* * *
BY THE END OF HIS FIRST DAY LALE EXHAUSTED THE KNOWLEDGE of his two Russian coworkers. For the rest of the week he heeds his own advice: keeps his head down, does what he is asked, never argues. At the same time, he observes everyone and everything going on around him. It is clear to him, looking at the design of the new buildings, that the Germans lack any architectural intelligence. Whenever possible, he listens to the talk and gossip of the SS, who don’t know he understands them. They give him ammunition of the only sort available to him—knowledge, to be stored up for later. The SS stand around most of the day, leaning against walls, smoking, keeping only one eye on things. By eavesdropping, he learns that Commandant Hoess is a lazy bastard who hardly ever shows his face, and that accommodations for the Germans at Auschwitz are superior to those at Birkenau, which has no access to cigarettes or beer.
One group of workers stands out to Lale. They keep to themselves, wear civilian clothes, and speak to the SS without fearing for their safety. Lale is determined to find out who these men are. Other prisoners never pick up a piece of wood or tile but instead walk casually around the compound on other business. His kapo is one such. How to get a job like that? Such a position would offer the best chance to find out what is going on in the camp, what the plans are for Birkenau and, more important, for him.
* * *
LALE IS ON THE ROOF, TILING IN THE SUN, WHEN HE SPIES HIS kapo heading in their direction. “Come on, you lazy bastards, work faster,” Lale yells. “We’ve got a block to finish!”
He continues barking orders as the kapo appears below. Lale has made a habit of acknowledging him with a deferential nod of the head. On one occasion he received a short nod back. He has spoken to him in Polish. At the very least, his kapo has accepted him as a subservient prisoner who will not cause problems.
With a half smile, the kapo makes eye contact with Lale and beckons him down from the roof. Lale approaches him with his head bowed.
“Do you like what you’re doing, on the roof?” asks the kapo.
“I’ll do whatever I’m told to do,” replies Lale.
“But everyone wants an easier life, yes?”
Lale says nothing.
“I need a boy,” the kapo says, playing with the fraying edge of his Russian army shirt. It’s too big for him, chosen to make the little man appear larger and more powerful than those he must control. From his gap-toothed mouth Lale experiences the pungent smell of partially digested meat.
“You will do whatever I ask you to. Bring me my food, clean my boots, and be beside me whenever I want you. Do this, and I can make life easier for you; fail me, and there will be consequences.”
Lale stands beside his kapo as his answer to the job offer, wondering if by moving from builder to lackey he is making a deal with the devil.
* * *
ON A BEAUTIFUL SPRING DAY, NOT TOO HOT, LALE WATCHES AS a large, enclosed truck continues past the usual point for unloading building supplies. It drives around the back of the administration building. Lale knows that the boundary fence lies not far beyond and he has never dared venture to this area, but curiosity gets the better of him now. He walks after it with an air of “I belong here, I can go where I want.”
He peers around the corner at the back of the building. The truck pulls up beside an odd bus that has been adapted into a bunker of sorts, with steel plates nailed across the window frames. Lale watches as dozens of naked men are herded out of the truck and led toward the bus. Some enter willingly. Those who resist are hit with a rifle butt. Fellow prisoners drag the semiconscious objectors to their fate.
The bus is so full that the last men to board cling to the steps with their tiptoes, their naked bottoms hanging out the door. Officers shove their weight against the bodies. Then the doors are slammed shut. One officer walks around the bus, rapping on the metal sheets, checking that everything is secure. A nimble officer clambers onto the roof with a canister in his hand. Unable to move, Lale watches as he opens a small hatch on the roof of the bus and upends the canister. Then he slams the lid down and latches it. As the guard scurries down, the bus shakes violently and muffled screams can be heard.
Lale drops to his knees, retching. He remains there, sick in the dirt, as the screams fade.
When the bus is still and quiet, the doors are opened. Dead men fall out like blocks of stone.
A group of prisoners is marched out from beyond the other corner of the building. The truck backs up and the prisoners begin transferring the bodies onto it, staggering under the weight while trying to hide their distress. Lale has witnessed an unimaginable act. He staggers to his feet, standing on the threshold of hell, an inferno of feelings raging inside him.
The next morning he cannot get up. He is burning up.
* * *
IT TAKES SEVEN DAYS FOR LALE TO REGAIN CONSCIOUSNESS. Someone is pouring water gently into his mouth. He registers a cool, damp rag on his forehead.
“There, boy,” says a voice. “Take it easy.”
Lale opens his eyes to see a stranger, an older man, peering gently into his face. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, and the stranger supports him as he sits up. He looks around, confused. What day is it? Where is he?
“The fresh air might do you good,” says the man, taking Lale’s elbow.
He is escorted outside into a cloudless day, and he shivers at the memory of the last day like this. His world spins and he staggers. The stranger supports him, leading him to a nearby pile of timber.
Pulling up Lale’s sleeve, he points to the tattooed number.
“My name is Pepan. I am the Tätowierer. What do you think of my handiwork?”
“Tätowierer?” asks Lale. “You mean, you did this to me?”
Pepan shrugs, looking Lale directly in the eye. “I wasn’t given a choice.”
Lale shakes his head. “This number wouldn’t have been my first choice of tattoo.”
“What would you have preferred?” asks Pepan.
Lale smiles slyly.
“What’s her name?”
“My sweetheart? I don’t know. We haven’t met yet.”
Pepan chuckles. The two men sit in companionable silence. Lale traces a finger over his numbers.
“What is your accent?” asks Lale.
“I am French.”
“And what happened to me?” Lale asks finally.
“Typhus. You were destined for an early grave.”
Lale shudders. “Then why am I sitting here with you?”
“I was walking past your block just as your body was being thrown onto a cart for the dead and dying. A young man was pleading with the SS to leave you, saying that he would take care of you. When they went into the next block he pushed you off the cart and started dragging you back inside. I went and helped him.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Seven, eight days. Since then the men in your block have looked after you during the night. I’ve spent as much time as I can during the day caring for you. How do you feel?”
“I feel OK. I don’t know what to say, how to thank you.”
“Thank the man who pushed you from the cart. It was his courage that held you back from the jaws of death.”
“I will when I find out who it was. Do you know?”
“No. I’m sorry. We didn’t exchange names.”
Lale closes his eyes for a few moments, letting the sun warm his skin, giving him the energy, the will, to go on. He lifts his sagging shoulders, and resolve seeps back into him. He is still alive. He stands on shaking legs, stretching, trying to breathe new life back into an ailing body in need of rest, nourishment, and hydration.
“Sit down, you’re still very weak.”
Conceding the obvious, Lale does so. Only now his back is straighter, his voice firmer. He gives Pepan a smile. The old Lale is back, almost as hungry for information as he is for food. “I see you wear a red star,” he says.
“Ah, yes. I was an academic in Paris and was too outspok
en for my own good.”
“What did you teach?”
“Economics.”
“And being a teacher of economics got you here? How?”
“Well, Lale, a man who lectures on taxation and interest rates can’t help but get involved in the politics of his country. Politics will help you understand the world until you don’t understand it anymore, and then it will get you thrown into a prison camp. Politics and religion both.”
“And will you go back to that life when you leave here?”
“An optimist! I don’t know what my future holds, or yours.”
Through the noise of construction, dogs barking, and guards shouting, Pepan leans forward and asks, “Are you as strong in character as you are physically?”
Lale returns Pepan’s gaze. “I’m a survivor.”
“Your strength can be a weakness, given the circumstances we find ourselves in. Charm and an easy smile will get you in trouble.”
“I am a survivor.”
“Well, then maybe I can help you survive in here.”
“You have friends in high places?”
Pepan laughs and slaps Lale on the back. “No. No friends in high places. Like I told you, I am the Tätowierer. And I have been told that the number of people coming here will be increasing very soon.”
They sit with the thought for a moment. What lodges in Lale’s mind is that somewhere, someone is making decisions, plucking numbers from—where? How do you decide who comes here? What information do you base those decisions on? Race, religion, or politics?
“You intrigue me, Lale. I was drawn to you. You had a strength that even your sick body couldn’t hide. It brought you to this point, sitting in front of me today.”
Lale hears the words but struggles with what Pepan is saying. They are sitting in a place where people are dying every day, every hour, every minute.
“Would you like a job working with me?” Pepan brings Lale back from the bleakness. “Or are you happy doing whatever they have you doing?”
“I do what I can to survive.”
“Then take my job offer.”
“You want me to tattoo other men?”
“Someone has to do it.”
“I don’t think I could do that. Scar someone, hurt someone—it does hurt, you know.”
Pepan pulls back his sleeve to reveal his own number. “It hurts like hell. If you don’t take the job, someone will who has less soul than you do, and he will hurt these people more.”
“Working for the kapo is not the same as defiling hundreds of innocent people.”
A long silence follows. Lale again enters his dark place. Do those making the decisions have a family, a wife, children, parents? They can’t possibly.
“You can tell yourself that, but you are still a Nazi puppet. Whether it is with me or the kapo, or building blocks, you are still doing their dirty work.”
“You have a way of putting things.”
“So?”
“Then yes. If you can arrange it, I will work for you.”
“Not for me. With me. But you must work quickly and efficiently and not make trouble with the SS.”
“OK.”
Pepan stands, goes to walk away. Lale grabs at his shirtsleeve.
“Pepan, why have you chosen me?”
“I saw a half-starved young man risk his life to save you. I figure you must be someone worth saving. I’ll come for you tomorrow morning. Get some rest now.”
* * *
THAT NIGHT AS HIS BLOCKMATES RETURN, LALE NOTICES THAT Aron is missing. He asks the two others sharing his bed what has happened to him, how long he’s been gone.
“About a week,” comes the reply.
Lale’s stomach drops.
“The kapo couldn’t find you,” the man says. “Aron could have told him you were ill, but he feared the kapo would add you to the death cart again if he knew, so he said you were already gone.”
“And the kapo discovered the truth?”
“No,” yawns the man, exhausted from work. “But he was so pissed off, he took Aron anyway.”
Lale struggles to contain his tears.
The second bunkmate rolls onto his elbow. “You put big ideas into his head. He wanted to save ‘the one.’”
“To save one is to save the world,” Lale completes the phrase.
The men sink into silence for a while. Lale looks at the ceiling, blinks away tears. Aron is not the first person to die here and will not be the last.
“Thank you,” he says.
“We tried to continue what Aron started, to see if we could save the one.”
“We took turns,” a young boy says from below, “smuggling water and sharing our bread with you, forcing it down your throat.”
Another picks up the story. He rises from the bunk below, haggard, with cloudy blue eyes, his voice flat but still full of the need to tell his part of the story. “We changed your soiled clothes. We swapped them with someone’s who had died overnight.”
Lale is now unable to stop the tears that roll down his emaciated cheeks.
“I can’t . . .”
He can’t do anything but be appreciative. He knows he has a debt he cannot repay, not now, not here, realistically not ever.
He falls asleep to the soulful sound of Hebrew chants from those who still cling to faith.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING LALE IS IN THE LINE FOR BREAKFAST when Pepan appears by his side, takes his arm quietly, and steers him away toward the main compound. There, the trucks unload their human cargo. He feels as though he has wandered into a scene from a classical tragedy. Some of the actors are the same, most are new, their lines unwritten, their role not yet determined. His life experience has not equipped him to understand what is happening. But he remembers being here before. Not as an observer but a participant. What will my role be now? He closes his eyes and imagines he is facing another version of himself, looking at his left arm. It is unnumbered. Opening his eyes again, he looks down at the tattoo on his real left arm, then back to the scene in front of him.
He takes in the hundreds of new prisoners who are gathered there. Boys, young men, terror etched on each of their faces. Holding on to each other. Hugging themselves. SS and dogs shepherd them like lambs to the slaughter. They obey. Whether they live or die this day is about to be decided. Lale stops following Pepan and stands frozen. Pepan doubles back and guides him to some small tables with tattooing equipment. Those who have passed selection are guided into a line in front of their table. They will be marked. Other new arrivals—the old, infirm, no skills identified—are walking dead.
A shot rings out. Men flinch. Someone falls. Lale looks in the direction of the shot only for Pepan to grab his face and twist his head away.
A group of SS, mostly young, walk toward Pepan and Lale, guarding an older SS officer. Mid- to late forties, straight-backed in his immaculate uniform, his cap sitting precisely on his head—a perfect mannequin, thinks Lale, like those he occasionally helped dress when he worked in the department store in Bratislava.
The SS stop in front of them. Pepan steps forward, acknowledging the officer with a bowed head as Lale watches.
“Oberscharführer Houstek, I have enlisted this prisoner to help.” Pepan indicates Lale standing behind him.
Houstek turns to Lale.
Pepan continues. “I believe he will learn fast.”
Houstek, steely eyed, glares at Lale before wagging a finger for him to step forward. Lale does so.
“What languages do you speak?”
“Slovak, German, Russian, French, Hungarian, and a little Polish,” Lale answers, looking him in the eye.
“Humph.” Houstek walks away.
Lale leans over and whispers to Pepan, “A man of few words. I take it I got the job?”
Pepan turns on Lale, fire in his eyes and his voice, though he speaks quietly. “Do not underestimate him. Lose your bravado, or you will lose your life. Next time you talk to him, do not raise your eyes ab
ove the level of his boots.”
“I’m sorry,” Lale says. “I won’t.”
When will I learn?
3
JULY 1942
LALE IS SLOWLY WAKING, HOLDING ON TO A DREAM THAT HAS put a smile on his face. Stay, stay, let me stay here just a moment longer, please . . .
While Lale likes meeting all kinds of people, he particularly likes meeting women. He thinks them all beautiful, regardless of their age, their appearance, how they are dressed. The highlight of his daily routine is walking through the women’s department, where he works. That’s when he flirts with the young and not-so-young women who work behind the counter.
Lale hears the main doors to the department store open. He looks up, and a woman hurries inside. Behind her, two Slovak soldiers stand in the doorway and don’t follow her in. He hurries over to her with a reassuring smile. “You’re OK,” he says. “You’re safe here with me.” She accepts his hand and he leads her toward a counter full of extravagant bottles of perfume. Looking at several, he settles on one and holds it toward her. She turns her neck in a playful manner. Lale softly sprays first one side of her neck and then the other. Their eyes meet as her head turns. Both wrists are held out, and each receives its reward. She brings one wrist to her nose, closes her eyes, and sniffs lightly. The same wrist is offered to Lale. Gently holding her hand, he brings it close to his face as he bends and inhales the intoxicating mix of perfume and youth.
“Yes. That’s the one for you,” Lale says.
“I’ll take it.”
Lale hands the bottle over to the waiting shop assistant, who begins to wrap it.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” he says.
Faces flash before him, smiling young women dance around him, happy, living life to the fullest. Lale holds the arm of the young lady he met in the women’s department. His dream seems to rush ahead. Lale and the lady walk into an exquisite restaurant, dimly lit by a few wall sconces. On every table, a flickering candle holds down the heavy jacquard tablecloth. Expensive jewelry projects colors onto the walls. The noise of silver cutlery on fine china is softened by the dulcet sounds of the string quartet silhouetted in one corner. The concierge greets him warmly as he takes the coat from Lale’s companion and steers them toward a table. As they sit, the maître d’ shows Lale a bottle of wine. Without taking his eyes from his companion, he nods and the bottle is uncorked and poured. Both Lale and the lady feel for their glass. Their eyes still locked, they raise their hands and sip. Lale’s dream jumps forward again. He is close to waking up. No. Now he is riffling through his wardrobe, selecting a suit, a shirt, considering and rejecting ties until he finds the right one and attaches it perfectly. He slides polished shoes onto his feet. From the bedside table he pockets his keys and wallet before bending down and pushing a wayward strand of hair from the face of his sleeping companion and lightly kissing her on the forehead. She stirs and smiles. In a husky voice she says, “Tonight . . .”