Spark of Life (12 page)

Berger shoved him aside. “Go and eat your bread, or someone’ll take it from you.”

“I’ll watch out.” Karel crammed the bread into his mouth. He had enquired as one does after a traveler’s destination, and had not meant any harm. He had grown up in concentration camps and knew nothing else.

“Let’s go—” said 509.

Ruth Holland began to sob. Her hands hung like bird-claws on the barbed wire. She bared her teeth and moaned. She had no tears.

“Let’s go—” said 509 once more. He let his eyes wander over those remaining behind. Most of them had crawled back indifferently into the barrack. Only the Veterans and a few others stood there. Suddenly it seemed to 509 as if he still had something of enormous importance to say, something on which everything depended. He tried as hard as he could but he was unable to put it into thoughts and words. “Don’t forget this,” was all he finally said.

No one answered. He knew they would forget it. They had seen similar things too often. Perhaps Bucher would not have forgotten it; he was young enough; but he had to go with him.

They stumbled along the road. They had not washed. That had been one of Weber’s jokes. The camp never had enough water. They walked ahead. They did not look round. They passed through the barbed-wire gate which fenced off the Small camp. The croak-gate. Wassya smacked his lips. The three new ones walked like automatons. They passed the first barracks of the labor camp. The gangs had marched out long ago. The barracks were empty and dismal; but to 509 they appeared now to be the most desirable place in the world. They were suddenly security, life and safety. He would have liked to crawl in and hide himself away from this merciless walk into death. Two months too early, he thought apathetically. Maybe only two weeks too early. Everything in vain. In vain.

“Comrade,” said someone suddenly next to him. It was in front of Barrack 13. The man stood in front of the door and had a face black with stubble. 509 looked up. “Don’t forget this,” he murmured. He didn’t know the man.

“We won’t forget it,” answered the man. “Where are you going?”

Those who had stayed behind in the labor camp had seen Weber and Wiese. They knew this must mean something special.

509 stood still. He looked at the man. All of a sudden he was no longer apathetic. He felt again the importance of what he still had to say, of that which must not be allowed to get lost. “Don’t forget it,” he whispered insistently. “Never! Never!”

“Never!” repeated the man with a firm voice. “Where have you got to go?”

“To a hospital. As guinea pig. Don’t forget it. What’s your name?”

“Lewinsky, Stanislaus.”

“Don’t forget it, Lewinsky,” said 509. With the name, it seemed to him to have more force. “Lewinsky, don’t forget it!”

“I won’t forget it.”

Lewinsky touched 509’s shoulder with his hand. 509 felt it spread further than his shoulder. He looked once more at Lewinsky. Lewinsky nodded. His face was not like those in the Small camp. 509 was aware that he had been understood. He walked on.

Bucher had waited for him. They joined the group of the four others who had trudged on.

“Meat,” muttered Wassya. “Soup and meat!”

The office smelled of stale air and boot polish. The office senior had prepared the papers. He looked blankly at the six men. “You’ve got to sign this.”

509 glanced at the table. He didn’t understand why there should be anything to sign. Prisoners were usually commandeered and that was the end. Then he became aware that someone was looking at him. It was one of the clerks sitting behind the kapo. He had carrot-red hair. When he saw that 509 had noticed him he moved his head almost imperceptibly from right to left and promptly looked down again at his desk.

Weber came in. Everyone stood at attention.

“Carry on!” he commanded and took the papers from the table. “Not through yet? Get on. Sign this!”

“I don’t know how to write,” said Wassya, who stood nearest.

“Then make three crosses.”

Wassya made three crosses.

“Next!”

The three new ones stepped forward one after the other. 509 tried desperately to collect himself. It seemed to him that somewhere there must still be a way out. He glanced once more at the clerk; but he didn’t look up again. “Now your turn!” growled Weber. “Come on! Dreaming, eh?”

509 picked up the form. His eyes were dim. The few typewritten lines wouldn’t stand still. “Even want to read, what?” Weber gave him a kick. “Sign, you lousy dog!”

509 had read enough. He had read the words,
I herewith declare myself a volunteer
—He let the paper drop onto the table. This was the last desperate opportunity! This was what the clerk had meant.

“Get on, you quivering hog! Shall I guide your hand?”

“I’m not volunteering,” said 509.

The office senior stared at him. The clerks raised their heads and immediately ducked again over their papers. For one moment it was very quiet.

“What?” asked Weber incredulously.

509 took a deep breath. “I’m not volunteering.”

“You refuse to sign?”

“Yes.”

Weber licked his lips. “So you won’t sign this?” He took 509’s left hand, twisted it and jerked it up across his back. 509 fell forward to the floor. Weber still held on to the twisted hand, pulled 509 up by it, rocked and kicked him in the back. 509 screamed and fell silent.

Weber seized him by the collar with his other hand and put him back on his legs. 509 collapsed.

“Weakling!” growled Weber. Then he opened a door.

“Kleinert! Michel! Just take this wretch in there and wake him up. Leave him there. I’ll come over.”

They dragged 509 out.

“Now you?” said Weber to Bucher. “Sign!”

Bucher trembled. He did not mean to tremble, but he had no control over himself. He was suddenly alone. 509 was no longer there. Everything in him gave way. He had to do fast what 509 had done, or else it would be too late and he would carry out like an automaton what he was bid.

“I won’t sign, either,” he stammered.

Weber grinned. “Imagine! Another one! This is just like the good old days!”

Bucher hardly felt the blow. A crashing darkness broke down over him. When he came to, Weber was standing above him. 509, he thought numbly. 509 is twenty years older than me. He did the same with him. I’ve got to pull through! He felt the jerking, the fire, the knife in his shoulders, he didn’t hear that he yelled—then came the darkness again.

When he came to for the second time he lay wet beside 509 on the concrete floor of another room. Through a roar came Weber’s voice.

“I could easily have that signed for you, and the thing would be settled; but I’m not going to do it. I will break your stubbornness. You will sign this yourselves. You will beg me on your knees to be allowed to sign it, provided you’re still able to.”

509 saw Weber’s head dark against the window. The head seemed very big with the sky behind it. The head was death and
the sky behind it was suddenly life, life no matter where and how, beaten, bleeding, louse-ridden—life in spite of everything for one fierce moment—then the numbness broke over him again, the nerves became mercifully dim once more and nothing was left but the dull roaring. Why am I resisting, something in him thought dejectedly when he came to again—what’s the difference whether I’m clubbed to death here or I sign and am finished off with an injection, quicker than this, less painful. Then he heard a voice beside him, his own voice, with which someone else seemed to be speaking. “No! I won’t sign—and if you beat me to death—”

Weber laughed. “That’s what you’d like, you carcass! To get it over, eh? With us, beating to death takes weeks. We’re only just beginning.”

He picked up the belt again. The blow caught 509 across the eyes. It did not harm them; they were sunk too deep. The second one got his lips. They split open like dry parchment. After a few more cracks across the skull with the belt buckle, he fainted again.

Weber shoved him aside and started on Bucher. Bucher tried to duck; but he was far too slow. The blow hit him across the nose. He doubled up and Weber kicked him between the legs. Bucher screamed. He was still aware of the belt buckle crashing several times into the back of his neck, then once more he fell into the storm of darkness.

He heard confused voices; but he didn’t move. As long as he appeared unconscious they wouldn’t continue beating him. The voices passed over him, endlessly. He tried not to listen, but they came closer and pierced his ears and his brain.

“I regret, Herr Doctor, but if the men won’t volunteer—Weber, as you see, has done his best to persuade them.”

Neubauer was in excellent spirits. His expectations had been far surpassed. “Are you responsible for this?” he asked Wiese.

“Of course not.”

Bucher tried carefully to blink. But he could not control his eyelids. They snapped open like those of a mechanical doll. He saw Wiese and Neubauer. Then he saw 509. 509’s eyes were also open. Weber was no longer there.

“Of course not,” declared Wiese once more. “As a man of culture—”

“As a man of culture,” Neubauer interrupted him, “you need these men for your experiments, isn’t that so?”

“That is a matter of science. Our experiments save the lives of ten thousand others. Perhaps you don’t quite understand it—”

“Oh yes, indeed. But perhaps you don’t understand this situation here. It’s a simple matter of discipline. Eminently important, too.”

“Every man to his taste,” declared Wiese haughtily.

“Certainly, certainly. I regret that I cannot be more helpful to you. But we don’t coerce any of our protégés. And the people here seem to have an aversion to leaving the camp.” He turned to 509 and Bucher. “You’d rather remain in the camp?”

509 moved his lips. “What?” asked Neubauer sharply.

“Yes,” said 509.

“And you there?”

“Me, too,” whispered Bucher.

“You see, Herr Surgeon-Major?” Neubauer smiled. “The people like it here. There’s nothing to be done.”

Wiese did not smile. “Louts!” he said contemptuously in the direction of 509 and Bucher. “This time we really didn’t intend to do anything but make feeding experiments.”

Neubauer blew his cigar smoke away. “All the better. Double
punishment for insubordination. If you’d still like to try and find others in the camp—it’s at your disposal, Herr Doctor.”

“Thanks,” said Wiese coldly.

Neubauer closed the door behind him and came back into the room. The blue, aromatic clouds of tobacco smoke hovered round him. 509 smelled them and he suddenly felt a tearing greed in his lungs. It had nothing to do with him; it was a strange, independent greed which clawed itself into his lungs. Unconsciously he breathed deep and tasted the smoke, all the while watching Neubauer. For a moment he couldn’t understand why he and Bucher hadn’t been sent out with Wiese; but then he knew. There was only one explanation. They had disobeyed an SS officer and would be punished for it in the camp. The punishment could be foreseen—men had been hanged for disobeying a mere kapo. It had been wrong not to sign, he suddenly thought. With Wiese they might perhaps still have stood a chance. Now they were lost.

A choking remorse welled up in him. It pressed on his stomach, it stood behind his eyes, and simultaneously, sharp and inexplicable, he felt the raving greed for the tobacco smoke.

Neubauer contemplated the number on 509’s chest. It was a low number. “How long have you been here?” he asked.

“Ten years, Herr
Obersturmbannführer
.”

“Ten years.” Neubauer had not realized that prisoners from the early days still existed. Actually a sign of my leniency, he thought. I’ll bet there aren’t many camps with anything like that. He pulled on his cigar. One day something like this might come in quite handy. One never knew what might happen.

Weber came in. Neubauer took the cigar from his mouth and belched. He had eaten scrambled eggs and sausage for breakfast—one of his favorite dishes. “Storm Leader Weber,” he said, “this was not ordered.”

Weber glanced at him. He waited for the joke. The joke didn’t come. “We’ll hang them tonight at the roll call,” he said finally.

Neubauer belched once more. “It was not ordered,” he repeated. “By the way, why do you do such things yourself?”

Weber did not answer at once. He couldn’t see why Neubauer should waste so much as a word on such trifles. “There are surely enough people here for that kind of thing!” said Neubauer. Weber had lately become rather independent. It would not do any harm to make him realize who gave orders here. “What’s the matter with you, Weber? Lost your nerve?”

“No.”

Neubauer turned again to 509 and Bucher. Hang them, Weber had said. He was right, of course. But why? The day had taken a better turn than could have been expected. And besides, it was just as well to show Weber that not everything had to happen his way.

“It wasn’t a direct refusal to obey,” he declared coldly. “I had given orders for volunteers. This doesn’t look like it. Give those men two days’ bunker, nothing else. Nothing else, Weber. You understand? I want my orders to be carried out.”

“Very well.”

Neubauer left. He felt superior and contented. Weber followed him with a contemptuous glance. Nerves, he thought. Who has nerves here? And who turns soft here? Two days’ bunker! He turned round angrily. A shaft of sun fell across 509’s smashed face. Weber looked at him more carefully.

“I’m sure I know you. Where from?”

“I don’t know, Herr Storm Leader.”

509 knew perfectly well. He hoped Weber wouldn’t remember.

“I know you from somewhere. I’ll find out. Where did you get those wounds?”

“I fell down, Herr Storm Leader.”

509 sighed with relief. This was the old routine again. Still a joke from the early days. No one was ever allowed to admit that he had been flogged.

Weber looked at him once more. “I know that mug from somewhere,” he muttered. Then he opened the door. “Throw these two here into the bunker. Two days.” He turned again to 509 and Bucher. “Don’t you think you’re getting away with this, you muckworms! I’ll hang you yet!”

They were lugged out. 509 closed his eyes from pain. Then he felt the air outside. He opened his eyes again. There was the sky. Blue and endless. He turned his head over towards Bucher and looked at him. They had gotten away. So far, at least. It was hard to believe.