by Ellen Keith
As they fell back into line, Luciano felt the warmth of that body beneath his hands, the limp collar of a shirt and skinny shoulders. He imagined another student, maybe a historian-in-training, or a political scientist like Fabián. Someone who loved to swim and play soccer. Before the guard led the guy back into his cell, Luciano gave his shoulders a squeeze.
The walk down the hall left him exhausted and sore, but instead of praying for a bullet to the head, he wished for another trip to the toilets. This time, he wanted to measure the distance in hopes of calculating how many other cells lay between him and the bathrooms, how many people were trapped there.
He started paying closer attention to the noises around him—the din of traffic, the comings and goings of the schoolchildren, and the dawn chorus of a nearby bird—until he could construe the start of each new day. Every morning before the onset of rush hour, the cell to his right opened, and the guy whose shoulders he’d squeezed left for the day.
In the beginning, Luciano’s gums were so inflamed that he could only suck on the dry bread he received, but after the trip to the toilets, he made the effort to swallow it all. The guards began waking him for meals with the other prisoners: polenta, chickpeas. Never enough to banish the hunger pangs. He started to notice the change in the guards, the switch in their voices, their approach. Some prodded, some beat him; others let him move on his own.
One morning, he worked up the courage to speak. After going to the toilet, he fell into line behind the guy with the narrow shoulders, the one who always left his cell during the day, yet never returned moaning in pain.
They ate in a small space next to the bathroom. The guards uncuffed their wrists and permitted them to raise their hoods in order to eat, but his eyes were sore, his vision blurry. Most days, the guards brought in sugarless boiled maté and tossed hard chunks of bread that sent them all scrambling. Today, they had a deep bowl of plain boiled lentils. It circled around the room, each prisoner allowed one mouthful before passing it on. Luciano had trouble chewing; the lentils had been over-salted, likely as a cruel joke, but he still felt a tug in his stomach when the bowl began a second round. It made it to the prisoner beside him, the same guy who kept leaving the cell. Only one spoonful remained.
The prisoner dipped the spoon into the bowl and lifted it to his face, but the spoon was empty. He passed the bowl to Luciano, who poked at the lentils to make sure his eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on him. A warmth settled in Luciano’s fingers and toes as he ate the last bite, sucking on the lentils, rotating them with his tongue until all the salt disappeared.
A guard came to collect the bowl and spoon and ordered the prisoners to lower their hoods. Once the guard began organizing and cuffing everyone, Luciano edged toward the prisoner.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“You need it more than I do.”
The surrounding prisoners fell into line, but the two of them stayed put.
“Where do you go every day?” Luciano asked.
“I work.”
“What?”
The guard approached. “Get moving.”
As Luciano stood to join the others, he strained to catch the guy’s hushed reply. “I’m Gabriel.”
AFTER this encounter with Gabriel, he was taken back to the basement for another round of torture. This time, it didn’t last long. Or perhaps it did. He passed out within the first few minutes of shocks, and when he came to, he was back in his cell. His bones felt limp. Although he heard Gabriel’s movements, his tongue was useless, doubled in size.
But Gabriel’s remark encouraged him. Maybe there was a way to escape this horror. Another week of solitude and he would lose his mind. Questions piled up—where did this guy work? What did he do? Every hour, Luciano would wave his arms to the passing guard in hopes of being escorted to the toilets. Most times, the guards ignored him, and when he did get the chance to go, Gabriel was never there, and Luciano was left to form the last link in the chain.
Soon, the guards came to fetch him. Fearing the basement, he began to tremble, but his body relaxed once his hands fell onto narrow shoulders in a worn, collared shirt. He squeezed them twice in greeting as they approached the bathroom.
“Get undressed,” the guard ordered as he unlocked their wrists. “Time for a shower.”
Visions appeared: the history book he’d read in his journalism classes, photos of emaciated naked bodies, the words “gas chamber” in bold letters. Luciano swallowed. The ground seemed to slip away beneath him, filling him with dizzying fear, but then he felt a tugging hand.
“Come on,” Gabriel whispered.
Luciano resisted the pull and was about to warn him when he heard the splash of spraying water. The guard told them to remove their hoods, and the prisoners entered the room together, discarding their soiled clothes in heaps by the doorway. Feet shuffled past in the hall, and he wondered if the women were marching off to another set of showers.
The brightness hurt Luciano’s eyes; the icy water stung his skin, and the sliver of soap they gave him smelled of chemicals. He scrubbed himself as if he could slough reality away. But his wounds burned, his bruises still felt tender, forcing him to abandon the soap as he flinched in pain and shock. It looked like his body had gone through a grater.
He squinted across the room and noticed the guards’ backs were turned. “Gabriel,” he whispered. “What sort of work do you do?”
Some muscle still clung to Gabriel’s thin arms and torso, which bore only a few faded marks. Gabriel’s nakedness drew Luciano’s eyes downward, but he quickly looked away.
“I compile military documents.”
“You mean you help them?”
“Better than this inferno.”
Luciano rinsed the suds from his hair as he considered this. He leaned in. “Could you get me a job?”
Gabriel ran his hands across his scruffy jaw. “What do you study?”
“Journalism.”
“Oh, me too.”
“Please, I—”
A hand came down hard on Luciano’s back. “I said no talking!” The guard smacked him, knocking him against the wall. He shoved Gabriel, who tumbled into Luciano, and they fell to the floor in a slippery mess of limbs while cold water battered their eyes. As they got up, Luciano kept his head down. But once they had dressed and put their hoods back on, Gabriel managed a single word. “Number?”
With his head still spinning, Luciano couldn’t figure out what Gabriel meant. But it came to him as they trudged down the hall: the instructions from the basement. Number five-seven-four. Don’t forget.
Just before they returned to their separate cells, Luciano traced the three digits on the back of Gabriel’s neck.
WHEN the traffic outside had grown still for quite some time, Luciano understood that night had fallen. Soon, two people walked down the hall, stopping at the next cell. The guard locked the door to his right, and through the thin wall partition, Luciano could hear someone slide down onto the mattress. He eased himself up against the partition, flexing his toes over and over as he waited for the guard to be out of earshot. “Gabriel?”
“I’m here.” Gabriel paused. “You’re in.”
Luciano clutched his hands to his chest in relief. “Doing what?”
“Translating documents. You speak English, don’t you?”
“Well, I’ve studied it a bit.”
“Shh!”
The guard paced past their cells, trailing fresh cigarette smoke. The boots halted in front of his door, but Luciano feigned sleep. Even after the guard left, he kept his mouth shut, unwilling to endanger Gabriel’s life more than he already had.
“Luciano? They’ll get us at six thirty. Be ready.”
Given that he had no change of clothes, no way of grooming and no alarm clock, Luciano wasn’t sure what “ready” could mean, but he thanked Gabriel. They both fell silent, and soon he heard soft snores beside him. Only then did he realize that Gabriel had found out his name. He lay down on his bac
k, imagining he could see through the hood, through the ceiling, straight up to the Southern Cross in the starry sky.
Chapter Seven
MARIJKE
AUGUST 2, 1943
BUCHENWALD
SOMEONE WAS SHAKING ME. “MARIJKE!”
Certain I was dreaming, I rolled over, but the shaking persisted.
“Marijke, wake up!”
I opened my eyes to find the brothel supervisor standing over my bed. A light shone in the hallway but Sophia was whistling through her nose in her sleep.
“I need you right now,” the supervisor said. For once, her tired face looked soft, almost friendly.
The brothel had closed hours earlier and the prisoners were all asleep in their blocks, which could mean only one thing. “Is someone here?”
She nodded. “Get dressed.”
Suddenly, I was wide awake. “Kommandoführer Hoffmann?”
“Somebody far more important, the new Schutzhaft-lagerführer. Go freshen up and don’t keep him waiting.”
I put on my heels and white pleated skirt and hurried to the koberzimmer. That familiar pang returned to my stomach while I stood over the sink, trying to smooth out the wrinkled fabric and rinse away all traces of sleep. With a fresh coat of bright lipstick, the face in the mirror looked like a pitiful version of myself, like I had wilted under heavy rain. This feeling of self-disgust grew stronger every day; a hundred prisoners would have been more tolerable than another SS officer.
When the Schutzhaftlagerführer stepped across the threshold, the first thing I noticed was his stagger. Neither Theo nor I drank, but I’d seen alcohol transform men on the streets back home—provoking catcalls and heated brawls—and was terrified of what it could do to someone who was a monster from the start. He grabbed my arm and hooked me in. The beer on his breath stank as he smothered me with a kiss, but his voice sounded crisp. He said hello and leaned back to look at me. A scar carved a slight gap in his right eyebrow. That’s when I caught the shade of his irises, a brilliant, striking blue—the colour of gas flames. “You,” he said, “you’re going to help me forget a rough day.” He brushed a curl from my face with startling tenderness.
I took a step back.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asked.
“No.”
“Are you sure?” Amusement danced in the faint creases around his eyes, an expression that chased away my sense of caution. He looked like the boys in the village where I grew up, teasing, begging for admiration. For a moment, my fear disappeared.
“The Führer has already taken everything away from me. I have nothing left to lose.”
“Don’t be foolish. There’s always something left. You have your looks, this perfect body.” He motioned for me to take off my clothes and spin in a slow circle. I obeyed, trying not to shiver as he smiled, measuring me up. His gaze left no part of me untouched. “The most beautiful girl I’ve seen at Buchenwald.”
“There’s no need to flatter me, sir.”
“Don’t you appreciate it?”
“With all due respect, you’re not here to court me.”
He smirked, his face full of desire. “You know, I could have you killed for that mouth of yours.”
I winced, wondering if I’d misjudged him, but his tone sounded more flirtatious than threatening. He stepped forward, grabbed my bottom as he kissed me. He took off his cap to expose a head of dirty-blond hair, parted neatly to the side. There was something urgent in the way he kissed me, as if he were the one that death had in his sights.
Compared to Bruno, he was gentle. At one point, he stopped thrusting to bend toward my neck, scattering soft kisses that sent a pulsing shock down below. His lips rough and chapped against my skin. “Do you like that?”
None of the other men had shown any concern for me, any awareness that I was more than just their toy, so I didn’t know what to make of this. He just wanted to feel powerful, that he could control my pleasure as well as my body. A small gasp served to stoke his fire, to hurry things up. His thumb pressed hard into my arm as he pushed himself deeper. I waited for it all to end, for him to get up so I could return to my own bed and try to slip into the comfort of dreams. Closing my eyes, my violin in my hands. The piece I was practicing the week the moffen arrested us, Theo reaching out to touch my waist, tea steaming beside us on the kitchen table.
He finished with a deep grunt and collapsed on top of me, trapping me under his heaving chest. But he didn’t leave, not right away. When he pulled out, he lay beside me, cradling me in his arms. Drops of his sweat clung to my back and I tried hard to ignore the growing wetness between my legs as he stroked the dip of my waist. For a few long minutes, he said nothing. His breath grew so shallow that I thought he’d drifted to sleep, but as I twisted to look at him, his eyes snapped open.
“You are gorgeous,” he said. “What’s your name?”
He smiled when I told him. “Such a lovely name. I’m Karl, Karl Müller.”
His touch on my spine, vertebrae awakened one by one. Shivers. I tried not to notice.
“You know, I’ve seen you before,” he said.
“Isn’t that the type of line you ought to save for some girl in town?”
“I mean it. You immediately struck me as being different from the others.”
“Probably because they have experience.”
“No, something more than that. You’re the only one who still has some light in her. Even the girls back home wear the war on their face.” He sighed and rubbed a finger across my knuckles. “Tell me, Marijke, what is it you do back home?”
“I’m married.”
“Ah, I see. Well then, is there anything you do just for yourself?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“Music, then. I play violin and used to play with the symphony.”
“Violin? Classical? I prefer cabaret. Have you heard Zarah Leander playing over the loudspeakers each morning?”
“I hear nothing in her songs but endless love for the Reich.”
He laughed. “Well then, what would you rather hear: Wagner? Beethoven?”
“Schubert.”
“Not a second’s hesitation? If only my men spoke with such conviction.” He laughed. “I’ll see what I can arrange.”
He wrapped me tighter while I debated the meaning of that, puzzled over his feigned sense of interest.
“It’s been so long since I’ve lain next to someone,” he said. “Isn’t it unfortunate to have a large bed in a splendid villa but nobody to share it with?”
My mind flashed to the bunks at Ravensbrück, to lifeless limbs pressed up against mine, and angry retorts built up in my throat, eager to spill out. He didn’t even appear to notice the lash of his remark, and that was the worst part. His breathing grew deeper as he drifted to sleep. I had trouble relaxing in his arms.
Later, after he woke up and got dressed, he lingered at the exit. “I want to see you again.”
I said nothing, thinking only of the cool fabric of my pillow, Sophia snoring beside me.
“Do you agree to that?”
“Does it matter? I thought the officers had their own brothel.”
“You’re right.” He opened the door and took a step before turning to look at me once again. “Next time, I’ll bring you a violin.”
THE following morning, once we had finished all the cleaning, the brothel supervisor came into the day room with a bag of yarn. “Winter comes early to the Eastern Front,” she said. “I want a pair of socks from each of you by tomorrow morning.”
After she left, we all sat down around the long table, and Sophia passed out knitting needles. I unwound a ball of yarn to cast on.
Edith twirled one of the needles between her fingers with a grunt. “By tomorrow morning? Clearly, the only thing that woman ever knits is her brow!”
The others snickered, but I focused on counting stitches and found myself drifting away from the room, back to the night before. That SS officer, so unlike the fi
rst, the flashes of gentleness in his touch. His talk of music had surprised me, leaving me with the inapt notion of a refined man. I had flushed my memories of every other visit, of the men’s prickly chests and moles and bodily fluids, but the images of this officer refused to be erased. They settled there, making Theo feel even farther away.
“Marijke. Did you hear me?” Gerda said. “I asked what’s wrong. You look like you didn’t sleep.”
Sophia gave the others a sober look. “Marijke had to take care of an SS man late last night, and not just anybody either—the Schutzhaftlagerführer.”
Everyone turned to me. “What was he like?” one girl asked.
“Did he brag about all the Jews he’s killed?” asked another, with a mix of curiosity and contempt.
Edith raised an eyebrow. “Was the gun in his trousers as big as the one in his holster?”
“Eighteen,” I counted, raising my voice. “Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one.” I didn’t meet their stares until I finished knitting that row. “He wasn’t what you would expect.”
“What does that mean?” Edith asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Sophia gave me a pitying look and tried changing the subject. “Tell us, Edith, what’s the trick to getting the smell of sex off your skin? No matter how much soap I use between visits, I still feel the sweat of those men caking on in layers.”