Thirst No. 5 (33 page)

Ralph glances around in the dark, holding a brown paper bag in his hand. “Do guards patrol this spot?” he asks.

“You’re lucky your wife warned me you might show up. The Nazis assigned four guards to me this evening, two in front of me, two behind me. I called over a couple at a time and flirted with them. You know I know plenty of dirty German words. After a few minutes of flirting I caught their eyes and suggested they take a nap.” I nod over my right shoulder. “The four of them are snoring in that shed over there. They’re not going to wake up anytime soon.”

Ralph nods as he studies the area. “It’s odd how they’ve caged you out here in the open.”

“It’s part of their psychological attack. They want me tied to this spot so I can see how easily they destroy thousands of lives. Everything they do is geared toward impressing upon me how powerful they are, and how helpless I am.”

“I’ve brought something that might change the equation. Major Klein’s girlfriend, Frau Cia, eats with the officers. Harrah told you about our friend Father Bob. He works in
the kitchen that feeds the officers. Well, tonight he gave her a hearty bowl of beef stew, her favorite. Only he laced it with liquid morphine. She barely made it back to her room.”

“The key! You’ve got her key!”

Ralph shakes his head. “Father Bob snuck into her room an hour after dinner. By then most of the morphine would have hit her bloodstream. She was out cold. Only he couldn’t slip her necklace over her head. The necklace was too short, or her head too big.”

“How the hell do they use the key, then?” I ask.

“Who knows? Maybe she only rips it off in an emergency. We’re lucky Father Bob doesn’t panic easily. He returned to the kitchen and quickly threw together some type of dough concoction, harder than normal, and snuck back into her room. She was still fast asleep. He was able to make an impression of the key.”

“Was he able to make a copy of the key from the impression?”

“A crude copy. Before he could pour boiling metal on the dough, he had to bake it first to make it hard enough to withstand the heat. He used yeast-free dough but it still expanded. Just as bad, the baked dough was still porous.” Ralph reached in the bag and withdrew a black key. He held it up for me to see. “He filed it down as best he could but it’s still got plenty of rough edges.”

“How are you going to get it to me?” I ask. A practical
question—the edge of my wire cage is over fifteen feet away.

“With this.” Ralph pulls a garden hose from his bag. “Father Bob also takes care of a flower garden on the west side of the camp.”

“Flowers grow in this hellhole?”

“Sita. They have a school over there for the officers’ kids.”

“Tell me about it another time. You got tape?”

Ralph pulls out a roll of black tape. “I’ll tape it to the tip of the hose and feed it to you. But we should go slow. If we drop the key we’re doomed.”

“Wait. Ralph, I know this is a lot to ask but . . . can you climb on top of the cage?”

“I was thinking the same thing. The hose isn’t as stiff as I’d like. It’s better if I come at you from above.” Ralph kicks off his muddy shoes. “I’m glad they didn’t use barbed wire when they built this thing.”

“Hurry. Climb,” I say.

Ralph is more nimble than I would have expected, but he’s hampered by the bag he carries. I tell him to leave it on the ground, to just carry the hose and key, but he ignores me. Twice he slips and almost falls, but after a tense two minutes he’s hanging like a bat over my head. Resting his body atop the wire mesh, he carefully tapes the key to the end of the hose.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Yeah. But I can hardly move my hands. You’re going to have to guide the key directly to my fingers.”

“I can’t see your fingers. I can’t see your face.”

“Oh.” I often forget that normal people cannot see in the dark. I lean my head back as far as the pole will allow. “I’ll guide you. You’re already off to a bad start. Feed the hose through a hole in the wire a foot higher. Then try to go straight down.”

“The hose has a major kink in it.”

“I have taken that into account. Trust me, do what I say.”

The distance from the roof of my cage to my pinned hands is only six feet. Ralph bangs the pole a few more times than I would have liked but it is not long before I have the key in my hands.

Shit!
He wasn’t exaggerating when he used the word “crude.” The two sides are relatively smooth but the most important parts, the edges, are rough. Plus the key is made of iron, not steel. I understand why. Iron melts at a much lower temperature than steel. The priest could never have mixed boiling steel with baked dough. Frankly, I’m amazed he was able to get any kind of key out of such a miserable mold.

Still, the iron content worries me. It would worry me if I were trying to break out of an ordinary stainless-steel lock. But with this alloy, if there is any resistance the key will not be able to withstand the pressure. It will bend.

All those problems, though, don’t mean a thing if I can’t fit the key into the handcuff lock. I know exactly where it is. The tips of my fingers have sweated over it for weeks.

Unfortunately, my hands have been so deprived of a normal
supply of blood for so long my fingers barely work. Several times I come close to dropping the key. Just as bad, I can’t stretch my cramped fingers far enough—and hold on to the wide end of the key—to straighten the key so that it slips directly into the lock. I keep trying to slip it in at an angle. It is all I can manage.

“Does it fit?” Ralph asks. He is staring right down at me but to him I’m a disembodied voice.

“So far it’s me that’s the problem,” I whisper.

“Can I help you?”

“You can help by being quiet.”

“Sorry.”

“Shh. Let me concentrate.” Finally, I feel the key catch hold and slowly shove it into the hole. Immediately I run into a bump, but I can’t tell if it’s a normal obstacle or if the key is seriously deformed. The only way to be sure is to apply greater pressure to the top of the key. Even though my hands are cramped, I’m still strong. Strong enough to easily warp a two-inch-long piece of iron.

I push gently. Nothing happens.

I push a little harder. Nothing.

I push hard. The key slips past the first obstacle.

It goes halfway in. Then it hits another bump.

“Damn,” I whisper.

“It doesn’t fit?”

“Shut up, Ralph. Please.”

I press hard enough to where I can feel the key beginning to
bend. It’s then I realize the truth. The problem is not because the key is made of iron. It’s the wrong shape. On the positive side, by feeling the edge of the key before I slipped it in the hole, and feeling the resistance I’m now running into, I can envision what has to be done to the key to fix it. I pull it out and tell Ralph I’m taping it back onto the hose.

“We let you down,” he says, sounding crushed.

“No. We’re close. The second protrusion from the tip has to be filed down six millimeters. No more, no less. Also, the tip of that spot must be made rounder, less sharp-edged. Give these instructions to Father Bob, and thank him for me for risking his life to save us.”

“The way the guards talk about you, he thinks you’re an avenging angel.”

“After today I wouldn’t mind playing that role.” I have secured the key to the hose. “Get ready to pull it up.”

“Not yet. I have to give you something else.”

“What?”

“Put the end of the hose in your mouth.”

“Ralph! I told Harrah not to donate any blood!”

“I didn’t let her give any. But I gave what I could and so did five other men where I sleep. I have a quart here and it’s still warm.”

“What the hell did you tell them?”

“I told them that you were an alien from another planet and you needed blood to survive.”

“Bullshit. Tell me the truth.”

“That’s what I said. They believed it, or they wanted to believe it. What matters is I got the blood. Now open your mouth and let me recharge your batteries.”

“I won’t forget this, Ralph,” I say before slipping the tip of the hose in my mouth, my lips barely avoiding the taped key. A moment later a gush of pure ecstasy fills my mouth. The blood is warm, fresh, human. It fills every cell in my body like grace-charged ambrosia. I gulp it down, yet I don’t drink so fast that I miss why the blood feels almost sacred. It was given in love, in faith and hope. Another reason why I must do everything I can to save the people trapped in this camp.

I feel a huge ache when the flow suddenly stops.

“Had enough?” Ralph asks hopefully.

“Plenty!” I lie. I’m so depleted, I could have drunk a gallon. Yet within seconds of consuming the blood, my pain begins to diminish. The first to go is the cramping in my diaphragm. I can breathe again! For the night, at least, my slow crucifixion has halted. My frame of mind takes a big jump in the positive direction and I’m able to think clearer. As Ralph carefully pulls the key back up, I come up with an idea.

“Ralph, I told you, they’ve brought me topside to see you and Harrah, and to experience firsthand the horror of this place. But that underground room where I first woke up was built for me. It’s the one cage they know I can’t break out of. I bet they put me back there tomorrow. For that reason, after
Father Bob modifies the key, I need you or him to place it on top of the pole down there. There’s a flat spot at the top that I can just reach.”

“Will the guards see it?”

“I doubt it. The top of the post is taller than any guard. And they won’t be looking for it because it’s not missing. People generally don’t see what they don’t expect to find. The key must be left on the top side near the door. They usually have me pointed in that direction. Now, repeat what I told you about the outline of the key.”

Ralph repeats my instructions word for word.

“Perfect,” I say. “Now get out of here before anyone sees you.”

“God must be on our side to get this far,” he says as he climbs down. As he turns to leave, I almost tell him that five thousand years of experience has taught me that God doesn’t work that way.

But I like to think that if Auschwitz has no other purpose, then at least it exists to test the faithful. It’s a childish thought to have while covered in the ash of a thousand ghosts. I feel shame that I even try to frame such pain in my mind. Still, a part of me struggles to make sense of what I have seen.

It’s as if the agony of those on the train cries for answers.

Or for a reason.

I can’t block out the memory of the screams I heard today when the gas poured down on the women and children. I can’t
imagine what they felt in those last minutes. I can only hope in the midst of such unfathomable cruelty that a spark of something decent—call it God’s grace or simply a quick blackout—came to them. More, much more, I pray that their final prayers have been answered and they have been lifted up to a paradise where there’s no suffering, not even the memory of this . . . their last day on earth.

“Krishna,” I cry in the dark, saying his name over and over again. As is often the case, between cursing and pleading I try my best to envision his dark blue eyes. But sadly, in such a place they elude me, and I’m left with the empty feeling that he is far, far away.

I fear the Nazis are going to beat me.

• • •

The next day I’m still locked in the wire cage when Major Klein, Frau Cia, and Himmler come to question me. Again they bring the table and their torturous tools. They place the table four feet in front of me and set down a bulky tape recorder between the knife and the bottle of gasoline. It must run on batteries. Himmler does not turn it on before facing me.

“Time to tell us what we want to know,” he says.

“I have told you everything I know,” I reply.

“Everything you remember?” he says.

I hesitate. “Yes.”

“Your first answer was a lie. Your second, the truth.” He nods to himself as he circles the pole. “You know it is possible
for a human being to know something and not remember. It is common when there is a major trauma associated with the memory. For example, I have no memory of how my mother died, although I was ten at the time. I had just come from school and found my parents arguing. It seems my father had caught my mother in bed with another man. He was furious, of course, and I was worried he was going to hurt my mother. But I was also angry with her, very angry.” Himmler stops. “The next thing I knew I was at my mother’s funeral. Three days had passed.”

“That must have been quite a shock,” I say.

“It was, yes, a terrible shock. Especially when I heard my father and other relatives whispering to each other as we walked back to the car. Do you know what they were saying?”

“No.”

“They were discussing how I was the one who killed my mother.”

His answer stuns me. He’s telling me the truth, and yet I know from reading about his life that he was close to his parents, and that both were supposed to have survived until he was an adult.

Of course, it is the Nazis who have written the story of his life.