The woman knelt down at her side and placed the violin back in its case with gentle and almost loving hands.
Adele found the woman to be an immediate source of peace in the darkness that surrounded her. And something in her heart wanted to cry out, to throw herself in this woman’s arms and beg to be let out of the hellish nightmare that plagued them both.
“Thank you.” It was all she could manage to say. But like that night so many weeks ago, when she’d gone to Dieter for help and he’d so willingly stitched up the wounds of her hands, she could think of no other words. Nothing else mattered in that moment.
The woman gave a slight nod. She stood and began moving around the room. The bucket was discarded in the far corner. She came to the row of wooden planks against the wall and began folding a sheet on one of the beds. The others had what appeared to be straw mattresses covered in dingy sheets, for the concrete floor under each was littered with the telltale straw dust that collected as if someone rolled around on top of the mattress.
“Where are the others?”
“Others?” The woman had a habit of speaking without turning around.
“There are six beds.” That meant that at the very least, they could accommodate four more workers in the moderately sized room. If what she suspected was the case, they’d soon find the room filled with far more than four other women.
“These beds have just been brought in.” So that was why there was straw on the floor. “And you are the first.”
Adele didn’t understand. “The first of what?”
The woman paused. Would that be the hallmark characteristic of this woman? Few words spoken, and those would be carefully chosen? “You know where you are, yes?”
“Auschwitz.”
“You are in Birkenau. It is the second of the main Auschwitz camps.”
Adele stood and moved across the room toward the woman, her hands clenched in tight fists, her soul begging for answers.
“What is happening here? I heard about these places when I was in jail, awaiting trial. And knew I was being sent to work and that these people could be ruthless, but—”
“But you never expected this.”
The woman had read her thoughts. Another trait that seemed born of more than just experience in the camp.
“No. Nothing close to this.” Adele didn’t know what to say. And maybe nothing needed to be said. The train platform. The horrific wall of death along the path. The despondent guards and prisoners in striped uniforms. The families being ripped apart at the train platform . . . What could she speak of that this woman wouldn’t have seen or heard herself?
There was one thing.
“What is your name?”
The older woman looked as though the creases in her face wanted to smile. Maybe they wished to form the lines that had once been born of joy? But not in this place. Not in Auschwitz. She’d not smile. No one would.
“My name is Omara Kraus.”
“And what am I the first of, Omara? Why am I here?”
The woman looked her straight in the eye and with the most emotionless of words said, “You are to play in the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
There’s an orchestra?”
Omara went about tidying up the room, almost as if she hadn’t heard the question.
“But why?”
To her question, Omara’s answer was clipped, immediate. She didn’t look up as she dropped wood chips on the fire in the tiny stove. “Because they are smart.”
Cold. That could describe them. Inhuman, perhaps? Merciless. Murderous. Adele could think of an entire list of characteristics to describe them. But not smart.
“You have heard the name Maria Mandel?”
Adele shook her head. Then, realizing the woman hadn’t turned to look at her, answered, “No. I have not.”
“She is as devoted a Nazi as any of them. Believes in the Germans’ mission. But she also understands the value of music, like any good German would have been taught to. She became the cruel caretaker of the women’s camp last autumn, and though it is unfathomable to you and me, she has high regard for musical talent among the prisoner population. The other Auschwitz camp has an orchestra, so she decided that Birkenau must have one as well.”
“The orchestra is her idea then?”
“It is her necessity, I believe.” A muscle flexed in her jaw, as if hatred had spilled over from her insides and burst forth upon her face. “The main Auschwitz camp has a men’s orchestra and she wishes to have her own project here. So in this way, they are smart. They exploit the gift of music given by God. They understand how the arts can be associated with many things—with happiness in a life once lived. Not that they care whether we remember joy or not. We are animals to them. But they do care that the prisoners be primed for manipulation. That our spirits be quelled into doing nothing but mindless work, as if we were machines. Music will be one of their tools to do this. They take away our names, our very identity,” she said, and lifted the sleeve of her rust-colored dress to reveal a number harshly tattooed on her left forearm. “And replace it with a number. They take our joy and turn it into something evil.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I have seen it.”
Adele resisted the urge to pinch her arm and tell herself to wake up. This was real. Omara had seen the atrocities inflicted upon the Jews, much like Vladimir had once described to her. It seemed so far away then.
Now it was staring her in the face.
“What have you seen?”
Still kneeling on the ground, Omara finally turned. She looked as though she’d been doused with a bucket of ice water. Any softness in her features had become pinched and her lips terse, as if the angry memories within her mind were fighting to escape through the pores in her skin.
She crossed the room, saying, “This camp opened in 1942. I was one of the first here.”
“You’ve been here for more than a year?”
“Nearly.”
Adele was stunned to silence.
She began to consider the possibility that her reeducation sentence of fifty-six days could be longer and much more terrifying than she’d thought. Omara had been in the camp a year and the notion no longer fazed her. What could that mean?
“I was a professor of humanities at the university in Berlin,” Omara said, finally sitting on the edge of one of the straw mattresses. She did not appear weakened. Rather, the middle-aged woman gave the impression of a wise old storyteller who owned her craft and would find comfort in sitting through the tale she must repeat. She folded her hands in her lap and gazed out into the room, almost as if the brick wall had melted away and some vision of her memory had come alive behind it. “We were not free to speak out. Certainly not if the voice came from a Jew. All of the rights of the public were taken away in the early 1930s. It was the Nazis’ way of gaining control over us. That was when it all started, against the Jews, I mean.”
“Which you are?”
“Yes.” Omara’s chin rose a little higher in the air. “I am a Jew. One of the creatures of the same God. Of the same matter. Of bone and blood and the same human flesh as they. One who is alive by His hand to this very moment. And when I see a growing hatred for any race of human being, no matter the justification, I cannot stand by in silence.”
“So you stood up and spoke against them? The Nazis—you condemned their practices?”
“Yes.” She nodded, chin still proudly notched. “I did.”
It was all that Adele required to feel the pit of regret take form in her stomach.
She remembered a night at the dance hall, almost four years ago now. She remembered when Vladimir told her that Germany had invaded Poland. “Taken charge of” Poland, her father had called it, because Germany and Austria with her would now be strong again. They could have pride once more. But Adele remembered what it felt like that night. Shame had crept in.
Now the shame filled her. Guilt that she’d b
lindly followed along, and regret that she’d not done more to help others like the Haurbechs.
“You condemned them and now you pay the penalty.”
“No more than anyone else who passes through the barbed wire into the gruesome belly of this camp. And I give far less than they, the poor souls who are sent down the hill.”
“Sent down the hill?”
Omara’s eyes looked toward the far north corner of the building. She tilted her head in that direction.
“Never go to that end of the camp, Adele. The end that is lined with the birch trees and the small brick houses.”
“Why? What’s there?” Adele pictured a hundred brick walls identical to the bloodstained one she’d seen outside. Could there be anything worse than what she’d just seen?
“It is death. There, you hear it. Wailing, down the small hill that is shielded by those scraggly, lifeless trees. The condemned—they cry out. Screaming. Unaware of what is happening to them until it is too late. It is horror in smoke and ash.”
“But what kind of horror—” Adele swallowed hard. “Tell me. What kind of death is there?”
“The kind your music will protect you from. You need not know more than to play. They have requested that we form an orchestra, which we will do. And we will play. To survive, we must do it. It is our only chance.”
Adele stood there, staring, wondering when the shock would leave her body. It hadn’t receded yet.
“Do you see, child? Your music is a ticket to life.”
Adele glanced around the room as Omara continued readying the beds for their new occupants. It was stark to be sure, with the cold brick wall, the tiny barred windows, and the damp air. She coughed over the strong odor of mold and wrapped her arms around her middle.
How in the world would they stave off illness in this place? She felt its chill even then. Hoping that the room would be temporary, she asked, “Where are we?”
“Canada.” Omara’s one-word answer was surprising to Adele.
She looked around at the musty back room of the warehouse, having remembered the bins, full to overflowing with cast-off wares that no longer had any owners. “And what is Canada?”
“It is a land of plenty.”
Omara walked to the door and opened it, exposing their view to the long rows of bins she’d seen when the guard brought her in.
“Look around you. The bins hold great stores of wealth but the prisoners cannot reach any of it. You will find that in winter, many a prisoner will die without shoes or a coat, but here in this warehouse, they could each find aids to survival. Be glad you are here, in this one-room penthouse. The other barracks are overrun with rats and lice, the bunks dirtied, the straw teeming with death and disease. The prisoners die of starvation while at least the orchestra may be given food. They have soiled uniforms they wear year-round, yet you have a dress, haven’t you? And they did not make you cut your hair.”
Her hand instinctively flew up to the thick blond mane at her shoulders. It may have been dirty after several torturous days on the cattle car, but at least it was still there, laying soft as it grazed her trembling shoulders. “Why would they make me cut my hair?”
“The hair of a Jew is infectious, they say. But it is not because you are a Gentile that they’ve left your head unshaved.”
“Shaved?” Was that what all the hair was from in the warehouse? Her head turned as if pulled by a string and she glanced over at the mound of hair in the far corner.
Omara scoffed, with mock humor lacing her tone. She reached up and feathered the hair at her brow. “And you thought I wore my hair like this by choice, cut short as a man’s?”
“They’ve all been shaved like this?”
“Yes.”
Adele tried to understand but couldn’t hope to. “Everyone?”
“Those in the regular population have been shaved. Numbered. Tattooed. Dehumanized. The imprisoned will work. Day in and day out, whether ill or hungry or driven mad. They line up for morning counts, sometimes for hours, in the driving rain or blasting heat of summer. I’ve even seen them standing in the snow. Agonizing as the ice gathered around their ankles.” She coughed over what seemed to be a hitch in her throat, then continued. “And when they die, which they will, their body will still be a number as it is heaped into a mass grave.”
“I . . .” The words hardly came to her trembling lips. It was so . . . cold. Unreal. And the word she’d once spoken to her mother came alive on her lips. She breathed it out—evil.
Adele shook her head. “I can’t believe you. Men could not be so cruel. This isn’t real.”
Omara placed gentle hands on Adele’s shoulders and squeezed until she was forced to look up. “It’s not important that you believe me. What is important is that you work and that you play when you’re told. That is the only way you will survive in this place. Do you understand?”
Survive?
“But I was sent here to work.” Adele bit her lip, stopping it from voicing childish ideas. Naïveté was a luxury she could no longer afford. “I thought it was just to be a punishment. They’d assign the formality of a work detail to humiliate me, then send me back to the care of my parents.”
“They don’t waste their time with humiliation. You’ll work in Canada,” Omara instructed, tilting her head out toward the stocked warehouse. “And in the orchestra, when the time comes.”
She glanced over at the bins, feeling haunted by the abundance before her. “But if the Germans have all of this, why not give it to the prisoners? Surely they have no use for old cast-off suits and worn shoes. Wouldn’t it make the prisoners better workers if they were kept from illness? A jacket and shoes would aid in that.”
Omara walked up to Adele and laid a hand on her elbow. “My dear, you will learn quickly that they have no use for us. Any of us. Even if we can play, we are not worth being alive to them.” She closed the door, a look of disgust on her face. “They’d sooner burn the warehouse to the ground than give a coat to a Jew.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Sera, what in the world is going on?” Penny sounded worried through the phone line. “I haven’t heard you like this in a while. You’re a nervous wreck.”
“I’m at his little sister’s wedding! He invited me—what was I supposed to say?”
“I would have said yes too.” Sera heard a chuckle through the phone.
“Penn, you’re laughing at me.”
“You bet I am. And enjoying it, I might add.”
The irony wasn’t lost on her.
Penny was the one who made impulsive, flighty decisions when it came to men. Why, the girl had had more boyfriends than they had paintings in the gallery. But when it came to having any kind of love life, Sera was the complete opposite. She was guarded and—yes—all work and no play. So the fact that she was shut into one of the Hanovers’ massive estate bathrooms, nervously scrutinizing her appearance and pacing, wasn’t a good sign.
“Penny, this guy hired me—that sort of makes him my boss.” Sera’s strappy black stilettos clicked as she marched back and forth across the marble floor. She stopped when she heard Penny laugh on the other end of the call. “Thanks for taking this seriously.”
“You have to admit, it has a funny ring to it. Sera, you’re huddled in the bathroom of your new employer’s California mansion, calling your assistant—”
“Friend.”
“Okay, friend. The point is, you’re chatting on your cell phone when you should be out there enjoying yourself. Eat cake. Sip champagne. Dance. Laugh and let yourself have a good time for a change! You deserve it.”
“Seriously?” Sera almost shouted, then lowered her voice to a rough whisper when she heard guests moving about in the hall beyond the closed bathroom door. “You know I can’t do that!”
“You can’t enjoy yourself, just for fun’s sake? Do I ever know that.”
“You know what I mean, Penn. I don’t know if this is a date—or what. I’m desperate for some advice here.”
“Then tell me I’ve lost my mind. Tell me I can’t start to like this man. This is business—it’s crazy, right?” When Penny offered no reply, she stopped and lightly stomped her foot. “I am not moving a muscle until you answer me. As your friend I am ordering you to give me one good reason why I should stay. Go ahead. Give me just one.”
There was silence on the other end.
Then Penny said the exact thing Sera would have expected from her younger, much more freethinking assistant: “What’s he look like?”
“Penny!”
“Oh, come on. You can tell me. Is he a looker?” Sera could hear her mad typing in the background. “Forget it. I’m Googling him. It’s faster than trying to get answers out of you.”
“Stop Googling him this instant!”
Penny was about as subtle as a red costume at Christmas. The girl honestly couldn’t restrain herself from saying and doing whatever was flitting around in the recesses of her boy-crazy mind.
“Penn, looking for a picture of this guy isn’t going to help.”
“Oh yeah? I need to know what kind of situation we’re dealing with here. I mean, if he’s gorgeous, then you might never come home and then I’m out of a job. If the guy’s got ears that stick out or a huge nose, then I can at least read a fashion magazine at lunch instead of poring over the classifieds. Besides, I’d like to see the face of the man who’s managed to crack the brick wall around Sera James’s iron-clad heart. This is unprecedented. I am therefore forced to conclude that this guy is tasty enough to be on the cover of GQ.”
“No one’s cracked anything,” Sera whisper-shouted, still hearing the clicking of the laptop keyboard in the background. “And he’s not tasty!”
No, he hadn’t managed to break down a single wall. Not at all. Considering she’d run out this afternoon and bought a designer outfit for the occasion and she now stood, smoothing wrinkles out of the tea-length pink dress while she tried to convince herself that she wasn’t a basket case.
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