The Fires of Lilliput

by Michael Martin

  “I know Warsaw,” Jakub said. “I was captured there.”

  Jerczek looked at him. “You were captured in Warsaw? What were you doing?”

  “Helping a family.”

  “So.”

  “A Jewish family.”

  “Which family?”

  “Mordechai.”

  “I know them! And I saw the Mordechai girl at the camp.”

  Jerczek suddenly felt Jakub’s hands on both his shoulders.

  “Shosha?”

  “Yes,” Jerczek said. “Yes. You knew her?”

  Jakub tried to get up.

  “What are you doing?” Jerczek asked. He placed his hand on Jakub’s arm. “What are you doing?”

  Jakub looked at Jerczek. His face was a contorted mass of conflicted emotions.

  “She’s gone,” Jerczek said. Jakub froze. “They were either marching us or killing us in the H-block, and now they’re burning the place.” Jakub was shaking now. “I should have listened to her,” Jerczek said. He pulled his knees up. “She told me to stay in Warsaw, me and the children.” He looked toward the woods, across the field. “But we were damned either way.” He looked at the road and the falling snow. “There is nothing but damnation here,” Jerczek said. “Damnation all around.”

  Fifty Five

  Commandant Strauss walked past Corporal Höfstaller and another man and they stood at attention but the Commandant didn’t acknowledge them. He was in full dress uniform, shaved clean and his hair was combed and his hands were full with a magnum of red wine, a bouquet of flowers from his greenhouse, and the magnetophone. The corporal and the other man watched Strauss turn a corner. They continued walking toward the hospital block. Another group of SS waited there.

  At the hospital block entrance, Höfstaller looked at the four men and the image of the Commandant flashed in his mind. Here were these men instead, dirty and unshaven. Dust and dried mud streaked their boots. Wrinkles marred their uniforms. Their belt buckles didn’t align with their gig lines. Under their covers, Höfstaller could see who had washed his hair and who had not. He could also smell someone, maybe more than one.

  “Nobody’s bathing anymore?” he asked.

  “This is dirty work, Rottenführer. Why be clean to do it?”

  Höfstaller had always worked in Petersdorf’s office. Now he was reassigned. He reached down with a key and opened the big door to the hospital block. The men gasped and stood back.

  “Get used to it,” a private said. “You can’t be holding your nose.”

  Three guards went in. One leaned against the outside wall. Höfstaller stood in the doorway marking a ledger on a clipboard. “First five,” he said. “Out.”

  The guards heard praying, pieces here and there of Kaddish and Our Father and a Hail Mary from a rosary bead. They heard a prayer to Allah from a Ukrainian gypsy. They heard crying and singing and a low, sad wail that seemed to hover over the words. They heard a truck drive up outside. The guards reached down and took the inmates under their shoulders. Who could not stand they dragged outside to an empty flatbed truck. Inside the hospital block, the prisoners heard how each person answered death.

  One man cried and begged for his life.

  Another man cursed the guards. He told them what hideous human beings they were, what terrible things they had done. He spit at them, but he was not strong enough and the spittle only dribbled down his chin. He told them they were all going to Hell. He told them they would hang.

  One woman said nothing. She weighed seventy-two pounds and was too weak to speak.

  Shosha heard “it’s about time,” in her native Polish from someone else.

  One prisoner vomited, but only bile and acid came up.

  The block inmates heard three gunshots outside—pop, pop, pop.

  “Shit—fucker’s jammed.”

  More gunshots: Pop. Pop. Pop. One to the head. One grazed a head and another sent to the heart landed above it, near the throat. They loaded this man on the truck with the rest and threw him into the pit, where under a heap of bodies he would bleed to death before he burned.

  “Second five,” Höfstaller said. His voice sounded strained. “Bring them out.”

  The guards moved toward Shosha. She looked like a lifeless skeleton now, and one could see no life when she closed her eyes. She looked across at Julia, who had not moved for days. Shosha tried to talk to Julia and wanted very much to touch her. But she was too weak to pull herself out of the bunk and crawl across to Julia’s bunk, so instead she prayed but she would not say Kaddish because she didn’t want to think that Julia had simply lain there and died.

  Shosha told Julia about Jakub and his brother Karl. She told Julia who these men were, how in all this darkness she had found them. She told Julia about her mother and the rabbi. She explained that her mother was the strongest woman she had ever known. She explained how without the rabbi, she would never have lived long enough to love, not one man, but two.

  When Julia didn’t say anything, Shosha felt awkward. “I loved the rabbi too,” she explained, “but in a different way. I loved them each in a different way.”

  “Did they love you?” Shosha heard this question from a few bunks down. She couldn’t tell whether the quiet voice came from a man or a woman.

  “Yes,” Shosha said. “They did.”

  The guards dragged five more people out. Two were already dead. Shosha heard the pleas and the gunshots again.

  “Third five—out.”

  The guards pulled out others around Shosha. She watched them with one eye partly open as they reached in and tugged on Julia. Her bones and limp flesh flopped out of the bunk and hit the floor. Shosha felt tears coming and she held them in.

  “Watch the sores.” One of the guards looked at Julia’s arms and legs. “Don’t touch her there. She’s covered. Take her by wrists.”

  “We have gloves.”

  “One pair. You don’t want to have to burn them.”

  They dragged Julia out by one arm.

  “Why do we have to drag out the dead ones?”

  Shosha heard the guards conferring outside. She couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  “Next five—out.” Then someone blew a whistle. “Leave the dead ones.”

  Somewhere in the hollow, Shosha heard a woman begin a prayer in a foreign tongue. Shosha didn’t recognize the prayer, but it was beautiful, the way it settled the void.

  “Bismillaah ah-Rahman ar-Raheem

  In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

  “Al hamdu lillaahi rabbil ‘alameen

  Praise be to God, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the world

  “Ar-Rahman ar-Raheem

  Most Gracious, Most Merciful

  “Maaliki yaumid Deen.

  Master of the Day of Judgment.

  “Iyyaaka na’abudu wa iy yaaka nasta’een.”

  Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek.

  Shosha heard the guards enter again.

  “He should be helping.”

  “He’s in charge.”

  “He’s a pussy.”

  They came to Shosha. She could feel their breath as they bent down to look at her. She could feel their shadows. She knew a hand was reaching out to touch her face.

  “She’s got sores. Don’t touch.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You want to get sick?”

  “I’m not touching it.”

  “Unless you want to burn your gloves, don’t touch them. We don’t have any other gloves.”

  The guard craned his head around to see Shosha’s face. She kept her eyes open in a dead stare. She felt sick—sicker than she thought she had ever been—when the guard’s eyes met hers. She couldn’t look away, couldn’t blink, couldn’t cry, couldn’t close her eyes.

  The guard pulled back. “This one’s gone.”

  “Leave it.”

  When the guards moved away, Shosha let her eyes close. She didn’t know whether to thank G-d or cry out for them to take he
r and get it over with. She wondered why she didn’t blink and let them take her. Why should she lie here when there was no hope? Why should she lie here and die?

  But even if she had wanted to call out, she could barely raise the strength to speak. So she would lie here and wait. She would live a little longer, another hour or maybe another day. Maybe she would live a few days. She would live here alone among the dead they had left, but she would live and they would not kill her directly, with their own hands. She would starve to death but she would die on her time. The pain of starvation was terrible but she was more used to it now and at least there would be meaning. She heard the prayer again.

  “Ihdinas siraatal mustaqeem Siraatal ladheena an ‘amta’ alaihim

  Show us the straight way

  “Ghairil maghduubi’ alaihim, waladaalee.

  The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace

  Those whose portion is not wrath, and who go not astray.

  “Aameen.”

  It sounded like “Amein” to Shosha and she was surprised. It was almost a reflex when she said it in her mind. She heard shots again. Only three this time. The living were getting fewer and harder to find.

  STRAUSS ARRANGED THE BOUQUET next to his wife’s bed. He poured two glasses of wine. He set the magnetophone to play, but did not turn it on.

  Dr. Hehl came into the room. “Kommandant.”

  Strauss said nothing until Hehl came to his side. “Doktor.”

  Hehl lifted Greta’s thin white wrist and counted her pulse against his wristwatch. “Strong,” he said. “She baffles me. She should be awake.” He checked her IV, a simple contraption designed to keep her alive with a crude cocktail of nutrients, vitamins, and electrolytes.

  Strauss moved his wife’s catheter bag with his foot. It was half full and her urine was light in color. “She took a terrible fall,” he said.

  “She’s healed from her fall,” Hehl said. “If Berlin had taken her, she’d be up and around by now.”

  “Berlin doesn’t care,” Strauss said. He paused and caressed his wife’s cheek. “What if she did awaken? What then?”

  “I don’t know,” Hehl said.

  Strauss stared at his wife. “You’ll be evacuated tomorrow,” he told Hehl. “You best be getting your things together.”

  “I have duties here,” Hehl said. “I still have one patient.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Strauss said. He caressed his wife’s forehead. He watched her breathing, her chest rising and falling.

  “Will I see you again?” Hehl said.

  “I don’t know,” Strauss said. “My ambition is to put this behind me.”

  Hehl sat for a moment. Then he stood and walked toward the door. At the door, he turned to Franz Strauss. “I had such high hopes,” the doctor said. He stepped out and closed the door.

  Strauss raised his glass to his wife. He looked at her. He gulped the wine. He replaced the glass on the little side table. He turned on the magnetophone. He walked over to the other bed and took the pillow and went to his wife’s side. He bent down and kissed her and whispered.

  “Without you, where is my strength?”

  He raised the pillow and his hands shook but he gathered himself. He took the pillow in both hands and brought it over his wife’s face. He watched her breathing, her chest rising and falling. He thought about how she would fight when her unconscious mind awakened in a breathless torment. He thought about how he might lose his resolve and botch the job and instead of killing her mercifully, leave her brain starved for oxygen and only that part of her dead. He was a careful man and he considered these things. He lowered the pillow.

  He looked at the closed door. The blinds were down but he drew them tighter. He turned up the volume on the magnetophone. He turned out the lamp in the room. He let a pale sun guide his hands as he pressed the pillow against his wife’s head and drew his sidearm and pressed it into the pillow and fired one bullet. He looked at his wife’s chest. It rose and fell no more.

  SHOSHA WAS ALONE NOW. THEY HAD LEFT only the dead with her. She was cold and she covered herself with a blanket and wrapped her feet in a pair of pants so filthy and smelly she could hardly bear them.

  She crawled on the straw-covered dirt to a water pipe that had dripped for a month. It wasn’t freezing inside the block yet and she knew that unless they shut off the water, the pipe would freeze and burst. She planned to be far from it when she felt the temperature fall. For now, she lay beneath it with her mouth open, catching the drops.

  She thought about thirst and hunger and which was worse. Both burned. Both were painful. Both were tragic, maybe more than sickness or disease because hunger and thirst caught early were easily cured. The rabbi had warned her not to eat too much after an intense bout of hunger. She had learned to eat slowly back in the ghetto—to savor food and avoid the fatal consequence of hunger after starvation. She lay under the pipe now, watching each droplet form. First a bud, then a swell, then a clear, clean drop that caught enough light to distort a tiny portion of space Shosha could see from where she rested her head.

  STRAUSS LOCKED THE DOOR TO HIS WIFE’S ROOM in the infirmary. He went into the dispensary and looked through the glass shelves. He saw aspirin; bandages; candy pills for hypochondriacs; liquid for stomach flu; liquid for diarrhea; and laxatives. He saw a locked cabinet. He rummaged in the drawers, found a stainless-steel speculum, and used it to pry open the cabinet. He found painkillers: four bottles of Pethidine, better known as Demerol; and two bottles of Amidon, an opium-like pill later called methadone.

  Strauss had argued with Hehl about this requisition, insisting the doctor push for it. Supplies of morphine and other pain killing drugs were running low, and Hitler wanted to reduce Germany’s dependence on drug imports. The Führer turned to the firm that brought Zyklon gas and pain and death to so many—I.G. Farben, whose chemists discovered Pethidine and synthesized Amidon.

  The Commandant took bottles of both.

  GUARDS BURNED BUILDINGS THROUGHOUT the camp. They worked in darkness piling bodies into graves. Petersdorf went to his quarters after two in the morning. He had three days to complete the evacuation. He would spend two days destroying evidence. The last day they would leave. He lay on his bed. He went over the things left to do in his mind: burn the hospital block; burn the boxcars on the track; burn the enlisted barracks and the officer’s quarters; burn the warehouses. He closed his eyes and slept in his uniform.

  In his quarters, Dr. Hehl looked at clothes laid out on his bed—a shirt and hat, pants and socks and suspenders, plain and pedestrian. He had chosen each piece from the warehouse stores for their blandness. He took off the uniform jacket and began the exchange.

  When he finished dressing, he slipped on a pair of scuffed brown shoes. He went to the mirror and combed his hair in a new way. He tried on a pair of weak eyeglasses that were tight around his temples. He slipped the eyeglasses into a case. He slipped the sidearm out of its holster and into his belt and covered it with a plain dark jacket. He slipped a wallet full of cash into his vest pocket with the eyeglass case. He was not Herr Doktor anymore.

  Hehl stepped outside and walked across the yard. The guard towers were empty. He walked toward the boxcars left on the tracks that entered the camp.

  “Hey mister—where you going?” A man spoke German under his breath from one of the cars. Other hushed and whispered voices followed, in Polish and other eastern European dialects.

  “Mister—you have any food?”

  “How did you get out? Aren’t you afraid?”

  “Where are the guards? Where did you come from?”

  Hehl saw lights come on near the front gates. He moved closer to the cars.

  “Don’t get too close to this—there’s shit all along here.”

  “Don’t step in shit—you’re going to step in shit.”

  “Those are guards over there. If they see you.” The man who was speaking drew his finger across his throat.

  “There’s a tr
ap door under the car,” someone said. “You should get in here with us.”

  Hehl saw more lights. He knew if they caught him, they would shoot him for deserting. “Where’s this door?” he said.

  “Underneath. Through the bottom. They sweep cow shit through it.”

  Hehl bent and looked beneath the car. He saw a large latch. He thought about slipping under the boxcar to the other side, but it was too close to the fence. He would have no room between the cars and the fence. He heard voices behind him and saw more lights.

  “Hurry—you don’t have much time.”

  Hehl slipped under the car. He took a rock that lay against the track and slammed it against the latch. The thick, rusty metal rod moved. He whacked it again on both sides. The rod slipped back and forth. Finally, it slipped out. He lowered the trap door. Two men in the car looked down. They didn’t see Hehl but they knew he was there.

  “Come up. We’ll help you.” They lowered their hands.

  “No,” Hehl said.

  “What?”

  “They will burn these cars,” Hehl said.

  “No—they tried that.”

  Hehl raised the rock through the trap door. “For the other latches,” he said.

  “Get in before they see you. We can get out later.”

  “The lights go out at three,” Hehl whispered. “They’re trying to save power. You can get out then.”

  “Well—thanks mister.”

  “You’re crazy—out of your head. But thank you.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Danke!”

  “Good luck,” Hehl said. He stayed low and crawled beneath the boxcars. He went out the railway gate. He crossed the fields and without looking back, headed toward the village.

  Fifty Six

  “Listen.” Jerczek stood. “Planes.”

  It was the first sound they had heard in a day and a half and the first time they had heard airplanes anytime during the march.