The Master Sniper (2 page)

“Surprises ahead for you, Jew-shit.
Der Meisterschuster
, the Master Shoemaker, has a nice candy delight for you.” His face livid and contorted, he drew back. “That’s right, Jew-shit, a real surprise for you.” He spoke in a clipped Prussian accent hard and quick, that Shmuel, whose basic Yiddish was a derivation of the more languid Bavarian German, had difficulty understanding when spoken so quickly.

The corporal backed off, color returning to his face.

“All right, up! Up!” he shouted.

Shmuel climbed up quickly. He was trembling badly.

“Now get this mess cleaned up.”

Shmuel and the Russian gathered the excelsior into a wad of newspaper and mopped the floor dry. They also retrieved the broken glass and then, carefully, finished loading the cart.

“Bravo! Fine! What heroes!” said the boy sarcastically. “Now get your asses out of here before I kick them again!”

Shmuel had been playing for this second for quite some time. He’d seen it from the very first moments. He’d thought about how he’d do it and resolved to act quickly and with courage. He took a deep breath, reached down and picked up the wad of newspaper and stuffed it into his coat.

With the bundle pressing against his stomach, he stepped into the cold. He waited for a call to return; it didn’t come. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, he rejoined the labor detail.

Not until late that night did Shmuel risk examining his treasure. He could hear steady, heavy breathing; at last he felt safe. You never knew who’d sell you for a cigarette, a sliver of cheese. In the darkness, he opened the paper carefully, trying to keep it from rattling. Inside, now matted and balled, the clump of excelsior was still damp from the fluid. The stuff was like mattress ticking, or horsehair, thick and knotted. Eagerly, his fingers pulled tufts out and kneaded them, until he could feel the individual strands.

There was no question of knitting; he had no loom
and no skill. But he spread it out and, working quietly and quickly in the dark, began to thread it into the lining of the greatcoat. He kept at it until nearly dawn, inserting the bunches of packing into the coat. When at last there was no more, he examined what he had made. It was lumpy and uneven, no masterpiece; but what did that matter? It was, he knew, significantly warmer.

Shmuel lay back and felt a curious thing move through his body, a feeling long dead to his bones. At first he thought he might be coming down with a sickness and the feeling might be fever spreading through his body. But then he recognized it: pleasure.

For the first time in years he began to think he might beat them. But when he slept, his nightmares had a new demon in them: a master shoemaker, driving hobnails into his flesh.

A week or so later, he was in the trench, digging, when he heard voices above him. Obeying an exceedingly stupid impulse, he looked up.

Standing on the edge, their features blanked out by the winter sun, two officers chatted. A younger one was familiar, a somewhat older one not. Or was he? Shmuel had been dreaming all these nights of the Master Shoemaker and his candy delight. This man? No, ridiculous, not this bland fellow standing easily with a cigarette, discussing technical matters. He wore the same faded camouflage jackets they all had, and baggy green trousers, boots with leggings and a squashed cap with a skull on it. Quickly Shmuel turned back to his shovel, but as he dropped his face, he felt the man’s eyes snap onto him.

“Einer Jud?”
Shmuel heard the man ask.

The younger fellow called to the sergeant. The sergeant answered Yes.

Now I’m in for it, Shmuel thought.

“Bring him up,” said the officer.

Strong hands clapped onto Shmuel instantly. He was dragged out of the trench and made to stand before the officer. He grabbed his hat and looked at his feet, waiting for the worst.

“Look at me,” said the officer.

Shmuel looked up. He had the impression of pale eyes in a weathered face which, beneath the imprint of great strain, was far younger than he expected.

“You are one of the chosen people?”

“Y-yes, sir, your excellency.”

“From out East?”

“Warsaw, your excellency.”

“You are an intellectual. A lawyer, a teacher?”

“A writer, most honored sir.”

“Well, you’ll have plenty to write about after the war, won’t you?” The other Germans laughed.

“Yes, sir. Y-yes, sir.”

“But for now, you’re not used to this hard work?”

“N-no, sir,” he replied. He could not stop stuttering. His heart pounded in his chest. He’d never been so close to a German big shot before.

“Everybody must work here. That is the German way.” He had lightless eyes. He didn’t look as if he’d ever cried.

“Yes, most honored sir.”

“All right,” the officer said. “Put him back. I just
wanted the novel experience of taking one of them
out
of a pit.”

After the laughter, the sergeant said, “Yes, Herr Obersturmbannführer,” and he knocked Shmuel sprawling into the trench. “Back to work, Jew. Hurry, hurry.”

The officer was gone quickly, moving off with the younger chap. Shmuel stole a glimpse of the man striding off, calm and full of decisiveness. Could this simple soldier be the Master Shoemaker? The face: not remotely unusual, a trifle long, the eyes quick but drab, the nose bony, the lips thin. The overall aspect perfunctorily military. Not, Shmuel concluded, an unusual fellow to find in the middle of a war.

And yet because he seemed so easily in command and it was so clear that the others deferred to him, Shmuel took to thinking of the man as the Shoemaker.

Then a day came when the Germans did not fetch them for work. Shmuel awoke at his leisure, in light. As he blinked in it, he was filled with dread. The prisoners lived so much by routine that a single variation terrified them. The others felt it too.

Finally the sergeant came by.

“Stay inside today, boys, take a holiday. The Reich is rewarding you for your loyal service.” He grinned at his joke. “Important people crawling about today.” And then he was gone.

Late in the afternoon, two heavy trucks pulled into the yard. They halted next to the concrete building and hard-looking men with automatic guns dismounted and deployed around the entrance. Shmuel caught a glimpse
and stepped away from the window. He’d seen their type before: police commandos who shot Jews in pits.

“Look,” said a Pole, in wonder. “A big boss.”

Shmuel looked again, and saw a large black sedan parked next to the truck; pennants hung off it limply; it was spotted with mud, yet shiny and huge.

A prisoner said, “I heard who it is. I heard them talking. They were very nervous, very excited.”

“Hitler himself?”

“Not that big. But a big one still.”

“Who, damn you? Tell.”

“The Man of Oak.”

“What? What did you say?”

“Man of Oak. I heard him say it. And the other—”

“It’s crazy. You misunderstood.”

“It’s the truth.”

“You
shtetl
Jews. You’ll believe anything. Go on, get out of here. Leave me in peace.”

The car and the police commandos remained until after dark, and later that night, a crackling rang in the distance.

“Somebody’s shooting,” said a man.

“Look! A battle.”

In the distance, light sprayed through the night. Flames glowed. The reports came in the hundreds. It didn’t look like a battle to Shmuel. He recalled the sky over the crematorium, shot with sparks and licks of flame. The SS was feeding the Hungarian Jews into the ovens. The smell of ash and shit filled the sky. No bird would fly through it.

Abruptly the shooting stopped.

* * *

In the morning the fancy vehicles were gone. But things did not return to normal. The prisoners were formed into a column and marched off along a heavily rutted road through the forest. It was February now, and much of the snow had melted, but patches of it remained; in the meantime there had been rain, and the road was mud which congealed on Shmuel’s boots. The woods on either side of the road loomed up, dense and chilly. To Shmuel they were the woods of an ugly German
Märchen
, full of trolls and dwarves and witches, into which children disappeared. He shivered, colder than he should have been. These people loved their dark forests, the shadows, the intricate webs of dark and light.

A mile or so away, the woods yielded to a broad field, yellow and scaly with snow. At one end of it, the earth mounted into a wall and at the other, the nearer, a concrete walkway lay and a few huts huddled in the trees.

“Boys,” said the sergeant, “we had a little show out here last night for our visitor and we’d like your help in cleaning up.”

The guards handed out wooden crates and directed the prisoners to harvest the bits of brass that showed in the mud alongside the walkway. Shmuel, prying the grimy things out—they were, it turned out, used cartridge cases—felt his knees beginning to go numb in the cold, his fingers beginning to sting. He noted the Gothic printing running across the box in his hand. Again, the melodramatic bird and the double flashes of the
SS
. He wondered idly what the next gibberish meant: “7.92mm X 33 (Kurz)” read one line; under it “G. C. HAENEL, SUHL,” and under it still a third, “STG-44.” The Germans
were rationalists in everything; they wanted to stick a designation on every object in the universe. Maybe that’s why he’d walked around marked
JUD
the last year or so.

“He certainly fired enough of the stuff,” said the pipe smoker to one of the other guards.

“We could have used some at Kursk,” said another man bitterly. “Now they shoot it off for big shots. It’s crazy. No wonder the Americans are on the Rhine.”

This exercise was repeated several times in the next few weeks. Once, several prisoners were jerked from their sleep and marched out. The story they told the next morning was an interesting one. After they’d picked up the spent shells, the Germans had been especially hearty to them, treated them like comrades. A bottle had even been passed around to them.

“German stuff.”

“Schnapps?”

“That’s it. Fiery. An instant overcoat. Takes the chill out of your bones.”

The Big Boss—Shmuel knew it was the Shoemaker—was there too, the man said. He’d walked among them, asking them if they were getting enough to eat. He handed out cigarettes, Russian ones, and chocolates.

“Friendly fellow, not like some I’ve seen,” said the man. “Looked me square in the eye too.”

But Shmuel wondered why they’d need the shells back in the night.

A week, perhaps two, passed, though without reference to clock or calendar it was hard to tell. Rain, sun, a little snow one night. Was there more activity around
the concrete building? More night firings? The Shoemaker seemed everywhere, almost always with the young officer. Shmuel had never seen the civilian—the one they said was a kike—again. Had he been taken away like the boy said? And he began to worry about this “Man of Oak.” What could it mean? Shmuel started to feel especially uneasy, if only because the others were so pleased with the way things were going.

“Plenty to eat, work’s not so bad, and one day, you’ll see, the Americans’ll show up and it’ll be all over.”

But Shmuel began to worry. He trusted his feelings. He worried especially about the night. It was the night that frightened him. Bad things happened in the night, especially to Jews. The night held special terrors for Jews; the Germans were drawn to it unhealthily. What was their phrase?
Nacht und Nebel
. Night and fog, the components of obliteration.

Light flashed through the barrack. Shmuel, dazed out of his sleep, saw torch beams in the darkness, and shadows. The SS men got them awake roughly.

“Boys,” the pipe smoker crooned in the dark, “work to do. Have to earn our bread. It’s the German way.”

Shmuel pulled the field coat around him and filed out with the others. His pupils were slow in adjusting and he had trouble making out what was occurring. The guards trudged them through the mud. They had left the compound. Guards with automatic guns prowled on either side of the column. Shmuel peered up through the fir canopy. Cold light from dead stars reached his eyes. The dark was satiny, alluring, the stars abundant. A wind howled. He pulled the coat tighter. Thank God for it.

They reached the firing range. Fellows were all about, a crowd. Everybody was there. Shmuel could sense their warmth, hear them breathing. All the SS boys; the Shoemaker himself, smoking a cigarette. Shmuel thought he saw the civilian too, standing a little apart with two or three other men.

“This way, lads,” said the sergeant, leading them into the field. “Brass all over the place. Can’t leave it here, the General Staff’d kick our ass for sure. Hot coffee, schnapps, cigarettes for all when the job’s done, just like before.”

There was no moon. The night was dark and pure, pressing down. The prisoners spread out in a line and faced back toward the Germans.

“It’s in front of you boys, brass, tons of it. Have to get it up before the snow.”

Snow? It was clear tonight.

Shmuel obediently worked his fingers over the frozen ground, found a shell. He found another. It was so cold out. He looked around. The guards had left. The prisoners were alone in the field. The trees were a dark blur in the far distance. Stars towered above them, dust and freezing gas and spinning firewheels. Far off, unreachable. The field was another infinity. It seemed to stretch forever. They were all alone.

“Hey, he’s sleeping,” said someone, laughing.

Another man slid himself carefully on the ground, shoulders flat to the earth.

“You jokers are going to get us all in trouble.” The same voice laughed.

Another lay down.

Another.

They fell relaxed, turned in slightly, tucking the knees under, seeming to pause at the waist then gently lurching forward.

Shmuel stood.

“They’re shooting us,” somebody said quite prosaically. “They’re shoo—” The sentence stopped on a bullet.

Prayers disturbed the night; there was no other sound.

A bullet struck the man closest to him in the throat, driving him backward. Another, slumping, began to gurgle and gasp as his lungs flooded. But most perished quickly and silently, struck dead center, brain or heart.