Spark of Life (47 page)

Bucher walked as slow and erect as he could across the roll-call ground to the barbed-wire fence that separated the women’s barracks from the Small camp. He leaned against it. “Ruth.”

She stood on the other side. The setting sun colored her face, giving it a semblance of health as though she’d had many good meals behind her. “Here we stand,” said Bucher. “Here we stand, in the open, and for once are not worried.”

She nodded. A faint smile passed over her face. “Yes. For the first time.”

“As though it were a garden fence. We can lean against it and talk to each other. Without fear. Like a garden fence in spring.”

Nevertheless, they were not without fear. Every few moments they glanced behind them and over towards the unoccupied towers. It was too deeply rooted in them. They knew it. They also knew they had to overcome it. They smiled at one another and each one tried to hold out longer than the other without casting a hasty glance to the side.

Others began imitating them. Whoever could, got up and walked around. Some approached the barbed wire closer than was allowed—so close that the guards would have fired had they been there. In this they found a strange satisfaction. It seemed childish, and was anything but childish. They moved about cautiously as though on wooden legs, some swayed and had to hold on to something; heads were raised, the eyes in the wasted faces no longer stared at the ground or into the void—they began to see again. Something almost forgotten moved in their brains—painfully, alarmingly and yet almost nameless. Thus they wandered across the ground, past the mounds of dead, past the groups of listless comrades who were dying or only just able to move or think of
food—a ghostly promenade of skeletons in whom, in spite of everything, the last resistance had not died.

The red glow of the setting sun faded. Blue shadows spread over the valley, inundating the hills. The guards had still not returned. The night grew deeper. Bolte didn’t appear for the evening roll call. Lewinsky brought news; the SS quarters were buzzing with activity. The Americans were expected within a day or two. The transport was not to be rounded up tomorrow. Neubauer had driven into town. Lewinsky grinned, showing all his teeth. “Not long now! I must go back!” He took with him three of the hidden men.

The night was very calm. It grew vast and was filled with stars.

THE NOISE BEGAN
toward morning. At first 509 heard the screaming. It came from afar through the silence. It was not the screaming of people being tortured; it was the bawling of a drunken mob.

Shots rang out. 509 felt for his revolver. He had it under his shirt. He tried to hear whether it was only the SS who were firing or whether Werner’s men were already returning the fire. Then came the barking of a tommy gun.

He crept behind a pile of dead and watched the entrance to the Small camp. It was still dark and so many single dead lay strewn all around the pile that it was easy for him to join them without appearing conspicuous.

The bawling and shooting continued for several minutes. Then it suddenly grew louder and came nearer. 509 pressed himself closer to the corpses. He could see the red bursts from the machine guns. Bullets spattered everywhere. Half a dozen SS-men came firing down the central road. They fired into the barracks on both sides. Off and on stray bullets thumped softly into the heaps of dead. 509 lay flat and fully covered on the ground.

On every side prisoners raised themselves like frightened birds. They fluttered with their arms and tottered aimlessly about. “Lie down!” shouted 509. “Lie down! Play dead! Don’t move!”

Some heard him and let themselves fall. Others stumbled toward the barracks and got jammed together in the doors. Most of those who were lying outside stayed where they were.

The group of SS-men came past the latrine toward the Small camp. The gate was wrenched open. In the dark 509 could see their silhouettes and in the flashes from the revolvers their distorted faces. “Come here!” someone shouted. “Here, to the wooden barracks! Come, let’s warm the brothers up! They’re probably freezing! Come on!”

“Get going, Steinbrenner. Bring the cans along!”

509 recognized Weber’s voice. “Look, there are some in front of the door!” shouted Steinbrenner.

The tommy guns spattered into the dark crowd before the door. It slowly collapsed. “Well done! And now let’s start!”

509 heard a gurgling sound as though water were being poured out. He could see dark cans being swung back, and out of them came liquid which splashed high over the walls. Then he smelled the gasoline.

Weber’s elite troop had been celebrating its departure. Around midnight the order to pull out had come through and most of the troops had soon marched off; Weber and his lot, however, still had enough schnapps left to get properly drunk. Not liking the idea of simply pulling out, they had decided to storm through the camp once again. Weber had given them instructions to take cans of gasoline along. They intended leaving behind them a blazing beacon that would be remembered for many a day.

They could not do anything to the buildings not made of wood, but in the old Polish barrack they found everything they desired.

“Fire magic! Let’s go!” shouted Steinbrenner joyfully.

A match flared up; the next moment a whole box went on fire. The man holding it flung it to the ground. Another one threw a second box into a can that stood close to the barrack. It didn’t catch fire. From the bright red flame of the first box, however, a thin blue streak darted over the ground toward the barrack, up the wall, spread out fanwise and gaseous, then widened into a quivering blue surface. At first it didn’t look dangerous, giving the impression rather of a cold electric discharge, thin and fluttering, which would quickly die down. But then a crackling started and in the blue fluttering toward the roof appeared orange heart-shaped kernels of fire—flames.

The door opened ajar. “Shoot down anyone coming out!” commanded Weber.

He had a tommy gun under his arm and was firing. A figure in the doorway fell backward. Bucher, thought 509. Ahasver. They slept close to the door. An SS-man sprang forward, flung aside the bodies still lying before the door, slammed the door to, and sprang back. “Now it can start! Hare hunting!” Sheaves of fire shot up high. Through the bawling of the SS-men the screams of the prisoners could be heard. The door of the next section opened. Men came tumbling out. Their mouths were black holes. Shots rang out. Not one prisoner got through. They piled up before the entrance like a heap of twitching spiders.

At first 509 had lain as though paralyzed. Now he cautiously raised himself. He saw the silhouettes of the SS-men clearly outlined against the flames. He saw Weber standing there, legs wide apart. Slow now, he thought, while everything in him trembled. Slow now, one thing after the other. He took out the revolver from under his shirt. Then, in a short silence between the bawling of the SS and the hissing of the fire, he heard the screams of the prisoners
louder than before. It was a high, inhuman screaming. Without thinking, he aimed at Weber’s back and fired.

He didn’t hear the shot ring out among the other shots. Nor did he see Weber fall. And suddenly he realized he hadn’t felt the kick of the weapon in his hand. It was as though his heart had been struck a blow with a hammer. The revolver hadn’t gone off.

He wasn’t aware that he was biting into his lip. Impotence plunged over him like night, he kept biting and biting so as not to drown in the black fog. Probably gotten wet, useless—tears, salt, rage, a last groping—and then suddenly the relief, the fast gliding of the hand over the smooth surface, a small lever that gave at last, and a flowing, flowing—the revolver’s safety catch hadn’t been released.

He was in luck. Not one of the SS-men had turned around. They expected nothing from his direction. They stood there and bellowed and kept the doors under fire. 509 raised the weapon to his eyes. In the flickering brightness he could see that the safety catch was now released. His hands were still trembling. He leaned over the mound of dead and supported his arms on them to steady himself. He aimed with both hands. Weber was standing some ten paces in front of him. 509 breathed slowly several times. Then he held his breath, made his arms as rigid as possible, and slowly crooked his finger.

The shot was drowned in the other shots. But 509 had felt the kick very distinctly. He fired once more. Weber stumbled forward, turned half round as though immensely surprised, and then his knees gave way. 509 went on firing. He aimed at the next SS-man who held a tommy gun under his arm. He went on pressing the trigger long after the bullets had been spent. The SS-man didn’t fall. For an instant 509 stood there, the revolver in his limp hand. He had expected to be shot at once. But in all the turmoil no one
had noticed him. He let himself drop to the ground behind the pile of dead.

At this moment one of the SS-men caught sight of Weber. “Hi!” he shouted. “Storm Leader!”

Weber had been standing a few feet behind them and they had not immediately noticed what had happened. “Storm Leader! What’s wrong?”

“He’s wounded!”

“Who did it? Which of you?”

“Storm Leader!”

It hadn’t occurred to them that Weber could have been hit by anything but a stray bullet. “Damn it, which idiot—”

More shots rang out. But this time they came from the direction of the labor camp. Their flashes could be seen. “The Americans!” shouted one of the SS-men. “Get out! Scram!”

Steinbrenner fired in the direction of the latrine.

“Scram! To the right! Across the roll-call ground!” shouted someone. “Quick! Before they cut us off here!”

“The Storm Leader!”

“We can’t drag him along!”

The flashes from the direction of the latrine came closer. “Quick! Away!”

The SS-men ran round the burning barrack, firing as they went. 509 got up. He staggered toward the barrack. Once he fell. Then he pushed open the door. “Come out! They’re gone!”

“They’re still shooting.”

“That’s us. Come out! Out!”

He stumbled to the next door and began dragging at arms and legs. “Come out! They’re gone!”

Figures broke through the door, stumbling over those on the ground. 509 hurried on. The door of Section A was already on fire.
He couldn’t get near it. He yelled and yelled, heard shots, a sound of crashing, a piece of burning wood dropped from the roof onto his shoulder, he fell, stumbled up again, felt a violent blow, and came to sitting on the ground. He tried to get up but he couldn’t. He heard shouts and saw, as though from very far, people—suddenly a crowd, no longer SS, but prisoners, carrying other prisoners and stumbling over him; he managed to creep away. He had no strength left. He was suddenly tired to death. He wanted to be out of everyone’s way. He hadn’t hit the SS-man. Maybe not even Weber properly. It had been in vain. He had failed.

He crept on. There was the pile of dead. That’s where he belonged. He wasn’t worth anything. Bucher dead. Ahasver dead. He should have let Bucher do it. Should have given him the revolver. It would have been better. What, now, had he been good for?

He leaned painfully against the pile. Something was hurting him. He drew his hand across his chest and raised it. There was blood on it. He saw it and it didn’t make any impression on him. He was no longer himself. All he could still feel was the heat and hear the screams. Then they too faded away.…

He woke up. The barrack was still burning. It smelled of burned wood and charred flesh and putrefaction. The heat had warmed the corpses. They had been lying there for days and begun to drip and stink.

The terrible screaming had ceased. An endless procession of prisoners was carrying away scorched and half-burned survivors. Somewhere 509 heard Bucher’s voice. So he wasn’t dead after all. Then not everything had been in vain. He glanced round. After a while he noticed something move beside him. It was some while before he recognized it. It was Weber.

He lay on his stomach. He had succeeded in creeping behind the pile of dead before Werner and his men arrived. They hadn’t noticed
him. One of his legs was pulled up and his arms were outstretched. Blood flowed from his mouth. He was still alive.

509 tried to raise one hand. He wanted to call someone but he was too weak. His throat was parched. Only a rasping sound came out of it. The crackling of the burning barrack drowned it.

Weber had noticed 509’s hand move. His eyes followed it. Then they met those of 509. Both looked at each other.

509 didn’t know whether Weber recognized him. Nor did he know what these eyes opposite him were saying. He just felt that his eyes had to hold out longer than those before him. He had to outlive Weber. In a strange way it was suddenly infinitely important—as though the validity of everything in which he had always believed, and for which he had fought and suffered, depended on that ember of life behind his forehead smoldering longer than the ember behind the forehead in front of him. It was like a duel and a divine judgment. If he could hold out now, then that which had been so important for him that he had risked his life for it, would also hold out. It was like one last effort. Once more it had been put into his hands—and he had to succeed.