The Devil's Arithmetic (17 page)

That night Fayge began to speak, as if the words so long dammed up had risen to flood. She told a story
she had heard from her father, about the great Ba'al Shem Tov. It was set in the time when he was a boy named Israel and
his
father warned him: “Know, my son, that the enemy will always be with you. He will be in the shadow of your dreams and in your living flesh, for he is the other part of yourself. There will be times when he will surround you with walls of darkness. But remember always that your soul is secure to you, for your soul is entire, and that he cannot enter your soul, for your soul is part of God.” Fayge's voice rose and fell as she told how young Israel led a small band of children against a werewolf whose heart was Satan's. And in the end, when Israel walked straight into the werewolf's body and held its awful dark heart in his hand, “shivering and jerking like a fish out of water,” Fayge said, her own hand moving in the same way, that awful heart was filled with “immeasurable pain. A pain that began before time and would endure forever.”

She whispered the story as the night enfolded them. “Then Israel took pity on the heart and gave it freedom. He placed it upon the earth and the earth opened and swallowed the black heart into itself.”

A sigh ran around the barrack and Hannah's was the deepest of all.
A werewolf,
she thought.
That's where we are now. In the belly of the werewolf. But where, where is its dark pain-filled heart?
She was still sighing when she slipped into sleep.

“
THERE IS A PLAN
,”
GITL WHISPERED
. “
AND YITZCHAK AND
Shmuel are part of it.” She had crept onto the sleeping shelf, putting her arms around Hannah and speaking very softly into her ear. “You must not be afraid, but you must not tell anyone. I am a part of it, too.”

Hannah didn't move.

Gitl's voice tickled her ear. “The reason I am telling you this is that you are our only flesh and blood. Our only link with the past. If something happens to us, you must remember. Promise me, Chaya, you will remember.”

Hannah's lips moved but no sound came out.

“Promise.”

“I will remember.” The words forced themselves out through her stiffened lips.

“Good.”

“What plan?” Hannah managed to ask.

“If I tell you, you might say.”

“Never.”

“You would not mean to, but it could slip out.”

“Not even if
afile
 . . .”

“
Afile brenen un brutn
 . . . even if you should be burned and roasted. Here that is not a proverb to be spoken aloud.”

Horrified at what she'd said, Hannah felt herself begin to giggle. It was a hysterical reaction, but she couldn't seem to control herself.

“Nevertheless,” Gitl ended, “I will not tell you.”

“When?” Hannah whispered.

“You will know.”

The horn signaled morning roll call and Gitl rolled off the shelf. Hannah followed, stood, and stared at her.

“Is it . . . is it because of Reuven?” she asked quietly.

“For Yitzchak it is. Who else does he have left, poor man? He adored those children,” Gitl said.

“But why you? Why Shmuel?”

“If not us, who? If not now, when?” Gitl smiled.

“I think I've heard those words before,” Hannah said slowly.

“You will hear them again,” Gitl promised. “Now we must not talk about this anymore.”

And yet for all of Gitl's promises, nothing seemed to happen. The days' routines were as before, the only change being the constant redness of the sky as train-loads of nameless
zugangi
were shipped along the rails of death. Still the camp seemed curiously lightened because
of it, as if everyone knew that as long as others were processed,
they
would not be. A simple bit of mathematics, like subtraction, where one taken away from the top line becomes one added on to the bottom. The Devil's arithmetic.

“When?” she whispered at night to Gitl.

“You will know,” Gitl always answered. “You will know.”

And yet, when it finally happened, Hannah was surprised that she hadn't known, hadn't even suspected. There had been no signs or portents, no secret signals. Just an ordinary day in the camp and at night she went to bed on the hard, coverless shelf trying to remember sheets and pillows and quilts while all around her in the black barrack she heard the breathy sounds of sleeping women.

A hand on her back and over her mouth startled her so, she was too surprised to protest.

“Chaya, it is now,” Gitl's voice whispered in her ear. “Nod if you understand.”

She nodded, opening her eyes wide though it was too dark to see anything. “The plan,” she said, her words hot on Gitl's palm. She sat up abruptly and just missed smacking her head on the upper shelf.

Gitl took her hand away. “Follow me,” she whispered.

“Am I part of the plan?”

“Of course, child. Did you think we would leave you in this hell?”

They crept to the door and Hannah could feel her
heart thudding madly. It was warm in the barrack, yet she felt cold.

“Here,” Gitl whispered, shoving something into her hands.

Hannah looked down. She could see nothing in the dark, but she realized she was holding a pair of shoes.

“We'll put them on outside.”

They paused at the door, then Gitl eased it open slowly. It protested mildly.

“It's not locked!” Hannah said, shocked.

“Some guards can be bribed,” Gitl whispered. “Give me your hand.”

Slipping her hand into Gitl's, Hannah held back for a moment. “What about Fayge? Shmuel wouldn't go without Fayge.”

Gitl's hand on hers tightened. “Fayge says she prefers the dark wolf she knows to the dark one she does not.”

“Even with Shmuel going? But she loves him.”

“She has come to love her next bowl of soup more,” Gitl said. “Now hush.”

They slipped through the door, shut it, and locked it from the outside with a too-loud
snick.
Hannah shivered at the sound and took Gitl's hand again, ice on ice.

“We meet behind the midden,” Gitl whispered. “No more talking now.”

Hannah looked up. There was no moon. Above them, in the cloudless sky, stars were scattered as thick as sand. A small, warm breeze blew across the compound. Night insects chirruped. Hannah took a deep breath. The air was sweet-smelling, fresh, new. A dog barked suddenly and a harsh voice quieted it with a command.

Gitl pulled Hannah back against the barrack's wall. Hannah could feel the fear threatening to scream out of her, so she dropped the shoes and put both hands over her mouth, effectively gagging herself. There was a wetness under her arms, between her legs, down her back. She moaned.

And then there came a shout. A shot. And another. And another, rumbling, staccato. A man began to scream, high-pitched and horrible. He called a single phrase over and over and over. “
Ribono shel-oylam.
”

“Quickly!” Gitl whispered hoarsely. “It is ruined. Before the lights. Come.”

As she spoke, great spotlights raked the compound, missing them by inches and seeking the outer perimeter of wire fence and mine fields and the woods beyond, where Hannah thought she saw shadows chasing shadows into the dark trees.

Gitl dragged her back to the barrack's door, slid the bolt open with one hand, and shoved Hannah inside with the other. They both sank gratefully to the floor.

“What is it?” the
blokova
's voice called out from her private room.

Hannah's mouth opened. What could they say? They would be found out. They would be Chosen.

“I went to get my bowl to relieve myself,” Gitl called, her voice incredibly calm. “And then shots began outside and I was so frightened, I fell to the floor, dropping the bowl.” She pushed Hannah away from her as she spoke.

Crawling on her hands and knees, Hannah made it back across the room to her sleeping shelf. She lifted
herself onto it gratefully, trembling so hard she was sure she would wake everyone.

“You Jews,” the
blokova
's voice drawled sleepily, “you can never do anything quietly or efficiently. That is why the Germans will finish you all off. If you have to relieve yourself, wait until the morning or do it in your bed. Or you shall have to deal with me.”

“Yes,
blokova,
” Gitl answered.

“And get to bed,” the
blokova
added unnecessarily.

Instead of going to her own shelf, Gitl crowded in with Hannah, hugging her so tightly that Hannah could hardly breathe. Yet she was glad not to have to lie there alone. Leaning back against Gitl, Hannah could feel the woman shaking with silent sobs.

Then a sudden, awful thought came to her. She couldn't turn over with Gitl there on the shelf, so she whispered to the wall: “Gitl, Gitl, please.”

At last Gitl heard. “What is it?”

“The shoes, Gitl, I dropped the shoes outside. They'll know it was me out there. What will I do? What will I do?”

“Do?” the breathy voice whispered into her ear. “Do? Why, you will do nothing, my darling child. Those were not your shoes. They were the
blokova
's. I took them from outside her door because you deserved a better pair for such a difficult journey. They will discover
her
shoes in the morning.” She began to laugh, muffling it against Hannah's back, a sound so close to sobbing that Hannah could not tell the difference.

THE ROLL CALL IN THE MORNING WAS HELD UNDER A
brilliant sun and a sky so blue it hurt the eyes. The woods on the other side of the barbed wire fence burst with birdsong. Commandant Breuer himself stood at the front of the assembly, flanked by SS guards. Before him were six men in chains.

Hannah recognized only Shmuel and the violin player from the
klezmer
band. The other four men were strangers to her. They had all been badly beaten and two could not stand.

“Yitzchak . . . ,” she whispered.

Beside her Gitl was silent.

“Yitzchak . . . ,” she tried again.

“Hush.”

The commandant stared around the compound as if his mind were on other matters. Once he even looked up at the sky. At last he turned his attention to Shmuel, who stood chin thrust out defiantly.

Shmuel spat.

A guard hit him with the butt end of his gun in the stomach and Shmuel went down on his knees, but he made no sound.

“These men . . . ,” Breuer began, “these pieces of, in your Jew language,
drek
tried to escape last night. Escape! And where would they go? To the mine fields? To the woods to starve? To the town where no right-thinking Pole would give them shelter? This camp is in the middle of nowhere, remember that.
You
are in the middle of nowhere. All that gives you life is work—and my good wishes. Do you understand?” He glanced around as if daring any of them to challenge him.

They were silent.

“I see I have been too easy on you. I have made you into my pets. That is what they call you, you know: Breuer's dirty little pets. The other transports, they do not come here and sleep in barracks and have three meals every single day. They are not cared for in a modern hospital. They are not given clothes and shoes.” He held up a pair of woman's shoes and Hannah tried not to stare at them, but they drew her eyes. “No, they are processed at once, as has been ordered from Berlin. They are part of the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem. But you, my little pets, I have let you live to work. And see how you reward your master.”

He walked over to the violinist, who had been pushed to his knees by a guard. Pushing the man's head back, Breuer spoke directly to him, but in a voice that carried around the compound: “I let
you
play music because it is said that music feeds the gods. Well, now you shall
feed your god.” He signaled to his men. “Move them to the wall.”