The Road Between Us

by Nigel Farndale

  Only now does Anselm notice the Alsatian at the Commandant’s feet. It is studying him with cold eyes.

  Seeing a movement, he realizes his hand is shaking. As he steadies it by pressing the charcoal against the paper, an unfamiliar calm descends upon him. As his hand sweeps back and forth across the picture plane without making a mark, he begins to lose himself. He knows he should be nervous – that he is drawing for his life – but the thrill of having clean paper to draw upon outweighs his fear. He studies the Commandant for a moment, mentally reducing him to spheroids, ellipses and quadratic surfaces. The only sound is the scratching and slurring of the drawing point against the paper.

  After ten minutes he is finished. He holds it at arm’s length, feeling slightly out of breath. It is a good likeness. He turns it around so the sitter can see himself.

  As the Commandant purses his lips, cocks his head to one side and contemplates the sketch, there is a silence so thick Anselm can hear it humming in his ears. He now regrets not making his drawing more flattering, the eyes wider apart, the face less elongated. But it seems to meet with approval.

  ‘Not bad …’ The Commandant takes it from him and places it on the desk. ‘I want some drawings of life in the camp,’ he says. ‘Roll call. Prisoners marching to work, lining up for food, sleeping. Some studies. Try and be as accurate as you can. Don’t idealize. I shall notify the guards that you are not to be disturbed. Take the board with you. And take those.’

  Anselm notices for the first time that there are more white sheets in a roll tied with string, as well as more sticks of charcoal, also neatly tied. With this the Commandant wafts his hand to indicate the prisoner is dismissed.

  Anselm had known better than to ask questions, but as he shuffles out of the office, with the board and the sheaves of paper in one hand and the sticks of charcoal in the other, his head is crowding with them. How many studies does the Commandant want? By when does he want them completed? What are they for? He blocks out the thoughts. Thinking gets you killed. He determines to start immediately and keep going until he runs out of paper. He counts the sheets. There are ten. He should be systematic. The Commandant has requested a drawing of the roll call: the next one is not until the evening; that gives him the afternoon to produce a landscape of the camp from a high viewpoint, as well as some individual studies of prisoners. But it is lunchtime. He will start with the food queue. It will mean missing out on his own food but since he became part of the experiment, nutrition is no longer the urgent priority it has been. He no longer fears he might die of starvation between meals.

  There is a raised terrace outside the kitchen. This will give him a vantage point. And there is a chair here. He looks around self-consciously then sits on it with caution, as if it might be an electric chair. Positioning his board on his lap, he holds the piece of charcoal over it, poised.

  ‘What the hell is going on here?’

  Anselm recognizes the sharp voice as belonging to the Valkyrie, the most feared of the Aufseherinnen, or female guards. In the same movement he stands up, removes his cap and speaks in a tumble of words. ‘The Commandant has asked me to draw some pictures.’ He holds out the board as proof and waits for the inevitable lash of her whip. When it does not come, he risks a look. The Valkyrie, a narrow-hipped woman with pockmarked skin, seems unsure what to do next. The clean white paper and the board are an incongruous sight, evidence that this prisoner must be telling the truth.

  ‘Stay here.’ She disappears into the administration block and returns a couple of minutes later. ‘Then get on with it!’ she shouts.

  Anselm begins sketching as the prisoners form a line. There is the usual minor jostling for position but the queue is orderly, each man staring blankly ahead, his thoughts only on the food. The idea for this composition comes to him now. He will sketch the first prisoner in detail and the faces of those behind him will become progressively less detailed, until, as their heights diminish with perspective, they merge and disappear into a vanishing point.

  Feeling braver now, he turns to the Valkyrie and says: ‘I need to do a sketch from the top of the camp, looking down.’

  ‘Follow me,’ she says.

  At the top of the camp the Valkyrie signals to the guard in the watchtower that the prisoner has her permission to be here and then looks around before she lights a cigarette. Anselm begins sketching his landscape, conveying a sense of the symmetry of the camp, the line punctuated by watchtowers. He has realized for the first time that it is arranged in the shape of a noose. This is deliberate, he presumes. The SS never does anything by accident.

  But something is missing from the composition. He contemplates the Valkyrie now sitting with her back to him about ten yards away, a little down the slope, slightly to his left. He sketches her as a hunched figure, small under her SS-Gefolge cape. Her forage cap is covering a neat coil of braided brown hair held by pins. As she concentrates on smoking, she draws in her shoulders. She is wearing high boots that reach to the hem of her grey field uniform. Every now and then she turns and watches him sternly, and Anselm feels as if he cannot move out of the target of her glare.

  Although days have no name for the prisoners in the camp, Anselm knows this is an Arbeitssonntag, a working Sunday. The previous evening he had to visit the Blockfrisör, the official barber who shaves heads and chins on a Saturday, and the interval between visits is always a week. The other prisoners don’t look at him as he heads up the hill to the top of the camp and sets up his board. Under the Valkyrie’s protection, he is invisible again.

  He has been sketching for perhaps fifteen minutes when he notices that a group of new arrivals is being herded into the camp below, about fifty of them, men and women, old and young. All have yellow stars on their striped uniforms and hair cropped close to their skulls. The blisters, pustules and welts on their skin are familiar, but the sight of so many Jews in this camp of mostly French political prisoners is not. Even more unusual is the presence of so many women. All look malnourished and their movements are slow and listless to the point that even the barking of the dogs does not seem to register with them.

  Instead of being taken to the barracks, as usually happens when inmates arrive from the station, they are made to stand in the square for about a quarter of an hour before two doctors, recognizable from their white coats and SS peaked caps, emerge from the infirmary and order the prisoners to remove their clothes. They do as instructed without complaint, like sharp-boned robots, and then they follow instructions to throw the clothes into one big pile in the middle of the square.

  One of the doctors counts off fifteen prisoners and leads them out, back towards the village. They follow him, arms raised, still in single file, with three female and two male guards bringing up the rear with their dogs on leashes. As they leave the camp, the men drop their hands to cover their genitals. The women do the same, with some covering their breasts, too. This modesty strikes Anselm as peculiar. Surely they are used to this by now?

  He has to get to his feet to see where they are being taken: a white building. With a tiled roof and a metal chimney, it looks like a small hotel. To reach it they have to pass an estaminet and the locals drinking in it have brought their chairs and their glasses outside to watch the strange procession. Some of them are laughing and pointing. The prisoners file into the building and, when the last has gone through, the guards follow them in, only to emerge again a minute later and stand outside, leaning against the wall, smoking and talking.

  Anselm sketches what he is witnessing. After a while the guards check their watches and go back into the building. A further ten minutes or so pass before they emerge again and march back to the camp and count off fifteen more of the naked, waiting prisoners. As the others did, they cover their genitals as they leave the camp. Anselm realizes now what the scene has brought to mind: Masaccio’s fresco of Adam and Eve being cast out of the garden.

  The following day, Anselm is sketching a former kapo, one of the prisoners with the green triangles
who administer most of the beatings to the other prisoners. This one has become too sick and weak to carry out his duties and so has been left behind from the daily work details. He looks old and his death is a matter of weeks, perhaps days away. When a kapo is of no more use to the SS he dies.

  Anselm does not resent the kapos as much as others do. In this place you do what you have to do to survive for another day. The kapos have chosen their way to survive. He has now chosen his. And the opportunity to draw is giving him back his sanity. He feels nourished by it. A man again.

  The Commandant rides across, followed by his dog, and without dismounting studies the picture of the kapo over Anselm’s shoulder. He looks at the model, an emaciated man, with head dropped and shoulders curved, on whose face and in whose eyes not a trace of a thought can be seen. ‘I wouldn’t even know where to start,’ the Commandant says, drawing out the words. ‘How do you start? Do you start with the form? The composition?’

  ‘I always start by thinking of the figure as a series of solid volumes which can move in relation to one another,’ Anselm says, holding up a piece of charcoal at arm’s length to form a vertical line down the centre of the subject.

  The Commandant cocks his head. ‘It doesn’t look right.’ He taps his chin with his riding crop. ‘Let us see what he looks like on the gallows.’ He signals with a click of his finger for the kapo to mount the scaffold. With a look of confusion, the old man obeys.

  ‘Now remove your clothes.’

  Without lifting his sad, opaque eyes, the kapo obeys again. He looks like a human skeleton.

  The Commandant clicks his fingers. ‘Come on, come on. Your head in the noose.’

  The kapo steps on to a stool and slips the rope around his neck. It hangs loosely.

  Anselm looks at the Commandant.

  The Commandant makes an impatient signal for him to start sketching. Then, after watching Anselm at work for five minutes, he tuts. ‘It was better how you had it before.’

  Anselm watches as the Commandant rides away, his Alsatian breaking into a trot to keep pace with him. He then signals for the kapo to come down. Without a word the old man removes the rope, steps off the stool and puts his clothes back on.

  The following day Anselm is again summoned to the Commandant’s office, this time by the Valkyrie. He removes his cap and presents his sketches rolled up.

  The Commandant studies them without comment. ‘Can you use oils?’

  As Anselm nods he notices that the sketch he did of the Commandant the other day is now propped against a shelf, on display.

  ‘Then I have another commission for you. Come to my residence at one tomorrow.’

  Anselm considers explaining that he does not have a watch, that it was taken from him, but he thinks better of it. Besides, he knows the noon roll call begins when the sun is overhead. It is shorter than the morning and evening roll calls because most of the inmates are at work. He will use the flagpole as a sundial after that.

  The Commandant seems to read his mind. ‘The Erstaufseherin will collect you at one and escort you over.’

  The residence, a white, ivy-mantled château with a turret, is a short walk from the camp gate and is partially hidden by a screen of beech trees. There are square-shouldered eagles guarding the entrance – made from granite – and, inside, crystal chandeliers, silk hangings and Persian rugs. The Valkyrie leads the way into a drawing room and looks around. This is clearly her first visit here too.

  Stacked on the floor are cases of French wine and champagne, while leaning against the wall, evenly spaced out but not yet hung, are half a dozen paintings by French Impressionists. Anselm recognizes one as being by Renoir, a voluptuous young woman bathing in a lake. The spoils of war. Anselm also notices an easel set up in one corner and a canvas stretched on a board. Beside it are a selection of sable brushes and bone-handled knives with rounded blades, a palette and dozens of unopened tubes of oil paint. The smell is intoxicating.

  The Valkyrie has picked up two framed photographs of Fräuleins on the desk and is contemplating them. Both have plaited blonde hair and are wearing folk costumes which show off their ample bosoms and broad hips. Both are smiling and holding babies.

  The Commandant enters in full dress uniform, his medal around his neck. He is cleaning his nails with the point of his ceremonial dagger. ‘You may wait outside,’ he says to the Valkyrie.

  She puts the photographs down and crosses the room without looking up.

  ‘Can you paint horses?’ The Commandant asks once the guard has closed the door behind her.

  Anselm has never painted a horse in his life. ‘Yes,’ he says.

  ‘I was thinking of posing on mine.’

  ‘If you have a wooden horse we could put a saddle on that for now and add the real horse later. I could paint it separately.’

  The Commandant slips his dagger back into its sheath and disappears from the room for a few minutes before returning with a saddle, followed by two prisoners carrying a vaulting horse. He has them position it by the window, places his saddle on it then mounts it, putting his boots in the stirrups.

  Anselm wants to work with as little preparatory drawing as possible and so tries to cover the canvas quickly with a big brush. He will dispense with the usual primer because he knows if he wants to relate his colours accurately any white on the canvas will have to disappear anyway, and carefully filling in a tightly drawn outline will inhibit his response to the different tones.

  ‘What is it?’ the Commandant asks.

  Anselm has seen a swastika armband on the desk. ‘I need some colour. Could you put your armband on?’ The Commandant does as asked. ‘And could you remove your gloves? You could be holding them in your hand. Hands are always a good counterpoint to faces and the skin tones will complement the black of your uniform.’

  After almost an hour of intense painting, the Commandant checks his watch. ‘We must stop for today,’ he says. ‘We shall resume at the same time tomorrow.’

  Anselm glances at the two photographs of the Fräuleins on the desk. The Commandant catches him staring and says: ‘I have two children from two different mothers. It is an SS officer’s duty to father Aryan stock for the Fatherland.’

  ‘I hope to have a child one day.’ Anselm does not know why he has said this. He has never thought it in his life. He scratches under his left armpit to cover the pink triangle on his chest with his right forearm. Is he trying to impress the Commandant? Ingratiate himself? Pretend he is something he is not?

  The Commandant looks thoughtful. ‘What is your name?’

  Anselm is so surprised he forgets for a moment.

  ‘You must have a name.’

  ‘Anselm.’

  ‘Anselm,’ the Commandant repeats, as if trying it out on his tongue. ‘You have heard of Ernst Röhm?’

  ‘The SA commander?’

  Anselm had been aware of the scandal surrounding Röhm’s open homosexuality in 1934. Everyone in Germany had heard the rumour. It was the unofficial reason Röhm had had to die in the ‘night of the long knives’. The story was that Hitler had wanted to give his friend an opportunity to shoot himself and so had arranged for a gun to be left in his cell. When the guards returned, they found Röhm bare-chested and demanding that Hitler should come and shoot him himself. A theatrical end.

  ‘Exactly. Röhm was the only one allowed to address the Führer by his first name.’

  Anselm rubs his neck as he tries to read between the Commandant’s enigmatic lines.

  ‘My name is Manfred,’ the Commandant says, reaching the door and holding it open.

  As he walks through it, Anselm says: ‘Thank you, Manfred.’

  The door closes behind him. Anselm ignores the glare of the Valkyrie who is waiting for him on a chair by the front door.

  When the Valkyrie collects Anselm at the same time the following day she presents him with a new prison uniform neatly folded, along with a bar of soap, a toothbush and a towel. He takes them without asking what they a
re for and then follows her as she leads the way out of the camp entrance gate towards the château. ‘The Commandant will see you in half an hour,’ she says when they enter. ‘You are to use his shower. The first door at the top of the stairs. He finds your smell objectionable.’

  When Anselm comes back downstairs feeling clean and enjoying the itchiness of his new clothes, the Valkyrie is not in her usual chair. As he waits for her in the entrance hall, he notices a tray of letters ready to be posted on a desk. He hears a flushing sound and a door opens. The Valkyrie emerges, tugging down the hem of her skirt.

  ‘What should I do with these?’ Anselm says, holding up his dirty old clothes.

  The Valkyrie turns up her nose and points to a bin in the corner. Once he has deposited the clothes there he is led through to the drawing room and told to wait. The Valkyrie checks her watch and then leaves. He sees the wooden horse in the same place, still with the saddle on it. He also sees his easel set up where he left it. On the Commandant’s desk are sheets of writing paper and a wad of envelopes.

  His heart hammers as he sits down and reaches for a pen with fumbling fingers that seem too thick and numb. ‘My dear Grumpy,’ he writes, trying to steady his shaking hand. The pen feels awkward, almost too thin to hold. He looks over his shoulder as he thinks he hears the door handle turn, but it remains closed. Writing comes back to him quickly but the pen is soon out of ink. He looks around for an inkwell, opens it, refills and starts scribbling again. As he is signing his name he loses control of the pen and it falls to the floor. Reaching for it too quickly he knocks over the inkwell. Half of the ink spills out on to the desk before he can set it upright again and seal its lid. By using several sheets of blotting paper he is able to absorb most of the spilled ink on the desk, but not before it has dripped on to the wooden floor. He tries to blot it there too but it leaves a splashy stain. The desk leg, when moved a few inches, casts a shadow over it, making it less obvious.

  With his teeth clenched in concentration, he licks the envelope with a dry tongue and hesitates before writing the name and address. He snatches a second sheet of paper. On this he writes a covering note to his friend at the Swedish Embassy in Berlin. He folds this in half, slips the folded envelope inside it then places both in another envelope which he also addresses. As he crosses the room, he wafts the envelope to dry the ink. He opens the door a crack and sees the Valkyrie is sitting in her chair, her back to him.