The Paradise Ghetto

by Fergus O'Connell

  ‘Not completely. But by the time you – Birkita – arrives in Pompeii and I meet you – her – I’ll know.’

  Julia has a sense that Suzanne doesn’t really want to talk – that she is tired and wants to go to sleep. But Julia is excited about what she has written and is eager to talk about the story, to move it forward.

  ‘Can’t you even give me a hint?’

  ‘Well, she’s not British. I was going to make her from the same tribe as Birkita but then I thought it would be much more interesting if she came from another part of the world. That’s what I haven’t worked out yet.’

  ‘And do you know what she’s like?’

  ‘Mostly. But you don’t need to know that until you get to Pompeii and they meet.’

  There is a finality about the way Suzanne says this which Julia accepts. The girls fall silent. Julia is exhausted but happy. She has found the writing to be immensely tiring – much more so than the physical work they do every day. But as each day went on she felt that what she was writing was good – maybe even very good, sometimes. And now Suzanne seems to agree. Julia can’t wait to continue tomorrow.

  She has fallen into something of a routine. Each night, before she goes to sleep, she tries to think through the next piece of the story. Usually she falls asleep before she has got very far. If she wakes in the middle of the night and has to go to the toilet, as she almost invariably does, she will return to bed and try to pick up the story where she left off. In the morning she can usually remember what passed through her head during the night. But more wonderfully, sometimes she wakes with a really clear picture of where the story must go next. Thoughts and whole sequences that never came into her head while she was awake have now suddenly appeared. It is almost like magic.

  ‘I found out why this place is called the Paradise Ghetto,’ Suzanne says.

  Julia had thought her friend had fallen asleep. ‘Why?’

  ‘It was set up to house what the Germans called “privileged Jews”.’

  ‘Privileged?’

  ‘Rich. Or famous. Or decorated in the last war. Apparently the place is full of famous musicians and artists and writers and scientists and doctors and university professors.’

  ‘Who told you all this?’

  ‘Irena. I realised,’ Suzanne continues, ‘that my parents were probably brought here. They were both university professors.’

  Then she asks, ‘What did your parents do?’

  Julia feels a chill down her spine that has nothing to do with the arctic conditions in the room.

  ‘My father was a doctor.’

  ‘An ordinary doctor?’

  Anything but.

  ‘A specialist. People came from all over Europe to see him.

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘She was a housewife.’

  ‘So that explains it,’ says Suzanne. ‘That’s why you and I ended up here. Because of our parents. We’re privileged Jews.’

  ‘Some fucking privilege,’ says Julia.

  ‘Irena was saying that when people came here – especially Jews from Germany and Austria – they thought they were coming to a spa. That’s why it’s called the Paradise Ghetto. The Germans had painted a picture of nice apartments with views out over the lake. Some of the people were so shocked when they saw what the place was actually like that they died of it.’

  ‘So our parents are here?’ Julia asks with a growing sense of dread.

  ‘No. That was what I thought – that I would get to see my parents. But then she said that thousands had been deported from here to the East. If my parents – or yours – came here in 1942 or 1943 – then there was a good chance they were no longer here. Irena was able to check for me. At the central registry.’

  After a pause, Suzanne says in a voice that almost breaks, ‘My parents came in 1943 and were deported later that year.’

  ‘I need to check on mine,’ says Julia urgently.

  ‘I already did,’ says Suzanne.

  ‘And?’

  ‘The same. They came and went last year.’

  Julia emits a sigh of relief. Suzanne turns onto her side – it is her turn to spoon Julia. Julia turns too and Suzanne’s arm encircles her and settles on her breast in what has now become a familiar routine for both of them.

  It is so cosy with the extra blanket.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ says Suzanne, almost in a whisper.

  ‘So am I,’ says Julia. ‘For you. It sounds like you and your parents were very happy.’

  ‘We were. I’m sorry I had to be the one to tell you.’

  ‘I’m glad I found out from you. Where do they go to in the East?’

  ‘Don’t know. Some kind of camp or something, I suppose. Maybe the same as this. Another camp for privileged Jews. It must be a terrible shock for you, Julia. I’ve had nearly a week to come to terms with it.’

  ‘I’ll get over it,’ Julia says coldly.

  Suzanne embraces her more closely, snuggling into her.

  ‘You don’t have to be strong all the time, Julia.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  Chapter Three

  To Pompeii (Julia)

  Along with their hands being tied, the survivors of the village were now also chained. Each of them had an iron ring around their neck and a chain ran from this to the ring of the person in front and behind them. They trudged along a road that led south. The Romans rode in front and behind and one patrolled lazily up and down the line. He carried a whip and periodically lashed somebody at random with it.

  There was no escape – other than the escape of death. Attack the whip-wielding Roman, drag him from his horse and hope that somebody would stab her with a sword or a lance. For several days, this was what Birkita had tried to find an opportunity to do. But she had never been able to get close enough to him. Still, she had focused on this – his position along the line of prisoners, his approach, whether she had the strength to drag the people in front and behind her when she moved and all the other minute factors that she allowed to crowd into her head so that she didn’t have to think about other things.

  More groups of prisoners had joined them, again in long chained lines and it was the third or fourth day when she acknowledged that she would never get close enough to the whip Roman to attack him. He was obviously experienced in this work and knew about such moves.

  When she had finally given up on that – that was when she could no longer keep the images at bay.

  First had come the old people. She could still see the bull Roman’s upward nod of his head that indicated that the killing should begin. People suddenly collapsing. The screams of the mothers. The shrieks of the children. A baby crying before the sound was cut off. Blood. Blood everywhere. Spurting. Splashing. Pink clouds of it suddenly appearing in the air like the puff of a dandelion head. The smell. The smell of when an animal was butchered. The smile on the face of one of the Romans who was doing the killing.

  It seemed to take only moments for the group of children and old people to become a bloody, tangled mound of bodies. There were still groans and wailing so now the three soldiers moved around the mound, plunging their swords savagely into the topmost bodies, the blades biting noisily into flesh and crunching through bone, until finally, there were no more sounds or movement.

  There had been a break in the killing after that.

  The survivors had waited in the hot day while crosses were assembled. The soldiers had brought timber with them on the wagon. But they seemed in no hurry. Skins of wine appeared. Birkita had an unbelievably clear picture of a soldier, head back, wine skin to his mouth while the red liquid dribbled down his chin. The sun was high by then, shining down into the clearing, baking them. The Romans had a couple of barrels of water on the wagon and they took ladlefuls of this from time to time. The prisoners were given nothing.

  And all the while Banning looked across at her, his eyes pleading with her to do something.

  And so she did.

  When a Roman came to apply t
he neck chain, she head-butted him. There was a crunching of bone and blood erupted from his nose. She had intended to try to catch the handle of his sword and pull it from his sheath as he fell but just then she felt a crashing pain on the back of her head and the world went black.

  When she same to, she was lying on the ground shackled hand and foot. After that all she could do was watch.

  The Romans went about the assembly of the four crosses with the easy confidence of good tradesmen. Meanwhile, some of the Britons were made to dig holes. The sounds in the clearing were of birds singing, shovels biting into earth, hammers upon wood, a Roman whistling while he worked and Banning and Genovefa trying to comfort their two daughters. They were six and eight and knew what was coming.

  Birkita closed her eyes and held them tightly shut.

  But she couldn’t block out the sound.

  Eventually, there came a change. The hammering and shovelling ceased. Orders were shouted.

  And suddenly there was the sound of a scuffle. Shouts. Running feet.

  Birkita opened her eyes.

  A couple of spear lengths away from her, Banning and Genovefa were each trying to strangle one of their children.

  But it was no good. The Romans were upon them, beating them away.

  After this both girls became hysterical as they were dragged screaming to the crosses.

  Mercifully, Birkita couldn’t fully remember everything which happened after that. The memories came in jagged fragments. All four bodies stripped naked. Those two frail children’s bodies that she had known since they were born. The hammering. The animal shrieks of pain. The hollow thunk of the crosses being dropped into the holes and then the earth being shovelled in. The screaming that agonisingly slowly wound itself down to sobbing, gasping, moaning, laboured breathing.

  Of course, she had tried most of the time not to look. But there were times when she had forced herself to.

  To remember this.

  The soldiers drank more and played dice. A decision appeared to be made that they would camp for the night. Fires were lit, food was prepared, guards posted. The crosses had been raised soon after the sun reached its highest point in the sky but as the late summer night fell, Birkita could see that her brother, sister-in-law and two nieces were still alive.

  The terrible sounds continued intermittently during the night.

  As dawn came, Birkita saw that Banning and Genovefa had died. But the girls were still breathing. Of course Birkita had known that would happen. The heavier bodies of the adults would have pulled them down and hastened death. The two children were as though drugged, lost in a world of pain.

  With the sun, the Romans began to pack up. Soon everything was stowed on the wagon and horses were saddled. The bull Roman gave an order and a soldier took an iron bar from the wagon. With two easy swings he broke the legs of the two children, triggering new screams from them. Death would come more quickly now.

  After that the convoy left the clearing.

  Birkita took one more backward glance at the crosses silhouetted against the trees.

  She would remember.

  And somehow – she didn’t know how yet, couldn’t see a way forward right now – but somehow she would have her revenge.

  She didn’t remember much about the next few days. They were a succession of baking heat and glaring light on the long white road that ribboned out ahead of them. She closed her eyes a lot. When she opened them, all she would see were chains. The neck ring of the man in front of her and the chain that connected her to him. And the crosses. Always the crosses.

  Eventually they reached the great river where the Romans handed them over to a band of slavers. These put a heavy iron anklet on each of them and they were led up a gangplank on to a ship. Birkita had never seen a ship of such size before. Steps led down into a foetid hold smelling of shit and piss and vomit. Each anklet had a ring on it and now they were made to sit while a chain was passed through each ring. Then the rings around their necks were removed.

  Throughout the afternoon and evening the hold continued to be loaded, filling up so that each person had room to lie down but nothing else. When it seemed like they couldn’t possibly fit in any more and the smell had already become overpowering, the hatch was slid across slicing away the small square of blue sky. Shortly afterwards, the ship raised anchor and began to move.

  For the first few days, they were kept below decks. They had to go to the toilet where they lay. Many were seasick so that a layer of human waste quickly built up on the wooden planking beneath them. They were given food once a day – sailors in boots stepped among them, giving each of them a bowl of some sort of porridge and a ladleful of water.

  As the voyage went on, the hold became hotter. When it became so hot that some of the occupants started to die, the hatch was slid back again to reveal a glaring blue sky with a tracing of feathery white clouds high up.

  There were women from the village chained on either side of Birkita. Both had lost children in the massacre. One of them, Amena, sat or lay silently, endlessly staring at either the side of the ship or the underside of the deck. One day when the bowls of food were being passed along, Birkita nudged Amena and found that she was cold and stiff.

  The woman on the other side of Birkita was called Kyna. She was petite, almost frail-looking, with thin arms and legs. The Romans had killed twins belonging to her. In the village, Kyna had always been viewed as mild-mannered, even timid. She seemed no different now as she sat, lay, ate and said little or nothing to Birkita or anybody else.

  Even with the hatch pulled back, it continued to get hotter. During the middle part of the day, the sun would shine directly down into the hold, baking the people unfortunate enough to be caught in its beam. When more occupants of the hold had died, the slavers decided they needed to do something else. One morning as the sun began its ascent into the sky and was beginning to edge into the hold, Birkita heard the sound of the leg chain being pulled through the anklet rings. The slavers ordered them up on deck. Shakily, since they had hardly moved since the voyage started, they climbed the wooden steps out into the blinding light.

  The first sensation Birkita felt was the warm breeze on her skin. It was like milk. As she became able to open her eyes, she saw that they were on a blue sea with an equally blue sky overhead. Sunlight glinted off the water sending up shards of light. There was a strong smell of salt and rope and grease. The ship whispered gently as it moved through the water. Ropes creaked and the sail made occasional swishing sounds. The air tasted like nectar as she took in great gulps of it.

  A number of the slavers had lined the rails on each side of the deck. They were armed with swords, whips, cudgels. The slaves were made to shuffle round the deck for several laps and then they were returned to the hold.

  This became part of the new routine. Each day the slaves were brought up in batches and spent some time on the deck in the air. The slavers prodded or whipped or hit them occasionally, but the slaves seemed happy just to be out of the hold and the routine soon became reasonably relaxed. It occurred to Birkita that in these circumstances it would be easy to escape – except where to? She knew how to swim but there was no land to be seen. She could drown herself but no, she would not do that. Not as long as the bull Roman lived.

  One morning she and Kyna happened to be out on deck when a voice called down from the lookout’s position high up on the mainmast. His extended hand was pointing off to the right of the bow of the ship. All eyes turned to look where he was indicating. There, on the horizon, faint but definite, was a thin purple stripe.

  Land.

  ‘They are nearly home,’ said Kyna.

  Startled, Birkita who was standing beside her, almost jumped.

  ‘What?’ she asked in surprise.

  ‘They are almost home,’ repeated Kyna. ‘To their families and their children. And with plenty of gold in their pockets. It will be a joyous homecoming for them.’

  Birkita looked at Kyna with one eyebrow raised.
She had been looking ahead as she spoke but now she turned to Birkita and smiled, a gentle, almost shy smile.

  ‘I suppose so –’ Birkita began but then Kyna moved swiftly out of the shuffling line of slaves.

  The nearest slaver to them was a tall, barrel-chested man with thighs like tree stumps. Kyna’s move took him by surprise and he was slow to respond. His sword was in his sheath and his hand went for the handle. He gripped it and Birkita saw the sword sliding out slowly. But then Kyna – little, frail Kyna – had caught him around the waist and with a terrible roar lifted him off the deck, landing his lower back onto the rail with a loud thud. She paused for an instant. The slaver hung over the side, his head out over the water. The other slavers were moving now, barging through the slaves, knocking them aside so as to go to their comrade’s assistance.

  The barrel-chested slaver tried to recover. He groped to find the rail and grip it so that he could pull himself back in. But now Kyna moved her arms down and locked them around his thighs. With another shout – this time it seemed, of triumph – she upended him over the side. As she did so, a slaver reached her and drove his sword into the soft part of her back just above the waist.

  The man in the water screamed. Even though she didn’t know his language, Birkita understood what he was saying. It was well known that many sailors couldn’t swim. If they went over the side, better to die straight away than linger.

  And so it was. Before anyone could throw a rope to him, he was gone, dragged down and lost in the wash of the ship.

  17

  ‘Surely you must be ready to start now?’ Julia says.

  ‘Not quite yet,’ Suzanne replies. ‘You’ve nearly reached Pompeii. I’m in Pompeii waiting for you. Or at least my character is. You keep writing.’

  ‘But how will your character and mine meet? How will I know where to find you?’

  ‘You’ll know,’ says Suzanne. ‘Now spoon me, please. I’m freezing.’

  Julia does as she is told and they press together.

  The first days of February. As cold as ever. Days of fog, of frost, of snow, of rain. Sometimes all four in the one day. Their work is hard and Julia is losing weight. Her clothes are loose upon her. But incredibly – miraculously even – she spends most of her time in the warm, sunny Mediterranean. There may not be much food there either, but at least she isn’t cold.