The One Man (14 page)

“So where are we going, sir?” Leo asked outside with rising concern. Langer was a brutal pig who had never shown a moment's hesitation about clubbing an innocent prisoner senseless at the drop of a hat. Just yesterday Leo had watched him take a shovel and send someone reeling into a ditch and then piss on the dead man while laughing to his fellow guards about a story he had just heard about one of the cooks, as if the dead man had not been a living, breathing person just thirty seconds before.

“Just walk,” the SS guard growled, prodding Leo ahead with his stick in the direction of the front gate.

Leo's heart began to patter.
Where was Langer taking him?
They continued on past the rows of blocks, nothing ahead of them but bad places. The black wall that prisoners were thrown up against and shot. Or the flat-roofed crematorium from where the odor of death and the gray plume of smoke perpetually emanated. Maybe he would be given a job there, the thought occurred to him. Tossing dead, disfigured bodies into the ovens or cleaning out the ash afterward, picking through skulls and bones. He'd heard of such horrors taking place in there. And such jobs. The prisoners even had to live there.

Or maybe this was indeed it. His own private Himmelstrasse. If so, he would face it bravely, Leo sturdied himself. It was bound to happen soon enough. He just wished he hadn't studied so much for his next match.

As he marched, the winding turns of the long journey that had brought him here came back to him. His father had had a small but successful law practice in Lodz and took pride in accompanying his young prodigy to chess tournaments. Once Leo even played in a competition in Warsaw. But his father was run over by a streetcar and killed when Leo was just eleven. He and his mother and younger sister moved in with her brother. When the Nazis came and things got bad, they were forced to move inside the ghetto. Leo's promising chess career came to an end. A friend of his uncle offered to take Leo and two others south, through Slovakia to Hungary, where the pro-Nazi government had not yet given up its Jews. All agreed it would be safer for him there. They left in a large commercial truck filled with industrial parts and valves, and everything seemed to be going along as planned until they stopped at a vegetable stand only thirty kilometers from the Slovak border. The coast appeared clear, and Leo hopped out and ran back the thirty meters or so to buy some dates and plums with the little cash he had. At that moment, a German troop truck happened to drive by, and the stand owner, seeing what was ahead, grabbed the young boy's arm. “Quick, son, over here,” he said, drawing Leo behind the stand. The Germans inspected the truck and discovered the two young passengers hidden in the back, clearly Jews. Over his uncle's friend's pleas, they marched them all into a field, Leo peeking out from behind a stack of crates to watch, and machine-gunned them all, the children too. Then the Germans came over to the stand and chewed on peaches and figs, commenting to the stand owner how delicious they were, all the while with Leo huddled and his heart racing only a few feet away.

After the Germans left, the stand owner gave Leo some fruit and a jacket, and for two weeks, he lived in the fields as he continued south toward his destination. One morning he awoke to find two black-clad local police standing over him. He was put in a room at a border checkpoint and then sent by truck to a wired-in camp named Majdanek, near Lublin. It was cold there, the conditions bleak and harsh. The guards treated them with a brutality Leo could never have imagined human beings would treat one another. Fortune had it that a distant cousin happened to be in the same bunk, and he taught Leo how to survive: work hard, do not stand out, do not make eye contact. Do everything double time. Leo grew so weak and thin, they stuffed newspaper into his cheeks to puff them out and make him appear healthier and able to work, so as not to be selected by the guards. And he started playing chess again. Eight months ago, his was part of several barracks that were crammed into a sealed train and transferred to Auschwitz. The prisoners were herded off the train and onto a long line. A call went out that they needed one hundred able workers. Leo's cousin pushed him in front and whispered for them to volunteer, even though Leo was as scrawny as they came and only fifteen. “Stay by me,” his cousin muttered. “Whatever you do, get on that line.” In the jostling, others pushed their way forward, separating them. An SS officer was counting off the volunteers, one by one. Leo was number ninety-eight. His cousin was three places behind. Those who missed the cut were herded the other way; they were told they would be deloused and take showers. All were dead, Leo had heard, barely an hour later, including his cousin. Of the thousand or so on his transport, Leo's work group was the only hundred to survive.

And now as they approached the black wall, Leo thought maybe his charmed journey had come to an end. He remembered his cousin's calm but knowing farewell look as Leo was marched off on the line of volunteers and he was left behind. He had trained Leo well.

“In here.”

To his surprise, Langer directed him into the delousing showers Leo had been put into on his arrival at the camp. It was empty. For a moment, Leo's heart leaped with fear. The guard pushed him under a shower head and turned the water on.
“Wasch dich,”
he barked, pointing to a bar of soap.
“Mach dich sauber.”
Scrub yourself completely clean.

Leo stepped in, not quite understanding. But the freezing water actually felt good as the grime came off. All the while, Langer stood not ten feet away, and lit a cigarette. When Leo was done and had stepped back into his clothes, the German nudged him back outside with his truncheon. “Let's go.”

To Leo's further surprise, they continued on, past the front gates. Langer exchanged a few mocking jokes with a couple of soldiers standing guard, as if this was a big, important responsibility for the Rottenführer, escorting this skinny prisoner. Leo saw that it angered the SS guard.

“Where are we going, Rottenführer?” Leo asked him again. He had not been out here, the other side of the ramp, since his arrival a year ago.

“Don't ask questions,” the SS corporal barked, having lost all patience. “Turn left here. Just march.”

Leo was sure the coldhearted bastard had him clean up just to march him out into a field outside the grounds and shoot him into a ditch. And then piss on him, just like Leo had seen before.

So this was it.

But they went on and past the ditch and turned on a road Leo had never been on before. There was a row of three brick homes. They stopped in front of the second one in, with gables and a red roof, stone steps, and a hanging flower basket on the recessed front porch.

“Wait here,” the Rottenführer said.

“Where are we?” Leo asked.

“Just look smart, yid.” The Nazi jammed his stick into the crook between Leo's legs, making Leo wince. “No prisoner has ever stepped foot in here before. This is Lagerkommandant Ackermann's house.”

Ackermann.
A chill ran down Leo's spine. The assistant commandant of the entire camp. What had he done that they brought him here? Maybe they wanted to turn him into an informer, Leo surmised. If they did, he would refuse. Even if it meant his death. There was no class of prisoner more reviled than those who it was known brought an earful back to the Nazis. Or maybe they wanted to do some vile experiments on him. Leo looked down at the row of homes, hedges, and transplanted fruit trees in the yards, like some bucolic postcard of normalcy amid all this hell, just across the wire. At the end there was an even larger house. This must be where Kommandant Höss resided. Or maybe the dreaded Mengele himself, whose very sight engendered such fear in everyone. This was where the shits could play their cherished Mozart at night and sing their beloved drinking songs, and pretend that the horrors of what they did during the day were just a dream.

Yes, that's what they were going to do to him, experiments …

Langer went up the steps and knocked at the door. A few seconds later, it opened, and he spoke briefly to someone inside.
“Up here. Now!”
he called back to Leo.

Leo climbed up.

“Go.” The corporal pushed him to the door. “In.”

Warily, Leo stepped inside. His heart beat rapidly, as if speeded up to five times its normal rate by some drug they had already injected. An interior door was open to reveal a small entry foyer, decorated with flowers and portraits, that led to a tasteful family room. A patterned couch. Wooden side tables, photos on them. A polished wood armoire. Sconces with fluted candles on the walls.

Even a piano.

To Leo, everything about the place seemed to speak of normalcy. It reminded him of his uncle's home in Moravia. Not the home of a man who had overseen the deaths of thousands of innocent people.

In the camp, Leo had seen Ackermann several times, darkly handsome and expressionless, looking on at roll call or touring the camp with guests, conversing and gesturing naturally as they passed prisoners being beaten like vermin, as if it were the most common thing in the world.

Another guard came up to him. This one, younger, no cap, dark hair, steely gray eyes. “In.
There!
” He pushed Leo into the family room. “Take off your cap, Jew. Don't touch anything.” He gestured toward a sitting table, near the windows that were blocked from the sun by patterned curtains.

On the table, there was a chessboard, the pieces set to play.

In front of it were two chairs.

 

NINETEEN

Footsteps emanated from deeper inside the house, coming down the stairs. Leo's heart quickened.
Ackermann.
He heard voices, the young guard snapping to attention in the hallway and announcing that the prisoner was in here.

A voice said, “Thank you, Corporal.”

But it was not the Lagerkommandant's voice he heard, nor was it he who stepped into the room.

It was the pretty blond woman he had seen in the camp observing some of his matches. She had on a blue print dress, a white sweater over it, and her hair pulled back in a conservative bun, as his mother used to wear it.

He thought she was merely an attendee at the infirmary.

Instead, she was the Lagerkommandant's wife.

“So you are the famous Leo?” she greeted him in proper German. She gave him a smile; there was a hint of kindness in it. But still at a distance. Not exactly warm.

Leo stood there with his cap in his hands, his mouth dry as sandpaper. “I am, ma'am. Not so famous, though, I think.”

“I am Frau Ackermann,” she said. She took two steps toward him but, of course, made no move to put out her hand. The young guard watched them by the door. “My husband is…”

“I know your husband, ma'am,” Leo said respectfully.

“Yes, of course. I hoped … You may relax. In fact, please, come over here. “She gestured to the chessboard.

Leo stepped over to it. It was hard to ignore the fine, hand-carved pieces in front of him. “May I…?” Leo asked if he could inspect them.

“By all means.” She nodded. “Of course.”

They were alabaster. As finely polished and smooth as any Leo had ever seen. With exquisite detail. The king carried an imperial staff with a crest on it, and the queen was draped in a long, flowing robe. The castles had the kind of finely carved turrets he had seen only in history books. He picked one up, then thought better of it, and placed it back down. “They're very nice.”

“It was my father's,” she said. “He liked to play after dinner. With his cigar. He was very good, actually. He could beat most anyone he played. Please, I want you to sit down.”

“Sit…?” He looked at her, not quite understanding. He could see that she seemed as awkward and unsure as him. A prisoner. A Jew, no less, in the Lagerkommandant's house. Langer said,
No one has stepped foot here before.
“Me, madame?”

“You are the camp champion, are you not?”

He shrugged indifferently. “I suppose. Yes.”

“Then sit, yes. For many years, after my brothers left home, my father had only me to play with.” She gestured him toward a chair. “I asked you here to play.”

“Play…?”
Leo looked her, unsure how to respond. “Ma'am.”

“Yes. Isn't that what this board is for, Herr Wolciek? To play against me.”

*   *   *

He sat. Probably a good thing, as his legs suddenly felt numb and lifeless and almost gave way under him. His heart hammered inside. Play—with
her
. The Lagerkommandant's wife. In their home.
How could he even tell anyone about this?

Who could ever imagine?

“May I…?” she asked, inquiring if she could play white. She gave him the slightest of smiles. “After all, you are camp champion. I have watched you.”

“Yes, ma'am. I have seen you there, but … And of course, white.” Leo put out his hand and pulled up to the table.

She smoothed her dress and took her place on the chair across from him.
“So…”
she said, and met his eyes.

Leo's head was dizzy. “So.”

She began. Pawn to queen four. Knight to king's bishop three. Leo recognized it quickly as the King's Indian Defense. A heady opening. Not many players these days started that way. Leo thought back to a famous match between the great Capablanca and an Englishman, Yates, and tried to recall through his daze how the moves developed. He was nervous. Petrified to make a wrong move. She played quickly, confidently. His heart beat through his chest. He had to keep his wits together just to keep up.

The young guard stood and watched them impassively at the door.

“This is good,” she said, pleased to see how Leo countered her advance. “My father used to say, if you can outwit the King's Indian, you will have no difficulty outwitting the vast majority of people in life. Do you agree, Herr Wolciek?”