Spark of Life (10 page)

“Twelve lots. Damn little for each.” He began counting them out.

“Eleven. Lohmann doesn’t want any more. Doesn’t need it any more, either.”

“Okay. Eleven.”

“Take it inside to Berger, Leo. They’re waiting.”

“Yes. Here’s yours. Are you going to stay here till the two of them come back?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve still time. They won’t come before one or two.”

“That’s okay. I’ll stay here.”

Lebenthal shrugged his shoulders. “If they bring no more than before, there’s no point whatever in your waiting. For that much I can even get something in the Big camp. Outrageous prices, the beasts!”

“Yes, Leo. I’ll see that I get more.”

509 crawled back under the coat. He felt cold. He still held the potatoes and the piece of bread in his hand. He stuck the bread in his pocket. I won’t eat anything tonight, he thought. I will wait until tomorrow. If I can do that, then—he didn’t know what would happen then. Something. Something important. He tried to think it out. He couldn’t. He still held the potatoes in his hand. A big one and a very small one. They were too strong. He ate them. He devoured the small one at one gulp, the big one he chewed and chewed. He hadn’t expected his hunger to become worse afterwards. He should have known it. It always happened, but one never believed it. He licked his fingers and then bit into his hand to keep it from the bread in his pocket. I don’t want to bolt down the bread immediately as I did before, he thought. I won’t eat it until tomorrow. This evening I won out against Lebenthal. I half convinced him. He didn’t want to; but he gave me three marks. I’m not done in yet. I still have a will. If I can hold out with the bread until tomorrow—he felt as though black rain were dripping in his head—then—he clenched his fists and stared at the burning church—there it was at last—then I’m not an animal. Not a Mussulman. Not merely a wolfing machine. Then I have, it is—once more came the weakness, the greed—it is—I told Lebenthal just now, but then I hadn’t any bread in my pocket—to talk is easy—it is—resistance—it is—to become a human being again—a beginning—

NEUBAUER SAT
in his office. Opposite him sat the surgeon-major Wiese, a small monkeylike man with freckles and a straggly reddish mustache.

Neubauer was in a bad mood. He was having one of those days when everything seemed to go wrong. The news in the papers had been more than cautious; at home Selma had grumbled around; Freya had crept through the house with red eyes; two lawyers had given up their offices in his business building—and now on top of all that came this lousy pillmonger with his requests.

“How many men do you want, then?” he asked, sulkily.

“Six will be enough for the time being. Physically rather run down.”

Wiese did not belong to the camp. He owned a small hospital outside the town and had the ambition to be a man of science. Like some other physicians he made experiments on living human beings, and several times the camp had put prisoners at his disposal for this purpose. He had been on friendly terms with the former gauleiter of the province and for this reason no one had asked many questions as to what the men were to be used for. Later on the
corpses had always been duly handed over to the crematorium; this had been sufficient.

“And you need the men for clinical experiments?” asked Neubauer.

“Yes. Experiments for the army. Secret, for the moment, of course.” Wiese smiled. The teeth under his mustache were surprisingly large.

“So, secret—” Neubauer breathed heavily. He couldn’t stand these superior academicians. They meddled into everything and supplanted the old fighters with their pomposity. “You can have as many as you want,” he said. “We’re only too glad if these men can be made some use of. All we need for it here is an order of assignment.”

Wiese looked up surprised. “An order of assignment?”

“Certainly. An order of assignment from my superior board.”

“But why—I don’t understand that—”

Neubauer suppressed his satisfaction. He had expected Wiese’s surprise. “I really don’t understand—” said the surgeon-major once more. “Up to now I’ve never needed such a thing!”

Neubauer knew this. Wiese had not needed it because he had known the gauleiter. Meanwhile, however, the gauleiter had been sent to the front on account of some unsavory affair; this now gave Neubauer a welcome opportunity to make difficulties for the surgeon-major.

“The whole thing is purely a matter of form,” he explained affably. “If the army proposes an assignment for you, you’ll get them without any further trouble.”

Wiese had little interest in that; he had used the army merely as a pretext. Neubauer knew this, too. Wiese tugged nervously at his mustache. “I don’t understand all this. Up to now I always got men without any difficulty.”

“For experiments? From me?”

“From the camp here.”

“There must have been a mistake.” Neubauer seized the telephone. “I’ll just make inquiries.”

He didn’t need to; he knew all about it. After a few questions he put down the receiver. “Exactly as I expected, Herr Doctor. You formerly requested men for light work and got them. Our labor board does such things without formalities. Every day we supply dozens of factories with labor gangs. In this case the men remain under the supervision of the camp. Your case today is different. Now you are demanding them for clinical experiments. That makes an assignment necessary. In this case the men leave the camp officially. For that I need an order.”

Wiese wagged his head. “But surely that comes to the same thing,” he declared irritably. “The men were used for experiments as much before as now.”

“Of that I know nothing.” Neubauer leaned back. “I know only what the documents state. And I think it’s better to leave it at that. You doubtless have no interest in drawing the attention of the authorities to such an error.”

Wiese remained silent for a moment. He realized that he had trapped himself. “Had I claimed men for light work, would I have got them?” he asked then.

“Certainly. That’s what our labor board is there for.”

“Good. Then I demand six men for light work.”

“But Herr Surgeon-Major!” Neubauer enjoyed the situation with reproachful triumph. “Frankly, I’m at a loss to comprehend so sudden a change in your requests. First you want men as physically run down as possible, and then you demand them for light work. This is surely a contradiction! Men here as physically run down as that can no longer even darn stockings, you can take that from me. This is an education and labor camp run on the lines of Prussian discipline—”

Wiese swallowed, got up briskly and took his cap. Neubauer
also rose. He was content at having annoyed Wiese. He was not interested in making a real enemy of the man. One could never be sure whether one day the old gauleiter wouldn’t be reinstated. So he said: “I have another suggestion, Herr Doctor.”

Wiese turned round. He was pale. The freckles stood out sharp from his cheese-white face. “Yes?”

“If you need the men so urgently, you could ask for volunteers. That disposes of formalities. If a prisoner wishes to render a service to science, we have nothing against it. It’s not entirely official, but I’ll take that on my shoulders, especially with those useless gluttons in the Small camp. The men will sign a declaration to that effect, that’s all.”

Wiese didn’t answer at once. “In a case like this a payment for work done is not even necessary,” said Neubauer warmly. “Officially the men stay in the camp. You see, I’m doing what I can.”

Wiese remained suspicious. “I don’t know why you’re suddenly so difficult. I’m serving the Fatherland—”

“We’re all doing that. Nor am I being difficult. Just orderly. Office rules. To a scientific genius like you it seems unnecessary; but for us it’s half the world.”

“So I can have six volunteers?”

“Six and more, if you wish. I’ll even give you our first camp leader to accompany you on your tour; he can show you round the Small camp. Storm Leader Weber. Thoroughly capable man.”

“Fine. Thanks.”

“Not at all. Was a pleasure.”

Wiese left. Neubauer picked up the telephone and gave Weber instructions. “Let him wear himself out. No orders! Only volunteers. So far as I’m concerned he can talk himself into consumption. If nobody volunteers, we just can’t help him.”

He smirked and laid down the receiver again. His bad mood had vanished. It had done him good to show one of these culture-Bolsheviks
for once that his word counted for something. That business with the volunteers had been an especially fine idea. Wiese would find it difficult to lay his hands on anyone. Almost all the prisoners knew what it meant. Even the camp doctor, who also considered himself a scholar, had to scrape his victims together from the roads when he needed healthy people for experiments. Neubauer grinned and decided to inquire later on as to how the whole thing had turned out.

“Can the wound be seen?” Lebenthal asked.

“Hardly,” said Berger. “The SS certainly couldn’t. It was the last molar but one. The jaw is stiff by now.”

They had laid Lohmann’s corpse in front of the barrack. The morning roll call was over. They were waiting for the truck to pick up the dead.

Ahasver stood next to 509. His lips were moving. “You don’t need to say Kaddish for him, old man,” 509 explained. “That one was a Protestant.”

Ahasver looked up. “It won’t do him any harm,” he said calmly and continued to murmur.

Bucher appeared. Behind him came Karel, the boy from Czechoslovakia. His legs were as thin as sticks and the face tiny as a fist beneath the far too large skull. He staggered.

“Go back, Karel,” said 509. “It’s too cold for you here.”

The boy shook his head and came closer. 509 knew why he wanted to stay. Lohmann had occasionally given him some of his bread. And this was Lohmann’s funeral; it meant the way to the cemetery, it meant wreaths and flowers with bitter scent, it meant praying and wailing, it meant everything they still could do for him—this: to stand here and gaze with dry eyes at the body that lay in the early sun.

“There comes the truck,” said Berger.

During the early years the camp had had only corpse bearers; then, as the dead became more numerous, a cart with a white nag had been added. The nag had died, and now there was a flat discarded truck such as is used for the transporting of slaughtered cattle. It went from barrack to barrack, collecting the dead.

“Are the corpse bearers there?”

“No.”

“Then we’ll have to load him on ourselves. Get Westhof and Meyer.”

“The shoes,” whispered Lebenthal, suddenly excited. “Damn it, we forgot them. They can still be used!”

“Yes. But he must have something on his feet. Have we anything?”

“There’s still a torn pair belonging to Buchsbaum in the barrack. I’ll get them.”

“Stand around here in a circle,” said 509. “Quick! Make sure I can’t be seen.”

He knelt down beside Lohmann. The others stood in such a way that he was protected from the truck which stopped in front of Barrack 17 and from the guards on the nearby towers. He found it easy to pull off the shoes; they were far too big. Lohmann’s feet consisted of nothing but bones.

“Where’s the other pair? Quick, Leo!”

“Here—”

Lebenthal returned from the barrack. He had the torn shoes under his jacket. He stepped between the others and turned in such a way that he could let the shoes drop in front of 509, who handed him Lohmann’s. Lebenthal pushed them high up under his jacket till they were hidden in his armpit, and then returned to the barrack. 509 slipped Buchsbaum’s torn shoes over Lohmann’s feet and stood up, reeling. The car stopped now in front of Barrack 18.

“Who’s driving it?”

“The kapo himself. Strohschneider.”

Lebenthal returned. “How could we ever have forgotten them!” he said to 509. “The soles are still good.”

“Can they be sold?”

“Traded.”

“Okay.”

The truck came closer. Lohmann lay in the sun. His mouth was torn askew and slightly open, and one of his eyes gleamed like a yellow horn button. No one said anything more. They all looked at him. He was infinitely far away.