The One Man (12 page)

The Slovak showed him a rind of crusty cheese in a grimy napkin, probably stolen out of the German mess garbage, as prized in here as a tin of caviar.

“Give it to Francois over there or Walter,” Alfred said. Either looked like any day could be their last. “Besides, I have nothing to trade.”

“Nothing to trade? You joke, of course,” the forager said for anyone around to hear. “Two of your formulas and they're yours. An entire equation, I'll get you a beefsteak.”

A few of their neighbors chuckled.

“
E
equals
mc
squared,” Alfred said to the forager. “How's that? And, please, make mine medium rare.”

There were a few more laughs. It was good to laugh in here, even if he was the butt of it, for whatever the reason.

Suddenly things were interrupted by the shrill of whistles being blown. Guards stormed into the block, sticks clanging loudly on the walls and doors. “Everyone out!
Out
, filth!
Schnell.
”

Every heart came to a sudden stop. Every whistle, anything that was unexpected when it came to the Germans, everyone felt the dread that their time had finally come and it was over for them.

Hauptscharführer Scharf stepped into the block accompanied by two other guards, and Vacek, their soulless
kapo,
trailing behind. Scharf was one of the more brutal of the SS guards. He acted as if his only reward in getting through the war in this miserable camp was the infliction of as much pain and misery on the prisoners as he could. Alfred had personally seen him execute at least twenty or thirty himself, for nothing more than letting a shovel fall from their hands after ten hours' hard labor and barely a drop of water, or when he had shouted,
“Schnell! Schnell!”
and a prisoner tripped or fell behind. Vacek was a petty criminal from Smolensk who, here, turned into a dreaded menace. He had an efficient, one-two method to bludgeon prisoners to death: a blow to the back of the legs to drop a person to their knees and then one to the back of the head to finish them off. Alfred could not believe that a Jew, no matter how low, could act that way toward another. They were all going to die in here at some point, even the
kapos
. What price was it worth to prolong it by inflicting misery on others?

“Aussen! Aussen!”
the Germans barked,
out, out
, banging their sticks against the walls and wooden bunks.
“Schnell!”
Alfred stuffed his writings back under the floor beneath his bunk and replaced the floorboard. He fell into the line outside. “Faster, faster, you lice-ridden maggots.” The guards jabbed their sticks into their ribs. “
Run!
That means you, old man. Now!”

Though it was April, there was still a chill in the air at night, and everyone looked at each other with concern, huddling to keep warm. Any change of routine was always a cause for alarm. They awaited the dreaded word to march. They all knew where. It was only a matter of time anyway, and everyone knew at some point theirs would be up.

“Line up!”
the guards barked, jabbing at them with their sticks. Everyone formed a line.

“So how is that steak tasting now?” Alfred leaned close and said to Ostrow, who had fallen in next to him. The ferret had ground the stolen cheese into bits under his pants and let the crumbs fall through his pant legs to the ground, grinding them into the dirt with his clogs.

“Perhaps a little tough, Professor, to be completely honest,” he replied with a complicit grin.

After a couple of minutes it became clear that this wasn't the end, only an inspection. Nonetheless, if the guards found something, it was still a cause for alarm. Outside they could hear the guards tearing up the bunks, upending their flimsy, flea-infested mattresses and knocking their sticks against the floorboards looking for hiding spaces.

“Maybe the chef talked,” Ostrow leaned over and sniffed to Alfred.

“I think not,” Alfred said. “I don't think it's food they're looking for.”

Vacek jabbed him in the back with his stick.
“Quiet!”

After a few moments there was shouting from inside the block and then Scharf's agitated voice. Everyone's stomachs fell. The sergeant came out holding up a makeshift blade that had been fashioned from the top of a food tin. The prisoners only used it to slice the scraps of stolen bread or cheese that came to them.

“And may I ask whose is this?” the sergeant major asked, holding up the blade. His accusing gaze went down the line. With his furnace-like eyes, flat nose, and thick lips, the bastard even looked like a butcher. Everyone stood frozen. No one uttered a sound. It was common to punish an entire block for one prisoner's offense. One thing you didn't want to do was rankle Scharf when he was on a rampage.

“Speak up!” Vacek, the
kapo,
commanded, weaving in and out of the lines. He put a hand to his ear. “Cat got your tongue? Did I hear anyone?” He toyed with them like children, which only made their hatred of him worse. He stopped behind Ullie, a baker from Warsaw, one of Alfred's friends. “Anything to say, baker?” Vacek uttered, close to Ullie's ear.

The baker shut his eyes. The blade was his. He knew it was the end for him.

“Nothing?”
Vacek took his stick and drove it into the back of Ullie's legs, dropping him to his knees.

“It's only for food, Herr Hauptscharführer,” Ullie pleaded, owning up to the offense. His eyes shook with terror. “Nothing more. I swear.”

Someone had ratted him out.

“Just for food, did I hear right…?” Scharf nodded agreeably. But everyone knew it was just an act. “Well, that's okay then. Right, Vacek? I mean, if it's just for food … Only, I find an actual knife works far better for cutting food.” His tone was clearly mocking. He circled around Ullie. “Don't you agree that a knife works better, baker?”

“Yes, sir. It does, of course.” It was a joke. A mirthless one. Spoons were all they were allowed for the thin ladle of soup of overcooked, rotted potatoes and, if you were lucky, a sliver of grisly meat at the bottom.

“Don't you agree, Herr Vacek?”

“I do, sir.” The Ukrainian nodded, his eyes lighting up with the obsequious lust he had for pleasing his ruthless bosses.

“Please, sir…” Ullie bowed his head, but knew what was in store for him. His eyes futilely found those of a few friends, as if saying his last goodbyes.

“Herr Hauptscharführer!” Another guard ran out of the barracks, holding a large tin in his hand, which, Alfred knew, contained his writings. His stomach fell. Scharf shook his head and grinned, not even questioning whose they were, and stepped over to Alfred.

“And what do we have here, Professor?” The SS killer glared. “Still with your silly fantasies? Didn't we teach you to give them up?” He took out a fistful of papers and crumpled them into a ball. “For a professor, you don't seem to learn very well. Herr Vacek, do you have a match?”

“Of course,” the Ukrainian said, and handed one to him.

“They're simply writings, Herr Hauptscharführer,” Alfred begged. “Nothing. They mean nothing to anyone but me.”

“Who you were means nothing in here now!” the sergeant major shouted. He lit the match and glared at Alfred with a cold smile as the papers were caught up in flame. He dropped them to the ground, the edges curling and crisping. “Do you not understand? Forget who you were. You are just a worker now. A fucking number. You stay alive at my whim. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, Herr Hauptscharführer.”

“I'm not sure you do. But I will remind you.
Watch!
”

He took out his Luger and put it to the back of Ullie's head. “Did you think we had forgotten why we came, baker?” Ullie hung his head, knowing what was in store. “Next time anyone wants to hide weapons, think about this!” Scharf pulled on the trigger. Ullie shut his eyes and let out a whimper.

The gun did not fire.

Scharf spat out a curse and squeezed the trigger again. Again, nothing. “Fucking shit!” He pressed it to Ullie's head and kept on squeezing.
Click, click, click.
Each time the gun jammed. His eyes were lit with rage. “Corporal,” he said to one of the other guards, “hand me your weapon.”

The Rottenführer moved toward him, unbuckling his holster. Then, from the direction of the main guardhouse, Scharf's name was shouted.

The sergeant major turned around.

“Captain Nieholtz,” the guard replied. “He requests your presence in the guard room. Immediately.”

The muscles on Scharf's neck, like a cord about to snap, were visible for all to see. In frustration, he kicked the kneeling baker onto his side. “Why waste the fucking bullet? Get back in line, you filthy rot. Your time is coming soon enough anyway.”

He stormed off, Vacek swinging his truncheon and chuckling with an amused smirk. “Next time, baker! I'd do you myself, but if ever there was a man who deserved the reprieve, you're him.” He walked away as well.

Shaking, Ullie rolled over, his complexion white as the moon. He'd shat all over himself.

“Back among the living, comrade.” One by one, people helped him back up.

Alfred stared at the smoldering scraps of his work, now turned to ash on the ground. He went toward it—maybe there was one or two of them he could salvage. Then he just stopped.

What purpose was there now? Scharf should have just ended it here for both of them with one to the head. New ovens were being built every day. People no longer even came into the camp; they were just sent off the trains over to Birkenau and disappeared. A hundred thousand Hungarians, he had been told, in just the past week alone. They were all going to die here too.

Poor Ullie, would it have been such a bad way to go? One to the head. He looked at the smoldering remains of his work, crisping at the edges.

Ten years.

What was the sense, could anyone explain it to him, of delaying it any further?

 

SIXTEEN

In the camp, the work never ended. The train tracks were being extended, right up to the gates of neighboring Birkenau, where the real killing was being done now. Two shifts, both day and night. Just three kilometers away there was an IG Farben chemical plant that was under construction. The joke was that it saved the Nazis the transportation costs of bringing the deadly gases in.

Every day, the work teams lined up after the morning meal. Construction workers, electricians, painters, diggers with hoes and spades. Lines endlessly straightened and counted, rolls called over and over. All marched out to twelve-hour work days to a procession of rousing music played by the orchestra. Then back at night, exhausted and battered, wheeling the dead in carts, to the same lifting tunes.

Still, there was downtime too. Before the work details assembled; in the minutes after roll call or after a meal. Or, during the day, if you were put on one of the night shifts. And getting yourself checked into the infirmary for a day or two was like a vacation.

Alfred's latest job, with respect to his age, was cleaning the officers' bicycles of mud every day. Endlessly polishing and polishing, scraping the tires of mud. The week after Scharf's inspection, while replacing a punctured tire, he was instructed by Obersturmführer Meitner to escort a sick prisoner to the infirmary. There he came upon a small crowd watching two prisoners playing chess.

One was a middle-aged man with somber eyes and a serious expression who was said to be the camp champion. The other a boy, not a day more than sixteen, it would seem. They played with stones carved into rough shapes of pieces on a makeshift cardboard board. The Germans permitted this. Just as they allowed, even demanded, that the orchestra play as the trains of new inmates came in and when the work details marched out to their jobs. The music imparted a small feeling of everyday normalcy and even culture to the camp against the backdrop of death and madness. The level of chess that was played was said to be high, and now and then, even the SS guards would rest their sticks and weapons and watch the matches for a while. Even Dr. Mengele, it was said, took an interest on occasion. It was almost like the gladiators of ancient Rome; the longer you continued to win, the greater the chances were that you were kept alive.

After dropping off his patient, Alfred folded into the crowd observing the match. He hadn't played much since his university days, but it was still intriguing. There was complete silence. SS officers and the lowly prisoners who routinely lived in fear of them each standing around and commenting amid their own ranks, completely absorbed. By the time Alfred came on it, today's match was in mid-game. After each move, the older player removed his wire glasses and kneaded his doughy face, nerves showing. Conversely, his young opponent had an effortless air about him. A beginner could see the kid had the advantage. Even the Germans were muttering and nodding among themselves in admiration of how neatly the younger one was disposing of the other.

“Are you sure you want to continue this fight?” The boy sat back and put his hands behind his head.

“That kind of boastfulness has brought down players far better than you,” his opponent scowled back, declining the invitation.

“Because bishop to king's knight four puts your rook in a real jam,” the youth pointed out to him.

“I'm not a fool,” the champion replied.

“No doubt. So then by moving my pawn to queen's bishop five, should you choose to save the rook … I'm sure you'll also see…” Even Alfred saw that the boy's next move gave him complete control of the middle board. The outcome was inevitable.

The older player kneaded his jowl a few more moments, delaying his fate, then quietly nodded with a defeated sigh, offering his hand.

“We have a new champ!” The crowd cheered. “Young King Wolciek!” another crowned him. Even the Germans talked among themselves, impressed, two of them exchanging a few bills, clearly having wagered on the outcome. Then the guard who had lost the bet turned on the crowd. “Fun's over, shits. That's it. Get your asses back to work. Did you hear me?” He raised his stick at a few loiterers, no longer in a good mood.
“Now!”