Devil's Workshop (9 page)

Terezín is in every encyclopaedia, every textbook, he says, speaking now just to me. We want to be on the world map too. We believe you can help us achieve that.

Kagan is shaking my hand, sealing our bond of brotherhood, when all of a sudden we hear it: a sharp, nerve-rending sound. A siren. It wails intermittently as the yellow bulbs blink on and off. An alarm.

Everyone freezes at first, then springs into motion, some people go running off into the dark as Kagan drags me towards the tent. I don’t resist, since all of a sudden I see her, holding open a flap. We slip inside, Kagan gropes around on the ground, lifts a wooden cover. I see stairs, the faint glow of light bulbs. Maruška’s right behind me, we clamber down the steps, there are others behind her.

I duck my head and follow Kagan down a long tunnel, till we come to a train. It looks like one of those rides for kids.

We sit down, Kagan, Maruška and me, some big guy squeezes in with us, plus two girls, panting for breath, smeared with dirt. People are coming out of the tunnel one by one and climbing on board. The carriage next to us, a little thing, is filled with wooden crates, sealed shut. Kagan chuckles softly.

I bet you didn’t know there are still countries where an archaeologist can feel like Indiana Jones. Eh, my friend? Ho ho ho!

And we’re off. The ride is bumpy in places, and slow, but we move right along. I can’t believe we didn’t think of this in Terezín! A little train like this – it’d be great for older tourists! From the Monument to the cemetery and the ramparts. And the kids! Then they wouldn’t be so worn out from walking.

Where’re we going? I ask Kagan.

Headquarters. Of our opposition party. Whatever we find, we store there, he says.

Is it safe? I ask. I have my doubts.

The government and the opposition both support our plan. So there’s no threat to your mission, he says, leaning in towards me. I can’t see his face, but I can smell the strong stink of his rubber coat.

Where’s your headquarters?

Minsk.

Oh no. And here I was hoping we were on our way somewhere else. But if I’d had any idea where I was going to end up, I would’ve stayed nailed to my seat in that train.

The last faint light disappears around the bend. Now it’s really dark and cold. I want to hold Maruška’s hand, but it’s too cramped to move. Still, I bless the darkness, at least now I can take care of the clot in my nose. I’d be embarrassed in front of them.

I reach into my pocket, take out the Spider, and stick it in one of my fabulous boots. Wiggle my fingers, feeling it through my sock. Slowly we wind our way through the dark, blacker than black, nobody talks. Why bother. It’s obvious they’re after us.

Finally the light appears and the train jerks to a stop. We get out and walk. Another narrow tunnel, another set of wooden stairs. We walk up, Kagan first, somebody up there is holding open the cover. We’re in a house. Bare wooden walls, high ceiling. No furniture, just crates. They’re everywhere, some new and smelling of wood, others ancient and warped, stinking of dried mud. All of them are shut. Kagan is greeted by a crowd of men and women. They exchange strong hugs, happy to see each other. I want to wait for Maruška, but then all of a sudden I see him. He splits off from the others, walks over to me.

You got the Spider? Alex asks.

Way back when, I had told him what I named it.

Better give me it now. I don’t know how much time we have, he says.

You mean martial law? I ask.

Whatever happens, stick with me. You got it or not? Alex asks again. Mr Hard-line. It actually hasn’t been that long since we saw each other in Terezín. Now he’s got a screwdriver in his hand, wires draped around his neck. Overalls with big pockets. Pliers, tape measure, a few other tools poking out. I haven’t seen him like this before. He looks like a handyman.

The people who were working under the museum come crawling out one by one. Next thing you know the wooden floor’s covered with footprints. Young girls, boys. We could’ve used them at the Comenium. They would’ve liked it there. I follow Alex as we walk towards the back of the room, working our way through the crush. These seekers of the bunks are a tougher bunch than our sensitive students. There’s anger on their faces. I bet they’re pretty pissed off they had to make a run for it. Everything’s tougher and crazier here. In our country the girls would be selling souvenirs instead of digging with shovels. Listening to Lebo’s talks instead of Kagan’s fiery speeches. At night they’d be smoking red grass, drinking and dancing. They wouldn’t be so pale. Ah, well! Wouldn’t that be nice? And then I see Maruška.

She’s cradling a little boy in her arms, with another one hanging on her skirt. Both of their faces are glowing as she whispers something into the down on the little one’s head.

In the corner of the room there are more kids, women, older ones too.

There’s something I want to show you, says Alex. You didn’t have this in Terezín.

We go behind a divider. Again I’m blinking in the dark. I can feel the Spider in my boot. Now what? After I give it to Alex, then what’ll happen to me? Where will I go? These are the questions I want to discuss with Mr Hard-line. The sooner the better. He takes me by the elbow, we keep walking.

In the murk of the back room I make out some human-size mannequins, standing and sitting, hunched on chairs.

These aren’t brides like the girl with the shiny headband. There’s a stench of old age coming off them.

One standing next to me moves, I almost scream. It opens its arms and I stare at the face in disbelief. A guy with leathery skin, shrivelled, nose like a beak. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man that old in all my life.

I’m even more shocked when a voice issues from the ruins.

Welcome, comrade, he says in Czech. And wraps me in a hug. He staggers, I struggle to hold him up. His long, nervous fingers, like toothpicks, tremble before he drops into a wicker chair deftly pushed underneath him by Alex.

The most beautiful memories! he rasps. In Milovice everyone had a little house with a garden and flowers! he says, and his head drops to his chest, asleep, wheezing in and out of his nose.

He doesn’t smell like the other mannequins, though. He smells normal.

Alex tells me that Luis Tupanabi was his professor at the Institute in Milovice. Not far from Prague. Yep, the Soviets had a particularly large garrison there.

He’s also a concentration-camp survivor, Alex says, adjusting a warm blanket around the professor’s slumped shoulders.

The fascists forced him to make
tsantsas
, he goes on.

Tsantsas
? I ask, wondering whether Alex is slipping back into Belarusian.

That’s right. I’ll show you later, Alex says. Luis has done tremendous work on behalf of our museum. But now he’s really old. I think he’s going to die soon.

He wraps another blanket around Luis’s shoulders. Throws one over his legs. Luis has polka-dot slippers on his feet.

You know, says Alex, I went to see Spielberg in Los Angeles. He’s got a Holocaust archive with thousands of survivors telling their story on thousands of screens. Not bad. But when people see something on TV they forget it right away. What they see in our museum they’ll never forget.

Museum, I say, looking around. What museum? Besides the mannequins there’s nothing here but crates. Crates full of specimens.

The museum we’re building in Khatyn, Alex says. It’s going to be the most famous memorial site in the world. The devil had his workshop here in Belarus. The deepest graves are in Belarus. But nobody knows about them. That’s why you’re here!

Uh-huh, I say to say something.

This Alex is different from the one I knew in Terezín. There he was learning. Here he’s in charge.

I need all of Lebo’s databases immediately, he says. I need your help. I need cash, snaps Mr Hard-line. He’s getting fired up like Kagan at the burial site.

Then we hear it and freeze. Bang! Like a battering ram against the walls of the house. Everything shakes. And again. Explosions.
Firecrackers
, not grenades. But powerful ones.

We make our way back around the divider. Everyone’s running around. The explosions still ring in our ears. Somebody shouts, a girl. Or one of the children. And crack, into the wall again.

Nobody needs to explain to me what’s going on. They’re back. The cops, they’ve been on my heels at every turn since I got here. Well, I was slightly mistaken. They weren’t cops.

The message from the megaphone isn’t complicated. Come out with our hands over our heads. Somebody opens the door. It feels chilly out, but not actually cold. It’s early morning. The sun is coming up.

I want to get out, in the air. I put my hands over my head, take a step. Alex pulls me back. And grinning at me from the other side is Kagan.

Stick with me, Mr Hard-line repeats. I think I might be getting a tad allergic to him. People start walking out. The voice from the megaphone repeats its request.

They walk out silently. No panic, no fuss. Did they prepare for this moment? They walk slowly past me, the girls from the pit sticking close to each other. I think I recognize the boy with the ponytail. Faces with burning eyes. I don’t actually notice it right away. But these seekers of the bunks don’t have their hands up.

The guy walking past me now is swinging a lathe with nails sticking out of the bottom, another ragtag type in rubber boots has a pickaxe. They’re a regular army, these guys and girls in glasses with the gaunt appearance of mathematicians, deranged poets, computer geniuses. Youngsters in torn jeans, corduroy jackets, overalls and muddy trainers, marching out like they marched through the tunnel, quietly, one by one, but almost everyone’s carrying something they can whip or swing to defend themselves.

The one I’m looking for isn’t with them. Either that or she was one of the first ones out.

I’ve got Kagan on one side of me, Alex on the other, holding my elbow. We walk out. Alex kicks the door shut behind us.

Frosted bushes stand out against the white of the snow. I see prefab blocks of flats off in the distance. A scattering of stunted birch trees, shrubs, a heap of bricks here and there, rusty sheet metal on the ground. Looks like a construction site.

We hear a roar, screeching metal, coming closer. Then we see it, crushing trees, bushes, in its path, stones shooting out of its treads. An armoured personnel carrier, red stars painted on its green and sandy-yellow sides. A tall man in fatigues stands next to the driver, holding on with one hand, megaphone in the other. A flank of men advances through the bushes, also dressed in fatigues, helmets on, weapons in hand.

Should I jump into the bushes, crawl back in the house, scream that I’m an
inostranyets
? I guess Alex can sense my confusion. He says, absolutely calmly: Follow my lead, got it?

The vehicle and the soldiers pass the piles of bricks, the phalanx quickly cutting a path through the shrubs. Our crew is surrounded in front of the house.

Now we see them, straggling in behind the soldiers, in ones and twos at first, but as the phalanx comes to a stop they fuse into a mob. There are people in the trees everywhere, shaking their fists, some clenching sticks, chunks of brick. A stone zips through the air, then another. A boy in front of me collapses, bleeding from the head. A shriek of hate erupts from the crowd. Women scream at the soldiers’ backs. The men facing us are wearing quilted coats and overalls, some of them are in track jackets. I know these overfed jailer types, I can spot them a mile off. The commander in the personnel carrier lifts the megaphone to his mouth, shouts a command, and the soldiers turn and point their guns above the rabble-rousers’ heads. They’re protecting us from the mob.

Then the commander points at us.

The patience of the Belarusian people is at an end! he thunders.

The boy’s knuckles next to me are white from his tight grip on the lathe, but his hand is shaking.

The big man in the APC lifts a sack in his hand. An ordinary grey sack.

Our investigation of the Jewish scum has led us here! the commander says into the megaphone. He points to the house.

From here the opposition and Jewish organizations are poisoning our city!

The mob roars, another stone flies, somebody cries out in pain. The soldiers raise their weapons. Suddenly it’s silent.

The commander shows the sack to the mob, holds it up over the heads of the soldiers, turns toward us.

The Jews and oppositionists feed the rats with their faeces, he says into the megaphone. That’s why they shit in the gutters. They want to destroy Sun City. Are we going to let them? he shouts. The people start screaming in hatred again.

The commander raises his hand. He’s doing a real ballet up there.

The president is watching! he shouts, and he hurls the sack to the ground. It sits a moment, bulging and thrashing, then everyone gasps as a ball of giant rats scrabble out, hairless, toothy, filthy things, feverishly gnawing each other, and suddenly, Bang! Bang! Bang! The commander empties his magazine, shooting the rats to bloody bits, and somebody in the crowd cries out with glee.

What shall we do with this nest of traitors? Spare them? Or punish them? the commander says through the megaphone.

It’s quiet for a moment. Then there’s a roar as the people hurl
themselves
at the soldiers. The soldiers lower their guns. And the attackers run right through them, rushing us in bunches, clubs and sticks coming down on heads, backs, all around me. I take a nasty blow. Somebody throws something over me, grips my head, drags me away. I hear
gurgling
, clomping feet, my forehead slams into something. The crowd is crushing me up against the APC. The commander offers me his hand, I grab hold, push off something soft with my feet, roll into a seat. The commander hauls someone else up: Alex. We start to move, cutting slowly through the crowd. I see some of our crew fighting. A few of them are standing backed against the wall of the house, swinging their sticks, there’s the flash of a pickaxe or two, it’s the last time I’ll see the grim, hard faces of these seekers of the bunks. We leave the battlefield, crossing a stretch of snow on to an asphalt road. The commander sits in front of me, driving now, Kagan squats beside him. And peeking out of the blankets next to him is Whistling Beak, Professor Luis. I turn around and see Maruška on the seat behind me. I close my eyes to give myself time to believe she’s really there. This part of town’s quiet and deserted, must be the outskirts of Sun City. We pass the hunched box of a prefab housing block.

Maruška has tears in her eyes.

I lean towards her, into her breath, and she smacks me in the face.

I thought you’d be glad we were back together again. I wrench the words out, slowly, to keep from biting my tongue as we jolt along the road.

You better fucking believe I am! You’re my assignment. But I had to leave my kids back there. Thanks to you.

We didn’t talk after that.