The One Man (28 page)

“Nonetheless, the general has asked that, in Kommandant Hoss's absence, we would show him every courtesy.”

“Courtesy, huh?” Ackermann scowled. “Let him come.” Just what they needed today, the Abwehr poking their uppity noses around. When there were numbers to be met. “But I'm not showing him around. Get Kimpner to do that.” Kimpner was a bean counter in charge of operations. Kitchen. Infirmary. Procurement. “There are other things for me to attend to today.”

There were two trains. Another twenty thousand to process. And then this matter with his wife.

But on this he had to find the right way. His pecker was getting edgy. He had to show her that what was bad for morale, and for him, was bad for her too.

Yes, this had all gone far enough, the Lagerkommandant thought.

He passed the cable back to Fromm. “Let me know when he arrives.”

 

FORTY-ONE

Blum carted the buckets of congealed waste across the camp's grounds to the refuse ditch located just outside the wire. He held his breath at the awful smell. He moved past the guards, swiftly but carefully, keeping his eyes down, knowing he could be the target of any of them at their whim. Then he emptied the contents in the ditch, hosed the buckets clean, and brought them back inside.

In each block, even with the majority of prisoners out on work details, there were always a few around. Those that were either infirmed or simply resting, back from the overnight work shifts.

And in each block Blum took out his photograph of Mendl. “I'm looking for my uncle,” he would ask. “Have you seen him?”

And in each he received the same, deflating response.

“No. Sorry.”

“He's not in here.”

An indifferent shrug of the shoulders. “Sorry. There are so many.”

He began to think it was fruitless until finally, in Block 31, a man lying in bed took the picture and after a few seconds actually nodded. “I do know him. Mendl. He's a professor, right?”

“Yes,” Blum said, lifted.

“From Lvov, I think.”

“That's right,” Blum confirmed. He grew expansive.

But then the man just shook his head fatalistically. “Haven't seen him in over a month now. I heard he had the fever.” He handed Blum back the photograph. “Sorry, I think he's dead.”

“Dead,”
Blum said, falling back to earth. “Are you certain?”

“I know he was taken to the infirmary. Very few end up coming back from there. Ask the chess boy. They were friends. He would know.”

“The chess boy…?”

“The camp champion. They play here every couple of weeks. You'll see them. Over by the infirmary. Sorry. I can't be more help.”

The chess boy. They play every couple of weeks …
Blum said to himself. His hope plummeted. He had two days. Less, now.
I think he's dead.
Had he risked everything, come all this way, he thought as he lifted the wretched shit bucket out from under the stall, only for a corpse?

He considered checking at the infirmary. If he'd been sick, someone had to know of him there. But that might also arouse suspicion. This “chess boy…” It couldn't be too hard to find him. But he'd already put himself out there, showing the photograph to anyone who would look. Now, to suddenly start asking around for someone else … That would definitely make him stand out.

But what other choice did he have?

He lugged his new set of buckets outside the gate. Guards were everywhere. He was especially careful here, to avoid direct eye contact. And not to spill a single drop. Yet these particular buckets were especially heavy and filled to the top. He sensed a guard snickering at him as he hurried by.
Just get past him …

“Stop!”
someone called out from behind him.

Blum stood there, erect.

“Where do you go so quickly with such fine wares to sell?” a guard said to him mockingly.

Blum closed his eyes for a second and then shuddered when he opened them and saw it was the very guard pointed out to him during roll call this morning. Dormutter.
He's just a lunatic. At all costs, don't provoke him. He's one to avoid.

The guard had a khaki SS cap tilted over a square face, deep-set sunken eyes, thick lips, and a sneer of superiority in his gaze. “Looks heavy,” he said, brandishing a thick club. He stepped up behind Blum.

“It is heavy, sir,” Blum replied. “But it's fine.” He took a step forward. “If I might just continue to the—”

“I'll tell you when to go, yid,” the guard snapped back with ice in his tone.

“Yes, sir.” Blum froze.

“What's your name?”

“Mirek,” Blum answered, his tongue dry and coarse as sandpaper.

“Yes, they're definitely overloading this poor man!” Dormutter said loudly to his fellow guards nearby in mock concern. From behind, Blum felt a tap from the club on his left arm. The bucket lurched forward. Blum brought it back as best he could to keep it from tipping over.

“Hmmph,”
Dormutter grunted, from behind him.

Then Blum felt a second tap. On his right arm this time. And this time, the bucket, filled almost to the rim, swung forward too. Remembering what the
blockschreiber
had warned, Blum put every ounce of strength he had into righting it. But it was clear what the guard was trying to do.

“We don't like it when they are careless and let these buckets fill too high. It brings up the possibility that…”

Blum felt the club bump into his left arm again. This time harder. Both buckets swung. Petrified, Blum struggled to keep them righted. The handles dug into his fingers. The pails grew heavier.

If one spills on public grounds, you'll likely get a bullet in your head,
echoed through Blum's head.

“You can see what a health risk it is, should any happen to drop. Jew shit, all over a public setting. Not so good?”

“No, Sergeant.” Blum nodded in agreement. His arms began to feel like they would soon give out.

This time he felt the end of the heavy club jab into his back. The buckets lurched forward. Blum did everything he could to keep them from tipping. Literally commanding them not to spill. Somehow they didn't.

“By health risk, just to be clear…” the German said, digging the club into the small of Blum's back. “Of course I meant to you, yid.” He jabbed the club into him again.

The buckets dug deeply into Blum's fingers. He knew he couldn't withstand a much harder nudge. Sweat wound down his brow. At any second he expected to feel the weight of the club smack into his skull like a bat on a ball and he would drop, a dead weight, the buckets spilling, and then be finished off.

Blum felt the club nudge him forward again, the buckets jerking, and he took a step. Waste lapped right to the edge and dripped onto the side of the pail, sending panic through Blum.

He could not hold them much longer. If so, he resolved he would not die like his family. Without putting up a fight. A similar man, with a similar hate in his eye, had likely murdered them all. He would turn and empty his buckets all over the guard. Let whatever would happen, happen. He tightened his grip, waited for the final provocation. Waste that had accumulated lapped over the rim's edge.

This could be it.

“I merely wanted to tell you,” the SS guard said with a sniff, “that the officers' guardhouse needs to be cleaned out as well.”

“The officers' guardhouse,” Blum muttered back, dry-mouthed. “Yes, sergeant.”

“And consider yourself lucky,” Dormutter said, “that we have an important visitor today in camp and that I've just shined my boots. Or otherwise…” The German made a kind of clicking noise with his tongue. “I might find some other Jew to lick out the guardhouse latrine. Now go.”

“Yes, Sergeant.” Blum nodded, picking up his step.

“And remember, the guardhouse. You'll need a pass.” He came up again and stuffed a white form into Blum's clenched hand.

“Thank you, sir.” A breath of relief blew out Blum's cheeks. He hurried on with his buckets.

“And Mirek … You have quite good sense of balance with the pails there,” the SS man called after him. “You should consider the high wire in your next life.”

He laughed, as did a couple of the other guards in listening range, and turned away, letting Blum go on.

Blum hurried through the gate, his legs almost giving out from under him. He put down the buckets next to the waste ditch and let out a grateful sigh. He wrung out his fingers and then disposed of the waste.

He just wanted out of this place now. It was clear, there was no longer a mission to fulfill. Mendl was likely dead. Now he just had to make it back out himself. He wanted so much to have brought back the man they needed.
Do not fail us. You have no idea how much depends on your success.
But what could he do? Even if Mendl was somehow here,
alive,
it was clear there were so many places and no way to search them all, and not enough time. Three days. That was all they had given him.
A needle in a haystack.
From the very start … In a
hundred
haystacks, Blum said to himself. The task was impossible.

He hurried back through the gate and replaced the buckets in Block 31. He still had two more barracks to clean. But he didn't want Dormutter finding him again before he had fulfilled his task. He knew where the guardhouse was. He had memorized every building in the camp on Vrba and Wetzler's map. Part of him said,
Go fuck the Nazi bastard.
With God's help, Blum would only be in here another day. The name “Mirek,” if Dormutter looked it up, would mean nothing. There were thousands and thousands here. The SS man would never find him. Just as he had never found Mendl.
Let some other yid lick out their shit.

Still, he went.

He went because some other yid would only be taunted or even killed to do his job. And he went because he had been lucky at the gate, and to ignore God's grace that had been bestowed on him would make him undeserving.

The officers' guardhouse was through a gate near the clock tower.

“Over there.” The guard manning it pointed without even looking at Blum after inspecting his pass.

It was a long, brick building with a peaked, slate roof. On one side, there were a couple of vehicles parked. An empty troop truck with a war cross on the door. And the German version of a Jeep. A guard stepped out, heading past him.

Blum showed him his pass. “Latrine…?”

The SS man pointed around the back. “Back there.”

On the other side of the building, there was a bicycle rack, and in front of it, a man, another prisoner, hunched over, scraping the tires of mud. Blum prepared to go around the back as his gaze fell on him.

Blum's heart came to a stop.

The man was clearly older than most here. Hair, white now, no longer gray, and thinned. But still combed over to the side.

Thinner. His cheek bones coming through. A shadow of himself.

Barely even resembling the photo Blum carried on him.

But when he looked up, Blum saw the full, flat nose, the sagging line of the chin that had been burned into his memory.
Can this be?
And then, a tide of joy rising up inside him, the black mole on his left cheek.
That will be your confirmation,
Strauss had said.

Confirmation,
Blum said exultantly.

He took a step forward. “Professor Mendl?”

 

FORTY-TWO

The man looked up.

For Blum, it was like he was seeing a mirage, in the desert. Was it real? Or was it only what he wanted to be real? The old man looked so gaunt and sickly, it was amazing he hadn't already been shipped off to his fate. It was amazing Blum even recognized him.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“Professor Alfred Mendl? You taught at the University of Lvov? You lectured in electromagnetic physics?”

The old man squinted at Blum as if he was some student he had once had. “Yes.”

Elation surged in Blum.
It was him!
Thinner. The color gone from his face. His eyes beaten. Barely a shadow of his former self, physically. Somewhere between a ghost and a man.

But him!

“Don't be alarmed, sir.” Blum came a step closer. “And please don't think I'm crazy, what I'm about to say.” He looked around to make sure there were no other guards around. “But thank God I've found you. I've been looking for you all over.”

“Looking for
me
…?” The professor squinted back uncomprehendingly.

“Yes.” Blum nodded. “
You
. Look.” He brought out the photograph he had tucked inside his uniform.

Mendl stood up and stared at his own likeness, his eyes growing wide. Then, not quite understanding, he handed it back to Blum. “Why me?”

“Professor, what I'm about to tell you may sound crazy.” Blum met the old man's gaze. “But it's not, I promise, and I can prove every word.” He spoke low enough that no one could overhear. “But I've snuck inside here. Inside the camp. I've come from Washington, D.C. In the States.”

“Washington…?”
Now the professor did squint back with a look of incredulity. “And you say you've snuck in
here?
Into the camp. Why, possibly…?”

“For you, Professor. To get you out.”

“Out of
here…?
” Mendl sniffed, as if he were definitely speaking with a lunatic. “Now you are talking nonsense, whoever you are. Only two people have ever gotten out of here. And no one's ever known how they ended up.”

“Wetzler and Vrba,” Blum said back. Mendl's eyes raised. “Look…” Blum yanked up his sleeve and showed his wrist. “This is Rudolf Vrba's number. A22327. They made it, Professor. They're in England now. They helped me. In order to get inside.”