Hidden Away (29 page)
did the best I could to remember it. It sounded off and wrong to my ears, but if the commandant didn’t care for it, he said nothing.
I returned to the camp just in time for roll call. Peter stared at me, and I knew he wondered where I had been. Konrad took me after leaving the parade ground, eliminating the opportunity to share my day with Peter. As soon as I was in the dayroom, Konrad backhanded me.
Although it was ridiculous to think about what would have happened had I refused, I said nothing. He pressed my face into the dirty floorboards as he sat on my back. “You stupid, filthy queer! Now you’ve done it.”
He brought my head back, straining my neck as he held me under my chin. I grunted from the pain. “Now you’re on his blotter. We all are now that you’ve been noticed.”
The sex was rough. I had to face him tonight and whenever he felt the urge, he slapped me across the face or covered my mouth and nose. When he wasn’t hitting or suffocating me, his hands gripped my thighs and the force of his hips caused my teeth to gnash.
I received no dinner as he ate my small portion. Shoving me out into the other room, Konrad denied me the opportunity to clean up. At least Peter smiled at me tonight. His eyes told me his head was clear, and that he missed me.
The silent comfort he gave me was most welcomed and needed, but before any of us could get to sleep, Konrad and the room orderlies barged in, shouting and grabbing men from their bunks. Peter was taken from mine, dragged outside by his arms. Although it meant another beating if I was found outside my bed, I ran to the window and watched as Konrad poured water on the chosen men.
My heart sped up as my stomach dropped to the floor. This was a common practice, and now it was Peter’s turn to endure it. I knew he was not selected randomly. He was chosen because I loved him and Konrad knew it. The man I belonged to had tolerated Peter until today, and now because he was upset with me, he would torture Peter.
Emil pulled me away from the window and shoved me back into bed before Konrad reentered the barrack and called us all ass-fucking filthy pigs.
I did not sleep. I worried for Peter until the morning bell rang. Racing to the door while the others made for the water closet, I was grateful to find Peter still standing. I could see the quakes of his body from this distance, but he was still alive. Two other men were not so lucky.
I would be able to clean up before going to the commandant’s office, so I left the others to follow their normal routine while I helped Peter back into the barrack. The other men still standing or on their knees were on their own. I couldn’t care about them. I had no concern left to spare.
To warm Peter up, I brought him next to our bunk and used our blanket to dry him. The water we used to wash would be cold. The only way he would truly get warm was at the quarry. The sun came out most days, and if he could just make it to his midday meal, he would have lukewarm soup.
I dried him as best I could. He remained silent, but his eyes focused on my every movement. When I gazed into them, they were distant. I took a quick glance around. A few were making their way back in, but I didn’t see Konrad. I drew myself close to Peter, hands on his hips. With my ear pressed against his chest, I could hear his slow heartbeat and new rattle in his lungs as he breathed.
I pulled away. Peter gathered up the blanket and spread it back out again on the bunk. The twisting movement caused him to cough. All the prisoners around us looked as he heaved. I ignored them and their expressions. They didn’t know Peter. He would survive this.
He kept gasping for short breaths, his chest rising and falling in a spasm. I placed my hand in the center of his breast and pressed it into him. He took it within his and squeezed.
Finally, when he regained his composure, he brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. Turning my head, I hoped Konrad wasn’t watching.
“One day I’ll take you to France,” Peter said. His whispered words brought my attention back to him. “France in July is like heaven, I think.”
“July? Peter, it’s your birthday.” It wasn’t his actual birthday, but if it was July, it was close enough.
If he wanted to respond, he couldn’t. Konrad came in barking, so I pulled my hand away and lined up to march to roll call. I was in front of Peter, but I could hear his rasp as he forced his body to move to the square. Through the corner of my eye, I could see him swaying as he stood in line. Hats off, hats on nearly sent him sprawling, but I was glad he remained upright.
“I’ll care for him,” Emil said before they turned toward the quarry. His arm moved around Peter’s small waist, and together they hobbled away from me.
At the SS offices, I cleaned myself and wore my prison uniform since it was still clean from yesterday. I played for hours, only stopping for a meal. It was much better than I received with the orchestra, and far better than at the quarry. Bread, sausage, and real coffee.
I was happy to have had such a good lunch because Konrad ate my evening meal. My time with him was unpleasant. He was unnecessarily rough with me, and after, he hit me as he sat on my chest again. “If I find either of you queers touching each other, I will kill the both of you. Don’t think me stupid.”
He accentuated the word “queers” with a hard smack, and demonstrated what he could do by wrapping his large hands around my neck. Just when the world darkened, he released me. He stood, gathered me by my shirt and pulled up. “I could’ve had anyone, but I chose you. You cost me a fortune, and I won’t have you giving away what’s mine.”
Konrad threw me into a wall. I came crashing down on the small table, the edge sticking me in the side, knocking the wind from me. When he was finished, he ran his hands over my backside, our chests pressed together. “Remember,” he said into my ear, “I’ll kill him and make you watch.”
Peter was already in the bunk when I returned to him. I knew our room elders were watching, waiting to give Konrad updates, so instead of lying with him as I wanted, I sat on the edge of the bunk, legs hanging down. “Peter?”
His grunt was the only way I knew he heard my quiet voice. Each time he exhaled, his chest rumbled and a groan escaped with the breath. After lights out, I lay with him, careful not to touch him in an obvious manner for fear of being discovered. My hands were clasped in front of me, which pressed my knuckles to his back.
His request made my heart jump and my stomach tighten. If he was thinking about the hospital barrack, he must’ve been aware of his sickness. “No. You are fine.”
“Queers don’t come back from there.” “You won’t go, I promise.”
With much effort, Peter flipped onto the other side, facing me. I wriggled back, giving him more room, but crowding our bunkmates. They flipped over. Peter did not look well, but I convinced myself it was just the poor lighting creating shadows on his face.
“Don’t listen to Emil. He doesn’t know everything. They’ve placed me with the commandant now. I play piano.” Carefully touching his chest, I gave him a small smile. “He lets me play the forbidden songs you shared with me.”
Peter reached up and twisted his fingers with mine. “Those are ours. Don’t share them with Nazis.”
“I have no choice. But I’ll speak with him. I’ll get you into the orchestra. We can move to their barrack, and Konrad won’t—”
Anything either of us was going to say after that was taken as he seized in a fit of coughing. I turned my back on him as I knew the episode would bring the orderlies out of their bunks to investigate. I felt warm wetness on my neck, and when I was sure no one was watching, I brought my hand up.
“Don’t let them take me to the sick barrack,” he said once more before dropping off into slumber.
Peter was beaten in the morning by one of the orderlies. The only reason given was his coughing keeping everyone awake all night. I had no time to ask the commandant about Peter and the orchestra, and besides that, I was too frightened. That evening Konrad let me eat my soup, but took my bread. When I rejoined Peter, Emil told me the orderly who had beaten him had stolen his food because “dead men don’t eat.”
The next day was the same, except Peter was beaten in the evening instead of the morning. The day after that, it was Konrad who backhanded him into the ground and kicked him in the stomach. He left Peter on the floor and dragged me to the dayroom.
When I didn’t perform as well as he wanted, Konrad grabbed my throat, bringing me back hard against him. “Distracted, are you?”
His mouth was close to my ear when he asked, “Does he fuck better than me?”
“It’s not like that. I just play piano.”
With his hand on my throat and one on my back, he positioned me how he wanted. “Be loud. Be so loud all your filthy lovers can hear.”
Konrad smacked me hard or pulled my head back sharply each time he thrust into me and I was either silent or too quiet. The pain drove me to comply with his demand. I shouted and moaned as loud as I could, hoping that somehow Peter couldn’t hear me.
In our bunk, his mouth said nothing, but his eyes said everything. He looked so tired, but he kept his gaze on me until his eyelids slid closed.
Two weeks after my first day in the commandant’s office, things changed. “Play ‘Die Fahne hoch’,” he said.
It took me by surprise since he’d never asked for patriotic songs before. Usually he wanted to hear the music made illegal by the Reich, but today he wanted “The Flag on High,” the Nazi party’s anthem.
When I began, I felt him move up behind me, hands on my shoulders. I dropped my hands to my lap at the end of the song, but he said, “Again.”
I could feel his hardened length pressing against my spine, and he moved his hands to my short hair. He trailed them over my cheek, down my collar bone in such a way that conveyed a kind of tenderness. I had not been touched in this way for a long time.
I did not enjoy it.
I
could
not enjoy it.
But I realized the necessity of it. I couldn’t stop it from happening. If I tried, this man would be no different than my barrack kapo. I would be beaten, or worse, killed for refusing.
I let him twist my shoulders and turn me around. I took him inside of me for my survival and for Peter’s.
Konrad guessed at my infidelity that same evening. “He fucked you, didn’t he? How was it? Did he make you cry out in pleasure?”
This time I remained quiet. What did he think I could do if the commandant wanted me for a lover? I had no power; I could do nothing but comply, the same as I had done with him.
In the morning, both Peter and I lingered in the bunk as long as we could. The others all hurried to the water closet, but the two of us were aching. Peter doubled over coughing. When he was finished, I placed a hand on his lower back and guided him outside for a bit of fresh air.
He fixed his gaze up to the sky. I turned to see what it was that caught his eye and found I was looking at the smoke rising from the crematorium. “We’ll get out of here,” I said. “And we’ll—”
I turned just in time to see Konrad launch himself toward us. Peter, weak from malnutrition, daily beating, and the punishment of a soaked night in the cold, twisted quickly and took ahold of the barrack elder, using his own momentum against Konrad. Before I knew it, Konrad was on the ground with Peter on top of him. There was a rock in his hand and he brought it down again and again against Konrad’s head.
When the shock wore off, I grew frightened and pulled Peter from the body. His hands were bloody as I pried the rock from them. I scooped up mud and rubbed it all over his hands, hiding the red, then left him standing as I used all the strength I had left to pull Konrad’s lifeless body between the barracks.
As far as I could tell, no one saw, and if I could clean Peter up, no one would know. The roll call bell was sounding as I returned to him. I grabbed his dirty hand and weaved through the prisoners moving out from the barrack. At the sink, I used the cold water to rinse the mud and blood from his hands as quickly as possible, then dried them on my tunic.
“Do you hear that, Kurt?”
“What?” I asked, stopping my movements. He smiled. “It’s a symphony. For us.”
I pushed back my worry as I scrubbed my own hands. I pulled him along, and we rejoined our group before they reached the square. Everyone was looking around, presumably for Konrad, as one of the room orderlies led us. In the confusion, Peter and I were able to slip into line without notice.
Our numbers didn’t add up, so every prisoner in the camp stood at attention until finally a guard dragged Konrad’s body by the foot into the square, laying him out in front. No one would work today. We stood at attention for four hours before the commandant came out.
He stood staring down at the body, his high cheekbones looking sharper as the sun hit him. After his deputy shouted for the prisoner responsible to come forward, the commandant shrugged and kicked Konrad’s leg before stepping over him. Before he left the square, he turned and scanned the yard until his eyes came upon me. It was only after we held each other’s gaze for what felt like long minutes that he turned and left the parade ground.
We stood in the square all day. The SS shot men who fell out of line or moved just a little. They shot prisoners who were slow to pull the hats from their heads. To my relief, Peter remained still and took his hat off promptly when it was time again and again.
