“Nice house,” Paul said in German. “Yours?”
“Yes,” Eichmann said. He clasped his hands together. “It was abandoned.”
Paul could feel the Swede’s eyes on him.
The three were standing in the bright hall before a sweeping blond oak staircase leading upstairs. Two guards stood before them at the foot of the stairs and another two behind them at the door.
The Beethoven was beautiful. Paul’s stomach rose to his throat.
“I have a proposition for you, gentlemen,” Eichmann said, and led the way into the drawing room. The men followed and each took a seat in a peach-coloured chair. It was too summery a room for the time of year. Eichmann sat facing them, and two guards stood behind the visitors.
“There are wealthy Jew industrialists, like Manfred Weiss. Do you gentlemen know him?” Wallenberg turned to Paul, and Paul shrugged. Eichmann said, “I need his holdings transferred to me. I had underestimated how strong some of these men are. We need the steel, the munitions. For the war effort.”
“You mean like Baron Louis de Rothschild, the Vienna Rothschilds,” Wallenberg said, “who signed over their steel mills to the Hermann Goering Works in exchange for their freedom? Is that the sort of conversation you want to have?”
“Precisely.”
Eichmann was a surprisingly unimposing man when he sat. He had thinning hair, like Wallenberg’s, and small bones to go with a small voice.
“Why are you asking us?” Paul asked. “What makes you think we have any sort of power over such people?”
Eichmann paused. At first Paul thought he might be listening to the Beethoven. The symphony’s country carnival celebrations were being played out.
“You Swedes are the people everyone listens to now. You have attractive powers of persuasion. We want the holdings of a number of people, and we’re prepared to trade safe passage for their families to Switzerland. I’ve already spoken to Carl Lutz about the arrangements.”
“What about the other deportees?” Paul asked. Wallenberg glanced at his companion. “What happens to them?”
“No one is being deported, merely relocated.”
“Call it what you will.”
“Well, you gentlemen, I take it, seem to show up at some of our relocation launches, and you skilfully sniff out Swedes among the Jews.”
Paul noticed a large, dark rectangle on the wall where a painting must have hung. The wall looked strange, undressed.
The German lieutenant colonel looked toward the parlour where Beethoven’s soft sun was coming out after the celebrations. The birds of the countryside outside Bonn were twittering sweetly.
“Maybe some of the people you describe are actually Swedish,” Wallenberg said. “We’ll have to check. There are some very powerful Swedes who have invested here in Budapest.”
The commander rubbed his chin. He looked into the parlour again. Beethoven’s fragrant countryside was ablaze with colour now. “You are students of contemporary history, Mr. Wallenberg? Mr….?”
“Beck.”
The German ran his soft hand over his chin again in exaggerated contemplation. “My good Beck. Good Swedish name, Beck.”
Paul nodded his appreciation. He didn’t dare look at Wallenberg; he didn’t want to read the anxiety in his face. Paul thought he could hear his own heart beating.
One of the guards took a step toward his commander. He stood beside Paul now. But Eichmann lifted a pale hand, and the guard stepped back obediently. “I asked you, gentlemen, about your awareness of contemporary history.”
“Yes, we are quite aware,” Wallenberg said. “Paul studied at Cambridge, and I studied at the—”
“University of Michigan,” Eichmann said for him. “Yes, I know.”
Paul’s thoughts fell on Zsuzsi in Philadelphia. She seemed planets away, galaxies. Paul remembered the photograph of Rozsi, Istvan and him, dressed as the Three Musketeers. How would he tell Rozsi what had happened? What words could he use? He found himself flying out of this room, every which way his mind would propel him.
The commander stared at both men, looked each straight in the eye, but then looked away, stood and turned his back on them altogether. “You will lose this war,” Paul wanted to tell him, “and you’ll lose the whole century with it, maybe more.”
What would the weasel say then? Was he the one who’d ordered Paul’s father to be executed? Would the weasel say, “I was merely following orders. I’m a good soldier.”
“Is that all you are,” Paul would answer, “a good soldier, neutral on all matters—Jews, Gypsies, communists—a good soldier awaiting a promotion?”
“Yes.”
“And it doesn’t matter what your boss asks?”
“Not at all.”
“Would you kill Germans the same way, if asked—grandmothers only, if asked—all pet dogs?”
“Yes, the content of the order doesn’t matter. I have my superiors.”
“I don’t think they’re all the same to you.”
“Think what you want.”
“I think you like German grandmothers better than Jews. I think you like dogs better.”
“I do like dogs.”
“You’ll lose this war,” Paul would say.
“Yes, Swede, possibly,” Eichmann might reply. “But we won’t lose in the way you have in mind. We’ll lose the war in a way even we could not have foreseen. I am and have always been an ordinary man with ordinary ambitions, like the Jews. But the Jews have always been victims. It’s a great racket. And no one else comes close to the Jews for playing it up. For two millennia, maybe longer, the Jews have been victims. Did you know that, Swede?”
“Are we on some sort of philosophical cliff here, German, our claws hooked into each other’s necks?”
“Do you know what we’ll do, Swede? We’ll turn each and every Jew into a martyr. We have nailed them to a cross as big as Europe, and the hammering has been loud enough to attract the attention of the whole galaxy. The Jews have always been despised; you might know that. Maybe you have even felt a touch of hatred yourself. Even when people like Jews, or appear to, they despise them. The Jews of my home town of Cologne despised themselves—what do you think of that? They wanted always to be German. They begged to be German. And for a time we let them.”
Might Paul ask, “Is it possible for us to have an idea between us that is not profane?”
“Let me try,” the little German with thinning hair would say. “We were only doing the world a favour. But it will backfire worse than any punishment ever inflicted upon the Jews. Jews have always been inventive. Now they will become the world’s greatest inventors. They’ll become our best scientists, our best poets, our best composers—oh, how they’ll sing like the lark soaring above a flaming countryside, unable to land.” Here Eichmann would spin like a dancer, as he himself sang out the words to accompany the music coming from the other room. “We will lose this war if a mere dozen Jews survive, because we will turn them into warriors, Jews seeking justice, Jews on a mission. Oh, may the God of the Jews save us all from the furors we unleash today.”
“So what are you, then, Mr. Eichmann? Are you merely the sounder of the sirens? Are you the one who points to the fire but can’t put it out? No, you are more than that. You’re the one wearing the uniform, so it is you who are on a mission. And you are possessed by your mission, ready in a second to blame your bosses. You’ll lose in yet another way—do you know that, commander—lieutenant colonel, is it?—not quite colonel? You’ll lose because you are a soothsayer, and that is the worst curse. You’ll lose because you’re sharp enough to foretell your own downfall, yet not courageous enough to subvert it while you still can.”
Beethoven’s tremulous countryside flowed into the room where the men were meeting.
“Is it courage you’re describing, Swede, or is it determination? Or better, is it cunning?”
“It’s courage.”
“The sanctimony has already begun.”
Beethoven�
��s storm clouds gathered.
WALLENBERG SAID, “If I can persuade Manfred Weiss and some others to sign over their factories, what then? Would you stop the transports?”
“I am under orders,” Eichmann said. “But I can stop the surprise transports. You can know when each one is occurring.”
“So there will be no surprises?” Paul asked.
“Please, gentlemen, I am a soldier who receives direction from Berlin. I am not Berlin myself.”
Paul looked to see if there was a blunt object nearby. The Beethoven was finished. Wallenberg took Paul’s upper arm sharply, painfully, into his clutch. The man was as instinctive as he was brave.
IN THE BACK OF THE CAR, Wallenberg told Paul, “I felt your intensity in there. I know you didn’t say anything, and yet I’m surprised we made it out alive. I shouldn’t have taken you with me. I can’t take you along everywhere.”
Paul threw his cape back off his shoulders. “Of course I was intense. Do you know who that was?”
“I know who it was, but you’re making him into much more than he is. He’s a man of a single note. When birds sing and sing again, they’re not driving home a point. They’re singing. Eichmann is that bird. Even Beethoven in the background doesn’t give him an additional dimension.”
“Maybe birds are saying something to one another,” Paul said, “not singing for our benefit.”
“Maybe they are, but their message is simple: danger, food, rain. Not, Why are you over in that other tree? Not, Why do you insist on ignoring me? If we psychoanalyze the Reich, we’ll get nowhere. We’ll kill ourselves with despair, or stand in the line of fire. If we concentrate on figuring out how to save lives and then save them, we’ll beat them. Sometimes. Occasionally.”
Paul threw himself back against the seat. “Yes. Occasionally.”
“Look,” Wallenberg said. He turned to face Paul. “I’m a simple man. I’m like Eichmann, but with different values.”
Paul looked at the Swede. “You are much more complex than you know.”
“Not today. Today we have a job to do. Tomorrow, if we survive, we’ll reflect.”
“Tomorrow,” Paul said. “Yes.”
Twenty-Three
Auschwitz-Birkenau – November 7, 1944
LIBUSE HAD RECOVERED her eyesight well enough, miraculously, that she could make out figures of people in front of her, even if she didn’t recognize who they were, necessarily. She was very good at faking what she needed to fake: working, eating, getting ready for bed, answering questions.
The kapo announced a dreaded selekcja. Marta awoke with the word waiting in her ear. The word spread around the lager and the yard. Latin married to Polish to produce a devil child: selekcja, the selection. It was to be more formal this time than last.
The inmates had a day to prepare. How could they prepare? They needed to puff themselves out in a day, make themselves look more robust, clean themselves up in the scarce seconds they had in the latrine. Women asked one another whether they’d be picked or spared, and their kindness, whatever was left of it, flushed to the surface. “You look good,” many said. “You look strong.” No one said pretty. The lustre was gone. Those who were still standing were starved and grimy. Their skin seemed to cling to them as if to a coat hanger.
The exception was Marta. She hadn’t starved for long enough yet, had been spared much of the heavy labour forced upon the others, felt her work had a purpose, had got more to eat in the infirmary, and she was lovely to begin with. So everyone sought her opinion and approval. And she tried to give it and make it sound fair, though she had to lie to many.
“What number am I again—the last three digits?” Libuse asked Marta as they stripped bare in the lager. The taller woman held out her arm.
“You know your number,” Marta said. “705.”
“Just checking to be sure,” Libuse said as she removed her wooden shoes and was bare before Marta was. “I was in the pink of life when I got here, and now I can barely even see pink. How do I look?”
“Strong as ever. Just look ahead as though you’re at attention.”
Manci, the kapo, circulated through the bony throngs, handing each woman a card with her name, number, nationality and age written on it. When she said, “705,” Libuse smiled and held out her hand. Manci didn’t notice anything unusual and asked Libuse if she was feeling better.
“Much.”
Manci gave Marta her card, 818, and moved on, hustling the naked women out to the yard when they were ready. Just as soon as the kapo was out of earshot, Libuse whispered, “Must the Germans persist in proving to us who they are? Must we persist in proving to them who we are? Why the same exercises every time?”
A small woman hiccupped, folded herself back on a bunk and vomited all over herself, another woman’s foot and the floor.
“You bitch,” the other woman said and tried to fling the vomit off.
Manci was upon them in a second. “Wipe yourself clean, both of you, and get outside!” Manci booted the one who’d thrown up and the woman fell over, but she leapt back to her feet and ran out past the others.
The other inmates stepped aside to let her through. They didn’t want to be infected with an illness, not now. The stench was worse than usual. In the next narrow aisle between bunks, someone said that the Russians were within a hundred kilometres of Auschwitz.
“How’s that possible?” someone else whispered.
“There’s been bombing in the countryside. They’re coming for us.”
“Not today,” Libuse said as they stepped outside.
“Didn’t you hear the planes? Those weren’t German planes. They’re coming.”
Manci came up from behind. She punched the woman, who fell in a heap to the floor. “Outside,” Manci said.
The woman rose and staggered toward the door. “Don’t you want for us to be liberated?” the woman said. And Manci hit her again, harder, so that this time she stayed for a spell on the floor, and women had to step over her scrawny legs.
“There are new recruits,” Manci announced as she stood by the door and herded the women out. “We need to make room for them. There are many of them, and they’re from my Hungary. Selekcja,” she said again as if she were calling people in for tea. “Come along. Selekcja.”
They were greeted outside this time by a senior SS commander, Romeo Stern, and four guards. Manci would trail along to answer questions as they arose. The officer would inspect each woman, sometimes merely by glancing at her, sometimes by circling her, sometimes by asking a question. Then Stern would call out “Right” or “Left,” the right possibly meaning death by gassing today and the left a reprieve—until the next selection. The last time, it was the reverse; left meant death, while right meant life for another day. No one said openly that one side was death by gassing, of course, merely that some people were once again being relocated and were to be given a special shower, so clothing would not be necessary. The clothing was then piled on a cart or truck for laundering for the incoming prisoners, or for disposal, depending on how ragged the garment had become.
The five hundred women stood in rows, wretched and naked, but also stalwart, like soldiers in the breezy autumn air. It had not rained in a week, so the ground was dry. Stern looked the women over as he made his rounds. “Left,” he said to one woman, and “Left” to the woman beside her, who was larger and still robust. The card each woman was holding was placed in the left hand of Stern’s junior officer.
Immediately, everyone was trying to discern a pattern. Why did the robust woman’s card join the slight woman’s card in the guard’s left hand? Was he looking for a particular posture today, the more erect the better, or a particular light about the face, some responsiveness? Did Romeo Stern have a quota? “404, right,” he said to a puny thing; “203, right,” to a woman who stole bowls and always wanted to trade something for bits of people’s crust of bread. But here was the woman who’d vomited: “387, left,” Romeo said. Had she cleaned herself up? Did she not
look so green? “675, right,” to an inmate whose hair stubble had turned white in the short months she’d spent in the camp, a woman of twenty, no more; “662, right” to the oldest one in the lager, forty-five, but strong and tough, a bull of a worker.
The infernal band sounded again nearby, where camp insurgents were to face the firing squad. They played another marching song, “Flieger Empor!,” a song exhorting the German air forces to triumph, followed by “75 Millionen, ein Schlag!” This one brought a smile to Romeo Stern’s face. He even conducted for a moment as he turned to his junior officer to say, “Seventy-five million Germans—one heartbeat.” The song cheered Stern up, and while it played he said “right” more often than “left,” much more often, giving the inmates a hint as to which was which.
“The bogey man has come,” Libuse whispered as the band played on, “not for you, beautiful Marta, beautiful Snow White, but for me, the water spirit, washed up here on the land.”
“Wherever you go,” Marta said, “I’m going, too.”
“I doubt it,” said Libuse.
But Stern was approaching, so Marta begged Libuse to keep quiet.
Marta glimpsed his face from over the women’s heads. Romeo Stern. Who’d given him the name of Romeo? Who’d given her northern boy that sunny southern name? Who’d looked into his blue eyes and decided he would seek love? Who looked into his eyes and sought love herself? And who was his fair Juliet? From what sad balcony in what German town did she beam her love to this distant yard where the inmates burned daylight, where Juliet’s Romeo was beating the dancing days out of the knobby knees of his charges, where he was turning swans into crows into ash? Or was there no balcony after all, Marta wondered, and no Juliet waiting? We are your Juliets, we star-crossed lovers, we brides of Frankenstein, we five hundred nymphs, shorn, starved, bare and barren, unable to express our modesty with sultry striped and numbered uniforms. Wherefore our Romeo, tough Star of the yards? Gone to cellars and wet trenches? When we are gone to unseen balconies, our sweet southern love, will you cut us out in little stars, or will you turn us instead into black cloud to smudge out the day and fill in the night, so that we will show your conscience the way to its own grave?
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