Spark of Life (44 page)

“Did they say anything about women being rounded up, too?” asked Bucher.

“No. They won’t, either. There are far too few women here.”

Lewinsky got up. “Come,” he said to Berger. “That’s why I’m here. I came to fetch you.”

“Where to?”

“To the lazaret. We’ll hide you there for a few days. Maybe only
for one or two. We have a room next to the spotted-fever ward; no Nazi dares go near it. It’s all arranged.”

“And why?” asked 509.

“The crematorium gang. They’re doing away with them tomorrow. So the rumor goes. Whether they’ll include Berger in it, none of us knows. I think they will.” He turned to Berger. “You’ve seen too much down there. Come with me, for safety’s sake. Change your clothes. Put yours on a corpse. Take his.”

“You’d better go,” said 509.

“And the block senior? Can you arrange things with him?”

“Yes,” said Ahasver surprisingly. “He’ll hold his tongue. We’ll see to that.”

“Okay. The red-haired clerk has been tipped off. Dreyer in the crematorium is jittery with fear for himself. He won’t look for you among the dead.” Lewinsky snorted noisily. “There are too many of them anyhow. I stumbled over them all the way here. It’ll take four or five days to have them all burned. By then there’ll be more. Everything’s already in such a mess no one knows what’s going on. The main thing is that they don’t find you.” A grin flashed across his face. “At such times that’s always the main thing. To be out of range.”

“Come on,” said 509. “Let’s look for a corpse that isn’t tattooed.”

They had very little light. The intermittent, smoldering redness on the horizon wasn’t any help. They had to bend low over the dead to see if there were numbers tattooed on their arms. Discovering one about Berger’s size, they stripped it.

“Go on, Ephraim!”

They were sitting on the side of the barrack which faced away from the guards. “Quick,” whispered Lewinsky, “change your clothes here! The fewer who know about it the better. Give me your jacket and trousers.”

Berger undressed. He stood silhouetted against the sky like a
ghostly harlequin. During the unexpected distribution of underwear he had been thrown a pair of women’s drawers which reached halfway down his legs. Above these he wore a low-cut, sleeveless shirt.

“Report him as dead tomorrow morning!”

“Yes. The SS block leader doesn’t know him. We’ll cope with the block senior all right.”

Lewinsky grinned furtively. “You’ve really gotten quite smart! Come along, Berger.”

“So there’s going to be a transport after all!” Rosen’s eyes followed Berger. “Sulzbacher was right. We shouldn’t have talked of the future. It’s bad luck.”

“Nonsense! We’ve gotten something to eat. Berger has been saved. It’s not certain that Neubauer will pass on the order. What do you mean—bad luck? Do you want a guarantee for years?”

“Will Berger come back?” asked someone behind 509.

“He’s been saved,” said Rosen, bitterly. “He won’t go with the transport.”

“Shut up!” retorted 509 sharply. He turned round. Behind him stood Karel, the boy from Czechoslovakia. “Of course he’ll come back, Karel,” he said. “Why don’t you stay in the barrack?”

Karel shrugged his shoulders. “I thought you might have a bit of leather to chew.”

“Here’s something better,” said Ahasver. He gave him his piece of bread and the carrot. He had saved it for him.

Karel began eating very slowly. After a while he felt the others eyeing him. He got up and walked away. When he returned he was no longer chewing.

“Ten minutes,” said Lebenthal, glancing at his nickel watch. “A
good job, Karel. I couldn’t have managed that. With me it lasted ten seconds.”

“Couldn’t we swap the watch for some food?” asked 509.

“We won’t be able to do any swapping tonight. Not even gold.”

“One can eat liver,” said Karel.

“What?”

“Liver. Fresh liver. If you cut it out right away, you can eat it.”

“Cut it from where?”

“From the dead.”

“Where did you get that idea, Karel?” asked Ahasver after a while.

“From Blatzek.”

“From which Blatzek?”

“Blatzek in the Brno camp. He said it was better than dying. The dead were dead and would go up the chimney anyway. He taught me a lot. He showed me how to play dead and how to run when they’re shooting from behind—zigzag, here and there, up and down. Also how not to get smothered in a mass grave. And how to dig oneself out at night. Blatzek knew a lot.”

“You know a lot, too, Karel.”

“Sure. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

“That’s true. But let’s think of something else,” said 509.

“We’ve still got to put Berger’s clothes on that corpse.”

It was easy. The body wasn’t yet stiff. They piled several more corpses on top of it. Then they crouched together again. Ahasver began murmuring. “You’ve got a lot to pray about tonight, old man,” said Bucher grimly.

Ahasver glanced up. He listened for a while to the distant rumbling. “When the first Jew was slain without trial they broke the law of life,” he said slowly. “They said, ‘What are a few Jews compared with Greater Germany?’ They looked away. They had the
Army, which at that time didn’t belong to the murderers. The Army could have stopped it all in one day. But they let it happen. For that they are now to be punished by God. A life is a life. Even the poorest one.”

He began murmuring again. The others were silent. It turned cooler. They crouched closer together.

Squad Leader Breuer woke up. Drowsily he switched on the lamp beside his bed. Instantly two green lights flashed up on his table. They were two small electric bulbs which had been ingeniously fixed into the eye-sockets of a skull. As soon as Breuer turned the switch a second time, all the other lamps went out—leaving only the skull shining into the darkness. It produced an interesting effect. Breuer was very fond of it. He had thought it up by himself.

On the table stood a plate with some cake crumbs and an empty coffee cup. A few books lay beside it; adventure stories by Karl May. These and an obscene privately printed book on the love life of a dancer represented Breuer’s literary education.

He raised himself, yawning. He had a bad taste in his mouth. He listened for a while. The cells in the bunker were silent. No one dared moan; Breuer had taught the inmates discipline long ago.

He reached under the bed, pulled out a bottle of brandy and took a wine glass from the table. He filled it and drank it down. Then he listened again. The window was closed. Even so, he thought he heard the rumbling of the guns. He poured himself another glass and drank it. Then he got up and looked at his watch. It was half-past two.

He pulled his boots over his pajamas. He needed the boots; he was fond of kicking stomachs. Without boots it had little effect. The pajamas were practical; the bunker was very hot. Breuer had
enough coal. The crematorium was already running short; but Breuer had laid in a store for his purposes in good time.

He walked slowly along the corridor. The door of each cell had a peephole which enabled one to see in. This Breuer didn’t need. He knew his menagerie and he was proud of this expression. Sometimes he also called it his circus; it was then that he fancied himself as a lion tamer with his whip.

He walked past the cells as a wine lover walks through his cellar. And just as the connoisseur chooses the oldest wine, so Breuer decided tonight to deal with his oldest guest. It was Luebbe in Cell Seven. He unlocked it.

The cell was small and unbearably hot. It had a central heating apparatus turned on full blast. A man was chained by the hands and feet to the pipes. He hung unconscious just above the floor. Breuer contemplated him for a while; then he fetched a watering can from the corridor and sprayed the man as though he were a parched plant. The water sizzled on the hot pipes and evaporated. Luebbe didn’t stir. Breuer unlocked the chains. The burned hands fell down. He sprayed the remains of the water in the can over the figure on the floor. A puddle formed. Breuer walked out with the can to fill it again. Outside, he stood still. Two cells further on someone moaned. He put down the can, unlocked the second cell and strolled leisurely in. He could be heard muttering; then came the muffled sounds of kicking; then a thumping, shoving, knocking, clanking, and suddenly howls and screams that slowly merged into the gasps of choking. There were a few more hollow thuds and Breuer appeared again. His right boot was wet. He filled the watering can and strolled back to Cell Seven.

“Well, well!” he said. “You’re awake!”

Luebbe lay flat on the ground, face down. He was trying with both hands to scrape together the water on the floor to lick it up.
He moved clumsily like a half-dead toad. Suddenly he saw the full watering can. With a low squawk he arched himself, lunged round and made a grab for it. Breuer trod on his hand. Luebbe failed to pull it out from under the boot. He craned his neck as far as he could toward the can; his lips quivered, his head trembled, and he squawked with great effort.

Breuer contemplated him with the expert’s eye. He realized that Luebbe was almost finished. “Go on, then—guzzle!” he growled. “Guzzle your last breakfast!”

He grinned at his joke and stepped off the hand. Luebbe threw himself at the can with such haste that it rocked. He couldn’t believe his luck. “Guzzle slowly,” said Breuer. “We have time.”

Luebbe drank and drank. He had just gone through chapter six of Breuer’s educational program—several days of feeding on nothing but salted herring and salt water; and in addition to this chained to the hot pipes with the heat full on.

“Enough!” declared Breuer at last and pulled away the can. “Get up. Follow me.”

Luebbe stumbled up. He swayed and leaned back and vomited water. “You see,” said Breuer, “I told you to drink slow. Move!”

He pushed Luebbe in front of him down the corridor into his room. Luebbe fell into it. “Get up!” said Breuer. “Sit down on that chair!”

Luebbe crawled onto the chair. He swayed and leaned back and waited for the next torture. He no longer knew anything else.

Breuer looked at him thoughtfully. “You are my oldest guest, Luebbe. Six months, what?”

The ghost before him swayed. “What?” repeated Breuer.

The ghost nodded.

“A nice time,” declared Breuer. “Long. It’s the kind of thing that binds men together. Somehow you’ve grown quite close to my heart. Sounds funny, but that’s more or less what it amounts to.
After all, I haven’t anything against you, personally, you know that. You know that,” he repeated after a pause. “Or don’t you?”

The ghost nodded again. He was waiting for the next torture.

“It’s just that we’re against the whole lot of you. The single one is of no interest.” Breuer nodded ponderously and poured himself a cognac. “No interest. A pity, I thought you’d have pulled through. We’d only two more chapters to go—the hanging from the feet and my special final one—and then you’d have been through and gotten out, you know that?”

The ghost nodded. He didn’t know it for certain, but it was a fact that Breuer occasionally discharged prisoners for whom no express death warrant had been issued after they had lived through all the tortures. In this respect he followed a kind of bureaucratic system; whoever got through was given a chance. It was caused by a reluctant admiration for the victim’s ability to withstand so much. There were some Nazis who thought this way, and who as a result considered themselves gentlemen keeping to the rules of fair play.

“Pity,” said Breuer. “I’d have rather liked you to get away. You showed courage. Pity I’ve got to do away with you all the same. You know why?”

Luebbe didn’t answer. Breuer lit a cigarette and opened the window. “Because of that.” He listened a moment. “D’you hear it?”

He watched Luebbe’s eyes following him uncomprehendingly. “Artillery,” he said. “Enemy artillery. They’re coming nearer. That’s why! That’s why you’ll be done away with tonight, my boy.” He closed the window. “Bad luck, what?” He grinned crookedly. “Just a few days before they could have gotten you out of here! Rotten bad luck, what?”

He was pleased with his idea. It lent finesse to the evening. A spot of spiritual torture as a final touch. “Really, infernal bad luck, what?”

“No,” whispered Luebbe.

“What?”

“No.”

“Are you that tired of life?”

Luebbe shook his head. Breuer looked at him, astonished. He felt that the ghost sitting before him was no longer the same wreck as a minute ago. Luebbe suddenly looked as though he’d had a day of rest. “Because now they’re going to get you,” he whispered with torn lips. “All of you!”

“Damn nonsense!” For a moment Breuer was furious. He realized he had made a mistake. Instead of torturing Luebbe he had rendered him a service. But who could have guessed that this creature cared so little for life? “Don’t you go and get ideas! I was just fooling you. We won’t lose! We’re just clearing out of here! The front’s being shifted, that’s all.”

It didn’t sound convincing. Breuer knew it himself. He took a swig. Doesn’t matter, he thought, and drank again. “Think what you like,” he said then. “Whatever happens, you’re out of luck. Forces me to finish you off.” He felt the alcohol. “Pity for you and pity for me. Was a good life. Well, maybe not for you, if one comes to think of it.”

Despite his weakness, Luebbe watched him carefully. “What I like about you,” said Breuer, “is that you didn’t give in. But I’ve got to finish you off so that you can’t talk. Particularly you, the oldest guest. You first. The others’ turns will come, too,” he added soothingly. “Never leave witnesses behind. Old National Socialist rule.”

He took a hammer out of the table drawer. “I’ll get it over quick.” He put down the hammer. Instantly Luebbe stumbled up from the chair and tried to snatch the hammer with his burnt hands. Breuer gave him a slight shove with his fist. Luebbe fell. “Well, well,” said Breuer good-naturedly. “Still having a try. You’re
quite right. Why not? Just stay there on the floor. Then it’s easier for me.” He held a hand to his ear. “What? What d’you say?”

“They’ll get you all—all in the same way—”

“Oh, lay off it, Luebbe! That’s what you’d like. They won’t do that kind of thing. They’re much too gentlemanly for that. I’ll have quit before, anyhow. And nobody’ll think about you any more.”