Touching the Wire

by Rebecca Bryn

  ‘What’s infected?’

  ‘It’s when bad germs get into a cut and make it swollen and red. We have poorly knees needing some of your magic cream, Granny.’ He sat Charlotte on the draining board, and Jane found cotton wool and a well-squeezed tube of antiseptic cream. He dabbed the grazes gently with warm water and wrung the last spot of cream onto a finger.

  Lucy watched from the door. She considered the cream for a moment, serious for her six years. ‘Kerry’s Grandpa says the only good germ is a dead germ.’

  He examined the grazes for any remaining grit. ‘I suppose he’s right, but some people might have considered penicillin was a germ and that’s saved thousands of lives.’

  Jane laughed. ‘I think Lucy means Germans, Walt. Kerry’s Grandpa was a POW. He hates them and makes no secret of it.’

  He looked up. ‘You can’t judge a people by the worst among them. Many innocents suffered… hatred is no way to heal wounds.’ Jane gave him a meaningful glance and he smeared the cream. He winced, anticipating the cold touch to sore flesh and softened his voice; Lucy and Charlotte would never understand, thankfully. ‘Not all children are noisy, inquisitive and troublesome.’

  ‘Kerry says her grandpa is a hero. He tells stories. You’re a hero too, aren’t you, Grandpa?’

  ‘No. But I knew men and women who were.’

  ‘Tell us a story about them.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Maybe, when you are older.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  He lifted Charlotte down but she wrapped her arms around his neck and refused to let go. ‘My poorly knees do need a story, Grandpa.’

  ‘Mmmm, do they indeed?’ He laughed and ruffled her curls. ‘That’s what I call turning a disaster into an opportunity.’

  ‘Tell us about the wolf who got poisoned and went to sleep.’

  ‘Did he wake up and eat the little girls?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Ah, that wolf. Again?’ He’d hoped they’d forgotten. It was his fault for beginning it. ‘You are horrible, gory children.’ He sat at the kitchen table, facing Charlotte and her blonde shadow, seeing the spectres of wolves of long ago and far away as if it were yesterday. He shut them in a mental box and turned the key. ‘Well, let’s see. The wolf slept and slept. His mate pushed her nose against his, and nipped an ear, but still the wolf didn’t wake so she lay down beside him. Late in the night, when the stars were shining and the moon was full she gave a long howl.’ He tilted his head back and gave a mournful impression of a wolf. ‘When the sun rose next morning she had six cubs. She named the biggest and strongest Wselfwulf.’

  ‘Weasel-wolf?’

  ‘Wee-self-wulf.’ He picked up a discarded crayon and wrote the letters on the inside cover of a colouring book, spelling it as he went, as if they would remember the shape of the word. ‘Wselfwulf grew tall as a man and strong as an ox, and was a fierce hunter. His mother told him stories of the forest, and how the woodcutter hated wolves. She knew her mate had been poisoned. Why else would he not wake? The woodcutter has done this to your father. You must not rest until he has paid the price, she told him. He was a good and obedient son and as he grew so did the malice in his heart.’

  ‘What’s malice, Grandpa?’

  Jane tutted. ‘This tale grows worse every time you tell it, Walt… why they enjoy it I shall never know. Malice is nastiness, Charlotte, something you’ll never suffer from.’

  Malice… his grip tightened and the crayon snapped leaving red wax on his fingers. Blood on his hands.

  He feigned a severe look. ‘Don’t interrupt. This is a long tale, as you know well enough. The old wolf eventually died in his sleep, but the hatred in his heart lived on in that of his son, and Wselfwulf desired vengeance.’ Charlotte opened her mouth to speak but he raised a denying hand. ‘That means he wanted the woodcutter to pay for his father’s death. He went into the deep forest and followed the smell of chickens until he reached the cottage where the woodcutter lived. He saw the two little girls playing in the garden and crept through the undergrowth, closer and closer and closer…’

  Lucy gripped Charlotte’s hand, her wide eyes never leaving his face.

  ‘Walt…’

  He reached out and tickled Lucy’s tummy.

  ‘Grandpa…’

  Jane laughed with them and Wselfwulf slunk back into the undergrowth, his evil no match for the bright laughter of innocence.

  ***

  Walt clamped the joint of the Windsor chair in iron jaws to set. If only he’d had some of Granny’s magic cream years ago. He fetched a small package from the drawer where he kept his sandpaper. He unwrapped it and breathed the musty smell of the pages of the small book within. He should have sent it to the proper authorities years ago and kept his promise or, failing that, destroyed it. While it existed it was a link to that place and what he’d taken. It named the guilty and if the connection was made, and the media spread the knowledge worldwide, none of them were safe.

  He rewrapped it and replaced it beneath the fine grits; it was a link to Miriam he couldn’t bring himself to break. He reached instead for the worn wallet in his back pocket but the photographs he’d cherished for so long were no longer there. How had Miriam’s grandmother smuggled them into her luggage when all her personal papers, books and memories had been seized, thrown on a pyre and burned?

  A familiar rush of helpless rage hurled him back to the rows of silent women, standing motionless as the sun danced on diamonds of rain on the strands of electrified barbed wire surrounding the camp. Six hours they’d waited after their headlong rush to assemble on time. At least the rain had stopped and their clothes had dried on them. At least they’d stopped shivering and only a handful of the fourteen hundred standing in front of the block had fainted.

  The SS officer, who’d begun his inspection of the blocks when the rain stopped, placed his cane on the head of the first woman in each row. ‘Fünf, zehn, fünfzehn, zwanzig…’

  He followed, gesturing to the women behind the officer’s back. Stand straighter… Don’t lean on the person next to you. One or two made the effort to obey. It was all he could do. His strength in his position as a doctor lay in appearing to carry out every command to the letter. Show compassion and he’d be replaced. Rebel and he’d be executed. Dead, he was no use to anyone and there were other ways to resist.

  The count completed, the officer went along the front row pointing to those too sick to stand or too weak to work. They neared the place where Miriam slumped between her friends. He hadn’t watched over her all night to let her die now. He gestured urgently. Stand straight, stand straight. He moved alongside, putting himself between her and the officer, and pointed to the row of prostrate women. ‘The sick need tending. They should be in the infirmary.’

  The officer stared where he pointed. ‘The sick will need nothing. I shall inspect the women’s infirmary at two o’clock. We have a quota to fill.’ The uniformed figure moved on, pointing randomly to several more women.

  His shoulders sagged. Three of them had been in the infirmary until yesterday. He’d managed to allow them rest and a little extra soup and, despite them being too weak to work, had discharged them because patients who’d been in the infirmary more than three weeks would make up part of today’s selection. Their faces showed no emotion. Maybe knowing the hour of their death was a relief, a welcome release.

  Orders rang out and the chosen women were hustled naked to waiting trucks, the dead thrown on top of the living. All that remained of them was a heap of divested rags and a scatter of worn-out shoes.

  A marching band struck up a tune and the survivors of the selections, marching in time, singing in tune, went out to work under guard. Somehow, Miriam marched with them: she should be in the infirmary but she’d probably be safer out there today. Later, the band would play them in, exhausted, beaten, and again they’d be forced to stand waiting to be counted. Maybe then Miriam would be allowed rest and her rat
ion of bread and soup. Maybe tonight some of the women would get a dress that fitted better, or a pair of shoes that didn’t chafe, and there would be nothing to show that the women sent to the gas had ever existed. Soon, there would be no-one to remember their names.

  He forced himself upright, tiredness and despair dragging every limb; he understood too well the desire to touch the wire, for it all to end, but he had no right when these women fought to survive with every breath in their frail bodies.

  Back in the infirmary, diarrhoea was rife and the stench of excrement seeped from soiled garments and bedding. Rain dripped through the holes in the roof and plinked into bowls set to catch the precious drops. A young nurse used it to sluice away blood, pus and fouling.

  He straightened a blanket, automatically counting as he went: no matter the state of the patients, rules decreed the infirmary must be clean and tidy, the numbers tally. The blanket’s rough weave was wet, and his touch dislodged a shower of lice.

  A girl grasped his coat, her eyes wide. ‘Are we to die, today, doctor?’

  He held her thin hand. ‘Not if I can help it.’ He beckoned the nurse. ‘There’s going to be a selection. We have until two o’clock. Fetch the records.’ The nurse returned with the records. He took them, scratching his head absently. ‘These four have been here three weeks. They’re still not fit to leave. Change their admission dates. I’ll discharge any who can put one foot in front of another. See if you can find a drier blanket.’

  ‘Vis… Wasser…’ Weak pleas followed him. These faces and voices would haunt him to his death.

  ‘There is no clean water. I’m sorry.’

  Already women formed into weary rows outside the infirmary doors, shoes in hand, inured to the humiliation of nakedness that showed protruding ribs and hip bones, sores, raw feet and sagging, fleshless breasts: inured to endless waiting in all weathers. They needed treatment, though what with… no bandages, ten aspirin for more than a thousand patients… and today he couldn’t admit them: they were safer in their barracks.

  The inspection began half an hour before midday.

  Chapter Four

  The portable radio in Walt’s workshop played a jaunty tune: fiddles set his feet tapping. He could almost see the colours, whirling with the joy of life. Violins and accordions chased lilting melodies through death-laden air. Tumblers bounded and leapt, women and men in bright costumes danced with wild abandon, children laughed and shouted.

  The Roma and Sinti had begun arriving in the early months of 1943 and many had perished from cold, exhaustion and starvation before winter loosened its grip on the land. Now another consignment had arrived, unaware of the fate of their predecessors. At least this year they’d arrived in May.

  The sight of children was like sun at midwinter, and made his blood run as cold. Most children survived only hours, but the Roma and Sinti, being gypsies rather than Jews, had a family camp.

  He addressed the guard at the guard post. ‘Orders to inspect the Roma sick.’

  The guard laughed. ‘To make sure they’re well enough to go up the chimney?’

  His heart fell. ‘They’re to be gassed?’

  ‘So they say.’

  ‘When?

  ‘Don’t know. The fit are being transported to Buchenwald and Ravensbrück, I heard. Hard labour.’

  He shrugged as casually as he could. ‘I have my orders. I work where I’m sent.’

  The guard opened the gate, escorted him inside and locked it behind them.

  As if by telepathy, hands on bowstrings stilled. The dancers stopped, and the pyramid of tumblers disintegrated as its members somersaulted gracefully to the ground. Women in bright rags that sported black triangles, brown faces wrinkled like store apples kept too long, stared at him with suspicion. Men followed his progress with defensive eyes. A small, pinched face peeped from behind a full skirt. His mother pushed the child from view.

  Ahead of him the sick stood silent, waiting. The infirmary was like others in the camp, a low wooden barrack crammed with bunks, three-high. Here, the low brick flue that ran the length of the floor from the stove, acted as beds, seats, stage, treatment table, food preparation area, office and general thoroughfare: a stepping stone across the open sewer that was the floor. One prisoner-doctor, a Jewish woman from Berlin, had contracted typhus here.

  The morning’s sick presented the usual array of problems: lice, sores, wounds, and the rare water-cancer, the noma of the mouth, particular to this group of people. He treated them with what he had. No fresh supplies had been sent. Could it be the guard was right? He sighed beneath his breath. He couldn’t save these people.

  Next he visited the children’s block, closing his ears to the sounds from Block 32, opposite. A woman pushed forward a child of about five years from behind her skirt. ‘Diarrhoea, doctor.’

  The thin but defiant face looked up at him: the child’s eyes were different colours.

  He smiled. ‘Do you have a name?’

  The boy shook his head and held out a tattooed forearm.

  ‘Has he been drinking contaminated water?’

  ‘He’s always thirsty… ’

  ‘He must only drink the tea or coffee.’

  ‘There is never enough.’ Another child, the image of the first, was thrust forward. ‘Arturas has diarrhoea, too.’

  His pulse quickened: zwillinge. ‘They’re twins?’ Had they been missed at selection? They were mere yards from the man who would take them apart, piece by piece. He pointed towards Block 32. ‘Does the doctor know you have twins?’

  ‘No… I don’t think so.’

  ‘Keep them hidden. Keep them apart.’ They were safer here for now, drinking filthy water from the wash bucket, even with gassing rumoured, than sent to live with the other twins. He dispensed a little kaolin and patted Arturas on his shaved head.

  ‘Doctor?’ The mother’s voice shook, barely a whisper. ‘Is it true we’re to be gassed?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘My children… I’ve heard twins…’

  He leaned closer, checking the other twin’s temperature and throat. ‘It would be better they go to the gas with you.’

  ‘How can you say that? Please, I’ve heard…’

  ‘You heard wrong.’

  ‘Forgive me, doctor.’ The woman turned away, ushering her sons before her.

  The one with no name turned back and smiled a gappy smile. ‘I’m Peti.’

  Next morning, he was at the Gypsy camp with no time to spare. The younger men hadn’t been sent out to work and there was an air of expectancy in the compound. He sought out the woman with the twins. ‘The rumours were right. The SS will be here any moment. If they order block-confinement… I can’t promise to keep your sons safe but, if I can get them out of the compound, I can at least give them a chance.’

  ‘Take them.’ She hugged her boys close and kissed each of them. ‘Arturas, Peti, you must go with the doctor. Do as he tells you. Trust him.’

  ‘Mama…’

  ‘Go. Do as I say.’

  He took hold of the children’s hands and glanced behind him. Their mother’s lips moved in silent prayer: tears streamed from her eyes. Around him, a murmur rose as the men of the camp mustered. One held a length of iron pipe, another a shovel, a third a club of wood and a crudely-fashioned knife. Children filled their hands with stones. Outside the wire, SS guards with machine guns took position. The gates were flung open and Nazi guards flooded into the compound.

  He tightened his grip on the children. A man on his left hurled a rock with unnerving accuracy, hitting a guard on the temple. The one on his right brandished his iron pipe and yelled obscenities. Shouted orders were drowned by machine-gun fire strafing the compound: men, women and children scythed like wheat.

  A rush of gypsies hurled forward over the bodies, driving back the armed guards, who struggled to use their weapons at close quarters. Guards fell and were trampled beneath shoes and clogs, hacked with knives, beaten with shovels, and kicked and scra
tched by women and children. They were backed towards the gates by the press of bodies, clubbing women and children with the butts of their rifles, firing into the air and dragging their injured comrades to safety. The gates clanged shut behind the last one and the gypsies hurled stones and rocks at the retreating men.

  He returned the children to their mother. ‘This won’t end here.’

  ‘They’ll kill us all. You must take the boys.’

  ‘If you can keep them hidden, they have more chance with you for now. I’ll do my best for them, I promise, when it’s time.’

  He treated the injured and listed the tattooed numbers of the dead. The count tallied: always the count must tally. Enemies of the Reich? Hitler wouldn’t be satisfied until every non-Arian race in Europe was extinct. There was little more he could hope to do, as he could hope to do little for Miriam, the Jewish girl whose kneeling image haunted his dreams and his waking hours.

  ***

  ‘I itch, Grandpa.’ Charlotte raised her pyjama top to show a speckle of spots.

  Walt examined them carefully. ‘Looks like chickenpox, Jennie.’

  ‘That’s what Mum thinks, too.’ Jennie sighed. ‘I’ll call the doctor. I’ll have to take time off work.’

  ‘Your mum and I can look after her. Is Lucy complaining of itching?’

  ‘She says she feels poorly.’

  ‘Let’s have a look. Mmmm. Think those might be spots. I think the doctor will say quarantine for you two.’

  ‘Back into bed, girls. And be good for Granny and Grandpa.’

  ‘They’ll be right as rain. Speak to the doctor and then get off to work.’

  Charlotte and Lucy snuggled down in bed. They must be feeling poorly. He left them to it. He’d read them a story later.

  Quarantine: the word had a different meaning for him. The quarantine camp hadn’t been much better than the rest of the camp, but in May 1944 part of it had been cleared, sanitised, ready for a visit from the International Red Cross…

  The shrill whistle of a train announced the arrival of another transport. He was on his way from the quarantine camp now, hoping to visit the Roma infirmary and see how Peti and Arturas were, if the guard was allowed to admit him. The planned massacre of the Roma and Sinti hadn’t gone the way the SS expected and no-one seemed to know what would happen to them, or when.