“I wouldn’t have been if it was winter. But it’s still an Indian Summer and I’ll stink like a corpse tomorrow if I don’t shower.”
“Don’t be daft!” she hissed at me and this time took hold of my hand. “Wash up in the sink – it’s all the same.”
“Not in the slightest is it the same.”
“You smell just fine to me. Like a fresh lily. Now, come.”
“I stink like a horse after plowing and it’ll be even worse tomorrow.”
“Schultz really spoiled you, you know! You didn’t mind washing up in an aluminum basin in the ghetto, did you?”
“It was in the ghetto; we all smelled revoltingly there. Here, it’s different. And we have people quartering with us now. I’m embarrassed, in front of them; you understand?”
“Hrenova kultura nemetskaya,” Liza muttered under her breath, something on our German culture’s account, from what I gathered.
I chuckled softly and released my hand out of hers. “You go, Liza. There’s no one down there; everyone’s asleep. Willy and I have snuck in there multiple times. I’ll be just fine, don’t worry about me.”
“Suit yourself, Stein. If you get caught, I’ll pretend I don’t know you.”
“Wench!”
“You certainly are.”
After our exchange of pleasantries, I headed to the staircase and climbed down to the first floor, thanking whoever thought of mounting a carpet on the marble stairs – it muffled all sounds just perfectly.
The floor was shrouded in velvet darkness. After removing my shoes, I noiselessly padded barefoot to the showers, careful to tread as quietly as possible despite the abundance of thick runners, still left from the Soviet rule, here as well. I halted at the entrance when I thought that I heard some muffled noises coming from the inside and listened closely. It couldn’t have been an officer deciding to take a late shower for the lights were off and no sane German (except for Willy, but he had a good excuse in the face of myself as his company) would shower at night and without any lights. I quickly discarded the idea of someone from the underground conducting their affairs there as well. In the cellar, to assemble a bomb as they had done just two weeks ago at the brick factory, that was one thing. In the showers? I think not.
A sudden noise of something crashing to the floor startled me. The unmistakable sound of someone struggling for breath – I’ve heard it far too many times for my liking – prompted me to charge forward without thinking twice. It was dark as pitch inside, the only source of light being a Luftwaffe-issued flashlight, the one that Willy used whenever we came down here, now lying on the tiled floor. In the amber shadows cast by it, I recognized legs of an overturned chair, one of those that lined the walls of the corridor. Above it, two boots dangled, unmistakably German. I dropped my towel and shoes and grabbed the man’s legs at once, lifting him in the air as high as I could.
My muscles screamed in protest – the man was much heavier than any of the lumber I had to hurl in my early days in the brigade. A cold sweat broke out on my temples as I considered the situation, in horror. Scream for help? Reach for the chair and take the chance of running upstairs for Willy? The man was here by himself; no one hanged him, so putting him back onto the chair wouldn’t do a lot of good. He wished to die – of that, I had no doubt. I couldn’t hold him for much longer either; my arms were straining with the effort, as it was.
I shouted as loudly as I could. I screamed for a few interminably long minutes the way it felt, while he slipped out of my grip, while no sounds could be heard in deserted hallways, while everyone slept soundly in their beds. I held the man who wished to die because death and I had an old score to settle and for the first time I had a chance to look it in the face and claw at least one victim back out of its bony grip.
For the first time in so many years, I had the power to save someone, to become a rescuer and not a silent victim in need of rescuing that I swore to myself there and then that I would drop dead first before I let go.
My throat was hoarse with shouts. I didn’t know the man; I couldn’t even see his face but I suddenly understood Willy’s disregard toward his own fate whenever he tested providence by helping me or Liza or the entire brigade for that matter. Saving someone’s life was worth dying for; in this tiled shower room, I understood what no man could put convincingly into words, neither a ghetto rabbi nor an underground writer, in his leaflets.
At last, the metal clinking of hobnailed boots on the tiles. Blinding lights flooded the shower room – someone must have flipped the switch at the entrance. I still held on until a few pairs of hands wrenched the man out of my grip and moved me out of the way. Against the blinding light, the men were mere shadows, setting the chair, cutting the rope attached to the water pipe that ran along the ceiling. I couldn’t tell which kind of troops they were, the Feld Police or the Luftwaffe. All they wore was their undershirts and underwear, and only one of them wore boots.
In cold terror, I recognized the man with the rope around his neck – the pale-faced, raven-haired Konradt, who had run out of the room in such haste not an hour ago. Dazed and half-conscious, he gasped and wheezed long after the rope was torn off his neck. Someone said something about fetching the doctor.
“You stay where you are,” the voice commanded as I tried to slip quietly out of the room. “What’s your name and how did you get here in the first place?”
“I’m Ilse Stein, with the Luftwaffe, Air Supply Unit,” I promptly reported. “I know this man. He’s quartered with my superior, Leutnant Schultz. Allow me to go fetch his Staffelkapitän?”
“I said, stay put where you are.” The man in boots motioned for one of his orderlies to go upstairs instead.
Hauptmann Greiser was down in the showers along with Willy and all of the men now lodging with us in mere minutes. Soon, he was shaking my hand and thanking me profusely for saving that damned Schweinhund from certain death.
“I should have known,” Greiser repeated for the hundredth time when we were back upstairs. Konradt was taken to the hospital even though he actually walked there on his own, supported by two of his comrades. “I wondered if that’s what he’d do after what happened.”
“Is he in some trouble with the SS?” Willy probed gently, making a conclusion from the bits of the overheard conversation.
All of the pilots nodded their gratitude as he generously poured cognac in their respective glasses. Liza refused hers and pushed it toward me instead. I must have been quite a sight; my hands were still trembling – from the nerves, not from the strain.
Greiser made an evasive gesture and downed his glass. “It’s not that. He had a girl in the village, you see. Most of the fellows did, but Konradt actually loved his girl. Wanted to marry her once the war was over. She was madly in love with him too… The whole rotten Romeo and Juliet affair, blast it all to hell.”
“Did the SS shoot her?” It was me this time who asked.
“Shoot? No. Even though, what difference does it make, eh? No, they didn’t shoot anyone. Simply put them all in three big barns, locked them inside and set the barns on fire with flamethrowers.” Greiser was silent for some time. “We saw it all from where we were. The fire that is… didn’t realize at first what it was. Refused to believe, I suppose. Konradt charged forward at once. We grabbed hold of him immediately, wrestled him to the ground, held him fast. Eventually, he ceased his fighting when nothing was left of the barns, just smoldering ruins. He hasn’t said a word, ever since. Didn’t eat, didn’t drink. Just sat there, like a ghost, staring into space and the eyes – dead already. I thought he’d come out of it in the new place. I should have kept him close at all times. We did take his gun, knife, and shaving blade away, but… I should have let Merkel fetch him…”
“Where did he get the rope, I wonder?” Merkel murmured, biting the edge of his glass with his white teeth. He suddenly looked like a child to me, a mere teenager whom someone dressed in a flyer’s uniform and convinced that the war was a fine game. He su
ddenly looked as though he didn’t understand its rules any longer, didn’t comprehend why yet another of his friends had almost died.
“What difference does it make?” Greiser shrugged indifferently. “When a man wants to die, he’ll find a way. Same as if he wants to live, I suppose.”
It was long after twelve when we finally settled down to sleep. The dawn hadn’t broken yet when someone began knocking on the door urgently. The visitor wore a uniform and an armband with the red cross on it. Greiser’s face paled at once, as soon as he looked into the doctor’s eyes.
“Konradt?” That was all he asked.
“I’m sorry, Herr Hauptmann. We assigned a nurse to watch him but she dozed off… He jumped out of the window.”
“Dead?”
“Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann. The fifth floor. I’m sorry.”
Greiser nodded several times and went back into the bedroom. Willy took the empty cot just to occupy the empty place, just so it wouldn’t stare with its bare eyes into the eyes of the comrades who had just lost their brother. Still, no one could sleep for the rest of the night.
In the morning, when the men had gone to the mess, I found Willy standing in front of the open window, the cloud of a curtain billowing around him, obscuring him from sight.
“Willy,” I called out softly. “Why aren’t you downstairs with the others?”
“I’m going down in a second,” he replied without turning around, clearly preoccupied with something.
“It’s a shame about Konradt, isn’t it?”
I approached him and circled my arms around his waist. He covered them with his at once.
“I love you endlessly, my Ilse. Do you know that?”
“Yes, I do. I love you too and it’s because I love you so much that I want you to promise something to me.”
“No.”
“You haven’t even heard my request yet.”
“I know what you’re about to ask me and I can’t make a promise that I know I will break.” He kissed me with infinite tenderness and held me close. “If something happens to you, Ilse…”
“Nothing will happen to me as long as I have you.”
He pulled back and regarded me tragically. I brushed his cheek and kissed him softly on the corner of his mouth. I’m sorry for burdening you with such a responsibility, Willy Schultz but it’s true. I’ve grown to believe in you as one believes in some deity that will, without doubt, keep one alive as long as the faith is living in the one who’s praying for salvation. You’re all-powerful and merciful; you’re the kind God, the all-forgiving God. You aren’t blind to tears and you answer the prayers, unlike all the other Gods. I only pronounce your name with eternal love and reverence now. Have my soul as an offering – forgive me, for I have nothing else to offer you; my body, that has long been yours and forever will be, as long as you’ll have me.
“I can’t promise you that I’ll go on living after you die because we both know perfectly well that I won’t,” he began speaking at last. I’d never heard his tone to be so grave, so solemn. “But I can promise you this: as long as I’m alive, nothing will happen to you. We live together, or we die together.”
I looked into his infinitely blue eyes and understood everything. Because without the one who has faith, God is dead.
Chapter Twenty-One
December 1942
Liza’s excitement, when she approached us, was visible despite the fact that the lower part of her face was covered by a thick scarf. The temperatures plummeted last night and now even the SS looked at the brigade of Jewish workers as a blessing from the sky. Without them, they would all freeze overnight in their private quarters.
Since early morning, I spent as much time as I could with them not only as their supervisor but as their comrade; the brigade could use every pair of hands these bone-chilling days and particularly nights and I made it my responsibility to ensure that all the Government Building complex was thoroughly heated.
Willy would come out to us, bundled in his winter overcoat, every now and then. In front of other officers, he would pull himself up and issue commands in a no-nonsense voice. As soon as the area around the boiler house was deserted once again, he would lend a helping hand to the women and our only male worker Stepan, who carried sacks, with coal, inside. We always had at least one girl taking a break from the back-breaking work and standing guard on the corner; she’d wave her hand as soon as she saw someone in a uniform approach and Willy was back to his tall posture and commanding. The officers saluted him and went about their business, none the wiser.
“Nahum sends his regards,” Liza began without any unnecessary preamble.
We instantly pricked our ears. Nahum, Liza’s lover from the underground who had managed to escape the July massacre, was with Zorin’s Brigade ever since. It differed from all other brigades due to its unorthodox function; instead of the fighting, which was the primary mission of all other units, the Zorin one made it their business to save and shelter as many families as possible. They refused neither feeble nor old; pregnant women and small children were welcome there and that was one of the reasons why Liza’s Nahum found it to be the most important one to join.
“But if we don’t fight for our women, children, and elderly, what are we fighting for then?” he asked Liza when he returned in September to lead another few people from the ghetto under the cover of night. “Who needs freedom if we lose everyone dear to us in the process of fighting for it?”
He wanted Liza to go with him but as soon as he made the mistake of mentioning that the depleted underground needed a liaison with the Russian side, Liza, who didn’t have to wear a star on her clothes as a member of Leutnant Schultz’s heating Sonderkommando and was therefore a perfect nondescript candidate, volunteered for the task and positively refused to listen to any arguments. She offered me to go with him but I refused to go without my sisters and Willy and Nahum could only lead five people at a time without arousing suspicion. And so, for now, we all remained in the ghetto until someone could come up with a better plan in which none of us would have to separate from the others.
“I also spoke with Sergei today,” Liza continued, much too loud for my liking. However, the wind was howling with such savage force that day, hardly anyone besides us could overhear her words. I remembered Sergei from the day when he had slipped a note from Nahum into Liza’s hands in front of the ghetto’s gates where we had stood as a part of the cleaning commando right after the July massacre. Willy’s mystified scowl indicated that he had not the faintest idea whom Liza was talking about and she quickly explained before continuing, “Sergei and I used to work at the same power plant before the war; now, he also works for the Luftwaffe command but under some other officer’s supervision.” She scrunched up her face as she looked up at Willy.
He appeared to be going over different names in his mind. “Hallman?”
“No, doesn’t sound like it.”
“Müller?”
“No, I would have remembered Müller.”
“Kemmerich?”
“That’s it! Kemmerich!” Liza asserted at once.
“He’s responsible for the radio communications and engineering,” Willy clarified. “Go on.”
“That’s right! Sergei told me that he overheard Kemmerich and his staff discuss the situation with Stalingrad. Some entire Army Group is surrounded there, he said.” Again, she looked up inquisitively at Willy.
“The 6th? Paulus’s Army Group?” He regarded her in surprise.
Liza shrugged, as much as was allowable by her coat and layers of clothing under it. “I wouldn’t know. He only said that they’re completely encircled by the Red Army and now it’s only a matter of time as to when they’ll surrender. Do you know anything about it?”
Out of us all, Willy was the only one who stood with his face exposed to the harsh elements. A small smile formed on his pale lips. He lowered his gaze as if in an apology. “We have a political officer who addresses us every Sunday. In his last address,
he announced that the shortening of the front around the Stalingrad area was almost completed, that Rokossovsky’s Don Front is all but annihilated, that our new counterattack positions are even more favorable than the previous, and that our counteroffensive will result in our ultimate victory.”
Upon hearing two versions of the same news which positively contradicted each other, I shifted my uncomprehending glance from him to Liza and back.
“Sergei said he heard about the surrounded Army Group over the radio too,” Liza said. “The Soviet Informbureau. It can be propaganda too, of course… No one knows what to believe nowadays.”
“True. People in Germany believe we farm land, here in the East,” I muttered.
“It’s worse than that. They envy you, the Jews. You have it nice. They have rationing in Germany now and you can eat all you want from your farms.” Willy’s voice was razor-sharp with sarcasm.
Liza snorted with disdain. “A veritable buffet; nothing to say! You tell them next time I’ll happily trade my place with any of them.”
“It was in the newspaper.”
“Even worse! More people will read that nonsense and believe in it!”
Willy took out his cigarette case, pulled his gloves off with his teeth and lit up one. “What I wouldn’t give to listen to the Soviet radio myself. Out of two sources, perhaps one can work out what’s really going on. It’s not like anyone would tell us the truth either.”
Liza regarded him in amazement. “Don’t you have a radio set in your living quarters?”
“I don’t understand Russian and neither does Ilse,” he reminded her with a smile.
“Blast it. I forgot.”
Two officers, fur collars upturned and stiff, appeared on the stairs leading toward the boiler house. Liza began reporting some production nonsense in a loud voice. Willy nodded with the gravest of airs.
“Damned Russian winter!” One of the officers shouted through the layers of fur and gusts of wind by means of a greeting, as soon as they leveled with us.
No Woman's Land: a Holocaust novel based on a true story (Women and the Holocaust Book 2) Page 20