by Malka Adler
After a while we went back to wrapping pipes in the ground.
The next morning began with bad signs. A prisoner two bunks from me ran to the fence and tzzzzt, finished.
Burned in a second. Looked like a striped shirt that fell off the washing line, it all happened even before we stood in line, even before the dawn. I took a good look at the dead man and then two prisoners next to me left us and ran to the same place. Together, the two of them, like a couple, one tall, one with a bent back, they both ran fast and tzzzzt tzzzzt. As if they’d fallen off the washing line. I couldn’t separate myself from the little heap of the dead. I’d also had enough, but then the scream of the SSman reached my ears, stand in a row, quickly, forward march. We filed off. Men as thin and dirty as stained paper. Paper connected to shoes dragging along the asphalt.
I was almost last and didn’t move on the asphalt. SSman gave me a blow on my back with the butt of a rifle. Thwack. I shut my mouth and he screamed into my ear, forward, in line, dirty Jew.
Walk, quickly. Quickly, thwack. Another one, on the pelvis. I paid no attention, let him hit me, kill me, didn’t matter. I already knew that soon they’d take all of us to die in the crematorium. We all knew the method at Zeiss. The method: No food, no water, no place to breathe, no shower, no coat, no medication, just work, work fast, until death comes. It takes about three months to come. In the meantime they bring a fresh, healthy consignment and the old-timers get on a train to the nearest available crematorium. Yes. Three months was enough for the Germans to turn healthy young men into a pile of disgusting rags. Rags should be burned, I thought.
Tomorrow I’m on the fence. Yes, tomorrow. Another moonless night, enough. Was there a moon?
The thought of the fence gave me some strength. Maybe the three gave me the strength to think about the fence. I strode forward and made up the space in the file. And, oops, I unintentionally stepped on the shoe of the prisoner in front of me. He made a cheeping sound and fell. SSman approached us. I grabbed the prisoner’s shirt and pulled him up. He pushed with his hands and rose. I saw he was missing a finger and a half on his right hand. He rocked, rocked, stood. I passed him and began to walk with great strides, like the beginning, when I had the strength of Bloc 8. I passed at least eight prisoners and got back in line.
The first morning light began to cover the fields. We approached a German village. Regular houses with chimneys. A low fence and a yard. A few trees, more flowers, and thin ice on the water, but mainly cold that could bury you standing up. Heavy clouds stood on the roofs of distant houses. Mingled with normal smoke, white smoke, a little gray. I knew German farmers were warm in their houses with their stove and chimney, and their woolen socks.
I jeered at them because of the fence I was planning on, tzzzzt. And that was that. Silver drops spread over the grass at the side of the road. A rotting bird lay with its feet in the air. Tomorrow I’ll be dead. Yes, tomorrow.
Two figures stood by the side of the road just as the morning sun pushed a cloud. One was tall. The other shorter. I remember women’s scarves. The tall one wore a dress. The little one wore trousers. As we approached I saw a woman and a girl looking at us. Holding hands. What do the two of them want, what. Want a show, about wretched people, people who weep without tears, well, here we are. Until that morning I’d barely seen any people, I barely remembered there were any in the world. I knew they were hiding in their houses, I knew. I sensed their glances from behind a curtain, behind a sheet on the line. The children were as far away as possible, maybe they hid them under a bed, so their sweet children would sleep well at night. If I had a mirror to see myself, I knew I’d scream with shock. I didn’t need a mirror, I looked at other prisoners. I understood the village people. By chance the road near the village led to Zeiss. Twice a day a huge file of wretched, stinking, disintegrating people passed by.
The two women at the side of the road looked only at me.
They looked like mother and daughter. The little girl wanted to stick her head in my face. She pointed at me. Whispered in her mother’s ear. The mother nodded, yes, yes. The mother turned to a tall, particularly good-looking SSman. The SSman signaled, halt! We halted. Everyone’s heads were looking down. The mother spoke in SSman’s ear. She whispered in German and pointed at me. The SSman agreed and she gave him a package.
The SSman approached me.
The SSman gave me a package. Ordered: Open it. The whole line was on top of me. My whole body shivered, my hands trembled, I didn’t understand what they all wanted from me, why especially me. I wanted one of the adults to tell me what I should do now and if it was all right to open the package. The adults were breathing heavily with faces like a predatory animal about to jump. Slowly I opened the paper. There was a cooked potato inside. Hot. SSman signaled to me: Eat. I swallowed the potato in a flash. The mother and daughter went towards the village.
The SSman called, march. March.
I strode, fell. Got up. From excitement. My legs tripped over each other. In my head there was a flood. What was this, what.
The prisoners almost killed me with their eyes, and he? He said eat, and didn’t move away from me. I felt I was going mad, that’s it. I was pulling off the stripes on the pajamas, the tracks of the trains and life. In the meantime I scraped my nail against my tongue and found a few crumbs. My belly started making strange sounds, I didn’t know what to do with myself, and why are they confusing me with good deeds.
That night I felt so good and full I couldn’t sleep.
It drove me mad, all that goodness. My heart understood that maybe the little girl saw something the Germans didn’t have time to see. Maybe she saw that I was also a child, that all the men had black bristles on their cheeks and I didn’t. I’d pass my hand over my face, and it was smooth. And maybe she thought they were big and I was little.
Those two stuck in my mind like a silent movie. I saw them waiting in the distance, I approach, closer, closer, the two are looking at me, looking, looking, looking, and hop, I have a package in my hands. I eat. And back again. Closer, closer, closer, they give me a package, and hop, I’m eating, and eating, and eating. I couldn’t stop crying. I missed mother. I missed father. I missed my brothers and sister. Particularly Dov. I wanted to tell him what had happened to me. I wanted to give him half my potato. I barely slept that night.
Morning. I’m the first outside.
From the corner of my eye I see someone running towards the fence. I know him. He slept in my bunk. His brother had watched him for two days. I saw his brother running after him. Talking. I even heard, Nathan, stop, stop, Nathan. Wait. What are you doing, stop. Caught hold of his garment. Wanted to pull him away from the electricity in the fence. Nathan was the first to fall on the fence. His brother who tried to fall back was caught in the fence and was finished. He didn’t really want to die.
In a second, I turned my back on the fence. Didn’t want to see, not that morning. I wanted to go out to work, quickly. Wanted to get to the road in front of the village. Maybe, maybe, again, and maybe not.
Pains started in my belly. I remember as if it was happening now. Pains started in my pelvis, my head. I wanted to run. The file progressed slowly, slowly. A cold wind cut into the flesh. A prisoner with a swollen foot halted. His body rocked in the wind. He slightly widened his bent knees, stuck his heels into the road. Prisoners behind him halted, waiting for him without moving. SSman picked up a stone and threw it at him. It hit him on the leg. The prisoner sighed and continued to walk. The gap remained. We passed a bend in the road, another one, the village was in front of us, aaah. The two were standing there. The tall one and the little one. The little one in a fire-red coat. They stood there, like yesterday. Aligned with a water tower on which hung a rope ladder.
It took all my strength not to step out of the line, not to make any sign. I made an effort to walk slowly like everyone else but inside, my body was jumping, bloomp, bloomp. As I approach them my heart beats like a sledge-hammer. I cough. Want to scratc
h myself and don’t move my hand. Another small step and the little girl points at me. Aaah. We stop. I hear myself crying like a baby, Mama, Mama. Aaah. The mother approaches the SSman from yesterday, smiles at him. He responds with a smile. She speaks to him in German. She says, the girl wants to give, ja. She speaks long and fast. I understand a bit. I understand she’s a widow, the wife of Officer Michael Schroder, yes. She was alone, waiting for the train to the city, ja. The SSman pinches the little girl’s cheek; the little girl wipes her cheek afterwards. The mother and the SSman laugh, ja. Ja. Ja. Mother gives SSman a package. SSman approaches me. God, God, God. SSman signals to me, open it. I glance at the prisoners. They have huge eyes and ears and they have a large mouth, a black mouth. Four prisoners close in on me. I am paralyzed. SSman raises his rifle. SSman signals the prisoners, back off, immediately. Prisoners take a step back. I hear them breathing fast. I feel as if my hands are on fire. I open the package and can’t believe my eyes. I am holding a sausage sandwich. A whole sandwich with sausage, for me. Two thick pieces of bread, and a fat slice of sausage. Two prisoners jump at me. They have yellow saliva on the chin. SSman fires a single bullet into the air. They halt. I swallow the sandwich all at once and feel as if there is a bone stuck in my throat, I swallow saliva, more saliva, and more, and the sandwich goes down slowly, slowly, hurting my esophagus. I am overjoyed. SSman shouts, march, march.
I stride on, my head turning backwards.
She has blue eyes that are looking at me. She has two light braids. One shorter. Her face is full of brown freckles and she smiles at me, and blushes. It took all I had to hold back a scream. Queen, my queen, beautiful queen. I pinch my leg, my ear too. I have a sharp prickling in my ear. Impossible, I’m dreaming. I’m asleep in the barracks and there’s a movie in my mind. I bite my tongue, it’s hot and it hurts. Another bite and I see the SSman bowing to the two. They nod and say thank you. Mother winks at the SSman. She comes to stand with the girl who has no scarf on her head. Her long hair swells like a gold ball. The SSman laughs, his cheeks reddening. The blue in his eyes glitters.
The file progresses. The wind increases, the cold even more. The trees bend to one side, the prisoners pull their shirts over their ears, it doesn’t help. I glance back. The distance between me and the red coat increases. The prisoner behind me hits me with a sharp elbow. He is tall. I am small. Don’t care. I want to call out to the girl, wave to her, throw my hat off, kick an imaginary, explosive goal between posts, doesn’t matter what posts, even the gate posts of the camp, I want to call to the sun to chase off the wind and clouds and warm the girl’s path to the house, I want to find a field of flowers, make her a huge bunch of flowers, want to run hand in hand with her through the fields, her braids flying from side to side, one shorter, one longer, find a white horse in the meadow, toss her up on the horse, sit behind her, hold her hips, reach the forest, scream, gallop, horse, gallop, laugh wildly, I’m alive, I’m alive, Mama, where am I, Mamaaa.
The Kapo’s screams made me jump. Two days had gone by and it was morning. The Kapo screams, get up, get up, outside, get in line. I don’t get up. Stay with the picture from the dream. I am kicked to my feet. And c-c-c-cold, so cold.
On the path, near the village, there she was again. A girl with braids, her mother beside her. I choked. The little girl pointed to me. Mother approached the regular SSman. They smile and play in German. SSman bends to hear the mother more clearly. The mother catches him by the arm, turns towards the village and shows him a house. He doesn’t see well. She gives him a package, he says, a moment please, gives me the package and walks off with the mother to see better. The girl looks at the mother and the SSman. Eight prisoners jump on me. I hold tightly to the package and feel fingers sticking in my ears, nose, neck, belly, I can’t see a thing, and then came the burst of fire, Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta. Am I dead? No, I was completely alive. In front of me stood SSman with a rifle in his hands and beside me, smeared on the asphalt were three prisoners in pools of blood. I looked down at myself and saw that I was alive. Looked at them – and they were dead.
I got up with the package in my hands. The tall SSman approached at a run, the mother after him. The SSman shooter pointed at us irritably. That is, at me and the newly dead. The SSman shooter walked away shouting, kicking at nothing. The regular SSman glared at me with an evil face. The girl came up, and he immediately signaled to her to halt. He was ashamed in front of the mother. As if saying to her, what can I do, they’re animals. Then he said to me, eat now. Eat. He had a low and hateful voice. And I didn’t want the mother to agree to marry him. I was mainly worried about the girl with the braids.
Inside the damp paper was a cooked carrot. I swallowed it, heard march. March.
They waited for me with food every day or two until the first snows fell. I ate sandwiches, cooked vegetables, fruit, and cake, sometimes they gave me an uncooked potato. I’d hide it in my pocket and wait for the moment they’d send me to fix things for the work manager. I had a tin box there. I would pour steam on the gas and cook a potato for myself. For long weeks they waited for me, the mother and the girl, and there was also the regular SSman who laughed with the mother. He didn’t kill me in the evenings at the camp. He didn’t throw me into another group. The regular SSman guarded me from other prisoners with the rifle and it turned out that a German girl saved my life.
I didn’t stop thinking about her for many years. I wanted to meet her after the war. I wanted to pull stars down from the sky for her. Make her a queen. I wanted, wanted. But I didn’t ask her name. I didn’t know that one day, one more day, I’d walk through the snow and no one would be standing there.
Three months went by. We were willing to die in the gas, body and soul.
Israel, 2001
7:35 at the Beit Yehoshua Train Station.
The muzzle of a rifle aimed at me. Yes, aimed at the pelvis. The rifle of a sergeant in the armored corps, by the color and design of the cap on the shoulder. The sergeant’s face is sunburned and he sleeps with his back to a pole, a distance of about four-five meters from me. He looks like coffee on the stove. I miss hot chocolate. Sunburn fattens his lips, a broad jaw, impressive, looks like Kirk Douglas without the dimple in his chin. His hair is cut short, short, and the rifle is pointing straight at me, the magazine inside, ugh. I don’t have the energy for a rifle so early in the morning. Because of the rifles in the morning news I want to change my newspaper. I’m tired of reading it with the first coffee.
No rain, just the smell and fat clouds that hadn’t thinned for an hour. The eucalyptus trees stand tall as if on parade.
I take a small step back.
My ass is cold and I’m on my way to Nahariya. Yitzhak would say, what are you worried about, people have to walk around today with a rifle, hard times in Israel, and he’d laugh, say he was sorry, and get up to make a call about work. Dov would say, trust the soldier, he knows what a rifle is, he’s had training, he can sleep with an automatic in his hand, don’t worry and, in the meantime, why didn’t you go in for a drink. A small espresso?
If he’d asked, I’d have said, there isn’t even a kiosk, and I can’t stop worrying, each day and its own tragedy, and Dov would jump up, not even a tiny kiosk? No, Dov. Yitzhak would say, Beit Yehoshua isn’t important, come and see ours in Nahariya. There we’ve an organized buffet with wafer cookies and juice and sandwiches freshly prepared by the woman every morning, yes. But Yitzhak, how come you know what a train buffet has, you don’t travel by train.
If Yitzhak had heard Dov he’d scratch his neck and say, right. Can’t bear ramps, can’t bear them.
Ramps are a bad place for Jews.
A fast train cuts the wind in the opposite direction. A brief whoosh, and it’s gone. On the opposite platform is a young man in a good suit with a laptop on his knees. His eyes are alerted by a young woman who appears to be successful, judging by her jacket, small mini, nylon stockings and high heels. A cute woman. She notices him, straightens up, sticks out. He stares at her and imm
ediately returns to his computer. Idiot. The cute woman with the mini drops her purse, waits. The laptop closes. The young man gets up, bends down to pick it up and points to the bench. They both sit down. He’s silent. She thinks. He opens the laptop and explains something to her. She has no patience. She pulls a mobile phone out of her bag and taps in a number. He blushes. A female soldier arrives with her rifle and stands to one side. Glances at the computer. She has a question. He’s glad. The soldier peers at the computer, and he explains. The cute woman with the mini closes her phone, glances briefly at the soldier, crosses her legs with an expansive gesture, and then the laptop falls. The young man jumps first and then the soldier. They pick up the computer together, not noticing how pretty the cute woman is when she’s smiling into nowhere.
The train enters the station opposite and the sunburned soldier’s rifle muzzle is still pointing at people in the station. I get up quickly, straighten dark glasses and check the clock. Eight. Where is the train to Nahariya, why should I wait for the sergeant to come in my direction. I just hope he doesn’t fire by mistake like the report in this morning’s newspaper. No reason. Someone was walking along and unintentionally shot someone else.
The train crawled into the station. Everyone pushes forward, I’m dragged forward and smell a sharp after-shave mixed with sweat. His gun presses into my arm, I feel its pressure against my coat. I move my arm, trying to push the gun away, but people are pushing from behind. He sticks to me like Velcro. The door to the carriage is closed. That’s it, I can no longer bear the press. I pull back forcibly, and the sergeant is pressed to a young girl who was standing beside me in a sheep wool coat, and the rifle disappears in the wool.
