Spark of Life (15 page)

THE LATRINE WAS
overcrowded with skeletons. They were standing in a long line, shouting to the others to hurry up. A number of those waiting lay on the ground, writhing with cramps. Anxiously, others crouched close to the walls and evacuated when they could no longer contain themselves. One man stood upright like a stork, one bony leg raised high, one arm propped against the barrack wall, and stared open-mouthed into the distance. He stood thus for a while, then he fell over dead. This occasionally happened: skeletons hardly able to crawl any more suddenly raised themselves laboriously, stood there a few moments with vacant eyes, then fell down dead—as though their last wish had been to stand once more before the end, upright like a human being.

Lebenthal stepped cautiously over the dead skeletons and walked toward the entrance. An excited cackling started immediately. The waiting men believed he was trying to push himself forward in the line. They dragged him back and pummeled him with thin fists. No one dared leave the line; the others wouldn’t have let him return to his place. The skeletons succeeded, nevertheless, in knocking
Lebenthal down and trampling on him. It didn’t do him much harm; they had no strength.

He stood up. He hadn’t intended to cheat. He was looking for Bethke, who belonged to the transportation gang. He had been told Bethke had come here. He waited awhile near the exit, at a safe distance from the grumbling line. Bethke was a customer for Lohmann’s tooth.

He did not come. As a matter of fact, Lebenthal didn’t understand what he would be doing in this lice-infested latrine. True, business was carried on here, too; but for such deals a big shot like Bethke had much better opportunities elsewhere.

Finally, Lebenthal gave up waiting and walked over to the wash barrack. It consisted of a smaller section attached to the latrine and contained long concrete troughs over which water pipes with small openings were fixed. Clusters of prisoners crowded round them, most of them in order to drink or catch some water in tin mugs to take away with them. There was never enough for a man to wash properly, and anyone undressing to try to do so would have had the permanent fear that his clothes would be stolen in the meantime.

The washroom was a place for the slightly better black market. In the latrine, at best bread crusts, refuse and a few cigarette stubs were traded. The washroom was already a haunt for the minor capitalists. Even men from the labor camp came here.

Lebenthal slowly forced his way through. “What’ve you got?” someone asked him.

Leo threw the man a quick glance. He was a ragged prisoner with only one eye. “Nothing.”

“I’ve some carrots.”

“Not interested.” In the washroom Lebenthal suddenly appeared more determined than he ever did in Barrack 22.

“Fathead!”

“One yourself!”

Lebenthal knew several of the dealers. He would have tried to bargain for the carrots if he hadn’t been counting on Bethke this evening. He was offered sauerkraut, a bone and a few potatoes at outrageous prices; he declined and walked on. In the furthest corner of the barrack he noticed a young fellow with feminine features who didn’t look as if he belonged here. He was greedily eating something out of a tin can, and Lebenthal realized that it wasn’t just thin soup; he was chewing, too. Beside him stood a well-nourished prisoner of about forty who didn’t seem to fit into the place, either. He belonged undoubtedly to the camp’s aristocracy. His bald fat head gleamed and his hand slid slowly down the young man’s back. The youth’s hair was not shaven; it was well combed and had a parting. Nor was he dirty.

Lebenthal turned round. He was about to return disappointed to the carrot dealer when he suddenly saw Bethke coming, forcing his way ruthlessly toward the corner where the youth was standing. Lebenthal stepped in his path. Bethke pushed him aside and placed himself in front of the youth. “So, this is where you’re hiding, Ludwig, you whore! Now I’ve caught you for once!”

The boy stared at him and gulped quickly. He didn’t say a word.

“With a foul baldhead of a kitchen bull!” Bethke added viciously.

The kitchen bull ignored Bethke. “Eat, my boy,” he said indolently to Ludwig. “If you’re still hungry, then you can have more.”

Bethke turned red. He hit the tin can with his fist. The contents splashed up into Ludwig’s face. A piece of potato fell to the ground. Two skeletons flung themselves at it, tore it away and came to blows. Bethke kicked them aside. “Don’t you get enough from me?” he asked.

Ludwig held the can pressed tight with both hands against his chest. Anxiously he screwed up his face and glanced from Bethke
to the baldhead. “Evidently not,” exclaimed the kitchen bull in the direction of Bethke. “Don’t you worry,” he then said to the boy. “Go on eating, and if you haven’t enough, there’s more. You won’t get a hiding from me, either.”

Bethke looked as though he were about to fling himself at the baldhead; but he didn’t dare. He didn’t know how much protection the other had. Such things were extremely important in the camp. If the baldhead had the full protection of the kitchen kapo, a fight could turn out badly for Bethke. The kitchen had excellent connections and was known to make deals with the camp seniors and various SS-men. Bethke’s own kapo, on the other hand, distrusted him. Bethke knew he wouldn’t do much for him; he hadn’t been sufficiently greased. The camp was full of such intrigues. If he wasn’t careful Bethke could lose his job without further ado and become an ordinary prisoner again. That would be the end of the profitable business deals he made outside the camp while driving to the railroad station and the depot.

“What does all this mean?” he asked the baldhead, more calmly.

“What’s it got to do with you?”

Bethke swallowed. “It has something to do with me.” He turned toward the boy. “Didn’t I get that suit for you?”

Ludwig had gone on hastily eating while Bethke was talking to the baldhead. Now he let the can drop, thrust himself with a quick unexpected movement between the two men and made for the exit. A few skeletons were already wrestling for the can to scrape it out. “Come again!” the kitchen bull called after the boy. “I’ll always have enough for you.”

He laughed. Bethke had tried to stop the boy but had tripped over the skeletons on the floor. He got up raging and trod on their snatching fingers. One of the skeletons squealed like a mouse. The other got away with the can.

The kitchen bull began whistling the waltz “Roses from the
South” and walked past Bethke with provocative slowness. He had a large stomach and was well nourished. His fat posterior wobbled. Almost all the prisoners in the kitchen were well fed. Bethke spat after him. But he spat so cautiously that he only hit Lebenthal. “And you?” he said insolently. “What do you want? Come along. How did you know I’d be here?”

Lebenthal didn’t answer any of the questions. He was here on business. There was no time for superfluous explanations. He had two serious prospective customers for Lohmann’s tooth: Bethke and a foreman from one of the outside gangs. Both needed money. The foreman was enslaved to a certain Mathilde, who worked in the same factory as he and whom he managed, through bribery, to meet alone from time to time. She weighed almost two hundred pounds and seemed to him divinely beautiful; in the camp of permanent hunger, weight was the yardstick for beauty. He had offered Lebenthal several pounds of potatoes and one pound of fat. Lebenthal had declined and now congratulated himself on it. He had interpreted the recent scene with lightning speed and now expected more from pansy Bethke. He considered abnormal love more willing to make sacrifices than the normal. After the scene he had witnessed he had immediately raised his price in his mind. “Have you got the tooth on you?” asked Bethke.

“No.”

They stood outside. “I don’t buy what I don’t see.”

“A crown is a crown. Molar. Heavy, solid, prewar gold.”

“Muck! I’ve got to see first. Otherwise there’s nothing doing.”

Lebenthal knew that the far-stronger Bethke would simply take the tooth from him if he saw it. He wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. If he complained, he’d be hanged. “Okay, then nothing doing,” he said calmly. “Other people are not so difficult.”

“Other people! Fool! First find some.”

“I know some. One was here just now.”

“So? I’d like to see that one!” Bethke glanced contemptuously round. He knew the tooth could be of use only to someone who had connections with the outside.

“You saw my customer yourself a minute ago,” said Lebenthal. It was a lie.

Bethke was taken aback. “Who? The kitchen bull?”

Lebenthal shrugged his shoulders. “There must be a good reason for my being here just now. Maybe someone’s trying to buy a present for someone else and needs the money for it. Gold is very much in demand outside. He certainly has enough food for trading.”

“You crook!” said Bethke furiously. “You archcrook!”

Lebenthal raised his heavy eyelids once, then shut them down again.

“Something that can’t be had in the camp,” he continued, unmoved. “Something made of silk, for instance.”

Bethke almost suffocated. “How much?” he bellowed.

“Seventy-five,” Lebenthal declared firmly. “A special price.” He had meant to demand thirty.

Bethke looked at him. “D’you know that one word from me could put you on the gallows?”

“Sure. If you can prove it. And what would you get out of it? Nothing. You want the tooth. So let’s talk business.”

Bethke was silent for a moment. “No money,” he said then. “Food.”

Lebenthal didn’t answer. “A hare,” said Bethke. “A dead hare. Run over. How’s that?”

“What kind of hare? Dog or cat?”

“A hare, I tell you. I ran over it myself.”

“Dog or cat?”

They stared at one another for some time. Lebenthal didn’t blink. “Dog,” said Bethke.

“Sheep dog?”

“Sheep dog! Why not an elephant? Medium size. Like a terrier. Fat.”

Lebenthal didn’t betray anything. The dog was meat. A magnificent windfall. “We can’t cook it,” he said. “Not even skin it. We haven’t anything to do it with.”

“I can deliver it skinned.”

Bethke became more eager. He knew that in the procuring of food the kitchen bull could easily outdo him in Ludwig’s eyes. He had to get something from outside the camp in order to be able to compete. Underpants of artificial silk, he thought. That would make an impression and give himself some pleasure, too. “Good, I’ll even cook it for you,” he said.

“Still difficult. We’d have to have a knife as well.”

“A knife? Why a knife?”

“We haven’t any knives in our place. We’d have to cut it up. The kitchen bull told me—”

“All right, all right,” Bethke interrupted him impatiently. “A knife, too, then.”

The underpants should be blue. Or mauve. Mauve would be better. There was a shop near the depot that carried such things. The kapo would let him go there. The tooth he’d sell to the dentist next door. “You can have the knife, too, for all I care. But that’s going to be all.”

Lebenthal realized he wouldn’t be able to squeeze out much more at the moment. “A loaf of bread, of course,” he said. “That goes with it. When?”

“Tomorrow evening. After dark. Behind the latrine. Bring the tooth along. Otherwise—”

“Is it a young terrier?”

“How could I know? Are you crazy? Medium. Why?”

“If not, it should be cooked longer.”

Bethke looked as though he were about to leap at Lebenthal’s face. “Anything else?” he asked quietly. “Cranberry sauce? Caviar?”

“The bread.”

“Who said anything about bread?”

“The kitchen bull—”

“Shut your trap. I’ll see.” Bethke was suddenly in a hurry. He wanted to whet Ludwig’s appetite for the underpants. The kitchen bull could feed him for all he cared, but once he had the underpants in store that would clinch the matter. Ludwig was vain. A knife he could steal. The bread wasn’t so important, either. And the terrier was only a dachshund. “Tomorrow evening, then,” he said. “Wait behind the latrine.”

Lebenthal went back. He didn’t yet fully believe in his luck. A hare, he would say in the barrack. Not because it was a dog, that wouldn’t shock anyone—there had been people who had tried to eat the flesh of corpses—but because it was part of the joy of business to exaggerate. Besides, he had been fond of Lohmann—so he would like to have gotten something out of the ordinary for his tooth. The knife could easily be sold in the camp; that would mean more money for trading.

The deal was settled. The evening had turned misty and white waves of fog spread through the camp. Lebenthal slunk back through the dark. He carried the dog and the bread hidden under his jacket.

A short distance from the barrack he noticed a shadow swaying across the middle of the road. He saw at once that it was not one of the ordinary prisoners; they didn’t move like that. An instant later he recognized the block senior of 22. Handke walked as though he were aboard ship. Lebenthal knew at once what it meant. It was
Handke’s day; he must have gotten alcohol somewhere. Lebenthal saw that it was no longer possible to get past him into the barrack unnoticed, to hide the dog and warn the others. So he sneaked behind the rear wall of the barrack and hid in the shadows.

Westhof was the first whom Handke ran across. “Hi there, you!” he shouted.

Westhof stood still.

“Why aren’t you in the barrack?”

“I’m on my way to the latrine.”

“Latrine yourself! Come here!”

Westhof stepped closer. In the fog he could see Handke’s face only indistinctly.

“What’s your name?”

“Westhof.”

Handke reeled. “Your name’s not Westhof. You’re a filthy stinking Jew. What’s your name?”

“I’m not a Jew.

“What?” Handke struck him in the face. “Which block are you from?”

“Twenty-two.”

“That, too! From my own! Swine! Which room?”

“Room D.”

“Lie down.”

Westhof did not throw himself down. He remained standing. Handke came one step closer. Now Westhof saw his face and tried to run away. Handke kicked him on the shin. As a block senior he was well fed and much stronger than anyone else in the camp. Westhof fell down and Handke kicked him in the chest. “Lie down, Jewish swine!”