Death in Twilight

by Jason Fields

  The rest of the men who shared Aaron’s cell cowered, clambering on top of each other in their effort to get as far back from the open door as possible. Standing in each other’s shit and dying slowly of starvation, dysentery and a lack of oxygen was better than the only other alternatives they knew of, being beaten or shot. There was no one to defend Aaron, no matter how helpless he appeared, and soon there would be no one to remember him.

  Aaron was dragged in front of the German who was in charge of the floor. There was an exchange of words — perhaps an envelope? — and soon the journey continued up a flight and then down another corridor of the prison. This hallway, too, was lined with closed doors. Here, though, the sounds of horror were mixed with those of administration, including clattering typewriters and endlessly ringing telephones. The walls were lined with the grime of a million hands over a thousand years. The smells ranged from vomit to disinfectant and back again. The light that came down from the fixtures was itself a shadow.

  The little troop pulled up in front of no door in particular and the policeman who had spoken opened it. Instead of a torture chamber, an office desk and chair were revealed. The telephone that sat on the desk was silent. On the visitor’s side of the desk, was something that could only be called a chair by convention. It looked more uncomfortable than a church pew.

  “Put him there,” the man waiting in the room said, pointing to the guest “chair.”

  Aaron’s ass met metal with surprising speed. He grunted and was still.

  “Go,” the man said, speaking to the two guards. “If he attacks me, I’ll call you.”

  The two officers glanced down at Aaron who appeared catatonic and, laughing, left the room. Even the sound of the door slamming behind them elicited no response from the prisoner.

  “Aaron. Aaron!”

  Nothing.

  The man whose office it was pulled a small first aid kit from a drawer in his desk and locked the door. Before bandaging any of Aaron’s wounds, he brought smelling salts under the helpless man’s nose. Aaron jerked back in the seat and his one eye opened. The other man spoke softly and quickly.

  “I’ve got good news and bad news. Your mouth looks really painful so I won’t ask which you’d like to hear first.

  “The good news is you’re not going to be executed tonight.”

  “Okay,” Aaron managed, not sounding like he cared very much.

  “The bad news is that you’re going to a camp.”

  Aaron stared, unblinking, but with a dawning recognition and more than a little surprise.

  “Don’t look at me like that!” the main said fiercely, but without raising his voice. “You’re only getting this chance because I had you shot trying to escape. At great personal risk, I must add.”

  Aaron worked his jaw and felt it loosen a little beneath the bruising.

  “Your man said the same thing, Novak. What the fuck do you mean?”

  Aaron’s voice was akin to a rusty saw cutting through particularly dry wood. If Novak, once Aaron’s partner in the Zendarmerie, hadn’t been trying to patch him up, he wouldn’t have been close enough to pick out the meaning in the mumbles.

  “You really are a lucky bastard,” Novak said, attending to the gash in Aaron’s thigh. “They must not have wanted you dead, yet. They didn’t quite nick the artery.”

  Aaron grunted interrogatively and insistently.

  “I had a man who was scheduled for the labor camps shot and he’s in the record books as you. So, now you are going to the labor camps in his place.”

  Novak smiled benevolently at Aaron, and then shouted as the wounded man used his bare foot to smash down on his shoe.

  “You killed someone for me?”

  This time his voice was clear enough to be easily understood.

  Novak was hopping and grabbing at his foot.

  “What did you want me to do? What was your idea other than being beaten to death or shot? I’m your friend!”

  Could that last part be true? Was Novak still a friend?

  The two men had met shortly after Aaron had joined the Zendarmerie. Novak was one of the few officers who had shown Aaron any kindness. Or at least no derision. The Pole was from cosmopolitan Warsaw. He saw no reason to object to Jews, and he enjoyed a good fight. Novak had helped to beat off the men who Aaron couldn’t take care of himself.

  When Aaron was posted to the town where he would eventually meet Yelena, Novak had gone with him. They had been fixtures at each other’s dinner tables, and liked to think that they were the scourges of the town’s criminals.

  Aaron had been swept up into the Army after the bombs began to fall, while Novak had disappeared, leaving Aaron with no idea what had happened to him.

  But here Novak was, in the heart of Nazi Miasto, saving him one more time.

  Aaron began to weep. It was all far, far too much: his pain, the ruined plan, Yelena gone. And now a man sentenced to death for no other reason than to let him live? Covered with wounds both psychic and physical, he wasn’t sure how much farther he wanted to go.

  There was no way to communicate all this to Novak, and little chance that a man who was able to commit murder so lightly would understand. Aaron didn’t try.

  After a minute or so, Novak was back on two feet. Seeing Aaron’s tears and hearing his sobs, he pulled a flask from his jacket. He tipped it back, drinking deeply, and then put it to Aaron’s lips. Despite their soreness, Aaron was able to seal them around his salvation. He drank.

  “You know, there’s nothing really so serious about your wounds,” Novak said, with false cheer and a smile intended to win his friend back.

  Aaron said nothing.

  Novak became serious again.

  “It doesn’t matter how you feel now. You’re going to live — at least for a while longer. From what I’ve heard about the camps, there’s no guarantee of longevity, but still … Life is life. Isn’t that what you people say is important?”

  “You say that after what you just did?”

  “I didn’t say all life is equal,” Novak replied. “If the war has taught us one thing, it’s that. I killed a man who was going to die anyway so that my friend could live. We all have to make choices. What’s changed is that every little choice we make today is between life and death.”

  “We aren’t supposed to make those choices for others.”

  “But we do,” Novak said. “If you keep a crust of bread for yourself in the ghetto, some child dies somewhere. But I know you eat, otherwise it would have been you who died. You chose yourself. You’re lucky today, because I chose you, too.”

  “It isn’t supposed to work like that.” Aaron’s tears were back.

  “No, it’s not,” Novak agreed.

  Finished with the bandages, the Pole returned to his side of the desk and picked up his phone. It only took a few seconds for the person on the other end to answer.

  “What time does the train leave for the camp, today?” Novak asked. “Good. Then send someone to my office in five minutes to pick up Rosen.”

  He listened for a second.

  “Good,” he said again, and hung up, turning to Aaron. “You may live to thank me, yet.”

  Aaron sat quietly, downcast.

  “Here, you’ll need this,” Novak said, passing Aaron a stained but very heavy coat from a hook. Then, from under his desk, he pulled out an old pair of warm boots.

  Aaron found both a little large, but still he was grateful — especially as the boots had already been broken in. He remembered the pair he’d been given when he’d first joined the army. He still had scars from where they’d cut into the backs of his ankles.

  Within a few moments of Aaron’s dressing, there was a knock on the door and Novak rose to open it. Two Blue Policemen that Aaron had never seen before came in.

  “Take Mr. Chaim Rosen here to his train,” Novak said.

  Aaron was again jerked to his feet. He turned with a question to Novak.

  “Yelena?”

  “I don
’t know,” Novak said brusquely.

  Finally, it dawned on Aaron to ask the most obvious question of all.

  “How did you find me? Why are you here?”

  “Don’t you people believe in luck?” Novak asked, his eyebrows raised.

  There was no time for Aaron to say a final word to his cruel savior. He was quickly out the door, through the corridor and down several flights of stairs. Every time he tried to stand on his own, he had his legs knocked out from under him by the pace. He wasn’t strong enough to keep up, though the vodka from Novak’s flask helped somewhat with the pain.

  However long it felt, it must have only been a few minutes before Aaron found himself without his guards in a sort of pen alongside other prisoners. Some displayed cuts and bruises, but nothing as severe as what Aaron had suffered. Most looked away from him. Aaron, knowing he stood in another man’s place — that he had cost that man his life — was unable to look anywhere but the ground.

  Outside the pen he saw many black uniforms with the death’s head insignia, very few blue Polish jackets. Wherever his group was going, there was to be no thin veneer of Polish authority.

  “Do you see over there?”

  One man had jabbed another with an elbow.

  “Where?”

  “To your left,” left the older man said.

  Aaron looked, too. He saw a line of women being herded into an adjacent enclosure that was similar to his own.

  A voice only a few steps away from Aaron called, “Rachel!” The man who owned it ran toward the fence.

  The woman turned to meet him. The two locked hands through the wooden boards that separated them and quickly had their heads down, speaking intimately to each other.

  There were a few other such reunions, leaving the rest of the men grimmer than before. They stamped their feet to keep warm and tried to reassure themselves that wherever their loved ones might be, they were safe.

  Aaron scanned the group of women again and again, but saw no sign of Yelena’s bright hair. There was no one he knew in the group.

  “I guess Novak couldn’t find anyone to kill for her,” he said to himself. Prisoners nearest to him tried to edge just a little further away, hearing the bitterness and rage, though not the words.

  Everyone stood in the open air for first one hour, then two. The weather, unseasonably warm for much of the day, began to cool. People unconsciously began to huddle together, the women and the men. The few couples, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters who had found each other, had to pull their hands back from the fence to put them in their pockets. There was little chatter now. The words had been said.

  Light was dimming as both the cloud cover thickened and the sun sank. Train sounds were heard and then drew closer. A metallic whistle cut through the cold air. People began to talk again, speculation rife on where exactly they were going.

  Now the gates of the prison were rolled back, revealing rails and an impromptu platform.

  A man with a religious beard turned to another who looked much the same.

  “I’m sure that it won’t be so terrible. After all, the women are going to the same place.”

  The other nodded. The assumption of gallantry wasn’t dead, Aaron thought, even if the thing itself had galloped away long before.

  A locomotive chuffed into view but behind it weren’t coaches. Instead, the cars were made up of wooden slats spaced fairly close together with big doors in the middle. Clearly they were used for freight.

  They weren’t empty. It was possible to hear voices calling out from inside some of the cars, and to see limbs waving. Some voices demanded to know what was going on, why the train was stopping, what the final destination was. The wind was blowing from across the tracks and struck the faces of the waiting men and women with the smell of an open sewer. Some turned their faces away. One woman retched thinly.

  The train finally came to rest. A few guards swung down from their places between the cars, machine guns pointing toward the waiting crowd. Doors were thrown open on empty compartments and the prison’s soldiers began to shout.

  “Raus! Raus!”

  The gates of the pens were pulled wide and the men and women, terrified by what they’d seen, heard and smelled, slowly began to walk toward the train.

  “Raus!” Move it!

  Rifle butts struck backs in the rear of the crowd and the pace began to pick up somewhat.

  Suddenly, a woman broke out of the crowd and ran toward an officer.

  “I can’t leave! I have a baby! She’ll die without me.”

  “Back in line,” said a soldier who had stepped over to protect his officer.

  “Please! This isn’t right!” She was crying, yelling.

  The officer looked away as if bored. Seeing this, the woman began to shriek.

  “You must listen to me! You must!”

  She threw her fists against the soldier, who pushed her to her knees. The officer calmly pulled his sidearm and walked over to point it at the woman’s skull.

  “Please!” she screamed.

  The shot silenced her.

  The shot silenced everyone in the courtyard.

  The woman’s body slumped and then fell to the side.

  Still, the officer said nothing, just calmly put the gun back in its holster and returned to where he’d been standing. He nodded to the soldiers who again began shoving the Jews toward the train.

  “Raus!”

  When it was Aaron’s turn, he put up no more struggle than anyone else. He climbed over the lip of the doorway and then made his way toward the back where there was already a group of men sitting. They weren’t able to sit for long. More and more men followed them into the car. Soon it was crowded and the men tiredly got to their feet. It became more crowded, and more. Fifteen minutes after he had boarded, Aaron was trapped, breathing in the breath the man in front of him had just exhaled.

  “It must be nearby, wherever we’re going,” an optimistic voice said.

  The door of the car slammed shut. The locomotive’s wheels began to turn.

  Chapter 16

  No matter how far the train traveled or how cold the Polish countryside became, there was little fear that most of the occupants inside the cattle cars would freeze. All were packed together so closely that body heat made up for the frigid winds — at least for those in the middle of the car.

  Those closest to the center of the pile were the children, shielded by their fathers when it was possible, or by strangers when it was necessary. Some men had tried to take the warmth for themselves, but were severely discouraged by the rest. Many of those who had tried, in fact, were now pressed against the wooden slats that made up the walls of the carriage. There they could enjoy the freshest air and the coldest winds. The air further in had been cycled through too many pairs of lungs, and there was little nourishment in it.

  The people were not fed, nor were they given water. Several times along the route, the train stopped for one reason or another. German and Polish guards would climb down from their posts to stretch their legs, warm coats comforting them as they stood about. They would smoke cigarettes, make jokes and a great show of eating and drinking in front of an audience that wished them nothing but death and dismemberment. The guards knew it, and it made them laugh all the harder.

  If they became bored, the guards would sometimes throw snowballs at the cars, watching the Jews scramble to grab whatever ice came through the slats and shove it into their mouths to melt as if it were the sweetest ice cream.

  The Jews themselves were often bored. Aaron spent some of his time eavesdropping on conversations between neighbors who were searching for small commonalities and temporary friendships.

  “You grew up on Krasno Street? I lived just a block away for years,” one man said to his thinner comrade. “Funny we never met. Did you ever go to Weiss’ bakery?”

  “I loved that place. When did it close?”

  “Oh, some time before the war. I think that’s actually one thing we can�
�t blame the Germans for.”

  The men gave each other faint smiles.

  A corner of Aaron’s mouth quirked, too.

  Aaron didn’t participate in much of the talk. His body and soul were in no shape to reach out. He was trapped upright, pressed against a changing cast of fellow travelers. He had no doubt that several of his ribs were broken. Each breath was a source of shocking pain that was becoming familiar.

  He was tortured by his inability to sort his memories from his nightmares. Sometimes he couldn’t see any difference between the two.

  What had he told Clausewitz? Who had he betrayed? Were his friends being tortured, were they dead because of what he’d said as he wept? Were they meeting Clausewitz themselves and giving up other friends in turn? Would it stop before the entire fabric of the ghetto had been torn apart like so much tissue paper?

  But Clausewitz had spoken, too … Had given Aaron a piece to his puzzle … To Berson’s death.

  What the hell had he said?

  The answer was drowned in Aaron’s immediate misery, the swaying of the train, the pressing of the bodies around him, each breath that he struggled not to take. He didn’t sleep, but he did pass out.

  He woke as the train slowed. Inertia caused his fellow passengers to squeeze harder against his rib cage, bringing on fresh pain. It was nighttime and snow was falling heavily. People muttered that they hoped the weather wasn’t the reason for the stop. No one was exactly sure how much longer they could survive on the train. A number had fallen, and efforts to wake them had come to nothing. No one wanted to admit that they were dead.

  Aaron squinted to see beyond the flakes and the darkness. There was something nearby. He was sure.

  A harsh beam of light proved him right and blinded him at the same time. A second spotlight quickly followed. When Aaron could see again, men with dogs and guns were coming to meet the train. The guards on board jumped down to meet their relief.

  The commander of the train, his face and breath visible in silhouette, spoke with a man who carried himself as if he were in charge of something. There was paperwork exchanged and full-armed salutes. Aaron could only guess that heels were clicked. The snow would have muffled the sound.