Fifteen Words

by Monika Jephcott Thomas

  It was Tim.

  ‘Of course,’ Lutz nodded.

  And then the door was yanked open and the four doctors sat there blinking in the low Siberian sunlight like four little boys caught having a midnight feast.

  ‘What is this?’ one of the guards bellowed in German snatching up some of the pages littered around Max.

  ‘Letters, just letters,’ Horst answered.

  ‘Take them!’ the guard said to the others who began confiscating the lot. Except for the letter from Tim’s girlfriend which Max still had in his pocket. And the page he was holding from Erika which now subtly joined it.

  ‘Hey,’ Tim shouted and got to his feet on foal-like legs after so long sat down. ‘You can’t take them, they’re from our loved…’

  Max believed the letters were as precious as Tim did. He had rescued them, carried them and protected them for this long, but he also knew what the response would be from the Russians if he tried to fight for them now. The little piece of Erika he stuffed into his pocket and the words he had already read reminded him of the necessity of self-preservation. So as Tim stood, Max closed his eyes, as you do before a squeezed balloon, anticipating the inevitable.

  The bullet passed through Tim and out through the back of the wagon letting a beam of sunlight in, which worked as a grim sundial for days to come.

  Tim’s mates had to catch his body as it fell and sit with it biting down on their grief as the guards continued addressing the doctors as if nothing had happened. Max thanked God Tim died without seeing the letter in his pocket; that he died believing he was adored. It was believing that which gave him the strength to stand up against the guards like that Max told himself later as he battled with the notion that it was thinking there might yet be a letter from his lover in the pile that propelled Tim to stand. If Max had given him the letter when he found it, he might not be dead now, but sitting in the corner of the stinking wagon nursing his broken heart. When it came to Erika, Max wasn’t sure which would be worse.

  ‘We need doctors and isolation unit,’ one of the Soviets said in rudimentary German.

  ‘Really?’ Edgar mumbled sardonically. ‘You’d never have guessed.’

  Max was glad to have Edgar with him at times like these; his vociferous, forthright, talented, jazz-loving friend, to pierce the enemy and the atmosphere with his sharp wit and sarcastic riffs.

  ‘You,’ the guard pointed at Max, ‘will be chief doctor.’

  Max was only too pleased to do what he had been craving since this awful journey had begun, since the first man was shot outside the monastery back in Breslau.

  ‘And you choose two doctors to assist.’

  ‘OK,’ Max said. ‘Actually there are three other doctors here.’ He spoke brightly as he offered even more resources than the Soviets had planned for.

  ‘No. Two.’

  Max gestured limply to his three colleagues.

  ‘Choose!’ the guard was becoming impatient.

  It wouldn’t surprise Max if he blew one of them away thereby doing the choosing for him.

  ‘OK, OK!’ There was no contest, even though it killed him to have to leave one of his men behind, knowing that his living conditions were about to get just that little bit better by virtue of the fact that he was now officially the camp doctor. Horst was his brother. Edgar was his best friend. Luckily both were as good a doctor as Lutz, if not better.

  Lutz gave Max a lipless smile of resignation, though his aura was sick with abandonment. He knew what was coming. He couldn’t blame Max.

  ‘Sorry,’ Max mumbled and pointed to Edgar and Horst as he cranked himself to his feet. ‘Sorry,’ he mouthed again at Lutz, his faced contorted with regret.

  Then, for the first time in a long time, Max focused on the world outside the train. They were in a station. And there were trucks lined up outside it waiting to take the prisoners further up and further in to this eternal winter land.

  The three newly reappointed doctors clambered down from the wagon and were directed to the truck at the back of the convoy.

  ‘This is isolation truck. Put all prisoners with infectious diseases here and deal with them.’

  ‘May we have our medical bags back then?’

  The guard who appeared to be in charge said something to a subordinate, who went off supposedly to fetch the bags, but was stopped in his tracks by a rabble of his comrades cheering and slapping each other’s backs.

  ‘What’s that all about?’ Horst nudged Max since he had the best Russian of all of them.

  Max tuned in to the shouts and cheers, as did their guard. ‘It’s over. The war is over. Germany surrendered. We surrendered. It’s over, Horst!’ He began to hug his brother, but the guard prodded them up into the isolation truck.

  ‘No time. We must go. Up! Up!’

  ‘But it’s over,’ Max said to his captor. ‘The war is over.’

  ‘So?’ The guard looked miserable.

  Any spark of celebration in the three Germans lads was immediately quashed and they soon mirrored his expression. The war may have ceased, but nothing had changed for any of them. It was clear from the guard’s demeanour that neither he nor they would be going home any time soon.

  Had Breslau resisted the siege for just days longer they all might be in an occupied country right now, but at least it would be their homeland. As they hauled themselves slowly, incredulously into the truck outside some anonymous station in some hinterland of Russia, this fact dug more viciously into their guts than the barrel of any Tokarev had so far on this rancid journey.

  ‘How much further do we have to travel?’ Edgar pouted, having to rephrase himself a few times before the guard understood.

  ‘Nine days. Perhaps.’

  ‘With Soviet efficiency call it two weeks then,’ Edgar said under his breath.

  And he wasn’t wrong. The three doctors tried hopelessly amidst the constant pitch, roll and yaw of the truck, with no appropriate medicines, to treat diarrhoea, typhoid and cholera among other diseases. With a half cup of water per day per man, the patients and the doctors were dehydrated even before these desiccating conditions infested the population. Max asked his patients to do what he and his fellow doctors did with their ration of water: swill the water around in their mouths in an attempt to alleviate the thirst, then spit it into their hands and wash their faces, and use whatever few drops were left to “clean” their genitals. The cold had its advantages. Condensation on the windows quickly froze and the men could take it in turns to lick the ice from the glass. Max had some anti-lice preparation in his medical bag. He made sure Horst, Edgar and himself used this on themselves so as not to catch lice from the dead. In those two dire weeks the doctors recorded the deaths of fifty-six men. All of them had to be dumped from the back of the truck.

  Then finally they stopped. In a labour camp called Hunsfeld. And a perverse kind of Christmas came to this wonderless wonderland at last.

  From the incessantly shuddering and pitching world of the back of a truck, the utterly desolate stillness of the camp was a kind of gift. From sleeping among the corpses and the diseased, the doctors’ new quarters with the kitchen workforce were almost cause for celebration. Not having to eat regular prison food but sharing the kitchen staff’s “special” meals was as close to a festive feast as they were likely to get. The Russians it seemed were concerned above all that their food supply was not contaminated, so the doctors were ordered to check the cooks’ health constantly and examine their clothing for signs of fleas. Max, Horst and Edgar would therefore be among the cooks before breakfast and dinner warming themselves over boiling vats of some liquid of dubious origin which had potatoes and animal fat in it. But the potatoes would all sink to the bottom and the fat would all float on the top. The doctors would watch as the cooks would skim off this fat, as if in some altruistic concern for the state of the prisoners’ arteries, when in fact they would keep all that tasty, energy-packed lard for themselves. Then they would ladle up the liquid and chuck it into
the bowls teetering on the shivering malnourished hands of the prisoners, hardly ever digging deep enough to catch a potato from the depths, thereby leaving a bounty of vegetables for themselves when the vats were ‘empty.’ On the rare occasions a prisoner’s spoon ran aground on a potato hiding under the surface of his soup he would stay very quiet about it, lest his friends turn into jealous enemies.

  Max, Edgar and Horst though were allowed to share in the spoils of the cooks, who were grateful to the doctors for keeping them in such good health.

  ‘I don’t think it’s anything we are doing that’s keeping them healthy,’ Max whispered to Edgar as they gorged on their fat-covered potatoes, huddled around the dwindling fire on which the food had been cooked.

  ‘Not with our meagre medicinal supplies. No, it’s this diet alone that does it, but no one needs to know that, do they?’ Edgar winked and nearly choked on the chunk of tuber in his mouth as the sound of a bowl being returned to the counter with unusual ferocity had them all turning their toasted faces from the fire.

  It was Lutz who had returned his bowl. Lutz who had wanted them to see him watching them enjoy themselves whilst he finished another day laying brick with mortar that froze before you had a chance to get it off your trowel, from before sunrise to after sunset, after which he sucked at this diarrhoea these cooks passed off as soup whilst his erstwhile colleagues warmed themselves and nourished themselves and occasionally rubbed anti-lice powder into the hair of one of the dirty Ivans running this hell hole. His gaunt face barely had the muscle tone to describe bitterness, but his eyes bit Max’s skin more than the frost ever had so far.

  And that was why Max found his appetite had suddenly waned. Why Edgar’s and Horst’s did too, and why they pooled their leftovers and invented a reason that night to visit the hut where Lutz and hundreds of other prisoners languished. The reason they gave the guards was long and in Latin. It sounded good, scary, like something that needed investigation. They couldn’t have said they suspected an outbreak of cholera or typhoid – those diseases were like the common cold here.

  They moved among the drowsy inmates – who were all exhausted enough to be sleeping but cold enough to be kept awake, so to be drowsy was the best state of repose they could manage during the night – examining those that looked particularly ill, administering what little they could, until they found the true subject of their quest.

  Those scathing eyes of Lutz’s were wide open by the time they found him on his top bunk deep inside the hut. The doctors huddled round, trying to block the view of any prying neighbours and delivered their gift of cold, fat-soaked potatoes. It was hardly gold, frankincense and myrrh, but then they were only three doctors not three magi and Lutz was hardly the baby Jesus in a manger. Besides, what use was gold and frankincense here, when a decent meal was all that was desired and needed?

  There was no need for too many words either. And too many words could get them all in trouble, so they left shortly after Lutz had gratefully received his gift and whispered his thanks. Max glanced back over his shoulder as they left and made out the silhouette sitting up sharing his food with the kid on the bunk next to his. It was foolish to try and keep something like food a secret in this overcrowded hut, he reasoned, and good to have an ally or two, he told himself, thereby excusing his own conspiracy with the cooks as well as comforting himself that Lutz still had a companion here.

  Before dawn the next morning the prisoners were woken by the banging of a hammer on railings as ever, but today there was more to rouse them than just that offensive sound. There was also the commotion outside in the sickly glow of the only lamp that burned all night outside the hut where Max had left Lutz feasting the night before. And in that weak light the lantern vomited into the air, Lutz was being made to vomit too. He was being punched repeatedly in the stomach in order, the guard who was enjoying the show announced to all the gathering prisoners, to expel the valuable food this greedy cretin had stolen last night.

  The three doctors stood with anyone else that gave a damn about Lutz, disgusted by their own impotence but knowing that so much as a yelp of disapproval in the guard’s direction would mean the same punishment for them. Max searched the crowd for the kid that had shared the food last night with his friend – he was glad to feel the need to use his eyes for anything else than seeing Lutz tortured like this – and sure enough the kid was almost seizing with fear that he had been reported for sharing the contraband too, but as yet he seemed to be in the clear. So Max employed his eyes to study the rest of the prisoners and try and deduce which of them had betrayed a fellow prisoner by the look of guilt or triumph on their faces. But most looked like they just wanted to go back inside where it was a degree or two warmer only by virtue of the protection from the wind. Perhaps the guards themselves had discovered Lutz. Perhaps Lutz was not experienced enough with contraband to hide the evidence very well. Either way Max was wracked with guilt.

  ‘He didn’t steal it. We gave it to him,’ Max mumbled more to himself than to Horst stood next to him, but Horst heard and intervened on his brother’s thought process.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, they’ll still punish him for eating it. And us for giving it.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ Max’s voice was starting to reach other ears easily in the vacuum of a Siberian predawn.

  ‘Now now, Max,’ Edgar said through gritted teeth, ‘what’s the point of getting us killed too?’

  ‘The point is, it’s wrong,’ Max’s voice was now raised, his body moving towards the guards. ‘He did not steal the food.’

  The beating stopped. A gun was aimed at Max who continued, ‘We… I gave him the food. When we went to investigate the, er, illness spreading round the prisoners, we assessed this man as, erm, desperately in need of nourishment. No one stole anything. It was medicine. Doctor’s orders.’

  Not a sound, save for the whimpering of Lutz from the frozen earth and the desperate sucking of teeth as Edgar and Horst watched not one but two of their friends about to be killed.

  The guard who had been so vocal about Lutz’s misdemeanours a few moments ago was now mute too. He examined the doctor before him; the doctor whom he was pretty sure had asked for this snivelling Nazi on the floor at his feet to be part of his medical team all those weeks ago at the train station. So perhaps it was true. Perhaps the chief doctor did bring the food for him, but the guard doubted it was because it was for urgent medicinal reasons. They were friends, that was why he had brought the food. If he had brought it at all. If the Nazi snake at his feet hadn’t stolen it. Either way, the guard’s frozen morning brain reasoned, what I am about to do will punish them both perfectly then.

  The guard released the safety catch on the automatic rifle he was pointing at Max and simply said:

  ‘No.’

  He turned the gun to Lutz and fired a few rounds into the little ball of human curled up there.

  Besides, he was gasping for a coffee and had wasted enough time out here already this morning. He smiled – yes smiled! – at Max and went back to his hut while a long oscillating moan began emanating from the quivering kid’s lithe body. The shock of hearing this from someone else stopped Max from producing an identical sound and instead made him focus on the kid. Max had no idea why now would seem like the appropriate time to assign someone new duties – perhaps it was because he wished he’d thought of it before and gave the job to Lutz; perhaps it was a paranoia that the kid would somehow point the finger at Max even though he had pointed it at himself just now whilst staring down the barrel of a gun; or perhaps it was just an overwhelming need to make something slightly better about this whole terrible mess – but he hurried after the guard and told him he needed someone young, strong and fit to help out with carrying stretchers and other such errands and he wondered if he could employ the young boy there.

  ‘The whining one?’ the guard said impatient to get inside.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If that you are calling strong, be my guest.’ He turned to go in, but
stopped himself. ‘Oh, and when trucks arrive today prepare one for isolation, as before.’

  ‘We’re moving?’

  The guard thought that was perfectly obvious so didn’t waste his breath with an answer. He disappeared inside and Max hurried over to the kid.

  ‘Hey, hey, sh, sh,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Bubi,’ the kid said with an accent which Max recognised as Polish.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘I was sixteen when I first realised I wanted to be a doctor.’ He forced a smile over his quivering jaw. ‘Now, I need your help as my assistant, OK?’

  Bubi nodded hopelessly.

  ‘And your first errand is to go and fetch a stretcher from the medical hut. And then you’re going to have to be strong, inside I mean, and help me carry our… your friend Lutz back there, understand?’ Max tried to mimic the tone of his aunt, as far as his memory would allow, from all those years ago outside the theatre as they dealt with the casualties from the road traffic accident. He tried to instil in Bubi the same confidence that his aunt had instilled in him as they had carried each broken wailing tram passenger into the hospital on that ladder whilst his shoes, soaked in sugary beer from the Kronen lorry, had stuck to the clean smooth floors of the emergency ward – although it was clear from the way the Tokarev had churned up Lutz’s silent body that Bubi’s first casualty was beyond saving.

  This leg of her interminable odyssey across country was the only one Erika had not wished was over the moment it had begun. She chatted easily with Benjamin, but whenever there was a lull in the conversation – when, for example, the blaring of the train through a tunnel, which was amplified terribly by the lack of a door on their compartment, made it impossible for them to be heard, or the young couple squeezed in next to Karl reignited their petty but vicious argument with each other – Erika’s mind would hurry back to Freiburg. But not the unimaginable Freiburg her new travelling companion had described, but the beautiful mediaeval town she had skipped through with her lover on the night she found out she had passed her Latin exam. They celebrated that night with Edgar, Babyface and Horst. They ran through the streets, all the tension of the last few days finding an outlet in their bursts of energy.