Spark of Life (33 page)

“Clear,” answered Berger.

“And the list?”

“I’ll bring it tomorrow. Or I can destroy it.”

“Can I rely on that?”

“Absolutely.”

Dreyer thought for a while. “You’re in it now,” he said. “More than I. Or aren’t you?”

“Far more.”

“And if anything leaks out—”

“I don’t talk. I have poison on me. I won’t talk.”

“You really seem to have just about everything.” Dreyer’s face showed a kind of reluctant respect. “I didn’t know that.” Otherwise I’d have been more on my guard, he thought. These blasted three-quarter dead ones! Can’t trust even them. “Get the elevator going—” he started to leave.

“I’ve got something for you,” said Berger.

“What?”

Berger took a five-mark bill from his pocket and laid it on the table. Dreyer pocketed it. “Well, at least that’s something for the risk.”

“Next week you’ll get another five—”

“And—what for?”

“Nothing. Just another five marks for this one here.”

“Okay.” Dreyer started to grin, but stopped immediately; the boil was hurting. “After all, one isn’t a monster,” he said. “Always glad to help a comrade.”

He left. Berger leaned against the wall. He felt giddy. Things had gone better than he expected. But he didn’t deceive himself; he knew Dreyer was still pondering how he could do away with him. For the time being the danger had been postponed by the threat of the underground movement and the promise of the five marks. Dreyer would wait for that. Criminals could be relied upon to seize such advantages. This was a lesson the Veterans had learned from Handke. The money had been produced by Lewinsky and his group. They would continue to give assistance. Berger felt for the jacket which was tied round his waist. It was safe. It wasn’t visible. He was so thin that even now his own jacket hung loosely about him. His mouth was dry. The corpse with the false number lay in front of him. He dragged another one off the pile and pushed it next to the disguised corpse. At the same moment a new corpse came whizzing down through the opening. The unloaders had started again.

Dreyer appeared with the three prisoners. He cast a glance at Berger. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you outside?” he snarled.

This was for the alibi. It was meant to impress the three others with the fact that Berger had been alone down here.

“I had to pull one more tooth,” said Berger.

“Insolence! You’re here to do what you’re told. Otherwise anything might happen.”

Dreyer settled himself ostentatiously at the table with the lists. “Go ahead!” he commanded.

Shortly afterwards Schulte arrived. In his pocket he had a copy of Knigge’s
Social Conduct in Society
, which he pulled out and began to read.

The stripping of the dead continued. The third in line was the corpse with 509’s jacket. Berger had wangled it so that the other two helpers did the stripping. He heard them call out the number 509. Schulte didn’t look up. He was reading from the classic on social etiquette the rules on how to eat crayfish. In May he was expecting an invitation from the parents of his fiancée and wanted to be prepared. Mechanically Dreyer booked the particulars and compared them with the reports from the blocks. The fourth corpse was again a political prisoner. Berger reported it himself. He called the number in a slightly louder voice and noticed that Dreyer looked up. He brought the dead man’s belongings to the table. Dreyer glanced at him. Berger winked back. Then he took the pliers and the flashlight and bent over the dead. He had achieved what he wanted. Dreyer was under the impression that the number of the fourth corpse was that of the still living man who had been exchanged, not that of the third one. Thus he knew that Dreyer had been thrown off the scent and could under no condition give the show away.

The door opened. Steinbrenner came in. He was followed by Breuer, the supervisor of the bunker, and Squad Leader Niemann. Steinbrenner smiled at Schulte. “We’ve been told to relieve you when the dead here have been booked. Weber’s orders.”

Schulte closed his book. “Have we got that far?” he asked Dreyer.

“There are still four corpses left.”

“All right. Finish up.”

Steinbrenner was leaning against the wall on which the scratchings of the hanged men were visible. “Take your time. We’re in no hurry. And then send down the five men who’ve been working upstairs. We have a surprise for them.”

“Yes,” said Breuer. “Today’s my birthday.”

“Which of you is 509?” asked Goldstein.

“Why?”

“I’ve been transferred here.”

It was evening and Goldstein had arrived in the Small camp with a transport of twelve others. “Lewinsky sent me,” he said to Berger.

“Are you in our barrack?”

“No. In Barrack 21. In the hurry nothing else could be done. We can change that later. It was high time I got away. Where’s 509?”

“509 no longer exists.”

Goldstein looked up. “Dead or hidden?”

Berger hesitated. “You can trust him,” said 509 who was squatting beside him. “Lewinsky talked about him last time he was here.”

He turned toward Goldstein. “My name is now Flormann. What’s the news? We haven’t heard from you for a long time.”

“Long? Two days—”

“That’s long. What’s the news? Come nearer. No one can listen in here.”

They sat down a short distance from the others. “Last night in Block Six we managed to get some news over our radio. British. There was a lot of interference; but one thing came through clearly: the Russians are bombarding Berlin.”

“Berlin?”

“Yes.”

“And the Americans and British?”

“There was no other news. There were interferences and we had to be careful. The Ruhr is surrounded and they are a long way over the Rhine, that’s certain.”

509 stared at the barbed wire beyond which glimmered a strip of sunset under heavy rain clouds. “How slow all this goes—”

“Slow? You call that slow? In one year the German armies have been driven from Russia to Berlin and from Africa to the Ruhr—and you call that slow!”

509 shook his head. “I don’t mean that. It’s slow for here. For us. Just now! Can’t you understand that? I’ve been here many years—but this seems the slowest spring of all. It’s slow because it’s so difficult to wait.”

“I understand.” Goldstein smiled. His teeth shone chalky in his gray face. “I know that. Especially at night. When one can’t sleep or get one’s breath.” His eyes were not part of the smile. They remained expressionless and the color of lead. “Damn slow it is, if you look at it that way.”

“Yes, that’s what I mean. A few weeks ago we didn’t know anything. Now already everything seems slow. Strange, it all changes the moment one has hope! And is waiting. And is afraid one might still be caught.”

509 was thinking of Handke. He was not yet out of danger. The plot could have been fool-proof if only Handke had not known 509 personally. In that case 509 would simply have become the corpse as soon as the corpse had been booked as 509. Now, however, he had been officially declared dead and was called Flormann. But he was still in the Small camp. More could not have been achieved. It was already a great deal that the block senior of Barrack 20, where Flormann had died, had been willing to co-operate. 509 had to take great care not to be seen by Handke. He also had to be careful not to be betrayed by anyone else. There was, moreover, Weber who might recognize him in the event of a surprise check-up.

“Did you come alone?” he asked Goldstein.

“No. Two others were sent along.”

“Any more coming?”

“Probably. But not as official transfers. We have at least fifty to sixty people hidden over there.”

“How do you manage to hide so many?”

“They change barracks every night. Sleep elsewhere.”

“And if the SS order them to report at the gate? Or at the office?”

“Then they don’t go.”

“What?”

“They don’t go,” repeated Goldstein. He watched 509 straighten himself in surprise. “The SS have no longer a clear idea of the situation,” he declared. “During the last few weeks the confusion has mounted daily. We’ve done our best to increase it. The men they’re looking for have always been sent off with the gangs or simply couldn’t be found.”

“And the SS? Don’t they come and get them?”

Goldstein’s teeth gleamed. “They no longer like to do that. Or at most in groups and armed. The only dangerous group is the one with Niemann, Breuer and Steinbrenner in it.”

509 remained silent for a while. What he had just heard was too fantastic. “How long has this been going on?” he asked at last.

“For about a week. Things change every day.”

“You mean the SS have got the jitters?”

“Yes. They have suddenly realized that we are thousands. And they know the way the war’s going.”

“You simply don’t obey?” 509 still couldn’t grasp it.

“We obey, but in our own way. We delay them and sabotage where we can. Even so, the SS catch enough of us. We can’t save everyone.” Goldstein stood up. “I must try and find somewhere to sleep.”

“If you don’t find anything, ask Berger.”

“Okay.”

509 lay beside the pile of dead between the barracks. The pile was higher than usual. The previous evening there had been no bread. This always showed the following day in the number of dead. 509 lay near them because a wet cold wind was blowing. The dead protected him against it.

They protected him, he thought. They protected him even from the crematorium and beyond it. Somewhere in the wet cold wind blew the smoke of Flormann, whose name he now bore; what remained of him were a few charred bones out of which bonemeal would soon be made in the mill. But the name, the most elusive and least significant part of man, had remained, had become a shield for another life which defied extinction. He heard the pile of dead, moaning and shifting. The tissues and juices in them were still at work. A second chemical death was creeping through them, splitting them, gassing them, preparing them for decay; and like a spectral reflex of vanished life, their bellies still moved, swelling and shrinking, the dead mouths expelled air and from the eyes oozed fluid like long-belated tears.

509 moved his shoulders. He wore the Attila-tunic of a Honved Hussar. It was one of the barrack’s warmest garments and was worn in turns by those spending the night outside. He contemplated the facings which gleamed dull in the dark. There was a certain irony in it; just now, as he was beginning again to remember his past and himself, when he no longer wanted to be a number, he had to live under the name of a dead man and wear a Hungarian uniform at night.

He shivered and buried his hands in the sleeves. He could have returned to the barrack and slept there several hours in the warm stench; but he didn’t want to. He was too restless. He preferred to sit and shiver and stare into the night. He waited and didn’t know
what it was that could happen in the night that should make him want so much to wait. It was this waiting that drove one crazy, he thought. Waiting hung soundlessly over the camp like a net, gathering into itself all hopes and all fear. I’m waiting, he thought, and Handke and Weber are pursuing me. Goldstein is waiting and every minute his heart misses a beat. Berger is waiting and isn’t sure he won’t be finished off with the crematorium gang before we are liberated; and all of us are waiting and are not sure whether we won’t be sent at the last moment on death transports and into extermination camps—

“509,” Ahasver said from the dark. “Are you there?”

“Yes, here. What is it?”

“The sheep dog is dead.”

Ahasver groped closer. “He wasn’t sick,” said 509.

“No. He just slept away.”

“Shall I help you carry him out?”

“That’s not necessary. I was outside with him. He’s lying over there. I just wanted to tell someone about it.”

“Yes, old man.”

“Yes, 509.”