Playing for Time (25 page)

My friends looked shattered. Even the Russians and most of the Poles were registering some kind of emotion. It needed Alma’s lack of awareness not to be deeply disgusted. Then, as the girls digested the news, an insidious fear crept among us. A faceless fanatic, Himmler was something of an unknown quantity: a priggish zealot, a Savonarola of anti-Semitism. He was the Reichsführer of the SS, one of the party’s highest positions; the creator of the SS, which had become the elite of the Nazi movement. It was he who had conceived and realized this colossal and monstrous organization whose main aim was the annihilation of the Jews. In Auschwitz, people still remembered his “42 visit. Transmitted orally, these memories reached us from all sides: he had been present at the extermination of a recently arrived convoy of Jews, had given instructions enabling selection to be even more efficient, necessarily entailing the death of those whom it was more economical to kill than to feed. It was said that, during all the phases of the operation, he had examined all those taking part in it: all signs of pleasure, of repulsion, of any emotion whatsoever had to be absent from their faces and behaviour. The SS, a crack unit, had to do their duty scrupulously, and keep their feelings for the Führer, the Reich, and their families. Were they not the foundations of the society of tomorrow, cleansed as it would be of all rotten blood? Commandant Hoss, at that time in charge of the Auschwitz complex, had complained of the ”sensitivity“ of some of the officers, and Himmler had then advocated an increase in the use of dogs, impervious to any form of pity.

He had also made a point of being present at the corporal punishment of a woman internee and, on leaving, had ordered that the whip should be administered on the bare backs of men and women attached to a wooden support, that that particularly educational punishments should be intensified, that prisoners incapable of working should be sent to the gas chamber. He had also complained about the inadequacy of the installations (although they had in fact reached a pitch of very considerable perfection), expressing regret that they could annihilate no more than six thousand a day. This limited number, in his view, was seriously hampering the purification of Europe. This bureaucrat of extermination made provision for everything.

It was for him that we were going to play.

Then we went through a period of hell; some days we worked for twenty hours at a stretch, deadened, faltering, on the verge of collapse. Alma’s implacable baton hypnotized us, conducting us with a frenetic beat we could no longer follow. We rehearsed the programme
ad nauseam:
by way of an opening, a medley from
The Merry Widow,
then Peter Kreuder’s “Twelve Minutes.” My throat was sore with so much singing, and I’d gladly have lost my voice altogether. To end up with, Lotte was to sing an aria from
The Gypsy Princess.
If the Reichsführer was satisfied and wanted an encore, Clara would sing Alabieff’s “Nightingale,” a most apposite bucolic number! A Suppe march was to be in reserve. This programme caused a certain amount of ill-feeling between Lotte and Clara. Clara kept repeating that she should have been chosen, but that “the German woman” favoured Germans. This petty bickering increased a tension which was nerve-jangling already.

Alma had forgotten everything: camp, setting, gas chambers. Her concert had to be perfect. She was German, Himmler was one of the great leaders of her country. She was proud to play for him. We all shared Florette’s view: “But my God—what would she do for Hitler?”

Never had Alma been more alien to us. At last, D day arrived. The camp had been scoured, the roadways had even been raked, gravel had been thrown down at the last moment so that the mud, which never dried completely, wouldn’t have time to absorb it. Ever since early morning we had been polishing ourselves up, like sailors for an admiral’s review. While we were busy cleaning up our clothes and shoes, Alma called us yet again: “Any minute now you will be in the presence of the Reichsführer; it’s vital that you should know that he appreciates music, indeed he plays the piano. You must perform perfectly so as not to offend his ear. Don’t look at him, don’t talk among yourselves, sit up straight; he is most concerned about posture. And above all, play in tune.”

“It makes me sick, sick,” repeated Florette. “She’s just panting with excitement at the idea of playing for this monster.”

The girls could hardly contain themselves.

“If only Alma were aiming at getting better food for us we might understand it, but not at all. It’s just for her, to get a good mark, like a child, a compliment. It’s pathetic!”

Tchaikowska and Founia examined us; Alma inspected us once again and off we went, carrying instruments, stands, and music. Our stultified state acted as anaesthetic to any desire to rebel. We climbed onto our platform and waited, trembling beneath a merciless sun. The SS looked edgy; dogs panted and yawned. The air shimmered with heat. Our armpits moistened and we hoped desperately that it didn’t show; the ultracorrect Himmler was unlikely to relish sweat marks. He probably sent people to the gas chambers for less.

An hour went by. My throat was so dry that my thickened saliva stuck to my palate. Lotte was scarlet. Clara was streaming. Alma remained haughtily dry; she couldn’t be Jewish, she must belong wholly to the superior race, there must have been some mistake on nature’s part! From where we stood, the camp—entirely emptied of its occupants, who were confined to their blocks —looked so clean that I hardly recognized it. It could almost have been a different world had it not been for the smoking crematoria chimneys, the unremitting blast furnaces of death.

At last a group of uniforms emerged from the main thoroughfare. I could hardly distinguish Himmler from among the other officers—smallish, pale, puny, slightly bent, dark-haired. This savage defender of the superiority of the German race was a surprising advertisement for blond, blue-eyed Aryans—no doubt another of nature’s little slipups. The thought amused me for a moment; this implacable führer, this king-sized assassin, was positively lost in the crowd, a negligible little fellow with a shifty gaze behind his old-fashioned pen pusher’s glasses.

Now he was about twenty yards away from us. Hardly had she seen him than Alma snapped to attention. A sign from her and the orchestra launched into
The Merry Widow;
under this sun, on this platform, beneath watchtowers, amid barbed wire, in front of these men in uniform, it seemed to me incredible, ridiculous, grotesque. Ewa firmly averted her gaze; she was looking towards the Carpathians in the direction of our Polish rescuers. Little Irene had elected to look the visitors in the eye with a disdain, an insolence that alarmed Marta and would have made Alma seethe if she had seen it. But she saw nothing, she was conducting her orchestra, which was playing for the Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, whose insignificant face is engraved in my mind: His moustache, modelled on that of comrade Hitler but with a slight respectful difference in style, topped a lip which wasn’t even thin—the lower lip was positively rounded; but the gaze was fearsome, a sharp, inquisitorial gaze devoid of all other expression.

The official group remained standing—there weren’t any chairs; they hadn’t come to hear a concert, and that must have worried Alma. Himmler looked bored, but he stood there in the sun, presumably because he was so “correct.” Standing near him, Mandel watched me as I sang my part in “Twelve Minutes.” I hoped desperately that she wouldn’t feel moved to ask for
Madame Butterfly.
I felt I wouldn’t be able to sing a solo, that no threat could move me to obey. Luckily, hardly had we finished the piece than Himmler said something to the officers, who clicked their heels, wheeled round, and marched away, while an SS signalled to us to stop. Alma interpreted this very badly, and we barely had the time to heave a sigh of relief before she exploded: “You played badly, abominably out of tune! Of course he didn’t like it. He’ll gas us all.” (“And quite right too,” one could almost hear her adding pettishly.)

And so, ingloriously, we went back along the deserted alleyways to our block. No sooner had we crossed the threshold than the whining began. Lotte shrieked that it was the girls’ fault she hadn’t been allowed to sing; if they’d played better, Himmler wouldn’t have left. After all, she was German, and it was her right. Clara complained that if she didn’t sing on such occasions, her presence in the orchestra would no longer seem necessary and God knows what would happen to her. The girls bickered, blamed one another for the fact that Himmler had walked off. In my opinion one would hardly have expected him to applaud and ask for an encore.

At first their mindlessness amazed me, then anger took over: “Are you all completely oblivious to the fact that he invented the gas chambers? He’s the head of the SS, their creator, they obey him blindly. It’s he who suggested to Hitler that he should get rid of the inferior races, he’s the instigator of the massacre of the Jews, and you, Clara, you poor idiot, you’d like to sing in front of him…”

“It’s not for my sake, but for the orchestra,” she answered haughtily. “If he’d liked my singing, we might have had a parcel.”

“A parcel! You’d do anything for food. Sleep with whom you please—what you’re selling is of no value—but don’t grovel in front of that rat-faced bastard, whatever else you do!”

“Why don’t you go and say that to Alma? She’s barking at us because he didn’t congratulate her.”

My anger had passed; all I felt now was disgust and great weariness. It was true that Alma had dreamed of receiving a compliment from Himmler. The stupidity, the childishness of it all when one thought of the millions of murdered, was so clear to me that I now had only one desire—to be alone, out of earshot, and to cry my full, the pent-up tears of weeks.

Something special was required to round off a day like this, and Alma supplied it. She summoned us, and unexpectedly her voice was bright with happiness: “I want to tell you how pleased I am with you.”

Flabbergasted, we looked at one another: had she gone mad?

Jenny tapped her forehead discreetly.

“And now by way of a little relaxation I’ll play you the
Zigeunerweisen
by Sarasate.”

We were baffled. Playing for us was her way of thanking us. She took up her violin and then, just as she was about to start, stage-managing her effect with maximum skill, she added: “I’ve just been told that Himmler liked the orchestra. He smiled!”

#     #     #

The following morning, though, catastrophe struck. Coming in from the morning session outside, Helga, our drummer, collapsed and was taken to the infirmary. Tchaikowska, who had gone with her, told us that the verdict was typhus. That meant, at best, weeks of orchestra with no percussion and, at worst, its disappearance altogether. Alma was pale: this could mean the end of the orchestra. How could one give rhythm to marches without drums? It would be impossible to play the Suppe overtures the SS were so fond of, and it would be good-bye to “The Charge of the Light Brigade.”

We learnt the news in the music room. Alma let her baton fall onto her desk out of sheer discouragement.

“What will become of the orchestra? I’d give three guitars and six mandolins for the drums!”

Mandolinists and guitarists paled.

What would become of us was more the question. Disconcerted, we fell silent. The announcement of Frau Mandel’s arrival added to our anguish. “Just what we needed,” remarked Florette.

The Lagerführerin found us at gloomy attention. Our depression surprised her sufficiently for her to question Alma, and she nodded understandingly throughout Alma’s explanation. She uttered a phrase indicating that in no circumstances would she dream of dissolving the orchestra; this assurance convinced no one who understood German.

Then she stated resolutely, “We must find someone to replace her.”

As no one had told us to be at ease, we all remained immobile. Head high, she cast a soldierly glance over the assembled company. We followed her gaze impassively. Everyone was afraid, even the Poles, even Founia and Marila. Suddenly her face lit up—her eye had just alighted on me.
“Meine kleine Sangerin,
my little Butterfly, you shall play the drums!”

This enormity traced its path to my brain with the utmost difficulty.

Timidly, Alma expressed her nervousness: “But Frau Lager-führerin, she’s never played the drums.”

“Well,” said Mandel briskly, “she’ll learn. Then she’ll know one thing more. It’s always useful, isn’t it?”

Alma, who grasped the situation perfectly, replied with an unenthusiastic
“Jawohl.”

“In fact tomorrow I’ll send someone over to teach her.” Airily, she added: “After all, it can’t be difficult to bang on those things!”

Only Alma and I could see what this all meant: not only did I know nothing of the instrument, which required great dexterity, but I was going to have to play an instrument I knew nothing of without any music—Helga being a professional, I had written no part for
her.

The girls looked at me nervously, animosity gone: they were dependent on me. I felt no pride, but considerable concern. They were sizing me up: Was I going to be able to rise to the occasion?

Florette concentrated on such humour as there was in the situation: “They’ll send us someone from the men’s camp. Clara’d love to be in your position.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jenny protested, “he’ll be a rag like us. She’d send him flying! What she needs is a real man, someone who lashes out good and proper, who can make her see a few stars. It sets her dreaming when she’s covered with bruises; she thinks she’s in a field of periwinkles!” Then, directly to Clara: “How many pots of jam does that booby of yours give you for your services?”

I never got used to these jokes, which drove Clara into an appalling state but which she was obliged to swallow, because she knew that she was little loved and unlikely to find a champion, even in me. To think that it was Clara with whom I had sworn eternal friendship, friendship unto death, in the fashion of incautious schoolgirls. And secretly I was worried that I might have been in some small part responsible for the change in her. Perhaps I should have been more vigilant. From a well-brought-up girl, engaged to a boy with whom she was still in love, she had become this
kapo’s
girl. Swinging her hips, complacently proffering her pallid fat, she would go towards the highest bidder, steering a course between her two main concerns, guzzling and singing. Occasionally she would go through phases of trying to revive our old friendship, attempting to flatter me: “Get me singing work. You can do anything with Alma. If I don’t sing enough they’ll say they don’t need me, and…” All her anguish lay in the dots that punctuated her sentences. She hated Lotte, Ewa, and probably me too; every singer was usurping her place.