The Last Checkmate

by Gabriella Saab

  “One more thing,” Mateusz said, and he handed me an envelope. “A response to the last letter you wrote me.”

  As quickly as my concerns flared, they receded when he placed the envelope in my palm. Although we’d kept exchanging letters during the past few months, I didn’t have to open this one to know that it wasn’t from Mateusz.

  It was from him. I felt it in every fiber of my being.

  “I had a feeling you wouldn’t fall for it,” Mateusz said, grinning. “My contact brought it to me today, and since you’re leaving tomorrow, the timing couldn’t have been better. But even if I’d had to do so from America, I would have made sure you received that letter.”

  I ran my fingers over the unbroken seal. “My thanks isn’t enough, Maciek.”

  “Open it. Your peace of mind is waiting inside that envelope.”

  “Later.” I took his hand and gave it an appreciative squeeze, erasing the bemused furrow in his brow. “Will you stay for dinner?”

  “I can’t. I have the night shift at the hospital.”

  “Then you’ll come by tomorrow morning before we leave for Warsaw, won’t you?”

  His gaze softened. “As soon as my shift is over.”

  I nodded and wrapped my arms around him, holding on to the strength of his embrace, the reassuring beat of his heart, his small sigh as he tightened his grasp. I clung to him, all of him. To one of our last moments.

  When we released each other, Mateusz returned to his bicycle and rode away toward town. I watched him go, though it required significant effort to wait until he was out of sight. The envelope burned in my hand like the sting of the whip against my flesh.

  Once I was certain he’d gone, I examined the envelope. It had no markings, meaning the letter had retraced its predecessor’s steps along the resistance line until reaching me. I opened it, and golden light from the late afternoon sun fell across a single sheet of folded paper.

  Heil Hitler!

  I received your letter, in which you mentioned having information regarding my transfer. I’ve been eager to address that matter with you, and as your letter states, you have an additional concern which would be better revealed in person. After considering your request to have a discussion to resolve both, I’ve decided I can make use of you one last time. The Führer’s birthday will be the perfect day for a meeting, don’t you agree?

  You’ll know where to find me, Prisoner 16671.

  Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch

  SS-Totenkopfverbände

  Lagerführer of Auschwitz

  Thank God for Mateusz. Despite being transferred to the front lines, Fritzsch hadn’t fallen in battle. The Führer’s birthday was tomorrow, and I knew where he wanted to meet.

  My plan was unfolding exactly as I’d hoped, after all.

  The door opened, and I folded the paper as Franz stepped out. “Are you coming inside?” he asked.

  “Yes, I was reading a letter from Mateusz.” I indicated the envelope. “Franz, would you do me a favor?”

  He nodded, and I took a deep breath, not because I was hesitant, but because this moment had felt beyond my reach, and now it was here. As I clutched the letter, a surge of energy pulsed through me, more powerful than anything I’d felt in so long. I’d waited for this meeting since I was fourteen. At last I would atone for what I had brought upon my family, even if I never granted myself complete forgiveness. Even if it meant returning to that place my mind had never permitted me to escape.

  “Tomorrow, I need you to take me to Auschwitz.”

  Chapter 34

  Auschwitz, 20 April 1945

  MARIA, ARE YOU sure about this?” Franz asked for what must have been the hundredth time.

  We were driving along the same roads I’d walked, roads once covered in snow, blood, and mud and littered with dead bodies. The snow had long since melted and the bodies had long since been removed, but, as I watched the roadside pass by, they were all I saw.

  It wasn’t yet dawn. At my insistence, Franz and I had left to drive to Auschwitz before anyone else awoke. We were almost there.

  “Are you sure you want to go back? And are you certain you want to be alone? I don’t mind staying.”

  “I told you, since we’re leaving for Warsaw today, I want to see it once more to give myself closure. It’ll be difficult to visit, so I didn’t want Hania and Irena to feel obligated to come. That’s why I didn’t tell them.”

  Despite his questions, it had been easy to convince Franz to drive me. He’d believed my reason, even though it baffled him, and he’d thought it was considerate of me to look out for Hania and Irena. Then again, he knew nothing of Fritzsch and little of my time in captivity, so of course he didn’t suspect anything.

  Poor Franz. Irena would be furious when she found out, and I could almost hear the Yiddish curses Hania would spit at him. I would have bribed a neighboring farmer to take me if I hadn’t needed Franz to know where I was. Perhaps Irena and Hania would have guessed once they noticed my absence, but I needed to be certain they knew. I needed them to come, just not right away. Not until I was ready for them.

  I didn’t expect them to understand. How could they? This was between me and Fritzsch. I didn’t want them endangered, and I wouldn’t allow them to stop me. This was something I had to do—to hear the truth at last, to get justice for my family, to hold Fritzsch responsible, to put an end to the nightmare I had lived for the past four years. Facing him alone didn’t concern me. I had a long history of recklessness.

  “I’ll be fine,” I added to silence Franz’s questions.

  That part wasn’t a complete lie. Before we’d left, I’d organized Irena’s pistol.

  Chapter 35

  Auschwitz, 20 April 1945

  WHEN MY FINGER touches the trigger, Fritzsch pushes his shoulders back, as though inviting the bullet into his chest. One bullet, and I won’t have to battle through a trial or attempt to speak of what took place here. I’ll bury the memories, never to unearth them again, and this will be over. I just want it to be over.

  But a bullet isn’t part of my strategy.

  Killing Fritzsch is not my plan; that’s never been my plan. He deserves to spend the rest of his life paying for what he’s done. By now, Franz must have returned to the farm, where Irena and Hania will have demanded to know where he’d taken me. They’ll think something is amiss, and they’ll come for me. Surely I’ve kept Fritzsch occupied long enough. My friends are on their way, I know they are. Once they arrive, we’ll take Fritzsch to one of Franz’s connections, who holds the power to formally arrest him. He’ll confess to each atrocity and face the consequences.

  Or I could shoot him.

  I grip the pistol tighter so I can focus on the ache rather than the overwhelming desire to move toward the trigger again. A confession is enough to win a trial. My testimony won’t be necessary. I’ve spent the entirety of my imprisonment anticipating this game, and I will control the board. I can’t lose now.

  “Do it.”

  The croon almost makes me reconsider, but I resist the urge. A few more minutes. I held his interest in this camp for almost eight months. I can do so again for a few more minutes. My friends will be here before he tires of me, I’m sure of it.

  “Put your gun down and finish the game.” The quiver in my voice is worse than ever before, making my words sound more like a plea than a demand, but I don’t break eye contact.

  Fritzsch doesn’t react. The familiar hunger lights his eyes while he watches me, and I use both hands to steady the gun. My aim remains level with his chest as I combat unsteady breaths, but with some effort I take my finger off the trigger.

  A few more minutes.

  His chuckle breaks the eerie silence. “What did you expect upon coming here, Prisoner 16671? All this time, you’ve planned to escort me into custody and make me confess during a trial? That would require me to comply with your wishes, but you’ve forgotten one very important thing, you useless little Polack bitch.” He steps closer
and smiles. “I don’t follow orders.”

  He pulls the gun from its holster before I even blink.

  The pain in my head is blinding, and I hear a scream that must be my own as I squeeze my finger against the trigger and one shot follows another, then I’m splattered in warm blood.

  Smoke and blood, such familiar stenches, surround and suffocate me, and I wait for the pain to come, but I feel nothing. The blood isn’t mine. I’m not wounded, and Fritzsch, like so many who stood upon this cursed ground, is on his back in a pool of his own blood, dead.

  No, no, no, it can’t end like this.

  Runnels of blood and rainwater cover the chessboard, and the pieces are painted with tiny crimson droplets. With a sweep of my arm, it crashes to the ground, where the board breaks with a sharp crack and the pieces scatter.

  He was supposed to stand trial, the world was supposed to know the truth, he was supposed to rot in prison, he wasn’t supposed to die—

  “Maria—oh God, what the hell have you done?”

  “Put the gun down, Maria, please!”

  Voices, familiar ones, though I hardly hear them. He was supposed to stand trial. Instead I pulled my trigger.

  “Dammit, Maria, put down the fucking gun!”

  “Listen to us, shikse. Please put it down.”

  I turn away from Fritzsch’s body to face the voices, which belong to Irena and Hania. They came. But now it’s too late.

  The moment I whirl toward them, they tense, but I’m not sure why, and I’m not sure why they’ve stopped so far from me. Maybe they don’t understand that Fritzsch is dead. He can’t hurt them, and he can’t be brought to justice. Hania and Irena move closer, still talking, and even though I’m not paying attention I think they’re trying to soothe me. Maybe it’s because I can’t stop screaming.

  “He was supposed to stand trial, he wasn’t supposed to die—”

  “The gun, Maria,” Irena says fiercely, bringing my cries to a jarring halt.

  The pistol. I forgot I was holding it.

  I turn back to Fritzsch’s body. My bullet tore through his lower abdomen and bloodied his perfect uniform. Somehow his had missed me. Fritzsch’s pistol lies on the ground, next to his hand, and blood spills from the circle of mangled flesh at his temple, where a second bullet had struck. The death blow.

  No, that can’t be right. I pulled my trigger once, but a bullet to the stomach wouldn’t have killed him so quickly.

  And I heard two shots.

  I fired once. I know I fired once, and so did he. The head wound killed him, the wound I couldn’t have inflicted, not from my angle. And in all the time I’ve known him, Fritzsch’s bullets always found their intended mark.

  He hadn’t fired at me at all. The head wound was self-inflicted.

  “You stupid, cowardly bastard, you were supposed to go to prison, you weren’t supposed to kill yourself!”

  Amid my screams, the gun flies from my hand because I suppose I throw it, but I don’t know. The migraine worsens, and my cries fade into sobs as my knees hit the gravel, where I press my hands against my temples to alleviate the pounding, but I succeed only in smearing the sticky droplets of blood that stain my skin like they stain the broken chessboard.

  One mistake, one fatal mistake is all it takes to ruin an entire chess game. The mistake I made is so obvious now. Throughout my years of playing chess, I’ve never discussed my strategy, but this time I chose pain before wits, I moved my queen too early and my king too late, and I told him how I was going to play and how I wanted this game to end. This stupid pawn cleared the path for her own king’s check, but I have to get out before the checkmate. There has to be a way; it can’t end like this.

  Gentle but firm hands lift me up and pull me away from Fritzsch’s body, while two pairs of comforting arms encircle me. My own carelessness provoked his final move, and now he’s dead.

  When my tears and the pain in my head lessen, I’m vaguely aware of Irena and Hania leading me through the gate; then I hear Franz’s voice. “What the hell?”

  “Exactly!” Irena shouts, rushing ahead until she’s pounding her fists into his chest. “What the hell, Franz? How could you leave Maria here?” She doesn’t wait for a response before grabbing my shoulders now that Hania and I have joined them. “Explain yourself, you fucking idiot.”

  Whatever Franz attempts to say is lost in the uproar while Hania curses in Yiddish and pushes Irena away. She stands between us, yelling in various languages, but Irena is undeterred, and the more everyone yells the more I want it to stop.

  “Go on, explain yourself! I know you had a plan, you always have a fucking plan—”

  “Irena!” My shout comes out in a surge of fury, and the moment she hears it her tirade ends. She pulls me close, holds tight.

  “Dammit, Maria,” she whispers, barely able to formulate the words before she breaks down into sudden, fierce sobs.

  Franz folds Irena into his arms while I walk a few meters away and face the sign above the gate. Three German words, one simple sentence. Somehow the phrase looks even darker and more ominous than usual. The tears return, leaving hot, angry rivers that tingle against my cheeks, but gentle hands turn me away from the sign.

  “It’s over, shikse.” The comforting murmur breaks through the echoes of Fritzsch’s taunts and the screams of frustration that fill my head. Hania’s thumb brushes a tear mixed with blood from my cheek, then she holds me against her chest and presses her lips to the top of my head.

  Over. It’s not over. Not like this. The barbed wire still surrounds me, and the current still races through it.

  When we leave, we drive in silence. My tears have ceased, and my pain has dissipated. I’m hollow again, as hollow as I was during those first months of captivity, when I chose to feel nothing. As I stare at the blood splatters on my clothing and skin—Fritzsch’s blood—I return to that place. I choose to feel nothing again.

  Chapter 36

  Pszczyna, 6 May 1945

  THE NEWSPAPER HEADLINE is almost one week old, and I’ve memorized it by now. I read it every day, reassuring myself that I didn’t imagine it. Adolf Hitler killed himself. The Führer is dead. Another criminal took his own life so he wouldn’t have to face the consequences of his deplorable actions.

  I’m still furious with Fritzsch for what he did. I spent an entire week in bed dwelling on it, even though there was no sense in doing so. Sometimes I can’t help thinking about it. No one talks to me about him, but the day after Fritzsch’s suicide I overheard Hania and Irena discussing what they’d done. Franz returned to Auschwitz and burned everything—the table, chairs, chess set, and Fritzsch’s body. He disposed of the ashes in a location he wouldn’t disclose, not even to Irena. All he said was it wasn’t among the Auschwitz victims. Because Fritzsch was supposed to be on the front lines, his disappearance will be classified as a battle casualty. No one will miss him, and no one will find him.

  He’s gone from this world, but not from me. I see his face, hear his voice. Your move, Prisoner 16671—

  I stand abruptly from the bed to banish his jeers from my mind. It was as Hania had said when I refused to leave the bed, when she’d shared her own recurring memories with me: All the cigarettes and vodka in the world aren’t enough to make the past go away.

  Maybe we aren’t meant to leave the past behind. Maybe we’re meant to bring it with us so we can join others weighed down by the same burdens, and we can carry them together. Maybe that’s how we find peace.

  After placing the article in the open valise on the floor, I stare at the clothes piled on my bed. Everyone else has gone into town, but I stayed behind to finish packing. I pick up my folded prisoner uniform. Another object I look at every day. It’s stayed at the foot of my bed since I changed out of it. Irena has told me numerous times to get that damn thing out of our room, but I haven’t.

  When I pick it up, it comes unfolded. My uniform is even thinner than it was when I received it, so thin it’s virtually transparent. The
gray and blue stripes are dingy and worn, the hems and cuffs frayed, the garment tattered and stained. The white strip bearing my black prisoner number is faded and dirty, as are the red triangle and capital P. A seam travels halfway up the back where I repaired the rip after my flogging. In the interior, I find the various pockets I added throughout the years for organized goods, but my favorite is the one with the button flap. The one for Father Kolbe’s rosary.

  I pull up the sleeve of my robe to trace my scars and the dark ink that stands out so prominently against my pale skin.

  My given name was Maria. My resistance name was Helena. My new name is Prisoner 16671.

  The familiar twinge creeps into my temple. Concentrating on slow, steady breaths, I press my fingers to the side of my forehead to suppress it. After a moment, the twinge dissipates.

  Finish the game, Maria.

  I’m beginning to wonder if I ever will.

  Someone knocks, so I cover my forearm, refold my uniform, and tuck it under the dresses, trousers, and skirts I’ve tossed into my valise. Irena always bursts in without knocking, so it must be Hania. I tighten the robe around me and invite the visitor inside.

  Mateusz steps into the room. He keeps his distance, the tightness of his jaw accentuated by a shadow of stubble. I haven’t seen him since passing him briefly when I staggered into the farmhouse, shaken and covered in Fritzsch’s blood. As promised, he had come to say goodbye to a dear friend and was met by a girl who had used him, his kindness, his trust. The look he gave me—concern, confusion, shock, sorrow, betrayal, combined into one, shattering me as I had shattered him. Since that day, he’s never tried to visit, and I certainly didn’t send for him.

  For a moment, I’m unsure what to say, but I’m certain why he’s come.

  “You haven’t left for America yet?” Thank God the valise gives me something else to look at.

  “Next week. Franz said he’s driving you to Warsaw tomorrow since the original plan . . .” He pauses, as if nothing could adequately capture what had happened to the original plan. “. . . changed,” he finishes at last.