by Peter Nadas
He returned fire as he fell and could still see the car speeding away in the snow despite a damaged rear wheel.
But now he did not see how he could go on.
And he had accomplished so much in the camp with his incredible caution and implacably calm nature.
For a long time he had been considered the master of life and death in the Pfeilen camp. When he had been first called up, near the end of the Great War, he had completed his training as a medic, having seen typhoid fever, dysentery, tuberculosis, all manner of injuries and mutilations. In times of need, SS officers had him operate on them instead of prisoner doctors or, especially, the two SS surgeons, since one was an alcoholic whose hands shook terribly if he did not have something to drink every hour, and the other was probably a morphine addict with similar problems in getting his required dope—where to get it and how many milligrams to inject. But now, despite everything he had done, Kramer had to go to the south gate because of Peix.
At first they entrusted him only with disgusting, septic operations, out of convenience and because the two surgeons feared infection. Kramer became a specialist in purulent inflammations; every morning he had to open and expertly clean these terrible wounds by the dozen. After a year in the pathology section of Buchenwald, he knew no less about human anatomy than the learned physicians did. The pathology section was shared by the men’s and women’s camp—the only place where not only body parts of both men and women, kept in thick-walled glass vessels, came in contact on the same table but where prisoners of both sexes worked and ate together; some of them were well-known specialists. Life was comfortable and convivial; the men cooked for themselves, could bathe to their heart’s content and chat endlessly with their shaven-headed female colleagues. Kramer worked with an elderly Jewish pathological anatomist, a prosector, who had been the head of his department at the university in Prague. The furnishing, installations, and equipment of the two dissecting rooms met the requirements of the most modern medical technology. Every morning they had to select in the barracks, and then in the mortuary of the sick bay, the Krankenrevier, those bodies that showed some deformation of a hereditary character or bodily anomalies that might be considered exceptional. The corpses had to be those of Jews. Organs and limbs of scientific interest were severed and together with detailed, comprehensive autopsy reports were shipped to Berlin, to the famous Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics in Dahlem, on Ihne Street. The addressee was always a certain Prof. Dr. Karla Baroness von Thum zu Wolkenstein, and two large red stamps were always affixed to the package. One stamp called attention to the fragile contents and the other to the urgency and speed with which the shipment, of great military importance, must reach its destination. On each occasion, its arrival was duly acknowledged by Karla Baroness von Thum zu Wolkenstein, whom the laboratory workers in the camp imagined to be the feminine version of the famous former pathologist from Prague: short, round, and bespectacled. Sometimes she addressed brief questions to her colleagues, and these questions revealed her attentiveness and expertise. Professor Nussbaum never mentioned that the baroness had been his student in Prague, but perhaps he did not even remember her. At other times, in exceedingly warm words, the baroness expressed joy regarding the excellent condition or the professionalism of the autopsy findings.
All the autopsy material had to be stored in the refrigerator until permission came from Ihne Street regarding the exceptional cases.
On very rare occasions, there were instructions to boil a corpse down to the skeleton and then preserve it in a benzene bath. Or not to boil it but rather to dissolve the softer tissue in chloride of lime; this was the longer procedure. In any case, a collegial and friendly relationship developed between the camp laboratory and Ihne Street which neither their respective situations nor their tasks could begin to justify.
Later, in Pfeilen, troublesome aseptic cases were also assigned to Kramer, such as hopeless orthopedic operations and amputations. By then, Obersturmführer Eisele, who in the chaos of the approaching collapse had lost all sense of self-discipline, had been absent for more than a week. Nobody missed him and probably nobody held it against him that lately, with the help of SS physicians, he had been selecting many of the sick to be taken to the north gate, to the open area covered with snow. From the guard tower they shot only those who tried to crawl away; the rest stayed until their turn came. According to the criminals in the camp, Eisele’s wife and two small children had been evacuated in a lightning-fast action, before dawn, from the officers’ quarters in a suburb of the town. Peix had relayed this news to Kramer by the next morning. They both knew what danger awaited them. From the viewpoint of the communist cells, Eisele’s constant use of Peix offered considerable protection, but Eisele had reasons to maintain a tight and passionate relationship with the criminals too. In every possible and impossible secret hiding place, in the mouth and anus of every living and dead person he had been searching for gold, and proved to be very good at it. If he could be made to disappear, just like that, along with his accumulated gold, there was a good chance the criminals would make their own move against the now-defenseless Kramer.
What they really wanted, however, was Peix, alive.
This was such a threat to life in the camp that, to avoid it, the four hundred prisoners were ready to continue their panic-filled silence in the dark barracks for a long time, but the loudspeaker started to crackle, then play music. If this can happen, anything may happen is what people usually say in such cases. It was once again the famous entrance of Countess Maritza from the Kálmán operetta,* blasting at the prisoners from early morning until late at night so they could not hear the sound of cannons.
Kramer has to perish alone.
Nothing more terrible than this could possibly happen in the camp, because it would leave Peix on his own, with no one to restrain him, to keep him from doing whatever he pleased.
Döhring, the commandant’s new deputy, the younger and crueler of the two Döhring brothers, would surely use Peix differently from the way his predecessor Eisele had done.
Kramer might have been the only person to whom it never occurred that for other people real hell meant Peix.
Everyone was terrified of Peix.
A few days sufficed for newcomers to become terrified by the beauty of this healthy, strong person. Many of them would start coughing at the sight of him.
Past the pine forest, in the middle of a plowed field, Eisele had ordered a long, wide burning pit to be dug, seven meters wide and four meters deep, and for more than a week the living and the dead had been burning in it. A nice footpath led to the pit from the north gate. They set the fire with gasoline, applied generously, and when hair, skin, and fat were happily blazing with eager little flames, they kept on feeding the fire. This was Eisele’s last deed, which does not sound too good but, as people in Pfeilen then said, it was necessary to prevent epidemics; the pit smoked and sizzled. Brains and spinal marrow oozed from skulls and spines opening in the heat at the wide bottom of the pit and very slowly began to glow. Brain and spinal marrow become flammable only at a very high temperature. The high temperature was created by the corpses’ own energies. Easily flammable fatty and hairy parts continually ignited the burning mass. Even if people had wanted to, the fire couldn’t have been put out. After a while, the liquid brains acted as perpetual kindling. Of this, however, nobody spoke in either of the two small towns nearby or in the camp itself; all of them, unequivocally and despite the confusion, inhaled the stench of burning human flesh and bones, and had the impression that the smell had a material-like substance, something sticky, and that they were also eating it. It was impossible not to inhale it. The smell and taste in one’s saliva became a little like those of cheap church candles made of tallow. People coughed cautiously whenever the wind blew across the low pine forest, because after a cough one would have to inhale more deeply. Although they had grown used to everything, the knowledge that burning human flesh was what the
ir sense organs were experiencing in this peculiar way and that tomorrow, in all probability, they too would be burning brought tears to their eyes and literally deprived them of air. Acrolein, which is nothing but unsaturated aldehyde, mildly polymerized at high temperatures, stinks like this; it irritates the mucous membranes whether or not one knows what sort of chemical and physical processes are taking place.
Big, strong young men were terrified of him no less than decrepit enfeebled old ones, who, perhaps because of their stupor and helplessness, might enjoy another happy half hour under the eaves of the Krankenrevier. But if Peix had a chance, he tortured these men too. They warmed themselves in the pale sunshine, together with the flies that dared emerge from the cracks in the dark-brown plank wall of the barracks. Icicles dripped happily. Squatting above the filth and stench of their own dysentery, these men waited for Kramer to perform a miracle and perhaps find room for them. The flies still had enough strength to crawl onto the men’s warm necks, where they became stuck or fell down and buzzed in the stubble-like growth that appeared in place of normal hair. If Kramer saw somebody persevering, he might have him sent to the sick bay, or at least the rumor among the prisoners was that he would find beds for them there. Until somebody else died in bed, they could lie on the cold stones in the warm, clean air and, in their fever-induced daydreams, stare at the snow-covered beautiful pine trees outside.
Kramer saw to it that, despite the congestion, there was silence and order in the two wards; this is what he kept Peix busy with all day, though during the chaotic last days it became impossible. It was not unusual in the midst of this quiet, resigned waiting that someone simply keeled over out of sheer weakness and without being pushed. His body would stay there in the mud, which, along with the excrement, vomit, and flies, would freeze again during the night.
Peix killed many people. He had them stand up, it was their turn, they can come in now, and when they managed more or less to rise to their feet in the drippy midday thaw, he shoved them back down. Mainly the handsome young boys had reason to fear him, the ones he took on as assistants in the sick bay, just as Kramer had taken him, back then. In the camp, people said he was a pervert, which in the prisoners’ lingo meant he did not use them even though he could. But he fed and pampered the pretty boys. He would sell one to Eisele in exchange for liver paste to feed another one. The boys did not have to do anything, they could just lounge around, and while Peix worked diligently all day for Kramer, he kept sending his laughs in the boys’ direction, his mouth wide open.
This was also something Kramer knew more about than anyone else: Peix’s hideously mute laughter.
But one fine day Peix grew tired of them, and no one asked himself why, or whether he would like another one. Kramer never let him keep more than two assistants at a time, which would have put an immeasurable burden on the sick bay’s population. These boys were mostly from the ranks of Russian prisoners of war or from Polish forced labor units who had been isolated from others because of capital crimes; they regularly killed for raw potatoes, for a frozen apple, anything. Peix himself had started his career as a common criminal. He was sixteen when he arrived in the Buchenwald concentration camp having committed a particularly cruel double murder. Kramer looked at his mashed and infected hands and then by chance looked at his face and said to himself, no, this boy may have committed murder, but he is no criminal. Peix eagerly affirmed that indeed he was not a criminal. He was not the one who had murdered the two old art dealers whose place he and his friend had broken into, he told Kramer, quickly realizing what Kramer wanted to hear from him. He and his partner had found the house empty. They knew where to find the two big Leistikow paintings they had been hired to steal; and the two old homos had probably been killed by their lover boys. Kramer took him along to the pathology section, a privilege for which, Peix assumed, he was to pay with his body. By the time they discovered the misunderstanding, they loved each other so much that they could not be separated.
Now they had to part, which evidently did not bother Peix, or at least he did not let it interrupt his important business. But it did bother Bulla, the trashy little Polish squealer: in the harsh light cast on the lower part of his face he pretended to be attentive to Peix while nervously blinking in the darkness at Kramer, wondering what would happen next. Bulla limped badly; his mates had once picked him up and thrown him from the second-story window of the laundry. They heaved him out so he would fall on his spine, but it did not happen that way. He was Eisele’s personal informer. If Kramer had not fixed his terrible open fractures and if Peix against his better judgment had not nursed him so devotedly, he would never have walked again. Peix wanted to kill him; he asked that Bulla be given a small dose of sedative, which in the language of the criminals meant enough to put the squealer out of his misery.
Peix also threatened: if Kramer was unwilling, he would do it himself.
Save it for others, for a worthier patient, Kramer said; his quiet self-assurance calmed the boy down even in the most critical situations. He wouldn’t have wanted to pick a fight with Eisele over such a senseless murder. Someone willing would come along and do it anyway. Informers could not support themselves for long; they never had more than half a year to squeal on people, though during that time they managed to have many prisoners put away. Peix also made his pretty boys disappear, one after the other, whenever they grew chubby and he became bored with them. He would tell them he had heard them coughing and tuberculosis was not a disease to walk around with, they should report to the sick bay, and there, within a few days, the SS doctors took care of them, without exception. Wherever Peix appeared, everyone tried hard not to cough. Strong, large men especially had much to fear. Kramer overlooked Peix’s ongoing manhunt, or he forced himself to pretend not to notice what his friend was doing. He overlooked many things he could not help noticing, in hopes that one day, with his help, Peix would come to his senses and realize who he really was. In the depth of his soul, though, he had long understood that, shameful as it was, all his apprehensions had come true. From this icily cool-headed boy he learned much about the lives of criminals and their ways of thinking; without these experiences the communist cell could not have taken up the struggle against them in the camp; but he had failed miserably with his own pedagogical strategy.
What the boy willingly took from him was never what he had wanted to give him.
But what was he to do if this boy was the only human being in the world whom he loved so much. Perhaps he loved him because of his irresponsibility and unpredictability. The boy was more levelheaded than anyone he’d ever met, but still, his soul was crumbling in the depths of madness. The truth was that Peix loved him even more than he loved Peix, Peix loved him immoderately, with all the inner turbulence of his madness. He usually feared robust, big men like Kramer. It was hard for him to get used to the knowledge that Kramer would never hit him or punish him. In Buchenwald, he jerked away his head if Kramer stepped closer to him or addressed him in a loud voice. Kramer managed to laugh hard when this happened, because he understood the boy well; and the boy was ashamed.
Kiss my ass, he yelled at him, get your kicks somewhere else, not with me.
And what would happen if he did hit him once, Kramer often wondered, would that be of any use. Because the jerking of his head meant that, except for being hit, the boy would not accept any other proof of love.
Lemme alone, already, Peix shouted, stop bugging me. Beat your meat, play with your cock, that’s what you should play with. Find something else to do. Get off my back.
Kramer laughed at Peix’s fits of rage; he kept laughing at him very loudly until Peix gave up.
You garbage, you shit, Peix would hiss, as if his teeth were being pulled; you pig swill, you shit, he hissed.
But why would he hit him.
He had never loved anyone like this, so senselessly, purposelessly, and unconditionally. As if he were wishing to redeem the other’s soul with his own. He loved him with every experience of
his life, with his entire social wisdom honed on Marxism, with his messianic fervor; he loved the future in the boy. Then how could he possibly admit to himself that he had made a mistake. They should at least have killed Bulla. I made a big, big mistake, he said to himself. Although he could not acknowledge, not even to himself, that it was not a person’s circumstances that determined how that person would go. Not even birth was an influence strong enough to make a person good or evil. In Buchenwald he managed to convince his comrades with the same arguments he had used on himself, but here they reached the very end of the human world’s possibilities, and now he sees that there are no more possibilities, there is no future tense and there never has been one. Yes, here, in the very center of human misery and baseness, here, in hell, he wants to prove, he thundered to his comrades, that no one is born a criminal.
Where else, my dear sweet comrades.
But in the matter of criminality, the others had eyes too. They quickly called him to account about Peix, and he could expect the very worst.
He laughed at them lustily, at what they might have been thinking about him.
The comrades did not see how brazenly he was lying. But his comrades could see that a man who spoke and laughed like that was probably unaware of his own dangerous nature.
It was a very telling indicator that they called a meeting of cell leaders for Sunday afternoon without him. Bruno Apitz was there, in the bathhouse behind the laundry, and Fritz Lettow and Gustav Wegerer, and they sent for him only after they had made their decision about him.
They were going to withdraw him from circulation.
It was spring; the sun was warming everything.
A wondrous spring in the indecent woods of Buchenwald. A time when a man walking thinks, well, I’ve managed to survive this hard winter. And that he’s not alone. This is what he was thinking as he walked, because he really was not alone. Now only better things can happen. Birds were making a din, singing. A gigantic oak stood in front of the laundry. It had to be at least four hundred years old. The prisoners liked to think of it as Goethe’s tree under which he used to rest with Eckermann, who in some way must have been his friend, after all.* The way Peix was his. And when he thought of this, he somehow forgave Goethe too, which made him feel as if suddenly he’d found an explanation for nature’s terrible indifference.