The Last Witness

by Jerry Amernic

  Two Germans carrying rifles followed the crazy man into the car, grabbed him by the shirt and threw him out, and then they started pushing people through the opening. They ordered everyone out, but it was a long drop to the platform. An old man on his hands and knees peered over the edge, afraid to move, and was tossed from the train like a sack. He hit the pavement hard and when he was slow to get up the Germans who were already on the platform started kicking him. He told them he had to pee, so they stood him on his feet and rolled his pants down to his ankles, exposing him to everyone, and then they laughed and told him to go ahead. He stood there shaking before the pee trickled down his leg and gathered in a puddle at his feet.

  Jacob climbed out of the boxcar with his mother and father, and the first thing that hit him was this crude stench in the air, but it wasn’t like the stench from the boxcar. It was different. He didn’t know what it was. It had been raining and the ground was still wet. There was muck everywhere and strange people in striped clothes standing around aimlessly and dogs sniffing and barking. When everyone was off the train, they were told to stand on the platform.

  Jacob was next to his parents, and beside them were his Aunt Gerda, Zivia and Romek. Just then one of the SS started pointing. All the men were ordered into one line and the women and children into another, and it wasn’t long before the women began to scream and the children began to cry. As he was being led away, Jacob’s father reminded him about what he had said in the boxcar, about meeting at the train station in Berlin at Track No. 1. He looked over his shoulder at Jacob as a German shoved him with his rifle. It was a long look – the same look he gave his dead baby son in the sewer. When all the men were taken away, the Germans ordered the women and children to separate and then the bedlam got even worse. A woman with a baby in her arms wouldn’t let go of it. One of the SS tugged on the baby and still she wouldn’t let go, so he hit her across the face with his rifle, grabbed the baby and threw it to the ground. Then the worst thing Jacob had ever seen. Absolutely the worst. The man turned the gun on the baby and fired. Just like that. The baby exploded. There is no other word for it. The woman started to scream. Hysterically. He pointed his gun at her and fired again.

  Everyone saw it and everything went quiet.

  Another SS ordered Zivia and Romek to one side – to the left – while Jacob’s Aunt Gerda was ordered to the right. Romek was crying for his mother, and Zivia had her arm around him, saying that things would be all right. Then the SS who was making the selections told Jacob’s mother to go to the right with her sister. He pointed his rifle at Jacob and said to go to the left with his cousins, but Jacob didn’t want to leave his mother. The man raised his rifle and stared at him, and without any warning smashed the butt of his gun on Jacob’s left shoulder. Hard. Square on the bone. Jacob dropped to the ground. His shoulder, his whole arm, felt as if it had been ripped off. The man stood over him and pointed the gun at his head. Jacob looked up at him.

  “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.”

  It was the first thing that came into his mind.

  “Was?” said the German.

  “Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc ete in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.”

  Jacob lowered his head and made the sign of the cross. The German still had his rifle pointed at him.

  “Wie heist du?” the man said.

  “Mein name ist Jacub.”

  The German lowered his rifle.

  “Bist du Katholisch?”

  “Ja. Ich bin Katholisch.” Jacob looked over to his mother and his aunt. “Und meine Mutter und meine T ante.”

  The German touched Jacob’s blonde hair and studied his features. Jacob could feel his eyes examining his face, his nose, his cheeks, his mouth. He could feel his breath on him. The German called another SS over and the two of them talked, and when they were done talking, the one who had hit him motioned for Jacob to go with his mother and his aunt.

  To the right.

  A few minutes later, everyone in the line on the left – children, old people, women – were led away. Jacob didn’t see any children in his line. He was the only one. Then everything happened very quickly. German women with needles were grabbing people at random and sticking the needles into their arms, and when it was his turn, Jacob pulled back and looked around to see where to run, but there was no place to go. One of the women snatched his arm and jabbed the needle into him. It stung, and when she took it away, it left a number. A-25073. Then another woman started to shave their heads. Jacob’s mother had her head shaved and so did his Aunt Gerda, but when they were about to shave Jacob’s head, the SS man, the same one who had hit him, said to stop. He said something to the woman with the needle, and she let Jacob be.

  They were marched into a long building and told to take off their clothes. Everything. At first the women hesitated, but then they went ahead and stripped, and soon Jacob was standing naked next to his mother and his aunt and they, too, were naked. The women tried covering themselves up with one hand over their breasts and the other between their legs. Jacob put his hands across his middle. They were led into a large empty room and told they were going to shower, but someone cried out that they were going to be gassed. Jacob thought he was about to die. It wasn’t the first time that day. He thought he would die when the SS pointed the rifle at him and again when the woman came at him with the needle and now a third time. His mother held him tight, the doors closed, people screamed and for one horrifying moment the terror in that place was so thick and palpable that there wasn’t a single breath. Then the showers turned on. Cheers erupted and the cheers were even louder when the doors opened to let them out.

  They were told to put their shoes on, which was good because Jacob had the chervonets in his heel. No one knew about it. Not even his mother. They were given baggy striped clothes and led outside, but that strange smell was still in the air. Jacob looked up and saw the black smoke rise into the sky.

  29

  Jack’s alarm went off at seven. He was uneasy because of the dream. He knew now that it was a dream, but it seemed so real. He was with Christine and it was strange because she was all grown up while he was a little boy and what made it even stranger was that they were at the camp. They were sleeping side by side in the barracks, sharing a bunk up on the third row. It was always the third row. That was their place. The siren went off at four o’clock as it did every morning and then they gathered outside for inspection, but no one else was there. Only the two of them. When it was over, they went back into the barracks to busy themselves. Packing down straw on the bunks and later, peeling potatoes and cleaning bricks. In the middle of the afternoon, they got their meal. Crusty bread with water. The Nazis called it soup. In the dream, Jack the little boy was bored to death.

  “I want to play,” he said. “I want to play with the other children.”

  “There are no other children,” Christine said. “You are lucky.”

  “I want Mama and Papa.”

  “They’re gone but don’t worry. You have me.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “They died in the gas chamber. Everyone is dead. All of them. The only ones left are you and me. We’re lucky. You don’t know how lucky we are.”

  “I want …”

  “Sha, Jacob. Sha.”

  “But …”

  “Sha. Sha. Hust.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Es vet gornit helfen.”

  “I want Mama and Papa.”

  Christine held him close.

  “Listen to me, Jacob. We are alive you and me. We’re alive! Let’s drink to it. Le chayim!”

  “Le chayim!” Jack said. He didn’t even realize he had said it, but he heard himself. It was the first thing he said that morning. He was tossing back and forth in his bed and then he rolled over thinking Christine was in the bunk beside him. He reached out for her, but no one was there.

  �
�Christine,” he said out loud.

  He got up and washed his face. His body ached from the arthritis and the worst thing was that damn shoulder of his. He was hungry. When he was ready to go, he opened his door and went out to the hall. He wasn’t thinking right and didn’t even close his door. Halfway down the hall, right in front of Trudy’s room, he realized his mistake.

  Good friends are like stars. You don’t always see them but they are always there.

  That was Trudy’s message for today and where she found all these sayings Jack didn’t know, but she had a different one on her door every day. He turned around and headed back to his room and it was weird because something was pulling him there. Like a magnet. He had never felt that way before, but of course, he left his door open. That was it. He had to shut his door. Make sure it was locked.

  He pushed the door closed and then he saw it. Scrawled in the middle of the door was a swastika. The size of his hand, even bigger than that. Neatly drawn. The lines straight, thick and black. Even the space inside the lines was filled with black. Whoever did it had taken their time. Jack kept staring at it and then he put his hands on his mouth and started gasping for air. He took a breath and couldn’t get it out. He tried again. He couldn’t breathe. He was choking. He slumped against the door frame and cried for help.

  New York City, 2038

  30

  The day of his arrival someone told Eustace that no one else had a name like his. And they were right. He had a room on the second floor of the Jewish Home for the Aged in New York City, even though he was Seventh-day Adventist. His condition had deteriorated to the point where they were talking about putting him in the palliative ward. He had dementia and Parkinson’s and heart disease, and they didn’t give him long, but he had suffered from these ailments for years and was still hanging on. He had always been obese and the single hardest thing for him to do was climb out of bed. He needed help with that. The report said he was anti-social, had a short fuse and would fly into a rage at the slightest provocation. There had already been two incidents. He had attacked a member of the cleaning staff when he objected to the antiseptic she was using, and had to be restrained. It took three men to subdue him. The other time he had thrown his food tray at a nutritionist who was trying to get him to eat. But it’s not his fault, they said. It’s a symptom of the condition. He has to be monitored. The Jewish Home for the Aged was supposed to be a short-term thing until a bed became available elsewhere.

  Shirley Rosen was two doors down the hall and she didn’t like Eustace. She found him loud and coarse and overbearing, but that wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was the smell. He stunk. There was a staleness about him, as if he never had the inclination to shower. On more than one occasion, she had heard him screaming at the staff when they were trying to coax him into the bath. He always reeked, so she did her best to stay away from him. Shirley was a hundred and one years old, and at this stage in life she didn’t have time for such things.

  Like Eustace.

  The nurse was coming in with her daily meds – the regular course of blood thinners, beta blockers and Lactulose. Shirley suffered from chronic constipation and joked that laxatives were her middle name. Today was especially bad. She hadn’t gone for four days and the pressure was so bad she couldn’t eat. It was too painful.

  Everyone knew that Eustace and Shirley mixed like oil and water.

  The man who came to visit less than a half hour before visiting was over said he was a friend of Shirley’s. He said he knew her from the old neighborhood, but he was a young man in his thirties and never said what neighborhood that was. He told the nurse Shirley might not recognize him at first, but would come around soon enough. He brought a box of cookies. It was a cold day and he was wearing a bulky sweater. He didn’t bother to sign in.

  “Hello Shirley, you sweet girl. Remember me?”

  She didn’t, but why would she? She had never seen him before in her life.

  “How are you?” he said.

  “Fine.”

  “These are for you,” and he gave her the cookies.

  “Thank you.”

  He started with small talk about the weather and she kept trying to place him, figuring she must know him from somewhere. But nothing registered. He certainly seemed to know her, however, and he also knew about her problem with Eustace.

  “You should give him another chance. He’s not such a bad guy. He just has a lot wrong with him.”

  He found it hot in her room, so he rolled up the sleeves of his sweater past the elbows. She could make out the beginning of the snake tattoos on his arms.

  “I have a lot wrong with me too,” said Shirley, “and I’m older than he is so I don’t have much pity.”

  He laughed. “How about I bring him in and try to get you two to be friends?”

  Shirley didn’t like the idea, but didn’t want to be rude. “You’d be wasting your time,” she said.

  “Maybe not.”

  The man marched into Eustace’s room and Shirley could hear them talking since it was only two doors away, but she didn’t know what they were saying. Still, she knew it would be a waste of time. Eustace was impossible. She had no use for him.

  Soon visiting hours would be done for the day, a busy time for the nurses who were near the end of their shift and going over patient files at their station down the hall. Shirley closed her eyes and tried to nap. Sometimes a few minutes here and there were enough to recharge her, and then all of a sudden there he was. Eustace. She knew it was him even before she opened her eyes. It was the smell. There was no mistaking that fetid stench. He was standing over her, beside her bed, a scowl on his face. The man who came to see her – the visitor she couldn’t place – was just inside the door.

  Shirley had her mind on Eustace and didn’t notice the man taking out his mini. He tapped the little screen and some names came up. He touched the last one and it was deleted.

  Her name.

  “You think I’m fat?” Eustace said and Shirley could only look at him stone-faced.

  “Excuse me?” she said.

  “You think I’m fat and ugly, don’t you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  Before Shirley knew what was happening, the door to her room was closed. The man who came to see her, the man who just brought Eustace in, was handing this maniac a pillow.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “They can’t hear you now.”

  With that, Eustace lowered the pillow onto Shirley’s face so it covered her eyes, her nose and her mouth. Then he leaned over and put all his weight, all his bulk, behind it. Everything he had. He pressed down hard and Shirley couldn’t breathe. There were stifled gasps, and arms and legs trying desperately to do something, but to no avail. Shirley was an old woman flat on her back and he was a big angry man standing over her with seething blood rushing to his face, adrenaline filling his veins. He kept pushing and she kept struggling and the more he pushed the stronger he got. It didn’t take that long. When she finally stopped moving, he eased up on the pillow and took it off. He stared at her dumb-founded.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he said. “Say something! Say something!”

  He started screaming obscenities at her and the nurses outside in the hallway all stopped what they were doing. Two of them rushed into the room.

  “Oh my God!” one of them said.

  Eustace was standing there with the pillow in his hands. Shirley motionless on the bed. Her eyes wide open and still. Not breathing. No one else was in the room. The man who came to see Shirley was gone.

  31

  Jack opened his eyes and saw a woman in a blue smock hovering over him.

  “Hello Mr. Fisher. You feeling better?”

  “What?”

  “You had a little tumble.”

  He raised his head and looked around. “Where am I?”

  “You’re in the hospital. You’re here for some tests.”

  “Hospit
al?”

  “They brought you to emergency a couple hours ago but you’re going to be all right. No worries.”

  The nurse wiped his brow with a damp cloth. He heard voices in the background. People were talking about him. Something about his condition.

  “Why am I in the hospital?” he said. “I’m all right.”

  There was a man’s voice.

  “Hello Jack.”

  It was Lieutenant Hodgson and he had that policewoman with him. They were standing at the foot of the bed, Hodgson a good head taller than she was.

  “Hello Mr. Fisher,” she said.

  Jack looked at Hodgson. “What are you doing here?”

  Only then did Jack realize something was attached to his nose. A tube was feeding him oxygen. He was hooked up to intra-venous and a monitor beside the bed was recording everything. Hodgson had his notebook and pen with him. He looked at the nurse and then came closer.

  “Jack, everybody is worried about you,” he said. “They want to make sure you’re all right.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with me?”

  The woman officer piped up. “Mr. Fisher? You remember me? Kathy Sottario? NYPD?”

  Jack gave her a nod. “You’re the expert interrogator,” he said and she smiled.

  “Mr. Fisher?” It was the nurse in the blue smock. “You’ve never had any heart trouble, have you?”

  “Me? No. Why?”

  “We just want to make sure. That’s why you’re here. Do you recall how you were feeling when you fell?”

  Jack remembered the dream with Christine. He got up and went into the hall, but forgot to close his door. He passed Trudy’s room, then turned around and came back.

  “I couldn’t breathe,” he said and he mentioned the swastika.

  “We saw it,” said Hodgson. “You got that letter and now this.”

  “Why would someone do that?” Jack said.

  Hodgson shook his head.

  “Mr. Fisher, you say you couldn’t breathe,” said the nurse. “Did you experience any pain in your chest by any chance?”