“They were told to get inside. And that was when the unfettered panic started. Very often the stragglers got the message. They fought, but bayonets silenced their concerns.
“The doors were locked. The signal was given. The engine started. The show was over.”
Mykhail stared, almost looking through Asher. Asher took a deep breath and continued.
“I stood at the top of the Himmelstrasse and spent a few minutes doing nothing but looking all around. I wanted to take in the atmosphere. I guess it was a way to connect. I was standing on the very spot where my papa, my mama, and my two sisters last lived—where their hearts gave out their final beats. I like to think there was a little of them with me that day. It was nice. It gave me a little peace.
“Then I returned to the museum building, this time a little more collected of thoughts and calm of nerve, venturing farther along the exhibits. I stopped in front of a display of photographs. Very, very few must have survived. The Nazis tried to obliterate absolutely everything, but one or two people with a conscience—or perhaps with a view to making money—held on to some rare items.
“It was then that I saw it. At first it was merely another one of those wrinkled brown photographs that can be so amusing in different circumstances. But I wasn’t in the mood to be amused, of course. I found the whole display very sad. These were all real people—guards, helpers, prisoners. They once had loves and aspirations. All long gone. Most of them.
“One photograph kept pulling my eyes toward it. The young man’s face was pointing at the camera. He was almost posing, yet somehow you could tell he was ashamed. I was sure I recognized him, and my mind went back to those days of hell and dread. My mind went through my fellow Totenjuden one by one, and also the guards I got to know. Then I had a realization I didn’t want to have. I knew, but didn’t want to know. My whole world wanted this to be a mistake on my part, but I knew it wasn’t.”
Asher could feel Mykhail’s stare from across the kitchen table, almost willing him to stop talking. He didn’t. He couldn’t.
“I had to put on my reading glasses to take a better look, to examine the old photo. It was small, old, and very faint, but the scar under the left eye was definitely there. I couldn’t deny it, although I wanted to. As my mind burned, I collapsed and needed help. They had to bring a wheelchair to collect me, and I was taken to a first-aid center of sorts. They were very kind, but I didn’t say anything to explain my episode because I couldn’t; my mind was elsewhere.”
Asher leaned across the table and grabbed Mykhail’s shirtsleeve, pulling and grasping. “That’s why I need to know, and I’m not leaving this house until you tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Mykhail. Please. Stop playing for time. I just need to hear it. I need to hear what the charges brought against you in ’97 were.”
The table jolted as Mykhail pulled his arm away from Asher’s grasp. His cheeks flushed a little. “I told you,” he barked. “No charges were ever brought against me.”
“Okay, okay. So I mean allegations. What were the allegations?”
“Does it matter? It was just one man’s word, which my attorney discredited immediately. They decided very quickly there was insufficient evidence to proceed with the case.”
“But clearly enough evidence for you to get legal people involved.”
“Asher, please. The whole thing was a complete fabrication of an unbalanced mind. It was a stupid nonsense story made up by some deluded old man.”
Asher paused, taking a few calming breaths. “I need to know. Okay, so it was nonsense, I believe you. Just tell me what this deluded old man said.”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
“Honestly?”
“It matters enough for me to track down the man or the journalist on the case or do whatever is necessary to get to the truth.”
Mykhail lowered his voice. “You would go that far? Seriously?”
Asher nodded.
“You trust me that little?”
“Tell me, Mykhail! For God’s sake, just tell me!”
Mykhail thought for a few seconds, then nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. If you really need to know, the allegations were that I was a member of staff at a Nazi concentration camp.”
“At which camp?”
“I don’t know.”
“What?”
“Does it matter? I was never there anyway. They were no more than nasty allegations.”
“But you must remember the details, if only the name of the camp?”
“I’ve forgotten.”
“You can’t have. Tell me which camp, Mykhail. Just tell me!”
“What does it matter?”
“Just tell me, Mykhail. For God’s sake, TELL ME!” Asher threw his glass onto the floor, where it shattered.
“Okay, so it was Treblinka. But remember, no charges were ever brought against me. They couldn’t prove the allegations were true, because they weren’t. Are you happy now?” Mykhail sat back and folded his arms.
Asher nodded slowly, as though weighing up the odds. Then he lifted his head up and leaned forward. “Mykhail. I need to know. I need you to be honest with me.” He gulped and beckoned Mykhail closer. “What I’m saying is . . . I need you to look me in the eye and tell me you were never at Treblinka, tell me that isn’t you in the photograph—the photograph that’s now displayed there.”
Mykhail nodded. “Very well.” He leaned closer, so his face was inches from Asher’s. “All right. I have never, ever been to Treblinka.” He sat back and folded his arms again. “Is that good enough for you?”
Asher’s face trembled, his lower lip not knowing what to do with itself. “Oh God,” he muttered.
Mykhail stayed silent.
“Oh. My. God.” Asher stayed there, his eyes locked onto Mykhail’s.
The two men stared at each other.
“What?” Mykhail snapped eventually. “What?”
“LIAR!”
“How can you say that?”
Asher stood up, let the chair fall over, and took a step back. “Mykhail Petrenko, I know you like nobody else does—nobody on the planet—and I know when you’re lying.”
“Bullshit you do.”
“Yes. I do.”
“So now you can read my mind?”
“Don’t, Mykhail, just don’t. Please. It was the same when we went fishing together all those years ago and you told those men we hadn’t caught anything, and it was the same when you told your papa you put up a fight against them. And a hundred other times. I can’t describe it, but I know that expression on your face. I know, okay. So please, don’t try to deny it any longer.”
Mykhail sighed and covered his face with his hands. He stayed like that for a few minutes, then muttered, “Look. It wasn’t—”
“DON’T LIE TO ME!” Asher shouted, so loudly he brought on a coughing fit.
Mykhail stayed silent while Asher recovered and spoke again.
“You know, for many years my soul died just a little bit more whenever people tried to replace the truth with wretched falsehood. But I’ve mellowed. The fire in my belly is merely a handful of glowing embers. But please, Mykhail, don’t lie to me. At least, not about this. I know for sure you lied about your parents. You never did go back to Dyovsta when the war ended, did you?”
Mykhail stared at Asher for a few seconds, then looked away. “You know how much that hurts? Knowing if things had been different I could have seen them again?” He shook his head wearily. “But I couldn’t go back. It just wasn’t possible.”
“So it was you in that photograph.”
Their eyes locked, then Mykhail tilted his head to one side and gave a disconsolate shrug. “What are you going to do?” he said quietly.
“Well . . .” Asher picked up the chair and gently sat down at the table again. “The first thing I’m going to do is listen.”
Mykhail looked up, puzzled. “Listen?”
�
��I need to know for myself, Mykhail. I need you to tell me exactly what happened.”
“And then what?”
“Look, I give you my word I won’t go to the police or the newspapers. I just want to know the truth—how you ended up there.”
Mykhail bowed his head and said nothing.
“Mykhail, we’re brothers in all but blood. You have to tell me the truth.”
“I . . . I . . .” Mykhail groaned and stood up. He stepped over to the sink, splashed his face with cold water a few times.
“Trying to cleanse your soul?” Asher said quietly.
Mykhail sat back down before replying. “You promise you won’t tell the authorities?”
“Oh, Mykhail. That’s not why I’m doing this. You were my best friend up until we parted in ’36, and then again since ’97, and you remain my best friend despite this. If it’s important to you, I promise I won’t do anything to get you arrested or put your name in the newspapers again. Apart from anything else I’d . . .”
Mykhail looked up at him, saw his lower jaw shaking a little.
“It’s true,” Asher continued. “I wouldn’t want to see you locked up, and . . . I’d miss you.”
Mykhail exhaled long and hard. “Thank you,” he said. “So . . . I guess I owe you an explanation.”
“Mykhail, you owe the world an explanation.”
“Well, let me tell you—tell you the whole story. The complete truth.”
“I’d be forever grateful. I only want to understand, nothing more.”
Mykhail drew breath. “Everything I’ve told you up until I became incarcerated in the POW camp in Kiev is the truth. Now I’ll tell you what really happened there, how I got out.”
“That’s all I want—everything you can remember.”
“Remember?” He shook his head. “Believe me, Asher, it’s a door I’ve kept firmly locked all these years. Keeping it locked has been harder than you could ever imagine, but I’ve always known what’s lurking behind it, those awful memories scratching at the other side like a rabid dog.” He covered his face for a few seconds with his hands, then sighed and said, “All right. This is what happened. The truth.”
He swallowed half his apple juice in one gulp, took a few seconds to prepare himself, then started speaking again.
“I was offered a deal. I had no idea what it was, except that it would get me out of that wretched camp.”
“A deal?”
“I only found out much later what the deal was. Does the word “Trawniki” mean anything to you?”
Asher nodded slowly. “Go on.”
“I had very little choice, believe me. I was shunted around and told what to do. And I ended up at Treblinka.”
“Treblinka. I see. And . . . what did you do there?”
“I . . . I looked after one of the engines.”
“Engines?”
“The engines that produced the fumes.”
Asher slowly slid both of his hands over his head. “Dear God,” he breathed.
“You have to understand—”
“SHUT UP!”
Neither man said anything for some time. Eventually, Mykhail spoke slowly and quietly, as if his words could injure.
“I’m sure you know what that job entailed. And afterward, when they closed the place down and disbanded the Trawnikis, the men were largely free to wander the streets and make their own way as they saw fit. I walked for miles and hitched lifts, got casual labor in Berlin. I knew the story. I couldn’t go back to Ukraine. Trawnikis were classified as traitors, and either executed or sent to the gulags. So I bought myself a new life here. I had no idea what had happened to my parents, and as horrible as it sounds, I tried my best to forget about them. Registering as Michael Peterson when I disembarked at New York helped with that.”
Mykhail glanced at Asher once or twice, but couldn’t look for long.
Asher cleared his throat. “Excuse me if I haven’t fully listened to the rest of your lies.”
“That was the truth,” Mykhail said. “On my daughter’s life.”
“So, the truth is,” Asher said, “that you collaborated with the Nazis.”
“I collaborated against the Russians.”
“But that means you collaborated against the Jews too, surely?”
“Look. I would have died in that POW camp if I hadn’t become a Trawniki, and I would have been shot if I’d refused to do as the other Trawnikis. You know it and I know it. It was the lesser of two evils. I thought it might lead to the overthrowing of the Russians—to Ukrainian independence.”
“That’s your defense?”
“Have you forgotten the Holodomor? What the Russians did?”
“That’s hardly an excuse. And it’s—”
“Do you know how many Ukrainians died in the Holodomor? Have you read up on it? It was easily a million or more. A million or more—systematically starved to death by Stalin in the early thirties.” He prodded a crooked finger toward Asher and then to himself. “Our parents protected us, but it could so easily have been us, Asher—you and me and our families dying in the early thirties, long before Hitler did his worst.”
“Like you say, that all happened a long time before Treblinka.”
“It’s still important, Asher. It’s part of who I am, what motivated me. And . . . and there’s something else you don’t know.”
“More lies?” Asher said, frowning. The frown softened. “I’m sorry. Go on.”
“Soon after you left Dyovsta, when I was about fourteen, I asked Mama why I was an only child. She said she couldn’t have any more children.”
“And?”
“Years later, Papa told me the real reason. He spoke with tears in his eyes. After I was born, Mama put off having more children because of the hostilities with the Russians. She waited for as long as she could, then tried in the early thirties. She miscarried due to malnutrition—the Holodomor . . . that Russian abomination. So she tried again the next year, with the same results, and she was too traumatized to ever try again. The Russians made me an only child, Asher. It was as if they killed my unborn siblings. Think how that made me feel when I was a young man.”
Asher scowled. “Okay, that’s sad and horrible, but you think it excuses you siding with the Nazis?”
“You weren’t in Ukraine at the time—when the Nazis invaded. If you sided with the Russians you joined the Red Army. If you sided with the Germans you joined the SS. If you wanted to be Ukrainian you were killed by either the Russians or the Nazis. The whole thing was a devil’s mess.”
“And have you conveniently forgotten Babi Yar? You were in Kiev at the time. You must have known. What was it? Over thirty thousand innocent Jews rounded up and shot dead in a few bloody hours of butchery by Hitler’s henchmen?”
“Yes. I was in Kiev at the time. In a POW camp.”
“But you were there.”
“And you weren’t, Asher. You weren’t. The world knows about Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz, and not without good cause, but that POW camp was every bit as horrific—a disgusting, festering boil on the face of humanity. Starvation, disease, random beatings and shootings were all common, and the Nazis showed as much hatred for us as they did for any Jew. An ocean of men stretched over the horizon. In that and many other POW camps, millions of Ukrainians died, all with families and hopes for a normal life. So yes, I heard the rumors about Babi Yar. But do you honestly think that was important to me at the time? Me, rotting and diseased, living in a crowded field with hundreds of thousands of other rotting and diseased people?”
“And so you volunteered to kill people?”
“I had to take sides. Surely you can see I had to do that to survive. Yes, it sounds terrible in this day and age of plentiful food and shelter. But history doesn’t know the future, Asher. History doesn’t know the future. Context is everything. So it turned out I exchanged one form of hell for another. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“The right thing for yourself?”
&nb
sp; Mykhail nodded defiantly. “Of course for myself. Don’t forget, you said you were a Totenjude—a Jew of death. I was there, remember. I know what you did. You helped kill too. Wasn’t that self-preservation?”
Asher’s voice dropped a little. His thin lips drew back to reveal gritted teeth. “There was a difference, Mykhail. I was ordered at gunpoint; you volunteered.”
“You think I haven’t wrestled with my memories over the years? You think my mind didn’t spin around on a thousand sleepless nights, wondering whether I could have done anything different?”
“So you regret it?”
“That’s not the point, goddammit! We both know who was really to blame—the people who had real power and real choice. The point is, I’ve suffered because of what I did. I still do suffer, and my poor daughter shares some of that suffering, even though she doesn’t know it. But do you really think what I did was a free choice?”
“It depends. Knowing what you know now, do you still think you did the right thing?”
Mykhail shrugged and wiped his eyes. “Now?” He gave his head a slow shake. “Now I can’t do anything about it.”
Both men were silent for a few moments, neither looking at the other.
“Okay,” Asher said eventually. “Yes, of course I can understand, to a point. But part of the reason I feel so bad is because you’ve been lying to me all this time.”
“Well, I didn’t tell you the whole truth.”
“You lied about why you came to America. You couldn’t go back to Russia or Ukraine because you would have been considered a traitor.”
“I told you the truth. I could have stayed in Germany, but I came to America because I wanted something better for my life. I wanted to get away from the chaos of Europe. I assumed my family were all dead and wanted to do the best for myself—and for their memory.”
Beyond the Shadow of Night Page 30
