Playing for Time (4 page)

The Sign of the Cross

It was a huge, dark, low shed. A thousand women were crammed into the three-tiered wooden shelving, with no more room than one’s slot in the morgue. Indeed it was a sort of morgue; the smell of decay seized you by the throat.

Clara and I, who were among the last, stayed for a few moments by the door. For some reason I thought of the mother and her little girls. Might I meet them again? Foolishly, I questioned the blockowa: “”Please, madame, where are the people who went off in the trucks with the red crosses?“”

My temerity astounded her; she stared at me, weighing me up—was she going to clout me with her hefty club? Boldly, I repeated: “Where are the people who went off in the Red Cross trucks?”

She gave a sort of gurgle of a laugh and, seizing my arm in a viselike hold, forced me to pivot towards the open door: “Look…” She pointed to a low building about fifty yards away, above which rose a stubby chimney. “You see that smoke coming out of that chimney over there? That’s your friends, cooking.”

“All of them?”

“All of them.”

They had not even been given whatever chance the quarantine block offered. The Red Cross trucks had been a lure.

The blockowa kept her grip on my arm; confidentially she thrust her coarse fat face towards me. “That’s where you’ll end up.”

How could one doubt it?

“
Herunter
!” Down! yelled the blockowa.

“We’re going to shit, and high time too,” growled Adele the redhead, leaping down from her bunk.

In line, paddling through the icy mud, shivering in our cotton dresses, we crossed a stretch of camp.

Who could have dreamed up such a place as the latrine hut? It was an enormous hole dug out of the earth, about forty feet deep, surrounded by an irregular border of large stones, plank walls, and a roof. This enormous, funnel-shaped sewer was ringed with wooden bars. No sooner was the door open than, breaking ranks, the girls rushed forward
to
sit on these bars, buttocks exposed. Some, with dysentery, didn’t make it and relieved themselves where they stood, under the blows and insults of the latrine blockowa.

I stared open-mouthed; I had to remember everything of this stinking horror. Perched in this roost about fifty girls were packed together like sick old hens, skeletal, shivering, clinging to their dung-stained bars. Those with long legs could touch the ground with the tips of their toes, but the others, the smaller ones like me, their legs dangling, had to grip the slippery round bar with both hands with all their might. To fall into the pit must have been a most terrible death.

The women from the opposite
coja
looked at Clara and me coldly. We meant nothing to that row of skulls in their various states of filth, coloured by varying degrees of fuzz. Their bony hands, like
birds’ feet,
gripped the wooden frame of the
coja;
in their hollow sockets, their
eyes
shone like candle flames lit inside skulls for some diabolical sabbath. I stared back and anguish rose within me: they became mirrors, they reflected my image. How many days would it take for me to become like them? I’d learned so many things in a few hours, so many illusions had collapsed. Incredibly, with an adroit flick of the wrist, someone would swipe your soup, that vile concoction. Smaller prisoners like myself were at the mercy of the larger; the strong preyed on the weak; they pushed you towards death with utter indifference. Work parties left and were not seen again, the sick were sent to an infirmary known as Revier from which they never returned, without anyone’s being remotely concerned about it. A dead person would spend the night among the living without arousing the slightest interest.

Once again I felt my fear of being swallowed up and digested by this crowd. How could one escape it? Lying on my stomach at the top of the
coja,
with Clara cutting me off from the others, I wanted to close
my
eyes, bury my face in my arms, and no longer see or hear. But it was not possible. We had to keep our heads well away from the soiled, stinking straw mattress which served as common bedding.

Clara had begun to cry. Her sobs redoubled, which was disastrous. I knew I had to talk to her, and I threw out the first words that came into my head: “I’m going to tell you a fairy story.”

It was so bizarre, so unexpected, that Clara gazed at me un-comprehendingly. Quickly I uttered the magic words: “Once upon a time…”

It was a real jumble, and very long: jewels, junketings, romance. The perfumes of Arabia burned at the corners of luxurious divans; rose petals fell as thick as snowflakes, spotless doves flew about in peerless skies. The burning kisses of princes charming would have awakened the mummies in the pyramids. Triumphantly, I concluded: “And they lived happily ever after.”

I looked around me and burst out laughing.

And now I was being taken off to sing Madame Butterfly. It was impossible, it couldn’t be happening; and yet I stumbled out after the monstrous Pole who strode ahead of me. The vicious cold bit at my ears. My feet shrank in my men’s shoes and I sank into the icy snow where the mud sucked at my shoes and held them firm. The Polish woman wasn’t cold, with her warm coat, boots, and head scarf. She was drawing farther away, she was proceeding without looking back. What if I lost track of her? I mislaid a shoe, lodged in the snow. Too bad, I threw off the other too and ran barefoot, a thousand needles of ice piercing my freezing feet. We went out of camp A and into B, where the “notables” lived.

The giant stopped in front of a barracks, turned round, and looked at me distrustfully, incredulously: what if I’d fooled her? Pressing her index finger against my chest so hard as almost to knock me over, she roared:

“You—Madame Butterfly?”

Seized with panic, I yelled back, “Yes—yes, me, Madame Butterfly!”

At the same time I fought back an insane desire to laugh.

A Band of Angels

The Polish woman opened the door and I entered something closely resembling paradise. There was light, and a stove; indeed it was so warm that I could hardly breathe and stood rooted to the spot. Stands, music, a woman on a platform. In front of me pretty girls were sitting, well-dressed, with pleated skirts and jerseys, holding musical instruments: violins, mandolins, guitars, flutes, pipes… and a grand piano lording it over them all.

It couldn’t be possible, it wasn’t happening. I’d gone mad. No, I was dead, and these were the angels. It must have happened while I was crossing the camp, in the snow and mud. I was reassured: “Your journey is done, you have come to the paradise of music; that’s only natural, since that’s your main love. This is your first stopping place; you’re in heaven and you’re going to take your place among these marvellous girls.”

A fair girl with a gentle face came towards me; with a sympathetic hand she wiped away the blood which had run from my mouth and nose, cleaned my face with a damp cloth. Angels are wonderful, I must say. Then she handed me a bit of bread; the bread and salt of the traditional welcome, a gesture which came to me from the mists of charity. I said “Thank you” and these words, already forgotten, filled me with delight. I felt as if I were walking on air as I smilingly proceeded towards the players.

No one spoke, no one moved, but all those charming young ladies were looking at me. It was an exceptional, divine moment. I was on a little cloud of pink cotton wool, I was floating… Then the picture became animated: the conductor, a tall dark-haired woman, dignified and straight-backed, addressed me in precise French with a German accent. “Do you play the piano?”

My “Yes, madame” was uttered with such fervour that it rang out like an alleluia in a cathedral.

“Well then
, go
to the piano and accompany yourself to
Madame Butterfly.”

Barefoot, I went over to the piano. It was a Bechstein, the dream of my life. I climbed onto the stool, put my toes on the pedals and my hands on the ivory of the keyboard, and they made me blush with shame. I wanted to clench my fists, to hide them. It was so long since I’d washed them. But it didn’t matter; I was there.

A lump of gratitude formed in
my
throat; I who didn’t believe in anything felt an obscure desire to thank God. Then the dream lurched into reality: I was there to prove myself. In a few moments I could be rejected, sent back where I came from. After all, these were not angels but women.

Lovingly, my hands made the familiar contact with the black and white keys, and I broke into
Un bel di.
Was Puccini going to save
my
life? Then I sang in German
Wenn es Fruhling wird
(“When Spring Comes”) by Peter Kreuder, its rhythm reminiscent of certain Gypsy dances.

My hands stopped moving but I kept them on the keyboard; as long as they were in contact with it, nothing could happen to me. I caressed the piano; it was my saviour, my love, my life. Against a background of pregnant silence the verdict fell in German:

“Ja, gut!”

Then a
little
more informatively, in French: “I’ll have you in the orchestra.”

A comforting warmth swept over me. I basked in its sweetness: I was in the orchestra. And Clara? I couldn’t abandon her. I’d almost forgotten my promise. My exaltation made me incautious and I ventured, “Madame, madame, I’ve got a friend, Clara, who’s got a marvellous voice. I must
go
and
get
her.”

Faced with the cold, blank stare of those large dark eyes, I lost all sense of proportion. “I won’t stay here without her. I’ll leave, I’ll go back over there…”

I simply didn’t realize what I was saying or the extent of my foolhardiness. For me, a
Nein
would have meant the end of this world. More realistic, the girls looked flabbergasted; had I gone mad? No sign of emotion in the conductor’s expression; she was a German all right. Then she made up her mind, called out: “Zocha.” The female mountain came trotting up servilely. “Go and get Clara from the quarantine block and bring her here.”

While I sat perched on my stool the girls surrounded me, asked me questions I had difficulty in understanding. My mind was on Clara: What if Zocha couldn’t find her, if she’d been sent out on a working party, had fallen into the latrine pit?… Here in Birkenau fate struck suddenly, like lightning; in a few seconds everything could change, irreparable things could happen.

And I saw Clara enter, my Clara waddling like a duck, flabby and fat, so fat. Her physical appearance didn’t concern the conductor, she barely seemed to notice it. What she wanted was a voice, and that Clara had: a positive nightingale, a light soprano, marvellous, rare. Accompanying her, I had no fears, and rightly.

“I’ll have you. I want you both in the orchestra. I’ll tell our chief of camp straight away and get you dressed.”

At a pitch of excitement, the girls crowded around us and we all let out a barrage of questioning like the cheerful cackle of a henhouse. My ear selected names and information, my eyes grasped a face, an expression, the nuance of a look. Ewa, older than the others, was Polish and had gentle grey-blue eyes. I already had a memory connected with her—the touch of her pitying fingers on my face.

A hand pulled me forcefully towards its owner. “I’m Florette. I saw you in Paris.”

She had magnificent green eyes, possessive, jealous and, at the moment, slightly agitated.

“It was you I saw singing at Melody’s.”

“Probably, I have sung there in my time.”

“I thought so. We went there one night with my parents, a year ago. I was seventeen. As you see, I didn’t forget you. But it was Little Irene who told the conductor.”

Irene, who was even smaller than I was, must have been about twenty. She was amazingly pale-skinned, with eyes so dark one could hardly see the iris. Triumphantly, she murmured into my ear: “It was I who recognized you, you know! I’d heard you sing at Drancy; so yesterday, when I saw you in the quarantine block, I went to tell our
kapo,
Alma Rose.”

“There was a quartet with that name led by Rose, first violinist in the Berlin Opera orchestra. I remember hearing them in Paris. He really was an excellent musician.”

“Alma is his daughter.”

“In that case, she must also be the niece of Gustav Mahler, the composer. I remember he was Rose’s brother-in-law.”

“You’re right,” Ewa confirmed. “She’s also a very fine violinist.”

“And they’ve interned her?”

“Don’t let that upset you,” said Florette sarcastically, “her talent doesn’t give her a warm heart. In fact you’ll soon see that there’s no shortage of bitches round here: our blockowa, Tchaikowska, is a pest, particularly with us Jews. As for Pani Founia, the head of the kitchen, another Polack, she’s a real cow! Don’t get the wrong idea—you’re in Auschwitz, in the women’s camp at Birkenau, and it’s no picnic!”

This information disturbed Clara, for whom love of music wasn’t enough; she pressed nervously for further details.

“This is the music block, we’re the Birkenau women’s orchestra. And you’re from France?”

“Yes, from Paris.”

“How many arrived with you?”

“I counted twelve carriages on the train; there must have been about twelve hundred.”

“Fifty women came here, to Birkenau, and fifty men went over to the men’s camp. The other eleven hundred have gone up in smoke. The figures are all too clear.”

“Well,” I observed, “if Clara hadn’t told me to walk, I’d have got into the truck with that woman who called to me. Clara saved my life.”

No one expended any emotion over this fact; things were pretty simple here.

A runner, eyes and nose red from the cold, burst in. From the door, she shouted:
“Achtung!
Mandel’s on her way!”

Everyone froze to attention, and the result was no less impressive than the actual entry of Lagerführerin Mandel, the chief of camp. She was under thirty, very beautiful, tall, slender, and impeccable in her uniform. And there I was in front of her, arms dangling in my ridiculous flowered garden-party dress which hung so strangely, barefoot, my face dirty despite Ewa’s hasty washing, with Clara beside me, equally pathetic. Irene murmured through her teeth that I should stand to attention. This was new ground to me, but I drew myself up stiffly. The Lagerführerin ordered us to stand at ease and feet shuffled, bodies softened. The girls relaxed but didn’t disperse; they were waiting to see what would happen.