Touching the Wire

by Rebecca Bryn

  We have no water, splints or dressings. There is little light to work by. Yet more cases of diarrhoea this morning. Blankets are soiled with excrement and there is only one per bunk. Why did they build this place where there is only swamp water? Potable water is a scarce resource. Do we give a sip to ease a fever or use it to prevent spreading infection with unsterilized medical instruments?

  She’d imagined an infirmary of years ago, before wards were divided into smaller units. Rows of neat iron-framed beds with clean sheets, not tiers of filthy bunks crammed to breaking point: death traps. The script led her on.

  I have witnessed such things today as can only be works of the devil. Why does God allow this torture of innocents? Dr Josef Mengele pursues the vision of the master race with the insane fanaticism of Hitler. He sees twins as the key to doubling the speed of the breeding programme and furthering his understanding of genetics. Little twins killed with chloroform. He compares their bodies like lab specimens and makes meticulous notes. He injects methylene blue into the brown eyes of living children to see if he can turn them blue, as if he could make pseudo-Aryans to populate Hitler’s new Europe. He has created Siamese twins, an abomination before the God, above whom he sets himself. I can do nothing openly to stop this suffering but must resist in any way I can. He knows of my love for Miriam and my care for my patients. If it is discovered I work to oppose the Nazi will, I will not be the only one to die.

  She swallowed hard, struggling to hold down her lunch.

  Blindness and terrible pain was caused by the methylene blue. His research has no validity. Why does he persist in it?

  The next entry looked penned with a shaky hand. Today I saw into his office. He has pairs of eyes pinned to the wall like butterflies. He talks of experimenting with freezing to see how long a person can endure. He justifies it saying it will aid treatment of pilots shot down in the sea. There is no justification for his methods. What can he learn by removing a little boy’s limbs? Or killing his twin as a control to observe changes in organs? Or removing those vital organs while they still live? If he is not mad then he is evil. How can I stop him murdering children without endangering more innocent lives than I save? I would pray to God if I still thought he existed. They say the Nazis hung God on their gallows.

  She knuckled away tears, but it wasn’t her tears that blurred the ink. He gives them chocolate. They call him Uncle Mengele, the Good Uncle. He plays games with them, and then he tortures and kills them.

  The huge grey ghost of Wselfwulf lurked, licking hungry lips. Had it only been a story, or something more? Grandpa had survived these horrors but what had happened to Miriam and Mary, and the rest of Miriam’s family?

  ***

  Monday morning, and Charlotte woke sweating. Mengele had ridden her nightmare like all four Horsemen of the Apocalypse at once. Nauseous at the memory she reached out, but her hand felt empty space. Adam had been gone for two weeks, two weeks when she’d longed for his every call, two weeks when she’d tried to find the courage, the words, to end their relationship. He’d been frantically busy with his new job and trying to house-hunt at weekends, but they’d e-mailed, texted and spoken on the phone every day, several times a day. The more she vowed to end it, the less she was able.

  The worm of guilt twisted in her gut: sometimes a whole hour would pass without her feeling guilt at all. Maybe, if she could learn to live with it, Adam need never know. The worm twisted tighter… guilty, guilty, guilty. She showered, forcing her mind to the day ahead. Today she had her appointment at the clinic.

  The possibility of a serious underlying medical condition made her feel sick. She forced down coffee; she’d skip breakfast. She took her coffee into the living room and caught sight of the tin box sticking out from behind the sofa. She opened it reluctantly, covering her mouth with her hand at the sight of the gold. She removed the wedding ring and pushed the box back behind the sofa, out of sight. If this ring had been taken from the dead, wouldn’t there have been other jewellery? She wanted no part of the gold, but this could have belonged to Miriam.

  She put it in an envelope and slipped it into her pocket for safekeeping. She’d promised Albert she would take Lucy to visit him and before that she had to show her sister the diary. She only just made it to the bathroom in time.

  In Adam’s absence, she reviewed her decision. She would press for the gold and copies of the documents to be sent to the holocaust museum, at Terre Haute. The originals, if Gran agreed, Adam would take to Duxford for further study, and more copies she would take with her when she made a personal pilgrimage to Auschwitz-Birkenau as a gift for the museums there. That way, no part of the truth could be hidden. The children of Auschwitz deserved whatever justice they could garner from the records for which Grandpa had risked his life to bring to England. Maybe later, when the diary had given up its secrets, if Gran agreed, it too would find a home at Auschwitz.

  She recognised the truth of what Albert had said; Grandpa, knowing the evil of Mengele and Schmitt, and the danger of Nazi sympathisers, had been afraid for his family’s safety, but could she condone his keeping silent all these years after what he’d witnessed? The thought nagged at her, her own silence informing her thoughts. By not telling Adam she’d slept with Robin, she was consenting, in her own way, to betraying his trust.

  Seduction by need was hardly the same crime as murder, however much she regretted it, but had it been Robin’s need or her own? Adam said people would have killed for the information Grandpa brought out of Auschwitz, or to keep it hidden. Had Grandpa done the right thing? What would she have done in Grandpa’s place? What would Lucy have done? Put like that the answer was clear enough, Lucy would die for her children, but Grandpa must have known he was in danger: a danger. He’d fallen in love; would he have risked marriage and a family if he hadn’t found out Gran was pregnant? He’d hidden the truth all those years but those who might have endangered them were surely long dead or, like Albert, verging on senility.

  Mengele may have escaped justice but she would make sure those others, like Hans Wolfgang Schmitt, were named and the evidence made public. Grandpa had held back, despite his last Latin quotation. The unfulfilled command drove her relentlessly. Let justice be done though the heavens should fall.

  She retched in the toilet and flushed away drinking water that would have kept camp internees alive for days. She took a bottle from the bathroom cabinet to do the urine sample the clinic would want, and knocked a packet to the floor. It was a pregnancy testing kit she’d bought months ago, in a hopeful moment, and had found among the toiletries she’d packed when she’d left Robin. How many times had she and Robin done them only to be disappointed? It would be waste to do one now: she was barely even late yet. She had to take a urine sample anyway…

  She did the test and waited. She stared at the result as if she’d become dyslexic. Pregnant. It definitely said pregnant. She was going to have a baby. Her time with Adam had gifted her something more precious than she’d dared dream.

  She grappled with the implications; this changed everything. It put her life into perspective. She couldn’t endanger her future, her child’s future, for one stupid, meaningless mistake that was in the past. She and Adam loved each other: they could have the future they’d hoped for. She skipped down the stairs and picked up the phone, eager to give him the good news. She dialled his number and then replaced the receiver before it could ring, her heart fluttering weakly around her ankles: the child could be Robin’s.

  ***

  Charlotte opened the cottage door to a knock.

  Lucy stood on the doorstep, holding Duncan in her arms. ‘I was passing… I thought you might have the kettle on. How did you get on at the clinic?’

  ‘I cancelled.’

  ‘Why, for God’s sake? Sis, you must get yourself checked out, even if you’ve given up on the idea of children.’

  ‘I haven’t given up.’

  ‘Sometimes I fail to understand you. Have you discussed this with Adam?’


  Discussed the baby? Of course not the baby… Lucy was a step behind. ‘About the cancellation?’

  ‘No, idiot, about you not being able to have children.’

  ‘Yes, and he was okay about it but…’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I did a pregnancy test this morning.’

  ‘And?’ Lucy’s face lit. ‘Don’t tell me you’re pregnant. That’s great, sis… Isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘Why aren’t you over the moon? What aren’t you telling me?’

  ‘I don’t know who the father is.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It might not be Adam’s baby.’

  ‘You mean it could be Robin’s? But you haven’t been with Robin since…’

  ‘Since he visited me here. Two days after I first slept with Adam.’

  Lucy frowned. ‘I don’t understand. If you’d chosen Adam…’

  ‘Robin reeled me in, Luce, the way he always does. He seduced me. I didn’t mean it to happen… I’ve worked it back in my head a hundred times. My most fertile day was when I slept with Robin. Oh God, what have I done?’

  ‘Oh, sis. Come here.’ Lucy put one arm round her and hugged her. ‘This is the baby you’ve always wanted. Does it matter who the father is?’

  ‘It matters to me. And what do I tell Adam?’

  ‘The truth, of course.’

  ‘That I slept with Robin after I let Adam believe we had a future together? That I expect him to wave aside my betrayal and bring up Robin’s child?’

  ‘If he loves you he’ll want you anyway.’ Lucy sat on the sofa and fiddled with Duncan’s socks. ‘You realise you’ll have to tell Robin, too.’

  ‘I can’t. I want him out of my life.’

  ‘Charlotte, you know how much he wants children. You can’t deny him that… if it is his. He has a right to be told.’ Lucy only called her Charlotte when she was angry with her.

  ‘But not yet. It’ll only complicate the divorce. I was going to end it with Adam, but I don’t want to lose him, Luce, especially not now, if the baby’s his. Suppose he can’t forgive me.’

  ‘You have to be honest. You’re playing with people’s lives again. What are you proposing to do? Go into a nunnery, have a secret pregnancy, and then do a DNA test before telling the lucky winner? Get real.’

  ‘I want my baby to have a father. I want it to be Adam. What am I going to do?’

  ‘Auribus teneo lupum. Secrets come back to haunt you. You’ll have to let go of the wolf one day and, when you do, the effect could be catastrophic, not least for your child. You’re going to have to come clean. Tell them both. The sooner the better.’

  ‘You’re right… of course you are, but let me do it in my own time. I haven’t got used to the idea myself yet.’

  ‘I’ll support you, whatever you do, Charlotte. You know that, but remember that wolf.’

  ***

  Charlotte picked up the phone. It was Adam. Talk about anything but clinics. ‘How’s life at Duxford?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to ring you all day, Charlotte. Are you okay? What did the clinic say?’

  So much for hoping he’d forgotten. ‘They need to do more tests.’

  ‘But they didn’t find anything serious?’ His voice was anxious.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thank God. I love you, Charlotte. I’ll be there for you, whatever the result.’

  ‘I love you too.’

  ‘I wish I was with you now.’

  She couldn’t speak for tears.

  ‘Charlotte?’

  ‘I do love you, Adam.’

  She replaced the receiver, her breath ragged, and sank onto the sofa.

  ‘I should have finished with him, Grandpa, not kept him dangling.’

  You should have told him about the baby. It could be his.

  She palmed away tears. ‘It could be, so why risk our future by ending it, or telling him it could be Robin’s?’

  Can you live with the consequences of keeping silent? It isn’t only you who’ll suffer them.

  ‘It’s easy for Lucy to give advice… she’s got a loving husband and five wonderful children. She isn’t the one throwing away the best thing that’s ever happened to her.’ She tried to justify the decision she’d almost made. Her flesh had betrayed Adam, weak flesh seduced by Robin’s need. ‘In my heart I’ve never stopped loving Adam, Grandpa. What will we gain if I confess?’

  It will eat away at you, Charlotte. Do the right thing. Auribus teneo lupum.

  The wolf lurked in the shadows, waiting to break both their hearts.

  Wolf, wolf, wolf… On impulse, she typed Wselfwulf into her laptop. Wselfwulf: Anglo-Saxon. Gender: male, Wolf of Slaughter. She clicked on a website. It had a list of wolf names with origins in every language and culture. To distract herself she clicked and scrolled.

  Botwolf: Old English, Herald Wolf. Adolph: German and Polish. Gender: male, Noble Wolf? She snorted in derision and scrolled further. Lowell: Old French, Wolf-cub… If only. Wolfgang: German, Teutonic. Gender: male, Son of the wolf, path of the wolf. At least Hans Wolfgang Schmitt was aptly named, following blindly in the footsteps of Mengele and Hitler. She found no myths or legends about Grandpa’s wolf, no woodcutters or princes, nor any mention of Günsburg. Why had he chosen that name? Wolf of Slaughter… What more had he been trying to tell her? The answer, she was certain, lay in one place and one place only. She punched in Adam’s number: whatever happened between them this was his mystery, too, and he had a professional interest. He answered instantly.

  ‘Adam, I’m going to Auschwitz as soon as I can get a flight.’

  ‘Please don’t go alone, Charlotte.’

  ‘I’ll be alright. You can’t take time from your new job. You’ve only just started.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to hand over copies of the documents.’

  She hadn’t thought that far ahead. ‘I did.’

  ‘Then I can come with you in an official capacity… bring them with me. I’ll need to explain the IWM’s involvement with the originals so you remain anonymous.’

  She’d forgotten the need to protect her family from media attention. What would she do without Adam? She put a hand on her stomach. It could be Robin’s child.

  Adam spoke in her ear. ‘I’ll clear it with my boss. Book flights for two, for tomorrow if you can. I’ve just had the translation back.’

  The translation: she’d forgotten about that too. And she hadn’t shown Lucy the diary: pregnancy had addled her brain.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Dust blew across the single set of tracks that led arrow-straight to Death Gate. Charlotte huddled against Adam in a desolate landscape, more for comfort than warmth. Wselfwulf howled along the wind and the endless stretch of barbed wire. If there was a place for his lair, this was it.

  Why had she come? Grandpa’s nightmare was here. She wanted to add her voice to those who stood against the holocaust deniers the only way she knew, by bringing copies of the terrible documents home to Auschwitz and the Birkenau Extermination camps.

  As if on a shared impulse, they walked towards the gate. Despair thickened the air, eyes watched from the guard tower above the central gateway, and hope ebbed from her heart as it must have ebbed from Miriam and Grandpa’s. Wselfwulf: the Wolf of Slaughter…

  The camp was vast and, away from the main guardhouse, seemed almost neglected, the summer growth maturing to seed heads and yellowing foliage. Charlotte scanned low wooden buildings and, behind them, rows and rows of concrete slab foundations and chimneys.

  The track branched: lines led off into the distance to some unknown hell. She paused at the side of the rails on a strip of ground the guide book called The Ramp and let the group of visitors drift away. She wanted only Adam by her side: he understood.

  She waved the guide book. ‘These are just words, Adam. Grandpa’s dead are here… Miriam’s dead. He loved her. I need them to live again if they’re to tell their stories.
I owe them that.’ She took out the diary. ‘This is the real thing, written as it happened. Open the envelope.’

  Adams slid the translated pages from the envelope and handed them to her.

  ‘Would you read them?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Roger says the language is Hungarian. The first entry says, I love you… szeretlek.’ He paused and then began reading. ‘This is one family’s story. It is to bear witness as Chuck asked me. He fears we may not survive.’

  ‘Chuck? Albert said he knew Grandpa as Chuck.’

  ‘We live near Budapest, in a village surrounded by wooded hills. German soldiers come in the night and my Benedek is shot protecting us. The Nazis hang his body from a tree, along with the bodies of young women and children executed for the crime of being a Jew. We are forced into ghettos. From the ghettos we are marched to the railway station with what possessions we can carry. There we are crammed into a cattle wagon, one of perhaps sixty. The doors are barred from the outside. We are tired. The children cry and we comfort them. There is no room to sit. There is no food or water, no sanitation, no air to breathe. Grandfather dies on the way. Grandmother is inconsolable. We stop time and again, sometimes for hours, sometimes all night, but no-one comes to see if we live. We can no longer stand so we lean against one another, or sit on top of the dead. It is four days now, and the children have stopped crying.’

  The wind carried a million moans of grief and fear across the desolate land.

  She took up where Adam had left off. ‘We arrive at last. When the doors are flung back it is morning. The sun hurts our eyes. A sign says Auschwitz. We do not know where this is.’ She shook her head. ‘They had no idea what was going to happen to them.’

  Adam read over her shoulder. ‘We carry out our dead and our belongings and lay them on the ground. SS officers separate us and the men are marched away. Grandfather’s body is thrown in a heap with others. A group of men in dirty striped coats collect our luggage. Mother and I pass emaciated people, penned behind barbed-wire fences like animals. When we stop we are separated again, some to the left and some to the right. They say we will be reunited. Grandmother takes Mary. I don’t know that Chuck saves my life. He cannot save Grandmother and my baby daughter. They are sent to the left with my sister and her children. We don’t know where Father is.’