Looking around the market square once more he decided to photograph it from above, and so walked unhurriedly over to the church. The churchyard was empty; a few bouquets of wilted flowers lay by a recently filled grave. A natural death and an individual grave seemed like a curious luxury.
He looked around, hoping to see the priest or at least the sacristan, but he found no one, not a living soul. Perhaps that was the priest’s grave, and the church had now been left without a shepherd. When he had gone to church with Juozapas as a child, Juozapas would call the priest ‘Captain’. ‘Why Captain?’ Vincentas would ask. Juozapas would reply that the church was a great ship and that the priest was that ship’s captain.
‘Then who is Christ?’ he once asked.
‘Christ is life, the sea in which we – stupid fish – swim around, and only the nets of the holy apostles can catch our souls and drag them up to the true light.’
‘Fish die on the shore,’ said Vincentas. He had understood this once he’d started fishing with his home-made rod.
Juozapas laughed, ruffled his hair with a hand all calloused from working with his tools, and repeated, ‘Fish die on the shore.’
The doors of the church were closed but not locked. Immediately to the right, inside the entrance, were stairs leading up to the bell tower. He took a few steps towards the inner doors, beyond which the nave was visible. Although the church was not big, in addition to the nave leading to the altar it also had two small transepts. A few bent-over scarves sat in the pews. There was no sign of the priest by the altar. It was not time for mass so there was nothing for him to do there. Or maybe he really was dead, buried right there in the churchyard. The women in the church simply hadn’t noticed that the priest had died and had kept on praying out of habit. The captain dies and the ship just sails on regardless. Maybe they had failed to notice, in much the same way that they had failed to notice that half the town’s houses were now empty, that half of the town’s population had suddenly disappeared as if they had dissolved in water. In the sea that is life – just not for everyone.
Vincentas went back to the bell-tower stairs. He climbed the crooked wooden steps. Among the bell-ropes a rustling, a flapping of wings. A bird. A crow or a pigeon – a pigeon. A white feather floated and then, caught by a current, flew out and over the tops of the trees in the churchyard. He once again thought about his stepfather Juozapas. When he had found out that he was not his real father he wouldn’t speak to him. He pretended not to hear what he was saying. He no longer wanted to sit in his workshop and enjoy the smells of the glue, the sap, the freshly planed wood. It seemed like the greatest deception that he had called him his father. His mother explained that it was she who had asked Juozapas not to tell him. I wanted to wait until you were older, wanted to find the right moment, she said, defending herself.
Any time is right for lying, but the truth requires a special moment.
The square was empty, strangely empty. A little further off, beyond a row of houses squatting along the street, he could see the sun reflected off the surface of a lake. He raised his camera several times but did not press the button. He could not see the image, could not see the photograph. When he took a shot he was always able to picture how it would turn out. Even before pressing the button he could see the photograph he wanted, waiting for him to capture it – he just came to fetch it, to confirm its existence.
The lens of the lake looked, blinking, up at the sky; it, too, was waiting. But for what images?
Vincentas looked down at the empty village square and could not see a photograph. There was nothing waiting for him here.
He wanted to go back down, but he picked up a sound. He could hear some kind of commotion coming from the direction of the synagogue. Leaning through one of the bell-tower windows he looked in that direction – the doors of the synagogue opened, and a crowd of people poured out of the building. There were men, many men, a couple of hundred at least, but no women or children. Bedraggled, wearing shabby clothes and with hair dishevelled, their cheeks sunken from hunger and lack of sleep. In truth, it was too away far for him to be able to make things out in much detail, but now he could see a photograph. Although he knew he would not be able to take it from the bell tower he could see their faces clearly. Not their real faces but the ones that would appear in the photograph, the one he would take if he were there, down there with them. But he did not want to be down there.
He remained in the bell tower.
He took a few panoramic shots as the crowd, being herded by local policemen, gathered in the square. He could hear commands in German. A foreigner was in charge of the police. The crowd stopped in the square, waiting for something.
A car drove up. An SS officer got out. Vincentas recognized him. It was the Artist. He had never before seen him at work. They always met at the German’s apartment, where Vincentas entered through the back entrance and not the front door. As is fitting for servants.
To be safe he shifted to the side so as not to be visible. And he stopped photographing. He didn’t want to be mistaken for an enemy sniper and be shot.
A German who had filmed and photographed an operation the previous week had told Vincentas how several of his war-correspondent colleagues had been shot by snipers who had mistaken them for enemy combatants. You’re hoping for a photograph and you get death, said the German, wiping blood off his boot with a handkerchief.
Vincentas observed what was happening from the corner of his eye.
The officers ordered the corralled men to pick up all the horse dung. It looked like the market had been held there that morning. The men wandered around the square slowly, picking up the manure and putting it in bags. Some simply held a piece of manure in their hands and walked backwards and forwards staring at the ground. They did not want to get their clothes dirty. The policemen goaded them on, striking them with their rifle butts. The manure-gatherers could barely stay on their feet. They had probably not eaten for several days.
The Artist called over an officer and said something to him. The officer nodded, turned to the prisoners and shouted an order at them. The disorderly crowd slowly formed two rows facing each other.
Vincentas once more raised his camera but, after a moment’s hesitation, lowered it again. The action was too far away.
The Artist would say, I need the poetry of death not the agony of dying animals. The poetry of leaking brains, the poetry of popped-out eyeballs, the poetry of swollen, rotting, reeking innards. That is the true poetry of death.
The officer ordered ‘Fire!’ The Jews stood there motionless. The command ‘Fire!’ echoed once more. No reaction. The officer said something to the policemen, who again started to strike the backs of the standing men with their rifles. The Jews finally began to throw the horse dung at each other.
Then he heard a loud command to lie down. Then to crawl. Then to stand. And, again, lie down, crawl, stand. When the Jews’ clothes were completely soiled he heard the command ‘Line up!’ and a column of fours began to move slowly towards the lake.
He looked in the direction of the lake and he saw an image of naked, worn-out bodies in the water. Many naked men with bristly, sunken cheeks; they stand in the water, plunge in, surface, water running through their long, messy hair and matted beards. Their sex organs are limp, shrunken; everything says despair, hopelessness. Were it not for the presence of the Artist he might have gone down and taken the photograph that was waiting for him there.
He remained in the bell tower.
They did not allow the Jews to undress. They drove them into the water until they were up to their middles and ordered them to wash. But still he could still see them, up to their waists in the water, raising their thin, dirty arms up to the sky.
A huge, bearded old man wearing a camel-hair coat holds a water hose in two hands and shouts, ‘You scum. Who said you could run from what’s coming to you?’
Which image was real and which was only in his head? The one in the photograph or the one
there in front of him? Which?
Then in a column of fours they returned. As the prisoners climbed the hill from the lake a woman came up to the first man she reached and handed him something. A policeman spotted this and tore the object from the man’s hands. The policeman approached the officer and handed over the loot – a loaf of bread.
The crowd of men once more lined up in the market square. The officer said something, the policeman took the loaf of bread and, breaking it into small pieces, threw them into the crowd. The men attacked and fought over the scraps of bread, the unlucky ones pulling the victors’ hair, hitting them in the face.
The bread was finished, and he heard the harsh command, ‘Line up!’ Their clothes dripping, their shoes full of water, the men moved out of the market square towards the synagogue. They were driven into the building, but one bearded old man was stopped and questioned by the guards, then led back towards the SS officer’s car. The doors of the temple were closed; two policemen locked them and remained standing guard.
The Artist also asked the bearded old man something, nodded, laughed, patted him on the shoulder, then he got into his car and was driven off. The guards took the old man and disappeared behind the synagogue. A few people appeared in the square. They walked quickly, keeping close to the houses around the square, looking around suspiciously.
Vincentas left the church and returned to the building where the men of the brigade were being housed. Sometimes they stayed in barracks, but if the town was too small they would have to stay with a local in town or a farmer who had room. The house they were staying at this time was on the edge of the town.
He didn’t know why, but he tried to walk through the market square as quickly as he could.
Vincentas was not at all surprised to see the Artist’s car parked by the house.
The officer waved to him to come over to the vehicle.
‘Leave us,’ he told the driver, who obediently got out of the black Opel. The officer gestured with his head, inviting Vincentas to join him inside the vehicle.
‘I have a task for you.’
It crossed his mind that the SS officer might have seen him in the bell tower, that this would somehow come back to haunt him.
The officer nodded at his camera. ‘You’ve been taking photographs?’
‘A few pictures of a church.’
‘Good, but let’s get down to business.’
‘Yes.’
‘At the edge of the town, going west, there is a large building – a dairy, I believe.’
‘I’ll find it,’ nodded Vincentas.
‘Go there after the operation. You will receive a package. You must bring it to me. This evening.’
‘Fine.’
‘And just one other thing,’ said the German quietly, as though wishing to share an intimate secret. ‘A photographer aiming a camera at armed men could easily be mistaken for an enemy sniper.’
JOKŪBAS THE ELDER SPEAKS IN PARABLES
The shooting is deafening. After the echoes of the last shot die away the sudden silence penetrates the ears with a stabbing sonorous sting – his head feels empty, like a football, but he cannot tell whether it is like a ball being inflated or one leaking air.
Vincentas’s muscles ached, his back hurt. It had been a long time since he had done any physical labour; he did no exercise, did not even ride his bicycle any more. The Meister Fahrradwerke he had bought before the war had been stolen in the commotion of the end of June. The Jews, any one of his neighbours would have said. They were escaping from the city any way they could – on bicycles, trains, foot. But it could have been anyone. The war had fundamentally altered the understanding of personal property.
Although he had done nothing all day apart from trying to take photographs, he was exhausted. The images he had seen weighed heavier than any barbells. It was becoming harder and harder to withstand it all. Consciously or not he was always on the lookout for Andriejus. A dose of powder would be salvation.
He doubted whether any of the photographs would work. Again he had been scared of being shot by his own, again he could not concentrate and think about photography with hundreds of people dying in front of his eyes. He could not even remember how many times he had pressed the button. He would not be surprised if the film turned out to be ruined. He was not sure how he would explain this to the Artist, but it was increasingly clear that he was not suited to this work. He wants to quit, even if the consequences could be terrible.
The operation was over, but still it was not the end. Jokūbas the Elder was walking along the edge of the pit full of shot victims, shouting, ‘If there’s anyone alive, raise your hand. We’ll let you go!’
He was joined by Andriejus and by Simonas, whom the soldiers of the brigade called Petras.
‘If you’re alive, raise your hand to the sky, and we’ll take pity!’
‘Only an idiot would believe that,’ said Simonas Petras.
A few hands rose from the pit.
‘Even an idiot wants to live,’ said Jokūbas the Elder and aimed a few shots at the injured. Andriejus and Simonas Petras, not trusting their aim, stumbled, teetering over the dead bodies, and finished off the remaining ones point blank.
Having finished burying the corpses, a small group of Russian prisoners stood off to the side, sharing a cigarette the soldiers had given them. The prisoners worked on farms. Before an action the policemen would collect them to dig the pits, and later they would have to cover the remains.
‘Can we go and rest now?’ asked one of the Russians.
Jokūbas the Elder silently nodded his head. The Russians headed off slowly towards the town. A drunken policeman swerved behind them.
They were sitting by the ditch, drinking vodka. The Germans had already left; only the Lithuanians remained. Someone, perhaps Jonas, tried to sing a song, but suddenly Simonas, whom they all called Petras, started to search frantically under his shirt.
‘Jesus, Mary, Holy Joseph – I’ve lost it!’
‘What did you lose? Your brain?’ asked Pilypas. ‘You never had one!’
A few of the men laughed. Simonas, whom they called Petras, did not find it funny. He had lost a ring that he kept on a chain around his neck with a medallion his mother had bought him at the church festival in Šiluva.
‘It was blessed by the bishop, it was blessed by the bishop,’ Simonas, whom they all called Petras, whispered as if in prayer.
‘The ring?’ asked Andriejus.
‘No, the medallion. On a silver chain. And the ring … my name and my wife’s are engraved on it. I’m damned, I’m completely damned.’
‘Calm it,’ said Andriejus. He stood up and whistled loudly. The small group of Russian prisoners that was disappearing down the road slowed their pace, a few turned around. The policeman did, too. Andriejus waved at them to come back.
‘Let them find it,’ said Andriejus.
For a while they were all silent.
‘It’s not good to dig around in graves,’ said Jonas.
‘That’s right, let them find it. Let them do it, the Red weasels,’ added Matas.
‘You’ve gone mad,’ said Jokūbas the Elder angrily. ‘A pit thirty metres long and three metres wide.’
‘Twenty-eight,’ said Matas quietly.
‘What? What’s up with you? What are you mithering about?’ Jokūbas the Elder cried out.
‘It’s twenty-eight metres long,’ Matas said more loudly. ‘Two metres – that’s quite a lot less.’
‘Stick them up your arse!’
‘And a metre and a half deep,’ added Matas. ‘I measured it. I climbed in.’
Jokūbas the Elder jumped up, pulled out his pistol and aimed it straight at Matas’s face.
‘You whore, how about if I measure your brains! How about if you measure the length of the stream of blood that’ll gush out of your skull when I send a bullet into it! Three metres? Thirty-three?’
‘Lower your weapon, Jokūbas, lower it!’ said Tomas sternly, then he co
cked his own gun and aimed it at Jokūbas the Elder’s head.
Most of the others also grabbed their weapons. Vincentas still did not have one. The temptation to photograph all of them aiming weapons at each other was great, their faces distorted by rage and despair, as though they were at the same time both furious and terrified. And once again he thought regretfully how good it would be to have some of Andriejus’s powder. He slowly took several steps away from the raging men. Something made a noise under his feet. A bottle of spirits. He picked it up and took a few swigs.
Suddenly Jonas started singing a folk song:
‘Oh, my steed, my steed,
My dear bay steed …’
The song sounded completely ill-timed and out of place, and Jonas realized this and shut up.
Darkness and Company Page 17