The Wrong Boy (12 page)

Autumn made way for winter, and the cold Polish sun disappeared behind cloud. Outside the music-room window only a few leaves of deep red clung to the plum tree. Everything was tinted grey: the fog, the thick mud that clung to our shoes, our faces. Birkenau’s barbed-wire fences and watchtowers tipped me toward hopelessness. There was no escaping, and no end to the war. We heard fighter planes scream overhead, and one night saw the sky red and raining down with bombs. But when dawn came the barracks stood unharmed, and the band still played a death march. I still had to trudge to the villa, Erika still had to dig trenches, and the guards still had guns.

The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, passed without fanfare. I couldn’t sing the praises of a God I no longer believed in, or wish Erika a happy New Year, When the holiest of religious days, Yom Kippur, arrived at the end of September, I didn’t fast. I swallowed my coffee defiantly and refused to ask God to forgive my sins. And when we fell into bed and a woman in the next bunk sang Avinu Malkeinu, I didn’t join in. “Hear our prayer,” she whispered, “
sh’ma kolenu
. Inscribe us for blessing in the Book of Life.”

It was easy to die in Birkenau. You looked a guard in the eye, or stumbled from the line on the way to the washroom. I saw a girl refuse to get out of bed and another spit at a guard. They were both dragged outside and shot. I wasn’t going to help death along. I stole, but I wasn’t stupid. I took risks, but they were calculated. I wanted to make it out alive so I did things I wasn’t proud of. I stayed silent when other girls were beaten and I stole from an inmate. I woke up one morning to find the girl who’d been sleeping beside me was dead, so I did what I’d seen dozens of girls do before me, I searched her pockets for a crust of bread. I couldn’t eat the handful of crumbs I found; I gave them to Erika.

In Debrecen I’d left behind a beautiful wall calendar. Each page had a scene from a famous opera and a portrait of a composer whose birthday fell on that month. I shared my December birthday with Beethoven. Clara Schumann’s was in September. I’d wanted to pack the calendar but there wasn’t room for it. In Birkenau, there was no need for it. Calendared time didn’t matter in the camp. It only mattered that I made it to the commandant’s home every morning, sat down at his piano and played the right chords. Every day was the same as the day before: the commandant and his guests would have morning tea and talk over Bach, and Karl would sit sullenly in the corner. Every day was a repeat of the day before. Every day was tedious and grey, until one day in November when everything changed.

The commandant, Karl and I were in the music room. Vera had been sent to the kitchen to make tea.

“What’s taking her so long?” the commandant grumbled. “For heaven’s sake, go see what the hold-up is.”

I ran to the kitchen, turned into the doorway and slumped to my knees. Vera was lying on the kitchen floor on a bed of shattered porcelain.

“Vera, what happened?” She looked like a broken doll. Limp tea leaves clung to her dress and her scarf was slick with blood. She opened her mouth but no sound came out. I lifted her head from the floor.

“Vera, who did this to you?” Her eyes flickered towards the window. A guard was pacing the driveway, SS standard issue – cropped blond hair, hard blue eyes, crisp grey uniform – one of a dozen faceless guards who patrolled the grounds. I turned back to Vera.

“What happened?”

“He hit me, I fell backwards …”

“But why?”

“I couldn’t …” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Hanna, I need you to do something.”

“Of course, Vera. Anything.” I reached up, pulled a rag from the bench, folded it and slipped it under her head.

“I need you to …” Vera closed her eyes.

“What Vera? What do you need me to do?” I leaned down. I was so close I could feel her lips brush the tips of my ear.

“I need you to take over the laundry shift. Tell Karl I said it was okay.” She let out a thin cry. “It hurts.”

“You’re going to be okay,” I said. What I wanted to say was
Please don’t die
. And then Karl walked in. “She needs help. Please. Get some help.”

“What happened?” Karl asked without looking at me.

“Yes. What happened?” the commandant echoed, stepping into the room. I looked through the window at the guard who was now seated on a bench, his head in his hands. It was safer not to accuse anyone and let the commandant work it out.

“Klaus!” the commandant hollered, stepping outside.

“Please. She needs a doctor.” I turned to Karl. He was watching his father guiding the guard back into the house.

“I’ll put a phone call through to Lagerführerin Holzman.” The commandant stepped over Vera as he spoke to Klaus. “She’ll arrange a replacement. Let’s hope she’s better at making tea.” He looked down at Vera, sprawled on the floor.

“Father, shouldn’t she be seen to? Your physician isn’t far …”

The commandant looked at his son. “Dr Huber has better things to do,” he began, “but perhaps you’re right.” He stopped to consider his son’s suggestion. “She mustn’t die here. Too messy. Klaus, take her back to Birkenau.” And then he stalked out.

The soldier pulled Vera to her feet and dragged her outside.

“Wait!” I called after Karl as he turned to leave. “I have a message from Vera.” I held my breath. Karl swung around to face me. “She asked me to do the laundry shift. She said to tell you it was okay.”

“Okay,” he said, looking past me to the window. I felt my cheeks flush.
Of course it was okay. What difference did it make to Karl who did the laundry?
“Meet me here at three o’clock.”

I’d been waiting for ten minutes, trying not to look at the spot where Vera had lain, when Karl walked into the kitchen lugging a wicker basket. He carried it to the back door and motioned for me to follow him. He set the basket down and looked out the window into the garden, his gaze suddenly intent. In the basket were sheets, towels and tablecloths. The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed three.

“Any minute there’ll be a knock at the door. Take this,” he said, lifting the basket from the floor and handing it to me. It was heavy.

“It’s the laundry,” he explained. “Ivanka collects the dirty linen every day after lunch. She used to leave it for Vera.” He lowered his voice. “From now on she’ll leave it for you.” He looked at me but I couldn’t read his expression. I only knew that his eyes were even bluer close-up. Blue flecked with green.

“Tibor will knock on the door at three. Give him the basket.”

There was a knock at the back door and Karl rushed from the room. I reached for the doorhandle. A scrawny man in a striped jacket poked his head through the door.

“Where’s Vera?”

“Vera’s been hurt. She’s been taken back to camp. I’m Hanna. Are you Tibor?”

He nodded.

“She told me to take over her shift,” I continued, holding up the basket. He opened his drawstring bag and I tipped the laundry into it.

“She trained you well,” he whispered, pulling an apple from the bag. I looked at the apple. Then I looked into the bag. Lying among the sheets and towels and pillowslips was a loaf of bread, a scattering of potatoes and a jumble of apples.

“I didn’t put them there,” I stammered, shaking my head.

“Of course you didn’t.” He winked. “Take the apple.” He held out his hand. “I have to go. They’re waiting for me at the laundry.”

“Who’s waiting?”

“Andor, Vera’s brother. I give him the food and he distributes it. There are a lot of hungry people in Birkenau.” He threw the bag over his shoulder and walked to the truck idling in the driveway. I scooped up the empty wicker basket and closed the kitchen door.
Tibor. Karl had told me to give the laundry to Tibor
. The basket slipped from my fingers and clattered to the floor. Karl knew the name of the man who collected his laundry. He knew what time it would be collected and the name of the girl who changed the sheets. He’d called Vera by her name too. He could have used their numbers. He could have called Ivanka “the maid”. He could have called Tibor “the Jew who did the laundry”.

He’d used their names.

I had so much to tell Erika. I swung the barrack door open, handed the block leader my apple, fell onto the bunk beside Erika and burrowed into her.

“Vera’s been hurt.” I was going to tell Erika about Tibor and the laundry basket and my conversation with Karl, but first I needed to talk about my friend.

“How bad is she?” Erika asked, wiping the tears from my eyes.

“Bad.” I looked up at her. “What’s that?” I pointed to a red gash on her forehead.

“It’s nothing, just a scrape. Tell me about Vera.”

“I’ll tell you everything, once you tell me what happened.”

“I was at the quarry. I was working too slowly. One of the foremen got angry. It looks worse than it feels.” Erika didn’t want to talk about it. She never wanted to talk about it, about the work, her hunger, the guards, the girls. I knew she was just trying to protect me, but it felt like a punishment.

I tore a strip of silk from the lining of my coat and wrapped it around Erika’s forehead. I wished I could do more. I wished I could stop them hurting her. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of green beans. Then I lifted my skirt and pulled a few small carrots from my underwear. It didn’t matter that Erika hated green beans or that I’d stowed the carrots in my underpants. She thanked me for them, treating me like I was some brave hero, when really I was just a coward who deserted her every day to hide out in the commandant’s villa.

“So will you do it?” Erika asked after I told her about the laundry basket. “Will you get the food to Tibor tomorrow?” Her eyes flashed. I hadn’t seen that look of rebellion on my sister’s face for a long time.

Vera’s words echoed in my ears.
Take over the laundry shift
. She’d meant for me to see the food. And she was relying on me to have a basket ready for Tibor tomorrow. I replayed every scene in my head, every look, every conversation I’d had that day. Karl had whispered his instructions, he’d carried the heavy basket into the kitchen, he’d been expecting a knock at the door at three, and he knew our names. Did he know about the food in the laundry hamper? I thought about the love song he’d sung and the butterfly drawing. Maybe I’d been wrong about Karl …

The block leader ordered us all out of our bunks.

“There’s something I want you to see,” she said, stroking her whip. I forced myself to look as she dragged a woman from her bunk and ordered her to stand in the middle of the hut. If we didn’t look, if we turned our heads or closed our eyes we’d be next in line. She told the woman to lift her dress and bend over. We watched and counted under our breath, one red welt across the back of the woman’s legs, two, three. The woman’s knees buckled when the block leader reached fifteen but she didn’t cry out. The block leader put her whip down at forty and went to bed.

“What did you do?” Frightened voices floated up from the bunks. The woman pulled her skirt down and looked at the women huddled on the bunks. Her eyes were dry.

“I stole a carrot from the kitchen.”