Alexander Altmann A10567 (8 page)

The sun was already low in the sky when the commander returned from his ride. He slid from his horse and flung the reins at Alexander.

“Put him away for the night.” He pulled a carrot from his jacket pocket and held it out for Alexander. “Here,” he said. A dark smile crossed his face. “For the horse.”

Alexander peeled the bridle from Serafin’s head, and watched the carrot disappear between the horse’s wet lips.

He had only just finished cleaning the tack when the kapo ordered the stablehands into the yard. The commander was waiting for them. “My whip. Get it for me,” he snapped at Alexander.

But I’ve put Serafin away for the night, Alexander panicked. Why does he need his whip?

He ran to the stable, lifted the commander’s black leather whip from its hook and returned with his head lowered and his arm outstretched.

Commander Ziegler ran his manicured hands over the black leather strap and began counting the men.

“One.” He pointed his whip at the first man in line. “Two, three …” He stopped every so often to prod a man with his whip or fling a cap from someone’s head in his search for stolen goods. Alexander glanced down at his trousers. The cigarette wasn’t poking from the cuff but if he were forced to undress, it might fall out. Alexander had seen inmates smoking outside the barracks. Still, if the commandant found one on him … anything could set the man off.

The sun dipped in the sky and the faces of the stablehands turned pink in the fading light. The guards sucked in lungfuls of smoke and the kapo chewed on his thumbnail.

“Twenty-two, twenty-three. Twenty-three!” the commander raised his voice and the boy next to Alexander lurched forwards.

“Not fast enough,” the commander said, the tip of his whip sailing towards the boy’s face and catching his skin. Alexander had never seen a whip used for anything other than training horses, he’d never thought of them as sinister.

“Twenty-four!” The commander pointed to Alexander and he leaped from the line.

“Twenty-five!” The commander stopped at Isidor and asked him to remove his shoes. The colour drained from Alexander’s cheeks and he cursed himself for caring. Isidor pulled his boots off and turned his socks inside out. They were empty. The commander looked disappointed. He ordered the last boy in line to strip and shake his clothes out. The boy had thin arms and bow legs and his knees shook as he peeled off his trousers and shook them out.

The commander picked up the carrot that had fallen from the boy’s pocket.

“Turn around,” he said, a smile tugging on his lips.

The first strike of his whip left a red welt on the boy’s back. The second split the boy’s skin. He roared with pain like an animal caught in a trap but the commander didn’t stop, not until the boy’s back was slippery with blood.
That could’ve been me
, Alexander thought.

The commander disappeared into a shiny black car and two of the stablehands ran for a stretcher. They dragged the boy onto it, threw his clothes over his naked body and carried him to Auschwitz. The rest of the Horse Platoon followed in single file. Alexander’s feet hurt. He longed for his bunk and the anaesthetic of sleep. But when the Horse Platoon stopped so the guards could light their cigarettes, the prisoners had to stand. Alexander peered at the boy on the stretcher. His clothes were wet with blood and his face was pale.

The familiar clash of cymbals signalled Alexander’s return to Auschwitz. The sky glowed pink as the band welcomed the Horse Platoon back with a rousing march. Soot drifted through the air and settled on Alexander’s striped shirt, dusting his shoulders with black ash. No one talked about the sweet-smelling embers that fell day and night. Alexander wouldn’t have minded so much, if remembering the dead meant picturing his sister riding her tricycle or sitting at the kitchen table eating butter biscuits. He wished he could remember her anywhere but on the cattle train, hungry and scared and tugging at his sleeve. He swept the ash from his shirt. He’d had nothing to give her. Not even a kind word.

He heard the familiar cry of “
Mutzen ab!
” and turned to face Herr Hoess. The kapo shouted, “Twenty-seven prisoners and one dead returning to camp,” and the men lugging the stretcher laid it down before Hoess’s scribe. The boy’s shoes had already been stolen and his cup pulled from his belt. Alexander looked at the boy’s empty eyes and wondered whether he could face another day in the camp. He’d seen men in Birkenau run at the electrified fences and thought them weak. Now he wondered if perhaps suicide wasn’t an act of courage.

“Another dead?” Hoess smiled at the kapo appreciatively. “Good work.”

Alexander walked through the deserted square, relieved to have missed rollcall. Isidor had told him on the long walk home that dinner at Auschwitz was a slice of bread, a sliver of sausage, a teaspoon of margarine and, on a good day, a piece of cheese. Alexander felt sick to his stomach but the spoonful of soup he’d swallowed at lunch hadn’t filled the gnawing hole in his belly, so he stepped over the dead boy who’d been dumped by the door to line up for dinner.

“Welcome home.” The Rat swung the door open. “I hope you boys aren’t hungry.” He bent his lips into a smile. Alexander scanned the dormitory. In the middle of the room, a bread knife lay on a wooden board scattered with crumbs. The air smelled of sausage. The Horse Platoon had missed rollcall but they’d also missed dinner.

Alexander stalked to his bunk. In Košice he’d done everything he could to avoid being trapped indoors. Outside meant open skies, endless fields and the possibility of escape. Inside, he’d felt caged. Now he
was
caged. If there was a means of escape Alexander would have taken it, but there was no escaping Auschwitz. He swore silently and tore off his shirt. If he wasn’t going to get fed, he may as well get clean, he thought, taking off his boots and tramping to the shower. His fingernails were black and his mouth was dry and tasted foul. He stepped under the cool stream and showered off the sweat and horse hair. He held his face up to the needles and kept it there, happy that it hurt. He’d spent the day caring for a mean horse, grooming him for a man who whipped other men for pleasure. He’d spent the day making German children smile and their Nazi fathers proud.

He didn’t deserve to eat.

When he returned from the shower Alexander was surprised to find the barrack door open and most of the inmates outside. He stood at the door, watching them slip between the barracks, huddled in groups, talking and smoking. Isidor was standing among them, talking to a man bent over a cardboard box. He craned his head and saw Isidor reach into his pocket, pull out a cigarette and hand it to the man, accepting, in exchange, a package wrapped in wax paper.

“Excuse me.” A bald man with bushy eyebrows tapped Alexander on the shoulder.

“We need one more to make up our minyan.” The man’s eyes slid towards the dead boy sprawled on the floor. Alexander shook his head. “Sorry, I–”

“You don’t know what a minyan is. That’s all right.” The man pulled Alexander to the door. “We must hurry, before they come to take the body.” He placed a hand on Alexander’s shoulder to steady himself. “To pray for the dead, one must have ten Jewish men – a minyan.” He stared up at Alexander with red-rimmed eyes. “God will watch over the dead if there’s a minyan.”

“God?” Alexander laughed out loud. “God’s not here. Not in Auschwitz.” Alexander shook the man’s bony hand from his shoulder. “Besides,” Alexander said, remembering his sister curled up like a question mark on the dirty floor of the cattle car, and his own unanswered prayers, “me and God aren’t on speaking terms.”

“Please,” the old man begged, reaching for Alexander’s hand. “He’s my son.”

“So pray for him.” Alexander squirmed from the old man’s grasp. “Because God sure as hell won’t.” The man’s face crumpled and for a moment Alexander felt something almost akin to regret.

“
Yitgadal v’yitkadash shmeh rabba
.” The old man shuffled towards the body, his head bowed.

Alexander covered his ears, but he could still make out the Hebrew words. His father had taught him the mourner’s prayer the morning of his grandfather’s funeral. He knew the next line the prisoners would chant –
Ye-hei shmei raba
– but he kept his mouth shut. He couldn’t praise a god who took sons from their fathers, a god who forced men to watch their sons die.

Alexander sat on his bunk and pulled the cigarette the SS officer had given him from his trouser cuff. Isidor sat down beside him.

“You plan on smoking that?”

“Maybe.” Alexander pocketed the cigarette. “Why?”

“Well, if you’re not a smoker,” Isidor said, taking the square of wax paper from his pocket, “and you were hungry, you could sell it for some of these.” He unfolded the paper, pulled a pickle from it and slipped it into his mouth. “Or you could trade it for bread.” He lowered his voice. “Your cigarette will buy you about a centimetre of bread at today’s prices.”

Alexander looked confused.

“The price fluctuates. If we haven’t had bread for a few days, the price goes up,” Isidor continued, “and a slice could cost you four cigarettes.”

“Four cig–”

“We haven’t got long – it’s lights out soon – so shut up and I’ll explain.” Isidor bit into a pickle. “Cigarettes are the currency here. You can buy anything with them – socks, cutlery, a new coat. See the skinny guy with the big nose over there? That’s Karpowski. He works in the warehouse where the guards dump the suitcases. He can get his hands on a toothbrush, an extra blanket, a new pair of boots – whatever you need.” Isidor slid the rest of the pickle into his mouth. “But if you just want bread, well, most of the guys in here would sell their left leg for a smoke. The Russians are mad for cigarettes. They’ll hand over their
dinner
for a cigarette butt.”

“But the guards?” Alexander cut in.

“The guards know. Where do you think they get their vodka from?”

“But the commander … the searches?”

“Zeigler knows how it works here. He wants us fed so we can work. He just doesn’t want to
do
the feeding. The system works for everyone, as long as we don’t rub it in their faces, so don’t get caught trading,” he finished at a gallop.

“I got lucky today.” Alexander looked down at the cigarette in his hand. “Who knows when it’ll happen again?”

“You really have no idea.” Isidor shook his head. “Why do you think I lied to get in here? It wasn’t for the showers.” Isidor pulled the last pickle from its packaging. “Our platoon receives a distribution every week. Sometimes it’s a handful of cigarettes, sometimes a whole packet.” He licked the brine from the wax paper. “Of course, you have to pay off the guards and give the Rat his cut, but still …” He turned the paper over in his hands. “Reckon I can sell this.” He slipped it into his pocket. “There’s a huge market for toilet paper.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Alexander asked, staring hard at Isidor. “We’re even. I helped you with the horse and you took the whip off me. You don’t owe me anything.”

“I know.” Isidor held Alexander’s gaze. “I just figured … well, we’re all in this together.” He reached out to Alexander and Alexander flinched.

Isidor let his hand drop to his side. “You don’t want friends. I get it,” he said. “You help me with the horse, and I’ll teach you what I know. Let’s leave it at that.”

The Rat swung his hammer at the dented hubcap, and the inmates dribbled back into the barrack to get ready for bed. Alexander pulled off his boots and went to climb onto his bunk when a withered hand wrapped around his ankle.

“A word?” Father Jablonski looked up at Alexander. The purple triangle stitched to his coat rose and fell with each laboured breath. He withdrew his hand and patted the bunk beside his. Alexander sat down and stared into the old man’s face. His skin was as pale as the crumpled sheet he lay on. “Here,” the priest rasped, holding out a veined hand to reveal a slab of grey bread and a piece of sausage. “I’m not going to eat it.
You
take it.” Alexander wanted to snatch the bread from the priest’s clammy hand before the old man changed his mind.

“I can’t,” he said instead, reaching out and closing Father Jablonski’s fingers over his food, surprised by the warmth of the old man’s papery skin. “You need to eat. This is not your battle.”