A rosy hue was tinting the sky when I finally arrived at the foot of the hills. The shoreline was deserted—no bungalows, no docks, no footpaths. It appeared that no one lived on this side of the lake.
I made my way through the brush as best I could, and a little later was trampling through the thick damp grass covering the slope.
When I reached the summit, a new sun had risen. If only the lake were as small as it looked from where I stood. On an adjacent hill a short distance away I saw the hunting lodge, a solitary building with its wet tile roof glistening in the sun.
The next thing I knew, I was standing in the lodge’s courtyard, wet, muddy, and out of breath.
‘‘Stella, Stella,’’ I called, my hobnailed boots echoing on the paving stones. ‘‘ Ist da jemand?’’ I yelled in German. ‘‘ Quelqu’un?’’ I asked in French.
No one answered. My heart skipped a beat. Was I too late?
The courtyard was littered with rags, old paper, and broken boxes. The doors of the lodge were open and all its windows shattered. There was no smoke coming from the chimney. I bounded up the front steps and into a big room. The reek of mold and rot was heavy. Puddles of water sat under the windows. The furniture was no better than kindling. On the walls I could see where pictures and hunting trophies had once hung. Even with all the wreckage it was apparent that this had been a clubhouse for affluent sportsmen.
My boots crunched on shards of glass as I went from room to room. The beds were stripped of their mattresses, and tufts of eiderdown floated before me like lazy butterflies. In the kitchen I slipped on rotten vegetable peelings and bumped into pots and pans filled with moldy food. Dirty and shattered dishes were scattered everywhere. I could tell by the coat of dust that it had been months since anyone had used the two large stoves.
There wasn’t a hint of a living creature anywhere in the lodge, so I went back into the courtyard. Where could Stella be? Was it 262
SCHEISSHAUS LUCK
possible that she and the others had recovered and moved on? Hell, there was a damn good chance that Stella wasn’t even among the group of women. I looked around not knowing what to do next. It was then that I caught a glimpse of a red tile roof beneath the branches of an apple orchard. Moving closer, I discovered a walk-way that led to a long, wooden structure that seemed to be a hen house.
‘‘Stella? Stella?’’
Pigeons cooed from the rooftop. A rabbit that had been gorging on cabbage scrambled off. Against one wall, a tub of manure steamed in the sun. Swollen from the rain, the hen house door wouldn’t budge. Something awoke inside and it now sounded like I was going to enter a beehive. That meant only one thing. I said to myself that fate wouldn’t shit on me like this. The French women could have confused another for my Stella. It’s not such an uncommon name.
The hinges groaned as I kicked the door open. The pigeons took flight. A noxious odor that I was overly familiar with struck me in the face. A few tentative steps forward and I was inside.
I squinted. In the faint light I could see five female bodies lying in a row on a low wooden platform meant for nesting. A cloud of horse flies swirled above them as parasitical clusters feasted. Swat-ting them away, I bent over the bodies with my hand over my mouth and nose. Turning over those that had rolled onto their side, I looked at each one’s pale bluish face. None of them looked like the Stella I remembered, but that was eighteen miserable months ago. The body farthest from the door was the only one that was her size.
To get a better look and to escape the stench, I placed the rigid emaciated body on a wobbly bench outside the door. Her eyes were closed. Her lips stretched over teeth that were clenched on the tip of her purple tongue. Strands of red hair peeped from beneath a brown scarf tied around her head. She wore an off-green print blouse and a soiled black skirt. Her ankles were swollen and her PART VI | WUSTROW
263
legs were tattooed with fresh rat bites. She must have outlived the others because she had the fewest bites.
Could this be my Stella? Staring at her face gave no answers.
Would I even recognize my Stella if she were breathing and standing in front of me? I had been avoiding mirrors, but I knew my mother would have to look three or four times before she could be sure I was her Pierre.
I slid my hand under the palm of her swollen left hand. The rats had done too much damage for me to tell if there was the pyramid scar that I had run my fingers across as we sat on that staircase. I let the hand drop. It slapped onto the bench like a fish tossed onto a cutting board.
It hit me. Stella’s eyes. No matter how much weight she had lost, no matter how hard she had slaved, no matter how broken her spirit, her eyes, her light brown eyes, would not have changed. I lifted her right eyelid. I couldn’t see the color of the pupil. The whole eye was coated with what looked like coarse white talcum powder—fly larvae.
Sickened and caught so off-guard, I stumbled backwards. My stomach clenched as I fought the urge to get sick. With all those flies I should have known what was going to greet me. I hugged myself to stop from shaking. There was no way I was going to be able to say without hesitation if that corpse was or wasn’t Stella.
I hadn’t prepared myself for this. Paddling across the lake I envisioned either finding Stella alive or finding her dead, or else finding a body that I knew wasn’t Stella. Not once had I considered not being able to tell one way or the other. I grew angry—angry with myself for wanting something to happen that could happen only in storybooks. I was not a child. I was not a teenager. After everything I had gone through, I was a man. Maybe not a wise or good one, but I was a man now and I wasn’t going to let anyone say differently. But here I was, wanting a happy ending straight out of a schoolgirl’s fairy tale. Was I too weak, too dependent on the dreams I created in Monowitz to admit that this was Stella? Or was 264
SCHEISSHAUS LUCK
I too afraid to hold onto hope for a reunion with my Stella? Hadn’t I lost enough?
I sat down next to the body. I pulled down the right eyelid. The harder I willed myself to believe the corpse wasn’t Stella, the further from assurance I seemed to lead myself. And the more I stared at her dead face, the less confident I felt that I had found my Stella.
The chances that she survived Auschwitz were laughable. Then, again, maybe shithouse luck had been on her side, too.
I had an urge to run away and forget what I found—forget that I ever sat down in that canoe. What would remembering accomplish?
Nothing but anguish. Even with the nagging doubt, I couldn’t let the body rot with the rest of them. If this body isn’t Stella’s, I thought, then maybe some day we would find each other. If it is Stella, then at least I got to say goodbye and see that she had a proper burial.
I went back to the house to find a crate or trunk that might serve as a coffin, but there wasn’t any large enough. While I was in the courtyard mulling over if I should bury her without one, I bumped against a tree trunk that had been hollowed out for a drinking trough. I dragged it into the orchard, then carried the body over. With my eyes shut, I laid her inside. I closed the coffin with boards that I had broken over my knee and a few rusty nails.
I dug the grave in the shade of the apple trees. I hadn’t held a shovel since Auschwitz. As I ripped open the rain-soaked earth, something inside me kept telling me that it was Stella who I was burying. Where inside me this new conviction came I had no idea, but I accepted it. I was too drained to squabble with myself any longer.
Now I sobbed as I carved out a hole in the earth. I didn’t want to believe that this was all that remained of the girl I had loved in Drancy and had dreamt about in Auschwitz, Dora, and Ravensbru¨ck. That she died alone, far from home, unable to ask her mother to hold her tight or have her father sing her a lullaby. I felt wrong hoping that she had thought about me, but I couldn’t help myself.
PART VI | WUSTROW
265
Why had she come this far, paid so dearly for a freedom she would never enj
oy? Why did she have to endure the death rattles of those four other women and feel the rats scurry over her to get to their meals? Why couldn’t she have died in Auschwitz? Why couldn’t she have hid in a neighbor’s cellar? Why couldn’t these be tears of joy?
I don’t know how long I cried, but at some point I realized that I couldn’t stand in that hole with a bowed head any longer. If I was going to return to Arthur’s before nightfall, I had to act now. By the sun I could tell it was mid-afternoon. I finished digging and slid the coffin into the hole.
In Monowitz I had fantasized what my life in Nice would be like with Stella. I would have proudly showed off my prized jewel to family and friends. With the bells chiming midnight, Stella and I would have strolled out of the cinema hand in hand, like movie stars. After dinner at my parents we would have gathered in the parlor and enjoyed my mother’s singing and Stella’s violin. Oh, I saw us with a flock of healthy, red-headed brats and living a joyous life.
Standing next to the open grave, I realized that if my Stella had lived (or was alive), more than likely the memories of our experiences and hardships would have torn us apart, never allowing us to find the innocent hearts that we had in Drancy. I doubt either one of us would have wanted to bring offspring into such a vile, rotten world.
This page intentionally left blank
C H A P T E R 2 5
Arthur and Mrs. Novak were listening to classical music on their shortwave when I returned that night.
‘‘How did it go?’’ Arthur asked.
I shrugged. ‘‘I’m tired. I’m going to make myself something to eat and go to sleep.’’
‘‘I made you dinner,’’ Mrs. Novak chimed.
‘‘Thank you.’’
I braced myself for a barrage of questions, but Arthur must have seen in my face that I wasn’t much for conversation. I went into the kitchen with a familiar ache in my stomach, something I had longed never to feel again. I ate without tasting, then went out to the greenhouse where my exhausted body dragged me to slumber.
If I had nightmares I couldn’t recall them in the morning. I awoke early, but stayed in bed staring out the glass roof at the cloud-filled sky. By the time I forced myself out of bed, Arthur was already attending to his mayoral duties. I visited my traveling companions to make sure our departure was still on schedule. Indeed, it was. Carlos and Ilse had been concerned that I hadn’t stopped for a visit the day before. I told them about Stella.
‘‘What a shame,’’ Carlos said, then he went on and on about 267
268
SCHEISSHAUS LUCK
the rumors that one bridge on our route might not be standing. Ilse gave her condolences and went back to making lunch. It seemed that they were relieved that nothing or nobody was going to inter-fere with my will to leave Wustrow. I was stung, but I couldn’t fault them. Like so many in Europe, death was now all too common for Carlos and Ilse. Carlos had witnessed the Spanish Civil War and lived through the camps. Ilse had survived the bombings of Berlin.
To be affected by the death of a person they had never met was pointless, a waste of precious energy. There were more pressing issues to deal with. Those women lying next to Stella didn’t move me emotionally. I didn’t bury them. I didn’t know them. Carlos and Ilse didn’t know Stella. She was just another faceless corpse.
After lunch I loaded some jars of preserves into our wagon, a discarded stroller with one missing wheel, that Carlos had ‘‘organized.’’ To make it a fairly sturdy, I moved the remaining front wheel to the center of the thin axle. Carlos attached a rope to the buggy so we could pull it.
As Carlos helped Ilse pack her belongings in the buggy, I said,
‘‘Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.’’
‘‘How about D’Artagnan?’’ Carlos asked.
‘‘He wasn’t one of the Musketeers,’’ I informed him. ‘‘ Tenemos que salir manan˜a en la manan˜a.’’ (We have to leave tomorrow morning.)
Ilse looked at me bewildered.
‘‘ Morgen fru¨h ziehen wir ab.’’ (Tomorrow morning we pull out.) My next stop was the mayor’s office. Over a game of chess I told Arthur about my dreadful reunion with Stella.
‘‘Of all the things I wanted to be for her, why did I have to be her gravedigger?’’
Arthur sat silent for a moment. ‘‘I thought you said you weren’t sure it was her.’’
‘‘Well, yes. Not absolutely sure, but . . .’’
‘‘But sure enough to bury her.’’
I nodded.
PART VI | WUSTROW
269
‘‘Then I hope you remember her as she was when you fell in love with her.’’
I didn’t think that was possible, but I kept that to myself.
Arthur changed the subject. ‘‘Do you think Ilse is up to the long trip?’’
‘‘I hope so. You know I should apologize to your wife about those remarks about the rapes,’’ I admitted.
‘‘Don’t worry, she doesn’t carry a grudge for long. Besides, some of these Nazi bitches deserved it. Don’t tell my wife that.’’
‘‘Were there many women in the Party?’’ I asked.
Arthur nodded.
‘‘Without their vote he never would’ve been chancellor. I’ll never understand what excited them about that Austrian nobody.’’
Neither of us could remember whose turn it was and we abandoned the game.
I knew Arthur had told his wife about Stella because at dinner she was overly attentive. She kept looking at me while clearing the table. Suddenly she took my hand and expressed her condolences. I thanked her and blurted out, ‘‘If she wasn’t meant to survive, why couldn’t she have been gassed on our arrival?’’
‘‘It’s hard to understand God’s will.’’
I bit my tongue—hard.
I could barely sleep that night. Stella, the anticipation of finally going home, and what I would do with my life from here on had me fidgeting under the blanket. Was my father still fighting off cancer or had he surrendered? I was pretty certain that Claude, mon ami who hid in my family’s outhouse so long ago, had been able to stay one step ahead of the Milice and the Gestapo. I couldn’t imagine Meffre not surviving. He would have a few well-deserved medals on his lapel for his service in the Maquis. I feared that my radio-loving classmate Bernard was dead. I wasn’t able to picture such a sickly boy surviving any Nazi-scripted ordeal.
Would I finish my college prep classes? In France, after you graduated from high school you took a year of either math or philosophy, depending on what you wanted to specialize in at a university. I’d had six months of philosophy classes when I got arrested.
270
SCHEISSHAUS LUCK
Could I fit back in? Would I be able to tolerate the carefree snickering and giggling of the other students? I couldn’t imagine sitting at a desk and having the patience to listen to philosophical lectures.
As far as I was concerned now, philosophy was a study for sissies with their heads in the clouds or up their asses. Learning a trade might be the best way to go. Damn, I had become an old man in a junior’s body.
The next morning, after a hearty breakfast of catfish and potatoes, I hugged and kissed Mrs. Novak and Arthur goodbye with tears in my eyes, grabbed my knapsacks, and headed into town. Ilse and Carlos were anxiously waiting in front of her house. I put one of my knapsacks over my shoulder and the other into the stroller.
None of us was concerned that our provisions were bending the rear axle. Carlos and I grabbed the rope and Ilse got behind the stroller and raised her arm like a coachman cracking his whip.
‘‘ Vorderman und Seitenrichtung,’’ (Line up, front and side) Carlos mumbled in his coarse Spanish accent.
It was the only German he knew. It was what the Kapos bellowed every morning when we marched out the gates. I turned to Ilse.
‘‘Okay Kapo, let’s get rolling.’’
This was the first time that I heard them laugh.
Outside Wustrow we turne
d off the highway to Reinsberg and followed a road that would take us to a train station, the first leg of our journey to Berlin. Except for the carcasses of a few German tanks, the road was deserted. In an outlying field, a Soviet soldier was tilling the ground with a plow pulled by ten German women.
Ilse whispered to us to move faster.
We went around a bend and I looked back. The hill where I left Stella was gone. What unforgettable memories she gave me.
Memories that my imagination embellished while I laid in those infested bunks, dug those ditches, froze during those roll calls, and withered with hunger. Stella had given me strength when I was at the end of my rope, and in those months that rope nearly slipped from my grasp every day. I had a good grip on the rope now, and it was going to get me home.
E P I L O G U E
It took us three days of walking and hitching rides to reach Berlin.
Although the sector had been carpet-bombed, by some miracle Ilse’s apartment building was still in good shape. Carlos and I visited the newly opened French Information Office. The officer in charge wouldn’t issue Carlos a visa, advising him to return to Franco’s Spain and apply there. Okay. The only way to the Spanish border would be to either sprout wings or cross through all of France, and the only thing Carlos could have applied for in Franco’s Spain was his death certificate. It was reassuring to see that stupid bureaucrats survived the war unscathed.
Two days later Carlos and I said goodbye to a tearful Ilse, and ten days after that we managed to reach the American zone. We hopped on an Army truck with some GIs from Texas to get to a Red Cross train. On the way to the station Carlos was in his glory, chatting up the Spanish-speaking soldiers. I thought of butting in with the story of how Carlos became a Red Army coat hanger, but he just had too big a smile on his face. Maybe I had finally mastered biting my tongue.
♦ ♦ ♦
271
272
SCHEISSHAUS LUCK
The Red Cross train, stuffed with soldiers, displaced persons, and Red Cross nurses, snaked through Holland and Belgium. Eight days later I was in a Paris military hospital, where I finally wrote my parents that I was alive and would be home soon. Four weeks after the letter, a friend of the family arrived to see why I was still in Paris. My parents were quite upset when the friend phoned and said the reason was a young waitress, which was not quite the truth. I was in no hurry to get home because I was afraid of what I would find, or more exactly what I wouldn’t find, in my hometown.
Scheisshaus Luck: Surviving the Unspeakable in Auschwitz and Dora Page 26