Gratitude

by Joseph Kertes

  They made love under cover of Elemer’s coughs, Simon timing his movements to coincide with the poor man’s bouts of hacking, all ears in the dark room alive to every errant squeak or grunt the lovers couldn’t muffle. The inmates filled their final waking moments with thoughts of love and lust and, for the first time in some time, hope.

  As the wind howled through the building’s cracks, the whole place creaked and groaned. The lovers, the men, the coughing Elemer were sailing aboard an old galleon as it crossed a northern sea.

  And then someone slammed into the darkness, a bright lantern preceding him. The dark figure was immense. Even though Lili didn’t know who it was, she could guess it was Erdo. Lili closed like a flower, and Simon pulled away.

  Erdo had come for them, she was sure, come for her, to settle a score. But Elemer stood in their way, Elemer’s coughing, the wrenching of his battered frame, the beating of his chest and throat, an alarm that could not be quieted.

  Erdo held up the lamp as he looked at the lovers in their fur bag, then down at the coughing lout, then up again at the lovers. He hooked the lantern to the post at the head of Simon and Lili’s bed. Lili thought he was going to pounce. She felt Simon coil up, ready to spring at the man’s throat. But it was Elemer that Erdo grabbed. He clutched the man’s throat with his great, gloved hand, trying to choke off the convulsions, pulling the doctor to his rickety feet. All Elemer could do was rattle as he hung before the beast, rattle and cough, all the power of his being flying out through the cough. His eyes were closed as he dangled. He didn’t have the energy left even to see.

  Erdo left the lantern where it was on the bunk post, clamped the tiresome man’s head under his arm and dragged him out into the blowing darkness. Everyone in the barracks could hear him cough, even after Erdo had stepped out and slammed the door shut behind him. The coughing continued, relentless, and then one shot sounded, and another, and the night fell quiet, except for the wind and the creak of the building.

  Lili wept now, as did Simon. The lovers shone in the light, but no one dared look. Simon slid off the soft body that had held him, warm and perspiring—perspiring for the first time in two months. He turned away from Lili and cried, his body wrenching and choking, catching itself as they heard a sound outside, shuffling, the clomp of footsteps, a dragging sound. Soon, all fell quiet again, and the tears poured out, silently, cooling their faces in the cold room. Lili hugged Simon from behind, and they waited in the halo of light for Erdo to return, but he didn’t.

  In the morning, before the others were up, Simon turned to Lili and whispered that he didn’t know what was to become of their lives. “What if we never see each other again?” he asked. His eyes were red and tearful again.

  “Please don’t say that. Please rest some more. You’ll need your energy.” She hadn’t slept a single moment in the lantern’s cordon of light, but Simon had. His breathing had turned steady an hour after Erdo had left, and she’d felt the heaviness of his naked form. He flinched once or twice in the night but didn’t wake up. It was the first time they’d spent a night in the same bed. She loved the smell of him, loved their smell together.

  The corporal came into the room even before the winter light had peeped through the walls’ cracks and ordered everyone awake. He had another lantern, but saw the one by Simon and Lili’s head. It had just then sputtered out and was smoking menacingly. It drew the corporal to it to examine it, but he didn’t say a thing about it to the couple. He was young and could have passed for Lili’s elder brother. He was blond and had the same blue crystalline eyes, but they turned downward at the sides and were not as round or as big.

  He looked only at Lili and said, “Commandant Fekete has asked me to inform you the truck is leaving in three-quarters of an hour to pick up a visiting official from the war office. He came in on the night train. He’d like you on the truck. There are no visitors allowed here.”

  “But I—”

  “I urge you to meet the truck in half an hour.”

  Seeing the directness of his look, Lili said, “I will,” and they watched him depart. Lili felt paralyzed inside the fur bag, naked and exposed. The prospect of another drive in the truck made her dizzy. But she’d already put herself at their mercy and got what she’d come for, considerably more than she’d come for. She’d known all along that the risks were great. She could walk. She’d rather walk, but she didn’t want her fear to provoke Erdo the way Elemer’s cough had. What little bravery she’d exhibited the day before had caused him to want to rape her, so anything was possible. He might assault a statue for standing unmoved by his presence.

  “Poor Elemer,” she said quietly, sniffling.

  “You’d think he was coughing that way just to draw attention away from us,” Simon said. “I’d never heard him cough as badly.”

  “He lost his life right before our eyes.”

  “He lost it years ago, I think, before he came here.”

  “Not if he had a sister he loved—not if he had Delilah to look forward to, possibly—possibly.”

  Simon didn’t answer for a moment. And then he said, “The ghetto was wiped out. It’s long gone. There was an uprising of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, and it was fierce, but it was squashed brutally. Elemer himself told me about it.” Lili noticed that Simon’s nose was not running for the first time since she’d arrived.

  The men in the barracks filed out past the lovers in their bunk, some of them glancing at the spot where Elemer had lain, Lili’s coat still spread out over top. Many paused just outside the door and gasped, put their hands to their mouths as they saw the blood on the rocks.

  Simon hopped down from the bunk, retrieved his pants and his shirt and, shivering in the cold room, pulled them on quickly. He gave Lili her dress, which she slipped over her head and wriggled into inside the bag. Simon found Elemer’s shoes, and inside one of them were his spectacles. He buried his face in his own bunk. Lili kissed his head and told him it would be all right. “I’ll wait for you in Budapest. You’ll come back soon, and it’ll be all right.”

  Simon looked up at Lili’s pretty face as she buttoned her dress dextrously in the back. He held onto Elemer’s glasses. “I’m afraid here,” he said. “I want to go home. I don’t want to die.”

  The barracks had cleared out except for them. Lili took Simon’s face tenderly in her hands. She’d never seen him this way before. She realized she didn’t know him well. “We’ll come through this,” she said again and waited.

  He had a stricken look, which reminded Lili of her brother Benjamin, who seemed just as upset once when they’d found a dead kingfisher on their stoop, like a bright blue blossom which had been crushed underfoot.

  She wanted to say, “Be brave,” but what would being brave mean? Standing up to Erdo when he next came in with his pistol and his lamp? Breaking out of this howling wind hole as they must have tried to do in Warsaw? What was bravery if not foolishness, and yet where was dignity without bravery?

  Simon stood erect, hardened himself, smoothed himself down. “You should hurry now,” he said, his voice quivering. “What a dear you were to come here. Unforgettable.” She got to her feet before him, and he squeezed her hard. “Go,” he said. “You’ve got to go quickly. You will not survive another day here. They won’t let you stay. They won’t let you live.”

  When they left the building, they looked only to the right, turning away from the reminder of Elemer, but then they saw someone else Simon knew. “Look,” he whispered. Simon pointed with his head. “It’s Miklos Radnoti standing in the yard there. They’ve brought him and some others from another camp.”

  “I know of him,” Lili said, “the poet.” Radnoti stood in a dingy trench coat. He looked very sad.

  Simon gripped Lili’s hand, and then she went one way and he another, as if they’d just concluded a business meeting.

  Lili went to stand at the gate beside the roaring truck. Two of the three younger soldiers from the day before were aboard already. She dreaded
the thought of getting in with them. Someone came to speak to the guard at the gate. Lili turned to watch the long line of inmates forming at the outhouse. She looked for Simon but couldn’t spot him. He must have been inside the mess hall, now, having breakfast. It was porridge day, not to be missed.

  But then Commandant Fekete blew a whistle and was coming straight at her. He had Erdo by his side. Two corporals opened the door to the dining hall and blew their whistles, too. “Everyone outside!” they commanded.

  Fekete blew his whistle yet again, and then he was by Lili’s side but with his back to her. Even Erdo looked preoccupied. The men hurried into the yard. Some were wiping their mouths, some stumbled, but all of them tried to arrange themselves in the orderly lines they’d become accustomed to.

  There were several people bunched with Radnoti, the ones dressed variously, clearly the men from the other labour camp. When everyone was quiet, Fekete said, “The Russians are nearby. I’ve just had a scouting report. We have to leave here. If they find us, they’ll treat us badly—of that you can be sure. You’ll think of the camp as a tea party compared to the way the Russians will treat you, those of you they spare. I am taking the original men of the camp toward the Ukrainian frontier. We’ll be safer there. Sergeant Erdo will lead the men from the other camp back to Budapest. Unfortunately, we haven’t had time to arrange transport, so we’ll all be on foot.” He dropped his whistle into his other hand before saying, “If some of you would rather take your chances with Sergeant Erdo, you may.”

  Some of the three hundred assembled men muttered among themselves. Erdo shouted, “Fall in line now!”

  Fekete turned to Lili. “Why don’t you come with me?” he said. “I won’t order you to do so, but I think you’ll be safer.”

  Simon jumped to the front of the line before Fekete. The commandant walked down the line and hustled people along. Lili joined Simon. “Here’s our chance,” he whispered.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  He looked behind him and lowered his voice still further. “We’ll say we’re going with the other group but won’t.”

  “But you heard what Commandant Fekete said.”

  “He’s guessing, right? We talked about that. We’re all taking our chances. We might not make it, and then we might. He might not make it, and then he might. We won’t make it with Erdo.”

  They looked over at the other line. Simon nodded to Radnoti. He felt he was getting choked up. His nose began to run, and he found Fekete’s handkerchief in his pocket and used it.

  Now Fekete joined them at the front. Simon said quietly to him, “We’ll go to Budapest.”

  Fekete looked at Lili. He said, “All right. The choice is yours, as I said.”

  Erdo’s men—there were one hundred and twenty or so in his line—began their march. Then Fekete’s men moved out. The commandant nodded at Lili and tipped his cap. He must have been assuming they would fall in at the rear.

  Soon, everyone else was gone: the officers, the inmates and the camp staff, leaving Simon and Lili alone. They were expecting something to happen—hear the thundering hoofs and wheels of the Russians—but it was quiet. Simon ran to get his fur sleeping bag, and Lili helped him roll it up quickly and tie it together. He ran to the kitchen, took some celery, some carrots and an apple.

  The walk to Vadas was long but happy. There was something easy about what they’d pulled off. It had been so simple. They kept expecting to run into one of the two lines of men on the way down, and once they heard someone up ahead shouting and another man laughing, so they held back, paused behind a tree. Lili gripped Simon’s hand, and he kissed her. It took them the whole of the afternoon to make it to their destination.

  They felt an electrical charge of some kind in the cold air, but nothing materialized. At the ticket counter in Vadas, only Lili stepped up to buy a ticket to Budapest, while Simon hid out back behind the small building. Lili showed her Swedish papers, which the old woman looked at closely with one eye, while closing the other. Lili saw the pepper and woollen mitt seller, but the woman turned away from her.

  A man wearing a fez, followed by his three small children, entered the compartment Lili and Simon were sitting in, but he changed his mind and went elsewhere. Lili and Simon made it all the way back to Budapest without incident, as if they’d been tourists.

  Twenty-Seven

  Oswiecim, Poland – November 8, 1944

  MARTA FELT SHE COULD FLY like some mythic creature, like a featherless raven with hooves, glancing off rocks and stubble. She flew until she dropped at last by a creek. She lay on her back looking up at the Northern sky, taking in its cooling blue scent. She felt warm enough but she was barefoot and couldn’t take another step for now, just for a few minutes.

  Or at least she thought it was a few minutes. She awoke to barking and then something licking her face. It was a vizsla, sharp and tough, and it barked again. A man’s voice asked the dog to sit, and the dog took one more sniff and lick before obeying. The man was speaking Polish, but then he switched to German. “Please wake up,” he said. “You’ll freeze to death. I can’t lift you.”

  Marta couldn’t feel the ends of her fingers and toes. Had there been an early frost? She saw that the man was younger than she was by a few years. His hair was auburn, much like his dog’s, but also rich and curly. He was neatly dressed in a suit and grey overcoat with a black lambswool collar. He sat in a wheelchair.

  “Please,” he kept saying, and now he offered Marta his gloved hand to help her up. “Can I give you my coat?” he asked. He seemed nicely groomed beneath his charcoal fedora. He had a purple birthmark at his left temple, but turned his head away when he saw that Marta had noticed it.

  Marta shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”

  “If you don’t let me help you, you’ll end up worse than I am, and I had polio.”

  The vizsla had had enough of sitting. It ran to Marta again, licked her and then circled her, urging her to sit up until she did. Marta rubbed the cold out of her upper arms, but then tried to pet the dog. She couldn’t feel his bristly fur with her fingers.

  “That’s Frederic,” the man said. “He’s named after Chopin. I am Alfred Paderewski.”

  “Like the prime minister? Like Jan Paderewski?” she asked.

  “Like the pianist. The same man.” Alfred pulled at a lock of his red hair. “I have the great man’s hair but very little of his talent for anything, politics or music.”

  “Are you related?”

  “A distant cousin.” She looked at him. “Very distant,” he added.

  She tried to get to her feet, and Frederic barked. He seemed to be getting set to take her on his back. “I live here, just outside of town,” Alfred said, pointing to a car in the distance. “My man, Karel, can help you in—help us both, actually.” He chuckled. “He can get us back to my house, where it’s warm.”

  “Your house?”

  “I have a nice warm home. I can give you something to eat.”

  He was still holding his hand out to her, offering to help her up, and now she took it. The hand was gentle.

  “How did you find me?” Marta asked. She looked all around her. She bit down now, so her teeth would not chatter.

  “Just by chance. We saw you from the road.” He indicated his driver again.

  “And you found me sexy in my Auschwitz ensemble?”

  The man was quiet.

  She didn’t know why she’d lashed out at this man who was only trying to help. “I’m sorry,” she said, then blurted out, “I’m not Jewish.” She was surprised at herself and put her cold, red fingers up to her mouth.

  “I imagine you’ve been through a lot,” Alfred said. “Come on.”

  Alfred’s driver came to help. He’d waited until now, as instructed by Alfred. When he saw how she was struggling, he picked her up in his arms, and Frederic yelped and leapt as Marta was carried to the road.

  The car sat like some great black metal beast waiting to be fed human flesh—an
d dog for dessert. Marta managed to say, “That’s quite a car.”

  Karel said, “It’s English. It’s an Austin Ascot Cabriolet. Fourteen horsepower.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” Marta said.

  “Horsepower?” the driver asked.

  “No, cars.”

  She couldn’t believe she was being driven in a limousine by a chauffeur away from the gas chamber, from the goon, from Auschwitz. She sat by the far window and Alfred was helped in to sit on the near side. There was plenty of room in the back for Frederic, too. He leapt up between them, barked his approval, and made his warmth and affection available to both of them.

  Marta felt warmer in the back seat of the Austin on the way to Alfred’s house than she ever remembered feeling. She felt as if a down-filled quilt had been pulled over her. Frederic seemed to want to purr like a cat. She could faintly feel his warmth radiate from the thin-furred flesh of his stomach. She glanced at Alfred, and he tried to cover his purple birthmark with his gloved hand. Heavens—here she sat beside him, her head shorn, her body filthy, dressed in the tattered clothes of a camp inmate.

  Alfred didn’t ask her any questions, as if he sensed she needed to enjoy the warmth of the car without distraction.

  Within ten minutes, Karel turned down a lane and drove through a wood until they were greeted by iron lions holding up a Gothic “P” crowning an elaborate wrought iron gate.

  Beyond the gate stood an elegant white chateau in the French style with small turrets, mullioned windows and stepped gables. Marta might reasonably have concluded that she had died and come to the Promised Land. It was an impressive house, but more inviting than imposing. Its wings beckoned like embracing arms.

  A housekeeper rushed out toward them. When she saw Marta in her tattered uniform, she gasped. Alfred said to her, “She’s staying with us for a little while, Emilia, until she’s strong enough to travel again. Please help her into a bath and give her some of mother’s clothes.” He looked at Marta. “I’m sure they’re small enough for her.”