Fires in the Dark

by Louise Doughty

  He lay watching the ceiling, where a long, blurry column of insects was tramping up a diagonal beam, a rope of them, twisting and bulging over the wood. Every now and then, one or two dropped down.

  I used to have good eyesight, he thought.

  He allowed himself to think of all the things he used to have.

  How strange a thing it is, he thought, the way you comfort yourself when it comes to loss. You turn away from it, show it your back, face and embrace what you still have. When we had to sell our gold I thought, ah well, we can always buy more gold, as long as we have the wagon and the horses and can still travel then we will be fine. Then they stopped us travelling and burnt our wagon and I thought, well, we still have one horse and we can build a cart, and we have a roof over our heads. Then we had to flee our roof and I thought, we still have good clothes and boots, so many people don’t have boots any more. Then they took the bundles from us as we stood in line on Registration Day and I thought, well, we have the clothes we stand up in. When we got here, they took those. They even took the hair from my head. I thought, at least we are all together in the same camp. So many people have been separated from their families. Now my family are kept from me, even though they are a few metres away and I would give the world for my wife to come and bring me water and my son to sit by my head and talk to me, and the Small Ones to play beside my bed, arguing perhaps, until their mother scolded them.

  He frowned to himself at the thought of Parni and Bobo. Thinking of them was painful. Had something bad happened to them? He pushed the thought away.

  It is just me, just my body and my soul and that is all I have – skin and bone and this nightshirt they have given me which is owned more by the lice. He tried to turn his head to call out again, but realised he could no longer move.

  If I cannot even move my limbs, let alone raise my body to relieve myself with dignity, then I cannot really call my body my own either. All I have left are my thoughts – and breath, each small breath that comes so shallow and strange into my lungs, as if my body hates air and can’t wait to expel it. Soon, my thoughts will go.

  I am reduced to this. All else is gone.

  I am nothing. But the next small. Breath.

  It is all

  I am.

  Perhaps

  All

  I ever

  Was.

  *

  At the door of the infirmary hut, Anna found her way barred by another kapo, a squat man with red cheeks and a mirthless smile. She had given her gold thread to the one on the gate, so she said, ‘My bread tonight. You can follow me after roll-call.’ He stared at her for a moment, then stepped aside.

  Josef was at the far end of the hut. His deterioration was so severe that for a moment her heart refused to accept that it was him. His face was waxen and his eyes closed, the red rash still livid on his neck. The stubble on his head and cheeks was completely white. She could detect no movement of the chest cavity, no sign that he was breathing. There was a foul smell.

  Then, she saw his Adam’s apple move in his throat, slowly, effortfully, twice up and down. He opened his eyes.

  His gaze did not focus upon her, so she moved closer to him. Last time she had come, the kapo had warned her not to touch him, but she reached out a hand and placed her fingertips lightly on his shoulder, feeling the hard bone through the thin, tattered nightshirt. Slowly, the strain showing on his features, he managed to move his skull so that his face was turned towards her. His eyes were still unfocused but the muscles around his mouth moved.

  He whispered something. She bent down until her face was just above his. The words were incomprehensible and the effort of speech emptied his lungs. He gave a huge, heaving breath.

  Anna looked down at him, lowering her face so that he would be able to see her. She smiled at him, her face a few centimetres above his, and her smile became broader and broader, just as it had in the warm darkness of the wagon on the summer night he had taken her from her family after all that bargaining between their parents, the matter of the copper pans finally settled.

  Josef was looking up at her, and she thought maybe he was glimpsing the smile through his misted vision, seeing it widen and widen as if it could swallow the world.

  Anna Maximoff maintained her smile until she was certain that her husband was dead.

  *

  Emil learnt from one of the other prisoners that his father had died. The man didn’t know when, or what Josef had died of. He only knew it was Emil’s father because there were no other Kalderash in their block, and Emil had a certain status now, because of Čacko. Most people knew who he was.

  ‘Your father’s gone,’ the man said casually, as they were standing next to each other, pasting pitch on to the new block, ‘Last night.’ His tone suggested he was making a passing observation, about the weather, or the price of hay. The new block was still uninhabited. Emil bent to dip his brush into the black, viscous tar. They had built fires to warm the pitch but the weather was so cold that it became glutinous almost immediately. At first he thought the man meant, your father has escaped. Gone?

  Seeing the questioning look on his face, the man shrugged. ‘I thought you knew. I suppose they’ve given up telling people. Too many dying now.’

  Emil shoved his brush into a gap between two wooden planks. It was important to work the pitch deep into the gaps if the wall was to be sealed properly from the cold. He worked the large brush up and down in the crack, the rapidly cooling tar forming tiny brown bubbles on the surface of the wood.

  *

  He did not see his mother for some days after that, then was surprised to find one day, when Čacko sent him to the kitchens to pick up lunch for the quarry workers, that the prisoner waiting to accompany him was Anna. A kapo stood next to her, so he could not ask her how she had managed this. With the kapo walking close behind them, they left the camp at the main gate and began to climb the track up the hill towards the quarry. They were each holding a handle of the huge tureen. The handles were made of a thin strip of hard-edged metal which dug into Emil’s hand – he tried to walk slowly but Anna set the pace, striding ahead, as if determined to prove that they did not need to take things easy for her.

  Behind them, Emil could hear the hard, ragged breathing of the kapo, who had some sort of chest problem, panting away as he followed doggedly close to them. At the top of the rise, they paused and set down the tureen. The kapo did not object, dropping his sack to the ground and resting both hands on his knees.

  They stood next to each other in silence, gazing down across the snow-laden fields. This was the best bit of the walk: the worst of the rise behind them, and an uninterrupted view down to the nearer and smaller of the quarry sites. Work had already stopped at Štěpánov, because of the freezing weather. The prisoners called the small quarry site Little Cauldron because it nestled in a hollow at the base of low, long rise. Work would finish here soon as well. To their right, the woods rose darkly but the camp itself was hidden by the trees. A prisoner could stand and gaze at this view and forget that the camp, and the world of the camp, even existed. It was cold, but there was the smallest hint of sun lightening the sky, a freshness in the air. It was almost a beautiful day.

  ‘Come on then,’ growled the kapo, heaving the sack of bread on to his back and stepping past them. They bent to pick up the tureen.

  As they descended along the path that ran alongside a farmer’s fence, the kapo picked up pace and got ahead of them, as if trying to prove he could beat them to it. They both slowed down slightly, until he was far enough ahead to allow them to whisper to each other. It was necessary to walk more slowly now. The ground of the path was deeply rutted, frozen, and covered with a light frosting of snow, making it easy to slip. The soup slapped around inside the tureen. They stumbled on for a moment or two in silence, as if embarrassed by the possibility of speech.

  Emil was suddenly full of words, so confused by all he wanted to say that he hissed with undisguised spite, ‘You did not think
you could find me and tell me my father had died? You thought it would be better to learn it from a stranger?’

  Anna did not reply for a few moments. Then she said, very quietly, ‘It is difficult.’ Her sorrow and exhaustion were so apparent in the words that Emil was overwhelmed with guilt. They walked on some more, and he thought, how long do we have before that kapo turns? A minute? Two, perhaps? How foolish of us to be tongue-tied when time is so short.

  ‘You are well?’ he said in a conciliatory tone. Only when the words were spoken did he feel the stupidity of such a question.

  ‘I am not sick yet.’ His mother spoke swiftly. ‘You?’

  ‘No, not sick …’ apart from the diarrhoea and the pain in his jaw and the cracked flesh on his feet and hands where the cold seemed to take slices from him. ‘No fever, not yet. Many of the men …’ His voice dwindled. She knew how many were sick.

  They were walking steadily. The kapo glanced back once, saw they were still there, then continued down the path.

  ‘There is more pneumonia every day now. The children are nearly all sick, and there is talk of typhus,’ Anna said. ‘Yenko. You must go.’

  Emil glanced over at her but she did not look at him.

  ‘You must leave, escape,’ she said, her voice low and firm. ‘It is your only hope, and mine. Your father is dead and his ghost condemned to live among the gadje forever. Your sister too. Bobo’s eyes are almost closed. He is near blind. You and I are the only ones in our family not yet sick. You must leave while you still can. I know it’s difficult to survive in winter but you must do it. You are the man now.’

  ‘If I am the man then I cannot leave you.’ He had promised his father. He had sworn by the moon and the stars.

  ‘I command you to go!’

  Emil’s knees were suddenly weak. He heard himself say, pleadingly, ‘Come with me.’

  His mother hesitated for a moment, then replied firmly, ‘You know I cannot. I cannot leave Bobo, or Ludmila and Eva.’

  ‘Then we’ll all go.’

  ‘Ludmila and Eva are too weak. We would have to carry Bobo. That woman who escaped last month with her daughters and grandchildren. They would have starved if they had not been caught. Did you see them when they came back? The children were both dead within a week.’

  This was true. Most of the escapees got no further than a few kilometres. Sometimes they gave themselves up rather than starve.

  ‘Kill a gadjo.’ Anna’s voice was sharp.

  Emil looked at his mother. She continued staring straight ahead as they walked.

  ‘Pick a poor one,’ she said, ‘a farm worker or a peasant out in his field. Then you must bury the body so it won’t be found. Kill him in the morning and spend all day burying him, then travel at night. If they find the body before you’re out of the district, you’re as good as dead.’

  Emil thought about killing a man.

  Anna said, ‘That’s where the others have gone wrong. They have tried to stay away from people, afraid of being caught. You need to hunt one down. I picked up a piece of metal at the quarry last week. It was sticking out of the ground. It’s hidden behind my bunk. It’s sharp enough to kill. I’ve been rubbing it, at night when the others are asleep. Each time I do it, I think about you killing a white person, just one gadjo for all the lives they have taken from us; Parni, your father, the hundreds of others in here. When you are killing him, think about your father gasping for breath and his soul trapped forever because I couldn’t even open a window to let it out. His ghost will wander forever about this place. He will be in torment always. There was blood at your birth, Yenko, a knife. Maybe that meant something. A sign.’

  ‘I don’t know if I have the strength,’ Emil replied. He meant the physical strength.

  She misunderstood him. ‘I know your hesitation. Your father would not have said what I am saying. Even if he had watched us burned alive, he would never have said you should lower yourself to kill in return. He was a good man, your father. But he is dead.’ She paused. The urgency of her speech was making her breathless. He noticed that one of her upper eyelids was red and badly swollen. Our bodies are rotting, he thought. I’ll rot if I stay here any longer. Soon, I won’t have the strength to escape. ‘It is not against the law to kill in self-defence. Even the gadje laws say that. You need clothes. That’s why the others failed. How could they leave the woods dressed as prisoners? The clothes are more important than food. You can always steal something to eat. But you must look like a gadjo if you are to stand any chance. As soon as you are out of here, then grow your hair and rub sand in it to lighten it. Praise to God for giving me one light-skinned child. You’ll pass. You speak Czech like a gadjo and your German is not bad. You are an educated Rom. Most of our people are stupid. We’ve always been stupid, I see that now. Stay away from our people. If there are any Roma still free they will be rounding them up soon enough, so stay away, however lonely you get. Live amongst the gadje. Become a gadjo for the rest of the war. It is no sin when you are doing it to live, to live for all of us.’

  They were nearly at the bottom of the rise. The quarry site was visible ahead, the pale heaps of stone and the small black shapes of the prisoners at work. They were near enough to see that two had stood up and spotted their approach. The kapo who was accompanying them glanced over his shoulder.

  ‘I don’t know when we will be able to speak.’ Anna said. ‘So start preparing now. I will try and get this piece of metal to you but if the opportunity comes in the meantime then just go. I’ve been round the fence. There’s a place at the top behind your block where you can burrow underneath. Where can I leave this piece of metal?’

  ‘There is a pile of stones at the side of the doctor’s hut. They are blocking a hole where the wood is rotten at the bottom.’

  ‘How will you be able to get it without being seen?’

  ‘I can do it.’

  ‘It might take me a day or two. Don’t wait for it if you get the chance.’

  ‘I will come back for you,’ said Emil. ‘In the summer, when the weather is good and we can survive in the open air with Bobo. The war might have finished by then anyway. Stay in the area so I can find you. I will come back, I swear it on my father’s soul. If it isn’t all over I’ll get work round here so I can come and get you. I’ll look different by then. I’ll come to the gates like a gadjo and just stroll in, as if I was looking for workers just like the quarry owner. Just make sure you stay in the area if you get released. The Russians might be here by then. Who knows?’ The words were pouring out of him.

  ‘Yenko …’ Anna said. She paused, and they lowered the tureen. ‘Go with God.’

  The kapo had stopped and was waiting for them. Emil said, ‘Stay with God.’

  They stood for a moment.

  The kapo was frowning and beckoning. Behind him, Emil could see a group of prisoners striding up from the quarry to meet them.

  CHAPTER 20

  He did not see his mother for another week. In the meantime, he collected the piece of metal with its sharpened point and hid it behind his bunk, and as he fell asleep each night he reached out and touched its roughened surface, as if it was a charm. He couldn’t imagine killing someone with it. It was more like one of the icons his grandmother used to keep in her wagon, or the little gold cross she wore, hidden amongst the large coins of her necklace.

  At first, he did not like to plan his escape because he was frightened of failing – then he realised, he was also afraid of success. He had so resented his family for keeping him in Hodonín – it was always the young men without families who tried to get away. But now his mother had given him permission to go, he realised that he had forgotten life outside the camp. How did they used to get food? His mother was always preparing something. Where did their blankets come from? He had never slept alone, even on summer nights there was his father or some of the other men at arm’s length beside him on the grass. It was madness to think of escape in the heart of winter. He would simply freeze to deat
h.

  There had been a slight increase in rations, an extra piece of bread with the evening soup. Some said it was because the camp authorities were worried about how many people were falling ill. The man who had the bunk below Emil insisted that it meant the war would be ending soon. ‘They are ashamed …’ he told Emil one evening before lights out, waving his extra piece of bread. ‘They are trying to fatten us up. They know we will be released and tell everybody how they have treated us, then the Russians will give them what for. The Russians will say to the Czechs, whose side were you on anyway, ours or the Hitlerites? I tell you, they are going to be in dead trouble for running these camps. Just you wait and see.’

  Emil snorted sceptically, wanting to believe the man. ‘The Russians won’t care …’ he said.

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ the man said, swallowing his dry bread with an upward tilt of nose. ‘The Russians are the bravest of all the gadje, they’ll fight to the last man. And they believe in justice. Comrade Stalin, he’s the one for us. Next time you see a German, any of those soldiers who come by or any of the ones who turn up with their notebooks, look at them and say one word to yourself inside, Stalingrad.’

  ‘Is that in Russia?’

  The man shook his head. ‘Brother, this is the problem with our people. We haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on. Is Stalingrad in Russia? Let me tell you about Stalingrad.’ A few of the men around them stopped what they were doing to listen. The man noticed and nodded, glancing about, warming to his audience. ‘Stalingrad is a huge white city, with enormous buildings, as big as hills, all shiny-white, built in honour of the Big Gadjo, Comrade Stalin. It is the cleanest city in the world – well, as clean as a city full of gadje can be, that is. It is on the edge of a vast flowing river.’

  ‘Where is this white city? What’s he talking about?’ said the man next to Emil.