Four Fires (33 page)

I have for you such an example. In Auschwitz there is a doctor, Dr Mengele, you will hear more from this name.'

I'm not sure I know of Mengele? A physician at Auschwitz you say?'Then he adds, 'Is it something the medical profession needs to be ashamed of?'

'Ja, every doctor in za world when they know about this Mengele, they will be ashamed to be a doctor. But never mind to be ashamed. To be ashamed means you still have a conscience, to be ashamed is not so bad; not to be ashamed, that is bad. All my life I am ashamed, you see, Ir> Auschwitz I am the surgeon assistant to this monster, Mengele.'

'Monster?' Professor Block looks curious, 'Should I know about this?'

Morrie leans forward, 'Of course! Every physician should know this. I can tell you now za story.

It was not by choice, of course, my wife and my two children have already gone to the right-hand line, to the showers, to the gas chamber. In one hour from when they are coming to that place they are already dead. But I am a doctor, a professor, and so I am put in za left-hand line, the Nazis they make me a ward assistant in the hospital where is working Dr Mengele. The Germans they know already my qualifications so when comes Mengele they are making me his theatre assistant.

'I think maybe I can save lives in this death camp, that is the job for a doctor even in Auschwitz.

Soon I know I am wrong. I am working for a madman, a madman, who is doing experiments on twins. It is not medicine, it is not science, it is murder. I am not a murderer, I am a healer, a physician. So after za first time I wait until all have gone away from that operating theatre and I go into za scrubbing-up room and shut za door and cut my wrists.' Morrie stretches out his arms so that his wrists show beyond the cuffs of his coat and Professor Block sees the two long white vertical scars running down the centre of his arm from the butt of his hands to halfway up to his elbows just like he showed us that time at home.

'But Mengele will not kill a member of the medical profession. "We are healers, scientists, I cannot kill a healer and a scientist, it would be on my conscience forever.'"

Morrie stops and looks at Professor Block, 'Dr Mengele, always he is wanting twins. Every prisoner, every Jew and every Gypsy knows that Mengele wants young children who are twins for his experiments. They also know if they find identical twins, one difference, one twin is genius, how you say?'

'A child prodigy?' the professor suggests.

'Ja, za one twin must be a true genius, a Mozart, nothing less. The uzzer one is not a genius but still identical. If such twins can be found by anyone in za camp then the prisoner who finds them, their life it will be saved in Auschwitz. They will get extra soup and bread and light duties and medical attention, blankets in za winter, a warm coat also, the guards will not beat them, they will survive. To find such a combination is a chance to stay alive. They will have life where there is nothing but the promise of death. It is a rich prize.

Then one day is coming into the children's camp twins, but they are sick. So they are coming to me in the children's huts and to my infirmary because maybe they are infectious. Mengele does not want sick twins in his hospital, where is sent only the healthy twins. I have a small infirmary in the children's compound. These twins, they are delirious, but mostly from dehydration, though they have a fever, but they are not so sick. They are two boys, Zachariah and Emmanuel Moses, and they are eleven years old. After a few days they are getting better and one morning I am
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coming in the ward and the one has a piece of, how you say, wastepaper?'

'A scrap of paper?' Professor Block suggests.

'Ja, scrap of paper, from which I am writing medical reports. The Germans they want reports for everything in za camp and I am maybe throwing away this piece of paper. To save paper we must write on both sides, but one side of this paper is clean. I go to see what it is he is writing and it is music.'

' "What are you doing?" I ask him.

' "Composing, Herr Doktor, it is the first movement of a concerto for violin and orchestra," he says very quietly.

'"A concerto, you are composing a concerto for violin? Show me." I put out my hand and he gives me this paper. I know a little bit music, my mother was a teacher of pianoforte and I can read music. What this twin has written on that paper is not for children. "Which one is you?" I ask him.

' "Emmanuel, Herr Doktor."

' "Emmanuel, I will give you some more paper, you will write in my surgery, but do not show this to anyone, you understand?" Then I ask him, "Your twin, Zachariah, he can do this also?"

'"No, he can only play the piano, some Chopin, Schumann, some others also."

I can see from his expression he does not think his brother is a great musician, but he does not want to say so. "And you, what do you play?"

'"The violin, Herr Doktor. But I am first a composer, then the violin."

' "To write down this first movement, how long, Emmanuel?"

'He smiles and touch his head like so,' Morrie taps his head. "I have it in here, Herr Doktor. I have composed it on za train, I will need three days to write it down."

'My God, Professor Block! What he shows me is not sad, the music I can see on this page, it will fall lightly under the bow. This boy is composing joyous music in his head when he is coming in za cattle train from Germany to za concentration camp in Poland!

'After three days he give me the first movement. "Emmanuel, you must not tell anyone you are a composer and Zachariah also, he must not tell. You must be stumml" I take him by the shoulder and look into his eyes, "You understand? If they find out, they will kill you and also your brother."

'In Auschwitz they have a symphony orchestra. The Kommandant is choosing the best Jewish musicians and when is coming in the cattle trains they are playing at the railhead so everyone is thinking they come to a nice place where is always playing concert music.

'The conductor of the orchestra is a man who is coming from Krakow. I know him from before, but not so good. I take to him the concerto, "Can you look, please, Maestro Pietrowski? Maybe you can play this?"

' "What is this?" he ask me. "You have done this?"

' "No please, you tell me what is your opinion, Maestro." I give him a little bag of salt and some Bayer aspirin, this is very valuable commodity for him in the camp.

'The next day he sends me a message to come to where they are playing the orchestra. I come and the first violinist and the orchestra they are playing this concerto. It is very beautiful, full of laughter and

joy

'"Professor Zukfizzeski, where are you getting this music?" he ask me again.

' "I have found it inside the jacket of a young boy who has died of typhus," I lie to him.

' "But it is written on medical-report paper?"

"This boy, Isaac Goldstein, he is working in the infirmary as a floor sweeper, I think he is stealing this paper from me."

'"You are telling me this music, it is composed by this boy? Impossible!"

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'"I think so, maybe, maybe not, maybe he has learned it and is copying it out."

' "I don't think so," Pietrowski says, "If he is caught by a guard or a kapo he would be killed.

Why would he copy music if such a thing will get him killed? For a boy this is remarkable, he understands everything. The violin, ja, maybe he can do it, if he plays well he can write za part, but the uzzer parts, he knows already how they work together for orchestra, the different timbres, remarkable!"

'I shrug my shoulders and spread my hands like so, "But now he is dead already it does not matter if he is a thief."

'"Professor," Maestro Pietrowski says to me, "maybe one day we will get the chance to ask the Almighty why? Why must a young Jewish boy like Isaac Goldstein die? We are His chosen people! Why must God create a boy like this and then let him die?" He is holding up the paper with the music in the air so maybe God can see it. "In Paradise they will play a concerto to welcome us when we are comink there. Maybe already they have played this one for the boy.

Why not? He does not need to be ashamed of this music." He waves za music in front his face,

"For a young boy to compose this, he is a genius, make no mistake, maybe even a young Brahms, no less.'"

Morrie spreads his hands. You can see Professor Block and Mr Tompkins cannot take their eyes off him. 'So now I have Dr Mengele's greatest desire, twins, one a genius, the other normal, and I must keep this secret from him and also za whole camp.' Morrie looks at Block, I must break the rules. How can I do this? Emmanuel and Zachariah they are identical, I cannot tell who is what one, not one thing is different, not even a mole or a measurement, even the length of the forefinger is the same. Even if Mengele doesn't know he has here his greatest desire, he will still want them for his experiments, he will still mutilate them.

So I am keeping Emmanuel and Zachariah in the infirmary until two young boys the same age die in the children's huts.' Morrie spreads

his hands and shrugs, 'Ach, it is not a long time to wait, every morning we are taking the corpses to the ovens from the children who have died in the night. Then I am writing the death certificates for them in the name of Emmanuel and Zachariah Moses and I am taking the names of the two dead boys, Isaac Farfel and Mendel Horowitz, and I am giving them to Emmanuel and Zachariah. So now they must learn their new names.

'I am lucky, because Emmanuel and Zachariah are just comink from the cattle train to za infirmary, they are not yet tattooed on their arm. So I take the numbers from the arms of the two dead children and I am tattooing the same number for each one on za twins. Then I tie the dead boys in two sacks and put an infection ticket on each sack and send the death certificates for Emmanuel and Zachariah Moses to the administration with my report, which say the twins have died of typhus and they must not be examined because of infection and must be burned immediately. I tell them I have written post-mortem notes for Dr Mengele, so there will be no trouble.

'If Mengele sees this he will be very angry, he must have all dead twins identified by his administration staff, the numbers on za arms must be checked against the twin register. But he will not kill me because he has the post-mortem notes for his records of twins and also I have taken za numbers in the twin register that would have been given to Emmanuel and Zachariah Moses and I have put them in the post-mortem report and ticked them in za twin register.

Mengele is a fanatic about za records, everything for twins must be written down. For him, when is written down somethink, it becomes za truth.

'Now I have still two identical boys with different surnames and it is not so hard to see they are twins,' Morrie smiles, 'that here is something funny buggers goink on. So I send Zachariah, who is now Mendel Horowitz, to one hut far away from the infirmary and I keep Emmanuel, who is now Isaac Farfel, in za hospital. I tell them they must not meet or they will die.' Morrie takes a deep breath and looks first at Mr Tompkins and then at Professor Block and then down at his
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clumsy boots. 'I am operating on Isaac to change his features, to make for him a new face.'

Sarah gasps as Morrie says this and she can also see the complete surprise in Professor Block's face. 'Plastic surgery? You are a plastic surgeon, Dr Suckfizzle?'

Morrie shrugs, 'At the university in Krakow before the war we have been working on plastic surgery for some years, this is well known. If you can check the record you will see it is true. I am a surgeon for children and sometimes is coming in a baby or a child with a deformity.

Sometimes the knife and skin-grafting can repair this, sometimes we must break the bones and reset them, sometimes it only makes a little difference, but enough so that child will grow up a bit normal. Sometimes even, we are managing a small miracle. You know this, Professor, the most common birth deformities to the infant head are the mouth, za chin and sometimes za nose. So now I am working on Emmanuel Moses so he can be Isaac Farfel. He is a beautiful young boy and what I am doing is a crime against the work of the Creator, because he cannot keep his beauty, I must destroy it with my surgeon's knife. My scalpel must make him different from his twin, it is their only chance to survive.'

Sarah cannot contain herself any longer, 'Did it work?' she blurts out. Then she looks worried because she's not supposed to say anything. But I think Professor Block and Mr Tompkins also want to know and so she is not even given a dirty look.

Morrie bends down slowly to open his battered leather briefcase and from it he withdraws a manila folder which he places on the desk in front of Professor Block. Take a look, please/

Morrie says.

Block opens the folder slowly and both Mr Tompkins and Sarah instinctively move a step closer to look. Inside are what appear to be several yellowing pieces of paper. The heading of the first one, in German, reads:

medical report

But the word 'Medical' has been crossed out and above it, in a childlike hand, is written: report

What follows are twelve pages of music, each of which Professor Block lifts and turns over very carefully so as not to damage them. When he turns the last page of music, underneath he finds a postcard with the same handwriting as some of the margin notes on the pages of music, though perhaps now the writing is rather more practised, the hand no longer that of a child but of a young adult.

'Take,' Morrie says, indicating Professor Block should remove the postcard. 'You can read German, Professor?'

Professor Block nods his head and picks up the postcard. Sarah can see that on the side facing her is a black and white picture of a building with what appears to be Hebrew lettering running across the top.

'You can read for all,' Morrie now says, indicating Mr Tompkins and Sarah with a sweep of his hand. For the moment he seems to have forgotten that the two of them wouldn't understand German.

Professor Block reads silently for a few moments, then nods and looks up at Sarah and Mr Tompkins. 'I will do my best to translate it for you,' he says to the two of them. He begins to read, slowly at first and then with increasing confidence.