Lovely Green Eyes

by Arnost Lustig

  “Aren’t you cold yet?” Estelle asked.

  “Not really,” Skinny lied.

  Was Estelle blaming her for having had only one man yesterday? Did the others have to make up the numbers? She did not make these decisions herself; Madam Kulikowa decided who was sent to her.

  “I’ve learned to count the time, not the number of bodies,” Estelle said. “How many hours I still have left.”

  That didn’t sound like a reproach.

  “Yes,” said Skinny.

  “It’s a shift, like the laundry women, coal miners, or the girls in the weaving shop. Like the girls in the bakery kneading dough.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “If somebody asked me what I’ve learned here, I’d say: To lie and to die.”

  “We aren’t dead yet.”

  “Twelve times a day,” Estelle repeated. “Today fifteen times. I don’t know where my family are or what has happened to them. My father, mother and sister. I drown it all in a lie.”

  The water splashed. Estelle was not lying now. Skinny began to suspect what was behind Estelle’s confidences.

  “I’d like to be able to handle it like going to work.”

  Skinny looked at her. In Estelle’s voice rang an echo of what she heard within herself. Estelle had never spoken in this way about her family. Was it better to know that they were dead or to be tortured by the uncertainty that she heard in Estelle’s voice? No-one knew who they killed, who starved to death or who was lost somewhere. She had been putting off her questions and her doubts from the first day she got to Auschwitz-Birkenau with her family. Now this seemed far away and long ago, but it was neither.

  The tubs stood about three yards from each other. It didn’t matter where each had come from, from what country or what region. Things vanished under a sea of ashes, of mud, of snow and ice, like abandoned islands in some nocturnal icy ocean. She washed herself thoroughly, everywhere, even the soles ofher feet. Who knew what she had stepped on when she came to the tub barefoot?

  In the sixth tub someone was singing. Ginger?

  Estelle washed herself with a large natural sponge which the truck from the Wehrkreis had brought. The men used them for washing the Oberführer’s car. Skinny’s ears were full of water. Estelle offered her the sponge.

  “Thanks.”

  “This soap is like sandpaper.”

  In the yard outside, the troops, ready for departure, were singing a song about Hitler. She could hear the shout Heil three times, and again three times.

  “They are pigs,” Estelle whispered.

  Skinny was anxious not to catch something from the water when she had so far avoided infection from contact – or so she hoped.

  “They think that we are the pigs. Me and you,” she answered.

  “If someone accused me of stealing your nose and we both knew that it wasn’t true because you have a nose on your face, I’d still feel guilty.”

  Estelle had never said anything like this to her before. She felt again that an inexplicable closeness to her, which she felt even when her friend was withdrawn. Skinny knew what it meant to feel guilty for what she had not done but would perhaps be capable of doing, though – fortunately or unfortunately – the opportunity would not arise. The idea seemed to bind them together, quite apart from what they had in common. They were also bound by what Estelle had said about her family, who were missing somewhere.

  “It’s what the cold and the snow are doing to us,” said Skinny.

  “I don’t know what the snow is doing to you. I heard they’re going to send us Italians. Men from Sicily have never seen snow. They’ve already had Slovaks, Estonians and Hungarians here. The girls before us had Frenchmen and Flemish.” Estelle paused.

  “Right to the last moment I didn’t know they were sending me here. There was talk of the ‘Hotel for Foreigners’, of some knocking shop for workers on ‘total employment’. Sometimes they have Waffen-SS brothels directly in the camps. I’m almost glad I don’t have to make my own decisions about myself. They told me I’d be an entertainer. I didn’t know what that meant. I thought it wiser not to ask. It was enough to be alive, the Oberführer said. His assistant was a whore they’d discharged from Spandau prison. How are you feeling?”

  “How do you think?” Skinny asked. “Fine.”

  “Like me,” said Estelle. “Before or after?”

  “I close my eyes,” said Skinny.

  “That helps?”

  “I don’t want to see anyone.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I didn’t know what eyes the devil had. Or his brothers. It never occurred to me that the devil had a military rank, from Obersoldat to Oberführer. Or that he wore a smelly uniform and didn’t wash his feet. Perhaps I should learn to shut my eyes like you.”

  It was said of Estelle that she was waiting for two gunners who shared her. The fact that the story came from Maria-from-Poznan was enough to make people doubt its truth. Maria was known as “The Toad” because she had cold lips and, as one soldier put it, everything that should be the very opposite was as cold as a dog’s snout. As for passion, she could at best talk about it. She was both cunning and stupid, as Long-Legs described her. She made up for her lack of beauty with perfidy. Beware of ugly people, Long-Legs insisted.

  The worst thing, though, was to fall for one of the soldiers. Those who drafted the regulations knew very well why an enduring relationship, for the same reasons as kissing or other amorous engagement, was forbidden. Only intercourse was permitted.

  Was it not dangerous enough for Estelle to have such raven hair and even the hint of a moustache under the nose? Were her father and mother ravens? Who knows who her father and mother are, Maria-from-Poznan said to Ginger in the latrine. They were with Smartie and Long-Legs, so she quickly shut up. It could get to the Oberführer’s ears.

  Estelle interrupted Skinny’s thoughts.

  “That Obersoldat who told me I had eyes like black coffee has had his number come up.”

  She didn’t say “And a good thing, too,” but her voice implied it. There was something in Estelle that Skinny couldn’t understand. Everything was boiling down to a struggle with time.

  The water in the tub was dirty now. Blobs of Vaseline were floating on its surface. Uncleanness washed off from their skin, out of their pores, from under their nails. Anything that did not readily dissolve needed vigorous scrubbing.

  “I feel swollen,” Estelle said.

  “I don’t see why.”

  “As though I was made of water instead of flesh and blood.”

  “You’re made of flesh and blood, all right.”

  “Mucous membranes and glands,” Estelle corrected her.

  “You seem normal to me.”

  “Like a lake when it overflows. Maybe they are normal discharges.”

  She told Skinny that for three nights running she had dreamt that they’d cut her in two with an axe, from her skull through her body to her crotch, and that both parts were alive and in the course of the night came together again and that she returned to her cubicle.

  “I can pretend anything now.”

  “I can’t manage that,” said Skinny.

  “I’m swollen like water,” Estelle repeated.

  They both climbed out. They dried themselves vigorously, to set the blood flowing through their veins and to get warm again. They dressed in haste.

  “Do you ever feel as if your blood is freezing inside you?” Estelle asked.

  On Sunday orders came for them to dig a well. Water from the cistern would be for the guards only. They could melt some snow in jugs.

  Skinny dreamt about rats. They were scurrying over the snow, down the stone floor of the corridor, between the water tubs. They talked to each other. An old rat said to its young: “What you can’t avoid you must endure.”

  They appeared in her dreams with the bodies of other animals, dogs, foxes, wolves or fish, but always with rat’s heads. When she opened he
r eyes they were gone. When she closed them, there they were again, running in front of her. They were shouting words of advice to her, but she could not remember a single one.

  “It’s best when you don’t even know who you’re with,” Long-Legs had said. Had she told her this during the night, or was it a dream?

  Twelve: Günther Eich, Brentano Wolfenstein, Bern Reding, Viktor Holz, Bertrand Heim, Fritz Barthelms, Gottfried Weinheim, Erhard W ie s e ntier – Kä hr in g, Erik Unruh, Kanfred Reinisch, William Pohl, Suardon Kann.

  The Oberführer – so he claimed – had given Tight-Lips her discharge papers in a sealed envelope. She was waiting for her escort to the “Hotel for Foreigners”. The Oberführer had been suspiciously silent. He hadn’t accused Tight-Lips of anything, nor had he ordered her to be put up against the wall. He’d merely forbidden her to talk to Madam Kulikowa. She thought it a little odd that she hadn’t even received a whipping.

  The following morning, instead of getting an escort, she went to the wall. They could hear three salvoes, and no vehicle arriving or leaving.

  By now they knew what had happened. A corporal in the sappers had been in the cubicle with Tight-Lips rather longer than he was entitled to be. The Madam had been about to ask the Oberführer whether she should point out to the corporal that his time was up, when Tight-Lips emerged, as white as a sheet. She had heard the Madam’s bell outside her cubicle. The corporal had had his fun with Tight-Lips – he had shaved her crotch with a razor. Then he had laughed, saying that she looked like a plucked goose. Now and again he had played with the razor, dangerously close to her abdomen. Because she said nothing, he also tried to communicate with her with his eyes and with gestures. Eventually he had stripped naked. His gaze had been wild; he had been like a man on fire. He had pulled out his pistol, slipped back the safety catch and in front of her shot himself through his left eye.

  Oberführer Schimmelpfennig established from the Gestapo that suicide ran in the corporal’s family. His father, a captain in an infantry regiment, had shot himself through the heart in front of his wife, the corporal’s mother.

  The Oberführer informed the Madam curtly that neither he nor the Gestapo intended to explore why such elements killed themselves. He considered the chapter closed.

  For a few hours the temperature rose. The sun came out and gilded the snow.

  “Some places you can swim to, others you can’t,” Long-Legs said.

  Ever since she was eleven she had known that life was not as simple as she would like. It was a mysterious ocean, with shallows and depths, calm and treacherous; with currents and whirlpools, generally indifferent to the fate of girls like her. She recalled how at home she used to look forward to winter, to spring, to waking up in the morning.

  “Sometimes they let you choose, but mostly they do the choosing.”

  “In Japan ‘menstruation’ is a taboo word,” she said.

  “We must try,” Madam Kulikowa said at breakfast. They had finger-thick chunks of army bread with thin strawberry jam made from potatoes, as well as a frozen jacket potato. They were drinking coffee made from roasted acorns. They had been sweeping the snow in the yard since five in the morning.

  “Why?” asked Smartie, swallowing a piece of chewed potato skin.

  “That’s life,” replied the Madam. “You go through doors which are forever being closed.”

  She had a homily for them every morning. The notion of a door being slammed shut in someone’s face if she hadn’t put her foot against it and pushed with all her strength was one of these. The girls gulped the hot brownish-black liquid to get warm. Soon they would go to the latrine, into the tub, and to their cubicles. The Madam had other favourite adages: Number one: When a cockerel arrives he wants a hen. Number two: Even a gold ducat passes from hand to hand. Number three: A proper girl can handle a drunkard and a brawler. And: A wise girl does not complain.

  The sun was not out for long. The sky clouded over and it began to snow. The wind sprang up.

  Later, while they were clearing the snow, the army radio operator found some music – the Peter Kreuder Ensemble. On German forces radio, the war seemed a cheerful business, in dance rhythm.

  Twelve: Valhardt Wolf, Stefan Gunther, Alois Merinda, Michael Brunner, Julius Pfeiffer, Franz Kowacz, Herbert Pox, Paul William Wechsler, Juraj Klokocznick, Fred Robert Glas, Franz Grub er, Adalbert von Abele.

  That evening, Long-Legs was bleeding from her bottom.

  “I’m like a sewer,” she said.

  She hadn’t been able to see her way back from the latrine. The Oberführer had ordered the fuses to be taken out. There was no light in the dormitory. A single oil lamp was flickering in the corridor, but the wick was low and the flame nearly out. In Long-Leg’s eyes there was no pride, only contempt and possibly hatred. Everyone knew she would not see the doctor. Instead of treating her, the Oberführer would send her straight to Festung Breslau. There was lethargy and weariness in her eyes.

  “They’ve turned us into whores.”

  They could hear the Oberführer outside in the corridor. He was instructing Big Leopolda Kulikowa to save water. The water tanker had not arrived.

  “The pure race,” Long-Legs grimaced.

  She kept her pain to herself. Wouldn’t it be better not to live? Was her soul shrivelling like a wilting flower? She was still bleeding.

  “I have no soul. It’s my bottom that’s bleeding.”

  Skinny was ashamed to look away. She was glad it was dark. She gave Long-Legs her cotton wool, and two sticking plasters. Long-Legs put a sand-filled pillow under her behind, but that was uncomfortable.

  Beautiful also gave Long-Legs her cotton wool.

  “I hope this won’t happen to you,” Long-Legs said.

  “I hope so too,” said Skinny.

  “He flung the S S Guidance Brochure Number 17 on my bed, saying it was good reading material.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked Skinny.

  “I’ve got goose-bumps all of a sudden.” Skinny said.

  “He rolled on the floor with me,” Long-Legs said. “He didn’t like the smell of the bed.”

  They heard a noise outside as a truck arrived from the Wehrkreis with two crates labelled Schutzgummi, rubber sheaths.

  Long-Legs said she was afraid of dogs. While she was in the latrine she’d overheard the handler of thirteen German Shepherds from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, delivered by a Czech police officer, explain to the Oberführer and commander of the brothel that somewhere near Prague dogs were now being trained to obey German commands. These dogs were a super-breed – their jawbones had a strength equal to the pressure of 1,000 to 5,000 pounds per square inch. Their bite left a deep wound – a hole where the flesh had been torn out, extremely painful even when a scab had grown over it – and caused damage to the nerves. The dogs could tear an eye from its socket, along with a chunk of face.

  “Beauties,” the Oberführer had said appreciatively. The new dogs had the strength of wolves. They were to be fed pork and beef, as well as offal.

  Long-Legs learned too, that, faced with an enraged animal, she had to stand motionless like a tree on a windless day. An animal should not be annoyed while it was feeding or nursing its pups. The main thing was not to shout, or to stare into the dog’s eyes.

  Part Two

  Six

  Things had happened fast in that part of Poland by the River San. The Germans had been retreating, like a ram lowering its head in resistance while edging backwards on its four legs. They were defending every inch of foreign soil as though it were theirs. The brothel was evacuated and Skinny escaped from the marching column. She was saved by the confusion that swept Poland and soon also Germany, creating a level of disorganization never previously experienced in Europe. She lied, she changed her identity, she stole when she had to. She let herself be hired for work in a laundry with the help of a Polish girl to whom she promised half her wages. Then the Polish girl disappeared, but not before she had obtained p
apers for Skinny that said in effect that her identity could not be established. She could pretend to be a deportee, and she received a work permit and an identity card. There were about 100 women working at the laundry. Katowice was quite close and she went there several times with the girls, once even for a dance. She also helped out in a kitchen at the railway station. After a long, dreadful time she ate her fill nearly every day.

  I had not seen Skinny since September. I found her again in Prague about three months after the end of the war. It was a hot August; the days were close, with sudden brief thunderstorms. She attracted me with something that I probably would not have liked in another girl. I sensed right from our first meeting in Prague that there was in her something she didn’t wish to talk about and which I should not even wish to know. But, as is natural, this made me even more curious. And the more curious I was the more reticent she became.

  Some people in Prague were told they should not have come back but stayed where they were. One of them jumped out of a window. He had been a machine gunner in the eastern army. Two of his brothers were killed and he had lost his father, his mother and three children. His heavy Maxim gun, so recently effective against the Germans, didn’t help him with peacetime. He wrote a farewell note that was published in the Bulletin of the Jewish Communities; they printed it on the last page.

  Skinny thought it odd that there could be anti-Semitism when there were so few Jews left. It was rumoured that nine-tenths of them been killed. Suddenly we realized that one could survive the war and be defeated after it. But that, our mutual friend Ervin Adler argued, was not our affair. Could the echo be stronger than what had produced it?

  While in the camps, we had idealized the outside world, not realizing that it didn’t give a damn about us. Between us and them were invisible shadows, fences and barriers. Some of the walls were high and thick; getting over was not easy. For a while we each remained behind our walls, peeping at one another over the top. Adler had met an elderly gentleman in the park who, after gazing at him for a long time, eventually summoned the courage to ask him whether, by any chance, he had also come back from a concentration camp. Before Adler could even reply the man said, “I do apologize.”