As they near the girls, Lale leans into Gita, whispering, ‘Tell me. Maybe I can help.’
‘Not this time, my love.’ Gita is encircled by the girls and they walk off. Cilka, head down, lags behind.
My love!
Chapter 13
That night Lale lies on his bed, the happiest he’s been for as long as he can remember.
In her own bed, Gita lies curled up next to a sleeping Dana, her eyes wide open, staring into the darkness, reliving the moments she lay with Lale: his kisses, the longing her body felt for him to continue, to go further. Her face grows hot as fantasies of their next encounter play out in her mind.
In a grand four-poster bed Schwarzhuber and Cilka lie in each other’s arms. His hands explore her body as she stares into nothing, feeling nothing. Numb.
In his private dining room at Auschwitz, Hoess sits at an elegant table for one. Fine food rests on fine china. He pours 1932 Château Latour into a crystal goblet. He swirls, sniffs, tastes the wine. He won’t let the stresses and strains of his job impede life’s little luxuries.
A drunken Baretski stumbles into his room in the barracks at Auschwitz. Kicking the door shut, he staggers and falls awkwardly onto his bed. With difficulty, he removes the belt holding his sidearm and slings it over the bedpost. Sprawled on his bed, he registers the overhead light – still on, shining into his eyes. After an unsuccessful attempt to get up, he locates his weapon with a clumsy arm and pulls it from its holster. With his second shot he kills the recalcitrant light bulb. His gun drops to the floor as he passes out.
•
The next morning, Lale winks at Gita as he collects his supplies and instructions from Bella in the administration office. His smile disappears when he notices Cilka sitting beside Gita, her head down, once again not acknowledging him. This has been going on far too long. He resolves to force Gita to tell him what is wrong with Cilka. Outside he is met by a very hungover, angry Baretski.
‘Hurry up. I’ve got a truck waiting to take us to Auschwitz.’
Lale follows him to the truck. Baretski climbs into the cab, shutting the door. Lale gets the message and scrambles into the back. There he endures the trip to Auschwitz, tossed from one side to the other.
When they arrive at Auschwitz, Baretski tells Lale that he is going to lie down and that Lale is to make his way to Block 10. Once he finds the block, Lale is directed around the back by the SS officer standing out front. Lale notices that it looks different to the blocks back at Birkenau.
The first thing he sees as he rounds the corner of the building is the wire fence that encloses part of the back yard. Slowly he registers small movements in the enclosed area. He stumbles forward, transfixed at what lies beyond the fence: girls, dozens of them, naked – many lying down, some sitting, some standing, hardly any of them moving. Paralysed, Lale watches as a guard comes into the enclosure and walks through the girls, picking up their left arms, looking for a number, one possibly made by Lale. Finding the girl he wants, the guard drags her through the bodies. Lale looks at the girls’ faces. Vacant. Silent. He notices several leaning against the wire fence. Unlike the other fences at Auschwitz and Birkenau, this one is not electrified. The option of self-destruction has been taken from them.
‘Who are you?’ a voice behind him demands.
Lale turns. An SS officer has come out from a back door. Slowly Lale holds up his bag.
‘Tätowierer.’
‘So what are you standing out here for? Get inside.’
One or two of the doctors and nurses in white coats greet him cursorily as he walks through a large room towards a desk. The prisoners here don’t look like people. More like marionettes abandoned by their puppeteers. He approaches the nurse sitting behind the desk and holds up his bag.
‘Tätowierer.’
She looks at him with disgust, sneers, stands and walks off. He follows her. She leads him down a long corridor and into a large room. About fifty young girls stand there in a line. Silent. The room smells sour. At the front of the line Mengele is examining one of the girls, roughly opening her mouth, grasping her hips, then her breasts, as tears fall silently down her face. Finishing his examination, he waves her off to the left. Rejected. Another girl is pushed into her vacated place.
The nurse walks Lale up to Mengele, who stops his examination.
‘You are late,’ he says with a smirk, clearly enjoying Lale’s discomfort. He indicates a small group of girls standing to his left.
‘Those I am keeping. Do their numbers.’
Lale moves off.
‘One day soon, Tätowierer, I will take you.’
Lale looks back and there it is. That tight pull of the lips that constitutes a sick smile. Once again a chill spreads throughout his body. His hands shake. Lale picks up his pace, hurrying to a small table where another nurse sits with identification cards at the ready. She makes room for him to set up. He tries to control the shaking in his hands as he lines up his tools and ink bottles. He looks over at Mengele, who has another frightened girl in front of him, and is running his hands over her hair and down her breasts.
‘Don’t be frightened, I’m not going to hurt you,’ Lale hears him tell her.
Lale watches the girl shiver in fear.
‘There, there. You’re safe, this is a hospital. We take care of people here.’
Mengele turns to a nearby nurse. ‘Get a blanket for this pretty young thing.’
Turning back to the girl, he says, ‘I’ll take good care of you.’
The girl is sent in Lale’s direction. Lale puts his head down and prepares to get into the rhythm of tattooing the numbers shown to him by the nurse assisting.
When his work is complete, Lale leaves the building and looks again into the fenced area. It is empty. He drops to his knees and dry retches. He has nothing to bring up; the only fluid in his body is tears.
•
That night, Gita returns to her block to learn that there are several new arrivals. The established residents eye the newcomers with resentment. They don’t want to have to talk about the horrors that lie in store, nor share their rations.
‘Gita. Is that you, Gita?’ a feeble voice calls out.
Gita approaches the group of women, many of whom seem older. Older women are rarely seen in Birkenau, which is home to the young who can work. A woman steps forward, her arms outstretched. ‘Gita, it is me, your neighbour Hilda Goldstein.’
Gita stares and suddenly recognises a neighbour from her hometown of Vranov nad Topl’ou, paler and thinner than when Gita saw her last.
Memories flood Gita, scents and textures and flashes of the past: a familiar doorway, the aroma of chicken soup, a cracked bar of soap by the kitchen sink, happy voices on warm summer nights, her mother’s arms.