The Savior (16 page)

Peering around the side of the warehouse, he saw that all the guards were in place. The gate was closed again.

What kind of goddamn trick are they playing on us?
He waited until the searchlight was pointed away from him, then turned and hurried toward the prisoners' barracks to warn them. If thirty of them appeared at the main gate now, there would be a massacre.

The gate to the inner area of the camp was still unguarded. After a few moments' hesitation, he pushed it open. The ground was uneven, muddy. He lost his balance several times as he walked, trying not to run, hoping not to be too obvious a target if there were any guards around. It was all he could do to keep from falling, especially when he stepped deep into a frigid puddle. His shoes and socks were suddenly drenched. Stunned by the cold, he almost dropped his violin. He slowed down, staggering along, cursing under his breath, and finally stopped.

He thought he heard guards marching toward him, but it was only the blood pounding in his ears.

Then he heard a murmur of hushed voices. Looking through the window of a nearby hut, the only structure in the area that was lit from within, he recognized some faces from his group. Approaching the door, he heard the other prisoners arguing with Grete about the open gate—whether or not it was a trap and he was some sort of bait. When he entered the room, it was suddenly silent.

“It's too late,” he said, struggling to catch his breath. “The gate's closed again. The guards are back in place.”

“Well, he's here, telling us about it,” said Grete to the others. “That proves he's not trying to lead us into a trap.”

Some of the men closest to the doorway were looking at him, their eyes narrowed to slits of mistrust. He wished he could reach out to them, but it seemed too difficult. Maybe later…if there would ever be a “later.” His eyes found the full-breasted woman standing among some of the others in the middle of the room. In the dim light of a single candle flickering near her on the floor, her ghostlike pallor reminded him of the corpses in his dream.

He glanced back at the men near him, tried to
see
their faces, but they looked like gray masks. Impenetrable, not quite human. Not in the same way he had thought when he first saw them. That was shock, and he was almost used to looking at them by now. Hollow cheeks and dark circles beneath sunken eyes could no longer shock him, but what he noticed now for the first time was how their noses protruded, beaklike, from a background in which all the other features seemed to have collapsed inward. They looked like birds of prey, like vultures.

But they are the prey,
he tried to remind himself.
The corpses on which the real vultures, the ones in uniform, feast.
There were ugly bruises on some of their faces from that afternoon's assault by the guards. If he was searching for any common ground with them after what Grete had told him, any shared impressions of life, whatever each of them had experienced in the camp seemed to block the way.

He didn't want to speak to those people any longer, though he could well understand their mistrust. He took half a step toward Grete, but she backed away. Was she still angry with him for what he'd said near the gate? No, he decided, she just couldn't come with him now, while the others were watching. Besides, what connection was there between them? She had just wanted to talk, nothing more.

He returned to his room, lay down, waited for sleep. Dozing off from time to time, he would wake up with a start at some imagined sound. A guard passed near his window several times. He was freezing; his feet had been wet for fifteen minutes before he'd had a chance to dry them. And he had no blankets now—Grete couldn't very well have returned them to him in front of the other prisoners. His coat made a poor substitute for a blanket.

As the hours passed, he tried to concentrate on the Bach partita he was planning to play the next day, tried to hear it in his head, or at least to remember the fingerings and bowings he would use. But it was difficult to maintain his focus on the music, or on any subject, any logical chain of thought: Grete's story kept coming back to him, a host of horrific images whirling through his brain.

He fell asleep for an hour or two, but woke up long before dawn, his mouth terribly dry. Moving his tongue around in an attempt to moisten his lips, he groped for the glass of water he had left on the small table next to his bed. Suddenly he could see Marietta, could picture her more clearly than he had in years—the dark, curly hair pulled away from her face, the full lips, the look of energy and determination as she spoke to him. And he remembered how he had walked out of her life in that cowardly trance.

Ten years ago, as he trudged along that icy, muddy river road in Frankfurt, the landscape of his life changed forever. It seemed now as if very little of real importance had happened to him since then. Of course, the war had started a few years later, everything had changed around him, the world was falling apart. But in his life, there was a frozen walk along the Main, then like a sleepwalker he'd boarded that train and it had brought him
…here.

He got out of bed and looked through his window at the internal fence and the ugly, squat buildings beyond, lit with relentless clarity by the glare of the searchlight each time it swept past his room. He leaned his forehead against the window, staring at the ground with its patches of snow, ice and mud until the glass frosted over with condensation from his breath.

M
ay I ask, sir, what's going to happen to them once I leave?”

“Why is that important to you?” He lit a cigarette, studying Keller's face as he inhaled.

“At first…they seemed like a bunch of corpses to me.” As he searched for words, the Kommandant's face disappeared behind a small cloud of smoke. “They had no response to my playing, and I just wanted to get away. But they've changed so much. And I've changed.”

The smoke thinned out, and the steel-gray eyes were still there, boring into him.

“How do I face them today, knowing I'll never see them again? Knowing they may never hear another note of music?”

The first day, the Kommandant had gone on and on; today he wasn't saying anything. It didn't feel right, talking to a stone wall, but somehow Keller had to spit out what he'd come to say. He glanced at the door, then turned back to face him.

“The war can't go on much longer, Herr Kommandant.” His mouth had gone dry, and it was hard to articulate the words.

The Kommandant's eyes seemed distant now, veiled behind the thick lenses of his glasses. He was staring at a memorandum on his desk. Keller could make out the letterhead: the SS Main Office of Economics and Administration, Section D.

The inspectors from Oranienburg don't get here too often, so I can be flexible and pursue my scientific interests.
But what decree from Oranienburg was weighing on him now? The corners of his mouth were tugging downward; his face seemed more lined than it had the other day. For the first time, Keller noticed dark pouches beneath his eyes.

He cleared his throat. “Later, it might help you to claim you saved thirty Jews.”

The Kommandant looked up at him. “What did you say?” His eyes had regained their focus.

“If you're ever held responsible for what happened here…”

“What makes you think you have a right to talk about such things to me?”

“I'm sorry, sir, but I've been driven past too many bombed-out factories. I've seen whole towns leveled.” The words were coming faster now, accelerating into a breathless cascade. “Schools, churches, everything turned to rubble. And the front is getting closer.”

“Do you know what would happen if you implied in any public place that Germany might lose the war?” But his voice sounded tired, and the severity in his tone seemed forced.

Keller was determined to go on, to push through his fear. “This isn't a public place. I'm trying to speak to you…as one realist to another. If thirty is too large a group, I beg you to save a few, or just one. If it has to be only one…”

“I refuse to discuss any ideas predicated on the defeat of the Fatherland.”

“What about the experiment? You've gone to so much trouble to make it work. Don't you want to see if they can ever behave like normal people again?”

The Kommandant's laugh was dry, raucous. “Tell me, what is normal behavior these days?” He got up, walked over to the window and looked out. After a few moments, without turning back to face Keller, he said in quiet, measured tones, “I can only assure you that I'll do everything in my power to fulfill your wishes.”

He kept staring out the window in the direction of the stone building with the chimneys, puffing away at his cigarette, enveloping himself in a blue-gray cloud of silence.

 

For the rest of the morning Keller thought about the Kommandant's cryptic promise to fulfill his wishes. It had come so abruptly, with his back turned, through a veil of smoke. There was nothing specific in his pledge, little for Keller to hold on to as he prepared for the final performance.

Yesterday he had saved the Jews from a massacre. So perhaps it wasn't such a huge leap to imagine he would continue protecting them, whatever his reasons. Of course, this was the man who had lied to him so smoothly about the inmates' shoes—and the ovens. But maybe he
had
to lie that first day.

The Kommandant had needed him to perform as well as possible in the experiment. If Keller had known the full truth from the beginning, his cooperation would have been halfhearted at best. And that wasn't good enough. The Kommandant had made it clear: he didn't want him just following orders.

Keller despised himself for trying to justify the man's lies, but he had to find a way to trust him now. He had to believe they had a chance. To bring them back to pain and terror was to bring them only halfway. The Kommandant must know that. If that was all he wanted, then this experiment was hardly worthy of the name—it would have to be considered a mere variation on the theme of cruelty, a refinement of torture. No, he must be looking for more than a sudden release of inhibitions, a momentary catharsis. The key to the whole experiment was
today's
concert, after the dam had burst: would they go wild again, would they slide back into lethargy, or would they listen with deep concentration?

Keller chose to believe the healing process had continued overnight.

It would take time to analyze the results of the experiment, to make detailed observations of the Jews' behavior in the coming days. Time was the precious commodity he had to purchase for them with his playing. Time was running out for the Third Reich.

 

That afternoon he played only one piece: Bach's monumental Partita in D Minor. The crowning glory of this work is the Chaconne, the culminating movement, longer and weightier than the first four movements combined. Thirty-two variations are built on a simple bass line. There are radical changes of mood—sweeping climaxes are followed immediately by the softest imaginable utterances—but the continuity is never broken. The music moves from urgency to repose and back again, never straying from its key, reworking the same harmonies in ever-shifting guises. It is full of the joys and sorrows of this life, and a yearning for something beyond.

Though a few of the prisoners stared at him when he arrived, most of them behaved like a normal concert audience. Speaking quietly among themselves, they settled down quickly to hear him play. Whatever their feelings were toward him, they seemed to need the music he was about to give them. He was sure there would be no screaming or violence.

Before he started, his eyes found Grete's. From the openness of her expression, from the expectant half-smile playing around the corners of her lips, he could tell she was no longer angry about the disagreement they'd had near the open gate. Before that, he had given her the sympathy she needed. He hadn't taken advantage of her weakness. Thank God, she had no way of knowing what had gone through his mind in that room.

The prisoners were not the only ones who seemed different. As he began the Bach, he was happy to hear how much his playing had changed. The sound was pouring out of his instrument. The violin seemed like part of his body; he held and moved around it without effort. The ebb and flow of the music rocked, soothed, almost hypnotized him. The phrasing was so natural—nearly speechlike—that he couldn't believe it was coming from him. All those measures he had practiced endlessly for purity of sound and intonation suddenly seemed
improvised,
as though the music were unfolding at that instant for the very first time. Yet the structure of the work had never been clearer to him.

At first he kept asking himself why it was happening. At last, what he'd always longed for. It all fit together—it was perfect, but how could it be? Without understanding what might have produced such a change, how could he hold on to it? It would slip through his fingers; the next performance wouldn't be like this.

Then he saw that there could be no assurances. For some reason a moment of bliss had been granted him, and it was worth any disappointment he might feel later. He wanted to savor every fraction of that precious moment, didn't want it ever to end. But within a few minutes he learned to stop worrying, stop thinking, stop trying to feel a certain way. It might be over in half an hour, yet there was so much in that piece, so many events that seemed sufficient to fill a lifetime, as long as he could invest them with enough meaning. So much
did
happen in that performance, and it was all recorded perfectly in his musical memory. For once, he had no doubts about the accuracy of his perceptions; he would always remember every phrase, every nuance.

When he finished, there was silence—a silence of awe, as though they were all possessed by the echo of that immortal music resounding through their souls. He stood there shaking, still in the grip of that final, inevitable cadence on D, a unison that seemed to stretch infinitely beyond its duration. Then came a burst of applause. It was thunderous, despite their small numbers and the dead acoustics of that place. He bowed low, knowing that once this applause stopped he would pack up and leave, and never see these people again. They had shared something unforgettable, and he couldn't bear the thought of returning to the drudgery of life as it was before.

While his head was still down, the door swung open. At least ten guards rushed in. The applause stopped. They grabbed a man sitting in back and pulled him over to a wall.

Three of the guards began to beat the man with their clubs. At first they weren't hitting him with all their strength. They were just fooling around: their ruddy faces took on a heightened glow, their smiles and laughter bespoke a game. In fact, it was the first time Keller had seen any of them smile. Nothing to worry about yet, he tried to tell himself. But then with a twinge in his gut he remembered seeing his family's cat play with birds or mice it had caught, administering what were little more than love pats to its terrified prey, sometimes even letting the injured victim move away a few inches before pouncing on it and breaking its neck with a powerful swat.

They were starting to hit harder now. The man screamed for help, tried to defend himself. His right arm got in the way of their clubs, then hung loose as the blows centered more and more on his head and neck. Red rivulets flowed from his nostrils into his mouth, where a rust-colored froth bubbled and gurgled as he struggled for air. He must have been blinded by the blood streaming down his forehead into his eyes.

Why him? Keller thought, unable to move. He was pretty sure the poor man was the one they'd dragged in the other day, the one who had hidden under his bed. But could that boycott of his concert have led to this?

Begging for mercy, the victim reeled and staggered from one to another of his torturers, as if he were approaching each of them in a hellish merry-go-round and waiting to be hit so he could move on to the next. They waited a little longer now between each time they struck him, giving more focus and emphasis to their blows. Their laughter had stopped, the smiles had faded from their faces. It was work now. Finally one of them, who seemed a bit more authoritative than the others, dropped his club. On his face was a look of boredom, even irritation with this tiresome Jew for putting them through such a tedious exercise. The Jew was taking too long to die.

The guard took out his pistol, pushed the tottering victim to his knees and put the muzzle to the nape of his neck. The poor man might have been praying for the last second of his life; his blood-flecked lips were moving rapidly, soundlessly when the shot came. As he pitched onto the floor, another guard gave him a final kick so vicious that the body rolled over and landed on its back.

Half the face had been blown away. Blood and brain tissue spattered the floor and the boots of his murderers.

The guards turned to the other inmates. In their stony faces, in those icy eyes was a death sentence with no possibility of appeal. And from the victims, mute fear. Keller would have expected screams, but all he heard was the blood pulsing in his head.

The guards lined up the prisoners and marched them outside. He rushed after them. It had just started to snow, and the wind was whistling in the distance. The prisoners were quickly arranged in rows of seven or eight. Some of the women were moaning now, others shivering audibly from cold and fear. Most of the men stared with sullen hatred at the guards. A few were praying, rocking from their heels to the balls of their feet as their heads bobbed.

The guards chose five men and three women and placed them against the wall of a neighboring building. The full-breasted woman was among them, her hands clasped, her face gaunter than ever.

A hunchback hobbled up to face the line of prisoners. Rudi had never finished telling Keller about him, but now he saw that the man was carrying a submachine gun, not a broom. Even though he wore the same kind of uniform as the guards, Keller couldn't believe he was one of them. He had never seen him together with the others, and would have thought him too deformed to qualify as a soldier of the Third Reich.

The man was hideously ugly. His nose must have been broken many times—probably from brawling in barrooms and back streets, Keller thought—and dense stubble darkened his face.

A few of the people against the wall were whimpering and wringing their hands. One man was on his knees, begging for mercy. A guard grabbed his shoulder and jerked him back to a standing position. The hunchback pulled his right foot back, getting ready to shoot, but before he raised his gun Keller moved forward a few paces—not directly between him and his victims, but close enough to distract him. For several seconds the hunchback looked alternately at Keller and at the Jews lined up against the wall, blinking his dull eyes as he ran his fingers gently over the barrel of his weapon. A drop of spittle glistened on his lower lip.