by Ellen Keith
I unwrapped the corner and broke off a small chunk. Chewy and bitter, nothing like the chocolate I remembered, but I didn’t care.
“Don’t bother saving it. There’ll be plenty more coming your way, for all of you.” He continued down the hall, stopping every few metres to peer at a prisoner or relay an order to his men. Emma appeared at my side again, white as porcelain, and I slipped my hand into hers. We shuffled to the door and stood in the entrance. Even this late in the afternoon, the light outside made me squint.
“Do you want to go out?” she asked.
I shook my head. The idea of wandering around freely was too strange to grasp, and I wasn’t sure how far I could make it yet. Still, I couldn’t look away. A whole world lay out there, beyond the prisoners’ blocks. Amsterdam, Europe, America—I could have walked through that gate and gone anywhere. “Maybe I should stay here,” I said. “What if the Schutzhaftlagerführer comes looking for me?”
“Why would he do that?”
I looked away, unable to decide whether to feel disappointed by the truth in her question or embarrassed for expecting more of him. “I suppose I’ve spent so long wondering if I’d even survive that I don’t know anymore what comes next, what I even want to happen.”
“For you, the hard part is over.”
As the soldiers milled around, clearing away the dead and trying to give the living a chance of survival, I considered tracking Karl down, with the thought that we could leave the camp together. If the Americans protested, tried to trap him for his crimes, I would defend him. I lay back down on my cot and buried my face in the sheets, ashamed and confused. What was wrong with me? What had he done to make me capable of such doubt, such irrationality? A thought crept up on me, the nagging worry that, in some small way, I was also complicit, for who could possibly feel any affection toward a Nazi? When we had first met, I couldn’t comprehend what his ex-fiancée had seen in him; now I had the same question to face myself.
The Americans filtered through the block during the evening, bringing us tins of corned beef and hard biscuits, which was too much for most of the prisoners to stomach. Several more passed away during the night, and I mourned for them, for losing the battle at its very end. A vision of Theo came to me, huddled in one of the blocks, his spirits ripe with hope. I wondered if he believed I’d survived, if he would take me back when I told him the truth about my time at Buchenwald and my baby. But what if he was already gone himself?
IN the morning, I was in bed chewing another hard chunk of chocolate when the American sergeant returned. He paused at my cot. “How’s the patient today?”
I sat up. “Better. Well enough to get out of here.”
“Now, there sure is no doctor around to tell you otherwise. But let me assure you, a walk through these grounds is no stroll in the park, so make sure you’re ready for it.” He made a move to continue on.
“Wait, please, I’m looking for someone.”
“I’m afraid we haven’t sorted through any of the prisoner lists yet.”
“It’s not a prisoner I’m looking for. An SS officer. Schutzhaftlagerführer Müller. The deputy director.”
“What a tongue twister. Müller, you say? Sorry, ma’am, haven’t heard of him.” He gave me a quizzical look, but I didn’t volunteer any more information, so he continued. “We sent a truck of girls home yesterday. If you’re feeling up for it, another transport will depart in two days, this one heading west.”
“Girls from the brothel?” I asked.
“Could be, but I’d have to check with someone on that.”
The sergeant wished me luck and said goodbye. I thanked him and forced what I hoped was a grateful smile as I tried to unravel what he’d said. After eating a little more, I decided to venture outside. Emma had disappeared during the night. I looked for her around the infirmary and was disappointed when nobody had seen her, but I trusted the sergeant would keep her safe.
Scrounging around the nurses’ office, I found a plain, brown dress that I changed into. My nerves hummed as I exited the infirmary, half-expecting someone to chase after me and order me back to my place with the swat of a gun. Instead, the American guarding the entrance waved and lit up a cigarette. The compound of the camp stretched out before me. I took a tentative step onto the gravel path.
Much of the camp looked familiar from our regular walks: the neat rows of blocks that curved around the muster grounds, the warehouses tucked away in the back. On all sides, cadaverous men wandered about, aimless in their newfound freedom. One or two stopped to watch me pass, and I found myself lowering my gaze, afraid I would find my husband peering at me. I kept watch for the grey of the SS uniforms, but the few Nazis I did see were being paraded around in handcuffs by Americans and prisoners. One prisoner carried a withered, white-haired man, perhaps his friend or his father, holding out the limp body to anyone with a water canteen.
My first instinct was to return to the brothel. It lay right across from the infirmary blocks, but I walked in the opposite direction for a few minutes before convincing myself to turn back. The closer I got to it, the more I slowed down.
All of the shutters were closed and the plants that lined the front walk had been trampled. The door stood ajar. I entered and became immediately aware of the stillness within. The brothel was dark. One of the chairs lay on the floor, feet pronged in the air. In the sleeping quarters, all traces of the girls had vanished. The colourful blouses and skirts, Sophia’s stash of gifted alcohol and shoes. I knelt to check under my bed, but dustballs rolled around the spot where my violin had lain.
In the washroom, long strands of blond hair looped around the shower drain, but the soap and the toilet paper were gone. A commotion in the reception area startled me, and I tiptoed out of the washroom. I peeked around the corner to find a pair of American soldiers rifling around.
One glanced up. “Hey, get a look at this.”
The other soldier approached me. “Why, hello, ma’am. What are you doing in here?”
I stiffened. “I—I came for my belongings.”
“We’re scouting out possible spots to bring a bunch of sick kids. What was this place? It’s nothing like the other buildings.”
I waited for him to crack a grin. “Someone must have moved my things. Goodbye.”
“Why don’t you stick around? As soon as we’re done here, we’ll take you down to our transport and rustle you up something to eat.”
After declining their offer, I left, forcing myself to keep walking until I was out of sight, resisting my impulse to turn and take one last look at what I was leaving behind.
My feet led me all the way across the compound, past a comb lying in the dirt, the long line at the prisoners’ canteen, a body draped over the barbed wire. All around me, the Americans relayed orders, carted around army rations and blankets, while prisoners mimed what they needed. At the boundary of the prisoners’ camp, I stared up at the clock that topped the tall gatehouse. I thought about going through the gate, walking toward the SS villas. Someone would know where Karl had gone. But no matter what I wanted to believe about him, he couldn’t go anywhere without a swastika branded on his lapel.
I stepped forward into the shadow of the gatehouse and nodded to the soldiers who guarded it. Above me, that warning hung like a hangman’s gallows: Jedem das Seine. The iron words like blood on my tongue: To each what he deserves.
Behind me, prisoners crowded the muster grounds, spilled out of the blocks. There was a chance one of those weary faces belonged to Theo.
A soldier in an army helmet approached and opened the gate for me. “Are you going out?”
I scanned the road that stretched out of the camp, winding toward the officers’ quarters, and then took a deep breath and glanced up at the sky, bright blue and dotted with pillowy clouds. “No,” I said, “not yet.”
The soldier nodded. As the gate clanged shut, I turned and started off toward the prisoners’ blocks.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
L
UCIANO
JULY 24, 1977
BUENOS AIRES
THE NIGHT THE GUARDS SET LASHES FREE, LUCIANO couldn’t sleep. He stared at the inside of his hood until his eyes grew sore from attempting to see. At one point, he thought of the belt on his new pair of pants and snaked it from the waistband. He worked the tooth of the buckle into the rough fabric of the hood, wriggling it back and forth to create a hole a millimetre or two wide and then shifted the hood until the hole lined up right. For the first time, he saw the bare bulb that dangled high above his cell.
Next to him, Gabriel sounded restless. Luciano tried to play out the girl’s journey in his head. They would have jammed her into one of the military’s Ford Falcons and driven down the long road that led to the gates. He didn’t know where or when they would drop her off but could hear her family’s joyful tears as they flooded her with hugs and kisses. And during everything, she would have the microfilm tucked away in the hollow heel of her shoe.
Somehow, he fell asleep. The next morning, he and Gabriel quietly pushed through their work. As the day wore on, they began to relax with the realization that they would never know what she had done with those files, and Gabriel hummed a folk song Luciano remembered from childhood:
I want to get married
And don’t know with whom,
With this girl yes,
With this girl no,
With this girl I’ll be wed.
GABRIEL was late for dinner. His shoulders slumped as a guard brought him into the eating area, and he avoided looking at Luciano.
The guards distributed dinner, a portion of watery corn soup. The grains of corn had already been eaten, so the labourers got only the cobs. Luciano’s stomach rumbled, but he snuck another peek at Gabriel, who twirled his spoon with a vacant expression.
As soon as the guard gave the order to clean up and fall back into line, Luciano found a spot behind Gabriel, but Gabriel didn’t acknowledge his presence until they were back in front of the microfilmer. He went over to the files that had just come in and handed the top one to Luciano. There was Lashes’ solemn face, yesterday’s date and a note: Transferred.
“They shot her.”
Luciano pressed the document to his chest and let out a long breath. “How do you know?”
“I overheard the guards talking while I was in the bathroom.”
“Did they find it?”
“What do you think?”
Luciano leaned against the wall with his head in his hands. Gabriel took a seat at the microfilmer and stared at it for a long moment before switching it on. For the rest of the evening, they worked without speaking, the whirrs and clicks of the machine the only distraction from troubled thoughts. Luciano processed the files as quickly as possible, without stopping to read a single prisoner’s name.
THE command came from the far corner of the photo lab. “Numbers three-four-one and five-seven-four, step forward.”
In the darkroom, Luciano paused, his hands suspended over the microfilmer while the order registered. Gabriel stood beside Luciano, his pupils huge.
Shark appeared in the entrance to the darkroom. He blinked as he adjusted to the dimness, but grinned when he spotted Luciano, his teeth gleaming under the red lights. “You two are coming with me.”
Before Luciano had time to comprehend what was happening, Shark threw hoods over their heads, restrained their arms, the metal digging into Luciano’s wrists. Luciano’s hood went on backward, the tiny peephole he’d punctured rendered useless.
Shark pushed them forward, and Luciano heard Gabriel hit a wall. Shark led them past the other workers in the photo lab and down the corridor before shoving Luciano into one of the torture chambers. The door closed behind him.
Luciano knew he wasn’t alone. He bowed his head and recited verses of Neruda’s poetry in whispers.
Footsteps. A set of arms grabbed him, tossing him back onto the metal bed frame. Then the nightmare unfolded once more: the cold air on his flesh as his clothes were ripped from his body, the buzz of the cattle prod, the smell of singed hair on his chest, the cries, the begging, his mind ricocheting away as the shocks grew stronger, more frequent, until his limbs screamed out and the pain consumed everything. Then it stopped. He writhed on the bed.
“What else did you do with those files?”
His throat burned, begging for water. It took three tries to form an answer. “Nothing.”
“Who else has them?”
“Nobody, I swear.” His voice came out in rasps.
“Who else?”
“No. Other. Copies.”
Another man: “Give him the submarino.”
Luciano heard nothing but his own heavy panting. He was yanked to his feet. His knees buckled and someone pulled him across the floor, shins scraping the tiles. His torturer propped him up against something solid. Luciano’s fingers hooked around a wide metal lip, touched liquid.
“Are you going to talk?”
A hand palmed Luciano’s skull, pushed him down, submerging his head. He sputtered, taking in a mouthful of water through the hood, and began to choke. He swallowed, tried to hold his breath, but a sudden kick to his groin made him cry out. His head was wrenched out again; water streamed down his face as he gargled for oxygen. Then he went back under, thrashing, bucking, battling to hold on.
Chapter Thirty
KARL
APRIL 11, 1945
BUCHENWALD
KARL LEFT BUCHENWALD AT A RUN, WITHOUT ANY idea where he was headed. As soon as he neared the edge of Buchenwald’s grounds, he changed into the prisoner clothing and stuffed his SS uniform into a rotten stump. His muscles soon grew sore from his bouncing rucksack, and he could manage only short bursts before slowing to a jog and gasping for air. The rough terrain made him stumble—hills pocked with crevices and thick roots that twisted from the ground—and the trees that were only beginning to bud offered little shelter. The first night, he ate a third of the food in his bag. Nuts and stale biscuits and a hunk of Gouda. He slept against a hollow log, shivering and unable to rest as he fought off apparitions of snipers creeping through the bushes.
The second day, he got lost. His attempts to navigate south using the sun and the lichen growth on trees might have worked if he hadn’t needed to reroute whenever he cut too close to a village or main road. A prisoner’s uniform would be a flimsy disguise for any soldiers on the lookout for Nazis. While stopping to consult the map, he heard armoured vehicles approaching. He hunched under the protection of a thicket and watched the convoy of Americans ride by. A group of them perched on top of an open jeep, a machine gun mounted between them. He flattened himself on the ground, his heart beating against a mound of soil as they passed.
Once the troops were out of earshot, he changed his trajectory to cut deeper into the hills, but the forest grew sparser and villages of half-timbered houses lined the horizon. For a few hours, he proceeded in segments, searching for cover while he scouted out the next stretch. Guilt crept in and pestered him to turn back. There was Marijke, alone in that hospital with the Americans at her side. But the thought of those soldiers knocking him to the ground with their guns kept him going, and he began to devise a plan to get to Argentina.
The rumble of artillery fire increased, a sign he’d veered too far west. It took an hour to get back on track. The water in his canteen was gone. As the sun sank over the hills, he scoured the area for a safe place to stay. When his stomach ached and his boots began to chafe his blisters, he spotted a lone farmhouse and worked his way toward it through the bushes, halting every few metres to scan his surroundings.
The house appeared empty and the front door stood open. He circled the perimeter twice before entering the building with his Luger raised. A fresh loaf of bread sat on the counter with a large chunk of it missing, a pitcher of milk beside it. His mouth watered at the sight but he continued toward the back room. A noise in the bedroom stopped him. The rustling continued, the opening and closing of drawers, so he inched up to th
e room with his finger on the trigger.
He stepped across the threshold to find a young camp guard in uniform. Karl kept his gun aimed at him. “What are you doing?”
The pile of bread crumbs at the man’s feet answered the question, and his shoulders relaxed when he saw Karl’s face. “The Americans, Schutzhaftlagerführer. They’ve let the prisoners loose to hunt down us guards. They’re beating our men to death!”
Karl lowered his gun. “Where are the owners of this place?”
“No idea, sir.”
Karl left the guard and went to the kitchen to help himself to the food. Most of the shelves on the pantry had been stripped bare, but a cured sausage was hiding deep in the back of a cupboard. He unwrapped it and tore off a bite. After getting his fill of that and bread, he polished off the pitcher of milk.
The guard appeared in the doorway. “The bed is yours, sir, if you want it.”
Karl contemplated the soft pillows and warm quilt before glancing out the window at the approaching nightfall. “I’m not staying.”
The guard gave Karl a hopeful look, but Karl didn’t invite him to tag along.
“Well,” the man said, “I’ll spend the night and head out at dawn.”
Karl returned to the bedroom and combed through the drawers for a thin blanket, which he rolled up into his pack. As he walked out the rear door, he turned back to the guard. “Find yourself some different clothes.”
A patch of forest lay two hundred metres from the house. Karl crouched low and dashed across the field toward it. By the time he reached the trees, heavy clouds shielded the dark sky. He ducked into the safety of the shadows and looked back at the farmhouse in time to see the headlights of an army jeep turn onto the driveway.