The One Man

by Andrew Gross

  Franke, against the wall, saw the burly man’s eyes fall on them uneasily, as if he understood what they were for.

  “Come on in.” Lagerkommandant Ackermann stood up. “Please, sit down.” He pointed to a wooden chair on the other side of the table. “Your name is Macak, correct?”

  “Yes, that’s me. Macak.”

  “Pavel, isn’t that right? And I’m told people call you The Bear?”

  “Because of my cheery disposition, I guess.” The bearded man forced a smile. He didn’t like Germans much to begin with, only their cash, and now, pulled away from his work line by an armed detail and brought here, to this hellhole, a grim-faced guard at the door and two big-shot officers staring at him, even a man as hardened as he could be forgiven for feeling at bit of unease.

  “No doubt.” The camp commander grinned. “And you are foreman of one of the construction crews in Brzezinka?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And I’ve been told you have even done work inside the camp here? Even recently?”

  “I have.” The foreman nodded uneasily, a glance toward Franke, who leaned against the wall. “Wherever the work is, that’s where we go. Right now, that seems to be you.”

  “Even yesterday, if I’m correct,” the Lagerkommandant pressed on. “You and your crew helped construct the new barracks by the kitchens, I’m told?”

  “If you’re happy with it, yes, that was our work.” The foreman nodded, forcing a smile.

  “And the day before that as well?”

  “The job took three days.” The foreman shrugged. “We did what was requested.”

  “The work is fine, Herr Macak. It just seems there was a minor discrepancy in our count between those who were on the truck in Brzezinka and let inside the gate and then those upon leaving at the end of the day. We counted thirty-one in the morning and somehow only thirty left. I’m sure it was simply a mistake.”

  “Thirty, huh…?” The foreman ran a hand across his beard. “I’m quite sure that’s what it was. I’m always accurate with my numbers. Besides…” A moan emanated from a cell behind them. “This isn’t exactly the kind of place one wants to get left behind in, if you know what I mean.”

  “And why exactly would you say that, Herr Macak?” The Lagerkommandant looked back with a frosty smile.

  “No disrespect.” The foreman shrugged. “Only—”

  “Yes, I was just joking you, Herr Macak. I understand perfectly what you meant. In fact, our initial thoughts went there too. Why would anyone possibly want to be left behind here? Except then we came across this…” The commandant got up and removed a tan cloth jacket from a hook on the wall and tossed it onto the foreman’s lap. “In a storage bin. Near where you and your team happened to be working. Maybe you remember someone wearing it that day. As I recall, it wasn’t exactly warm Tuesday. I could understand someone taking it off, perhaps in the heat of the day. But then finding it at the bottom of a storage bin, under rags and buckets … And then coupling it with this matter of this missing person who you say doesn’t exist. Number Thirty-One. You know we Germans always need to be precise. So any thoughts on this, Herr Macak? Simply for our records…” The Lagerkommandant’s eyes remained on him.

  The foreman felt the sweat rise up on his neck and kneaded his cap. “Could be anybody’s.” He shrugged. “I can’t quite say.” His voice now had a quiver of anxiousness in it.

  “Maybe something we could do might jog your memory, what do you think? Perhaps an extended work contract at one of the construction sites around. Steady work is hard to come by these days, is it not?”

  “It is,” the foreman agreed. “And it would be my honor to have that. But the fact remains, I don’t recognize it,” the Pole said, trying to hand the jacket back. “Sorry, but if that’s all there is”—he glanced at his watch—“I know my crew expects me back and…”

  “So we say there were thirty-one people on your crew…” The commandant pulled out a chair directly across from Macak and sat down and stared at him. He held a small horsewhip in his hand. “And you say thirty. But you know what I think?” He jabbed a finger in the air. “I think this jacket belongs to the one who up to now remains unaccounted for. So with all apologies to your work crew…” His stare hardened from amiable to icelike, “I’m afraid that is not simply all there is, Herr Macak, and maybe for a long while, until we know precisely who he is.”

  The foreman let out a breath. He just looked back at the commandant and scratched his beard. Franke could see that the man was someone who knew he had one foot in the soup now and was rolling over in his mind the best path for keeping the rest of him out of the pot.

  “Perhaps as you try and think on it, you would consider the possibility of becoming a resident here yourself from now on, Herr Macak? We can arrange that. No problem for us. It is why I arranged for us to meet here. Though I can’t fully promise”—the commandant shrugged, his smile fixed—“that your stay here will last long. Do you understand what I’m saying, Herr Macak?”

  The foreman inhaled a deep breath. He glanced toward Franke, who had not yet moved or spoken, but whose presence in the room, the gray-suited intelligence officer covered with war eagles, clearly gave him cause for discomfort.

  Then he looked back at Ackermann.

  “My cousin.” The foreman swallowed and picked up the cloth jacket. “He said the guy was visiting. That he was a good worker. I remember he took a break near the end. I didn’t keep track of him.”

  “Describe him,” Franke cut in, with a glance toward Ackermann. Validation surged in his blood.

  “Medium height. Dark features, kind of thin.” Macak shrugged. “Like a lot of people one sees in here. Couldn’t work a lathe for shit, that I can tell you.”

  “And he spoke Polish?” Franke continued, moving over in front of Macak now.

  “Yes.”

  “Like a native? Or perhaps someone who has learned it? Who is from abroad?”

  “He pretty much said as little as possible,” the foreman said. “But from what I heard, it seemed quite good.”

  “And so, your cousin?” Ackermann interjected, tapping the horsewhip in his hand. “What is his name?”

  Macak drew in a troubled breath.

  “I’m asking you, Herr Macak. One way or another we’ll find out. If we have to bring your whole fucking work team back in here and put a gun to their knees. So what will be easiest for you, Herr Macak? It would be hard to ply your trade with a bullet in your knee, would it not?”

  The foreman looked back at them and swallowed. The stubbornness in his eyes ebbed. He’d tried. Done the best he could. What would anyone expect? He wasn’t going to die to save him. There was a war to get through. And he had a wife and two daughters. “Josef,” he said, running a hand across his face. “Wrarinski. He’s the baker. In Brzezinka.”

  “Brzezinka,” Ackermann confirmed.

  Macak nodded glumly.

  “Pick him up,” the intelligence colonel said to Ackermann without hesitation. “Now.”

  Macak had known Josef for as long as he’d been alive. The baker had prepared the cake for the foreman’s own wedding, three tiers with a sweet praline inside and vanilla frosting. He had stayed well into the night, dancing. Every St. Stanislaw’s Day, he and Mira brought over muffins and fruitcakes.

  But Macak knew he had just signed his cousin’s death warrant.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Blum chewed on a stale crust of bread and sipped the thin gruel in his bowl outside his barrack before the block was split up into their work details.

  He could weigh this all day, he knew, but he would not come to a different answer. It would only cost him time. Crucial time. And as vital as it was to do what he was sent there to accomplish, something else rose up inside him now. Something equally important.

  Something that would not let him go.

  No tragedy is greater than that of a single person who is afraid to do the right thing. Doesn’t the Talmud tell us that? That to shr
ink from moral courage, knowing what was right, was the death of light. It became the same as what he saw around him here. Will it cost or save lives? Sometimes that was no matter. He realized all he would be putting at risk. The promise he made to Strauss. To President Roosevelt. His mission, with all that was clearly riding on it. Those whose lives depended on its outcome. He was sorry about that.

  But it was about one life now. A life that meant everything to him.

  And saving that one life was akin to saving the world.

  He had left her once before, in Krakow—left her to die. Left them all to die.

  He had vowed that wouldn’t happen again. And now here was his chance to prove it.

  The lengthy roll call the camp had stood through had consumed half the morning. It was already after ten. That left only nine hours before he, Mendl, and Leo had to line up under the clock tower for the overnight work detail. Blum knew, four would make it even more difficult to get away unseen. Leisa was never the brave one. He would have to stay by her. And Mendl too. Yet he knew he had to try. A dark cloud hung over the camp every day, but inside Blum, the path was now lit and clear.

  Whistles sounded. The morning meal was done. “Line up! Work details!” the kapos called. “On the double! Now!”

  He spotted Shetman washing out his bowl at the faucet. Blum went up to him. “You said to let you know if I needed something else done in here?”

  The little man continued to rinse his bowl. “What is it you need?”

  Blum kneeled down beside him. “Is there a way to get into the women’s camp?”

  Shetman shrugged. “There is always a way. When do you need to go?”

  “Today. Now,” Blum said back. “In the next couple of hours.”

  “The next couple of hours…?” Shetman chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Boy, you must have the itch real bad.” Forays into the women’s camp, situated several hundred yards away, were typically for conjugal purposes.

  “It’s hard.” Shetman shrugged. “And it costs money.”

  “How much?” Blum reached into the lining of his uniform and peeled off four crisp fifty-pound notes. British pounds.

  “But with money, there is always a way.” The little man’s eyes lit up. “Even in here.”

  “There’s just one more complication…”

  “Complication…?” Shetman looked at him.

  Blum peeled off two more fifty-pound notes. “I need her brought back out.”

  “Now, that will cost you.” Shetman met his eyes and smiled. He shook his bowl dry and wrapped the bills into his palm.

  “And as long as I’m paying…” Blum peeled off another fifty-pound note. “I’ll need another men’s uniform. A small.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  The woman stepped hesitantly into the Lagerkommandant’s office, in a thin burlap dress, her head shaved, a scarf tied around it.

  Her nerves showed. Her eyes darted back and forth between the Lagerkommandant and the intelligence colonel, Franke, who sat at the table, seemingly wary even to step foot in the room, into the lion’s den, face-to-face with the man who controlled life and death here.

  “Don’t be afraid.” Ackermann beckoned the woman forward. “I promise, we won’t bite. Please, sit.” He pointed to a chair. “You told the Obersturmführer you had something of importance to share.”

  The woman stepped closer to his desk and nodded. She could have been forty or sixty; in here, it was hard to tell. “My son,” she said nervously, “he’s only twenty. He’s somewhere in the main camp. I haven’t seen him since we arrived.”

  “And so you shall, my dear, you shall see him,” the commandant replied good-naturedly. “And I give you my word, I will watch over him myself. And you as well. Once we hear what you have to say.”

  “I have your promise then?” She looked at him, distrusting.

  Franke saw she would no more trust the Lagerkommandant to pour water on her if she was set on fire and he was holding the pail. No one in here would.

  “As an officer, madame. I assure you. Now out with it. Colonel Franke and I have work to attend to. What is it you have to say?”

  “This morning I happened to overhear a conversation,” she began. “I didn’t catch it all, only parts. But what I was told you would find of interest was, there is someone here, inside the camp, who has snuck in. From the outside.”

  Franke sat up in his chair. They had sent out a team to pick up the baker, but this was even more evidence that his suspicions had been right. “You heard this? You see, he is here!” he said to Ackermann, his blood coursing with electricity. “Now there is no doubt. You are certain of this, madame?” He turned back to the woman. “You saw him?”

  “I did.”

  “And you heard this where, madame?” Ackermann asked her.

  “By the orchestra. This morning. I was bringing clean sheets to the infirmary. He claimed he had snuck in. And that he is somehow leaving. Tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Now Franke stood up and faced the woman too.

  “Yes. He said he has a way out. But only tonight, he kept saying. I’m sorry, but I think they saw me, so I couldn’t hear how.”

  Franke’s blood surged. His suspicions had been correct. A few days ago it was only a puzzle, a puzzle for him to solve, and as the pieces slowly came together, he had put everything on the line. His career. His reputation. He knew from the beginning that this was it! His chance. Now it was only a matter of why. Why was the man here? And how to stop him.

  Only until tonight. That didn’t give them much time.

  “Who, madame?” Franke stepped up to the woman. “Who is this man? If you saw him, you must be able to point him out?”

  “In this place…?” She shook her head. “I don’t know who he is. Or what block he is in. I only overheard him for a moment as I went by.”

  “Describe him then.”

  “He was thin, kind of like your height.” She pointed to Franke. “Dark features. In a prisoner’s uniform. Young looking. He can’t be more than twenty-four. I know that doesn’t help you much. I tried to follow him as he was led away.”

  “Led away?

  “By a guard. But he blended into the crowd. I’ve no idea what block he was in. I’m sorry, Lagerkommandant. But I also know something else…”

  “Tell us, madame,” Ackermann pressed.

  “You said I could see my son.” She looked at him for final confirmation. “That is a promise?”

  “Yes, yes.” He rolled his hand. “Go on. You will.”

  Likely in the gas chambers, Franke suspected, if he could trust anything in here.

  “I believe he has a sister here.” The woman looked at him.

  “A sister…?” Franke said. His eyes stretched wide.

  “Yes. And one more thing … She is in the orchestra.” The woman nodded. “Her I can point out.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  “Mirek, this is Levin.” Shetman introduced Blum to the head of the camp repair team. “I’m told Pan Mirek here can take a carburetor out of the grave and bring it back to life. As we discussed, he’ll be joining you today.”

  The head of the repairs crew looked at Blum with a complicit nod. According to Shetman, the repairs team had the most unrestricted access between the men’s and women’s camps, holding passes to freely go back and forth as the situations called for. And the camp’s water pump, which was kept in the main camp, was routinely lugged back and forth to the women’s camp, in many cases only as a cover for conjugal purposes, and often with the tacit understanding of the guards, whose palms were always well greased to look the other way.

  “Good. We can always use a good hand.” The repair chief folded a few, crisp bills into his palm.

  Blum had given Shetman three hundred and fifty pounds, a vast sum, to get the job done.

  “You come along and you don’t say a word,” the repair chief said. “If any of the guards there are poking around suspiciously, then it’s off. Our call. No argument. And no refund either. Those a
re the terms.”

  “I understand,” Blum agreed. What choice did he have?

  “They usually give us about twenty minutes to get the pressure back up”—Levin chuckled, “if you know my meaning. They know what the game is there. We’ve got some gifts for them. Here’s your pass.”

  Blum stared at the square white paper with hard-to-read script on it.

  “Don’t worry. It’s perfectly valid. So don’t sweat over that. Sweat over what you’re about to do. We’ve never brought someone out before.”

  “Then thanks for doing this.”

  “Not me.” He pointed. “Rozen’s going with you. He volunteered.”

  A man with dark wiry hair and shoulders like wire hangers stepped up. Blum shook his hand.

  “It all should work though. If everything falls in line. Which block is she?” the repair chief asked.

  Blum said, “Thirteen.”

  “Thirteen?” The repair chief winked at Rozen complicitly. “What is it with the water in Thirteen? We were just there last Thursday.”

  Shetman handed Blum the uniform he’d requested and patted him on the back. “Good luck.”

  * * *

  “Why?” Blum asked Rozen as they towed the ramshackle pump toward the front gate.

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you doing this? Levin said you volunteered.” They both knew if they were found out, they’d be shot on the spot. Or strung up on one of those gallows and left there for everyone to see.

  Rozen stopped the cart and pulled up his sleeve. “See this number.” Blum looked. A11236. “I’ve been here from the beginning. Since forty-one. No way they’re ever going to let people like me make it out. We’ve seen way too much.” He picked up the tow bar again. “They just keep me around because it keeps them in business. So in the meantime I try to do some good.”

  “Well, whatever the reason, thanks,” Blum said.

  “Besides, like Levin said, the idea appeals to me.” They started up again. “So who is she? Wife? Sweetheart?”