The Ryer Avenue Story: A Novel

by Dorothy Uhnak

  Ben had spoken to him several times, had taken the measure of the man who foresaw a golden future for himself working with his American colleagues. And how did he feel about the camps?

  Terrible. They were a wartime expediency. No one, certainly not he or any of his colleagues, had any idea at the beginning that the concentration camps were anything more than a preliminary stop in a resettlement plan for the Jews and other undesirables.

  But that, he felt sure, would all fall into the past. Life must move on. America must be ready for the real enemy of the world, the mutual enemy of all of Europe and all mankind: the Communists. What was done would be history, but the future could be shaped and controlled.

  He settled into the hard wooden interview chair, and crossed his legs, anticipating the preliminary cup of coffee. The Americans had no idea what a cup of real coffee meant to those who had been deprived of this simple pleasure for so many years. It was an elixir of ecstasy, beyond description. Real coffee. American coffee.

  After the corporal set out the cups on Ben’s desk, he was dismissed. What was to be discussed was top secret, between the captain and the prisoner. The corporal was to stand guard outside the office in the interrogation barracks. No interruptions.

  The coffee cups steamed. The fragrance was almost maddening.

  The SS lieutenant, a medium-sized, slender man with a grayish complexion, poor eyesight not helped enough by outdated spectacles, a habit of licking his lips before speaking—an unprepossessing sight in baggy army fatigues—tried not to stare at the coffee cup. He tried to distract himself. His eyes tried to trace the contours of the desk, to estimate the measurements: height, length, width. God, hurry up and give me that coffee.

  Captain Benjamin Herskel passed the palm of his hand over both cups, as though warming himself, then nodded. Go ahead, help yourself. He pushed one of the cups toward the prisoner.

  Trying to maintain his dignity, trying not to make too much of it, the prisoner nodded, lifted the cup, took a small sip, and then, overcome by the fragrance and the teasing sip, took a large swallow.

  And then he pitched forward, the cup falling from his hand, his face landing in the scalding puddle.

  Ben walked around quickly, lifted the man’s right hand and rubbed a tiny amount of cyanide under the thumbnail, knocked the chair over so that his loud voice added to the commotion. The corporal opened the door and saw the captain, standing over the prisoner.

  “For Christ’s sake, get a medic here.”

  “The bastard has taken cyanide,” the Army surgeon said. He lifted the man’s right hand and sniffed. “He must have had it concealed under his thumbnail.”

  Ben told his commanding officer that the prisoner had seemed somewhat more nervous than usual when he sat down. He had stared at the coffee, sighed, reached for it, sipped and said, “A wonderful last taste,” then flicked his thumbnail against his teeth. He had pitched sideways, the cup flying from his hand. He was dead instantly.

  The colonel was furious. What the fuck kind of security do you call this? He ordered a complete inch-by-inch search of the prisoners’ quarters, as well as a strip search of each of the protesting officers, their dignity be damned, their word of honor not worth shit. He then ordered the company barber to cut the SS officers’ nails to the quick. The company dentist yanked and examined every crown in every mouth. There would not be a repetition of this under his command.

  And there wasn’t.

  Ben waited nearly two weeks. Each prisoner was strip-searched before interrogation; but not after. Their barracks were scoured each morning. There was no cyanide to be found anywhere.

  Captain Herskel palmed the small Walther PPK 9mm Kurz automatic pistol in his left trouser pocket as he studied SS Captain Rudolf von Zeeland. He was a tall, well-built man in his early thirties, the perfect German stereotype. Blond, blue-eyed, handsome, and arrogant.

  Although it was obvious he wanted the offered cup of coffee, he shook his head and declined politely.

  The captain, though a scientist, had been little more than an accountant when assigned to Auschwitz. It had been his responsibility to estimate, to the last pfennig, what the operation of the camp had cost the Third Reich and how the expenses, toward the end, could be reduced. His written recommendations included sending younger prisoners to work at Farben. Surely children could do some of the simpler tasks, and if they were in reasonably good health they would last longer, provided they were not exposed to the illnesses of the camp. Anyone showing the first signs of contagious disease should be eliminated at once. Also, children required less in the way of nutrition. A detailed accounting plan, in the captain’s name, had been found among the half-destroyed records.

  He denied none of this. But what he had of value to the Americans—or to the Russians, should they have captured him—was secret information relative to work being prepared for the future in the laboratories of I.G. Farben. A chemist by training, he had seen and memorized documents of great value, plans that could be implemented by either side for great advantage over future enemies.

  His assignment was a matter of bookkeeping. He gave advice to those running the camp. He personally had never killed one single person. His work was theoretical; what was done with his calculations was none of his business. He fulfilled his orders and waited for his next instructions. His orders to leave Auschwitz never came, owing to some high-command foul-up. Things got very complicated and chaotic toward the end, but he should not be confused with those who actually ran these death camps, who actually murdered people. And remember, those who went to the ovens were the diseased and the disabled. Would America really want to undertake their medical care and rehabilitation? Think about it.

  The children? His recommendations had provided for their well-being. Children were resourceful, and could survive. He had kept them from the ovens by recommending that they be put to work at jobs they could handle. He’d saved their lives. Think about it.

  He spoke in a reasonable voice, with no attempt to persuade or influence. What he said was true, who could quarrel with this? The Americans were going to process him into their own system because he was of value, that was the way of the world. What he had done here was incidental to the information he could provide to American intelligence.

  “All that you are required to do, Captain, is to record my civilian background and my wartime record and my proof that I was in fact in a position to gather the information I have volunteered to share with the Americans. It is not your position to judge me. You know nothing of the reality of the situation here, in these camps.”

  Ben Herskel leaned back in his chair. He clenched his teeth to control the emotions he felt. He must be very quiet, very calm, very persuasive. This bastard must believe him implicitly.

  Without a word, Ben brought his chair to the floor with a thump. He stood up, dug in his pocket, and put the dark blue Walther PPK on his desk, close to the prisoner.

  “This is for you, Captain.”

  The German smiled, looking questioningly at his interrogator. “So? The Walther is for me?”

  “Listen very carefully, Captain. And believe every word I tell you. There is a plot against you personally, and I have proof of the reality of this plot. Among the survivors in the hospital are three men whose children were sent to the Farben works and whose corpses were returned for cremation. Eight-year-old boys. Also in this compound are two Russian scientists we have been rehabilitating. Men you ‘questioned.’ Men who have scores to settle with you.”

  “And this Luger you are giving to me for my protection? I don’t understand?”

  “Their plan, Captain, is to kidnap you. They have it well worked out. They will take you off into the woods. They will castrate you, stuff your genitals in your mouth, and force you to watch your own slow, systematic disembowelment. They say you have supervised such deaths yourself. Don’t deny it, or speak about it. I really don’t care. This is what they have told me.”

  “But surely your superiors have
ordered extra security for me so that—”

  “I am the only officer who knows of this plan. They don’t just want your death, they want it to be a certain kind of death, Captain. And I should tell you their plan is to cut your corpse into pieces and return it to your barracks for your fellow officers to see.”

  He reached for the Walther, “There is one bullet, Captain.” Ben carefully took the barrel of the gun and demonstrated, placing it in his mouth, and then removed it. “Your choice. A clean death or they get you. You can complain to anyone you want, Captain. I’ll deny everything I’ve said here, and they’ll never find anyone to back you up. But it will happen. Since we are both officers, I’m offering you a clean chance. An officer’s death, although, God knows, you don’t deserve it.”

  The German reached for the small automatic, weighed it in his hand. He pointed it at Ben. “And what if I put it to your head, Captain, and kill you.”

  Ben shrugged. “Then you will hang.”

  The captain slipped the pistol into the pocket of his baggy fatigue jumpsuit. He reached then for the cup of coffee, which was cold. He drank it down in quick gulps. “Is this where the cyanide was?”

  Ben shrugged.

  “You are very clever, Captain. But then, you Jews are all clever. For all the good it did you. I regret nothing, Captain. Nothing.”

  “Good. Then you won’t regret your own death.”

  That night, at a little after midnight, there was the sound of a single shot in the SS officers’ barracks. Captain Rudolf von Zeeland had put the barrel of a Walther PPK in his mouth and blown off the top of his head.

  The entire security staff was replaced and appropriate entries made on their records.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IT HAD BEEN MADE VERY CLEAR TO MEGAN Magee that had there not been a war, she would never have found a place at the Columbia School of Physicians and Surgeons. It was bad enough that they’d had to accept lesser students in order to fill the vacancies left by those students who had been drafted or who had volunteered.

  The school was filled with 4-Fs, those who ordinarily wouldn’t have been accepted—such as Megan, for God’s sake, a girl—a polio-damaged girl, at that—and, fortunately, those able-bodied young men who had been smart enough to get a deferment.

  Megan was the only woman student in the dissection room. She shared a corpse with Tim O’Connor, who, of the two of them, was the one to turn slightly green when they made their first cut. On the third day of dissection, when Megan approached her table, there was a medium-sized, gaily wrapped package with a gift card in her name. Carefully she glanced around the room, but everyone seemed too busy to look at her. She ripped off the gift wrapping, pried open the box, and studied the contents: a complete set of male genitalia, testicles and shrunken penis, tied with a pink ribbon. A note was attached: “You probably wanted this all your life. So here it is!”

  Megan waited until after class, until the professor had left the students to clear off their various tables. She carried the gift box to the front of the room, cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention. She held the box up and said, “Gentlemen, I’m sure every single one of you in this room is probably missing the items that were left on my desk by mistake. So, although it’ll be difficult for the donor to claim this—after all, you don’t have the balls, do you?—I’ll leave this here for you ‘gentlemen’ to deal with.”

  She left the room and the matter was never referred to again.

  In her second year in medical school, Megan Magee became pregnant. The tall, lanky, blandly handsome Tim O’Connor, whom she tutored through anatomy and supported during dissections, stared at her with horror that slowly gave way to calculation.

  He had been a sweet, mild-mannered friend, admitting Megan’s superior academic proficiency with far better grace than most of their colleagues. He had accepted her generosity with gratitude and honesty. If it hadn’t been for Megan’s noncompetitive kindness, he wouldn’t have gotten through. Mean-spirited competition seemed the norm, and it occasionally became vicious. Megan was also a gifted teacher. She made the incomprehensible logical and clear.

  One evening, exhausted by the long hours, the prodigious amounts of esoteric information she had helped him to absorb, touched by her continuing confidence in him, overcome by the glow of her pale freckled face, the golden amber warmth of her eyes, the tilt of her nose, the softness of her lips, the strong slenderness of her body, he made love to her.

  Carefully he avoided contact with the steel-encased withered leg. Gently, recognizing her virginity, he performed with sweetness and consideration. Only once, deep into his passion, he whispered moistly into her ear, “Is it safe?”

  Megan, who had not had any reason to calculate, to anticipate this event, ignored the question.

  She was certain before the first-month morning sickness, and by the time she skipped her second period, she knew she had to tell Tim O’Connor.

  Of course, it was all her own fault. Megan understood that. From earliest school days through their senior year at St. Simon, the girls had learned a liturgy of responsibility:

  If you stand on a subway platform and there’s a man across the way, turn your back on him. If you look at him, he will assume you are interested in whatever dirty thing he will be tempted—by you—to do. Because you are looking at him.

  If you go to a movie—never alone—always sit with a woman on either side of you or a man will think of you as fair game for his dirty acts. (She and Patsy had always attracted perverts; in the movies, in the parks. God, there must have been something about them, some signals coming from them; their fault; their sin.)

  If you walk alone on the street, keep your eyes straight ahead or slightly down. Otherwise, men will assume you have loose morals and will act accordingly toward you. Never, ever, even glance at a man alone in a car. You know why.

  If you wear perfume, it can drive even the mildest of men to terrible acts. Same with scented shampoo. Use Ivory soap. It does the job and you will be as clean as an innocent baby.

  Makeup implies a young girl wants to attract the wrong kind of attention.

  Smoking cigarettes, especially in a public place, advertises looseness and availability.

  Go only to dances sponsored by church organizations and chaperoned by Sisters. Go home only with other girls or parents. Don’t go home with anyone’s brother but your own. After all, they are males.

  If you wear immodest clothes—any form of slacks or shorts; in fact, anything more revealing than the large and shapeless school uniform—you are encouraging the lustfulness of men. (No one knew that Catholic girls in plaid skirts and knee socks excited certain types of men, probably former repressed Catholic schoolboys.)

  Megan had once asked Dante, her true friend, what boys were taught. He grinned, made a mock fist, and touched her chin. “We—all males—are wicked, lustful and disgusting, and need a lot of sports and cold showers. You females are out to corrupt us at every turn. I’ll tell you, kid, it sure gave us ninth-graders something to think about. Especially in the late hours of the night. More solitary sins were committed on the nights of our lectures about sin—solitary and otherwise—than at any other time!”

  And so Tim O’Connor was right to that extent. It was her fault that she was pregnant. Megan realized and accepted that. She never should have gone to his apartment. He was only a weak, lustful man and she had tempted him by her very presence. He was defenseless.

  Tim O’Connor seemed to shrink and grow younger as she told him. She could see the scared little boy he had been, heard it in his first words, “Oh, my God, my father will kill me.”

  It was a stupid reaction, but Megan felt a wave of sympathy for his distress. She knew how hard he had worked, how difficult it was for him, the hope of his family. He was the only son among five children, and they had put it to him when he was just a kid. No fire department or police department, no priesthood for the only son. Because his early report cards were far better than his sisters
’, because his conduct was exemplary and he was willing to spend hours studying, memorizing at times without understanding, he had been marked out by his family. His father was a steamfitter, but way back, in the old country, in better times, the O’Connors had been scholars and doctors and lawyers. The O’Connors in America would see the glory of their family restored through their son.

  Immediately, Tim caught himself and reached out for Megan. He was a good Catholic boy; he knew the rules. This was a good girl and they had sinned together. It was his responsibility as well as hers.

  “Megan, it will be all right. We’ll get married. My family will help me. Maybe your family—since you’ll have to leave school—maybe they’ll help with my tuition and all. Oh, Megan.”

  She reached up and touched his stricken face gently. He looked as grey as a cadaver—a man who has just seen his future unexpectedly, irrevocably destroyed.

  “Timmy, it’ll be okay. Thank you, but there’s no way I can marry you.”

  She almost laughed at the childish relief, the unguarded expression of new hope.

  “I meant it, Megan. I will marry you. If you want.”

  “Oh, Tim. No. I don’t want.” She hesitated, then said, “I’ll have to do something about it.”

  He turned away, unwilling to face what she was suggesting, but Megan reached up and brought his face around to hers. For a silent moment there was no misunderstanding between the two medical students.

  “Megan, I wouldn’t know how to … I couldn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you, Tim.”

  The reality of what she was talking about filled him with new terror. “Megan, we’ll get married. Look, other people have been in this situation. It’ll work out.”

  “You don’t get it, Tim. I don’t want to get married. I want to be a doctor as much as—more than—anyone we know.” She traced his frown lightly with her fingertips. “It’ll be okay. Just don’t ask me any questions. Not ever.”

  “Megan, it would be a mortal sin. You couldn’t—”