With a tremendous effort, Alma willed herself to stay calm. Not a muscle twitched on her drawn face when she inclined her head in acknowledgement of Mandl’s desires. “Of course, Lagerführerin.”
The mess hall began to fill, a gathering of gray-clad vultures. They clapped each other on their shoulders—how goes it in your detail, veteran of the wars? Did you save up enough to buy your Lotte that fur coat she wanted?—and laughed at the usual Auschwitz joke: why buy anything when the Kanada has it all? They pulled family photos out of their breast pockets and bragged about their children, just as uniformed and ruthless as their fathers. “Mad fellow my youngest one is growing to be! Has just denounced his best friend’s father because the old sod refused to greet him with the obligatory Hitler salute. No sentimentality about my little scoundrel, that’s for certain. A sheer Germanic spirit, loyalty to the Führer only.”
Alma was glad that her back was turned to them as she conducted soft, background music before the official concert began. This way, they couldn’t see her face twisted into a hateful grimace of cold, all-consuming contempt.
They would play through this night. They would play, and they would survive, so that they could come out of here one day and make it their business to hunt these gray-clad vultures down, to bring them to justice for daring to laugh when thousands suffered, for daring to boast about their children when they burned Jewish ones in stacks, for daring to celebrate in the middle of this slaughterhouse. The cold, pitiless resolve on Alma’s face reflected on the girls’ faces. Yes, they would play excellently tonight, because the act of survival was resistance too and they were the fearless freedom fighters.
Breathing heavily, Alma stood before her audience, her conductor’s baton in hand. All the SS top brass were applauding her girls wildly, but she stared triumphantly at only one man. Dr. Mengele waited for a while, but finally unfolded his arms and began clapping as well, a bit theatrically, but that mattered not. Both Violette and Flora played remarkably well that night. Both were wet with sweat—Alma could see the sheen of it on their exhausted faces—but that was a small price to pay for the lives of four girls.
Along her own back, sweat was running down in rivulets; concerts always made one lose a few pounds from sheer exhaustion and nerves, and she had barely eaten anything in the course of the last five days, splitting her own rations between her two recovering charges. Her ears were ringing faintly, the muscles in her left arm were screaming in protest after her final violin solo—just as it was with her Waltzing Girls, she had to conduct and perform at the same concert—and her head felt oddly light. The dark spots dancing between her eyes, Alma thoroughly pretended to ignore. Thank heavens for the Kanada lipstick; it tricked her audience into seeing a Viennese virtuoso standing before them in all her glory and not an exhausted woman about to collapse. No; collapsing was entirely out of the question.
Alma blinked the spots away and forced a bright smile back onto her face. Miklós and she had a long night before them—first, their piano performance, four hands, next, a concerto for a violin and a piano and, after, whatever their SS maters requested for as long as the night went on.
The SS requested a lot. Now that the official part was over, Miklós’ piano was moved into a corner of the mess hall. In its center, the tables were pushed into a bracket around a tall Yule tree decorated with swastikas and tinsel. Skillfully dodging dancing couples in their dress uniforms, inmate waiters rushed to and fro, weighed down by the overflowing dishes balanced on the tips of their fingers. The mouthwatering aroma of the Christmas goose instantly reminded Alma of home and her father carving the traditional holiday dish as the entire Rosé family watched him keenly. She would kill for a chance to sink her teeth into that golden-skinned bird but refused to betray herself even with a single glance in the waiting staff’s direction. Their tight white coats and starched napkins thrown over their bent left arms almost made them look like ordinary waiters, if it weren’t for the absence of good-natured servility civilian waiters were prone to display in the hope of a generous tip. These men stared at their patrons with cold, deliberate hatred whenever the SS men snapped their fingers to summon them.
The SS were particularly rowdy and intolerable that night. They had their female counterparts to impress and the waiters were the ones at whose expense they decided to produce such an impression. Though, such swinish behavior didn’t make them differ all that much from regular, civilian restaurant patrons, Alma thought. There were always the types who could only elevate themselves by putting others down. It was Alma’s personal experience that the nastiest sorts always left the most miserable tips, unlike the quiet, dignified men. The latter never complained, even if the steak was overcooked, and invariably slid a tip that constituted half of the bill into the waiter’s hand personally and with a somewhat timid smile, before shaking that hand thoroughly in gratitude for the exceptional service.
Alma looked at Miklós and saw that his eyes were closed, as though he didn’t wish to see any of the uniformed herd he was forced to entertain. It was a damned humiliating experience for the virtuoso of the Budapest Philharmonic to play for a mess hall stuffed full of drunken SS men amid all the shrill laughter of the wardens and guffaws of their red-faced male counterparts, but he bore it stoically and with great dignity. Partly obscured with cigarette smoke, the mess hall stunk of stale sweat, food grease, and spilled alcohol, yet Miklós played with a serene half-smile on his face as though it was only his body that was present there—his spirit was somewhere very far away, untouched by all this baseness and Nazi-imposed perverse order of things.
Someone shouted for Zara Leander’s “Under the Red Lanterns of San Paoli.”
Miklós flexed his fingers and threw a concerned glance at Alma. He had the advantage of sitting, all the while she had already spent countless hours on her feet. She met his gaze, smiled at him bravely and even winked at him. As long as I’m playing next to you, I’m not tired in the slightest.
“One day, it shall all end,” he mouthed to her soundlessly.
She couldn’t possibly hear him amid that drunken chaos, but she still understood everything.
“I don’t want it to end,” she mouthed back to him. I want to play next to you for the rest of my life, no matter where.
He understood it too, for he felt it inside of him, that sentiment that welled in her eyes as she struck her violin with her bow—the beautiful song about eternal love. It seemed strangely befitting. She looked at him with tenderest affection; he had not once ceased looking at her as well, and all of a sudden, the rest of the noise died down, muted itself against the force of that invisible connection. There were only two of them in the entire hall. The gray uniforms were grotesquely insignificant and didn’t belong here. Only music did and so they would play it until the last uniform was gone. And after that, they would still play, even if it was for the inmate waiters only. They were a better audience in any case.
It was past three in the morning when the last group of SS men finally stumbled uncertainly toward the exit with their arms wrapped amicably around each other’s shoulders. Only one of them lingered behind to supervise the inmate waiters as they cleared the tables. The Kapo, also attired in a white coat for the occasion, attempted to assure the SS man that he would see to the order, but the guard only sneered with contempt and wagged his finger at the Kapo.
“I know what you sly apes are up to,” he slurred, swaying on his feet. The edge of his tunic was tucked sloppily into his trousers—by accident, judging by the looks of it. “As soon as we’re out of the place, you will gorge yourselves at the expense of the Reich, you dirty pigs.”
Next to Alma, Miklós snorted softly with disdain. He sat, half-turned from his piano as his elbow rested on its closed lid and observed the drunken man with a mixture of unconcealed disgust and tolerant amusement of an adult watching a child doing something idiotic.
The waiters ignored the insult and went about their business, looking oddly dignified and polished in co
ntrast with the uniformed “master of the world.” That seemed to infuriate the SS man even further.
“Yes, lately you have all become very sly indeed. Organizing escapes under our very noses, making use of the new Kommandant’s good disposition toward you, you filthy swine! That’s all right. We’ll catch that sod yet. You watch what we do to him and whoever helped him after we catch him. We’ll string him up nice and high, along with his accomplices; you’ll see how fast we will.”
Alma turned to Miklós, aware that she was holding her breath. He only winked at her, looking immensely pleased with himself. Their efforts hadn’t been in vain. They succeeded; by some miracle, no less, but they did, the brave Resistance men! Alma regarded Miklós with unconcealed admiration.
“Conspiring behind our backs,” the SS man continued his grumbling, “strolling around with haughty looks on your ugly mugs… Even the new ones… Arrogant muttonheads! We’re taking them to the gas and they’re singing their national anthems and promising us that we’re next!” Now, there were incredulous notes in his voice, as though such a possibility was beyond any comprehension.
Alma put her violin into its case, but when she made a move to leave, Miklós caught her by her wrist and pulled her close. She sensed it too, some sinister, invisible threat hanging in the air.
One of the waiters gathered a few plates and was clearing them over a large cauldron. Officially, the scraps were supposed to go to the SS dogs. Unofficially, according to Miklós’ explanation, the food went to the starving inmates who already knew to line up along the barbed wire with their bowls at the ready. Risking their own lives, the waiters distributed it right through the wire. By the time the cauldron reached the kennels, it was almost empty.
This SS man didn’t seem to be aware of the arrangement but suspected the waiters of appropriating the bits of the feast themselves. He waited for them to finish clearing the plates and then approached the cauldron with a malicious grin. Alma watched him pull a chair toward it and mount it. Miklós’ hand clasped tighter and tighter over hers; his gray eyes grew progressively colder as he followed the guard’s every move, already suspecting what his intentions were. The waiters dropped whatever they were doing and also waited for the man’s next move with sharp, unblinking eyes.
Slowly, for his fingers didn’t appear to listen to him too well, he unbuttoned his fly and began relieving himself into the cauldron. As he did so, he roved his unfocused gaze around victoriously. A self-satisfied grin turned his expression into an ugly grimace of pure spite. Alma felt Miklós’ hand on top of hers tremble with rage.
The waiters drew themselves up, barely visibly. Now, they surrounded the SS man in a semicircle. A few stood in the entrance to the kitchen, observing the scene in ominous silence. Another couple closed the exit doors and locked them noiselessly. Inside Alma’s chest, her heart was thumping with blunt, violent force. Her throat had gone suddenly very dry.
The Kapo reached for the cognac bottle that still had three quarters of amber liquid splashing in it. Alma half-expected him to bash it over the SS man’s head, but the Kapo only poured a shot glass almost to its brim and offered it to the guard.
“That was a fine trick, Herr Rottenführer!” he said admiringly. “Only a true SS man can piss like that. Civilians can’t pull off such a fine arch. They lack character.” He held the glass before the SS officer, who beamed stupidly at him.
Using the Kapo’s shoulder for support, he clambered down and reached for the cognac to down it.
“What are you here for?” the SS man demanded, slapping the Kapo on his chest and handing him the glass back.
The Kapo was quick to refill it. “Murder, Herr Rottenführer,” he explained amiably. “Here, drink another one. Civilians lack character for that, too. Only our brave SS can put down the entire cellar. We can only aspire to reach your level.”
There was a certain undertone to the Kapo’s voice; Alma heard it clearly now.
The SS man pondered the glass in front of him, hiccupped, swallowed rising bile, but recovered himself and emptied the glass again, encouraged by the Kapo’s words. The latter was positively grinning now.
“Who did you do in? Your old lady?” the SS man slurred, wiping his mouth and swayed back, almost falling.
“An SA man, your Nazi Party Storm Detachment colleague,” the Kapo explained in an even friendlier tone than before, drawing chuckles from his fellow inmates. “He came for an elderly Jewish couple who lived above us and thought it would be a fine trick to drag them down the stairs by their hair. In turn, I thought it would be a fine trick to swipe him a couple on the snout, lift him by his ankles and drop him, four floors down, onto his head.” He paused for dramatic effect. “The delicious sound his skull made when it connected with the marble floor, ah! Civilians don’t make such fine sounds. Like a ripe melon busting open.” He kissed his fingertips with relish. “Only empty SS and SA heads make such splendid sounds.”
The waiters around him weren’t chuckling any longer, but their bared teeth were still there, gleaming menacingly in the darkness.
The blood drained from the SS man’s face. He swallowed with great difficulty and looked about himself. For the first time, there was genuine alarm in his eyes.
“And here’s Urschel,” the Kapo continued, pointing at one of the waiters. “Also an SA killer. Only, he’s a veteran, unlike myself. He offed his very first one back in 1933.”
“Took his eye out with the sharp end of his own banner,” the veteran declared proudly.
The murmur of approval rustled among their ranks.
“He was taking them out with his anarchist hit squad for years before the Gestapo finally caught him.”
“They could only prove one.” Urschel shrugged. “I’ll be out of here in two months; Herr Kommandant said, I served my time and have rehabilitated myself.”
“Have you really?” The Kapo looked skeptical.
The veteran made a wry face and turned to the SS man. “We’re all murderers here, Herr Rottenführer. You, yourselves, appointed us to this privileged position because you didn’t wish the docile Jews to serve you. Is something the matter? You don’t look too well. You ought to drink some more.”
The Kapo was already pushing the whole bottle—not a glass this time—into the trembling SS officer’s hands. “Drink it. Drink what’s left in it, you filthy hog.”
After yet another frantic look around, the SS man released a wild appeal for help.
“Shout your head off, if you like,” the Kapo laughed cuttingly. “All of your comrades are tucked nice and snug in their beds, snoring like the good little soldiers they are. But you—” once again, his face took on an outright threatening expression, “made it your business to mix with our affairs and upset our arrangement. I imagine, you deserve all too well what is coming to you. You chose to live like a pig—it’s only fair you die like one.”
The guard stared at him with pleading, terrified eyes.
Shoving the bottle at him again, hard against his chest, the Kapo nearly knocked him over and spilled some of the cognac on the SS man’s tunic. “Drink!” he bellowed, his features twisting into a mask of rage.
To Alma, the Kapo looked positively homicidal just then and yet, it suddenly occurred to her that she had no fear of this man. On the contrary, he appeared to her as a sort of ancient vengeful spirit in his white attire, who had answered the prayers of the ill-treated, magnificent and awe-inspiring in his righteous wrath.
So, this was the camp Resistance. All of these men, and Miklós with them. She clasped the pianist’s hand tighter and looked at him with infinite affection.
With a hand that shook, the SS man reached for the bottle and brought it to his lips. As he took the first few gulps, the Kapo’s chant—“Drink”—was picked up by the entire mess hall waiting personnel. They all stood in their white coats and shouted “Drink, drink, drink”—judges and executors craving their justice.
Feeling her feet moving of their own volition, Alma advanced
closer and closer to the crowd, her black eyes riveted to the condemned man in its center. This time, Miklós didn’t hold her back but followed her instead. Sensing them approach, the white coats separated and included them in their circle. Shoulder to shoulder, they stood, bright-eyed and smiling darkly.
Under the Kapo’s heavy gaze, the SS man retched and dropped the bottle. It burst into dozens of sparkling shards. The guard dropped to his knees and keeled forward, but the Kapo quickly shoved him in his chest with his boot, flipping him onto his back. He began to choke; he made an attempt to lift his head at least, but the Kapo stepped gently and deliberately onto his neck and sneered when the SS man began to clutch at his leg in wild desperation.
“Weidel has his wife waiting for him to bring her food. In the freezing cold, she stands by the wire in her threadbare robe. He is here because he refused to divorce her, his Jewish wife, and chose to follow her into the camp instead. And now, thanks to you, she will wait in vain. And every day is crucial here, when it comes to food. Just like every breath is crucial when you’re choking on your own vomit. You know, I consider it poetic justice.” He pressed his foot down harder. “She won’t eat tonight, but Weidel will tell her about how you died, and she will go to bed full. Full with hope, that one day we shall have our revenge and then you all ought to look out, for we won’t be merciful in delivering our justice.”
The Kapo turned his head slightly to the side. He resembled a child squashing a bug under his heel; only, there was no innocent, childish curiosity in his face. He stared at the SS man with very rational hatred.
Alma roved her gaze around and saw that all of their faces reflected the same exact emotion. She wondered what her face looked like.
At last, after a few last moments of struggle, the SS officer stilled under the Kapo’s boot. The waiter removed it from the uniformed man’s chest and regarded it with disgust. It was splattered with something vile; he quickly wiped it on the SS man’s sleeve. “Nasty business,” he muttered to himself.
The Violinist of Auschwitz: Based on a true story, an absolutely heartbreaking and gripping World War 2 novel Page 25