Sometimes he wanted to run from the office and be shot in the back. Other times he wanted to run to the electrified wire and find some warmth in that bleak winter as he cooked himself to death. Despite this he forced himself through the days like a man walking very slowly through a thick eternal fog. Abraham never thought about the end, but he didn’t want it to end in death, and to compound his terror he could see no other outcome. There’d been a large reduction in the number of people coming to the camps because of the retreat, and soon his department would be surplus, ready to be thrown away. Abraham was a cheap tool, a disposable instrument.
One day, for some unknown reason, he became the focus of interest for SS officer Oberfuhrer Haussler. Badly injured at the Russian front he was now newly promoted to deputy commander at the camp. He was a man who took particular pleasure in any perverse act that could bring suffering and deprivation to others. Killing in all manners and forms had become an interest for Haussler, but he was growing tired of the easy slaughter. His new favourite experimental method to witness death was to subject his guinea pigs to his own perverted psychological methods.
For his amusement he set up an experiment with three of the Jewish academics, men from different countries, from different parts of the camp, men who didn’t know each other. Even if they did it wouldn’t have mattered. He put them in a small room. They were all issued with blunt knives, short 2 inch blades, and told to wait for something to eat. A day passed with nothing appearing. A second day passed slowly with no food, but water was given, horrible brackish water that one man feared was the experiment. This man believed it was carrying some form of the disease and refused to drink it. He was starting to suffer delirium. Sometime in the middle of the third day a sergeant unlocked the door and stepped into the centre of the room placing a tin of very poor quality meat, similar to modern dog food, in the middle of the floor. They were all told they couldn’t share under any circumstance, and only one man could eat it, and only the man who took the food would leave the room.
These men were academics, not men of violence, men of reason, men who could debate world problems for hours, possibly debate for years. They had started their debate in the 1930s and carried on until the violent world they debated caught up and captured them. The state-sponsored violence was against men like them, and the thugs only believed in one credo, never regarding other beliefs or methods with anything other than scorn.
These cerebral men could not, would not, fight over food. They would share it. Haussler had a different agenda for his experiment. He enlisted the help of two more Jewish academics to take his experiment one step further. One academic was French and I do not know his name. The other guinea pig was Mr Abraham Wilson, but in those days he was just another Jew from Poland who’s job was counting the profits of genocide.
They were taken to a small room running alongside the cell where the three men were sitting looking at a tin in the middle of the floor. Mr Wilson and the Frenchman could see the scene in the other room through a small grille. All the occupants were locked in the deadliest of deadlocks. All were desperate to taste the aromatic meat but could not come to an agreement on how to end the deadlock. No agreements could be made under the rules. They’d been crafted by an insane mind and the rules were final. This cruel system allowed for no agreement. It was one man and one man only to eat from the small tin of poor meat. Haussler instructed them to watch explaining the rules of the game and what had happened over the last three days, the discussion, followed by deadlock. He explained how these wretched academics would not fight to stay alive, would not fight for the chance of food.
Mr Wilson and the Frenchman had both been in custody without food for more than three days. They were so hungry their whole beings focused on one thing alone, the thing that would keep them alive and stave off the biting hunger pains. In the camp all-consuming hunger dominated every waking thought. The smell from the pitiful small tin of meat was intoxicating as it drifted into the cramped observation room. This was all part of Haussler’s experiment. An SS sergeant entered the room and asked if the men would fight for the food. Two men agreed they’d come to a decision. Their decision was to be civilised and not to fight. One man, however, didn’t say he wouldn’t fight. He just remained silent staring at the tin, that intoxicating opened tin of food in the middle of the floor.
The Frenchman was poked violently in the ribs and pushed back hard against the wall by Haussler who asked him what he thought was going to happen if the men shared the food. He was unable to speak such was his terror cramped in the small observation room with this crazed German officer leaning on him with his stick. Haussler didn’t want to touch such filth with his hands. The Frenchman was finally forced to respond, “I think they’ll share the food.”
This is when Haussler told them, his words emphatic, “No they won’t. Only one man will eat the food. He will be the man who is prepared to leave his academic life behind, and become a killer.” Two of the men, he noted, did not want to fight, but to his joy the other was focusing entirely on the pitiful tin.
Under Haussler’s orders the sergeant in the room drew his pistol and shot dead both men who didn’t want to fight. The bodies were not moved. Mr Wilson and the Frenchman were shepherded into the room with blows from Haussler stick. Now they knew the truth. If they did not fight they would be shot! They had witnessed the demonstration. They could not share the meat, so there would be only one survivor.
“All academics ready to discuss, but there is nothing to discuss. One of you will eat and the others will die, then I will have a candidate for my further experiments,” Haussler said. All the time his perfect smile tormented them.
Seven hours later, Mr Wilson was led back to the long shed where he survived day by day. The cold tin shed was lined with bunks four high, with hundreds, possibly thousands of the diseased, the dying and the doomed. Abraham had drying blood on his hands, spatters of other people’s life on his clothes and food in his stomach. He worried the others might be able to smell the meat, the taste of which was still a potent force in his mouth. If they could smell it there would be questions asked by those strong enough to be angry, but they could not overwhelmed by the all-pervading stench.
He knew in his mind only one of them would have survived. This would torture his living days for many years, never fading far into the background. At times he relived how strong he’d been in his moment of extreme violence, how his savagery had ripped the life from two other men so he could fill his stomach. As he replayed it time and again the truth of his savage actions haunting him. He’d cowered in the corner begging for mercy as the other two had fought each other to a bloody standstill. Abraham decided he wanted to live and became a savage, or was it a callous calculation, killing the weakened men?
Rachel explained during our long conversation about the few occasions Abraham Wilson had mentioned this, and how when the subject came up it lasted for days until he exhausted himself with the personal probing, and had become so tired he had no more mental weapons to whip himself with. Only then would he seem to forget this incident. However it returned from time to time to haunt him, to question his humanity. I was starting to understand Abraham. I now knew so much more about his personal fights both in the physical world of the camp, and his mental world in the aftermath.
I was still running this through my head when I started to choke, starting to run out of breath, beginning to slip under. Was I choking on my own vomit? Was this the moment when I was to be plunged into eternal dark? No, I was drinking beer! I was sitting at a table in a beautiful pub garden out in the country. I knew the inn quite well, though for the life of me I could swear I’d never been there. It was as if I’d been there many times, but each time I’ve forgotten the previous visit so it was familiar in every sense of the word but not remembered. Does that make sense? The beer was delicious and the company across the table was even more delicious. This time she was drinking a pint.
It was even better that she wasn’t wear
ing her school uniform. It was a hot day allowing Jennifer to wear a sleeveless T-shirt, tiny shorts, and flip-flops. Nothing school girlish about her now. Just the two of us chatting across a warm wooden table covered in empty crisp packets and other people’s empty bottles. All this was cast in cool shade and dappled sunshine. This was a perfect moment together. We were in the middle of a discussion about leisure activities and what made athletic leisure of any kind, leisure at all, and when was it not a pleasure to be doing something you liked even if it hurt a little. I think this conversation was fuelled by the fact that we were not looking at other people’s empty bottles. We were a little bit drunk.
Her foot was not in one of the flip-flops and not resting on the grass. It was engaged in a game of footsie under the table rubbing my leg, and I was enjoying this with immense pleasure. It was a surprise manifestation in itself. I was beginning to believe we were getting closer, much closer than I expected, and the more physical the better was my verdict. I was starting to feel more than the joy the first molecular wind had pushed through my body on that station platform. This was something much more, not just a sensation of something joyous approaching. I was falling in love, and her open sexuality suggested she was falling in love with me. With this realisation I was revelling in profound delight.
In this glorious world of total sensuality and colour nothing could spoil this moment apart from “the briefcase”, which to my horror was under the table. It was intriguing. The case was speaking to us in a manner that seemed quietly musical with a strange hidden depth of sound. Though quiet it was insistent. I had this feeling in a few moments I’d be travelling down into it again, or because I didn’t know how things worked I was pondering if this time it would be different. Would the pixie whose name I still can’t pronounce come out to meet me? No, of course she wouldn’t, I’d be back down in the bowels of the brown leather case once again.
I wanted to carry on drinking and playing footsie. She insisted we work on my education, so initially I had to suffer the strange process in order to become fully aware, and then life with this beautiful girl would become a reality. I looked down into the briefcase, once again into the breach, dear friends. It wasn’t too hard the pixie was quite beautiful and from past experiences the bubbles were sheer delights. With this in mind I stared into the blackness with almost a longing to stick my finger into more of those shiny orbs. It was so amazing to journey into your past beautiful memories.
I looked inside. I was inside, in that black space again, with just its hint of parameters. The space was almost luminescent in a blackness I now realise could be just six feet or six infinities if that’s possible. My little friend walked out of the darkness towards me. She was wearing the most curious outfit I had ever seen – on a pixie that is! Worn by a fireman from the United States in 1935 it might have looked quite normal. Worn by a pixie in a dark space, the shiny boots, black trousers, red jacket festooned with brass buttons, all that criss-crossing of leather belting, and a glorious metal helmet seemed almost the most ludicrous thing I’d ever seen. She also appeared to have white leather gloves on, in which she held the now familiar implements, except this time they appeared to be larger, not by a lot, but larger.
My little fire fighter went through quite an elaborate ritual this time. Her histrionics started with her moving her arm in an enormous arc before dipping the blowing device into the liquid. I am assuming this was liquid because never once did I ever see the actual inside of the ornate vessel. For all I knew it could be as empty as the strange black space I was standing in. Nevertheless, after what seemed like an hour of elaborate posturing, adjusting stances, and getting what appeared to be the lighting that came from nowhere perfect, my pixie friend puckered her lips and blew some bubbles.
It was like the first time. I was immersed in a whirlwind of brilliantly coloured translucent globes swirling around like a solar system with hundreds of planets. This time, however, I noticed in this cloud of brilliance some of the bubbles, only a few, were very dull. These were different in form, appearing as a dull translucent grey, nowhere near as shiny as the others. Not in any way as tempting a target for the finger. However, the thought occurred to me that I should try one of the dullards today, so I did. I poked it with my finger. At first the bubble reacted with a strange indifference to my finger, a little bit like a balloon held in somebody’s hands. It flexed inwards, though I experienced little resistance. It gave me the strong impression it was held stationary in space. I was pushing into it, not popping it.
“Push it harder, don’t be such a wimp!” Hysandrabopel the Lylybel encouraged. I’m going to call her pixie!
A further harsh push was all that was needed.
It popped.
Chapter 18 – Forgotten times relived, smoky amnesia daze.
The bubble had popped, and I was none the wiser. It was still very grey in the space I inhabited as if the bubble floated around in front of my eyes. Then it struck me that this greyness was biting into my body cold and wet. I was in fog on a cold night. It felt like February. I don’t know why I say that, but that’s what it felt like.
I was walking along a street, then I recognised where I was. I was walking towards my small block of flats built curiously in the middle of an executive housing estate. It towered over many of the houses, how did they get planning permission? The blocks modernism was a rather bland product of 1960s ugliness. I almost instantly understood what was inside the darker bubbles; the period between 1971 and 1973, the two years I’d never managed to recall.
So it could have been February 1972 or 73, if indeed it was February. Whenever it was it wasn’t something I remember. It was, however, quite curious because my feet were very wet and muddy. I wasn’t driving my car and I seemed to be out of breath hurrying along the pavement back to my flat, or should I call it an apartment this being an executive estate.
I was wearing a heavy dirty overcoat mud caked at the bottom. Inside there was a large object, the type of which I had no clue. Remember I was a mere observer unable to adjust the course of what was happening, so I had to be patient and discover what I was doing that night. This would be the first concrete thing I knew about myself during my lost time, other than hearsay. I had waited this long, surely I could be patient for a short while to discover something. This was no joyous return as the cycling trip had been. This return felt sleazy.
Inside the flat I removed from inside my overcoat a large bundle in a plastic bag. Placing this on the table I then proceeded to delve inside, removing wads of five and ten pound notes, to my surprise a large amount of them. For an incident I do not remember there was a lot of money around, and usually when it comes to money, in the present day at least, I remember. That night, however, remained a blank until this rewind experience. So I had to continue viewing, to reveal the truth, and this was an education, history I suppose.
I was counting the money out, all £4000 of it. In 1973 you could buy a house for less than that. There were two-bedroom bungalows going for £3650 so, as you see, it was a lot of money. I’d got it from somewhere, and I didn’t think the somewhere was a bank, unless of course I’d committed a bank robbery! Besides, banks don’t store money in large OXO tins! There were clues, and along with the money was a carefully made account listing all the transactions, monies paid, and goods delivered. I recognise the handwriting. It was my father’s!
I stashed the money rather carelessly underneath the refrigerator in a plastic bag. This, I assumed, was because the money wouldn’t be staying there for long as it was destined for greater things, bigger profits, merchandise, or something. As a spectator to my own past without a clue as to the unfolding events, I still had an idea what this money would be used for. This didn’t fill me with joy because it took me back into a vile world I once occupied that crippled my life.
I sat down in front of the television kicking back large amounts of Special Brew lager. I was lounging, and obviously not fazed by the amount of money I had in the flat, or what it was fo
r. This TV watching consisted of some awful comedy programme which I remember vaguely from that period, though never really liked. This was disturbing because the other Peter liked it! I was starting to wonder how long this would go on because I’d been watching my rerun for about an hour and a half. Nothing had happened, nothing at all. I continued to watch television right through an old version of the Nine O’Clock News. Some of the items I still remember from all that time ago, Mr Edward Heath, the three-day week, the power cuts, and the adjusted incomes policy. All laughable now, although I’m sure it was quite serious in 1972 or whenever it was.
I was quite drunk and not paying attention to the television. It was just a background buzz. Also in the background was another buzzing, almost frantic and continuous. This was breaking through my drunken haze, so what was it? No, I don’t know what it was. I was drunk, after all, very drunk. The buzzing continued, uninterrupted for some time, possibly three minutes. There were also drums playing or so I imagined. Synchronised anger was at the door.
Through this foggy haze of alcohol I connected a few brain cells realising somebody was at my door, somebody with an urgent desire to see me, somebody who couldn’t wait. Was this what the money was for? Or was it something else, something unexpected? It sounded to me like it was something to do with the large amount of money. Much to my surprise, I got up, walked to the door, and without even looking through the spy hole I turned the handle opening the door wide. It was obvious the drunken Peter thought he was about to carry out a transaction.
In front of me stood a very powerful incredibly angry man with a very red face. Worst of all he was my father!
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