The One Man

by Andrew Gross

  “No.” Blum said. He’d been careless once; he didn’t want to arouse even the slightest suspicion over it. “Everyone was right. He must be dead.”

  “Well, at least you got the first-class tour of the place on your new job,” the man joked good-naturedly. “Don’t worry, many of us have had that pleasure. What was it you did before the war?”

  “We were milliners,” Blum replied. “My father had a shop with a small factory above it.”

  “Hats, huh…?” The man took off his own crumpled cap and inspected it. “Maybe if we ever get out of this hole, I’ll be in need of a new one.”

  “If we manage to get out of this hole, you may never want to take yours off ever again,” Blum played along, “for it will surely be lucky. Anyway, if you’re ever in Gizycko, be sure and come in. I promise you a good price on a new one.”

  “Maybe felt, this time,” the man said longingly. “With a nice, sturdy brim.”

  “Yes, beaver,” Blum said. “It’s by far the best.” He thought back to his father, who loved to take Blum through the factory above his shop. Workers, almost exclusively men, shaping and banding over machines. “Crushed and properly shrunk. It’s called pouncing. It—”

  Suddenly there were shouts and loud banging all around. Guards had come inside the barracks and were cracking their sticks into the walls and bedposts.

  “What’s going on?” people whispered worriedly. “Can you see?” Any unexpected intrusion filled the ranks with terror.

  “You are all in luck,” Muller, the Blockführer, announced, walking amid the bunks. “The Red Cross is coming tomorrow and we want you looking your best for them. Time to bathe and clean yourself. Leave all your belongings. You will be coming back shortly. Come on, get up! You’ll all feel one hundred percent better in an hour.”

  Uncertainty swept over them. Mixed with fear. The Red Cross? They had never been there before. In the children’s camp once maybe. Many of them had been in the camp for years. Are they lying to us? Was this finally it?

  “You know what that means. They are going to kill us,” someone cried out. “Just like Thirty-Four last week. They’re all gone!”

  “No, that’s silly.” Muller tried to calm things. “Where did you get such a notion? It’s just a bath. You’ll be no more dead than I am. And you’ll likely smell a whole lot better. And with no lice. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it? And your friends in Thirty-Four, they were just transferred. To a different work camp. So, c’mon, up, up, everyone! It’s for the Red Cross inspection. Everyone get in line! You know you can trust me.”

  One by one, people considered their options and slowly climbed out of their bunks. Anxiousness spread among them. Was this a ruse? Were they telling the truth? Was this the dreaded “selection” they’d all witnessed? Guards passed through the rows, knocking on bedposts, suddenly acting more like concerned caretakers than the ruthless killers they all knew them to be. “Come on now. Don’t be alarmed. No reason to worry here. Let’s go!”

  The man with the cap Blum had been talking to just sort of tipped it back on his head and muttered philosophically, “Perhaps that hat will have to wait after all.”

  Worry rippled through Blum. He knew precisely what was happening, where they were being taken. He’d seen Vrba’s and Wetzler’s reports. But of all the times … He had just found Mendl. One more day and they’d be gone. He jumped down from his bunk. Amid the unease and commotion, he searched for a way out. Maybe through the latrine. There were windows there. Then he saw that their kapo, Zinchenko, had made his way back there and in the same calming tone as Muller was reassuring everyone that it was nothing to worry about. “Nonsense, this is not a ‘selection.’ I’ll see you all there. You’ll likely be back here before I will,” he said, pushing those that had gotten out of their bunks but were making up their minds exactly what to believe toward the front. “Leave any possessions. In an hour you’ll be back.”

  His falsely solicitous tone alone was a dead giveaway of what lay ahead for them.

  Blum’s mind raced as everyone formed a line, as instructed. Were they so beaten down over time that when their number was finally up, it was easier just to submit than resist? Or the understanding that any resistance was futile anyway and merely delayed the inevitable?

  “Line up! Line up!” The guards pushed them all forward. One man remained in his bunk and tucked himself into a ball underneath his blanket in a desperate attempt to remain hidden. A guard merely tapped him on the leg and lifted the blanket with his stick. “Have you ever seen anyone so scared of a little bath? C’mon, no stragglers, you as well.”

  “No, no!” the prisoner shouted. “I don’t want a bath. I want to stay here.” He clung to the bedpost.

  “Get up now, Holecek!” Zinchenko came and pulled up the man off the bed.

  “Please … please,” he begged, clutching the kapo’s arms.

  “Go on now!” The kapo pushed him into line.

  The man in the tweed cap merely folded his blanket neatly and set it on the foot on his bunk.

  They know, Blum was certain. They had to know. It was no secret. Still, they were all just going to their fate like sheep.

  “We should fight,” someone said, lining up.

  “With what?” another asked. “Our fists? They have clubs. And guns. And there’s always the chance they’re right this time. The odds are better than to resist.”

  “Yes, my friend Rudi got a shower the other day and he came back just fine,” another confirmed. “We should just go.”

  Blockführer Muller barked, “Everyone stay in line and move outside!”

  Blum saw there was no option for him but to get into line as well. At the door, an officer was checking off their numbers. Guards were everywhere. Tonight, they’d brought out the whole playing team. There was no point in trying to make a dash for it. And to where? There was nowhere to go. Guards were watching every step, Blum gradually made his way to the front of the line. He pulled up his sleeve. “Mirek. A22327.”

  “A22327, an old-timer, huh?” The officer looked him in the eye and wrote it down. “Go ahead now. Enjoy your shower.”

  Outside, they huddled together in anticipation until the entire block had been emptied. Guards went through the barrack to make sure. Blum looked around. There were several helmeted soldiers just watching them, submachine guns drawn. To run would be to be cut down in an instant. The soldiers looked on with impassive stares on their young faces, fingers ready on the triggers.

  If there were any doubts before that this was no ordinary trip to clean themselves up for the Red Cross, it now became clear.

  A few of them began to whimper.

  “Let’s go, in a line, toward the front gate!” the officer who had been checking off numbers called.

  Toward the place where that awful smell emanated from. His heart beating fiercely, Blum looked into stonelike stares of the guards around them, knowing his life depended on making the right call on whom he could approach. He ran his hand along the inside of his waist seam.

  They began to march.

  “We’re finally going on Himmelstrasse,” someone muttered. The road to heaven.

  A few muttered prayers, the Shema, and some even wept. Others just kept looking around for a familiar face, saying over and over that it just can’t be true. It can’t be happening now. “Why us? There are still so many others.”

  “Our numbers just came up, that’s all. Say your prayers, Walter. We all knew it was just a matter of time.”

  “Why must we die? We can still work.”

  As Blum filed in, he vowed he would not go along without a fight. As his parents had gone. Lined up against a wall. Probably lied to just the same. Told they were just looking for someone inside. Then mowed down. His father, obedient to the end, probably reassuring his mother and Leisa not to fret, they’d all be back upstairs having tea in a matter of minutes. Blum trudged in step, his gaze darting around. There had to be a way out. There always was. As back in Krakow—a tun
nel, a rooftop. There was always something. If you found it.

  Then he remembered.

  One by one, as he went forward, he fixed on the guard’s faces. Who? One of them had to be the one.

  The one who would spare him.

  Under his shirt, he ripped through the seam in his waistband and took hold of the diamond that was embedded there. His heart was pounding.

  It was large, like a polished shell in his hand. Ten karats. Blum glanced at it for just a second, just to be sure.

  It was worth a bloody fortune.

  It’s better than cash, Strauss had said. In case you run into trouble.

  It had better work. Because it was his only chance.

  And this, Blum felt the panic start to rise up in his chest, definitely qualified as trouble.

  FORTY-SIX

  Blum clenched the stone tightly in his fist as he went along.

  “Don’t slow down! Keep it moving!” The guards pushed them along, people muttering, weeping.

  Knowing that his life hung on his next decision, Blum searched up and down the line of guards. They were positioned every ten paces or so, moving the line forward with their clubs and submachine guns. “Come on, keep moving. You’ll be happy when you’re clean.” Most were faces Blum had never seen; he’d only been in the camp for a day. He spotted Dormutter on his left side of the line, the one who had tormented him earlier with the waste buckets. That would be suicide, Blum knew. He saw another who had been at the front gate when he’d carried the pails through and to the ditch. And Muller, the Blockführer. What was it Blum had been told this morning? He just goes about his job. Nothing more, nothing less.

  Not him.

  Time was seeping away.

  Who, then? He searched the impassive faces. A wrong choice, and he would be shot on the spot right there.

  They trudged ahead in two rows, each maybe fifty yards long. Rostow, whose job he had taken this morning, was the row in front of Blum. No celebration now. Two rows behind him was the kind man who had taken him through his “rounds.” Even the blockschreiber, who had lasted so long here, two rows ahead, his head down.

  Nothing could help them now.

  As they neared the front gate, they merged with a line of women coming from the women’s camp.

  Their heads shaved, their haunted faces were white with the same unknowing fear.

  “Why us…?” a few pleaded to some of the men, sobbing. “We don’t want to die.”

  “Can’t you help us?” another begged.

  “We can’t even help ourselves,” a man said back to them. “What can we possibly do for you?”

  “Just be strong,” the man in the tweed cap, a few rows up from Blum, told them. “What else is there to say?”

  Everyone was praying, whimpering, but slowly stepping forward.

  Blum looked in the eyes of each of the guards. Who?

  They were now not far from the brick building with the circular chimneys. That was when, ahead of him, Blum spotted the reddish hair and thick lips of Oberscharführer Fuerst with a Luger at his side.

  Fuerst.

  The one who’d been pointed out to him this morning who might be “open to doing business.”

  It had to be him.

  Suddenly a woman with a scarf around her shaved head jumped from the line and cried out loudly, “I won’t go!” She broke away, defiantly shaking her head and seemingly heading at a brisk pace back toward the women’s camp.

  “Get back in line!” a guard ran up to her and shouted.

  “No, I’m going back,” she said, ignoring his command.

  “Get back now! Now!” the guard demanded, raising his submachine gun.

  “Get back! Come on back!” people from both lines called to her. “You’ll be—”

  Then it seemed to occur to everyone at once, what did it really matter? In minutes they would all suffer the same fate. Only hers would be quicker. The line stopped and they all went quiet, everyone watching her.

  “Stop!” the guard shouted, red-faced. The woman just kept on going, seemingly ignoring him. “Now!”

  There was a burst of gunfire. She fell forward, her tattered rag dress suddenly dotted in red. She continued to struggle, crawling, gasping for air, her fingers digging into the dirt. “Go on!” people in the line called out to her. “Go.” But the guard stood over her and the gun erupted again. Then there was a moment of silence as she just lay there.

  “Now, go! Go! Don’t even look!” Muller waved everyone on.

  The merged lines were fast approaching the crematorium gate. Soon it would be too late.

  Blum edged his way through the crowd toward where Fuerst was positioned. The Oberscharführer didn’t look like a man who was open for business. His SS cap was tilted to the side and he stood there with a stolid demeanor, without so much as blinking his eyes, waving everyone on with his gun. Blum knew, in a moment, if he’d made the wrong choice, it might well be over for him, just as it had been for that woman. But in only minutes they would all file into the flat-roofed building, the door closed behind, and they’d all be dead anyway. There was no other option.

  He was now on Fuerst’s side of the line, only a few feet from him. He clutched the diamond in his hand. This would be his only chance. He prayed those penetrating, stolid eyes had a mercenary spark behind them. Another step; they all inched forward.

  It had to be now.

  His heart racing, Blum broke out of the line and flung himself onto the startled German.

  “You! Get back in line!” Fuerst stepped back and raised his Luger, his eyes flashing with rage.

  “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! Please…” Blum begged him in German. He whispered, “I have something valuable if you get me out of this line. It’s a diamond. Ten karats…” He put his fingers an inch apart. “I have it on me. It’s yours. Just get me out of this line.” Their gazes locked for a moment. “What do you say?”

  At first, Blum was sure the German was about to squeeze the trigger and end it right there. Whatever “business” might be going through the guard’s calculating mind, there were simply too many people around to risk it.

  Blum was sure he was done for.

  Then the guard took hold of him and blurted out with a scowl of disgust, “You call me what, filth? Don’t lay your dirty hands on me. Get over here…” He pulled Blum out of the line. “And you too, bitch…” He grabbed a young woman out as well. “What did you say? Both of you, over here, on your knees!” He pushed them both around the corner of a long, flat building. “The showers are too good for you two!”

  As they turned the corner out of sight, Fuerst cocked his Luger, threw Blum against the wall, and shoved it underneath his jaw. The woman began to whimper, sure her end was close at hand. Blum felt the cold steel against his throat and said his goodbyes too.

  Then under his breath the guard hissed, “You’d better not be lying or I’ll put a bullet through your brain right now. Let me see it, quick! Don’t delay a second or they’ll be mopping you up where you fall.”

  Blum knew there was every chance Fuerst would simply take the stone and shoot him regardless. But he’d be dead in minutes as it was, so what choice was there?

  “Here.” He opened his palm and thrust the diamond in the German’s face. Fuerst stared at it, his eyes lighting up. Satisfied, he took the gem from Blum’s hand and stuffed it inside his uniform.

  Then he spun Blum around and put the Luger to the back of his head.

  “Please…” Blum stood there, his face against the wall, his heart hammering against his ribs. “I gave it to you. Like you asked.” He closed his eyes and waited for the darkness to overwhelm him. “We made a deal.”

  “You bought yourself some time, Jew.” The German spat. “But that’s all it is, time. Now get the fuck out of here.” He pushed Blum along the wall. “If I were you, I’d head into the first block I find before I change my mind.”

  “Thank you.” Blum’s blood started pumping again and he nodded. “I will.�
�� Then he looked at the girl. No more than eighteen, he thought. Pretty. White with fear. They both knew what Fuerst was about to do. Blum looked at him. “Her too.”

  “Her? She’s as good as dead anyway.” The German grunted. “Don’t waste your pity. For her, this is quicker anyway.”

  Terrified, the girl, who didn’t speak German but clearly understood what was being said, reached out and grabbed onto Blum’s leg. “Please, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me!” she blurted in Polish.

  He had the cash. He could barter for her life too. Any life is as worthy as another, the Midrash said. But that money was needed to bribe the guards tomorrow night. Without it, he had no way to get Mendl out. And that’s why he was here. Even now, he knew he had only seconds to get away without anyone seeing what was going on.

  “I’m sorry.” Blum looked down at her.

  “No, don’t go! Please…” She lunged for him in desperation, her wide eyes filled with terror.

  “Get away from here now,” the German said. “Or you both die.”

  Blum pulled out of her grasp and started to run, hugging shadows of the long, dark building, taking one last glance behind.

  He heard a shot. The woman’s sobbing pleas went silent. Then he heard a second one.

  The one Fuerst pretended was meant for him.

  “Filthy, fucking Jews,” the guard grunted loud enough to be heard back in the line, wiping his hands on his uniform.

  Blum hurried off in the darkness and turned at the far side of the building. Block 12 was just across the yard. If I were you, Fuerst warned him, I’d get into the first block I see.

  Blum ran across the yard and twisted open the outside door. People were huddled at the one window. “Who are you? What’s going on?”

  “I need a bunk,” Blum said. His heart almost clawed out of his chest. “I was in Twenty. We were being taken to the gas. I was able to bribe a guard…” He looked through the window and saw the end of the line of his block mates disappear toward the front gate.

  “You can sleep there.” Someone pointed to an empty spot.