Fatelessness (23 page)

Or take the doctor, for as it has turned out, the raw-faced man is the doctor here, indeed the chief medical officer. His visit, or ward round as I could call it, was always a fixed and invariable ceremony each morning. No sooner had the room been made ready, no sooner had we drunk our coffee and the vessels been whisked off to where Pyetchka stows them, behind a curtain formed from a blanket, than the now familiar footsteps are heard clicking along the corridor. The next minute a vigorous hand throws the door wide open and then, with a greeting of what is presumably
“Guten Morgen
,” although all one can pick out is an extended guttural “
Moo’gn
,” in steps the doctor. For some unknown reason, it is not seen as appropriate for us to respond, and evidently he does not expect it either, except maybe from Pyetchka, who welcomes him with his smile, a bared head, and respectful bearing, but, as I was able to observe on many occasions over a long period of time, not so much with that already all-too-familiar respect that one is generally obliged to pay to authorities of higher rank than oneself, but rather as though he were somehow doing no more than simply paying him respect at his own discretion, of his own free will, if I may put it that way. One by one, the doctor picks up from the white table and, with an act of severe concentration, checks through the case-sheets that Pyetchka has set down by his hand—almost as if they had been, say, genuine case-sheets in, say, a genuine hospital where no issue is more cardinal, more self-evident than, say, a patient’s well-being. Then, turning to Pyetchka, he attaches a comment to one or another, or to be more precise, only ever one of two types of comment. He may read “
Kevisch . . . Was? Kevischtjerz!
” for example, but as I soon learn it would be just as unseemly for one to respond to this, to offer any evidence of one’s presence, as it would be to respond to his good-morning before. “
Der kommt heute raus!
” he may go on to say, by which in every case, as I notice over time, he always means that during the course of the afternoon the patient in question—on his own legs if he is able, or over Pyetchka’s shoulder if not, but one way or the other in any case—must report to him, among the scalpels, scissors, and paper bandages of his surgery, some ten or fifteen yards away from the exit to our corridor. (He, by the way, unlike the doctor at Zeitz, does not seek my permission, and no loud protestations on my part seem to disconcert him in the least as, with an oddly shaped pair of scissors, he snips two new incisions into the flesh of my hip, but from the fact that, after doing that, he expresses the pus from the wounds, lines them with gauze and, as a final touch, smears them, albeit very sparingly, with some sort of ointment, I can only acknowledge his indisputable expertise.) The other observation he may make, “
Der geht heute nach
Hause!
” means that he considers the person healed and therefore ready to return
nach Hause
, or home, or in other words, naturally, to his block within the camp and to work, his Kommando. The next day it all happens exactly the same way, an exact replica of these same orderly arrangements, according to rules in which Pyetchka, we patients, and even the items of equipment themselves seem to participate, fulfill their role, and lend a hand, with uniform gravitas, in the daily recapitulation, enforcement, rehearsal, and, as it were, corroboration of this invariability—in brief, as if there were nothing more natural, nothing more incontestable, than that for him, as doctor, and for us, as patients, our manifest concern and worry, indeed our sole, not to say impatiently awaited aim, is the soonest possible treatment, then speedy recovery and return home.

Later on, I came to know a bit about him. For it might happen that the surgery would be very busy and others were present. At such times Pyetchka would set me down from his shoulder onto a bench at the side, and I would have to wait there until the doctor, with a breezily peremptory call of, for instance, “
Komm, komm, komm, komm!
” and with what is in fact a friendly yet, all the same, not exactly agreeable flourish grabs me by the ear, pulls me toward him, and hoists me in a single motion onto the operating table. On another occasion, I might happen to drop by in the midst of a veritable throng, with orderlies fetching and carrying away patients, the ambulant sick arriving, other doctors and orderlies also at work in the room, and it might happen on such occasions that another, lower-ranking doctor performs on me whatever treatment is scheduled, as it were modestly off to the side, away from the operating table in the center of the room. I made the acquaintance of, and might even say got on friendly terms with, one of them, a gray-haired man, on the short side, with a slightly aquiline nose, likewise bearing a red triangle with no letter and a number which, though maybe not of two or three digits, was still in the highly exclusive thousands. It was he who mentioned, and Pyetchka indeed subsequently confirmed, that our doctor had now spent twelve years in concentration camps. “
Zwölf Jahre im
Lager
,” he said in hushed tones, nodding repeatedly, with a face that was, so to say, saluting some rare, not entirely plausible, and at least in his view, as best I could tell, plainly unattainable feat. I even asked, “Und Sie?” “Oh, ich,”
²⁷
and his face changed immediately, “
seit sechs Jahren bloss
,” just six years, he disposed of it with a single dismissive wave of the hand as being nothing, a mere trifle, not worth mentioning. In truth it was more a matter of him interrogating me, asking how old I was, how I had ended up so far from home, which is how our conversation started. “
Hast du irgend
etwas gemacht?
”—had I done anything, he asked, something bad perhaps, and I told him I had done nothing, “
nichts
,” absolutely nothing. So why was I there anyway? he inquired, and I told him that it was for the same simple reason as others of my race. Still, he persisted, why had I been arrested, “
verhaftet
,” so I recounted to him briefly, as best I could, what had happened that morning with the bus, the customs post, and later the gendarmerie. “
Ohne dass deine
Eltern . . .
” or in other words, he wanted to know if, by any chance, that had been without my parents’ knowledge, so naturally I said “
ohne.
” He looked utterly aghast, as if he had never heard of such a thing before, and it passed through my mind too that he must have been well insulated from the world in here, then. What is more, he promptly passed on the information to the other doctor who was busy there, beside him, and he in turn on to other doctors, orderlies, and the smarter-looking patients. In the end, I found that people on all sides were looking at me, heads shaking, and with a most singular emotion on their faces, which was a little embarrassing because, as best I could tell, they were feeling sorry for me. I felt a strong urge to tell them there was no need for that after all, at least not right at that moment, but I ended up saying nothing, something held me back, somehow I couldn’t find it in my heart to do so, because I noticed that the emotion gratified them, gave them some sort of pleasure, the way I saw it. Indeed—and I could have been mistaken of course, though I don’t think so—but later on (for there were one or two other occasions on which I was similarly questioned and interrogated) I gained the impression that they expressly sought out, almost hunted for, an opportunity, a means or pretext for this emotion for some reason, out of some need, as a testimony to something as it were, to their method of dealing with things perhaps, or possibly, who knows, to their still being capable of it at all; and in that form it was somehow pleasing, for me at least. Afterward, though, they exchanged glances in such a manner that I looked around in alarm that some unauthorized eyes were watching, but all my gaze encountered were these similarly darkening brows, narrowing eyes, and pursing lips, as if all at once something had again occurred to them and, to their mind, been confirmed: maybe the reason why they were here, I could not help thinking.

Then there were the visitors, for example: I would look at them too, trying to figure out, to fathom what wind, what business, might have brought them. What I noticed, first and foremost, was that they usually came toward the end of the day, generally always at the same time, from which I realized that here in Buchenwald too, in the Main Camp, it seemed there might well be an hour exactly like at Zeitz, here too, no doubt, likewise presumably between the time the work details returned to barracks and the evening
Appell
. Those in the greatest numbers, perhaps, were prisoners carrying “P” markings, but I also saw the occasional “J,” “R,” “T,” “F,” “N,” and even “No” and heaven knows what else besides; in any event, I noticed many interesting things, and through them learned a lot that was new to me, indeed in that way gained a somewhat more precise insight into circumstances here, the conditions and social life, if I may put it that way. The original inmates at Buchenwald are almost all good-looking, their faces full-fleshed, their movements and step brisk; many are also permitted to keep their hair, and even the striped prison uniform tends to be put on only for daily wear at work, as I also observed with Pyetchka. If he were preparing to pay a visit, once our own bread ration had been distributed (the usual one-third or one-quarter loaf, along with the customarily dispensed or customarily withheld Zulage), then he too would select from his wardrobe a shirt or pullover and to go with that—while perhaps striving to pretend before the rest of us, and yet, for all that, with a pleasure that declared itself in the expression on his face and his gestures—a fashionable brown suit with a pale pinstripe, whose only imperfections were, on the jacket, a square cut out of the very middle of the back and mended with a patch of material from prison duds, and on the trousers, a long streak of indelible red oil paint down the legs on either side, not to forget the red triangle and prisoner’s number on the chest and left trouser leg. A greater nuisance, or I might even call it an ordeal, arose for me when he was preparing to welcome a guest in the evening. The reason for this was an unfortunate aspect of the room’s layout, for somehow or other the wall socket happened to be right by the foot of my bed. Now, however hard I might try to keep myself occupied at these times, staring at the immaculate whiteness of the ceiling and the enameled lampshade, immersing myself in my thoughts, when it came down to it I could not help but be aware of Pyetchka as he squatted down there with a mess tin and his own personal electric hot plate, hear the spitting of the margarine as it heated up, inhale the intrusive aroma of the onion rings frying on it, the slices of potato that were then added, and eventually, possibly, the wurst of the Zulage that was diced in or, on another occasion, notice the distinctive light clunk and sudden surge of sizzling caused (it was caught by my eyes just as I averted them again, though they long remained near-dazzled in total stupefaction) by a yellow-centered, white-fringed object—an egg. By the time everything was fried and ready, the supper guest himself would have come in. “
Dobre vecher!
” he says with a friendly nod, because he too is Polish; Zbishek by name, or Zbishkoo as it sounded at other times, perhaps in certain compounds or as a diminutive, and he likewise fulfills the office of Pfleger somewhere across the way, so I have been told, in another Saal. He too arrives all dressed up, in low ankle-boots of the kind suitable for sport or hunting, a dark blue serge jacket, though naturally this too has a patch on the back and a prisoner number on the chest, and under that a black turtleneck sweater. With his tall, burly frame, his head bald-shaven, either of necessity or maybe of his own free choice, and the cheerful, canny, and alert appearance of his plump face, I find him, all things considered, a pleasant, likable chap, even though I, for my part, would not willingly trade him for, say, Pyetchka. They sit down at the larger table at the back, eat their supper, and chat, with one or another of the Polish patients in the room occasionally dropping in a quiet word or comment, or crack jokes, or test their strength, elbows planted on the table and hands gripped, in the course of which—to the delight of everyone in the room, myself included naturally—though Zbishek’s arm looks stronger, Pyetchka will generally manage to force it down; to put it succinctly, I realized that the two of them shared their blessings and disadvantages, joys and worries, all their concerns, but evidently also their wealth and rations, or in other words, they were friends, as they say. There were others too, besides Zbishek, who would drop in for a quick word with Pyetchka, occasionally with some object very hastily changing hands, and although I was never really able to see what it was, this too was always essentially obvious and easy to understand, naturally. Yet others would arrive to see one or another of the patients, hurriedly, scurryingly, furtively, all but surreptitiously. They would sit down on the bed for a minute, possibly set some little parcel wrapped in a scrap of cheap paper down on the blanket, humbly and, even more than that, somehow almost con-tritely. Then, although I could never make out what they were whispering (and even if I had, would not have been able to understand), it was as though they were asking: How are you doing, then? What’s new? and reporting that this or that was how things were going on the outside, passing on that so-and-so had said hello and had asked after him, assuring that greetings would be passed back, sure thing, then realizing that time was up, giving pats on arms and shoulders, as though to say never mind, they would come again very soon, and with that were already on their way, still scurryingly, hurriedly, usually visibly pleased with themselves, and yet otherwise, as far as I could make out, without any other upshot, advantage, or tangible profit, so I had to suppose that their sole reason for coming, it seemed, was for those few words, for nothing other than for them and the patient in question to be able to see one another. Apart from that, and even if I were unaware of it, the haste in itself would be indication enough that they were obviously doing something prohibited that presumably could only be accomplished by Pyetchka’s turning a blind eye and, no doubt, on condition of its being brief. Indeed, I suspect, and on the basis of a fair bit of experience would venture to assert outright, that the risk in itself, that stubbornness, one could even say defiance, was to some extent part of the event, or at least that is what I gathered from their expressions, hard to read as they were but, so to say, lighting up with the successful completion of some piece of rule-breaking, as if (or so it seemed) they had thereby managed to change something after all, to punch a hole in or chip away at something, a particular order, the monotony of the daily routine, to a small extent at nature itself, at least the way I saw it. The oddest people of all, however, were those whom I saw by the bed of one of the patients who was lying along the partition wall opposite me. He had been brought in during the morning on the shoulders of Pyetchka, who then spent a lot of time fussing over him. I realized it must be a serious case and also heard that the patient was Russian. That evening visitors half-filled the room. I saw a lot of “R’s” but also plenty of other letters, fur caps, strange padded trousers. Men with hair on one half of the head, for example, but a completely shaved scalp from the center to the other ear; yet others with normal hair except for a long strip right down the middle, from the forehead to the nape of the neck, corresponding in width precisely to the ravages of a hair-clipping machine; jackets with the customary patch and also two crossed brushstrokes of red paint rather like when one deletes something unnecessary— a letter, a number, or a sign—from what one has written; on other backs a big red circle with a fat red point in the middle stood out from far away, invitingly, enticingly, signaling like a target as it were: this is where to shoot, if need be.