Heritage (37 page)

She was summoned to his quarters several nights a week, where he would give her the use of his bathroom. She would scrub herself clean and she would dress in the bathrobe he provided for her, the grey-striped dress of the Auschwitz inmate discarded for the several hours she was there. Then she would drape the silk scarf over her shaved head, and he would forget that she was a Jew.

She'd been puzzled when he'd first handed her the white silk scarf.

‘I am not cold,' she had said.

She'd understood, however, when he'd gestured at her bare skull. It appeared that he found her unsightly, and she'd obediently draped the scarf over her head like a prayer shawl.

She would sit in the big comfortable armchair, her legs curled under her, while he sat on a hardback chair at the table, and he would play music to her on his gramophone. His favourite recording of all was the Comedian Harmonists' rendition of ‘Barcarole' from
The Tales of Hoffmann
, and he would sing along to the lyrics, softly and melodically. He would offer her good food, and she would eat sparingly. Despite her deprivation, food appeared to be of no major interest. Until the night he told her she could take it with her.

‘Have it later,' he said.

‘I will,' she replied, and she shovelled it into the paper bags he provided.

They didn't speak as the music played. He was content to watch her while she stared into space. She made no pretence of listening, and he doubted whether she was hearing the melodies at all. When he'd turned off the gramophone they would talk a little, or rather he would, about music and literature and the arts in general – always things of beauty, as if they were chatting in a Berlin salon. Occasionally he would talk about himself and his devotion as a doctor to the preservation of life, carefully distancing himself in her eyes from Mengele and the rumoured medical procedures that were conducted at the Experimentation Block. She would answer politely enough but monosyllabically for the most part, and always, when she was once again in her grey-striped dress and about to leave, she would plead for her husband.

‘Is there any further news about Manfred, Klaus? When will he be freed?'

It hadn't taken her long to call him by his name. The enticement, he'd discovered, had been the promise of her husband's freedom.

‘He is not my husband and he is not a Jew,' she'd pleaded over and over, ‘he is a friend who has sacrificed himself for me. He does not belong here, Herr Doktor. Please, you must save him!'

‘Klaus,' he'd said. ‘You are to call me Klaus, Ruth,' and his suggestion had carried the promise that it might expedite matters. She'd called him Klaus from that day on.

He'd come to believe, however, that she might not be lying.

‘His name is Manfred Brandauer,' she'd said, ‘and he is the son of Stefan Brandauer, the prominent politician. You must surely have heard of him.'

Of course he'd heard of Stefan Brandauer. He'd met the man in Berlin on several occasions during his university days, a well-known Jew-lover who'd been rightfully sent packing in 1936.

‘Ah yes,' he'd replied, ‘Stefan Brandauer, I knew him. A fine man who served the German government well.'

So this was Stefan Brandauer's son. She was wrong, he decided, the man most certainly belonged here. Another Jew-lover like his father, he deserved no clemency. Let him suffer along with his friends. Klaus gave no further thought to the matter.

But the more she pleaded, the more suspicious he became. Manfred Brandauer was her lover, he decided. Why else was she so desperate to save him? And the stronger his suspicions grew, the more his jealousy consumed him. He'd have Brandauer shot, he decided. But then, if he did so, his negotiating power would diminish; she believed that he intended to save her lover. He was in a dilemma.

Klaus had come to recognise his obsession; he could no longer dismiss it: he wanted Ruth more than he'd ever wanted a woman. But he wanted her to come to him of her own volition; he did not wish to force himself upon her. It would be demeaning to them both, he had decided.

So he wooed her. While the music played and she stared vacantly at the wall, he massaged her shoulders and he sang to her, always ‘Barcarole'.

‘Schöne Nacht, du Liebesnacht, o stille mein Verlangen …'

He had a good ear and a pleasant tenor voice.

‘Süsser als der Tag und lacht die schöne Liebesnacht.'

It was impossible to tell what she was thinking. She reacted to the singing the same way she reacted to the music, as if she didn't really hear it, and she suffered the massage, neither flinching from his touch, nor relishing it. Then, as always, before she left, she pleaded for Brandauer's release, and, as always, he placated her with the promise that he was doing what he could and that these things took time.

Klaus's desire was driving him mad, and one night he decided that he could wait no longer. But he broached his ultimatum with care.

‘Mengele has not shown a great interest in Brandauer's case, I must admit,' he said, ‘although, as you know, I've spoken to him on a number of occasions. To Eichmann also.' He had not spoken to Eichmann, and he could just hear Beppo's hoot of derisive laughter if he ever brought up the subject. ‘So your Jew whore wants you to save her lover, Klaus,' Beppo would say. ‘Why don't you just put a bullet through his head and be done with it?'

The prospect had been more than tempting for the past two months.

‘What do we do then?' Ruth asked. ‘There must be another course of action, Klaus. Where do we go? Who do we see?'

We
. He felt a flicker of amusement at her use of the word, and he admired her audacity.
We
are not going anywhere, he thought,
we
are not seeing anyone. You are here in Auschwitz, my beauty, and you are alive at my whim.

‘Without direct permission from a senior camp commander, Ruth,' he said carefully, ‘to free someone from Auschwitz is no easy task. There is the bureaucratic process which needs to be addressed, the proof of mistaken identity …'

‘But I gave you his address: Viktoria-Luise-Platz in Berlin. His papers will be there. I gave you a list of his Aryan friends who will vouch for him. There is solid proof of his identity …'

‘I know, I know,' he said reassuringly, although irritated; the only time she showed any passion or vitality was when she spoke of Brandauer. ‘I will contact Berlin Headquarters tomorrow and set the wheels in motion.'

‘Thank you, Klaus,' she whispered, and there was the shadow of a smile in her gratitude. She believed him. ‘Thank you, thank you.'

She was seated in the comfortable armchair, as always, in her robe with her legs curled under her, and, as he crossed to sit on the arm beside her, she looked directly into his eyes. He trailed his fingers through the soft spikes of her hair – she no longer wore the silk scarf, it was not necessary, he had decided – and he thought how incredibly young she looked. Young and gamine, like a girl on the brink of womanhood.

‘We are in this together, Ruth, we are a team,' he said, caressing her cheek and her throat. Tenderly, like a lover.

‘Yes.'

He could see it in her eyes. She had been expecting this moment.

‘Perhaps, as a team, you and I …' He lowered his face to her, and she parted her lips in anticipation of his kiss.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I will do anything you wish.'

It wasn't the way he'd wished it at all, he thought, but at least the stalemate had been breached. He was thankful that he hadn't had Manfred Brandauer shot – the man had proved useful.

But, several weeks later, he was once again cursing Brandauer. His promise of the man's freedom, and her subsequent gratitude, had not unleashed any passion in her. She responded to his lovemaking in the same mindless way she responded to his massage, and Klaus found it deeply insulting. In his bed, her mind was elsewhere, no doubt with Brandauer, he thought. Well, she'd sealed her lover's death sentence. His patience had been tried for far too long, he should have had the man shot months ago. And perhaps, he thought hopefully, following the demise of her lover, whose life he had so diligently fought to preserve, perhaps in her grief she might seek his consolation.

Having made his decision, he ordered the execution for three o'clock the following afternoon, a firing squad of four. He himself would not be present to give the command, which was a pity – he would have enjoyed it.

He summoned her to his quarters the day after the execution, prepared to break the news to her gently and to offer his heartfelt sympathy over the death of the man who had been wrongfully imprisoned and whose freedom they had both so keenly sought.

But she made the announcement herself. ‘Manfred Brandauer is dead.' She said it the moment she stepped in the door. ‘He was executed by firing squad yesterday.'

He was annoyed that she'd already heard of Brandauer's death; he'd underestimated the grapevine system that existed in Auschwitz. And he was further annoyed by her lack of etiquette. She had not showered and changed into the bathrobe, and he had no wish to communicate with her while she was dressed in her prisoner garb. But he quelled his irritation.

‘I know. I heard this afternoon, I had no idea Mengele had ordered it. I'm sorry, but there was nothing I could do, it was too late.'

She was staring at him strangely. Her grief was evident – he could tell that she'd been weeping – but there was something else in her eyes which he'd not seen before. Was it accusation? Impossible. She couldn't know that he had ordered the execution.

He turned away, refusing to speak to her any longer while she wore the grey stripes that pronounced her status. The sight of the uniform disgusted him.

‘Go and clean yourself and change into the bathrobe,' he said.

She did not immediately respond to his order as she normally did, and although his eyes remained averted, he knew she was staring at him with that same look of accusation. Then she walked off abruptly to the bathroom.

She couldn't possibly know, he thought. Who would have told her? Certainly not the soldiers who had formed the firing squad – they would not confide in a Jewish inmate. And nor would Schoneberger, the attendant doctor. Schoneberger would never threaten the comfortable relationship he shared with the Nazis. He was too much of a survivor; a loyal sycophant to his masters, he was despised by his own kind.

She didn't know. Her accusation was a manifestation of her grief, he decided. She held all Nazis, himself included, responsible for her lover's death.

Five minutes later, she returned in the bathrobe. Her short-cropped hair, wet and tousled, framed her face beautifully, he thought. She was once again ‘his Ruth' and he was prepared to play out the charade.

‘It is a tragic occurrence, Ruth,' he said. ‘I cannot understand why Mengele would issue such an order, but he's a strange man. Perhaps we pushed him too far with our demands, who can tell?' He shrugged, enjoying the use of
we
. Let her bear a little of the guilt, he thought. She had, after all, in her own way, brought about Brandauer's death. ‘Mengele does not like to be dictated to. Perhaps …' He gave another heartfelt shrug. ‘Perhaps if we had not been so aggressive in our attempt to save him, Manfred might still be alive.'

‘Don't call him by his first name. Please.'

He was nonplussed.

‘You have never called him by his first name before. Please don't do so now.'

The look in her eyes was far more than accusation, he realised, it was hatred.

‘What is it, Ruth?' How dare she look at him like that. Didn't she realise he could send her to the gas chamber? ‘Is there something you wish to say to me?' She remained silent and he prompted her further. ‘A question you wish to ask, perhaps?'

‘No, there is nothing I wish to ask.'

She was not going to confront him, which was wise, he thought, he'd have sent her to her death if she'd dared. But the hatred was still there, and the rebelliousness in her excited him.

‘Very well.' He smiled. ‘Shall we forgo the music tonight? I think, under the circumstances, comfort of a more physical nature would be apt, do you not agree?'

He felt her tense as he put his arm around her, but she allowed him to lead her towards the bedroom. He was aroused. Their relationship had undergone a change for the better after all. If he was never to succeed in gaining her love, at least he was no longer merely a means to Brandauer's freedom. Her hatred, he thought, was vastly preferable to her indifference.

Manfred Brandauer's name was never again mentioned, and over the ensuing months the charade continued. He still wooed her – it had become a ritual which he enjoyed. He still sang along to ‘Barcarole' and massaged her shoulders, but these days she no longer stared vacantly at the wall. He was aware all the while of her hatred and he continued to find it a source of arousal. In the past she'd cared nothing for her own life; she had existed purely to save her lover – but now she wanted to live and he was her means of survival. He owned her, body and soul. And after all, he told himself, hatred was a powerful emotion, very akin to love. One day she would come to realise that.

 

Nineteen forty-four was not a good year for Germany. The tide of war had turned and when the Allied Forces landed on the Normandy beaches on June 6, defeat appeared inevitable. Months dragged on and, as Christmas approached, all hope was lost. How could it have happened? Klaus wondered. How could the right and might of Germany possibly have failed? But somehow the days of the Third Reich were over.

‘I am leaving Auschwitz tomorrow,' he said.

It was Christmas Eve, and she was sitting in the bathrobe which was now hers, in the armchair which he'd come to think of as her domain, and she was looking extraordinarily beautiful. It would be their last night together.