by Rebecca Bryn
He hoped to catch a glimpse of Miriam, though which of the compounds she was in, if she was still alive, he didn’t know. People were constantly moved from place to place, keeping the camp in a state of flux. Along the road from the railway tracks, guards drove tired men, women and children: a new transport of Jews. Along the wire, women gathered, shouting in Hungarian to the new arrivals, hoping for news of family. He searched their faces, but couldn’t see Miriam.
He waited, ever eager for tidings from outside. ‘Where are you from?’
An old man paused and stared at him blankly. He tried other languages.
The man nodded in understanding. ‘The ghetto at Theresienstadt. Others came here from there. Family…’
A guard kicked the man in the kidneys making him stagger forward. They were Czech Jews. He shook his head. The survivors of the last two transports from Theresienstadt had gone to the gas in March. The guards at the junction waved the straggle of people to the right. No selection? The gates to the freshly-sanitised compound were flung open and the flock of humanity herded inside like sheep. A truck stopped behind them and guards distributed Red Cross parcels. A woman took one and hugged it close.
He tried to prise hope from the lack of a selection, the cleaned compound and the Red Cross parcels. Had news of conditions in the camp leaked out? Was something finally being done? He hurried towards the Roma camp: this probably wouldn’t be the only transport from Theresienstadt, and the half-built barracks in Mexico camp were already full.
The Roma and Sinti stood in watchful groups behind the wire. Arturas clung to his mother. He gestured to them. ‘Not too close. Don’t touch the wire. Where’s Peti?’
‘He’s with my sister. I’m keeping them apart, as you said.’ She gripped her son’s hand. ‘Is it today? Have you come for them?’
‘If I hear anything… tell your men-folk to stay alert.’ He pushed half a loaf of grey bread between the electrified barbed strands. The Roma hadn’t been punished. Dare he hope things were improving and that maybe, just maybe, some of them would survive this place?
***
Walt stood at Charlotte and Lucy’s open bedroom door. Jennie had come home from work early.
‘They’ve been as good as gold. A bit quiet, but I think they’re feeling better, and the calamine is easing the itching.’
She squeezed between the beds to put feel their foreheads. ‘Not so clammy as they were earlier.’ She reversed out. ‘What this room needs is bunk beds.’
‘I hate bunk beds. They have perfectly good single beds and they’d only argue over who has the top one.’
‘I don’t know what you’ve got against them, Dad. Bunk beds would take up far less space and if I buy them now the room will be sorted for Christmas.’
‘Suppose one of them falls out and hurts themselves?’
‘They have rails. They need room to play. Dobbin isn’t small and if you’re going to make those dolls’ houses you were talking about for their next birthday…’
He rubbed his chin. There was no persuading Jennie when she knew she was right. ‘They won’t be cheap.’
‘Second-hand won’t cost a lot. We’ll get our money back when they outgrow them.’
‘I give in. It makes sense.’
She gave him a hug. Happy she’d won her argument, Jennie thumped down the stairs and out of the front door.
He tried to imagine bunk beds with comfortable mattresses and pretty bedding. He picked up a teddy bear from the floor and sat on the edge of Charlotte’s bed seeing only row after row of hard wooden bunks, three tiers high, stretching into darkness along the length of the infirmary building. The cries and the stench wound around him and engulfed him.
Eyes, large in emaciated faces, followed his every move, pleading with him. Hands brushed his as he walked past: some burned with fever, others were cold as death.
It was raining again. For two weeks he’d waited for the punishment that would surely be visited upon the Roma and Sinti in the gypsy camp: each day the tension grew. He hadn’t been ordered back there and, though he’d occasionally had the opportunity to throw a crust of bread over the wire to waiting hands, he didn’t know if the young twins had succumbed to typhus.
Water dripped from the ceiling, soaking the women on the top bunks, and falling with a steady plink into a handful of metal bowls, their holes stopped with hard-packed bread. Tongues moistened cracked lips, waiting for precious drops to collect. There was never enough. Water… The cry was on every lip.
He rarely got to know their names: shaven, hollow-cheeked, dressed in regulation infirmary shirts or naked beneath a filthy blanket, they all looked much the same. Nurses carried out the night’s dead and laid them with care on the ever-growing pile. Plump rats, as bold in daylight as they were at night, scurried through the mud to feed on still-warm flesh.
Outside, a file of naked women shivered. He tore his mind from the quiet dead to the silent living. He had a job to do. One by one his patients filed before him. Broken bones, striped backs and bloodied heads, courtesy of the guards: lice, swollen feet, abscessed wounds, gangrene, lice, scabies, dysentery, lice, typhus, scarlet fever… lice… He apportioned tiny doses of medicine, eked out bandages, salves and water. ‘Next.’
‘Miriam collapsed… please… help her.’ The language was a mixture of Hungarian, Polish and German. Two women supported a frail body. Miriam… the girl who’d knelt in the mud. She was limp, her face vacant. He’d hoped to see her again, but not like this.
‘Miriam?’ She didn’t respond. ‘When did she last eat?’
‘Two days ago, three…’
‘And drink?’
‘I don’t know. When the soup bowl reached her it was empty… and someone stole her bread. I had none left to give her.’ The woman’s voice broke. ‘I traded two days ration for a shoe.’
He touched Miriam’s cold hand, felt for the vein across her bony wrist, and placed his palm against her forehead. ‘Her pulse is weak but she has no fever.’ He searched the rows of bunks, looking for one whose occupants definitely weren’t infectious, or fouled with uncontrollable starvation diarrhoea, or whose minds hadn’t retreated to the point of being a danger to themselves and others. He pointed to a bunk occupied by a Frenchwoman with oedema of the feet and a Czech girl with broken ribs. ‘There’s space for her there, on that bunk.’
‘She’s my daughter… she’s all I have.’
He crossed himself mentally for the grandmother, sister and children who’d been sent to the left. ‘Water, food and rest is what she needs. I can’t offer much, but…’
‘Water, food and rest. God is good. Thank you, doctor. Thank you.’
He half-filled a bowl with water. ‘Vis… wody… Wasser… aqua…’ The clamour rose from hundreds of parched throats. Thin arms reached into the alleyway. ‘Water…’
Miriam’s need was urgent. He managed to rouse her enough to take a few swallows, but she was too exhausted for more.
Throughout the rest of the day his eyes were drawn to the still figure who slept the sleep of the dead. Death surrounded her, so why was she different? Why did he want her to live so much?
At last, two women carried in the vat from the kitchens. He filled a bowl with watery soup, scooping small pieces of potato and turnip from the bottom of the container. He’d counted the dead as well as the living when it was ordered.
‘Miriam?’
The girl stirred.
‘Miriam, you must eat.’
The two other women in the bunk reached tentatively for the bowl.
He shook his head. ‘Miriam hasn’t eaten for three days.’ Had they understood? He supported her as she half lay on the cramped bunk, and held the bowl to her lips.
She swallowed and soup dribbled down her chin. She wiped her chin with a finger and sucked it clean.
‘More. Drink more.’
She drank greedily.
‘All of it.’
Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her shoulders shuddered with sobs
.
He put a hand on her back, rubbing it gently. Her vertebrae were like knots in a rope beneath her thin garment. ‘Come, drink. I’ve found potato and turnip for you, look.’
A ghost of a smile lit her eyes.
The next day Miriam was stronger. Again, he took her bowl of soup to her himself. She supported herself on one elbow, not having space to sit upright, and took the bowl as if not daring to ask.
‘It’s all for you. And look…’
Her eyes widened. ‘A spoon. I haven’t seen a spoon… not since the ghetto…’
‘It’s yours until you leave here, and the bowl.’
On the third day, though still weak, she got out of bed without help to use the night-soil bucket, her bowl and spoon tucked under one arm. She was ready to be discharged. He should discharge her, the space on her bunk was needed urgently, but to what? He’d be sending her to almost certain death.
‘Miriam, you said you were a nurse.’
She nodded. ‘I’d like to help, if I can, while I’m here.’
‘I need nurses. The typhus took so many. I want you to work here.’
‘Mother’s in the Hungarian women’s camp. I need to be with her.’
‘You can sleep there, for now, if I can get you a pass to work here.’
Her eyes lit with hope. She knew as well as he that being a nurse was a safer option than being a nobody, even with the risk of typhus and scarlet fever. Members of infirmary staff weren’t subject to the selections; her number wouldn’t be called. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Temperatures. Anyone who may be infectious must be recorded and then removed to the isolation barrack. We can’t risk another epidemic.’ He hated doing it. From there the usual route was to the chimneys, unless a whim of high command decided they should be given treatment.
‘Yes, doctor.’
‘Miriam?’
‘Yes, doctor?’
‘I’ve something to show you, first. Come.’ He took her into the surgery and closed the door. From the bottom of a box he took a small wallet. He opened it and brought out photographs. ‘These are your family?’
She took the images. ‘Where did you get them? I thought they’d all been burnt.’
‘They fell from your grandmother’s luggage.’
Her finger traced her daughter’s face. ‘Mary… Mother and Father… Efah and her little ones… This one is of Grandfather and Grandmother. And these were taken when we visited my aunt and uncle in Trier.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘And this is my Benedek…’
‘Your husband? Where is he? Do you know?’
‘They came for us, to take us to the ghetto. He stood in their way… they shot him in the neck.’
He shook his head. He’d witnessed too much Nazi brutality. ‘I’m sorry, Miriam. These are terrible times. I’m glad you lived.’
‘God protects me.’ She gave the photographs back to him. ‘You’ll keep them safe?’
‘I will. I do what I can. You do believe me?’
She looked up at him, her dark eyes unreadable. ‘This too shall pass.’
He nodded, glad that she still had her faith to uphold her: grateful that she believed him. Maybe there was a god. Maybe this was part of some cosmic plan.
As the week progressed Miriam grew stronger. She worked with a will, day and night. She was a joy to be with.
She came to him in the early hours of Sunday morning. ‘Doctor, Darja is in labour.’
‘Darja? The Belarusian? You know what has to be done?’
‘I’ve never delivered a baby.’
‘Bring her to the surgery.’
He washed his hands with economic care, wrinkling his nose in revulsion at the scrap of grey pasty soap, and prepared the table. Sure hands laid Darja upon it. He didn’t speak Belarusian, and Darja was beyond trying to communicate. ‘How long?’
Miriam shrugged tiredly: she’d been working since dawn the day before. ‘I don’t know. She kept her pain to herself.’
‘She did well to hide her pregnancy.’ It was only the distended bellies of the starving that had allowed her to escape detection. Was she one of the women he’d managed to warn? He examined her with gentle fingers. ‘Not long now.’
Miriam held the woman’s hand, encouraging her with smiles and cheerful words. ‘A baby. A new life. Even in this hell God blesses us.’
‘You must push, Darja.’ He made gestures, hoping she understood.
‘Ja nie mahu. Ja nie mahu.’
‘What did she say?’
Miriam shook her head. ‘You can do it, Darja. You can.’
The girl strained but she was terribly weak. She sank back exhausted. ‘Nincs ereje. Ja nie mahu.’
He felt to make sure the cord wasn’t round the baby’s neck. He made the gestures again, more urgently. ‘Push, yes?’
The woman gathered herself for a huge effort. She gripped Miriam’s hands and pushed, and a small body slithered onto the table.
Miriam’s face shone. ‘A girl, Darja. God has given you a little girl.’
He clipped the cord and cut it, then wrapped the baby in a clean rag. Gently, he put his thumb and forefinger over the baby’s nose and his palm over its mouth. Tiny fingers curled around his thumb.
‘What are you doing?’ Miriam swept his hand aside. ‘What are you doing, you monster?’
The woman levered herself up. ‘Moj dzicia ... Dzie moj dzicia?’
‘You think I take pleasure in this?’ He glared at Miriam and replaced his thumb and forefinger before the child could take its first breath. If it took a breath… ‘It must be done.’ Eventually, the grip of the tiny fingers loosened, the little body went still and limp. He felt for a pulse: nothing. Gently he lifted the child and gave her to her mother. ‘I’m sorry… stillborn.’
Darja’s face shone, but gradually her eyes widened in understanding. ‘Nie, nie…’ She rocked backwards and forwards holding her baby to her cheek.
‘She must go back to her bunk. No-one must know of this.’ He gripped Miriam’s arm. ‘No-one. I’ll bury the child myself.’
Miriam helped Darja back to her bunk. Both were sobbing. He carried the small bundle outside. The rats would not have her. He fetched a shovel, left by workers digging out the latrines, and laid the baby in a shallow grave against the back wall of the infirmary. ‘I’m sorry, little one.’ He crossed himself. ‘Father, forgive me.’
A train whistle split the night. Blinding lights flashed on at the sidings. A movement at his side startled him.
‘Why?’ Miriam’s voice was angry, uncompromising.
He wiped away tears with a bloodied hand. ‘Do you know what would have happened if I’d let the child live?’
Miriam stared at the grave. ‘They’d have been sent to the family camp with the rest of the mothers and children, and the old people. I could have sent a message with Darja for my sister.’
He stared at her. ‘But you must know…’
‘Someone could have translated a message. I haven’t seen my baby since we arrived. I want her to know I love her.’ She rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes. ‘We are taught that all men are good at their core… I thought you were a good man… but you’re evil.’
Was she right? Was this really a lesser evil or had he become a monster after their image? She had to be told: the truth must be reported by those who survived. ‘Miriam, mother and child would have been thrown alive into the ovens. This way, Darja will live.’
She stared at him, mouth open. ‘No-one would do such a thing.’
‘You think not? Why do you think I told you to leave your baby? To say you were well? Resisting in every little way I know is all that keeps me sane… sometimes, all that keeps us alive. I need you to believe, to help me resist.’ He jabbed a finger at the drab group that had arrived on the late-night transport. ‘Where do you think they are going?’
The lights on the guard towers picked out pale faces making anxious procession along the railway tracks, and along the road between the
barbed-wire fences. Old men, backs bowed, beards jutting forward: women of all ages, heads covered against the wind, carried babies swaddled in blankets. Children, who should have been asleep in their beds, trotted at their sides carrying cherished toys, or chamber pots, or still smaller children. Behind them the slow, the lame and the sick were helped by friends and family, and behind them, driving them on with dogs, whips and curses, came the guards.
She looked from the grave, to the straggle of humanity and back to him. ‘To the family camp. I could ask one of them to take a message…’
The file of people reached the far junction and turned to the left. He put a hand on her bony shoulder and caught at a breath. ‘Miriam, there is no-one to take a message to.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There is no family camp, or only for the Roma, and the Jews from the ghetto at Theresienstadt. And I heard the order for the Jews was SB - six months.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means the Theresienstadt camp is a sham… a model ghetto… to fool the International Red Cross. There’s a visit due soon. That’s why they get better treatment. They’ll all be dead in six months.’ His hands made a helpless gesture. ‘You must have heard about the chimneys… the gas chambers. I know you don’t want to believe it, but it’s true.’
She stared at the smoke that hung over the camp, blotting out the stars. ‘But the Red Cross truck is going there now, look.’
‘It carries the Zyklon B canisters… the gas…’
‘Gas? Gas chambers… the chimneys… But you said… No, no… Efah, Grandmother… my little Mary… Oh, God, no.’
‘I’m sorry, Miriam. I’m so sorry…’ He held her as she cried. He had no tears left.
‘And Father?’ Her eyes pleaded for something to hope for.
‘He may be in Buna-Monowitz, or at one of the other factories or sub-camps. It may be possible to find out.’
The hope that lit her eyes faded as she watched the people who walked the road to the chimneys, beneath the lights of the towers and the watchful eyes at the guard posts.
