by D K Bohlman
It was pure chance he’d seen his name on the list of ghetto inhabitants the other day. He knew then he would grab himself some payback. For being a butcher who cheated him … and for being a Jew. All he had been able to think about since then, had been how to do it.
He had a small group. They were just boys really, boys that were all making attempts at fledgeling moustaches. He knew he could persuade them to do what he asked. Some of the senior officers had fled the city, fearing apprehension by the Russians when they inevitably entered and took control. They knew they would be targeted.
But Marton was a corporal who’d stayed and assumed more power. The other boys were too scared to question him now. Many of them had lost their parents. They were living a visceral life. Eating, drinking, trembling, running, shooting. Often crying. Everyone was on the edge of a terrifying kind of darkness.
Two of them were at the ghetto sentry post when he arrived at midnight. They were sheltering under a lean-to, with scant uniform for a bone-chilling night, just a grey standard issue greatcoat over their own threadbare clothes. By the time they’d been recruited, helmets and boots had run short.
‘Tamas … Mor.’
They nodded back at him, with cautious eyes.
‘Did you see Medard or Alfred?’
Tamas spoke. He had always been a bit more confident than some of the others.
‘Yes, I saw them together at the cafe not long ago. They were eating stew.’
Stew. And thin with it. All they could get right now. Better than nothing in this cold, though. He’d give them fifteen minutes. He was a little early, after all.
A white sheet of light froze them all like statues, capturing their paste-white faces and grimy skin, stippled with the first curls of facial hair. Then another one, followed by the rumble and blast of detonating shells. They were getting ever closer, more intense.
Fuck the Russians, fuck the war. He would kill the butcher and it would feel good.
He pulled out a couple of bottles of home-made palinka from his canvas satchel. It was the strong stuff, over fifty per cent. It would warm them up and make them courageous too. He worried sometimes, with one or two of them, whether they would bottle it at the last minute. Or worse.
Once, one of his group had tipped off a policeman with their plan for one night, when he decided he couldn’t face carrying out the job. It was just an incredible piece of good fortune that the policeman was killed in a shooting incident that same day. When the boy didn't turn up on their mission that night, Marton found out why. And he made sure it couldn’t happen again.
They all took large swigs and passed the first bottle around. After a little while, Medard and Alfred showed up. They’d clearly started drinking already. Alfred took the second bottle and glugged a large mouthful before handing it on to Medard. He was a big boy, Alfred. He’d need plenty of alcohol to get him in the mood.
It was only after another forty-five minutes of steady drinking that Marton gave them the nod to move into the ghetto.
Marton and Alfred were armed with pistols they’d recovered from an officer’s corpse the previous week. Better than the knives they’d used last time out. Marton tapped his weapon again to check it was still there, as they moved off through a gap in the ghetto wall torn out by Soviet artillery.
The main danger was the police. They’d started to protect the ghetto against the party. They knew how it would all end and were probably lining themselves up on the winning side. Whatever the reason, they were a problem and would throw them out of the ghetto if they spotted them.
Marton led them through a couple of short streets, then stopped on the corner of a large open square, breath rasping out in an icy cloud in front of him. The sole inhabitants of the dank, frosted space were two police officers, hulking Danuvia 39M sub-machine guns and a couple of very bright lanterns.
No way through. Marton rethought the route and figured out a way to backtrack and work around the square without encountering another similar space. It took them fifteen minutes to trace that out but then they were on the far side of the square and only a few minutes away from the house they were heading for.
Marton turned to his group and stared at them all, slowly, one by one. He was assessing their mood and their courage. He’d learnt a lot very quickly about leading men, even at such a young age.
He saw fear and excitement in all of them. They were on edge. The sort of edginess a hunter might have cornering a bear with a hunting bow. You know you have the advantage … but a wrong move and it could end badly. Medard and Alfred looked rather drunk. He needed to make sure they took on board what he needed of them.
He whispered to them. Their senses were on full beam despite the palinka and they drank in every word with clarity.
‘So, now we move around this corner and down this street, the house is on the left. Number 16. We will go down the side passage to the back door and windows. We’ll find a way in there, with no noise if we can. We must surprise them in their beds. Medard, Alfred, you must find the children's room and keep them in there after they’re woken. Keep them quiet somehow. The rest of us, we’ll go into the butcher’s room. We’ll kill him and his bitch wife. At the same time. We need to have no screams. Understand?’
They all nodded. Alfred more slowly than the rest. He wasn’t feeling good right now, too much drink and the surge in adrenaline had created a bubbling mixture in his belly. The stew hadn’t tasted quite right either. It was making him drowsy and sick. He just wanted to get this over with now.
Marton turned away from them, checked around the corner and motioned for them to follow him. They stepped lightly down the street, cautious of any figures they might see in the distance in case they were police. They got to number 16 without seeing a soul. The side passage was black dark. Once Marton had stepped into it, they followed on trust rather than sight. It was short, though, and in the back yard of the house, there was a little light from a thin sliver of moon.
The cobbled yard stank of blood and meat. Marton looked around. There was a small outhouse behind them. Probably some meat storage in there or maybe he cut the meat up inside it. Either way, it was worth a look afterwards, to see if there was anything worth pilfering.
The solid wooden door to the house was locked, predictably. A window at the side of it looked like it could be easily forced. Marton slipped a large knife in between the casement and frame, levering it open with hardly a sound. It was weak and came open easily.
At Marton’s signal, they all climbed in through the opening as carefully as their cold and inebriated limbs would allow. They stood in a small parlour room, breathing fast, breath condensing into a rising column as they stood facing each other in a tight circle.
‘OK. So we will run up the stairs as fast as we can, but try to be as quiet as possible. Take off your boots. The stairs might creak so best not go slowly. We must surprise them.’
They all removed their footwear. They too smelt of old blood now. The yard must have been smeared with the stuff.
‘And remember who is dealing with the children. We will see who is in each room quickly, move to the right room if you find yourself in the wrong place. We must be quick.’
Alfred frowned, wondering why they just didn’t get assigned to rooms and save confusion. He guessed Marton wanted to be the one to kill the butcher. He was Marton’s target, after all.
‘On my signal, we move. I will be doing the killing. You two just hold the wife down while I get the butcher first.’
Alfred thought Tamas and Mor looked a little disappointed at that. They said nothing, though.
Marton took out his pistol. It had a silencer fitted to it, unlike Alfred’s. He held it aloft briefly, scanning everyone’s faces to make sure they were watching. He knew they were pretty drunk. He’d need to be clear. He motioned them all to move to the foot of the wooden stairs, which led up between flaking plaster walls to a small landing, flanked by two bedroom doors.
He dropped his arm briskly and
skipped up the narrow staircase. There was a split-second delay, then the others all piled clumsily in behind him, jostling each other softly to get onto the stairs. At the top, Marton went right, the others followed according to the plan.
As soon as Marton swore gently, they all knew they were in the wrong rooms, and started to move across the landing, bumping into each other and nearly pushing Mor back down the staircase.
Even though only a few seconds of scuffling noises had passed, it was long and loud enough to have started to rouse the family.
The butcher’s wife sat bolt upright in bed, moaning something about a noise, trying to focus her eyes into the darkness around her. She could make out smudges of contrast where the bodies moving towards her were outlined by the faint moonlight in the room.
As her senses came to, she understood what was happening and screamed loud. The pitch went higher before it was stopped by a hand clamped across her mouth and she was pushed hard down onto the bed, bumping against her husband who was wakening a lot more slowly.
His lack of speed cost him his life. Marton levelled the pistol at him and pulled the trigger quickly, three times. The flashes illuminated the butcher’s face as he stared at Marton, his expression twisted into a mask of confusion.
He was dead instantly, his skull splintered all over the pillow and bedstead, grey brain matter slapped against his wife’s cheek.
She gawked upwards, in no particular direction, blinded by the muzzle fire and with her eyeballs wildly gyrating, bursting out of their sockets.
Marton lowered the muzzle and pressed it into her throat. Mor released his grip on her as her body stiffened against the hot steel. Tamas slapped her face and spat into it.
Then there was a scream. From the other room. Marton half turned but kept the barrel pressed against the woman. ‘What the fuck is going on … Mor go and help them.’
Alfred and Medard had found two children, after struggling to see anything for a moment, in a room less illuminated by moonlight than the butcher’s bedroom. They had woken quickly.
One of them jumped sideways out of the bed, with the astonishing litheness of an eight-year-old boy. His ten-year-old sister jumped the other way and the two teenagers were momentarily caught off guard and behind the pace.
Medard threw his hands out towards the boy and grasped at him wildly. He was lucky, in the darkness, the boy somehow fell into his hands and he closed his arms around him like a tight vice. The boy croaked and tried to shout but Medard had a strong hold on him and he couldn’t make much of a noise.
The girl slipped past Alfred in the dark, heading for her parents’ room in a blind panic as she realised the bodies moving in her room weren’t friendly. Alfred felt her move by him and swung around, grabbing at thin air, then leaping forward and clutching again. This time he caught some hair, a ponytail, and yanked it back hard. The girl screamed and threw herself back against him and clung to his leg, trying to pull him down.
He was too heavy for that. So she bit him, in his calf, as if it was the first piece of beefsteak she’d seen for a year.
Alfred felt the nausea rise in him again and he vomited, spraying the girl with his sickness. He staggered back a step and kicked at her with his free foot. His mind was whirling, caught in a current of drunkenness and panic. He fell flat on his back, discharging his pistol with the impact. She screamed again. He rolled onto his side and vomited twice more.
By now, Mor was in the children's room with Alfred, but the girl had somehow by-passed him onto the landing and he heard her second scream behind him. That was the signal for Marton.
He pulled himself away from the butcher’s wife and turned into the landing. He shouted back at Tamas, pointing at the woman. ‘Kill her! Now!’
He heard the result of his instruction as he entered the landing.
The girl started to scream and scream again. It was too much. The neighbours would be alerted if they hadn't been already. He pointed the pistol again, picking out the girl’s shape in the light from the room behind him.
He pulled the trigger once more. There was a brief flash, catching a dancing ponytail flying in the air as she fell backwards, her face shattered by a hot bullet. Then silence.
Marton thought quickly. No one could really see what had happened just then. He took a deep breath before he spoke.
‘Alfred for fuck’s sake, you killed the girl! We need to get out of here. You may as well kill the boy too. We can’t leave him to scream.’
Medard suddenly spoke up. He still had the boy clamped under his forearms. ‘No, no we can’t do that. I can deal with him.’ He felt for Marton’s face and whispered into his ear.
Marton nodded.
Medard dragged the boy onto his bed and told him in a surprisingly kind way to be still, that his life depended on it. The boy did as he was told and lay perfectly motionless. Medard lay a pillow softly across his face. Amazingly the boy still didn't move. He pushed his knife against the boy’s throat gently.
‘Move and you’re dead. If you keep quiet I might let you go in ten minutes.’
Laying a nearly empty palinka bottle against the knife handle and wedging it up against the pillow, he managed to create a little pressure on the knife tip. Then he carefully stood up and motioned for the others to go.
By now they were all seeing better in the dark and made their way downstairs, out through the window into the yard. Medard followed, as quietly as he could, leaving the boy assuming his assailant still held the knife against his throat.
The smell of blood in the yard reminded Marton of the meat. He crossed the greasy stone flags to the outhouse and pushed against the door. Locked with a heavy padlock. There was a large window around the side, though. With a jacket to muffle the noise, he broke it and scanned the shelves and refrigeration unit for meat. There wasn’t a lot and it looked and smelt poor: supplies had dried up badly, especially in the last year. But in a couple of minutes, he had cleared out enough meat to feed them all for a few days. Double payback, butcher man. They were soon out of sight of the house, dissipating and stealing home quickly.
The boy, on the other hand, lay on his bed for a very long time before he dared to move.
*
Marton rose wearily from his bed the next morning with only one thought in his head. It had kept him awake through a freezing cold night despite the weight of palinka in his head.
He needed to make sure the death of the child wasn’t attributed to them. Especially to him. He’d blurred the trail to himself, hadn’t he? That was quick thinking, suggesting in the dark that Alfred had done it. But for some reason, Alfred hadn't even reacted to his lie.
He liked Alfred. He was solid, always stuck to the group and did what was needed of him. Now the effects of the alcohol had worn off, Marton was beginning to feel a sense of guilt pulling away at his cover story.
He made some coffee from leftover grounds, nasty bitter stuff but it was all he could get now. There was some bread from yesterday. A bit stale but it would have to do. Then he remembered the meat he’d stolen and suddenly he gathered some enthusiasm for a hot beef sandwich. As he began to fry some small strips of meat, he came up with an idea to help deepen the deceit and cover them both a bit further. He took the first bite from the sandwich and sighed, feeling a bit happier.
He sat thinking about it, chewing away on the tough meat. It could work. Not a guarantee but another layer for the authorities to unravel. There was the rest of the group, of course. But they hadn’t talked about the girl afterwards, either … they were probably all too shocked. And they were all in it together, actually. They couldn't really have seen what happened in the dark … could they? Anyway, odds were some or all of them might not be alive when the war was finished. Nothing was certain in Marton’s world anymore.
He nodded to himself. It wasn’t foolproof by any means, but it was good enough. He’d go and see Alfred now.
*
He found Alfred at his house, or what was left of it. His sister was
in the small downstairs room with him, eating some bread and meat straight off the tabletop.
‘I had some too, for breakfast. Great eh?’
Alfred nodded.
‘I need to speak, Alfred … alone.’
Alfred motioned for his sister to leave and she jumped up and skipped upstairs without a word.
Marton smiled. ‘Well trained, Alfred!’
‘She’s just scared … of anyone.’
Marton raised his eyebrows by way of a resigned understanding.
‘Look, Alfred, about last night. I know you were drunk, I know you didn’t mean to do it. The girl I mean. I want to help protect you. And, I have a plan.’
Alfred cocked his head to one side, inviting him to continue.
‘We will swap our names, our identities from now on. I am your corporal and I was the most senior member of the party at the house that night. It will confuse anyone who investigates this. If they ever do. Both sets of our parents are dead, so we can cover this.’
Alfred looked at the floor, confused for a moment, then raised his head.
‘I see.’ He shook his head.
‘It will be fine Alfred, it will work. Don't worry, I’ve thought about it a lot in the night.’
Alfred wanted to believe Marton. He’d spent the whole night awake. The thought he had killed a little girl was haunting him. His sister was a similar age … full of life, innocence.
‘But why? How will it help?’
‘Look. Some of the others saw it was you. If anyone ever tries to trace the incident after the war, it will lead to me, because we have changed names. That’s if there’s anyone left to ask. Then, anyone asked to verify it was me, well … when they are asked to identify me face to face, they will see me and say I am not that same face that killed the girl. So then the trail will end.’