The Last Checkmate

by Gabriella Saab

  Her eyes remained closed, brow creased, lips cracked and dry, but as I tucked the blanket around her frail body I prayed some part of her heard me. I kissed her burning forehead, studded with beads of sweat even in this frigid block, and brushed away one of my tears that had fallen onto her cheek.

  Then the shouts started, the shouts that had greeted me upon arriving at Auschwitz, the shouts I’d heard every day since. Raus, schnell! I didn’t obey.

  Countless innocents would never escape this terrible place. One whose limp represented a bravery and compassion I’d dreamt of emulating, another whose fervent spirit had ignited my own. One whose curiosity had been as boundless and unrestrained as her golden curls, another whose youthful exuberance had found constant joy even in simplicity. One whose selfless nature had brought me out of suffocating darkness. Here, before me, one fighting against the poisonous clutches of sickness and death, left with the promise of a liberation that could come too late. What right did I have to leave when so many had been denied the chance?

  I barely felt the club or heard the voice ordering me to move. I’d delayed as long as I could. Releasing Hania and climbing down from my bunk was one of the hardest things I’d ever done.

  After receiving a small bread ration, we lined up in rows of six to march to the main camp. I found a place at the back of the throng, where Irena hovered in my vicinity. We moved toward the gate, and I lifted a hand to my neck to feel Irena’s crucifix through my uniform, then found the skirt pocket where I’d tucked Father Kolbe’s rosary. But there was something I’d forgotten to add to that pocket.

  My chess pieces.

  I’d intended to bring them when I left. If I hurried, I could return to my block, grab them, and rejoin the group before anyone noticed. It wouldn’t take long.

  When I turned around to enact my plan, Irena grabbed me. At the same time, another woman hesitated, and an SS man shot her in the head.

  Irena dragged me a few paces forward, making it look as if I’d kept up, then released me before anyone saw us. I had no choice. That woman’s fate would be mine if I didn’t stay in line. With a final glance toward the clusters of brick and wooden buildings stretching across the grounds, where Hania and the chess pieces remained, I swallowed past a sudden heaviness in my throat and kept walking.

  After joining more prisoners in the main camp, we walked a few kilometers to Rajsko, where more columns awaited us. From there, we pressed onward. The cold was merciless. I had a few layers of organized clothing beneath my uniform, but those weren’t enough to combat the blizzard that assaulted us from every angle while we trudged through its fury.

  Because I was toward the back, countless rows marched ahead of me through the howling wind and snow. Even if I hadn’t been following the crowd, the trail was obvious. The longer we marched, the more people fell behind or collapsed from cold or exhaustion. New prisoners and old, friends and strangers. And they were all shot. Some begged for their lives; others didn’t bother. Dead bodies littered both sides of the road, and red blood soaked into the snow. One body stood out to me as I marched by and noticed short, familiar red hair. Janina.

  When the bread ration was gone, we didn’t receive anything else. Ahead of me, a man spent all day consuming handfuls of snow, plants, rotten vegetables, anything he could find alongside the road, and slipping morsels of organized food into his mouth. He hid his resources from guards and prisoners alike, eating with a ravenousness that I recognized. I had miscellaneous items tucked inside my secret uniform pockets, but I’d left my organized food with Hania and Izaak. I combatted piercing hunger in silence.

  As I dwelled in envy while watching him eat, it didn’t take long for the inmate’s stomach to betray him. I could tell by the way his gait became more labored, how his arms wrapped around his midsection, how he stopped searching for food. My envy transformed into sympathy, and I willed him to keep going, to resist the pains assaulting his insides, but the situation was beyond his control. After a few agonizing minutes, the häftling crouched in the road, unable to keep going, while others moved around him until the final column passed, leaving him exposed to the guards. A bullet ended him before sickness had a chance.

  Keep walking. Live. Fight. Survive.

  Despite the severe cold, we maintained a vigorous pace all day. I clustered around my fellow prisoners for warmth and stayed toward the edge of the group so I could be near Irena. When the woman beside me fell and told me to leave her behind, I pulled her to her feet and draped her arm across my shoulders before the guards saw us lagging. Together, we pressed on.

  I supported the woman until she gingerly released me. We walked in silence for the next few minutes. Then she ran.

  One of the SS men drew his pistol and aimed at her. The woman broke into the woods, where she tripped and collapsed with an agonized scream. Her face contorted in pain, and I caught sight of a glistening bone protruding from her leg while her desperate shrieks carried across the open road.

  “Shoot me, please shoot me!”

  The man aiming at her lowered his gun. None of the other guards drew theirs. The woman’s pleas drowned in the sound of footsteps.

  Keep walking. Live. Fight. Survive.

  Outside Miedźna, we stopped for the evening. Covered in snow and ice, skin chapped and raw and bleeding, delirious, little more than walking corpses, we stumbled into a large barn, our shelter for the night. As I fell onto a makeshift straw bed, the throbbing pains that assaulted my body were unbearable, but exhaustion took over, pulling me into its murky depths.

  I’d hardly closed my eyes before someone ordered me awake again. The only thing on my mind was hunger. The ache was familiar, but there was no getting accustomed to it, and it overpowered everything, even the debilitating cold and my exhausted, blistered feet. I didn’t want to move, I wanted to stay on the filthy, itchy straw and let starvation or cold or a bullet bring this dreadful existence to an end. But I got up and filed out of the barn.

  Irena stood outside the barn door, watching as we exited. When I passed her, she grabbed my arm to hurry me along. As she did so, her free hand brushed mine, so briefly no one noticed. I closed my fingers around the morsel of bread she’d slipped into my palm.

  The second day was even more arduous than the first, but the pattern remained the same. Walk, hunger, cold, gunshot, live, fight, survive.

  More prisoners attempted to escape. A few were successful. Most weren’t. Some were shot as they ran; others were caught and brought back so we could witness their executions. Blood and death. So much blood, so many deaths.

  To attempt escape would have been reckless. But, as every step became more difficult, escape was ever-present on my mind. And when I stole a moment to meet Irena’s gaze, I suspected it was on hers, too.

  The only SS personnel surrounding us were a few men and women, including Protz. He rode a motorcycle and traveled up and down the column of prisoners, shooting at every given opportunity. No one was paying attention to me, so I glanced at Irena again. She looked to me before moving her eyes to the road ahead, then gave one small, swift nod. And our mutual agreement was made.

  When the opportunity arose, we would escape.

  * * *

  By the time we reached midday, I felt as if we’d walked for weeks. I wiggled my toes to alleviate the painful swelling and numb cold, then I scooped up another discreet handful of snow. When I straightened, I slipped it into my mouth. The snow melted against the heat of my tongue, the only part of me that was warm, and I savored it as long as possible. When it was gone, the emptiness in my stomach didn’t feel better, but I tried to convince myself it did.

  I slipped my frozen fingers into my sleeves, hoping to warm them. Ignoring the shouts and gunshots around me, I felt the rough, uneven skin of my cigarette-burn scars and traced my prisoner number, even though I couldn’t see or feel the tattoo.

  When my fingers were warmer, I hugged my arms around myself and bowed my head against the wind, pressing onward. I stepped over a fallen
body in my path. The snow had ceased for now, a slight blessing on this cursed evacuation. I was at the edge of my row against the left side of the road, so my front and right side had a small buffer thanks to fellow prisoners, and there was one row of inmates behind me. Not an ideal position, but it was the best way to stay close to Irena without drawing suspicion.

  A familiar sound disturbed the rhythmic tramp of footsteps. The man behind me had stumbled. He hadn’t fallen, but now he was a few steps behind the row, which meant I knew what to expect next. The gunshot.

  When the crack pierced the air, something collided with my back and threw me to the ground. The landing was hard and painful, enough to knock the breath out of me. Dazed, I blinked to clear my vision. Had I been shot? I didn’t feel injured, and I didn’t think I’d been behind the column, but my lungs couldn’t expand enough to draw a proper breath.

  No, it wasn’t a wound affecting my breathing; something was on top of me, pinning me down. The dead man.

  We’d landed halfway on the road, halfway along its side. From my position, I didn’t think anyone could see me. I’d be shot if a guard saw me hurrying to my place, and I’d be shot if a guard found me underneath this corpse. But if I remained hidden and avoided discovery, then I would have successfully managed to escape.

  So I didn’t move.

  Holding my breath, I peered through the gap between the road and the dead man’s shoulder, watching the columns of prisoners. None of the SS men or women stopped, no one wondered where I was, no one cast a second glance at the dead man. No one noticed at all.

  All I had to do was alert Irena.

  She walked along the left side next to the final row of prisoners, and I watched her feet as they passed. Protz hovered in her vicinity. Once she was a few meters ahead of me and the dead man, she sent a deliberate glance over her shoulder. Of course I didn’t need to alert her. She already knew.

  When no eyes were on her, Irena collapsed and grabbed her right leg. “Shit!”

  At her cry, Protz parked his motorcycle and dismounted. “Damn this weather. Is it your ankle?”

  Irena nodded, grimacing. He moved closer, but she bit her lip and waved him away, as if in too much pain to speak.

  The prisoners had continued marching, growing smaller and smaller in the distance, but one guard turned around. “Protz, Lichtenberg, let’s go!” he shouted.

  “Right, I’ll start crawling,” Irena replied, glaring at him.

  “We’ll catch up,” Protz said. “Frieda’s hurt.”

  The guard nodded and returned to the group. Protz sat next to Irena, who was nursing her supposedly injured limb, wincing and cursing. I had a feeling she enjoyed the theatrics that accompanied our charades, though she never would have admitted it.

  When Protz leaned closer, she slapped his hand. “Bastard, don’t touch me.”

  Of course she found a way to give him hell.

  Protz didn’t dispute her, and she ignored him, absorbed by the injury, while the rows of prisoners disappeared down the road. At last, after the gunshots had grown distant, she sighed.

  Protz seemed to decide it was safe to engage her. “Does it feel better?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Good, you’ll be riding with me for a few days.”

  “Well, I’m glad you derive such pleasure from my misfortune, Ludolf,” she said with a sardonic laugh.

  I grimaced. Ludolf?

  Irena turned back to her ankle, but Protz grabbed her chin and pushed his lips against hers. At once, she tensed, and it took everything in me to remain hidden. Somehow she endured it, but the moment he placed a hand high along her inner thigh she pushed him away with a strangled gasp.

  “Get away from me!” The frantic cry emerged in Polish, not German.

  No, no, no.

  “What the hell did you say, Frieda? Since when do you speak Polish?”

  For God’s sake, Irena, recover.

  She didn’t respond right away. At last she forced a nervous chuckle. “Good Lord, I’ve spent too much time around the Polacks. Help me up.”

  Protz rose to his feet, leaving her where she was. “Are you a Volksdeutsch? Why didn’t you say so?”

  Irena could have said yes. That would have been the easiest and safest answer. But when she looked at me, so briefly that Protz didn’t detect it, I suspected that her response would be risky. Stupid. Reckless, even.

  Her choice should have terrified me. But, as I eased myself from beneath the dead body, it calmed me instead.

  From her place on the ground, Irena looked at Protz and smiled. “I’m not a Volksdeutsch. I’m not German, either. And I sure as hell am not Frieda Lichtenberg.”

  While Protz reached for his gun, I sprang to my feet. He fired at the sudden movement; at the same time, Irena kicked his legs out from under him. The shot went into the woods, and when Protz landed on his back, the gun flew from his hand. She dove for it, but he wasn’t far behind. He caught her leg, and she attempted to kick him while they wrestled toward the pistol.

  Clutching two rocks I’d grabbed while in hiding, I ran toward them, but by then Protz had Irena pinned down, preventing her from drawing her pistol. While she writhed, he reached over her, his fingers centimeters from his gun.

  “Get off her, you stupid son of a bitch!”

  My cry distracted Protz for only a moment, but it was enough. He looked over his shoulder at me, giving Irena the space she needed to drive her elbow into his chest and draw her pistol. Protz lunged again while I pelted him with my rocks, and as his fingers closed around his weapon, Irena raised her gun and hit the back of his head. He collapsed.

  Irena pushed him off her. I wasn’t sure if Protz was dead or alive, but we didn’t linger to find out.

  We ran. The prisoners were long gone, but it was only a matter of time before another guard would return to see why Protz and Irena hadn’t caught up. We darted through the woods, fighting bushes and shrubs that snagged our clothes, trudging through snow, slipping on ice, tripping over branches, putting as much distance between ourselves and the road as possible. When we couldn’t run anymore, we stopped. For a moment, we were too breathless to speak.

  By no means could this be counted as a successful escape yet; still, a strange combination of tension and elation rose in my chest. It was a step closer to freedom. To finding Fritzsch and taking action against him now that Germany’s position in the war was weakening. If the Nazis were defeated, they would be made to pay for their countless crimes, surely; once Fritzsch admitted that he killed my family, I would see to it that he was held accountable.

  “That was a spectacular performance, Marta Naganowska,” I said, giving Irena a teasing smile after using her old resistance name.

  “Thank you, Helena Pilarczyk, I learned from the best. And if I’m not mistaken, that was the first time I’ve heard you curse.”

  “I learned from the best.”

  Irena flashed a pleased smirk before removing her overcoat and offering it to me. When I hesitated, she heaved an exasperated sigh. “Are you going to pretend you’re not cold in that pathetic excuse for clothing? Put on the damn coat. And yes, I’ll take it back later,” she added, rolling her eyes.

  Satisfied with the arrangement, I obliged. The coat was heavy and woolen, warmer than anything I’d worn in a long time. I wrapped it around myself and eased Irena’s leather gloves over my numb hands. Now that we’d caught our breath, we kept walking.

  It had been years since I’d been in a forest. Even though it was freezing, the cold, once nothing but my enemy, also became a source of awe. Icicles dangled from twigs and branches, catching the light from the setting sun peeking through the trees. A frozen spiderweb glistened against a bush while a blanket of snowflakes covered a fallen log. Flashes of movement indicated small creatures taking shelter, so quick that I didn’t get a good look at them, but I saw their tiny tracks. The ground was snow-covered and frozen but layered with fallen leaves and twigs that gave way beneath my feet, far softer tha
n the frozen mud I’d walked on for the past few winters.

  I’d stepped out of one world and into another entirely new. One suffering and death, the other beauty and tranquility. It was difficult to imagine the same winter creating both.

  “Why didn’t we steal Protz’s motorcycle so we could drive closer to the nearest town?” Irena muttered after we’d been walking for some time. She crossed her arms more tightly as a frigid wind swept over us, so cold it stung my eyes.

  “You couldn’t have suggested that before we ran?”

  “I didn’t think about it until now. Why didn’t you suggest it? You’re the one who comes up with the ridiculous plans, not me.”

  “Right, so sorry. By the way, how is your ankle?”

  Irena narrowed her eyes but didn’t mask a small smile. She cursed when she tripped over a root camouflaged by snow. Despite the harsh climate, I was glad we hadn’t spent a moment longer than necessary on the open road. Had we fled closer to town, we would have risked exposing ourselves to civilians, SS men, anyone who could potentially have seen us. Here at least we were alone. But with a town came warmth, food, and shelter, and those would have almost made the risk worth it.

  “Do you even know how to drive a motorcycle, Irena?”

  “No.”

  As we pressed onward, blue and gray stripes caught my eye. When I returned Irena’s overcoat and gloves, as it was now her turn to wear them, she followed my gaze to the body and turned aside as I inspected it. A young man, near my age, stiff with cold, covered in ice and snow. Tattered uniform, too tattered to be useful. Empty pockets. I knelt beside him and lifted his bony wrist. Something was ensnared within his frozen fingers, something I recognized right away—half a bread ration. He must have saved it and was attempting to eat it when the cold rendered him unable to put forth the effort. With some difficulty, I pried his fingers apart to access the offering and pressed the sacred morsel between my palms, affirming its existence.