The Wrong Boy (15 page)

I spent the afternoon playing Bruckner and Wagner for the commandant and his guests. My fingers found the notes even when my mind was elsewhere. I was in the Puszta forest picnicking with Karl, and beside him at the opera, and in the park feeding the ducks. He kept me company all afternoon and on the long walk back to the barrack, but he disappeared at the barbed-wire fence.

I opened the barrack door. It was dark. I was tired. I climbed onto the bunk. Next to me three women huddled together.

“
Hanerot halalu anachnu madlikin
.”

I recognised the whispered prayer. The woman next to me was reciting a Hanukkah prayer in Hebrew, a blessing my mother made every year over the Hanukkah candles. We’d light the candles and eat doughnuts sprinkled with sugar in celebration of the miracle of the burning oil. I reached under my bunk.

“Here,” I whispered, handing the woman the stub of the candle Erika pretended to light for my birthday.

“
Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu
…” She pulled a matchbox from beneath her bunk, struck the one remaining match and lit the wick. It sparked and fizzed, but failed to light.

“Hashem, God of our fathers.” The woman held the blackened wick above her head and returned to her prayers. “We light this light for the miracles and wonders you bestowed upon our forefathers.” The women next to her repeated the prayer, their fingers outstretched towards the burned-out wick. I looked at their faces alight with hope and wished I could find the comfort they sought.

“When the Maccabees went to the temple to light the Menorah they found only enough oil for one day.”

“One day,” the women echoed, their faces shiny with hope.

“One day,” the woman with the wick whispered into the dark. “But the oil lasted eight.”

“The commandant won’t be needing you to play piano this morning. He has important business to attend to and doesn’t want to be distracted.” Rosa stopped me in the hallway. “I’m sure you’ll find something to do. The commandant’s son is already in the music room.”

Karl was bent over a battered cardboard box, his hands buried in tinsel. A small tree stood unadorned in the corner of the room.

I opened the music cupboard and pulled out a rag. Another day of dusting. I bent over the piano and ran the rag over the keys. The commandant had come to the music room only once in the last two weeks. I hoped his absence had something to do with the recent fireworks over Birkenau. The block leader said the Russians were coming to save us. The barrack windows had rattled and the sky had glowed orange, but the Russians never came.

“Is the commandant entertaining tonight?” I looked down at the thumb I’d scraped on the rough wood of my bunk and hoped I wouldn’t have to play piano. I could still see the dark tip of a splinter buried under my skin.

“No. He’s on his way out. It’ll just be the two of us.” He hunched over the box. It was just the two of us now and Karl still wouldn’t look at me.

“Why won’t you look at me? Is it this?” I asked, peeling my scarf from my head.

“No.” Karl looked wounded. “Of course not.”

I tugged the scarf back over my head.

“It’s just …” Karl tunnelled deeper into the tinsel. “When I look at you I see what we’ve done.”

“I don’t hate you,” I said.

“I know.” He stared at the box. “You hate Birkenau. I hate it too. I thought I could hide here, that if I didn’t leave the house and go over there–” he looked in the direction of the camp– “I could pretend it didn’t exist.” He looked down at his feet. “And then you arrived.” He stood up and brushed the tinsel from his trousers. A strand of silver ribbon clung to his shirt. He pulled his sketchpad from the side table, opened it to the last page and walked towards me. I stopped dusting. When he reached the piano he pulled the stool out and placed the sketchpad on it.

“I did this a while ago.” Patches of red spread over his cheeks. I looked down at the open book. On the last page was a drawing, done in charcoal, of a girl with large pale eyes. She was half hidden in shadow, so you couldn’t see her hair or her clothes, but you could tell she was beautiful. Her skin was infused with light, her lips parted in a secret smile.

“She’s beautiful,” I whispered, turning to Karl.

He looked down at the drawing. “Of course she’s beautiful.” He brought his face close to mine. “She’s you.”

“Sorry to interrupt.” Rosa stepped from the shadow of the doorway. Karl reached for the sketchbook and flipped it shut. “I just wanted to see if Master Jager wanted a fresh pot of tea?” She didn’t look sorry. And when she said it, she wasn’t looking at Karl, she was staring at me.

“No, thank you.” Karl put the sketchpad into a cupboard and reached for the box of ornaments. Rosa frowned at me and walked back to the kitchen. I ran my rag over the piano. Karl pulled a silver angel from the cardboard box and brushed his fingers along its glinting wings. Neither of us spoke but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t invisible. I’d never been invisible. Karl had been watching me from the start, enough to memorise the slant of my nose, the slope of my eyes, the way the light fell on my skin.

“Karl!” the commandant’s footsteps echoed down the hall. I ran to my corner. “Ah, you’re here!” he said, stepping into the music room. “Decorating the tree? Good. You’ll be busy. I’m going out.” Karl didn’t answer. “Don’t sulk,” the commandant said. “I haven’t forgotten it’s Christmas. You’ll get your present.”

“So you won’t be back till late?” Karl asked.

“No. I have a meeting and then a function in town. I’ve given Klaus and the others the night off too. It’s Christmas Eve, after all.” His eyes landed on me. “You!” He waved a finger in my direction. “Find something useful to do.”

I ran to the music cupboard.

When I could no longer hear the commandant’s heavy footfall, I turned to Karl. He sat, crossed-legged on the floor, surrounded by silver-foil snowflakes and hand-painted baubles. He looked wretched. I opened my mouth to speak but he shook his head and dug deeper into the box. I tried not to look hurt.

“He mightn’t have left yet.” He craned his neck to look through the window. “It’s–” Outside a car rumbled to life, gravel spitting from its wheels.

“I know,” I interrupted. “It’s dangerous.” I knew what his father was capable of; I didn’t need reminding.

“You don’t know the half of it.” He planted the angel at the top of the tree. “Here, take these to the kitchen.” He pulled three plates from the side table, stacked them one on top of another and handed them to me. On the plates was a smear of a cream, half a square of marzipan and three glazed cherries. He lifted the teapot from the table and poured the leftover tea into a cup. “Wash this too,” he said, balancing the cup on the plates. I winced.

He looked down at the plates.

“The food,” he whispered. “Eat it in the kitchen.”

I put the plates on the piano stool and showed him my hand. “It’s my thumb. It’s sore.”

“Have you had it seen to?” He touched the swollen skin. “It looks infected.” His forehead creased. “Father is having guests over tomorrow. He’ll expect you to play.”

He was right, of course. I had to get the splinter out. The commandant was out for the rest of the day. If I slipped away now and went to the infirmary no one would know.

“I’ll go to the infirmary,” I said.

“No.” Karl shook his head. “Not the infirmary. You have to get it seen to, but not there. Maybe I’ll try–”

“It’s too deep,” I said. “And I’ll need something for the infection.”

“Then find someone in the camp.”

“Who?” I fought to keep my voice low. “Unless your Dr Huber makes house calls, there
is
no one else.”

Karl was silent. I turned for the door.

“The infirmary’s not safe, Hanna.” Karl blocked the doorway. “It’s not like a regular–”

I cut him off.

“My mother’s in the infirmary.”

We stood there awkwardly. Neither of us spoke. “See the doctor, then leave.” Karl stepped away from the door to let me pass.

Outside the sky was the colour of snow and the ground was glazed with ice. I hurried back to camp with a guard at my back, careful not to trip on the frozen ground. The guard left me standing outside a barrack and a nurse let me in. The infirmary was cold – a long narrow ward lit by open skylights and crammed with bunks. A rough wooden counter ran between the bunks, its surface littered with buckets of dirty water, excrement and medicine. Half-naked women lay shivering on the straw mattresses, bones wrapped in skin. I scanned their faces, looking for my mother, but she wasn’t among them. Neither was Vera.

I walked towards a door at the far end of the barrack where a line of women gathered, waiting to be seen. A nurse shaved my head. She didn’t take my temperature or ask me what hurt. I slipped my silk scarf back over my head.

“The doctor will see you now.” The girl at the front of the queue limped through the door. Her leg was wrapped in a bloodied rag. I took a step forwards. The woman in front of me turned and looked at me, at my silk scarf and my warm winter coat. She had a growth on her neck the size of a tennis ball.

“What are you in for?” She spoke Hungarian.

“My thumb,” I answered. “I have a splinter.”

“A splinter?” she laughed. “You’re here about a splinter! I can barely swallow.” She pointed to the lump on her neck.

“I play piano for the commandant,” I mumbled. “I have to look after my fingers.”

“The commandant?” She grabbed me by the collar and pulled me to her. Her breath smelled rotten. “She plays piano for the commandant,” she called out to the women next to her. “I hope they cut both her hands off.” She pushed me to the floor. Someone spat at my head. Another woman shoved me, hands reached for my scarf. I scrambled to the back of the line where they couldn’t see me. A girl whose head was too big for her body asked how I’d come by my coat. I told her I stole it.

There was loud yelling from the other side of the door. I clasped my hands over my ears to dull the sound and tried not to think about losing a finger. Robert Schumann had his piano career cut short after he’d injured his hand. He’d taken up composing. If I couldn’t play, my alternative was the quarry.

The line limped along. We moved forward slowly.

“See you on the other side.” The girl in front of me smiled nervously. She was ushered into a room. The door closed behind her. I pressed my ear to the wood. I heard mumbling, footsteps, a muffled cry, then nothing. The minutes wore on.

“Come in.” A nurse opened the door and ushered me into a white tiled room. In the centre of the room was a hardwood table, under it, on the floor, four pieces of rope.

“What are you here for?” she asked. I showed her my hand.

“Get undressed and climb onto the table.”

I did as I was told. I lay down and waited, the wood cold against my skin. I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. I’d never been to a doctor without my mother.
Where are you
, Anyu? I squeezed my eyes shut.
Papa, I need you
. My father had told me to be brave. I forced my eyes open. He’d told me to remember every detail of the camp and tell the world what I’d seen. I looked at the nurse, watched as she wound a length of rope around my right arm and fixed it to the table, then my right leg, and my left. A man entered the room. He was holding a kitchen knife, the type
Anyu
used for slicing beef. There was a sink in the corner of the room but he didn’t stop to wash his hands. He stepped towards me, holding the knife, its sharpened edge glinting in the fluorescent light. I tried to lift my head to speak but there was a hand pressing down on my skull and then the doctor lent over me and the room started spinning.

I woke up in a bed in another white-walled room. I tried to move my thumb but I couldn’t feel anything. My whole hand, from my wrist to the tips of my fingers, was wrapped in gauze. My thumb. I needed to see my thumb. I tore at the blood-stained bandage, struggling to unravel the wet cotton with one hand. I looked around frantically for someone to help.

“Please,” I said to the girl lying next to me. I held out my hand.

“Bastards!” she said, struggling to pull the sheet from her bed. “Butchers!” she yelled, tossing the soiled sheet to the floor. She looked down at her legs. “I walked in here with a sore foot. Now look at me! ”

I looked down at her legs, one pale and thin, the other a bandaged stump, cut off at the knee.

I leaped out of bed and ran from the infirmary, tearing at my bandage. By the time I reached our barrack it was dark. I collapsed on the ground outside the hut, squeezed my eyes shut and peeled off the last layer of gauze. I lowered my hand to my skirt, looked up at the sky and let my fifth finger graze the fabric. I still had “G”. I watched the shivering stars and pressed down with my fourth finger, “F”, then continued the scale, “E”, “D” and finally, “C”. Five notes. Five fingers. I opened my eyes and looked down at my thumb. A small piece of flesh had been gouged from the tip. I ran my finger along the incision, careful not to unpick the neat black seam the doctor had stitched into my skin. My beautiful, lacerated thumb. It was pink and tender but it would heal.