More Wandering Stars

by Jack Dann (ed)

  The guards shouted at the prisoners to form a column; it was time to march back to the barracks.

  While the others milled about, Stephen and Viktor lifted the Musselmann out of the gully. Everyone nearby tried to distract the guards. When the march began, Stephen and Viktor held the Musselmann between them, for he could barely stand.

  “Come on, dead one, carry your weight,” Viktor said. “Are you so dead that you cannot hear me? Are you as dead as the rest of your family?” The Musselmann groaned and dragged his legs. Viktor kicked him. “You’ll walk or we’ll leave you here for the guards to find.”

  “Let him be,” Stephen said.

  “Are you dead or do you have a name?” Viktor continued.

  “Berek,” croaked the Musselmann. “I am not dead.”

  “Then, we have a fine bunk for you,” Viktor said. “You can smell the stink of the sick for another night before the guards make a selection.” Viktor made the gesture of smoke rising.

  Stephen stared at the barracks ahead. They seemed to waver as the heat rose from the ground. He counted every step. He would drop soon; he could not go on, could not carry the Musselmann.

  He began to mumble in English.

  “So you’re speaking American again,” Viktor said.

  Stephen shook himself awake, placed one foot before the other.

  “Dreaming of an American lover?”

  “I don’t know English and I have no American lover.”

  “Then, who is this Josie you keep talking about in your sleep …?”

  “Why were you screaming?” Josie asks as she washes his face with a cold washcloth.

  “I don’t remember screaming,” Stephen says. He discovers a fever blister on his lip. Expecting to find an intravenous needle in his wrist, he raises his arm.

  “You don’t need an I.V.,” Josie says. “You just have a bit of a fever. Dr. Volk has prescribed some new medication for it.”

  “What time is it?” Stephen stares at the whorls in the ceiling.

  “Almost 3 P.M. I’ll be going off soon.”

  “Then I’ve slept most of the day away,” Stephen says, feeling something crawling inside him. He worries that his dreams still have a hold on him. “Am I having another relapse?”

  “You’ll do fine,” Josie says.

  “I should be fine now; I don’t want to dream anymore.”

  “Did you dream again, do you remember anything?”

  “I dreamed that I saved the Musselmann,” Stephen says.

  “What was his name?” asks Josie.

  “Berek, I think. Is that the man you knew?”

  Josie nods and Stephen smiles at her. “Maybe that’s the end of the dreams,” he says; but she does not respond. He asks to see the photograph again.

  “Not just now,” Josie says.

  “But I have to see it. I want to see if I can recognize myself….”

  Stephen dreamed he was dead, but it was only the fever. Viktor sat beside him on the floor and watched the others. The sick were moaning and crying; they slept on the cramped platform, as if proximity to one another could ensure a few more hours of life. Wan moonlight seemed to fill the barrack.

  Stephen awakened, feverish. “I’m burning up,” he whispered to Viktor.

  “Well,” Viktor said, “you’ve got your Musselmann. If he lives, you live. That’s what you said, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t remember; I just knew that I couldn’t let him die.”

  “You’d better go back to sleep; you’ll need your strength. Or we may have to carry you, tomorrow.”

  Stephen tried to sleep, but the fever was making lights and spots before his eyes. When he finally fell asleep, he dreamed of a dark country filled with gemstones and great quarries of ice and glass.

  “What?” Stephen asked, as he sat up suddenly, awakened from dampblack dreams. He looked around and saw that everyone was watching Berek, who was sitting under the window at the far end of the room.

  Berek was singing the Kol Nidre very softly. It was the Yom Kippur prayer, sung on the most holy of days. He repeated the prayer three times, and then once again in a louder voice. The others responded, intoned the prayer as a recitative. Viktor was crying quietly, and Stephen imagined that the holy spirit animated Berek. Surely, he told himself, that face and those pale, unseeing eyes were those of a dead man. He remembered the story of the golem, shuddered, found himself singing and pulsing with fever.

  When the prayer was over, Berek fell back into his fever trance. The others became silent, then slept. But there was something new in the barrack with them tonight, a palpable exultation. Stephen looked around at the sleepers and thought, We’re surviving, more dead than alive, but surviving….

  “You were right about that Musselmann,” Viktor whispered. “It’s good that we saved him.”

  “Perhaps we should sit with him,” Stephen said. “He’s alone.” But Viktor was already asleep; and Stephen was suddenly afraid that if he sat beside Berek, he would be consumed by his holy fire.

  As Stephen fell through sleep and dreams, his face burned with fever.

  Again he wakes up screaming.

  “Josie,” he says, “I can remember the dream, but there’s something else, something I can’t see, something terrible….”

  “Not to worry,” Josie says, “it’s the fever.” But she looks worried, and Stephen is sure that she knows something he does not.

  “Tell me what happened to Viktor and Berek,” Stephen says. He presses his hands together to stop them from shaking.

  “They lived, just as you are going to live and have a good life.”

  Stephen calms down and tells her his dream.

  “So you see,” she says, “you’re even dreaming about surviving.”

  “I’m burning up.”

  “Dr. Volk says you’re doing very well.” Josie sits beside him, and he watches the fever patterns shift behind his closed eyelids.

  “Tell me what happens next, Josie.”

  “You’re going to get well.”

  “There’s something else….”

  “Shush, now, there’s nothing else.” She pauses, then says, “Mr. Gregory is supposed to visit you tonight. He’s getting around a bit, he’s been back and forth all day in his wheelchair. He tells me that you two have made some sort of a deal about dividing up all the nurses.”

  Stephen smiles, opens his eyes, and says, “It was Gregory’s idea. Tell me what’s wrong with him.”

  “All right, he has cancer, but he doesn’t know it and you must keep it a secret. They cut the nerve in his leg because the pain was so bad. He’s quite comfortable now, but remember, you can’t repeat what I’ve told you.”

  “Is he going to live?” Stephen asks. “He’s told me about all the new projects he’s planning, so I guess he’s expecting to get out of here.”

  “He’s not going to live very long, and the doctor didn’t want to break his spirit.”

  “I think he should be told.”

  “That’s not your decision to make, nor mine.”

  “Am I going to die, Josie?”

  “No!” she says, touching his arm to reassure him.

  “How do I know that’s the truth?”

  “Because I say so, and I couldn’t look you straight in the eye and tell you if it wasn’t true. I should have known it would be a mistake to tell you about Mr. Gregory.”

  “You did right,” Stephen says. “I won’t mention it again. Now that I know, I feel better.” He feels drowsy again.

  “Do you think you’re up to seeing him tonight?”

  Stephen nods, although he is bone tired. As he falls asleep, the fever patterns begin to dissolve, leaving a bright field. With a start, he opens his eyes: he has touched the edge of another dream.

  “What happened to the man across the hall, the one who was always screaming?”

  “He’s left the ward,” Josie says. “Mr. Gregory had better hurry if he wants to play cards with you before dinner. They’re going to
bring the trays up soon.”

  “You mean he died, don’t you.”

  “Yes, if you must know, he died. But you’re going to live.”

  There is a crashing noise in the hallway. Someone shouts, and Josie runs to the door.

  Stephen tries to stay awake, but he is being pulled back into the cold country.

  “Mr. Gregory fell trying to get into his wheelchair by himself,” Josie says. “He should have waited for his nurse, but she was out of the room and he wanted to visit you.”

  But Stephen does not hear a word she says.

  There were rumors that the camp was going to be liberated. It was late, but no one was asleep. The shadows in the barrack seemed larger tonight.

  “It’s better for us if the Allies don’t come,” Viktor said to Stephen.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Haven’t you noticed that the ovens are going day and night? The Nazis are in a hurry.”

  “I’m going to try to sleep,” Stephen said.

  “Look around you; even the Musselmanner are agitated,” Viktor said. “Animals become nervous before the slaughter. I’ve worked with animals. People are not so different.”

  “Shut up and let me sleep,” Stephen said, and he dreamed that he could hear the crackling of distant gunfire.

  “Attention,” shouted the guards as they stepped into the barrack. There were more guards than usual, and each one had two Alsatian dogs. “Come on, form a line. Hurry.”

  “They’re going to kill us,” Viktor said; “then they’ll evacuate the camp and save themselves.”

  The guards marched the prisoners toward the northern section of the camp. Although it was still dark, it was hot and humid, without a trace of the usual morning chill. The ovens belched fire and turned the sky aglow. Everyone was quiet, for there was nothing to be done. The guards were nervous and would cut down anyone who uttered a sound, as an example for the rest.

  The booming of big guns could be heard in the distance.

  If I’m going to die, Stephen thought, I might as well go now, and take a Nazi with me. Suddenly, all of his buried fear, aggression, and revulsion surfaced; his face became hot and his heart felt as if it were pumping in his throat. But Stephen argued with himself. There was always a chance. He had once heard of some women who were waiting in line for the ovens; for no apparent reason, the guards sent them back to their barracks. Anything could happen. There was always a chance. But to attack a guard would mean certain death.

  The guns became louder. Stephen could not be sure, but he thought the noise was coming from the west. The thought passed through his mind that everyone would be better off dead. That would stop all the guns and screaming voices, the clenched fists and wildly beating hearts. The Nazis should kill everyone, and then themselves, as a favor to humanity.

  The guards stopped the prisoners in an open field surrounded on three sides by forestland. Sunrise was moments away; purple-black clouds drifted across the sky touched by gray in the east. It promised to be a hot, gritty day.

  Half-step Walter, a Judenrat sympathizer who worked for the guards, handed out shovel heads to everyone.

  “He’s worse than the Nazis,” Viktor said to Stephen.

  “The Judenrat thinks he will live,” said Berek, “but he will die like a Jew with the rest of us.”

  “Now, when it’s too late, the Musselmann regains consciousness,” Viktor said.

  “Hurry,” shouted the guards, “or you’ll die now. As long as you dig, you’ll live.”

  Stephen hunkered down on his knees and began to dig with the shovel head.

  “Do you think we might escape?” Berek whined.

  “Shut up and dig,” Stephen said. “There is no escape, just stay alive as long as you can. Stop whining, are you becoming a Musselmann again?” Stephen noticed that other prisoners were gathering up twigs and branches. So the Nazis plan to cover us up, he thought.

  “That’s enough,” shouted a guard. “Put your shovels down in front of you and stand in a line.”

  The prisoners stood shoulder to shoulder along the edge of the mass grave. Stephen stood between Viktor and Berek. Someone screamed and ran and was shot immediately.

  I don’t want to see trees or guards or my friends, Stephen thought as he stared into the sun. I only want to see the sun, let it burn out my eyes, fill up my head with light. He was shaking uncontrollably, quaking with fear.

  Guns were booming in the background.

  Maybe the guards won’t kill us, Stephen thought, even as he heard the crackcrack of their rifles. Men were screaming and begging for life. Stephen turned his head, only to see someone’s face blown away.

  Screaming, tasting vomit in his mouth, Stephen fell backward, pulling Viktor and Berek into the grave with him.

  Darkness, Stephen thought. His eyes were open, yet it was dark. I must be dead, this must be death….

  He could barely move. Corpses can’t move, he thought. Something brushed against his face, he stuck out his tongue, felt something spongy. It tasted bitter. Lifting first one arm and then the other, Stephen moved some branches away. Above, he could see a few dim stars; the clouds were lit like lanterns by a quarter moon.

  He touched the body beside him; it moved. That must be Viktor, he thought. “Viktor, are you alive, say something if you’re alive.” Stephen whispered, as if in fear of disturbing the dead.

  Viktor groaned and said, “Yes, I’m alive, and so is Berek.”

  “And the others?”

  “All dead. Can’t you smell the stink? You, at least, were unconscious all day.”

  “They can’t all be dead,” Stephen said; then he began to cry.

  “Shut up,” Viktor said, touching Stephen’s face to comfort him. “We’re alive, that’s something. They could have fired a volley into the pit.”

  “I thought I was dead,” Berek said. He was a shadow among shadows.

  “Why are we still here?” Stephen asked.

  “We stayed in here because it is safe,” Viktor said.

  “But they’re all dead,” Stephen whispered, amazed that there could be speech and reason inside a grave.

  “Do you think it’s safe to leave now?” Berek asked Viktor.

  “Perhaps. I think the killing has stopped. By now the Americans or English or whoever they are have taken over the camp. I heard gunfire and screaming; I think it’s best to wait a while longer.”

  “Here?” asked Stephen. “Among the dead?”

  “It’s best to be safe.”

  It was late afternoon when they climbed out of the grave. The air was thick with flies. Stephen could see bodies sprawled in awkward positions beneath the covering of twigs and branches. “How can I live when all the others are dead?” he asked himself aloud.

  “You live, that’s all,” answered Viktor.

  They kept close to the forest and worked their way back toward the camp.

  “Look there,” Viktor said, motioning Stephen and Berek to take cover. Stephen could see trucks moving toward the camp compound.

  “Americans,” whispered Berek.

  “No need to whisper now,” Stephen said. “We’re safe.”

  “Guards could be hiding anywhere,” Viktor said. “I haven’t slept in the grave to be shot now.”

  They walked into the camp through a large break in the barbed-wire fence, which had been bit by an artillery shell. When they reached the compound, they found nurses, doctors, and army personnel bustling about.

  “You speak English,” Viktor said to Stephen as they walked past several quonsets. “Maybe you can speak for us.”

  “I told you, I can’t speak English.”

  “But I’ve heard you!”

  “Wait,” shouted an American army nurse. “You fellows are going the wrong way.” She was stocky and spoke perfect German. ”You must check in at the hospital; it’s back that way.”

  “No,” said Berek, shaking his head. “I won’t go in there.”

  “There’s no need to be afrai
d now,” she said. “You’re free. Come along, I’ll take you to the hospital.”

  Something familiar about her, Stephen thought. He felt dizzy and everything turned gray.

  “Josie,” he murmured as he fell to the ground.

  “What is it?” Josie asks. “Everything is all right, Josie is here.”

  “Josie,” Stephen mumbles.

  “You’re all right.”

  “How can I live when they’re all dead?” he asks.

  “It was a dream,” she says as she wipes the sweat from his forehead. “You see, your fever has broken, you’re getting well.”

  “Did you know about the grave?”

  “It’s all over now, forget the dream.”

  “Did you know?”

  “Yes,” Josie says. “Viktor told me how he survived the grave, but that was so long ago, before you were even born. Dr. Volk tells me you’ll be going home soon.”

  “I don’t want to leave, I want to stay with you.”

  “Stop that talk, you’ve got a whole life ahead of you. Soon you’ll forget all about this, and you’ll forget me, too.”

  “Josie,” Stephen asks, “let me see that old photograph again. Just one last time.”

  “Remember, this is the last time,” she says as she hands him the faded photograph.

  He recognizes Viktor and Berek, but the young man standing between them is not Stephen. “That’s not me,” he says, certain that he will never return to the camp.

  Yet the shots still echo in his mind.

  HARLAN ELLISON

  Mom

  If you have been blessed with a Jewish mother, then you know there are four things she wants for you: (1) You should be healthy; (2) you should be successful, a doctor, maybe, or if you have to choose second best, then a lawyer, but you must make enough money so you should have a good life and make the neighbors and relatives grind their capped teeth with envy; (3) and now we’re getting to the heart of the matter, you should marry a nice girl who can make you a nice family, even if she can’t cook as well as your mom; and (4) this is the most important, she must be Jewish.