‘Books? I don’t read books,’ Baretski mutters.
‘You should.’
‘Why? What good are books?’
‘You can learn a lot from them, and girls like it if you can quote lines or recite poetry.’
‘I don’t need to quote books. I’ve got this uniform; that’s all I need to get girls. They love the uniform. I have a girlfriend, you know,’ Baretski boasts.
This is news to Lale.
‘That’s nice. And she likes your uniform?’
‘Sure does. She even puts it on and marches around saluting – thinks she’s bloody Hitler.’ With a chilling laugh he mimics her, strutting away, arm raised, ‘Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!’
‘Just because she likes your uniform doesn’t mean to say she likes you,’ blurts out Lale.
Baretski stops in his tracks.
Lale curses himself for the careless comment. He slows his steps, pondering whether to go back and apologise. No, he’ll walk on and see what happens. Closing his eyes, he places one foot in front of the other, one step at a time, waiting, expecting to hear the shot. He hears the sound of running behind him. Then the tug of an arm on his sleeve. ‘Is that what you think, Tätowierer? That she just likes me because of my uniform?’
A relieved Lale turns to face him. ‘How do I know what she likes? Why don’t you tell me something else about her?’
He doesn’t want any part of this conversation, but having dodged a bullet he feels he has no choice. It turns out that Baretski knows very little about his ‘girlfriend’, mostly because he’s never asked her about herself. This is too much for Lale to ignore, and before he knows it he is giving Baretski further advice on how to treat women. Inside his head, Lale is telling himself to shut up. What should he care about the monster beside him and whether or not he will ever be capable of treating a girl with respect? In truth, he hopes Baretski will not survive this place to be with any woman ever again.
Chapter 5
Sunday morning has arrived. Lale leaps from his bed and hurries outside. The sun is up. Where is everybody? Where are the birds? Why aren’t they singing?
‘It’s Sunday!’ he calls to no one in particular. Spinning around, he notices rifles trained on him in the nearby guard towers.
‘Oh shit.’ He races back into his block as gunshots pierce the quiet dawn. The guard seems to have decided to scare him. Lale knows this is the one day that prisoners ‘sleep in’, or at least don’t leave their blocks until their hunger pains force them towards the black coffee and single piece of stale bread. The guard sends another round into the building, for the fun of it.
Back in his small room, Lale paces to and fro, rehearsing the first words he will say to her.
You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, is given a run, and discarded. He feels pretty sure that, with her bald head and clothes once worn by someone much bigger, she doesn’t feel beautiful. Still, he won’t completely rule it out. But perhaps the best thing would be to keep it simple – What is your name? – and see where that leads.
Lale forces himself to stay inside until he begins to hear the sounds, so familiar to him now, of the camp waking up. First the siren pierces the prisoners’ sleep. Then hungover SS, short on sleep and temper, bark instructions. The breakfast urns clang as they are moved to each block; the prisoners carrying them groan as they get weaker by the day and the urns get heavier by the minute.
He wanders over to his breakfast station and joins the other men who qualify for extra rations. There is the usual nodding of heads, raising of eyes, occasional brief smiles. No words are exchanged. He eats half of his bread, stuffing the remainder up his sleeve, creating a cuff to keep it from falling out. If he can, he will offer it to her. If not, it will be Leon’s.
He watches as those not working mingle with friends from other blocks and disperse in small groups to sit and enjoy the summer sun while it lasts. Autumn is just around the corner. He starts towards the compound to begin his search, and then realises that his bag is missing. My lifeline. He never leaves his room without it, yet this morning he has. Where is my head? He runs back to his block and reappears, face set, bag in hand – a man on a mission.
•
For what seems like a long time Lale walks among his fellow prisoners, chatting to those he knows from Block 7. All the while his eyes search the groups of girls. He is talking to Leon when the tiny hairs rise on the back of his neck, the tickling sensation of being watched. He turns. There she is.
She is chatting with three other girls. Noticing that he has seen her, she stops. Lale walks towards the girls and her friends step back, putting a little distance between them and the stranger; they have heard about Lale. She is left standing alone.
He comes close to the girl, drawn again to her eyes. Her friends giggle quietly in the background. She smiles. A small, tentative smile. Lale is almost rendered speechless. But he summons the courage. He hands her the bread and letter. In it, unable to stop himself, he has told her how he can’t stop thinking about her.
‘What’s your name?’ he asks. ‘I need to know your name.’
Behind him someone says, ‘Gita.’
Before he is able to do or say anything more, Gita’s friends rush to her and drag her away, whispering questions as they go.
That night, Lale lies on his bed saying her name over and over. ‘Gita. Gita. What a beautiful name.’
•
In Block 29 in the women’s camp Gita curls up with her friends Dana and Ivana. A beam from a floodlight seeps through a small crack in the timber wall, and Gita strains to read Lale’s letter.
‘How many times are you going to read it?’ Dana asks.
‘Oh, I don’t know, until I know every word off by heart.’ Gita replies.
‘When will that be?’
‘About two hours ago,’ Gita giggles. Dana hugs her friend tightly.
•
The next morning Gita and Dana are the last to leave their block. They exit with their arms linked, talking, oblivious to their surroundings. Without warning the SS officer outside their block hits Gita in the back with his rifle. Both girls crash to the ground. Gita cries out in pain. He indicates with his rifle for them to get up. They stand, their eyes downcast.
He looks at them with disgust and snarls, ‘Wipe the smile from your face.’ He takes his pistol from its holster and pushes it hard against Gita’s temple. He gives the instruction to another officer: ‘No food for them today.’
As he walks away, their kapo advances and slaps them both quickly across the face. ‘Don’t forget where you are.’ She walks away and Gita rests her head on Dana’s shoulder.