The Prosperous Thief

by Andrea Goldsmith

  He doesn’t know where he’s headed, although it’ll be out of Germany if he’s got any sense. He remembers how pleased he was when he learned how to read and write. Better, he is now thinking, if he’d taught himself another language. He won’t be heading back to Berlin, that’s for sure, and he won’t be heading back to thieving either, no matter where he stops. He’s a cook now. Heinrik Heck: cook. And the rest he’ll leave to chance.

  Although one thing’s for certain, he’ll not be sorry to leave this place. He’s seen more corpses than an undertaker, more starvation than would line the gutters of the Scheunenviertel, and more disease than any hospital. He’s seen eyes so empty he might as well be looking into coloured glass, he’s seen people on their feet yet more dead than alive, he’s seen women dying and men dying and worst of all children dying and has learned for his own safety not to be moved. Although once he couldn’t stop himself. A girl, twelve or thirteen years old, impossible to judge when they’re starving, and he’s coming from the kitchen with a full stomach and food in his pocket for later, and he sees her crouched beneath the ramp of one of the huts scavenging for scraps. He knows, as must she, there’s nothing to be found there. He reaches into his pocket, has to be careful, grabs the food, kneels down to tie his bootlace, and with his greatcoat providing cover tosses the food at her. She takes it, her face without expression, and hides it in her rags. A few days later she’s waiting in the same place and they do a repeat performance. And several times after that.

  The girl’s been missing this past month. Either she has enough to eat or the typhus has got her, and although it’s unlikely, he hopes it’s the former. It occurs to him he cares more for this unknown Jew girl than his own daughter. Places like this can really screw you up.

  It is only midday; he plans to wait until dusk before making his move. The stench in the camp is so strong it has soaked through his clothes and into his skin. Despite the cool weather he’d do anything for a swim. He lies back on his bunk and lets his mind wander back to the days in Berlin when he would float in the river for hours on end, washing away the grime of his old, putrid life.

  The Germans have left and the British are coming – or perhaps the Americans or French, no one is certain and Martin Lewin is not waiting to find out. His head is raging and there’s iced lead in his bones, but he is alive. Martin has held out, twelve months in Belsen and before that Westerbork. He has kept alive minute by minute, hour by hour, but is fast approaching the point where succumbing is cruelly seductive.

  Martin has stayed alive by stoking his memories of Renate, but now without something more substantial he feels his life sliding away. He needs to see his wife, needs to be with her.And Alice, too, but his daughter is safe in England, his daughter is most assuredly alive. But Renate? Please God let her be alive, for there’d be little point to his own survival if she were not. How he longs for the soft touch of her, the smell of her, how he longs to feel the weight of her in his arms, such pathetic sticks they’ve become but still with strength enough for his wife. He is forty years old and has survived nearly two years in labour camps, too absurd to leave this earth after just half a life, and the last part too rotten even for swill.

  He tells himself it’s only typhus, only typhus and he’ll see it through, only typhus that doesn’t necessarily kill, only typhus that most often does. He shrugs off the shadow of death as he drags himself away from the camp. The only death he allows into consciousness is useful death, the sort of death to take advantage of.

  He has stripped dead people of their rags and torn the material into broad ribbons and patches to use on his own miserable body, the effort more costly with each passing hour as fatigue and malaise undermine. By the time his swaddling is complete, his arms and shoulders and his pathetic back have barely a tear left in them. But the job is good, and beneath his striped pyjamas he is a mummy. For while the thaw has come and the sun is finding its heat, Martin’s bones are bleached and bare, and his skin has deserted him.

  He has scavenged food from those for whom a heel of bread has come too late, will force himself to eat though his poor guts are closing. He has suffered worse, he tells himself, but in truth, beyond a certain point the immediate worse is the worst worse of all. The pain lopes through his head and lodges in his temples and every now and then a lurching in his throat. He knows he must eat for the journey to Berlin, just two hundred kilometres and how long can it take? But whether five days or ten there’s no doubt he’ll become sicker. Belsen has taught him what to expect. Belsen is rife with fever and rash and a head pain so piercing that even your teeth hurt. And the grating in your ears, the cough hacking your joints, the groaning muscles. And worst of all the malaise, he’s seen more of it than food this past year, men lying on their backs muttering a stream of nonsense while waiting to die.

  He instructs his legs to walk a little further. Soon he’ll be out of sight of the camp, away from typhus and on the road, back to Berlin, back to Renate, and after that home to Krefeld to gather up what once belonged to them. Then they’ll travel to England to collect Alice, before moving to one of those countries that didn’t want an unemployed Jewish silk merchant before the war but after all that’s happened might consider one now. So many uncertainties, among which there’s only one rock-solid fact: that as surely as water relieves thirst, when Martin is with Renate once more, survival will cease to be an all-consuming issue.

  He cannot believe in her death, cannot even entertain the possibility. He knows she was included in a large contingent of Berlin Jews transported to the east on the twenty-seventh of February 1943. He knows the exact date, not simply because it was her birthday, but because on that day all his efforts to get her out of Germany had finally come to fruition. If the Germans had delayed their Berlin action just twenty-four hours, Martin is positive he would have saved his wife. Just one more day was all he needed. He now knows that no matter how careful and extensive the planning, or how numerous the bribes, in the end it is chance more than anything else which determines your fate. No one ever avoided a concentration camp because they deserved to.

  As he lugs himself across the broken ground, sick and debilitated but lucky to be alive, it strikes him that even if he had managed to get her out of Germany, it wouldn’t have been much of a saving. A couple of months later Renate would have found herself like him in Westerbork, and nine months after that in Belsen. But they would have been together, and it is extraordinary what a difference that can make.

  For most of the past two years Martin had the company of his friend Friedrich. They were each other’s luck. But with Friedrich now gone, Martin is alone except for the typhus and such company he can do without. He feels like he’s walking against a system of pulleys. Inside his skull the pain is kneading his brains, and the light is so sharp he might be staring into the sun. He tells himself Renate is just a few days away, sometimes he thinks he can actually hear her. Having survived the stinking rot of Belsen, he is convinced the fresh air away from the camp will revive him, and hobbles a little further, perhaps even a little more quickly. It would make no sense if he were to die now. Across all Germany, across all Europe he has no idea how many people have died, but if Belsen is any guide, the number is too great for the mind to hold. Although not my wife, he says to himself. Not my wife.

  His boots, or rather Friedrich’s boots, weigh a tonne. Friedrich who would be with him now if he had not died two days ago. Friedrich with whom Martin has survived and dreamed ever since the early days in Westerbork. Friedrich who has done almost as much as the memories of Renate to keep Martin alive. And now Friedrich is dead, but surely Martin is able to manage on his own until he reaches Berlin. He walks a little further, he’s heading for the trees. His boots drag him back and briefly he is tempted to discard them. But everyone knows that a man without boots is going nowhere.

  As the camp recedes, the fresh air hooks into his throat and hacks into his chest. He stops a moment to find an easier breath. He looks scarcely human, like a spind
ly insect with broken limbs staggering on the open ground, knows this from having lived with others who look scarcely human. Knows, too, that only a blind man would have compassion enough to help him.

  A few more steps, a few more minutes and he reaches the trees, marvels at the clusters of new leaves sprouting in the branches. How tenacious are these plants which manage to thrive despite the death in the air. And he makes himself breathe more deeply. Inside his mummy case his body is burning, yet the chill is just a few minutes or an hour away and he does not dare tamper with the swaddling. Instead he leans down, collects some leaves still damp from last night’s dew and holds them to his face. It would be cooler if he went deeper into the woods but he’s afraid of losing his way. The road he is following leads directly to the main route to Berlin. He clings to the edge of the woods for protection, but never loses sight of the road.

  He holds Friedrich in mind, Friedrich who gave him life and boots, and now incumbent on Martin to stay alive for both of them. Friedrich had a wife and three children, and as soon as Martin has found Renate he will search for them and give them the pen and photograph Friedrich entrusted to him. There was a diary as well – the journalist in Friedrich had stayed alive even when all else was dying – but there’s only so much a man weak from typhus and starvation can carry. Martin labelled the diary and hid it among some books in the hospital where he is sure it will eventually be found. He feels he has let Friedrich down, so little bequeathed by the dying man yet already too much, but comforts himself with the knowledge that in a similar position Friedrich would have done the same. He feels beneath his jacket for the pouch he fashioned from some of the rags. Here he has hidden Friedrich’s possessions with his own, so little left but more valuable than gold.

  Martin continues onward, pushing one sullen step after another. He has no idea how much ground he has covered but by the time the sun is overhead he has to stop. He moves deeper into the woods, settles against a log in a sheltered grove and forces himself to eat some bread. His brain feels as if it wants to push through his skull. The pain is worse today than yesterday, and will be worse tomorrow.

  Night is falling when Martin awakes. He is coughing, his whole guts threatening to erupt. He cannot believe he has wasted so much time. Hours ago when he needed this hard useless cough to wake him it was silent, now it refuses to allow him to get to his feet. He is aware of a change in the light, suddenly it is brighter, perhaps he has made a mistake, perhaps it is still only early afternoon, hard to hold on to his thoughts as he peers through the trees. The sky is flickering, the sky is mauve, although just a moment ago surely he saw the sun, and so thirsty, impossible to know anything with such a thirst, reaches for his bottle, can’t find it, perhaps it’s been stolen, glances towards a movement in the bushes, the thief hiding or just a shimmying of leaves, and doesn’t know now what he is doing here, doesn’t know anything any more.

  Heini Heck watches the sick man groping for his water bottle. He recognises the familiar mix of starvation, a body in collapse and typhus. It’s a Jew, and probably dying, and Heini knows he should help, but little point endangering himself when the situation is likely to be hopeless. For the umpteenth time since being stationed at Belsen, Heini thinks about the Jew pastry-cook, how when he was at his lowest the old Jew helped him, how because of him he decided to become a cook, how because of him he’s probably alive today. And quickly pushes the thoughts away – no time for softness now. Instead he finds himself wondering whether as head cook in the officers’ mess at Belsen Concentration Camp he’s had the best life can offer. And is forced to concede he might well have. In fact, with prospects such as his, Heini is not much better off than the poor mug with the typhus lying on the ground hacking up his lungs.

  Heini steps a little closer. In the wavery light he sees the grey pits where the man’s cheeks used to be and a few wisps of hair poking beneath a bandage wrapped around his head. He sees how skeletal are the hands scrabbling for the water bottle, and he hears the mad raving. Heini can’t stand the sound of it and turns sharply away. He covers a couple of hundred metres before he stops, stops for a long time, then makes a reluctant treading back to the man. He wants to be away from here. But for what? he wonders. For what?

  Back at the man’s side, he helps him take a drink. The man has some mouldy bread, Heini offers instead some sweet pastries, fine crescent-shaped biscuits that melt in the mouth. The man feels better after eating. He can’t sit up without help, but says he’ll be stronger tomorrow. Not much chance of that, thinks Heini, but says nothing.

  The man says he’s Martin Lewin, from Krefeld near Düssel-dorf, heading towards Berlin in search of his wife. He pulls a photograph from a pouch. The woman is all right if you like them scrawny and dark which Heini doesn’t, but he makes the right noises and the man seems satisfied. Such a small amount of talking and the man is exhausted. Heini helps him take a piss, then wraps his own coat around the pathetic body. The man falls asleep immediately and soon is muttering like a drunk.

  During the night Heini goes through the man’s pouch. Apart from the photograph of the wife, there’s a nice pen probably worth a bit, and two more photographs. The first is of the wife with a child and a man Heini guesses is Martin, although from the picture would not have known. The second photograph shows an entirely different woman, large and blonde and much more to Heini’s taste, standing with a different man and three small children. The photographs are wrapped in a small piece of material as slippery as water. Heini tips the pouch inside out, but there’s nothing else. This Martin Lewin from Krefeld could be Jesus Christ of Nazareth for all the identity he carries, and if not for the Jewish prick could pass as German. Even the way he talks: nothing like the old pastry-cook, more like rich Berliners from Charlottenburg.

  The man stirs, coughs a bit then returns to his muttering. Heini wipes the sweat from his face. People do survive typhus, people do survive years of deprivation, particularly with a little food and care. Perhaps Martin Lewin from Krefeld will live. And if he lives, perhaps he’ll help Heini like the old pastry-cook did so long ago. And just as quickly Heini realises how stupid he’s being. The Germans have been doing away with Jews ever since Hitler came to power.This Jew, any Jew, will look at Heini and see a German – not a good German nor a bad German, just a German, in much the same way Germans didn’t single out good Jews or bad Jews, just went ahead and laid into the lot of them.

  Heini settles himself down and falls asleep but not for long. He is awakened by the Jew’s raving, and in the jumble a veritable atlas of places: Amsterdam, Berlin, America, Canada, Shanghai, and the Danes, he keeps calling out to the Danes. And names: Renate, Alice, Friedrich, lots of Friedrich. On and on he raves. A fever of words, sometimes perfectly clear, and at other times such a slurring of memories that even if you’d been there you wouldn’t recognise them. At one stage he seems to think he’s in Holland talking to a woman called Gertrude about visas, then a whole scramble about ‘going under’, and suddenly his eyelids spring open and he is wide awake.

  As Heini helps him to some water, he asks about this ‘going under’. The man is quite lucid now. He explains he went into hiding in Amsterdam, not with Dutch people, they were too busy looking after their own Jews, but with a Danish family.

  ‘Good people,’ he says.‘Such good people.’

  Heini has never had much time for talking, but suddenly he finds himself asking questions, lots of questions to reveal how a Jew could survive so long.And it is not as if he knows what he is going to do, but something is growing in his mind. He questions Martin about Amsterdam, and about the camp at Westerbork; and because a Jew’s experience of Belsen would be very different from his own, he asks about Belsen too. He is about to start on the wife and child when Martin’s eyelids begin to droop, and before long he has slipped back into his raving.

  Heini leaves him to garble on while he goes for a piss. The sky is clear of clouds with a good solid chunk of moon and more stars than ever were visible in Berlin. He w
anders just a few metres away, finds a low branch that’s as smooth as a chair and swings himself up. Through the silence he can still hear Martin’s raving, but low and steady now like the distant growl of an aeroplane. He forgets about his bladder and sinks into his thoughts. He has nothing to look forward to, even this Jew with typhus has a better future. The lowest of the low when the Germans were on a roll, what poor pickings would be left to him now Germany is on her knees? He’d do better, he realises, being a Jew.

  The next day dawns bright and clear, an early summer’s day. Heini offers to remove Martin’s swaddling, and will wrap him up again later when it is cooler. They set off; but with Heini doing most of the walking for both of them, they don’t get very far, certainly not to the main road to Berlin. At lunchtime, Heini feeds Martin from his own store, lets him sleep an hour, then they continue until nightfall. The Jew is small, and reduced as he is to his bones he’s not much heavier than a child, but still Heini has had enough for one day. As for Martin, he is exhausted but different from the previous night, more alert, and now convinced he will survive.

  ‘I don’t know who you are and I don’t know why you’ve helped me, but if there’s any justice in this world you’ll be rewarded.’

  He tells Heini about his wife, also about his daughter safe in England, and he’s talking now not raving. Heini encourages him. He learns that the wife, Renate, ended up at Auschwitz – you can kiss her goodbye, Heini is thinking – and the brother and sister-in-law were also sent to the east and were unlikely ever to be seen again.

  Heini asks Martin about his papers and is told they disappeared long ago. And because Martin is so different from the pastry-cook, he asks what sort of Jew he is. He learns there was no way of telling with some German Jews that they were in fact Jewish. They didn’t wear Jewish clothes nor eat Jewish food nor practise any of the customs.‘What about Yiddish?’ Heini asks, thinking again of the pastry-cook, and Martin explains that German Jews like him would never speak Yiddish. He even asks about the Jewish prick, and learns that some Jews, those who were more German than Jewish, would have had a normal one, just like Heini’s own. And he asks about the name, Lewin. Is it a common Jewish name? And is told, common enough. In a single hour Heini learns the sort of background a Jew from Germany might have and how such a person might have survived.