to thud in her temples and every macabre rumour and every fragment of grisly gossip she had ever heard about Mengele rushed through her mind. And he appears to have thrown in his lot with Leo Dreyer, she thought. Between them, what are they going to do to me?

  It was not until they brought in two men and strapped them down to chairs resembling dentists’ chairs, and it was not until they led Alraune in and gave him a seat facing these two men, that Alice began to understand. There would be no straightforward floggings or starvation punishments for her; the Nazis were being much subtler and much crueller than that.

  Ilena had said that Mengele’s team was trying to establish whether pain or fear was the dominant factor in the disintegration of a human psyche, and to this end the doctors were inflicting both pain and fear on their victims – adjusting the proportions or the ratio as they went, and measuring the different results.

  But tonight they were adding a refinement to their experiment – two refinements. They were putting a child in the same room as the victim, and watching the child’s reactions to the inflicting of pain on that victim.

  And they were putting the child’s mother in an adjoining room, so that she would be forced to see the whole thing.

  There was nothing Alice could do. Two guards stood by the door and two of Mengele’s assistants were seated by the glass observation panel, with clipboards and pens. As a third entered the room Alice saw that more guards were stationed outside. There were no windows in the room which she might smash and try to climb through, and a second’s inspection of the observation panel showed that it was of extremely thick glass. She thought: there is no way out of here. I am shut into this room, and I will have to endure whatever is ahead.

  The straps were tightened around the two prisoners’ ankles and wrists, and wires were taped to their chests and temples, and then linked to box-like machines. Alice supposed they would measure blood pressure levels, and heartbeats. Brain impulses, even? She had no idea if that was possible.

  As a thick iron gyve was passed around the neck of the two men and iron braces tightened around their heads to prevent them from moving, her own heart began to pound with nervous terror, because whatever the doctors were about to do, it was clearly something connected with the men’s faces.

  Alraune was watching these preparations with faint curiosity, but he did not seem especially afraid. He has never known the ordinary world, thought Alice, only this dark hopeless place. So he may see nothing horrific in whatever they are about to do, and he may be unaffected by it. And then, far down in her mind, she thought: but I don’t want him to be unaffected! I want him to be capable of pity and compassion – to be able to put himself in another’s place – to feel hurt when a friend hurts.

  When Mengele himself entered the room he did so quietly and unobtrusively, and it was difficult to connect him with the monster of the legend. But it’s in the eyes, thought Alice. There’s a coldness, an emptiness behind his eyes. As if he has no soul.

  She was just trying to attract Alraune’s attention, thinking that the sight of her might reassure him, thinking that she might somehow signal to him not to be frightened, when the door opened again, and Leo Dreyer came in. At once the menace in the room escalated; icy sweat slid between Alice’s shoulder blades, and the palms of her hands were slippery. This is it, she thought. It’s about to begin.

  Without knowing she was going to do it, she banged hard on the glass partition with her fist, and when the men on the other side of it looked round, she cried out to Leo Dreyer. ‘Leo! Let the child go! Keep me, but take him back to the hut – please!’

  Dreyer turned his head and smiled. He shook his head.

  ‘He could be your son!’ cried Alice, hating having to say it, but doing so. ‘There were six of you that night, remember? That’s a one in six chance.’

  ‘He’s not my son,’ said Leo Dreyer at once. ‘I am unable to father a child. I was rendered sterile from an illness in my youth. But,’ he said, with a sudden glitter in his eyes, ‘I am not impotent, baroness, as you very well know.’

  Somewhere beneath the jagged panic, a tiny curl of gratitude unfurled at that. Not Dreyer’s son. Not the son of this cold cruel implacable monster. Thank God for that at least, thought Alice.

  The men imprisoned in the two chairs were aware of the sudden ratcheting up of the atmosphere, as well. Whether or not they knew what was to happen was not clear, but they certainly knew the stories about Mengele and they renewed their struggles to get free, their eyes bolting from their heads like frightened hares. But the gyves and the dreadful head braces held firm, and neither Mengele nor his assistants paid their weak flailing any attention. Mengele
merely pointed to one of them and said, in a harsh voice, that this would be the first subject.

  At once the assistants by the chairs bent to the machines, and Leo Dreyer moved quietly to a chair in one corner, his expression impassive. Alraune had not moved; he still had the look of faint, unafraid curiosity, and several times he studied Dreyer as if he found him puzzling.

  Josef Mengele moved to a small trolley of instruments, and selected a syringe with an extremely large needle.

  ‘You are all ready?’ he said to the room in general, and the assistants nodded. ‘And in the observation room?’

  ‘We are ready also, Herr Doctor.’

  ‘Herr Colonel?’

  ‘Yes. Begin,’ said Dreyer, and Mengele said, ‘So,’ and there was a split-second of flashing silver as the needle’s sharpness caught the light.

  Mengele adjusted the chair’s headrest so that the man was tilted slightly back, and then took his upper face in a firm grip with his own left hand, the heel of his hand on the man’s chin, the fingers and thumb prising the man’s eyelids wide. With his right hand he drove the glinting needle directly into the man’s eye.

  Alice heard her own gasp, and she heard the gasp of the other man at the same time. Mengele was standing directly between her and his victim, but when he moved, she saw that the whole right-hand side of the man’s face was covered in a dreadful thick fluid, faintly streaked with blood. He was sobbing with harsh dry sobs and flailing at the air as if to fight off further attack.

  Mengele looked at the man consideringly, and then, turning to his assistants, said, ‘You observe that I have entered the eye through the cornea, avoiding the zygomatic bone. The aqueous chamber is punctured of course, but—’

  Alice’s German was not up to the medical terms that Mengele was using now, but it did not need complete fluency to understand that he was saying the needle was not going sufficiently deeply into the victim’s brain to kill him.