Fatelessness

by Imre Kertész

  There is not much that I can say about what ensued: in essence, it all went the way the prisoner had instructed. The door opposite opened, and we went into a room that was indeed fitted out with long benches and hooks above them. I found the number straightaway and repeated it a number of times lest I somehow forget it. I also tied my shoes together, just as the prisoner had advised. Next came a large, lowceilinged, very brightly lit room; along the walls all around razors were at work in earnest, electric hair-clippers buzzing, barbers—convicts to a man—bustling about. I passed to one on the right-hand side. I should take a seat, he must presumably have said, because I didn’t speak his language, on the stool in front of him. By then he had already pressed the machine against my neck and shorn my hair right off—every last hair, leaving me totally bald. He then picked up a razor: I was to stand up and raise my arms, he demonstrated, and he then proceeded to scrape a bit in my armpits with the blade. Next he himself sat down on the stool in front of me. Not to mince words, he grasped me by that most sensitive of all my organs and, with his razor, scraped the whole bush off there as well, every single strand, my entire scrap of virile pride, though it hadn’t sprouted all that long before. Foolish though it may be, that loss somehow pained me even more than that of the hair on my head. I was taken aback, and maybe also somewhat angry, but then I realized it would be ridiculous for me to get hung up over such a trifle, when it came down to it. Anyway, I could see that everyone else, including the other boys, got the same treatment, and what’s more we immediately began ragging “Fancyman”: so, where’s this going to leave you with the girls now?

  We had to move on, though: the bath was next. At the door, a prisoner pressed a small lump of brown soap into “Rosie’s” hand, just ahead of me, both saying and signaling that it was for three persons. In the bathroom itself we found that underfoot were slippery wooden slats and overhead a network of pipes on which there were masses of showerheads. Lots of naked and, to be sure, not exactly agreeably smelling men were already in there. What I also found interesting was that the water started flowing of its own accord, quite unexpectedly, after everyone, including me, had searched around in vain for a tap somewhere. The jet of water was none too generous, but I found its temperature refreshingly cool, exactly to my liking in that sweltering heat. Before anything else, I took a long swig from it, again encountering the same taste as before at the faucet; after that I was only able to enjoy the feel of the water on my skin for a short while. Around me too were all manner of happy noises of slopping, sneezing, and blowing: a cheerful, carefree moment. With the other boys, we teased one another plenty over our bald heads. It turned out that the soap did not, sad to say, lather much but contained a lot of sharp, gritty specks that grazed the skin. Nonetheless, one plump man near me laboriously scrubbed away with earnest, even ceremonious actions at his back and chest, the black curls of hair on which had evidently been left on him. To my eyes, though, something was missing—apart from the hair on his head, naturally. Only then did I notice that the skin on his chin and around his mouth was indeed whiter than elsewhere, and also covered with fresh, reddish nicks. I recognized him as being the rabbi from the brickyard: so he too had come along. Without his beard, he now looked less remarkable to me: a simple, basically ordinary-looking man with a slightly prominent nose. He was soaping away on his legs as it happened, when, with the same unexpectedness as it had started, the water suddenly stopped flowing: he cast a startled glance upward then immediately down again before gazing ahead, but now somehow resignedly, like someone who registers, understands, and at the same time bows his head, as it were, before the will of a higher dispensation.

  Not that I could do anything else myself: we were already being carried along, pushed and squeezed out. We passed into a dimly lit room where a prisoner placed into each hand, mine as well, a handkerchief—not, as became clear, a towel—indicating that it was to be given back after use. Simultaneously, but quite out of the blue and with extremely rapid and deft strokes, my skull, armpits, and that certain sensitive spot were coated by another prisoner, using some sort of flat brush, with a liquid that, judging from its suspect color, the itching it produced, and its foul smell, was ostensibly a disinfectant. A corridor came next, with two illuminated hatches on the right and finally a third, doorless room, at each of which a prisoner was standing and distributing clothing. Like everyone else, I was given a buttonless, collarless, no doubt once blue, white-striped shirt of my grandfather’s vintage, some long johns that were likewise only suitable, at best, for old men, with a split at the ankles and two genuine cords to secure them; a worn-looking outfit, an exact copy of that worn by the convicts, with blue and white stripes and made of burlap—regulation prison duds, from whatever angle I might look at them; and then in the open room I was allowed to choose for myself from among a pile of strange wooden-soled sandals with canvas uppers, provided with three buttons on the side rather than laces, a pair that, in the heat of the moment, approximately fitted my feet. Not to forget two gray pieces of cloth that, I assumed, were obviously intended as handkerchiefs and, last but not least, an indispensable accessory: a round, battered, and cross-striped convict’s forage cap. I hesitated slightly, but of course, in the midst of voices at every hand urging people to step on it, and with the hasty, frantic donning of clothes going on all around me, I had no time to waste if I did not wish to see myself left behind the others. Since the trousers were too big, and there was no belt or other form of fastening, I was obliged to knot them hurriedly, while one unforeseen feature of the shoes that now became clear was that the soles did not flex. Meanwhile, in order to free up my hands, I placed the cap on my head. The other boys had also all finished by then: we just looked at one another, not knowing whether to laugh or be dumbstruck. There was no time for either; in an instant we were outside, in the open air. I don’t know who saw to it, or even what happened—all I recollect is a pressure of some kind weighing heavily on me, a momentum of some kind carrying and jostling me along, still stumbling a little in my new shoes, a cloud of dust, behind me strange thwacking noises that sounded rather as if someone was being slapped on the back, and ever onward, in what ultimately became a blurred and confused jumble of new courtyards, new barbed-wire gates, barbed-wire meshes, fences opening and closing.

  FIVE

  There can be no prisoner, I suppose, who would not be astounded, just a little, to start with in this situation. So, in the yard which we finally reached after the bath, the boys and I for a long time at first just examined and stared in wonderment at one another, turning each other around. But I also noticed a young-looking man nearby who at length and with absorbed attention, yet somehow hesitantly, was inspecting and patting his clothes from top to toe, as though he wished merely to convince himself about the quality of the material, its genuineness, so to say. After that, he glanced up, like someone who suddenly has a remark to make, but then, seeing all at once only clothes of the same kind around him, finally says nothing after all—that was my impression, right then at least, though that might have been mistaken, of course. Bald though he was, and in a convict outfit that was a little bit short on his tall frame, I still recognized him from his bony features as the lover who, approximately an hour before—because that was how much time must have passed from our arrival right up to our metamorphosis—had found it so hard to let go of the black-haired girl. One thing, however, bothered me quite a lot here. Back at home, I had once taken down at random from the bookshelf, as I recall, one of the more tucked-away volumes that was gathering dust there, unread since God knows when. The author had been a prisoner, and I didn’t read it right to the end either, because I wasn’t really able to follow his thinking, and then the characters all had dreadfully long names, in most cases three of them, all totally unmemorable, and in the end also because I was not the least bit interested in, indeed to be frank was somewhat repelled by, the prisoners’ life; consequently, I was left ignorant in my hour of need. The only bit that had stuck in my mind out
of the whole thing was that the prisoner, the book’s author, claimed to recollect the early days of his imprisonment—that is to say, the ones most distant from him—better than he did the following years, which were, after all, closer to him when he was writing. At the time, I had found that rather hard to credit, even in some ways a bit of an exaggeration. Yet I now think he could well have written the truth after all, for I too recall the first day most precisely, and more precisely indeed, when I think about it, than I do the days that followed.

  At the very beginning, I still considered myself to be what I might call a sort of guest in captivity—very pardonably and, when it comes down to it, in full accordance with the propensity to delusion that we all share and which is thus, I suppose, ultimately part of human nature. The courtyard, the sun-beaten area we had here, seemed rather barren, with no trace of a football pitch, seedbed, turf, or flowers to be found anywhere. The only thing standing there was an undecorated wooden building, outwardly resembling a large barn: manifestly our home. Entry, so I learned, was only permitted to us when the time came to turn in for the night. In front of and behind it, as far as the eye could see, was a long row of similar barns, and over to the left as well there was an absolutely identical row, at regular distances and intervals in front, behind, and to the side. Beyond that was that broad, dazzling, metaled road—or another metaled road like it, that is to say, since on that vast, completely flat terrain it had no longer really been possible, at least in my eyes, to keep track of the paths, squares, and identical buildings on our way from the bathhouse. Free passage along the radial road at the point it would have intersected with the crossroad between the barns was blocked by a very neat, fragile, toylike red and white pole barrier. On the right was one of those now familiar barbed-wire fences—electrically charged as I learned to my surprise, and indeed it was only then that I spotted the many white porcelain knobs on the concrete posts, just like those on power lines and telegraph posts at home. Its shock, I was assured, was lethal; apart from that, one only needed to step on the loose sand of the narrow path running along the foot of the fence for them to shoot one down, without a sound or word of warning, from the watchtower (this was pointed out and I duly recognized it as being what, at the station, I had taken to be a hunters’ hideout). In a short while, the corvée of volunteers arrived, amid a great clatter, staggering under the burden of brick red cauldrons. Before that, you see, a rumor had gone around, which was immediately discussed, commented on, and spread up and down the entire yard: “We’ll soon be getting some hot soup!” Needless to say, I reckoned it was high time too, but all the same, the sight of all those beaming faces, the gratitude, the singular, somehow almost childish delight with which this news was received slightly amazed me, and maybe that was why I had the feeling it might well have been chiefly directed not so much toward the soup but rather, in some way, toward the solicitude itself, coming at last after the sundry initial surprises, as it were—that, at least, was my feeling. I also considered it very likely that the information might well have derived from that prisoner who had immediately appeared to become our guide, not to say host, at this place. He too, just like the prisoner at the bathhouse, had a snugly fitting outfit, a head of hair, which to me in itself already seemed truly unusual, and on his head a soft cap of dark blue felt, what one would call a beret, on his feet elegant tan shoes, and on his arm a red band to give his authority immediately visible expression, and I began to realize that it seemed I ought to revise a notion I had been taught back home to the effect that “clothes do not make the man.” He likewise had a red triangle on his chest, and that too showed everyone straightaway that he was not here on account of his bloodline but merely for his way of thinking, as I was able to learn not much later. Though perhaps a trifle formal and laconic, he was amiable enough toward us, readily explaining all that was necessary, which I didn’t find at all odd at the time, since he had been here longer, after all, so I thought to myself. He was a tall man, on the thin side, a bit wrinkled, a bit haggard, but nice-looking on the whole. I also noticed that he frequently held himself aloof, and once or twice I caught sight of him with a kind of disdainful, baffled look on his face, the corner of his mouth fixed in a kind of head-shaking smile of dismissal, so to say, as if he were a little nonplussed by us, though I don’t know why. People said later on that he was of Slovak extraction. A few of our group who spoke the language themselves often formed a small huddle around him.

  It was he who served out the soup to us, with a strange long-handled ladle rather like a funnel, while two other men, assistants of some type and likewise not from among us, handed out red enameled bowls and battered spoons—one each between two of us, since the stock was limited, they told us, which was also why, they added, we should return the bowls as soon as they had been emptied. I had to share the soup, bowl, and spoon with “Leatherware,” which I wasn’t too happy about as I had never been used to eating with someone else from a single plate and with the same utensils, but then there’s no knowing, I realized, when needs may bring a person even to this. He took a taste first then promptly passed it to me. He had a slightly peculiar expression on his face. I asked him what it was like, and he told me to try it for myself. By then, however, I could see that the boys around us were all looking at one another, some aghast, some choking with laughter, so I had a taste too: I had to admit that it was indeed, unfortunately, inedible. I asked “Leatherware” what we should do, and he replied that for all he cared I could tip it out if I wanted. At that moment my ears caught a snatch of enlightenment from a cheerful voice behind my back: “This is what they call dörrgemüze,” it was explaining. I glimpsed a squat man, already getting on in years, a whiter patch beneath his nose in the place of a former square of moustache, his face wreathed with well-meant learning. A few people making sour faces were still standing around us, clutching mess tin and spoon, and he told them that he had already played a part in the first world war, the one before this, as a military officer. “That gave plenty of opportunity,” he related, “to become closely acquainted with this dish,” particularly among the German comrades in arms on the front line “whom we were then fighting alongside,” as he put it. According to him, it was actually nothing other than “dried vegetable stew.” “A bit unaccustomed for Hungarian stomachs, of course,” he added, accompanying this with a somehow sympathetic and a slightly forbearing smile. He maintained, however, that it was possible to become accustomed to it—indeed necessary, he reckoned, since it contained plenty of “nutrients and vitamins,” as guaranteed, he explained, by the method of dehydration and the Germans’ expertise in this. “In any case,” he noted with a renewed smile, “the first rule for a good soldier is to eat up everything that is put in front of one, because there’s no knowing what tomorrow will bring”—that’s what he said. At which, true to his word, he spooned up his portion, calmly, steadily, and without a grimace, right down to the last drop. All the same, I still spilled my own portion away at the foot of the barracks wall, exactly as I had already seen a number of other grown-ups and boys do. I was taken aback, though, when I spotted the eyes of our superior looking at me and worried whether I might possibly have upset him; however, that peculiar expression, that indeterminate smile, was all that I thought I detected for a moment on his face again. After that I took the bowl back, receiving in return a thick slab of bread and upon that a blob of white stuff that resembled a toy building brick and was of roughly the same size: butter—or rather, margarine, as we were told. That I did eat up, though I had never before come across bread like this either: rectangular, with crust and inner crumb seemingly both baked from black sludge, embedded in which were bits of chaff and particles that crunched and crackled under the teeth; still, it was bread, and after all I had grown pretty hungry during the long journey. For want of any better means, I smeared the margarine on with my fingers, Robinson Crusoe fashion so to say, which in any case was just what I saw the others were doing. I would have looked for water next, but unfortuna
tely it turned out there was none; hell, I fumed, don’t say we’ll have to go thirsty again after all this, just like on the train.

  It was then that we were obliged to pay attention—basically, more seriously than we had thus far—to the smell. I would find it difficult to pin down: sweetish and somehow cloying, with a whiff of the now familiar chemical in it as well, but altogether enough to almost make me fear the bread of a moment ago might be regurgitated. It was not hard to establish that the culprit was a chimney over to the left, in the direction of the metaled road but a fair way beyond that. It was a factory chimney, that was immediately apparent, and that is what people were also told by our superior; specifically a tannery chimney, as many had recognized straightaway. To be sure, it reminded me that on the occasional Sunday back then I had sometimes gone with my father to watch football matches in Újpest, and the streetcar had taken us past a leather works, where there too I had always had to hold my nose on that stretch of the route. For all that, the rumor went, we would not, fortunately, be working in that factory; all being well, and providing there was no outbreak of typhus, dysentery, or other infection among us, we would soon be moving off for another—and, we were assured, friendlier—place. That was also why until then we would not be carrying a number on our jacket and on our skin in particular, like our superior, or “block chief,” as they were now calling him. Many had seen this number for themselves: it was inscribed in light green ink, so the rumor went, on his forearm, indelibly stained or tattooed into the skin with pricks of a specially designed needle. It was at roughly the same time that a conversation between the volunteers who had brought the soup also reached my ears. They too had seen the numbers, likewise imprinted in the skin of the older prisoners in the kitchens. One response above all that did the rounds from mouth to mouth, its significance being furiously probed and repeated around me, was what one of those prisoners had said in reply to an inquiry from one of our own people as to what it was: “ Himmlische Telephonnummer”—“a celestial telephone number,” the prisoner was alleged to have said. I could see the matter was giving everyone a lot of food for thought, and although I could not make much of it, I too found the phrase unquestionably odd. Anyway, that is when people started scrambling around the block chief and his two assistants, coming and going, interrogating them, veritably besieging them with questions, and hastily exchanging information with one another— for instance, about whether there was an epidemic raging. “There is,” was the word on that. What happens to the patients then? “They die.” And the dead? “They’re burned,” we learned. In truth, it slowly became clear that the chimney stack over the way, though I did not catch precisely how, was not actually a tannery but the chimney of a “crematorium,” a place where corpses are reduced to ashes, as we were told the word meant. I certainly took a harder look at it after that. It was a squat, square, widemouthed stack that looked as if it had been brusquely chopped off at its top. I can only say that I did not sense much else than a certain respect—apart from the stench, naturally, in which we were well and truly mired as in some fetid swamp. But then in the distance too, to our repeated astonishment, we were able to make out one more, then another, and again, right on the very horizon of the bright sky, yet another identical stack, two of which were right at that moment billowing out smoke similar to ours, and maybe people were also right to become suspicious of a puff of smoke from behind some sort of sparsely wooded park, and for the question to form in their minds, again rightly in my opinion, as to whether the outbreak could really be such as to produce so many dead.