Spark of Life (7 page)

In the twilight there had already been a battle between the labor gangs over the different limbs; especially, of course, over the heads. Each block wanted to be as complete as possible to avoid the severe penalties meted out for incomplete reports. They had snatched and fought over the bloody pieces until the command “Halt!” had sounded. In the general haste the block seniors had not been able
to organize anything; as a result, two bodies had been missing. The bomb had probably smashed them to smithereens which had been blown over the walls or were lying in scraps on the roof of the copper foundry.

The report leader came over to Weber. “Now only one and a half are missing. The Russians had three legs for one man and the Poles one arm too many.”

Weber yawned. “Call the names and make sure who is missing.”

A barely perceptible swaying passed through the lines of prisoners. The name-calling meant that they would have to stand for another hour or two, if not longer—among the Russians and the Poles, who understood no German, errors involving their names continuously occurred.

The calling began. Voices fluttered up; then revilings and beatings were heard. The SS were irritated and started flogging because they were losing their free time. The kapos and block seniors flogged out of fear. Here and there men toppled over and black pools of blood spread slowly under the wounded. Their gray-white faces grew more pointed and gleamed deathly in the deep dusk. They glanced up resignedly at their comrades, who stood at attention, hands to their sides, and could not help those bleeding to death. For some, this forest of dirty zebra legs was the last they saw of the world.

The moon crept up behind the crematorium. The air was turbid, and the moon had a wide halo. For a while it stood immediately behind the chimney and its light shimmered above it so that it looked as if ghosts were being burned in the ovens and cold fire was flaring out of it. Then it slowly became more and more visible, and now the blunt chimney was a mine thrower firing a red ball straight into the sky.

In Block Thirteen’s first column of ten stood the prisoner Goldstein. He was the last man on the left wing, and near him lay the block’s wounded and dead. One of the wounded was Goldstein’s friend Scheller. He lay close beside him. Out of the corner of his eye, Goldstein noticed that the black pool under Scheller’s shattered leg was suddenly spreading much faster than before. The scanty bandage had come undone and Scheller was bleeding to death. Goldstein nudged his neighbor, Muenzer; then he let himself topple over sideways as if he had fainted. He arranged it so that he fell half across Scheller.

What he did was dangerous. The enraged SS block leader circled around the lines like a snapping police dog. One good kick of his heavy boot against the temple could finish Goldstein off. The prisoners at close quarters stood motionless; but everyone noticed what was happening.

Just now the block leader happened to be with the block senior at the other end of the group. The block senior was reporting something there. He, too, had noticed Goldstein’s maneuver and tried to detain the squad leader for several moments.

Goldstein groped beneath him for the cord with which Scheller’s leg had been tied off. Right in front of his eyes he saw the blood and smelled the raw flesh.

“Oh, leave it,” Scheller whispered.

Goldstein found the knot which had slipped off and loosened it. The blood gushed stronger. “They’ll finish me off with a syringe, anyhow,” whispered Scheller. “With that leg—”

The leg hung from only a few sinews and scraps of skin. Goldstein’s fall had changed its position and it lay there askew and strange with the foot twisted as though the leg had a third joint. Goldstein’s hands were wet with blood. He pulled the knot tight but once more the cord slipped off. Scheller twitched. “Why don’t you leave it—”

Goldstein had to untie the knot again. He felt the splintered bone against his fingers. His stomach rose. He swallowed, searched in the slippery flesh, found the cord again, moved it higher up and gasped. Muenzer had kicked his foot. It was a warning; the SS block leader came snorting up. “Another of these swine! Now what’s wrong with this one?”

“Collapsed, Herr Squad Leader.” The block senior was beside him. “Get up, you lazy bastard!” he shouted at Goldstein and kicked him in the ribs. The kick looked much harder than it was. At the last moment the block senior had put a break on it. He kicked once more. Thus he prevented the squad leader from doing it himself. Goldstein didn’t move. Scheller’s blood welled up against his face.

“Get on! Leave him lie there!” The block leader passed on. “Damn it, when are we going to be through here?”

The block senior followed him. Goldstein waited a second; then he seized the cord round Scheller’s leg, pulled it together, made a knot and tied the woolder, which had previously fallen loose, tightly into it again. The blood stopped gushing. Now it only trickled. Carefully Goldstein removed his hands. The bandage held fast.

The roll call was over. It had been agreed that three-quarters of one Russian and the upper half of the prisoner Sibolski from Barrack 5 were missing. This was not quite correct. Of Sibolski the arms existed. They were actually in the possession of Barrack 17, which had passed them off as the remains of Josef Binswanger of whom nothing had been recovered. In return, two men from Barrack 5 had stolen the lower half of the Russian which was passed off there as Sibolski, since it was difficult to distinguish between legs. Fortunately, apart from these, there were also a few odd remnants of
limbs which could make up for the missing man and a quarter. Thus it was clear that none of the prisoners had escaped in the confusion of the bombardment. Nevertheless, it could have happened that everyone would have been kept standing on the roll-call ground until morning in order to continue the search for the remains in the copper foundry. Once, a few weeks ago, the camp had stood for two days until one man had been found who had committed suicide in the pigsty.

Weber sat calmly on his chair, his chin still supported by his hands. During the whole time he had hardly moved. After the report, he rose slowly and stretched.

“The men have stood long enough. They need movement. Practice geography!”

Commands resounded across the ground. “Clasp hands behind the head! Knees bend! Leapfrog! Forward—leap!”

The long lines obeyed. They leapt slowly forward with bent knees. Meanwhile the moon had risen higher and shone brighter. It now illuminated a section of the roll-call ground. The rest of it lay in the shadow thrown by the buildings. The contours of the crematorium, of the gate and even of the gallows were sharply outlined on the grounds.

“Leap back!”

The lines leapt back out of the light into the dark. Men toppled over. SS-men, kapos and block seniors beat them until they got up again. The yelling could hardly be heard above the scraping of the innumerable feet.

“Forward! Back! Forward! Back! Halt!”

Now began the real geography lesson. It consisted of the prisoners having to throw themselves down, crawl along the ground, jump up, throw themselves down again and go on crawling. In this manner they received a painfully exact knowledge of the earth on the dance ground. After a short while the ground was a mass of
huge swarming striped maggots which seemed to have few human traits left. They protected the wounded as best they could; but in the haste and fear it was not always possible.

After a quarter of an hour Weber ordered a halt. But the quarter hour had wrought havoc among the exhausted prisoners. Everywhere men lay around who couldn’t go on.

“Fall in line according to blocks!”

The men dragged themselves back. They fetched the ones who had broken down and between them supported those still able to stand. The others they laid down next to the wounded.

The camp stood still. Weber stepped forward. “What you have just been doing has taken place in your own interest. You have learned how to take cover during an air raid.”

A few SS-men sniggered. Weber cast a glance across at them and continued: “Today you have learned in the flesh about the sort of inhuman enemy with whom we have to deal. Germany, who has always only desired peace, has been attacked in a brutal way. The enemy, who has been beaten all along the front, is resorting in his despair to extreme measures; he is violating all international law by bombing open, peaceful German towns in the most cowardly manner. He is destroying churches and hospitals. He is murdering helpless women and children. Nothing else could be expected from subhuman brutes and monsters. We shall not keep them waiting for an answer. Beginning tomorrow, the camp Command orders an increase in the performance of work. The labor gangs will march out one hour earlier in order to clear up. Until further notice there will be no more free time on Sundays. Jews will receive no bread for two days. For all this you can thank the enemy incendiaries.”

Weber was silent. The camp did not move. Up the mountain came the high humming of a powerful car, approaching fast. It was Neubauer’s Mercedes.

“Sing!” Weber commanded.
“Deutschland, Deutschland über alles!”

The blocks did not start at once. They were surprised. During recent months the order to sing had not often been given any more—and when it was, it had always been for folk songs. As a rule the command to sing was given when corporal punishment was under way. While the tortured men screamed, the other prisoners had to accompany them by singing lyrical songs. The old national anthem from pre-Nazi days had not been ordered for years.

“Start, you bastards!”

In Block 13, Muenzer began to sing. The others joined in. Those who no longer knew the words went through the motions. The main thing was that all mouths should keep moving.

“Why?” Muenzer whispered, after some time, without turning his head toward his neighbor Werner and yet giving the impression of continuing to sing.

“What?”

The melody turned into a thin squawking. They hadn’t started in a low enough key and now the voices, unable to reach the high jubilating notes of the last line, broke off. Besides, the prisoners hadn’t much breath left.

“What kind of filthy yelping is that?” shouted the second camp leader. “Start again from the beginning. If it doesn’t work out this time, you’ll stay here the whole night!”

The prisoners started in a lower key. Now the song went better.

“What?” Werner repeated.

“Why just
Deutschland, Deutschland über alles?
”

Werner screwed up his eyes. “Maybe they no longer trust—their own Nazi songs—after what happened today.”

The prisoners stared straight ahead and sang. Werner sensed a strange tension rising in him, and he suddenly had the impression
that he was not the only one to sense it—as if Muenzer also sensed it, as if Goldstein on the ground sensed it, as if many others sensed it, including even the SS. The song sounded suddenly different from the way the prisoners usually sang. It grew louder and almost defiantly ironical and the words had no longer anything to do with it. I hope Weber doesn’t notice it, thought Werner, while he glanced at the camp leader—or we’ll have even more dead than are lying there already.

Goldstein’s face on the ground was close to that of Scheller. Scheller’s lips were moving. Goldstein couldn’t understand what he said; but he saw the half-open eyes and guessed what it was. “Nonsense!” he said. “We can count on the lazaret kapo. He’ll wangle it. You’ll pull through.”

Scheller answered something. “Shut your trap!” Goldstein shouted back through the noise. “You’ll pull through—that’s that.” In front of him he saw the gray porous skin. “They won’t syringe you off!” he howled as text into the last bar of the anthem. “We can count on the lazaret kapo. He’ll grease the doctor.”

“Attention!”

The song broke off. The camp Commandant had arrived on the ground. Weber reported. “I’ve given these boys a short sermon and struck an extra hour’s work on them.”

Neubauer was uninterested. He sniffed the air and glanced up at the night sky. “Do you think the gangsters’ll be coming back tonight?”

Weber grinned. “According to the last radio reports, we shot down ninety per cent.”

Neubauer didn’t find that funny. One more with nothing to lose, he thought. A little Dietz, a hireling, that’s all. “Let the men break ranks when you’re through,” he suddenly declared, grumpy.

“Fall out!”

The blocks marched off to the barracks. They took with them
their wounded and dead. Scheller’s face was pointed like that of a dwarf when Werner, Muenzer and Goldstein picked him up. He looked as if he would not survive the night. During the geography practice Goldstein had received a kick in the nose. As he marched off it began to bleed. In the pale light the blood shone dark on his chin.

They turned into the road leading to their barracks. The wind, blowing up from the town, had increased and hit them square as they turned the corner. It brought up with it the smoke of the burning town.

The faces of the prisoners changed. “Do you smell it, too?” asked Werner after a while.

“Yes.” Muenzer raised his head.

Goldstein felt the sweet taste of the blood on his lips. He spat and tried to taste the smoke with open mouth. “It smells as if it were burning here too.”

“Yes.”

Now they could even see it. It blew up from the valley through the streets like a light white mist and soon it hung everywhere between the barracks. For a moment it struck Werner as strange and almost incomprehensible that the barbed wire did not keep it back—as though the camp were suddenly no longer so cut off and inaccessible as it had been before.

They walked down the road. They walked through the smoke. Their steps grew firmer and their shoulders straighter. They carried Scheller with great care. Goldstein bent low over him. “Smell it! Do smell it, too!” he said quietly, desperate and imploring, into the pointed face.

But Scheller had fainted long ago.