The Black Life

by Paul Johnston

  ‘Why?’ Mavros asked. ‘What did your father tell you about him?’

  Yitzak Tsiako turned to him. ‘You have been doing your research,’ he said, his tone sharp. ‘Despite the fact that you are not one of us. What else has that loud-mouth Shimon told you?’

  Rachel leaned forward. ‘Please, Mr Tsiako, I have heard bad things about my great-uncle. If necessary, I will make recompense.’

  ‘Ha! What recompense!’ He rose. ‘There can be no recompense for what Aron Samuel did.’

  Mavros got to his feet and put his hand on the other man’s arm. ‘Please stay,’ he said simply. ‘The young woman has a right to know about her family.’

  Yitzak Tsiako eyed him suspiciously and then sat down. ‘It is true, I suppose. How will future generations make a better world if they don’t understand the mistakes made by their ancestors?’

  Rachel nodded. ‘Please tell us about your father.’

  After a pause, Tsiako began to speak in a low and monotonous voice, as if he were reading a religious text aloud. ‘My father was in Auschwitz-Birkenau with your great-uncle. You know what is the Sonderkommando?’

  They both nodded.

  ‘After the war, some Jews accused them of collaboration. This was unfair because, like anyone else, they wanted to stay alive. My father told me the stain of this work would never be cleaned from him, but he didn’t regret what he had done. He wanted to survive so that the family would continue – as indeed it has. My son was married recently.’

  Mavros and Rachel exchanged looks.

  ‘But he didn’t only work in the Sonderkommando. After the war, he and Aron Samuel killed many members of the SS, including guards from Auschwitz. They wanted to make revenge for the thousands of our community who were lost.’

  Mavros considered mentioning Shlomo Catan, the third avenger, but decided against sidetracking the speaker.

  ‘But my father, he lost appetite for this killing. He persuaded the others – there was another Thessaloniki man in their group – to return to Greece. My father became very devout. In fact he devoted the rest of his life to studying the holy books and educating those of the community in their complexities. He told me he separated from your great-uncle and the other man in Athens after quarrelling with them.’

  ‘Do you know why?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Tsiako said no more.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I need to understand everything.’

  ‘Young woman, this is not a burden you have to carry. Your great-uncle killed Nazis, as did my father. Aron never came back. You must imagine that he made his own peace with his conscience and with God.’ Yitzak Tsiako got to his feet again.

  Rachel stood up quickly and grabbed both his arms. ‘I must know,’ she said, her eyes on his.

  ‘You must know, you must know! Why?’

  Rachel sobbed – Mavros wasn’t completely convinced – and said, ‘My father is dying. He’s been searching for Aron all his life. He deserves this knowledge, whatever it is, before he takes his last breath.’

  Tsiako’s brow furrowed. ‘Very well,’ he said, but he remained upright and picked up his coat. ‘After the war Aron Samuel was solely responsible for the death of an SS sergeant called Knaus in a small town in eastern Bavaria. In the resulting fire thirty-seven people died, including nine children. As far as my father was concerned, your great-uncle had become the same as the enemy – a killer and a beast, who took pleasure in his work. You can say that the Lager made him that way, but not all survivors of the Sonderkommando behaved like that after liberation.’ He raised a hand. ‘Yes, I know my father was also an avenger. But his character was strong enough for him to stop and spend the rest of his life atoning. I’m sorry, Miss Samuel. Your family is tainted by Aron’s actions.’

  ‘He continued, didn’t he?’ Mavros said.

  Yitzak Tsiako put on his hat. ‘I heard so, though it isn’t common knowledge.’

  ‘Shlomo Catan told your father.’

  ‘You are well informed.’

  ‘Where did they go? South America?’

  ‘Yes. Excuse me, I must get home.’ Tsiako turned away without shaking their hands.

  Mavros glanced at Rachel. Her head was down.

  ‘We didn’t ask him if he saw Aron at the wedding,’ she said.

  ‘I think he would have mentioned it. In fact, I think he would have pushed your great-uncle in front of a car.’

  She nodded. ‘So Aron was one of the Nokmim, the Jewish avengers. They were not few.’

  ‘How many of them burned children to death?’

  She walked to the exit. ‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ she said, when he caught up. ‘I need to be alone.’

  ‘I presume your father isn’t really dying.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Mavros watched as she went down Tsimiski in the direction of the hotel, wondering if the hardness in her was a genetic link to Aron or the result of her own experiences, whatever they might have been.

  ‘Alex?’

  ‘Yiorgo! How are you?’

  ‘In pain and pissed off … more of the latter than the former.’

  ‘Hang on, let me turn the TV off. What’s up?’

  ‘They won’t let me out of the General Incompetence Hospital.’

  ‘I bet you’re the ideal patient.’

  ‘Huh. Guess who came to visit?’

  ‘That old comrade you go eating with? Apostolos?’

  ‘No, that tosser hasn’t turned up – which … now you mention it, is interesting.’

  ‘You don’t think the party’s behind the fire.’

  ‘Of course not. But they might know who is.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘Exactly. If I’m lucky, they’ll be going after the bastards.’

  Mavros shook his head. ‘Violence breeds violence.’ Yitzak Tsiako’s story about Aron Samuel was still fresh.

  ‘They burned my house down!’

  ‘You can stay with us.’

  ‘That’s what Niki said.’

  Mavros almost dropped the phone. ‘What? She ha … she doesn’t like you very much.’

  ‘That’s a two-way street. But she visited me.’

  ‘Amazing.’ Mavros hadn’t expected Niki to go through with it.

  ‘Yes. There was a cost attached, though.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘She wants me to … convince you to come back to Athens. We both need you.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘No, it’s true. You already know she does. And I … Alex, what am I going to do? All my stuff, Mother’s things …’ The Fat Man started to sob.

  ‘Come on, Yiorgo, we’ll sort out a place for you,’ Mavros said, feeling out of his depth. Although he and Yiorgos had faced death together more than once, he’d never seen or heard his friend in tears, even when his strong-willed mother, Kyra Fedhra, died. ‘You … you have kept up the insurance payments?’

  There was a series of gulps. ‘Yes … but that won’t pay for the place … to be rebuilt, let alone for my personal belongings.’

  ‘Listen, stuff can be replaced. Obviously not your mother’s things, but you can buy new kitchen equipment in her memory.’

  The Fat Man got a grip on his breathing. ‘I suppose so,’ he said listlessly.

  ‘And if you need more money I’ll find it for you.’ Mavros had no idea how, but he was feeling guilty. The attack on his friend’s house was aimed at him, he was sure.

  ‘Oh, that’ll be all right then,’ Yiorgos said ironically. ‘Super Alex flies to the rescue. I can sleep soundly now.’

  ‘Come on …’

  ‘No, you come on … back here on the first flight tomorrow, OK?’ The connection was cut.

  Mavros leaned against a wall, phone in hand. That was the comparatively easy part. Now he had to talk to Niki.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The heat. Thirst. The insects. Sweat. The runs. Water-purification tablets. The food. All that was easy enough to live with after the Lager. Fin
ding our targets in South America was difficult, even though we had money to bribe officials. How did we have money, you ask? There were prominent Jews in most countries and they were keen for Nazi escapers to be dealt with. They supplied us with identities and even arranged for Spanish lessons. We also robbed our victims and their helpers.

  We started in Argentina, where Perón had been an open supporter of Hitler and welcomed his followers. Anything can be bought anywhere, especially in South America, but it was almost impossible to obtain the new identities of SS men. Security was tight in the port of Buenos Aires when ships from Europe docked – we had been dropped on a deserted beach by a Greek captain, who was well paid – so we couldn’t spot the enemy arriving. Even our paymasters struggled, despite the fact that Perón was not hostile to their community and even appointed Jews to his cabinet. Finally an official with big gambling debts was identified and we got our first names.

  Initially the Nazis were kept in the capital city. After we and other groups had hanged some and thrown others out of their windows, they were moved into rural areas. It took us time, but we tracked them down. One hit, on a doctor who had worked with Mengele, needed three months of planning, though the execution only lasted two hours. He would have begged for his life, but we cut out his tongue. He would have wept, but we removed his eyes. You are shocked? Horrified? Remember what they did in the camps. Remember what the SS doctors did in Auschwitz, probably to my sister and niece. Be a man.

  Eventually it became too dangerous for us in Argentina and we went north. Paraguay was a good hunting ground. We were there several times over the years. It was comical to see Germans from big cities trying to run farms and logging businesses, despite the privileges they were given by the government. We became inventive, rolling tree trunks over our victims – after they’d heard the speech Baruh wrote, enumerating the sins of the German people and the Nazis and SS in particular. He became a fine orator and even Shlomo, whose inclination was more towards action, listened intently. I watched the effect of the words on the men pinned to the ground. They voided their bladders and bowels, they cried for their mothers, they begged for their families to be spared. I let their people live if they had married native women. I even let a German wife go because she showed genuine contrition. You wonder how I know it was genuine? I removed three of her fingers. I had learned in the Lager how to distinguish lies from truth. There is something in the timbre of the voice, the stance people take, the way their eyes move. If I knew that, why did I cut off her fingers? Why not? They took our people’s entire bodies by the million.

  Brazil, Chile, Peru, they were all profitable for us too, counting profit by deaths, of course. As the 50s progressed, however, we became aware that people were on our trail. Not just the Nazis and their friends – we were always too quick and cunning for them; but our own kind, members of the recently formed Mossad. The first meeting we had was in a suburb of Santiago – three of us and three of them.

  ‘The state is grateful for your work,’ the leader said. Even though it was a hot night, he was wearing a woollen pullover. Black, of course.

  ‘We are grateful for the state’s approval,’ I said, watching his right hand. There was a pistol in his pocket.

  ‘But your orders now are to cease operations and go home.’

  Shlomo took a step forward, but I caught his arm.

  ‘You have authority over us?’ Baruh asked quietly.

  ‘I have authority over all Israeli personnel in South America.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ I said, with a smile. ‘But we aren’t Israelis.’

  ‘You are Jews, Mr Samuel.’

  The conversation was in German, the only language we shared. How the guards in the Lager would have laughed.

  ‘Yes, we are Jews,’ Shlomo said. ‘Sephardic Jews from Thessaloniki. We don’t take orders from anyone. Why do you want us to stop slaughtering the bastards?’

  ‘That does not concern you.’

  I moved closer, watching his hand as it moved towards the butt of his pistol. ‘The state of Israel has powerful sponsors,’ I said, in a calm voice. ‘They do not want a trail of bodies. I imagine your victims disappear.’

  ‘While yours – at least more recently – are left in full view as examples.’

  Baruh laughed. Like us all, he had become inflexible in the pursuit of the enemy. ‘Examples to farm hands and native working men. We haven’t worked in cities for years.’

  ‘What will you do if we refuse?’ Shlomo demanded. ‘Shoot us?’

  The leader took out his weapon in a blur of speed and pointed it at my chest. ‘I hope it doesn’t come to that, but if we have to …’

  His comrades were pointing machine-pistols at the others, who responded by drawing their side arms. It was an Israeli stand-off, except that I raised my empty hands. It was obvious the time had come to move on.

  ‘Put your guns away,’ I said to the others.

  ‘What?’ said Shlomo.

  ‘Jews killing other Jews is the wet dream of every Nazi,’ I said. ‘Back off. We’ll leave it to the professionals.’

  The others stared at me in astonishment and then complied. Baruh looked like he had understood.

  ‘Again, your work is appreciated.’ The Israeli took a package out of his other pocket. ‘Passports and funds. Be aware that your friends will no longer supply you. Go to Washington DC – separately – and visit the Israeli embassy. You will be reimbursed for your actions. But they must cease forthwith. Is that understood?’

  I nodded. The others backed away into the darkness.

  Shlomo turned on me. ‘What are you doing?’

  Baruh laughed softly. ‘Always the bull in the marketplace. Aron has played them consummately. We take their money and get on with our work.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, we do as he said. I know you still have the appetite for vengeance – so do I – but we need to build other lives.’ I put my arm round Shlomo’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, we will still track down the murderers. But we will be more careful. I for one want to live to a great old age.’

  ‘Methuselah,’ Shlomo muttered. ‘The Nazis will grow old too.’

  ‘Not all of them,’ I said.

  So we went to the US by different routes. The passports were American and seemed to be genuine, which showed at least that not only Nazi rocket scientists and medical researchers were given citizenship by that country. I used the large amount of money I was given to set up a jewellery business in Brooklyn – that would have been some comfort to my father. I sold it for a large profit after five years and played the stock market carefully, using trusted advisers. By the early 60s I was very well off. Shlomo and Baruh both went back to Thessaloniki and studiously avoided each other. Of course, Mossad had changed strategy by then and pulled off the sensational abduction of Eichmann in 1960. That made me smile. Every summer the three of us met in a different country and executed Nazis that I had gathered information about. We did what the leader who warned us off had done – disposed of the bodies and left no evidence: for our own safety as much as anything else. Remember Zakar, the Jewish policeman I killed in Thessaloniki? I had no desire to be the victim of a young zealot like the one I had once been. As for the Communists, I had no interest in them. Stalin had proved to be little better than Hitler and I needed no command structure.

  What’s that? How did the beheaded men fit the modus operandi? Ah, that was in Paraguay in the late 50s. We were lucky. An SS man we were targetting – a former medical officer at Auschwitz – was joined by two men at the weekend in his ranch house outside a village. He worked part-time as a village doctor and was still carrying out experiments. We saw one child with a shaved head covered in scars. Anyway, his visitors, despite their tanned faces and country clothes, had a bearing that made us suspicious. We burst in on them when the native servants had left. The trio was drinking schnapps and smoking cigars.

  After we’d tied them to their chairs, I started the interrogation. The other two swore at me unti
l Shlomo and Baruh used their knives. Then they gabbled out their stories. One had been in an SS-Sonderkommando behind the lines during Operation Barbarossa, shooting Jews in their thousands in White Russia and the Ukraine. The other had been a guard at Treblinka. They were cowards and soiled themselves. The doctor was another kind, arrogant and pleased with what he had done and continued to do.

  ‘The non-Aryan races are sub-humans,’ he said, his voice high and unwavering. ‘You think that because you have weapons you are superior to us. No! A Jew is never more than an animal.’

  Shlomo stepped towards him, but I raised a hand.

  ‘Cut off the SK man’s head,’ I said.

  Shlomo did so, slowly.

  When he’d finished, I said, ‘It seems to me, Herr Doktor, that your friend has been slaughtered like an animal.’

  He was less sure of himself, but still held his head high. The Treblinka guard started to plead, falling silent only when Baruh brought his knife to his throat.

  ‘You Jews,’ the doctor said. ‘Only good for shepherding your own people into the gas chambers and pulling out their shit-covered bodies.’

  I told him I’d been in one of the Auschwitz-Birkenau SKs.

  ‘Why are you alive?’ he screamed. ‘You should be smoke and ash like the rest of your kind!’

  I nodded to Baruh, who decapitated the second Nazi, dropping the head on the table in front of the doctor.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ he shrieked.

  ‘Not much,’ I said. ‘I will let you live if you curse Hitler and Himmler, deny the validity of the so-called ideals of the Nazi state, and beg for your life.’

  It took time, but eventually he did all that, almost passing out from loss of blood. We bound the worst of his wounds so he was fully conscious when the sun rose. Then I sawed his head off with leisurely strokes of my blade.

  The photo was a memento, one of few we took or had taken. It meant a lot to all of us.

  TWENTY-NINE

  ‘Alex,’ Niki said warmly. ‘I’ve been thinking about you.’ She paused. ‘I’m in bed and I’m only wearing my knickers.’