The Black Life

by Paul Johnston

  Mavros translated and saw Rachel’s eyes widen.

  ‘Mrs Broudo said that she saw Aron Samuel outside the synagogue. She is quite certain of it. I don’t suppose you saw him.’

  Baruh Natzari’s eyes were suddenly glazed. ‘Saw a dead man? How would that be possible?’

  ‘How can you be sure Aron died in Auschwitz?’

  The old man was the distracted one now. Mavros repeated the question.

  ‘Never mind … never mind that. What else did Ester tell you?’

  Mavros translated, then asked Rachel if he should repeat the old woman’s words. She nodded, her lips tight.

  ‘She said that Aron Samuel was a traitor and a murderer, and that he was responsible for the deaths of her family. She didn’t – wouldn’t – explain what she meant.’

  ‘I’m not surprised … I mean, although she has always meant well, Ester never got over the loss of her relatives, especially her mother, whom she doted on.’

  It was clear that Natzari was prevaricating.

  ‘Did you see Aron in the camp?’ Mavros pressed.

  ‘We called it the Lager. Not … not often.’

  ‘He wasn’t in the same hut or on work details as you?’

  ‘You seem well informed about events that took place years before you were born, Alex Mavro.’

  He held up the book his mother had published.

  ‘Ach, Years in Hell. I have read it, of course. You think the so called eye-witnesses tell the whole story? They were the lucky ones. Not only did they survive, but they escaped the worst of it, the true Gehenna.’

  ‘Ask him to explain,’ Rachel said, leaning forward.

  But the old man’s lips remained firmly closed.

  FOURTEEN

  ‘The good news is that you get more food, better clothes and more comfortable beds.’

  We stared at our new capo, a Jew from Ioannina called Valais. We had been marched to the rear of the Lager, where flames and oily black smoke were spewing from the squat chimneys. None of us had it in him to ask what the bad news was. We found out soon enough.

  Valais pointed to the gate in the high barbed-wire fence. ‘The trucks bring them through there.’ He led us to a low building and down steps to an open door. The smell inside was more disturbing than the burnt-meat stench outside; here it was almost alive, the warm stink of unwashed bodies. Members of the Sonderkommando – the special unit – were taking clothes, men’s, women’s and children’s, from hooks, piling up pairs of shoes, many tied together in pairs, and running their fingers over cuffs and hems. Jewellery and coins were tossed into cans, though I saw some items being slipped into the men’s pockets.

  ‘They think they’re going to have a shower,’ Valais said, outside a steel door with a small glass peephole. It was unlocked and he pulled it open.

  Now the odour that filled our nasal passages and lungs was miasmic, worse than anything on the trains: excrement, urine, vomit, blood, and something non-human, a faint chemical bite that infected everything else.

  And then we saw them. We knew our people were being killed, even though we had hidden that in the deepest recesses of our minds. Now we could no longer ignore the truth. Men of the Sonderkommando were dragging naked bodies from tangled heaps to a lift at the side of the white-tiled building. There were pipes and showerheads under the ceiling. A passing SS man saw the direction of our gaze.

  ‘Letzte dusche für Juden!’ he shouted, grinning widely.

  ‘Save us, O God,’ started one of my companions.

  ‘None of that in here,’ the capo ordered, swinging his length of rubber hose close to the man. He seemed to have gone mad in the space of minutes – hands over his ears, thumbs closing his nostrils and eyes tightly shut. Moaning, he sank to his knees.

  Valais squatted beside him. ‘Do you want to join them?’ he said, forcing open the prisoner’s eyes. ‘Go on like this and you will, I promise.’ The capo thought he was malingering.

  I and the others couldn’t help staring at the bodies. They were covered in blood and shit, the oldest and smallest at the bottom of the heap. Their mouths were open and their eyes bulging. Many had scratches and deeper wounds all over them.

  Valais tried to haul our companion to his feet. The SS man came back and laughed. He gave orders to the capo and together they dragged the man outside. There was a muffled shot a few seconds later.

  ‘There is your warning,’ Valais said, returning alone. ‘Knaus is an unforgiving swine. Follow me.’

  We went towards the heap of bodies, stepping over them to get to the rear door. Then we followed the capo up a narrow stair and found ourselves in an enclosed courtyard. The roar of the furnaces was deafening. Three bodies – an emaciated old man, a woman with a recently shattered arm, and a small girl – were arranged on a steel plate and then slid into one of the ovens, the door slamming shut. The men immediately went over to the mound of bodies that had been brought up from the gas chamber and dragged out another three.

  ‘Loading the ovens is skilled work,’ Valais said. ‘You won’t be doing that for a while.’ He took us into a side room.

  Another of my companions let out a groan, but immediately silenced himself. Men of the Sonderkommando were wrenching gold teeth from the mouths of the recently killed with steel pliers. Nearby, others were cutting off the hair of women and girls.

  ‘They came straight from the train,’ Valais said. ‘The Germans use the hair, I don’t know what for. They melt down the gold from the teeth, of course.’

  ‘Where …’ My mouth was drier than it had ever been. I had a flash of my grandmothers and Dario. Had the three of them been placed together in the same oven? Had their mixed ashes been raked out, as I’d seen other grim-faced men doing? Had Isaak been burned here too?

  ‘What?’ Valais demanded, leaning closer.

  ‘Where will we work?’

  ‘You start at the beginning. It’s easy enough. You help our people on their last journey.’

  Help them, I thought. No honourable man can do that. Then I remembered our short-lived companion. There was only one choice to be made here. This was the end of the world: you either lived or you died. I wanted to survive.

  We stood around watching until the twelve-hour shift ended, then joined the rest of the men. We were marched under guard to a hut wired off from the rest of the Lager. People on the other side stared at us. Their eyes were full of hate and I couldn’t meet them after a few looks. In the more spacious accommodation we were told to exchange our striped rags for whatever fitted from a heap of suits, shirts and underclothes. Some were filthy, but others seemed to have been deloused. By the end of the process we looked like scarecrows, few of the garments being narrow enough for our half-starved bodies, but incongruously well-clad ones.

  The soup and bread arrived. It was true, the helpings were larger. I ate beyond the point that my guts started to protest. I had to focus on my own body. Only it matters, I told myself. I couldn’t do anything for our people here. I hadn’t been able to save my grandmothers and my brother-in-law, let alone my brother. Then I dropped the lump of bread. I had suddenly realised. My mother, my father, Miriam and Golda. Would they pass through the final gates too? Was I to ‘help’ the remaining members of my family die?

  ‘What is it?’ asked Anjil Gerson. He had been with me on the tour. I didn’t know him before, but he was also from Thessaloniki and a couple of years older than me. He was unusually well built. His father was a docker and had got him a job in the port when he was fourteen.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, giving him a cracked smile. ‘At last my belly’s full.’

  ‘I could get used to this,’ he replied.

  ‘Listen to the new boys,’ said a mocking voice from the bunk above. ‘He says he could get used to this.’

  The men around us started to laugh. Unlike in the other huts, the block commander stood by without laying in to them to restore order.

  ‘They haven’t even ushered a crowd into the changing room and they th
ink they’re kings of the Lager!’ shouted a man with a deep scar on his cheek.

  We could only wait until the noise died down.

  ‘Listen, son,’ said the man who’d started the rumpus. ‘Nobody lasts more than four months in the Sonderkommando. You think the SS want witnesses to what goes on here?’ He grunted. ‘If you’re lucky you’ll have the honour of loading my corpse into the oven.’

  No one was laughing now.

  Anjil hunched over, his chin pressed to his chest, but I stood up and walked to the latrine, my head held high. I wasn’t proud that something inside me wanted to stay alive so badly, no matter the cost in terms of human decency or civilisation, both Jewish and Western. I couldn’t save anyone except myself and the only way I could do that was to become like the animals in the SS. At least there was no shortage of examples.

  FIFTEEN

  ‘That was helpful,’ Rachel said, in the taxi back to the centre.

  ‘Confirmation of sorts, I’d say.’ They’d been ushered out by the old man after his refusal to speak further about Aron Samuel. ‘There does seem to be a dark side to your great-uncle.’

  ‘Seem being the operative word. How would we never have heard about it?’

  ‘Maybe people didn’t want to burden you. Besides, your father was long gone from Thessaloniki. I doubt his existence was even remembered.’

  ‘Until he started donating to the community.’

  ‘True. When was that?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Ever since I can remember.’

  Mavros thought about that. If Ester Broudo really had seen Aron Samuel, perhaps Baruh Natzari had been in touch with him; even met him.

  ‘What?’ Rachel asked, grabbing the front seat as the taxi hit a deep pothole.

  He told her, adding, ‘What if Baruh was covering for your great-uncle? He didn’t actually say anything against him. In that case, I should keep an eye on his building – see who comes in and goes out. It isn’t as if there’s anything more pressing to do until Allegra and … Allegra and my Communist contact get back to us.’

  She was watching him carefully. ‘All right.’

  Mavros told the driver to turn round, responding to his swearing with some of his own.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘there’s one thing I don’t understand. If Aron’s been alive all these years, why hasn’t he got in touch with your father?’

  ‘You answered that question before – he didn’t know where he was.’

  ‘He could easily have found out he was in Paris. The company is large.’

  Rachel looked out to the seafront. ‘I suppose so. Maybe he never knew that a Samuel runs it. Or he’s senile.’

  ‘There are numerous possibilities,’ Mavros admitted. ‘Stop here,’ he told the driver. ‘I’ll talk to you later. Don’t give him a tip.’

  ‘I wasn’t intending to.’

  Mavros got out and walked away. He’d met some icy women in his time, but Rachel Samuel took several boxes of luxury French biscuits.

  He found an Internet café with a view of Baruh’s block and settled down with a newspaper and a sketo that was nowhere near the Fat Man’s standards. The murder of the Jordanian was all over the front page, with a photo of a red swastika on a green steel gate. The police spokesman was tight-lipped, saying it was too early to make statements beyond the victim’s name and age – Tareq Momani, 42, a fully legal immigrant – and that he was shot three times at close range. As yet no witnesses had come forward.

  Mavros paid for the use of a computer, keeping an eye on the old man’s street door, and entered the dead man’s name in a search engine. There were a couple of links that referred to an older and a younger man, and then one that made Mavros sit up straight. It led to an article in a periodical published by expatriate Arabs in London over a year ago – ‘Why Don’t the Jordanian Authorities Arrest This Man?’ According to the writers, Tareq Momani was a noted dissident, one they didn’t approve of at all. He was suspected of being behind several suicide bombings in Israel, as well as having connections with al-Qaeda. Could it be, they suggested, that the Jordanian secret police were using Momani for their own purposes?

  A middle-aged woman entered Baruh Natzari’s block, her hair covered by a dark brown scarf. Mavros found the Jerusalem Post’s website and entered the victim’s name. Nothing came up. He tried other Israeli newspapers that had sites in English. Zilch. Then he saw the woman emerge across the street, the old man beside her. Mavros paid for his coffee and made for the door. He stayed on the other side of the street from the couple, about five metres behind them. Neither spoke and the expression on the woman’s face was one of bored resignation. It didn’t look like she was related to or friendly with Baruh. Was she some kind of Jewish community volunteer? That impression gained credence when they went into a supermarket. Mavros crossed the road and stood outside. He caught glimpses of his targets as they passed between the aisles. The old man paid and they returned to his block, the woman carrying two bags to his one. A few minutes later she was back on the pavement, heading towards the seafront.

  Mavros was about to go back to the café, having crossed the road, when he saw Baruh reappear, reflected in the window. The old man raised his arm and got into the taxi that stopped. It continued down the one-way street.

  Another blue and white cab drove up and Mavros waved to it.

  ‘Follow that cab,’ he said.

  As usual the instruction provoked laughter. Mavros was amused too. It was the closest he ever got to playing Humphrey Bogart. The taxi in front turned right on to a wide avenue.

  ‘Are you a betting man?’ the elderly driver asked. ‘Five euros they’re going to the airport.’

  ‘You’re on,’ Mavros replied. Baruh Natzari was carrying no luggage, not even an umbrella.

  They approached the airport, but the taxi ahead drove past the road that led to it.

  ‘Double or quits?’ the driver asked.

  Mavros laughed, then recognised the lie of the land: the sea a few kilometres to his right; the marshland of the Axios and Aliakmonas river deltas across the water; and the great peak of Olympus in its snow-capped glory to the south-west.

  ‘Ayia Triadha,’ he said.

  ‘A good choice. I’ll have to go for Peraia.’ A few minutes later the driver groaned as they drove through the latter village.

  Mavros struggled to recognise the outskirts of the resort. It was much larger than it had been in 1971. Then they reached the seafront and he instantly had a flash of his mother in a deckchair, Anna and her boy splashing each other, and Andonis and he racing along the hot sand.

  ‘He’s stopping by that taverna,’ the cabbie said. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Go past and turn round about a hundred metres further on.’ Mavros watched with his head lowered as Baruh Natzari got out and walked spryly into the restaurant.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ the driver asked.

  ‘Stay here, please. Forget the ten euros.’

  ‘A bet’s a bet. Besides it’s a good day for a walk.’ The grizzled man handed Mavros a card. ‘Call me if I’m not here when you get back. I won’t be far.’

  ‘Right.’ Mavros was pleased that he’d fallen in with an honourable taxi driver. He walked back towards the place Baruh had entered, slowing as he got close. The taverna had clear plastic sheets around its outside tables and gas burners were warming the few customers.

  The Auschwitz survivor was sitting opposite a much younger man, who had medium-length curly black hair and heavy features. Mavros took several photos with his phone on maximum zoom. They were nothing better than average in quality, but might come in handy later. He stepped behind the wall of a tourist shop that was closed. He wasn’t able to hear them, but there was something he could do. He pressed buttons on his phone.

  ‘Allegra? It’s Alex Mavros.’

  ‘Hi. I haven’t got anything substantive for you yet.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I didn’t expect you to have. There’s someone else I’d
like to ask you about.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Baruh Natzari.’

  ‘Ah, Baruh. He’s a character, all right.’

  ‘I know, we met him earlier. He clammed up about Aron Samuel. Any idea why that might be?’

  There was the sound of keys clacking. ‘Hold on while I check my archive. Baruh is one of the last from the Lager still in Thessaloniki. My grandfather knew him and I remember meeting him when I was young. He was unusual because he was funny in a restrained kind of way. Like all who came back, he was carrying a burden.’

  ‘There weren’t too many jokes this morning, though I liked him well enough.’

  ‘He knows death is near. Imagine what it must be like to have been young and seen so many of your community murdered or starved or weakened into catching the most disgusting diseases. Now his own death is close, he’s struggling to take it in. He doesn’t come to community gatherings any more.’

  ‘He was at the Tsiako–Vital wedding.’

  ‘Was he? I didn’t see him. Here we are. Natzari, Baruh, born in the city on February 16th 1925, Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor, parents and all close family killed there, returned 1947, avoided conscription into the National Army because of chronic dysentery, fought for return of family home and eye-glass dispensary (case 178/2901/1950), awarded compensation, March 9th 1956; established antique shop in Kalamaria, 1957. Deeds passed to Jewish Community, September 25th 1992. Weekly visit from JC volunteer since 2003.’

  Mavros had been taking notes. ‘Interesting, but not informative about any link to Aron Samuel.’

  ‘Hold on, I’m checking the transports to Auschwitz. No, they weren’t on the same one. I’ll run his name through the Lager archive and see if I can find a connection.’ Allegra Harari paused. ‘You know, Alex, this is hardly likely to help you find Aron. I mean, so many years …’

  ‘Give me your email address. I’m going to send you a photo.’ He fiddled with his phone and managed to dispatch one of the shots he’d taken of Baruh and his companion. ‘Tell me if you recognise the young man.’