Alexander Altmann A10567 (2 page)

“Enjoy your stay.” He snatched a plank of wood from beside the door. “Now get outside.” He swung at the nearest man and Alexander ran for the door. Men rushed to escape the block leader’s reach, tripping over each other as they fled outside. Alexander reached the latrine hut, found an empty hole in the concrete slab, pulled down his pants and sat down on the bench. Even though it was summer, the floor was slimy with mud and the room was damp.

“
Scheissen!
” Mietek commanded, lowering his stick. It was hard to shit on command, sitting shoulder to shoulder with the next frightened man. Especially when your stomach was empty, but it would be hours before he would be allowed back to the latrines, so Alexander tried.

“You finished yet?” The man staring down at Alexander reached out to nudge him. Alexander kicked out at the man and he moved down the line, rubbing his shin. There were only fifty-eight holes bored into the concrete bench, five minutes to do your business and hundreds of men. Fights broke out and the stronger men won. The man who’d nudged Alexander was tussling an older prisoner for an empty seat, three holes down. Alexander covered his ears and tried to block out the shouting and the sound of men straining to empty their bowels and, beyond the hut, the sound of dogs barking and guns firing. He craved quiet but there was nowhere in the camp where he could hide from the noise. There wasn’t enough room or enough food, he thought, standing to wipe himself with a scrap of lining torn from his jacket. There were too many people, too many Nazis and dogs and guns, too much noise.

Back in Hungary, Alexander had avoided Košice’s busy city streets, preferring the countryside’s gaping spaces and endless sky. Part of him had been relieved when the order came that Jews weren’t allowed to continue at school. He’d grown tired of the taunting and the banners decorated with swastikas which lined the streets. He hated the blaring loudspeakers strung from lampposts and the signs that read:
Jews not allowed
. He loathed being trapped indoors, behind a desk, when all he wanted to do was ride his horse into the hills. And here I am, he thought, trapped behind barbed wire. He leaned over a rusted basin, washed the stains from his square of lining and walked back to the barrack.

Mietek turned the lights out and the men climbed onto their bunks. The boy next to Alexander closed his eyes and slept. Alexander didn’t say goodnight. There was always someone in the barrack who didn’t wake up the next day. So why say goodnight, he thought, when what you really mean is goodbye. Alexander turned away from the boy and stared at the wall. The wooden barrack had once been a horse stable and Alexander could still see the rings on the walls where the horses had been tethered. He’d slept in a stable before, the night his workhorse, Sari, had given birth to her foal, but the room had been warm and had smelled of leather and oats.

Alexander lay on the splintered wood, fighting sleep. He hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since the day he’d arrived in Birkenau. Every time he slipped into sleep, he saw his sister disappear into a grey brick building: the shower block where you didn’t get wet. He wished he had a photograph of Lili, so he could look at his sister when he woke. A photo of her smiling face so he could banish her screams. Just one picture of the family so he could remember his mother’s dark eyes, his father’s crooked smile and his sister’s blonde curls. There were nights he missed them so badly that the only thing he could do to stop himself crying out was to dig his nails into his palms. He unfurled a hand and traced the small crescent-shaped scars carved into his skin until his eyes grew heavy and sleep pulled him under.

“
Steh auf!
”

Alexander woke to the sharp sound of a whistle and Mietek’s mean voice.

The block leader grabbed his plank of wood and Alexander leaped from his bunk. He didn’t need to dress; he slept in his clothes. Breakfast was a cup of coffee. It tasted rank but it was hot and wet so Alexander drank it. The block leader threw out a handful of beet peels and ten men threw themselves on the scraps.

“Time for muster!” Mietek swung his plank at the nearest body. Alexander ran for the door and fell into line for the walk to the rollcall square. Another blue sky day, he thought, another day staring down the barrel of a gun and daring himself to hold its gaze.

“Don’t let her know you’re scared,” his father had said to him the first time Alexander had sat on Sari’s back. He was three. Sari was five: a gentle, hard-working mare with big kind eyes. Still, he’d been frightened when he’d felt the animal under him. It was one thing to climb onto the fence railing and pat the horse’s brown mane, or sit in the milk cart beside his father and watch Sari’s ears flick backwards and forwards as she trotted along. But another altogether to climb onto her broad back and feel her muscles shift under him.

Don’t show the bastards you’re scared.

Alexander stood in the baking heat and waited for the men to form their labour units. Caps on. Caps off. Men collapsing around him. Lunch was a bowl of gritty cabbage soup. Alexander tipped his bowl and licked it clean. He’d learned not to gulp down his meals. He drank slowly, paying attention to every sliver of cabbage, fixing his mind on the way the broth felt sliding down his parched throat. He’d been on his feet for six hours, had fifteen minutes for lunch, and here he was again, back under the mean sun, fighting his hunger and fear. He blotted the sweat from his face with his sleeve and counted down the hours until dinner.

When the labour units filed back into camp, the guard in the black uniform took the podium, cleared his throat and ran through the list of skilled workers needed to replace the day’s dead. He called for three carpenters, a chemist, two mechanics and a metal worker. Men edged forwards and raised their hands. Alexander toed the dirt and waited for the whistle that marked the end of evening rollcall. His thirst was fierce and his stomach hurt. The block of bread he’d demolished the previous night lay in his stomach like a stone.

The guard tucked his clipboard under his arm and scanned the faces of the men assembled below him. “… horses.”

Alexander lifted his head as he caught the end of the sentence. Three arms shot up in front of him. Had he heard right? After six weeks of rollcalls, waiting and watching, while other boys, smarter boys, more skilled boys, left his barrack for beds with clean sheets, had the guard spoken of horses?

Alexander looked up at the guard’s face, at his lips, frozen into a grimace, and willed him to speak. To repeat what he’d said so Alexander could be sure. The man pointed to each of the men in turn, and waved them from the line.

“That’s three of you. We need four men experienced with horses. Anyone else?”

Alexander’s hand flew up just as the man beside him raised his arm. The guard turned to look at Alexander and the prisoner beside him. He pointed a stubby finger and cleared his throat.

“You. Fourth from the end. We’ll take you!”

Alexander lowered his arm. He looked down at his hands and saw that they were trembling. The guard had chosen
him
. No more drills, no more standing under the hot sun for hours on end. Alexander’s mind raced. He wasn’t going to dig ditches or cart rocks. He’d be working with horses. He’d be sleeping in a new barrack and he’d be well fed. There’d be cheese and marmalade and soups thick with vegetables. And horses. He felt the corners of his mouth curl upward.

Stop it, he thought. A smile could get you killed. His smile fell away but the warm feeling stayed, so he tucked it away in a place deep down, a place the Nazis couldn’t reach.

“
Häftlinge folgt mir!
” One of the guards turned on his heel and Alexander and the other men hurried after him. They didn’t stop at their barrack to pack their belongings. The men wore everything they owned: a pair of striped pyjamas and a cap, a rusted bowl looped onto a belt and a pair of camp clogs or their own worn-out shoes. Alexander marched past the colourless barracks and the smoking chimneys, taking a deep breath when he stepped beyond the main gate. It felt good to breathe clean air and move his arms and legs. He looked into the darkness at the pitted dirt road that snaked away from the camp and wondered where they were headed. The boy in front of him glanced back at him, a smile crinkling the skin around his eyes but Alexander didn’t smile back. He didn’t pay the boy any attention, not until he saw him swoop on the guard’s discarded cigarette butt and slip it into his pocket.

The guard stopped at a fence and raised his gun. He motioned the prisoners through a gate, above which a sign read
Arbeit Macht Frei
– Work Brings Freedom. Alexander’s stomach tightened. This wasn’t what he’d expected. The place looked just like Birkenau: steel, barbed wire and rows of blinding floodlights.

“
Halt!
” The guard raised his hand and stopped outside a double-storey brick building where an inmate wearing a green triangle waited at the door. He carried a leather belt in his hand and peered down at the men, his dark eyes slits above his pointed nose.

“These the new men for the Horse Platoon?” he enquired of the guard.

The guard slid a cigarette between his lips and nodded.

Platoon?
Alexander bristled. Who did they think they were fooling? Alexander knew he was lucky to be looking after the Nazis’ horses but it was still slave labour. They weren’t a platoon. You don’t murder the families of your platoon officers! Alexander glared at the inmate.

“Welcome to Auschwitz. I’m your new block leader.” The man with the green triangle introduced himself. “I run this barrack. Your
kapo
, who will come for you tomorrow, is in charge of your platoon. He’ll take you to the stables. The Commander of the Horse Platoon, Herr Ziegler, will meet you there.” Block leader, kapo, Nazi – all ugly words, Alexander thought, words that cost him the farm and his family.

The block leader kicked the door open and Alexander saw a set of stairs and beyond it, a row of three tier bunks. Bunks with straw mattresses, smooth, white sheets and blankets. The beds were big; the beds were huge. Alexander’s eyes grew round. It was like a palace compared to the last barrack.

“Inside.
Schnell!
” The block leader waited for the prisoners to enter the barrack, before following them in. The guard stood in the doorway, his hand on his gun.

“Let’s take a look at you. Line up.” The block leader surveyed the men with cold eyes. Alexander puffed out his chest and pinched his cheeks to redden them.

The block leader stopped in front of each of the men in turn, and asked them to touch their toes or stick out their tongue. He seemed to wear a permanent sneer, and Alexander noticed his lips didn’t close all the way, exposing his crooked teeth. Alexander waited his turn. The block leader looked him up and down as if he was a cow at a farm sale.

“Take them to the showers,” the block leader spat.

The showers?
Alexander began to panic. The guard raised his gun and the men hurried out the door after him.

“What about the horses?” Alexander croaked, but the guard didn’t answer.

“Doesn’t he want us?” Alexander tapped the shoulder of the man in front of him. “What did we do wrong?” Alexander knew about the showers. He knew that the heads leaked gas, not water. “Why can’t he just send us back to Birkenau?” Alexander raised his voice, “I’ll go back to Birkenau.”

The man in front of him turned back and glared. “I’m not going back to Birkenau. And neither are you.”

“
Ruhe!
” the guard snapped and Alexander fell silent.

He stepped into the brick building, left his dusty clothes on the bench and fell into line, lifting his eyes to the dirty grey ceiling and the shower heads spaced a metre apart. “I’m coming, Lili,” he whispered, as the heavy wooden door slam shut behind him. “You can stop crying now. I’ll be with you soon.”

And then the water pelted down.

A prisoner with a green triangle grabbed Alexander and scraped a blunt razor over his head. A toothless German clipped his body hair and mopped a dripping rag over his skin. It smelled like the spray his mother used to clean the kitchen, caustic and bitter. He walked back to the barrack, dripping, his scalp stinging where it had been nicked, his skin burning.

“That’s better.” The block leader spat out a number and a man stepped forwards for inspection. Alexander looked down at the tattoo on his arm and thought of the cows corralled at the farm, waiting to be branded. His father had shown him how to use the branding iron when he was nine and Alexander had spent the summer burning numbers onto the backsides of cows. The animals hadn’t submitted quietly, Alexander remembered. They’d squealed and spurted shit over his boots.

Alexander hated the tattoo. But he was proud of the jagged scar on his left knee. It reminded him of the time he’d clipped a fence as he sailed over it on the back of a horse. The puckered skin on his right shoulder was a parting gift from a bucking bull. He’d received many bruises and bumps at the hands of an animal and he wore them with pride.

But not the tattoo. Or the Star of David he’d been forced to wear when the Germans took over Hungary. The yellow star with the word
Jude
stamped on it had marked him a Jew and that meant he could be ignored by teachers, refused entry at the cinema, chased from the soccer field and spat on in the street. The star meant he was different. Alexander didn’t keep kosher or walk to synagogue on Saturdays. He didn’t pray to God or understand Hebrew. He didn’t feel any different from the boys at school or the other farmers’ sons.