Fires in the Dark

by Louise Doughty

  She stopped and put down the buckets again, looking upwards, sighing, ‘How big and white the sky is today. Perhaps it always is. I don’t normally get a chance to look.’

  Emil stopped and stared upwards too.

  ‘It stretches so far,’ she continued. ‘I’ve always thought that, even when I was little. And I had never even left our settlement. I’ve only ever lived in two places, there and here.’

  They stood in silence for a minute.

  ‘In Bohemia,’ Emil said eventually, ‘they have cherry orchards that stretch as far as you can see. There are so many cherries, at harvest time they fill whole trains with them. One winter we helped carve blocks of ice out of the frozen river, taking a chunk of river and storing it in the ice-house. We rolled it over logs. The horses’ flanks ran sweat. My job was to wipe them as they pulled forward so the sweat would not freeze. Springtime is the best. We were in Moravia or Slovakia normally, but once we were staying at the orchards the whole winter, right through to the harvest. The spring was wonderful. I was about ten. You know how the sky looks at sunset sometimes? Pink and soft. The blossom on the trees was like a thousand thousand pieces of that sky. I saw a white horse once, running through the blossom.’

  Marie looked at him. ‘A ghost?’

  It was his turn to shrug.

  Emil looked back at the camp. One of the grey coils of barbed wire over the gate was loose and sagging. In the watchtower, a sentry would be observing them. If they stood talking for too long, he might report back to Čacko.

  ‘Let’s feed the pigs,’ he said.

  As they approached the pens, the pigs galloped towards them and stuck their snouts sideways through the gaps between the wooden slats, snorting with excitement, saliva dropping from their mouths in cloudy rivulets.

  ‘They haven’t built troughs,’ said Marie.

  ‘There’s one here in the corner,’ said Emil, emptying the first bucket. ‘We do the buckets one by one.’ The pigs crowded into the corner, scrambling and mounting each other, shoving and biting.

  Marie handed her buckets to Emil, in deference to his superior experience at this task. While he poured the swill, she pointed at the nearest pig, a huge sow with black patches. ‘Wouldn’t you like to carve a schnitzel out of that one?’ she said, smiling again. ‘I had a schnitzel once, at a wedding. My father made my mother stay at home but he took me. He let me dance. I didn’t know how to dance but I watched the women and made it up. I flapped my hands. The men all gathered round and laughed. The food was just for the men but at the end of the day when they were all drunk one of the women took me aside, round the back to where the women were cooking at a great long row of fires. I watched her carve this slice from a carcass. It was so thin you could see through it. She fried it for me in butter and lemon juice. I squatted on my heels to watch. I was so close to the fire it singed my eyebrows.’ She was smiling at the memory. ‘It was the best thing I have ever, ever tasted in my whole life …’

  She stopped, a dream-like smile on her features. Emil wanted her to continue. If I could hear about a good thing every day, he thought, a good thing like that schnitzel, I would survive okay.

  ‘Why couldn’t your mother go to the wedding?’

  Marie’s smile froze.

  Emil bit his lip. He turned back to the pigs.

  Marie watched him while he emptied the buckets over the side of the pen, one by one. The pigs were in a frenzy. Their snorting would be audible back at the camp.

  Suddenly she laughed. ‘I ate a bit of the pig, and then a little dog ate a bit of me! I hope I was as tasty as the pig!’

  Emil looked at her.

  She shook her head. ‘I’m not used to talking so much. At home…’ Her expression darkened again.

  ‘Tell me,’ he pleaded. Her sudden silences were terrible. ‘I told you about the white horse and the cherry blossom.’

  ‘I told you about the schnitzel.’

  ‘You haven’t finished. Tell me about the dog. It bit you? On the way home?’

  Somebody had left a rake next to the pen. He picked it up, leaned over the fence and began pulling over the pigs’ filthy wet straw. A stench arose – but if the sentry was still watching them, it would at least look like they were doing something.

  ‘It was the next week. There was diptheria in the district. We all had to go to a gadjo doctor who lived in a big stone house, all the children in the settlement. Nobody wanted to go but the Town Council summoned my Uncle Karel and the Elders and said if we didn’t go we would be taken away and put in orphanages. The doctor had a little dog, a dachshund, it was famous in the town for being the fattest little dog that anyone had ever seen. The doctor’s maid used to take him for walks. It took her forever to go up the street and back because the dog was so fat it could hardly walk. He was a snappy little thing. The boys used to make jokes about what they would like to do to that dachshund.’

  The pigs had finished the swill and were snuffling disconsolately around the straw. Emil tapped at them absentmindedly with the rake.

  ‘We all had to line up outside the door and go in one by one. As the others came out they had cloths over their mouths and some of them were crying. They couldn’t tell us what the doctor had done to them. I was at the very end of the line and by the time it got to my turn my knees were knocking together. When I went in, the doctor smiled at me. They put me in a big leather chair that leaned back and the nurse put a cloth over my chest. The doctor said. “I’m telling you heathen gypsy children because I know you didn’t want to come. This is very important. Every year we lose some of you and you are all very precious. You all belong to Christ. Do you understand?” I nodded, but I was shaking.

  ‘The nurse opened my mouth and the doctor reached in with a scalpel. He cut my tonsils off, then the nurse levered me upright and told me to spit them into a metal dish. My mouth was full of blood. As I spat into the dish, I saw that it was full of blood already and all the other children’s tonsils were swimming around in the blood. “You’re the last?” the doctor asked as the nurse wiped my chin. I nodded but I couldn’t speak because my mouth was full of blood and I was in agony.’

  Emil had stopped raking the straw and was staring at her.

  ‘The doctor nodded to the nurse and the nurse put the metal dish down in the corner of the room. Then I saw that the dachshund was sitting at the doctor’s feet. The doctor said, “Okay, Mr Tutti,” and the dachshund ran over to the dish and began lapping up the tonsils.’ She stopped and looked over at Emil.

  Emil could see small spots before his eyes. ‘You’re making this up,’ he said weakly.

  She shook her head, laughing. ‘I’m not, I promise,’ she said. ‘It was only later that I thought how funny it was. At the time, I was just relieved.’

  Unable to speak, Emil gave a questioning frown.

  ‘It meant they couldn’t count the tonsils,’ Marie said, looking down and brushing casually at her skirt. ‘I was so relieved. I thought I might be in trouble. When my mouth filled up with blood I gagged. I’m sure I swallowed one.’

  As they walked back to the camp, the empty swill buckets bumping against their legs, Emil said, ‘Marie Malíková, next time you tell me how to deal with a beating, you can be sure I will listen.’

  CHAPTER 17

  At the beginning of December, it was announced that a number of prisoners would be released from the camp and transferred to a sanatorium in Northern Moravia. Priority would be given to the sick and the elderly, they were told, although other prisoners were free to apply to the camp authorities. The procedure for application was not explained.

  It was the first large-scale release since they had arrived in August. For four mornings, Anna queued with a crowd of other women outside the camp administration offices to try and get Bobo and Parni on to the transport. Bobo’s eyes were weeping and sticky – half the children in the block seemed to have infected eyes now – and Parni was dull and listless; a sanatorium? What did it mean? Whatever it was, it had to be
better than the camp. For four mornings, the women were told to come back the next day, then they were informed that no children would be going this time – sick and elderly adults only. Maybe there would be a transport for the children in January. Anna was disappointed but not downcast. If they were starting to take the sick and elderly somewhere better then it meant that someone out there had realised how badly they were being treated. Things would gradually improve from now on, surely.

  She joined Marie and her mother at the workshop. Tekla had been admitted to the infirmary and Eva and Ludmila were on a work detail.

  ‘Any luck?’ Marie asked as Anna sat down on the bench, nodding to the kapo, who registered her late arrival with a slow blink.

  Anna shook her head. ‘They’re not sending children this time. God willing, they will on the next.’

  The kapo raised her head briefly and glanced at Anna, then returned to nursing her tin mug.

  Anna lowered her voice. ‘How is my son?’

  ‘I saw him this morning, crossing the yard. He was with that man, so I couldn’t speak to him, but he glanced back at me and nodded when that man wasn’t looking.’

  Anna nodded. Marie was her conduit to Emil now, his guardian angel. She, Anna, had sent her, to look over him. She could not bake him bread or stitch a waistcoat for him, but she had found a girl to lighten his thoughts. This much she had been able to do. She glanced past Marie at Líba. The mother never spoke, but she seemed grateful to Anna, grateful that they both could shelter under her wing. Tekla had taken a dislike to Marie, and Eva and Ludmila had followed suit. Such things should hardly matter when they were cold and hungry all day, every day, and most of the time they didn’t, but when they did, they mattered very much.

  Marie seemed so small and self-possessed, so accepting of what was happening to them. It is hard not to enjoy someone who doesn’t need me, Anna thought, when all around I am surrounded by need. She doesn’t know it, this little thing, but she gives me strength, just by looking and sounding normal. The world is not quite mad, not yet.

  *

  After the workshop, they were sent back to the block. The block Elder brought some dark, stale loaves over and divided them under everybody’s watchful gaze. There was something called salad, in addition, some stems of white cabbage floating in a tub of acidic vinegar. It stung the roof of the mouth, but it made a change from bread alone. Things are looking up, Anna thought. From the far end of the block, there were discontented murmurings while they ate. A group of old women, including Pavliná Franzová, had been in the block all morning, sewing, but they had not been allowed cabbage with their bread because they were not officially part of the work detail. Anna shook her head and pulled a face at Pavliná, trying to convince her that she wouldn’t have wanted the cabbage anyway. ‘Only those with teeth get this stuff, for your own good!’ the block Elder called to the Old Ones.

  They had just finished eating, when the door to the block opened and a few minuscule snowflakes danced in on a flurry of cold air. A woman kapo followed. They all looked at her. The kapo glanced around the block without looking directly at any of them. ‘Růžičková,’ she said.

  There was a small snort of derision. A third of the families in the camp used the name Růžička on their papers. It was absurd to call that name and expect a response.

  ‘Anna,’ the kapo snapped, ‘registered in Bohemia, three children, František, Lidia and Josef.’

  Emil, Parni, Bobo. Oh God.

  ‘It is me,’ said Anna, staring at the kapo.

  The woman at least had the grace to drop her gaze, and Anna remembered that later. She had looked at the floor. ‘Your daughter died this morning,’ she said. ‘Lidia Růžičková. She died. They told me to tell you.’

  There was silence in the block. Several of the women had risen to their feet and stood observing Anna, who remained seated, her hands gripping the edge of her bunk, looking down at the floor.

  Silence washed around the small group, like clear water. Nobody moved. The kapo turned and left. The block Elder gave a heavy sigh.

  Eventually, the stillness was broken by a small, snivelling sound. At the far end of the aisle, Pavliná Franzová was sitting on the central concrete block, her face crumpled and her mouth a downturned semi-circle of grief. Tears were streaming down, rivers in the deep valleys of age on her brown features. She lifted her hands, once, helplessly, then let them drop into her lap.

  Anna raised her head, then in one fluid movement rose from her bunk and crossed the block – the women fell back to allow her through. When she reached Pavliná, Anna reached out both her hands to grab fistfuls of the old lady’s ragged shawl and lift her bodily from where she was sitting. She pulled Pavliná towards her until their noses were only two or three centimetres apart.

  ‘Old woman …’ Anna said, her voice calm, loud as a ringing bell. ‘Why are you still alive? Why do you, who add nothing to the world, continue to breathe and walk and eat and shit, while my perfect girl is cold and still? Why are you still alive?’

  She released Pavliná from her grasp and the old woman dropped on to her seat. Anna turned and strode from the block.

  *

  Outside, she fell on to her knees and cried out, repeatedly, ‘Aieee …’

  The others inside the barrack would hear but know better than to venture outside to comfort her. The men at work around the camp would hear, and lift their heads to glance at each other, recognising the sound. Josef was out at the quarries, so he would not hear. He would be told when the party returned to camp.

  When Anna had finished, she rose. Her head swam. She leaned dizzily against the wooden wall of the block with the heels of her hands pressed against her temples. Another kapo passed and went into the block without saying anything to her. There were certain kapos who knew when to ignore prisoners.

  Anna pushed herself upright, closed her eyes tightly and wrapped her arms around her body. Her need to hold Parni was excruciating, a deep physical craving. She remembered how she had held her once when she had fallen and cut open both knees, at the age of two or three. She had scolded and washed her first, of course, but Parni had been frightened by the sight of her own blood and inconsolable. Anna had knelt before her and taken her in her arms, and remembered how bony and strong that little body had seemed – at once fragile and invulnerable, as hard as a hazelnut and delicate as a baby bird. Children could do that, be both immortal and fleeting. It was a trick.

  She had to hold Parni. She ran across the camp to the children’s block. At the door, the Aufseherin was ladling out bowls of farina. The children were gathered round the pot, wriggling and crying. Bobo would be amongst them. Anna peered down the barrack but she could see no small bodies laid out, no rises beneath a blanket.

  She turned, fleeing past the new barracks to the far corner of the camp and the infirmary.

  The infirmary area had been fenced off last week, just after two women had been transported to Brno Hospital. No one knew why. The measure had caused alarm. People who went into the infirmary did not seem to be getting out any more. Tekla was still in there.

  A guard stood at the gate. Behind the block, Anna could see the side of one of the mortuary wagons. Her daughter would be there, lying naked and alone amongst a heap of frozen corpses.

  Anna stopped in front of the guard, exhaling huge gulps of breath that condensed on the freezing air. Her throat hurt. She struggled for words. ‘My daughter …’ she said, lifting an arm and pointing to the wagons. ‘My child …’

  The guard looked at her calmly. ‘No one allowed in,’ he replied.

  ‘But …’ Anna lifted a hand to her forehead, where the sweat was rapidly freezing on her skin. She should have brought something to bribe the guard. If it had been a kapo, she would have known what to say, but she had hardly dealt with the guards. She didn’t know which ones were pliable. She tried to recall seeing this one before, to work out the measure of him. It was just a matter of saying the right thing, of persuading him. She had s
pent her whole life wheedling things out of the gadje. Her powers would not desert her now.

  ‘My daughter died, suddenly,’ she managed to pronounce, taking a deep breath and opening her eyes wide so that she could gaze appealingly into the man’s face. He seemed a kindly young man, not much older than Emil. He had green eyes. Her daughter was waiting for her, naked and cold.

  The guard looked back, his face relaxed and open. ‘Sorry,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Nobody allowed in or out. New orders.’

  She saw that any attempt at persuasion would be futile, and it was then she lost her reason.

  The kindly young guard had to punch her twice to knock her down. She bit the back of his hand and drew blood. Even after he had kicked her three times, on the ground, he still had to summon another two guards to help him carry her back to the women’s block.

  *

  When Emil told his father that Parni was dead, that evening in the block, after roll-call, Josef stared at the floor for a long time. A huge beetle was scurrying amongst the dirt, skittering this way and that.

  Josef was sitting on the edge of their upper bunk, shoulders bent, his stick-legs swinging idly, the rough wooden clogs half-hanging from his bony feet. He coughed, then said, ‘My lungs are worse, and I was sweating today. But I’ve also been getting these terrible headaches. It’s something quite new. And my arms and legs feel puffy. I think I will go to the infirmary tomorrow.’

  *

  The list for those to be transported was called out at roll-call at the end of the week. It seemed to be the old, rather than the sick. Pavliná Franzová’s name was on the list.

  Back in the block, as they prepared for night, Anna pushed her way down to Pavliná’s bunk. ‘So, Pavliná,’ she said simply, ‘you are getting out of here.’

  Pavliná raised her head. Her expression was pleased but sly.

  ‘Yes,’ she said simply, and turned back to arranging her blanket.

  Anna looked round to the women who were sitting on the bunks either side of Pavliná’s. She gave them a hard stare. They glanced back, then jumped down from their bunks and moved away. By the time Pavliná Franzová turned back from her bed, she and Anna were alone.