by Andrew Gross
Verstoeder dug back into the thick file. “Tuesday, I believe, was it not?”
“Quickly, Lieutenant, today!”
“Here it is, Herr Colonel.”
Franke ripped the document from his hand. He ran his finger down the text until he came to the very spot he was looking for: They are growing very well this season amid the birchwood trees.
That’s what had struck his interest.
Someone parachuting in … Franke rubbed his chin in speculation. Into a fucking birchwood forest. Near Oswiecim. The truffle hunter … He got up and went to the map himself. Why would anyone be heading there? In the middle of fucking nowhere.
Nothing around but a birchwood forest and a labor camp.
Auschwitz. He kept on saying to himself.
“Ring me command,” he instructed the lieutenant. “General Graebner. Now.”
“Right away.” The junior officer ran out.
Franke let the pieces come together in his head. However loosely, one by one, they were all beginning to fit. If his hunch was wrong, what would it matter anyway? He was condemned to spend the war in this useless position.
But if he was right … There could be many reasons for it: An escape. Reconnaissance. Or even to bomb the camp.
If he was right, this might be just the opportunity he’d been waiting for.
Truffle hunter … What does a truffle hunter do? he asked himself, staring at the map.
He digs.
But digs into what?
The phone rang. Franke went back to his desk. He took a moment to compose his thoughts, then cleared his throat and picked up the receiver.
“General Graebner…”
He felt certain that the Allies had sent someone in to sneak inside Auschwitz.
THIRTY-TWO
TUESDAY.
At eight that morning, Blum sipped his coffee in the main square in the village of Brzezinka. He and Josef had managed to catch a couple of hours’ sleep at the resistance fighter’s cabin in the woods outside town. As Anja had said, the bread the man’s wife offered him around the fire would have broken a tooth if he tried to chew it, it was so hard.
The square was bustling. Blum counted ten German soldiers and a procurement officer organizing labor details, ordering people around. “You, here!” He pointed to one. “Carpenter, you say. Over there!” Prospective laborers huddled by several trucks pulled up to take them to various work sites. The IG Farben plant needed bricklayers and electricians. Birkenau needed carpenters and heavy laborers. Most of the work Vrba and Wetzler had described was performed by slave labor from the camps. Ten- to twelve-hour shifts without a break, prisoners pushed to the limits of their strength and stamina. Anyone who dropped, from utter exhaustion, from the unquenchable thirst, was shot on the spot.
But certain technical skills were needed for various projects: skilled carpenters, able plumbers, and mechanics. Masons. Strong workers who could do the job of ten undernourished prisoners. From all accounts, there was a vast amount of expansion going on—“ramping up the pace of the killing,” Strauss had called it. Barracks under construction at neighboring Birkenau, the rail tracks extended to its gate. The infirmary at Auschwitz, where various medical experiments were being conducted. The Germans paid a meager wage, and the contractors took most of it. But any wage was good if it could buy a loaf of bread or an undernourished capon in the midst of war.
“Come,” Josef said to Blum. “I spoke to one of the local contractors. Get in that line over there. It’s going to the main camp.”
About twenty workers were in line to board a rattletrap farm truck.
Josef went up to the stocky man in a thin flannel coat and flat tweed cap who seemed to be in charge. “This is my friend I was telling you about. He’s around for a couple of days. He’s very handy with a hammer.”
“What sort of work do you do? Roofing? Spackling? They need people in the main camp.”
“Yes,” Blum said.
“Well…” The foreman gave Blum, who didn’t exactly have the build or hands of a carpenter, the once-over, and not without a little skepticism. “If Josef vouches … I can offer you ten zloty a day.”
“Ten?”
“All right, twelve, once I see what you can do. Okay?”
Blum nodded.
“Climb aboard then,” the foreman said.
Blum hoisted himself into the truck. It was already mostly full. He found an open spot next to a man in overalls and a pipe, carrying his own tools.
A soldier came over and counted the people in the back of the truck. “Eins, zwei, drei…” Blum bent over to tie his shoe. “You there, up!” He counted again.
There were eighteen in his truck. They moved on to count another.
“Good luck, my friend!” Josef smacked the side of the truck. “Till Thursday night…” Though beneath his breath he was likely muttering, “God watch over you. I doubt we will ever see you again.”
“Thursday.” Blum waved.
The truck started up. A German private hopped in the front cab next to the driver. The officer got into a gray half-track with five or six soldiers in it and fell in behind.
Blum caught sight of Josef smoking, watching them leave. He pulled down his cap. When he looked back again, the partisan was gone.
The truck was filled with men of all ages. Many were in their forties or fifties, lifelong tradesmen, too old to have fought in the war. Quickly, the truck lumbered out of the small town and onto the paved main road, heading south. Blum had left his Colt back at Josef’s farm, along with his watch and compass. He had no need for them now. Sewn into his shirt lining though, was enough cash to buy everyone in the truck. He kept his eyes forward as the truck lurched into third gear. He glanced down at his pant legs. His cuffs had rolled and if you focused, you could make out the stripe of the uniform on the other side showing through. Blum’s heart clenched tightly.
Without attracting attention, he bent forward and calmly folded the cuffs down. No one saw. No one spoke much; a couple of locals were going on about the late frost this season and how crops were behind. Blum cast his eyes down. The road was uneven and there were only benches in the back to sit on, so everyone was jolted at every bump. The second truck followed close behind, and the half-track of soldiers twenty yards behind them.
Oswiecim, a road sign said. 8 km.
Blum’s heart picked up.
“First time in?” the man in the overalls asked in what Blum took as a Galician accent. He had a thick mustache and deep, hooded eyes under his cap.
“Yes.”
“Where’re you from?”
“Masuria,” Blum answered. “Gizycko. Near Lake Sniardwy.” He kept his face forward, wanting to remain as inconspicuous as possible, as he would not be on the truck on its trip home.
“A piece of advice.” The workman leaned close. His breath stank of nicotine. “Cover your nose when you get in. The stench can be unbearable.”
Blum nodded. “I will. Thanks.”
“And whatever you do, don’t ask what it is. Doesn’t go over well with the Nazis at all.”
“I hear you,” Blum said with a smile of thanks. He looked down at his hands, and to his dread, saw that his wrist was slightly exposed, showing the first two digits of the number that had been burnt into him. A2 … If noticed, it would instantly give him away.
He glanced at the man across from him, who had closed his eyes a moment and seemed not to have noticed. Blum relaxed. He pulled down his tunic under his light wool jacket, his heart beginning to regain its normal rhythm in his chest.
He’d almost given himself away, twice.
The road went along the rim of a dense forest. And along the Soła River, where he and Mendl would hopefully head to sixty or so hours from now, which continued all the way to the Slovakian border. After about ten minutes the road left the trees and river behind. Blum saw a road sign. Rajsko. An arrow pointing east.
Then another for Oswiecim. 3 km.
To the west.
/>
The truck jerked forward and made a left turn. Now the road picked up the line of the railway tracks. The first thing Blum noticed up ahead was a gray cloud, low above the trees. Hanging like fog over a bay.
Then a putrid smell in the air. What the man next to him had told him. A little like sulfur, Blum thought. Or lead. Only sweeter. Followed by the nauseating sensation in his gut when it became clear to him exactly what it was.
Noticing Blum reacting to the smell, the worker next to him caught his eye and winked with a grim chuckle.
Ahead, Blum caught sight of a long brick façade. A pointed tower atop it. Several towers. And wire, stretching for as far as he could see. Double rows of wire, maybe ten feet apart. Barbed and electrified. Signs of “Verbotten!” with skulls and crossbones underneath placed at intervals. Clearly a city inside. A city of death. Guard towers every hundred feet with machine gun tripods. The train tracks led right up to the front gate. Everyone around was German now. SS.
The truck stopped outside the gates.
A ripple of nerves wormed through Blum’s bowels. He found himself uttering to himself what he remembered of a prayer. The Kel Maleh Rachamin. For the soul of the departed. “Ayl molay rachamin, shochayn bam’romin…” O God, full of compassion, who dwells on high, shelter him who has gone on, with the cover of wings …
That was as much as he knew.
Suddenly there was shouting, voices elevated, in German. An officer came up to the truck, gesturing emphatically for them to continue farther down the road. He was telling the driver of the truck to move. “Nicht hier! Nicht hier!” Not here.
Blum’s heart stopped. He kept hearing the officer shout “Birkenau.” And point in that direction.
Birkenau was only a short way away but it was a completely separate camp, Vrba’s map made clear. Mendl was said to be here. In Auschwitz 1. The mission fully depended on Blum being here.
If he was diverted to Birkenau the entire day would be lost. The odds were already long that he would be able to find Mendl in the three days he had, let alone two, should he have to come back and try again tomorrow.
If he could even get himself on a new crew.
Shit.
Blum overheard the heated discussion among the new officer, the Polish foreman, and the SS work procurer Blum had seen back in Brzezinka. No one else in the truck seemed to care. Work was work, as long as they were paid. They didn’t give a damn.
Finally, the foreman got back in and the German waved emphatically toward Birkenau. Blum’s heart plummeted. Then he realized the officer was pointing toward the second truck, the one pulled up behind them, which pulled out of line and continued past them toward the new camp. Blum’s truck was waved toward Auschwitz. It continued right up to the main gate, which he recalled from Vrba’s drawings, then lurched to a stop. The foreman jumped out again and came around and brought down the rear hatch. He waved for everyone to get off. “Wychodzic.” Come on, come on! “To jest to.” This is it. “Let’s go!”
“Everyone forms a line,” the SS officer instructed them as they pooled together in front of the gate. “Break out of it, and you’ll be shot. No questions asked. Understood?”
Everyone nodded. The work team lined up.
“We hear it every time,” Blum’s truck mate whispered to him. “But I wouldn’t test it if I were you.”
“I don’t need convincing.”
But inside, Blum knew that that was precisely what he was about to do. Test it more than the workman in his wildest dreams could ever imagine. He looked around and tried to get a sense of where the railroad tracks led on to Birkenau. The woods were about sixty yards away. And the river …
“Forward!” the officer yelled. They started to march along the tracks up to the gate. A metal sign arched over it: “Arbeit Macht Frei.”
Yes, free, Blum said to himself. He muttered the prayer again, for the soul of the departed. As the dead are free. The dead.
For he surely was among them now.
He passed beneath the raised, arced letters into Auschwitz.
THIRTY-THREE
Leo walked up the stone steps of the Lagerkommandant’s house again, while Rottenführer Langer took a smoke and remained outside. This being Leo’s sixth visit, the guard no longer even followed him up to the door.
It had been six weeks since he and Frau Ackermann first began their matches. In that time Leo could tell that their visits were no longer exclusively about the chess. She had clearly grown fond of him, visibly looked forward to their time together, and even he had to admit, no matter how he tried to pretend to the contrary, he felt the same. She couldn’t quite beat him. That had long been established. And she understood that too, though he would let her linger in games he could have ended quickly in order to draw them out and extend their time together.
In these weeks she began to share things with him about her life, her feelings. Her parents, eager for advancement, had pushed her into marriage. She longed for a bit more freedom, even a career, teaching, which she had put on hold. Leo saw for certain she didn’t support the horrible things she saw go on there. In the infirmary, people said she tried to ease her patients’ suffering as best she could. And then there were the twisted things performed there by the sadistic Mengele. She had uttered his name only once with Leo, and her jaw stiffened and eyes grew baleful with the deepest contempt. Yet Leo saw it was her fate too that she was essentially trapped there, a captive, as confined here and isolated as any of the prisoners.
Once or twice she opened the collar of her dress just enough that he saw the marks she bore. A dark crease along the side of her neck. When she went to move a piece, a bruise on her arm. Her lower lip a little too puffy. Seeing them, if it were possible, he grew to detest the Lagerkommandant even more. He longed to mention these marks to her. To ask why she remained in this place. This marriage. Why she consented to it. She could leave. She was, in fact, the only one who could leave! The rest, guards, prisoners, were forced to stay.
But he did not dare bring up these things. He could not threaten the fragile footing they danced on in their games. He was still a lowly prisoner, and if he offended her, she could have him killed with just a snap of her fingers. Yet he could not imagine not seeing her again. Many times he could see into the cage of sadness she seemed to live in. To be with such a monster. Her hopes and desires dashed. Leo wished her to be happy. To be free. And he knew that was a little of what he brought her every Tuesday, even though she was a woman and he barely a man. Freedom. A brief flight from her cage. And he was afraid to close the door on them by overestimating their intimacy. To say the wrong thing and have it come to an end. Afraid also of the Lagerkommandant’s wrath should Leo lose her “protection.”
“Ah, Herr Wolciek.” She smiled, pleased, when she stepped into the parlor and saw him there, her blue eyes brightening.
“Frau Ackermann.”
It was May now. Warmer. The flowers were in bloom. She wore her print dress open around the collar with a light white sweater around her shoulders in a way Leo had never seen before.
A thin gold chain was around her neck. For the first time, in all his captivity, he smelled the scent of perfume.
“Where is Private Horschuler?” he asked. The impassive young guard who usually watched over their games.
“He’s away on some work detail, I believe. Clearing the woods. All hands on deck these days, I suppose.” She looked at him. “Why?”
“No reason, madame.” But it pleased him not to have the private looking at him so contemptuously.
“Shall we play?”
She took the white and began with the Ruy Lopez. He countered with a variation of the Brazilian defense. When she leaned forward to move a piece, he caught a glimpse of the strap of her bra underneath. And for an instant her chain danced at the very spot where her breasts came together.
His imagination did the rest.
After seven or eight moves, she picked up a piece and did not put it down, seeming distracted
. “We will not be able to play next week,” she announced. “I am going home for a few days. To Bremen. To visit my family.”
Going home. How the thought appealed to him. “That is nice.” He nodded. “If only I…” He stopped himself in midsentence. If only I could do the same. If only I could even know if my family was even alive.
“I’m sorry.” She locked onto his eyes. “That was stupid of me to say. I only wanted you to know. If you didn’t hear from me.” She moved her bishop forward, making sure it was protected by her knight. “So you wouldn’t … think I no longer looked forward to our games.”
“The Lagerkommandant will be going as well?” Leo asked. He countered her advance by moving up his pawn.
“I’m afraid he will not.” She moved up a pawn as well. “Kommandant Hoss will still be in Berlin. So his business keeps him here.”
“I see.” Inside Leo shuddered. The business of murdering people. What burrowed through Leo’s mind was what might happen to him when she wasn’t here. Wasn’t here to watch over him. Was this her way of letting him know? That it was over. That she was powerless to stop the inevitable from happening now.
Then, out of the blue, she said, “You are the only ray of light for me in this godforsaken place.” She looked at him. “You know that, don’t you?”
He had never stared at her so closely. He had never noticed the tremulousness in the soft blue shade of her eyes.
“That this is the only thing I look forward to here. This time together…”
He nodded, his heart slamming off his ribs like a metronome on the highest speed. “Frau, the game,” he could only reply, averting his eyes back to the table. He sat there too afraid to take his gaze from the board. Inside, his heart beat with an insistence he had never felt before. He pushed back the embarrassing pressure going on between his legs, praying that his thin uniform wouldn’t give him away.
“Yes, of course, the game.” She smiled at him.
The match was now barely an afterthought. He was nervous to even pick up a piece, lest their hands casually touch. Desires he had kept to himself, ones he had let loose only in his bunk at night, praying that his Lithuanian bunkmate would not wake, sprang forward. Filling him with longing. He kept his eyes down from hers. He was unsure of what to do.
