“Thank goodness. Next time, tell Izaak I miss him.”
She flashed a small smile. “I will, shikse.”
Even though she had to go through Protz, seeing her brother seemed to have given Hania a much-needed boost of reassurance. A hopeful light had reignited in her eyes, outshining a bit of the worry that had been more present of late. Despite the improvement in her demeanor, I detected a new uncertainty, so I waited for her to voice it.
“Maria, if I keep asking Protz to let me see Izaak, that’s the only deal he’ll make. He won’t let me see Izaak and give me necessities in the same exchange.”
Of course Protz had inserted a caveat into the arrangement. That schmuck. Hania had given up exploiting other prisoners for goods, but Protz remained her primary supplier. Losing him would be a heavy blow, and I wasn’t sure we could afford it. Still, as Hania waited in hopeful silence, I knew my answer to her unspoken request.
“Protz is your connection to Izaak. You don’t need my permission to choose your brother.”
“I didn’t want to let you or the resistance down,” she said, though she didn’t hide her relief. “I know how much it’ll affect our resources.”
“You and Izaak need each other, Bubbe. Besides, you’re the best translator in the whole camp, so we can find plenty of exchanges for you to make up Protz’s loss,” I replied with a teasing grin, though it didn’t eliminate the knot in my stomach.
I knew better than to suggest finding another connection to Izaak and breaking off the arrangement with Protz. She would insist that decision was not hers to make, claim she was fine. But some evenings I found her lying in our bunk with a small, empty vodka bottle, usually pilfered from the SS barracks. Night was a safe haven for secrets lurking in the depths. They arose without fear until exposure to morning light forced a retreat. Once they were reburied, Hania awoke with no recollections of voicing them, so I concealed them within my own depths. Her emphatic curses, fragile whispers, eventually condensed into the simple truth: I had to stay alive for my boys. But I never imagined it would go on this long.
“Do you want to play chess?”
The question alleviated the knot slightly. When we’d moved to Birkenau, I’d brought my makeshift chess pieces along, and she had hardly finished the query before I jumped down from our bunk. I fetched the jewelry pouch from beneath a loose brick in the floor, where I kept it buried, and began setting up the game. I never said no to chess.
* * *
A few weeks later, I walked with my kommando to the basket-weaving workshop outside the camp grounds, where I’d been reassigned following the move to Birkenau. A cool morning breeze whipped around me while I tucked my last note from Mateusz into my pocket. Our covert letter exchanges became more difficult after the move, but we found ways to stay in touch. I hadn’t seen him since our first meeting, but, after my most recent correspondence, I hoped to change that. I worked among civilians now, and if I could convince him to join me I could enact the next phase of my plan.
Sure enough, I walked into the workshop, and there he was.
The gangly boy I remembered wasn’t so gangly anymore, but still the same as he stood among the civilian workers. His bright blue eyes scanned the prisoners filing in. The moment we were ordered to take our places, I hurried to sit beside him.
“You got my letter, Maciek,” I said with a smile, and he chuckled upon hearing the nickname. “And I can’t tell you how much better my workdays will be now that you’re here. Your parents don’t mind that you’ve left the family business?”
“I’ll help when I can, but they know I want to go to a university instead of owning the bakery. Assuming the Allies win and universities are reopened to Poles, I can put the money I make here toward my education.”
“And I hear making baskets is a necessary qualification for university acceptance.”
Mateusz laughed, then he stopped weaving long enough to look at me. “It’s good to see you, Maria.”
I hid my smile and pretended to be absorbed in my basket’s shape, though I’d hardly constructed enough for it to matter yet. “This doesn’t mean you’ll stop writing, does it?”
“Never.”
An SS man strolled by, so we fell silent. As I waited for the guard to move out of earshot, I cast a sideways glance at Mateusz, who was bent over his work. His movements were quick and deft, and he didn’t slow down as he watched the SS man pass from the corner of his eye. Once the guard was a safe distance away, Mateusz looked to me. I averted my gaze, though I hadn’t intended to stare, but the flutter in my stomach came from more than almost getting caught.
He’d come, like I’d hoped he would, and now was my chance to recruit his help in my most vital personal mission. I’d rehearsed what I was going to say for a while, but as I went over it again I adjusted the weave in my basket. No matter how hard I tried, I never got it quite right. Once ready, I leaned closer to Mateusz until I could smell the lingering traces of fresh bread from the bakery mingling with sweet grass from his walk and salt on his skin.
“There’s a number of us who have joined a resistance movement within the camp, but we need information and resources from people outside,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Would you be willing to help?”
“Of course,” he replied without hesitation. “I’ll bring you whatever you need, and I have friends who work for the resistance throughout occupied Poland and a few in Germany. I’ll see what I can learn from them.”
He’d said the words I’d prayed he’d say, and I hadn’t even asked my next question yet. Resistance connections in Germany. This plan was coming together even better than I’d hoped.
I took a slow breath so as not to sound too eager. “Are any of your connections near Flossenbürg?”
“Yes, actually. Why?”
Instead of responding right away, I reached toward him. When he opened his palm, I dropped a small diamond into it. Mateusz gaped, as if unsure it was real.
“Maria, I don’t want—”
“If you don’t take it, the guards will. You’ll make much better use of it, Maciek. Consider it a small token of thanks.” I waited until he tucked it into his pocket, then I dropped my voice again. “Contact your resistance members in Flossenbürg. I need whatever you can find on a man named Karl Fritzsch.”
Chapter 22
Auschwitz, 20 April 1945
IF I DIDN’T execute your family, you’ve wasted all these years chasing the wrong man.
As we continue the game, Fritzsch’s claim fills my mind while I prop my elbows on the table and press my hands to the sides of my head, desperate to focus on the board, unable to succeed. I select a pawn, but I don’t pay attention to whether or not it’s the best move.
“You’re a liar.”
The words aren’t much more than a whisper, and I’m not sure he can even hear them over the rainfall. I lift my head and raise my voice.
“You’re a liar. Everything Oskar told me about you was true.”
Fritzsch drums his fingers against the table while he surveys the board. “I never said his claims were true or false. I only said it’s possible he lied to you.”
“But he didn’t, did he?”
The question hovers between us while I watch him. My beliefs aren’t wrong; they can’t be wrong. After a moment, Fritzsch moves his rook.
“Most women wept and begged for their lives and their children’s, but not your mother. She was calm and diplomatic, concerned only about the children. Not herself, not her invalid of a husband, not you—in fact, she didn’t mention a third child at all. Just the little ones. It was strange, seeing a woman remain so collected while preparing for death. I knew the calm wouldn’t last. In the end, they’re all the same.”
There it is, the confession I’ve sought all these years, stated in such a simple, matter-of-fact manner that it leaves me speechless. Fritzsch examines the captured black queen, then waves it toward me, as if urging me to make my move, but I can’t think of chess. I can picture the
scene all too well, can imagine Fritzsch toying with my mother as easily as he toys with these chess pieces. He would have let her attempt to reason with him while he waited for her to dissolve into the desperation and fear he craves. And when she did, he refused her.
“Why?” It’s all I can manage to say.
“Why would I spare two useless children? I had the same question. That’s why I didn’t.”
He waits, perhaps giving me time to consider the words, perhaps expecting a response, I don’t know. I can’t do anything but stare at him.
“Or are you asking why I executed them myself? Because when I met you on the arrival platform, you had that little chess piece, so I decided to make use of you, but you were in such a panic about where your family had gone. I thought I’d help you find them.”
As I comprehend the implications behind his words, I stare into my lap, where I don’t see the skirt I’m wearing—I see the one with blue and gray stripes. And on the chessboard, I don’t see raindrops. I see glaring streaks of setting sunlight, feel the humid breeze carrying his words to my ears.
I hope you managed to find them.
The images fade, but nothing feels different. I remain in the roll-call square, playing chess against Fritzsch, alone, his eyes confirming every suspicion.
“You knew who they were all along.” I don’t wonder this time, because he’s already erased all doubt. But I need to hear him say it.
Fritzsch takes a pawn and presses it between his thumb and index finger. He twists it slowly, deliberately, before releasing it and letting it clatter against the table. “Didn’t I tell you I knew everything that went on in this camp?”
The agony in my head is worse than it’s ever been. He knew. He knew from the moment I found them at the wall; he knew when he made me play chess during my first roll call; he knew the entire time.
“When I went to Block 11 to locate them, one family spoke German, asked to stay together, and kept glancing around as if something were missing. I had a feeling they were the ones you’d been looking for, and your mother all but confirmed my suspicions when she approached me and started carrying on about the little ones. You favored one another so much in your desperation. And now, thanks to you, I have no doubts I was correct.”
Even if he expects me to respond, I can’t. I wish I’d never met Fritzsch on the arrival platform that day. I wish I’d stayed with my family . . .
Fritzsch stands and gestures for me to join him. “Let’s take a walk to the courtyard. I’ll show you exactly how it happened. Naked in the rain, a single shot each from the same pistol I have here. First the little boy, then the little girl, but I wasn’t watching them. I was watching your parents, listening to the sound your mother made when the children fell—”
He’s interrupted by a shriek, an unearthly shriek that formulates a word and emerges from my own throat.
“Stop!”
“There, that’s almost how your mother sounded,” Fritzsch says with a laugh. “Didn’t I say you’re all the same? The little brats died quickly, and then it was just your parents, standing in their blood.”
The shriek comes again, and I press both hands to the acute thudding in my head. “Stop, please stop . . .”
“That’s why you came, isn’t it? To hear how I killed those Polacks? Or would you rather go to Block 11 and visit Cell 18, where we watched your priest friend die?” His voice rises into the crazed bellow I know so well. He slams both hands on the table, rattling the chess pieces before leaning toward me, and I wither beneath him and curl into myself while his words berate me and everything inside me swirls into a chaotic frenzy. “Shall I continue, or should we take a walk? Which will it be, 16671? Go on, tell me what you want.”
Words fail me, despite everything I want to say, despite how I fight to conjure something, anything, but all I see are my family’s bodies in the truck and the needle piercing Father Kolbe’s arm, and the images aren’t chased away until I close my fingers around the cold, hard metal in my pocket, spring to my feet, and aim my pistol at Fritzsch’s chest.
Chapter 23
Birkenau, 9 February 1943
I WOKE TO THE sound of familiar voices raspy and hoarse from constant yelling. The SS-Helferin—the female guards. As I lifted my head—not too high so I wouldn’t hit the roof—I blinked to clear my vision, but the darkness lingered.
“Oy, what now, a selection?” Hania’s voice was heavy with sleep while our two bunkmates hurried to the ground. “Didn’t we have one a few days ago?”
I shrugged and offered her the pale pink lipstick I’d organized a few months ago to bring more life into our pallid complexions, our secret weapon against selections. We dabbed our lips and cheeks—just a little so as not to be obvious to the guards or wasteful of such a precious resource—then blended it in. The hue was light and natural. I removed Irena’s crucifix from my neck and tucked it into the pocket with Father Kolbe’s rosary, making sure the button was secured so the items wouldn’t fall out. Once satisfied, I followed Hania and the other women outside.
As the biting wind cut through my thin uniform, I dreaded the thought of taking it off in a few short minutes. It was hard enough to pass as fit for labor when the weather was nice, but worse on days like this one, when we’d be nude in fresh snow while the SS men looked us over. The smallest flaw could get a häftling sent to the gas chamber, where inmates were murdered in massive numbers before their bodies were cremated. The last selection had ruled in Hania’s and my favor, but this was a new day. Nothing was guaranteed.
“Watch out for the Beast,” Hania whispered as we trudged through the snow and fell into line.
The head of Birkenau’s female camp, Lagerführerin Maria Mandel, stood with our guards. As a macabre joke, Hania and I had dubbed her the Beast because the bitch was too vicious to be human, but somehow the name caught on. It was all over the camp, spreading from prisoner to prisoner as easily as the ashes from the crematoria spread on a breeze. As we assumed formation, Mandel cursed and beat any woman within reach. Her usual tight updo secured her hair away from her wide forehead, and her eyes were wild and bloodshot beneath heavy brows. Mandel was the Fritzsch of the women’s camp, and she was almost as bad as he had been.
I took my place and scanned the faces around me. When I’d first come to Auschwitz, most prisoners had been non-Jewish Poles. Now the listless women surrounding me were mainly Jews from all over Europe, sent here as part of a demented plan to eradicate an entire race. As I studied them, I wondered which camp I would have been sent to a few weeks earlier if Hania hadn’t found my number on a transfer list. She’d bribed the prisoners responsible to remove it. Thanks to her position in the SS offices, she kept a close eye on the lists and ensured that our numbers and Izaak’s weren’t included in relocations.
When the women were situated, the Beast contained herself after one final shriek. “Scheisse-Juden!”
The command against my ears was harsher and more vicious than the wind chafing my skin. This selection was a Jewish one. Beside me, Hania didn’t react, but I reached for her, slow and cautious, until our hands met. She stroked her thumb across the back of my hand, then started to move away, but I didn’t let her go. I couldn’t.
Hania jerked free and pinned me in place with a sharp glance, and I could almost hear her telling me I should know better. Of course I knew better. But that didn’t make it easier to watch her follow the other Jewish women, who obeyed in petrified silence as they created a separate formation.
Undress, kneel, get up, lie down, don’t move, again and again. Even from a distance, Hania looked more fragile than I recalled as she moved through exercises, though it had been only three days since the roll call that had somehow transformed into a selection. As the sky began to lighten, I counted the vertebrae along her spine as she lay facedown in the snow, motionless, then examined her protruding hip bones and shoulder blades when she got up. Most prisoners were just as skeletal and flat-chested, standing beneath a sky as gray as their s
kin, but others, recent transfers, retained a slight roundedness, perhaps even a faint flush of health. Time hadn’t had a chance to rob them of either yet.
An unbearable whisper encroached upon my thoughts; when I held it back, it resisted, demanding to be heard. Suddenly I was immune to the cold, immune to everything but a heavy terror that pressed down upon me. The whisper asked whether or not lipstick would be enough for Hania this time.
While SS men conducted the selection with Mandel, a few female guards watched my group. I was on the outskirts of my row, so I studied the guards near me, considering my options, choosing my play. The one closest to me was young, maybe Hania’s age, bright-eyed and attractive. Diamond earrings glittered against her earlobes, thick fur lined her boots, and I imagined that the nails beneath her leather gloves were neat and manicured.
Another guard patrolled ahead, eyes narrowed, shoulders stiff as she paced back and forth, tapping her riding crop against her thigh, as if eager to use it. Her opportunity arose when one prisoner shivered. The young guard was the more promising choice. I slipped an item from my pocket and waited for the strict guard to march to the front, away from me.
“Frau Aufseherin.”
My whisper startled the young woman, but, before she could silence me, she noticed the gold bracelet in my palm. I closed my hand into a fist. A glimpse was all it took. Gradually she stepped closer, and I spoke without turning my head.
“Prisoner 15177 is in the selection. She’s in line now, ten prisoners from the front. Make sure she isn’t chosen.”
The guard dipped her head in a discreet nod, then snatched the bracelet from my extended hand. Tucking it into her pocket, she moved toward the men conducting the selection. She took her time, as if with no particular purpose in mind. She exchanged a few words with various guards and approached an SS man who clutched a handful of documents. As they conversed, she whispered into his ear. Her hand lingered on his arm a bit longer than necessary, and she left him with a coy smile before returning to her place beside me.
The Last Checkmate Page 20
