“Yes, Colonel, and perhaps we can even invite the great bands from America to entertain in the Reich.”
Bernhardt nodded and then said, “But first, we will hear those musicians in France—Johnson, Lewis, the gajo, Django Reinhardt.”
“Naturally,” Dieter Lange said.
“I have a special task for you,” Bernhardt said to me, uncrossing his legs. “I have spoken to Lange about it and advised him to do the same. The labels on all my records must be changed.”
He pointed to the box he’d placed on the table next to his chair. “It’s filled with labels from German record companies—Brunswick, Electric, Telefunken, Imperial, Gramophone. Remove all the old labels. For example, if you have an Ellington record with ‘Mood Indigo’ on one side and ‘Black, Brown and Beige’ on the other, you substitute Brocksieper’s ‘Tea for Two’ and ‘Polka Polka.’ But make a chart so I’ll know when I pick up a Wagner, I’ll really have Benny Moten, something like that, nicht wahr?” Before that business with Ulrich, Bernhardt and me had an easy relationship. He joked and I laughed; he rubbed my head and I smiled; he said the music was great and I smiled a bigger smile. But I always behaved like he was the crook running the club, and he knew it. Since Ulrich’s death, I’d behaved with him like a whipped dog, and he knew that, too. It was supposed to be that way. I told him I understood with a “Sir,” and he said he’d have the records brought over tomorrow.
I went back to my room, already missing The Nest. I’d miss our time in the kitchen, the good food there, the workers, the girls who came in their best dresses for the Friday and Saturday dances. I was already missing the hungry and sometimes loving way they looked at the young Siegfrieds in their dress uniforms, missing the smell of flowers in the spring and summer, the clean wind through the opened windows, the sight of civilians on the streets we drove through, the shop windows, the parks, even the crying babies. And the rehearsals when we played anything, tried anything, before we got down to the numbers we’d actually play that night. And I would certainly miss the tuxedos, white shirts, and shining black shoes. For a few hours they had helped us to believe we were not really what we were—prisoners without hope of release. What would happen to Danko? The Gypsies were suffering more than the Jews or the men in the Prisoner Company. Alex—what would happen to him? And Fritz, who had learned to whip the cello like a bull fiddle? Where is Franz to play his licks on the drums now? Who would now appreciate Ernst’s flute playing? And would Oskar only play his harmonica in a corner of Block 13 when he wasn’t on some detail that would smash his spirit? And Teodor, what music would he write now and who for? No need to worry about Moritz and that sweet violin, or about Sam, who was long gone in another direction. A band leader looked after his musicians, even though he might not like them. They’d looked to me for direction, ideas, and what Mr. Wooding called “execution.” But this is a different time, a different place, and it’s every swinging ass on his own.
Now I’m back to one benefactor, Dieter Lange, or maybe two, with Anna. But Dieter Lange is afraid and Anna is unpredictable.
I am lucky, still. The Polish prisoners and civilians are entering camp now. They’re like the new boy on the block; the guards must beat them up, show them who’s boss. Everyone in camp breathes easier because they are beating up the new guys, but that will last only a little while. Then the guards will be back beating everyone’s ass, as usual. The Polish boys they call “doll boys,” Pieple. Poor kids. Some of those bastards have already buggered them; I’ve seen a couple of kids who walked as though they were riding a horse, it hurt them so bad.
I was in bed and couldn’t sleep, listening to the trains rumbling out to the factories and warehouses. Sounds carry far in this place. Sometimes you know the trains are bringing prisoners, or taking them out. I was thinking this when I heard Dieter Lange coming downstairs. I was surprised. He wanted me to come up to the kitchen and make some coffee, which meant he wanted to talk. I didn’t know if it had to do with Bernhardt’s visit or not.
He sat at the table with his head in his hands. It was three o’clock and the fall darkness was so close it felt like a suit of clothes. When the coffee was ready, he signed for me to sit down at the other end of the table. He reached over and patted my hand. “Don’t look so worried,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep. You hear the trains?”
I said I had.
He slurped his coffee.
“Too bad about The Nest. You liked it?”
“Sometimes.” We’d talked about this before. I said, “What’s the matter? What’s bothering you?”
Dieter Lange pushed his cup aside. “I’m not getting the promotion,” he said. “They’re giving them all to the Waffen SS, not the Allgemein SS. The war.”
I looked at him over my coffee and listened to the small sounds in the house: floors creaking, wind against the windows, dogs barking far away outside. So the armed SS, not the general SS, would get all the breaks. That ought to put all the camp guards in their places, but it probably won’t. “Now you don’t have so much responsibility,” I said. “Isn’t that good?”
He half smiled. “That’s good, yes, but the promotion … well, it might have given us more protection, you understand.” He rubbed his face, and the bristles of his beard gave off a rasping sound. “But you’re right,” he said. “Too much responsibility isn’t a good thing here. Already I’m going crazy, moving the pieces.” His hands were flat down on the table, fingers spread. Dieter Lange looked at them. It was cold in the house. He sighed. “The Poles are coming in, you know.” His voice fell to a muttering. “The Poles come in and to Mauthausen we send the Pinks, and to Hartheim in Linz in invalid vans we send the crazy ASOS. We send the Jews to Poland, and if they have room at the subcamps, we send them there, all to make room here. Around and around it goes, from camp to camp to camp.”
Dieter Lange was feeling sorry for himself. “That’s not your worry,” I said, and it wasn’t. “That’s the camp commander’s headache.”
He raised both hands and let them fall back to the table. “You know I must have some idea of the numbers so I can stock the canteens in my jurisdiction, Cleef. You know that.” There were tears in his eyes. “First Germans, Jews or not, then Austrians, now Poles, and it’s too late for there not to be Belgians, French, and whoever else gets in the way. Round and round and round,” he said softly, “and Anna doesn’t understand the strain.”
I leaned across the table and spoke quietly to him. “Dieter, Dieter Lange. If you don’t get hold of yourself, Anna will have it all. You’ll be in the booby hatch and Anna will have the money and take all the stuff to her father’s farm. If you keep showing this weakness, she’ll tell Bernhardt to get rid of you, of us. I told you before, you got yourself and me into this mess, and you’ve got to get us out. The only way to do that now is to do what you have been doing, and stop all this goddamn whining. Are you a man or a fucking faggot?” I stood up. “I’m going to bed. You woke me up so I can listen to this crap? C’mon. Get hold of yourself.”
I went downstairs. I could hear him shuffling around in the kitchen, from the table to the sink; then I heard him go slowly up the stairs. Sometimes Dieter Lange needed talking to in a hard way. Anna cajoled. She often buried her impatience beneath a pretended interest and listened to him, mining every complaint like a jeweler with that thing to his eye used for diamonds. I wondered, as I often have, how it was that a man like Dieter Lange could hold in his hand the life of a man like me.
So it’s me and You again, God. You riding that sad train with its bells of brass ringing for clear passage into hell; You with a bunch of Polish prisoners in the boxcars. Will You send them like that in the middle of winter, too? Can You see me? Can You hear me through the sounding silence that is Your response to the prayers that climb up to You? Can You hear the prayers of the Gypsies, the prayers of the Jews, the ASOS with their curses, the criminals with theirs, the politicals? How can You not, if You are there? You have heard the cries of the Polish boys; where are
You? Isn’t there something You must do? Have You no more good Loas to send us? You know, sometimes, most times, I think You are not there at all, that You are snake oil, that You are a vision that comes with cocaine. I’ve been in Your desert with its serpents for more than forty nights; in fact, I have suffered this desert more than forty years, it seems to me; I’ve been embalmed in the salt of fear for longer than forty days. The dead drift through my sleep—are they with You or with the Other Guy? And I see the shapes of those yet to die, crowding like clouds on the horizon. The sky is filled with them. I hear the music as they march down the ’Strasse:
Ta-dum, ta-dum; ta-dum, ta-dum
ta-dum ta-da-da ta-dum, ta-tum
The sad weak music of a harmonica, a drum, and an accordion. Marching to the gallows, the Tree, the Bunker, the rifle pits where sound splits the silence like a pointy-nosed dog barking once or twice or three times.
Were You there when they crucified my colonel?
Were You there when they crucified my Menno?
ooOOO—sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble,
tremble.…
Were You there when they crucified them all?
Were You there when they crucified Herr Ulrich?
Were You there when they crucified his girl?
ooOOO—sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble,
tremble.…
Were You there when they crucified them all?
Were You there when they crucified Nyassa?
Were You there when they crucified Moritz?
ooOOO—sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble,
tremble.…
Were You there when they crucified them all?
Ah, so. Nothing. I am still in my room and Pierre is still in his block, You willing. Dieter Lange and Anna still pound each other (can’t You hear them through the furnace flues?), and in the camp someone is dying in great pain that You will not ease; someone is hanging himself; someone is hungry and whimpering beneath a blanket whose warmth never was; someone is crying; someone is running away (bang! bang!); someone is cradled in the steel arms of the crematorium, which will soon be rebuilt by the priests; someone is locked inside a van whose destination is Hartheim Castle; someone is released and will report to his nearest police station for his homecoming; someone is on his way to work in a war plant, and someone is on his way home from a war plant; a German soldier just got killed in Poland; twenty-five Polish soldiers just got killed by a German machine gun; a baby was just born, and its grandmother just died. My music is wounded and it bleeds my life away. It won’t JUMP and SHOUT, do You hear me? It won’t SWING and SWAY … and I can’t get a sign that You hear me. I asked for a sign a long time ago. Your train done stalled? Didn’t You talk to Moses? Didn’t You talk to Jesus? Didn’t You give Saul the sign that he should be Paul? How come You talked so much then and ain’t sayin’ shit now? So I ain’t Your sweet, smiling Christian, Your kick-my-ass Witness, your Rabbiner Jew; so I only talk to You when the Amper River’s at flood tide like the Jordan, when the blues open up to nothing like a rotten fishnet. Say what? Faith is what? Hahahahahaha. You think You slick. But You know better than to show up down here. Germans eat Your ass for lunch, jack! You so chickenshit, You sent Your son down here and them other Germans nailed His ass to the cross, didn’t they?
You just snake oil squeezins? If not, please help me take care of Pierre. Please?
Saturday, November 11, 1939
Dieter Lange came up behind me this morning while I was cleaning the house before going to the canteen. Anna had gone shopping in Munich to get some new clothes. “They almost got him!” Dieter Lange whispered, as though someone was hiding in the house. “Almost got him!”
“Got who? Who’s they?”
His eyes were bright and he was all up in my face like when he’s drunk and he whispers, “Wie steht es?” How about it? “Hitler! They almost got Hitler, with a bomb in Munich, Thursday night!”
I snapped the dust out of my cloth. To me a miss was as good as a mile. I didn’t know what all the fuss was about. “But who did it?”
“Some Red carpenter in Munich. They got him.”
“But who else? You said they.”
“Just him, as far as I’ve heard. But it shows that people don’t want war and they want to be rid of Hitler. So maybe the next time they’ll get him, eh? And maybe that’s not too far off.” He walked around the room, his hands behind his back. “You know I’d let you go if we got out of this mess. I’d give you the money to get back home. I really would, Cleef.”
“I’d sure appreciate that,” I said, but it wouldn’t happen. He knew it and I knew it. White people fulla shit, especially when they run a place like Dachau. He stopped walking right in front of me and held my dusting hand. “What’s the matter with you, Cleef?” He gave me a close look, as though he might find something in my face that he’d missed before. “You’ve been … nicht heir for over a month now. Are you sick?”
I looked at him. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I said, “What do you mean?”
He raised his arms and moved them slowly up and down like he was a bird on the wind. “You just flott machen all the time, maybe like you had some cocaine?”
I released my hand and went back to dusting. He watched me and said, “Achtsam, Cleef, bitte, Achtsam” then he went upstairs to his office.
When I finished, I shouted to him that I was going to the canteen and left. I didn’t wait for him to answer.
It was another Armistice Day, ha-ha-ha, to celebrate the war to end all wars, except the one that just began. Ta-ta, da-da, de-dum …
“Hey, Sunshine!!”
I stopped and turned around. I’d passed through the Jourhaus gate. Sergeant Rekse, his Schaferhund straining at his leash, was shouting. I didn’t know why.
“What do you do, why do you skip like a little kid? Are you nuts, Pepperidge? You want to wind up in the Hartheim wagon like those other niggers went out of here this morning?” Skipping? I was skipping?
I whipped off my cap. “No, sir.”
“I’ll tell your mother on you!” he roared, laughing, rolling back on his heels. He rubbed my head for good luck. The shepherd he’d brought to heel snapped his head from me to Rekse and back again, its tongue hanging out. Would Rekse never forget that visit by Ruby Mae?
“Get going, Pepperidge, and get those marbles out of your head. They’re glass, you know, and can be broken.”
I thanked him and replaced my cap and walked quickly away, up the west-side path, into the stiff, cold wind. I lowered my chin to protect my throat even though the sun was shining. But would Pierre be gone? Would he have been one of those “niggers” on the wagon ride to Hartheim?
We used to gather on this side of the camp to hear Hitler’s speeches, which were broadcast over the loudspeakers hooked up across the moat on the SS side. The moat is outside the wall on this side of the camp. Now there are walls with electric fences on top. I could see the rooftops of the factories, hear the banging and clanging of work going on inside them, the hum and screech of machinery. I was almost never on this side, but I could marvel now at just how much the prisoners had done since I first came. Down at the end of the camp the sun was reflecting off the glass of the new greenhouse. Oh, Pierre. A group of prisoners pulled a wagon loaded with the dead from the Reviers and the morgue.
Then I was at the northwest corner where the small north road bisects the smaller west path, where the gates lead to the inferno the dead don’t feel. Or if they do, they can’t say so. The greenhouse stood before me; to its right was the garden, then a space where rabbits were raised for SS Hasenpfeffer and for Luftwaffe pilots’ jackets. Then the disinfection hut where Pierre had worked. Above all this was the north watchtower with its sliding glass windows, its machine gun, and the guard with his rifle. I stood there with my pass at the ready to show any guard, and watched the prisoners wheeling barrows of rich black dirt from a huge pile into the greenhouse. The prisoners were all white, unt
ouched by that soft golden color that was Pierre’s. My stomach began a slow cold slide downward. I moved forward a few steps. Maybe the sun was shining too brightly, or the cutting wind was blurring my eyesight. “Oh, Pierre,” I whispered. I looked at the pile of earth, then saw a shovel and a pair of blackened hands, disembodied parts, moving in a slow steady rhythm, filling a barrow. I walked to where I could see who the shoveler was. It was Pierre! He saw me and winked and smiled. I smiled back and felt the wind sharper on my face where it met the tears. I waved and turned away toward the ’Strasse. Why were my footsteps heavier than before? Would Pierre be in the next group to Hartheim? Would it be easier for me if he was, or even if he’d gone this morning? There would be no more “Suppose,” no more worry. It would be over and done with. I felt I was walling up something inside me that no one could touch or reach from now on, that no one could hurt. Dieter Lange could be in me, but not in that place; Pierre could “Suppose” me, but never again would he be able to touch that place, because it was my sanctuary, my church, the grove where Loa Aizan, forever watchful, now rested.
I skipped up the ’Strasse humming. In answer to the smiles, the circles drawn on the sides of heads, I muttered, “Fuck you. Fuck you.”
Sat., December 8, 1939
That carpenter Dieter Lange told me about, who tried to blow up Hitler, is in the Honor Bunker. His name is Eller, but that’s a fake.
There are now supposed to be two Englishmen in the general population. Don’t know why not the Honor Bunker, where, the gossip is, they’ve got the president of Austria and some big shots from Czechoslovakia. I wonder how those people live there. I wonder what they think when they look between the poplar trees and see the rest of us. Are they keeping notes, too? Will they tell what happened? Hell, they’re probably thinking the same thing I’m thinking: better them than me.
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