The Plum Tree (33 page)

The soldiers started to snicker. The
Hauptsturmführer
snorted and pushed Christine down on the bench. Finally, Isaac looked at her, his face red.

“You’ve timed your arrival just right,” the
Hauptsturmführer
announced. “The train to Dachau is coming through within the hour.”

Christine went rigid.
Dachau?
For some reason, she’d assumed they’d be staying at this camp. Isaac had said there was food. And outhouses. And no gas chambers. And no crematoriums. When she heard the name Dachau, a black dagger of horror plunged deep into her chest, where it lodged and throbbed, causing shockwaves of fire and ice to shoot through her veins. She inched closer to Isaac, sweating and shivering.

“You’re dismissed!” the
Hauptsturmführer
said to the
Gruppenführer
and the soldiers. “I can handle things from here.”

The
Gruppenführer
glared at Christine and Isaac as if he wanted to strangle them. Finally, he saluted the
Hauptsturmführer
and exited with the two soldiers. The
Hauptsturmführer
lit another cigarette, removed his peaked cap and placed it on the desk, then sat down. For the next few minutes, he went about his business, signing papers, answering the phone, occasionally looking over at them in disgust.

Christine folded her arms across her middle, touching the side of Isaac’s arm with her fingers. Isaac stared at the floor, his back against the wall, his shoulders slumped, his hands limp in his lap. Once in a while he glanced at her, his eyes hollow with regret. She looked back at him, pleading silently for him not to surrender. All they had now was the will to live. He’d survived Dachau once, and her father had survived a POW camp in Russia. She had to believe it was possible. She had to believe they had a chance. Because if they were going to give up, if they weren’t even going to try, then she might as well walk over to the desk, grab the gun lying on the red cloth, and shoot them all, right here and now.

“We’ll be all right,” she whispered. “We have to be.”

“No talking!” the
Hauptsturmführer
yelled, slamming his huge hand on the desk. The phone and jars of pens rattled.

“I love you,” she said to Isaac. “And when this is over, we’ll still have our whole lives ahead of us.
Bitte,
don’t give up.”

The
Hauptsturmführer
grabbed the gun and flew around the desk. “I said, no talking!” he yelled, barreling toward them, the gun pointed at Christine.

Christine straightened and leaned against the wall. The
Hauptsturmführer
moved closer and shoved his thick knees between hers, forcing her legs apart. He lifted her chin with one hand, squeezing her face in a vise-like grip.

“Open your mouth!” he shouted, his thumb and fingers digging into her cheeks.

“I’ll be quiet.”

“Open your mouth!”

Christine did as she was told. The cold, hard metal of the Luger scraped against her teeth, the long, round barrel making her gag. Isaac stiffened beside her.

“One more word out of you,” the
Hauptsturmführer
said, “and it will be your last. Understand?”

Christine closed her eyes and nodded. He pulled the gun out of her mouth, leaving the taste of metal on her tongue.

“You’re a lively little
Fräulein, ja?
” He traced the Luger down her cheek, along her neck, across her collarbone. She kept her eyes closed. “Now that everyone else is gone, maybe I should give you something to remember me by.” He forced her legs farther apart, pushing her skirt up her thighs, running the end of the gun over her breasts. Isaac panted beside her, his frustration and anger palpable in every breath.

The hard barrel trailed downward, along her stomach, toward the top of one thigh. Then, she heard a train in the distance. The
Hauptsturmführer
grunted and stepped away, pressing his hand against the fly of his pants. He holstered the Luger, took his cap from the desk, and shoved it onto his head.

The rumble of the approaching train quickened the already turbulent beat of Christine’s heart. She had to fight the urge to run. But the
Hauptsturmführer
had the gun in his hand again, and it was pointing right at them. As the train drew closer, the hiss of steam and the screech of brakes grew louder and louder. The train stopped outside the building, pistons pounding, like the giant, beating heart of a mammoth black creature fighting its way through the very walls of the building, so it could eat them alive.

“Do everything they say,” Isaac said to her. “They’ll shoot you without a second thought.”

“Get up!” the
Hauptsturmführer
shouted. Christine and Isaac stood. The
Hauptsturmführer
motioned toward the rear of the building with his Luger. “This way!”

He pushed them out the second door onto the concrete platform, the gun pointed at their backs. Beside the platform, the train waited, exhaling great walls of steam. Eight cattle cars trembled behind the living, breathing engine. Christine saw the small openings, the barbed wire, the reaching hands, the haunted faces. She could hear moans, cries, pleading voices. Soldiers forced her and Isaac toward the last car. She felt a thousand eyes watching as they walked along the platform.

At the last boxcar, two soldiers slid open the heavy door, then motioned Christine and Isaac forward with their guns. Inside, a multitude of pale faces with dark eyes floated above indistinct bodies. The soldiers shoved Christine and Isaac inside, thrust together and stumbling, into the mass of bodies. Christine felt hands, arms, elbows, feet. She barely had a chance to get her footing before the door was pulled closed. In slow motion, the slice of sunlight narrowed, getting thinner and thinner, until it was swallowed by shadow. On the outside of the door, a bar was shoved into place, locking them in with a final, iron thud.

Christine and Isaac stood facing each other, compressed together and wedged between a hundred other bodies. Countless people were crushed into the boxcar like kindling, filling every square inch. It was dark and stifling hot, the stench of urine and feces permeating the air. Christine tried to breathe through her mouth, pressing her face into Isaac’s chest, trying to inhale the scent of his body. He buried his face in her hair. The whistle shrieked. The locomotive strained, and the entire train shuddered. With a jolt, the boxcars lurched forward. There was no need to hang on because there was nowhere to fall. Bodies jostled against bodies as the cars rattled slowly along the tracks. After the train rounded the bend out of the village, it picked up speed near the edge of the valley. Christine knew they were passing below hills covered with orchards and tall pines.

As their eyes adjusted, they saw the faces of the condemned all around them. To her right, a boy clung to his mother, his freckled nose just inches from Christine’s, his dark eyes watching from beneath tousled brown hair. Her own fear and uncertainty were reflected in his eyes, her own vulnerability in his desperate grip on his mother’s shawl.

Isaac wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “I love you. And I’m sorry.”

“We can survive this,” she said. “We have to. My father survived camps as bad as this, and so did you.”

“We can try.” His words lacked conviction, and his face was slack. But he held her tighter, and she could hear the heartbeat in his chest growing fast and strong.

During the first few hours, the people in the boxcar wept and spoke quietly. Somewhere, a woman moaned. Christine wanted her to stop. After what felt like a thousand hours, there was only silence, with the occasional soft words, or the sound of the woman singing softly to the young boy. Christine offered to take him from his mother to give her a rest, but they refused to let go of each other.

Eventually, Christine’s legs started to cramp, and her feet ached from standing in one position. Along with that discomfort, and the fact that her stomach was growling and her throat felt parched, the pressure in her bladder was almost too much to bear. She inhaled through her nose and blew out through her mouth, trying to take her mind off the pain in her pelvis.

“What’s wrong?” Isaac whispered.

“Nothing,” she said. “I’m all right.”

“
Nein,
you’re not. I can tell.”

She looked up at him. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

“So go.”

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Listen to me,” he said. “Let it go. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Nein.”

He stroked the back of her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing like that matters. It’s all right.”

She closed her eyes and buried her face in his shirt, her tortured bladder making the decision for her. The warm liquid ran down the inside of her legs into her leather shoes, where it puddled beneath her stocking heels. Tears of shame ran down her face.

“It’s not your fault,” Isaac said. “It’s not your fault.”

Outside it had grown dark, casting the interior into blackness. Christine could barely see Isaac’s face. She closed her eyes and put her head against his chest, trying to drift off, to escape into the ignorance of sleep, but it was impossible. The images of where they were going, which Isaac had unintentionally painted in her mind, played like a slideshow behind her closed eyelids. Now, the cramps in her legs and the ache in her feet felt like knives. She’d never thought of herself as claustrophobic, but if the train didn’t stop soon, she wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be able to control the feeling of being crushed, the heavy weight that made her arm muscles tighten and her breath shallow. She had to fight the urge to bend her arm and throw her elbow into the bodies next to hers. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t move, and she might go crazy if she wasn’t let loose soon.

At last, the train started to slow. The iron wheels caught and screeched, caught and screeched. As they got closer to their dreadful destination, the occupants of the boxcar grew agitated. People tried to change positions. Everyone tried to talk at once. Children cried, and men gave instructions. Isaac had been anxious and quiet during the long trip, but now he lifted his chin and yelled above the commotion.

“When we get off the train,” he shouted, “we’ll be separated. Women to one side, men to the other. But don’t panic. They don’t like it when you panic.” Everyone in the car grew silent and listened. “Look calm and strong. No matter what they do, act strong. If you want to survive, you have to look like you can work hard. If you need to, lie about your age, tell them you’re somewhere between eighteen and fifty.”

“How do you know these things?” a man’s voice shouted.

“I’ve been here before, and if I can survive, so can you.”

Again, everyone started talking at once. Isaac looked down at Christine. “You’ll survive this too. You’re young and strong. Tell them you’re not Jewish. Tell them you worked as a cook. That will save you. I need you to survive. Someday when this is over, you and I will be together. We’ll find each other. We’ll get married and have babies.”

His eyes were wet with tears, but Christine felt a strange sense of joy and strength hearing his words. He still had hope. He’d found the will to survive.

“I’ll be strong,” she said. “I promise.”

“Until we meet again,” he said, taking her face in his hands. He kissed her long and hard, not taking his lips from hers until the train came to a complete stop. “I love you, Christine.”

Then the iron latches lifted, the boxcars were unlocked, and the heavy doors slid open.

C
HAPTER
23

B
linking and squinting against the enormous spotlights that lit up the night like brilliant fallen moons, Christine and Isaac, along with the rest of the exhausted captives, climbed down from the confinement of the cattle car. A few hundred yards from the tracks, centered between wooden watchtowers and high wire fences, the gates to the concentration camp Dachau stood open and waiting. A row of soldiers equipped with submachine guns and barking German shepherds stood prepared to redirect strays. Long, shadowy buildings and black uniforms darkened in contrast to the artificial white light. With surreal clarity, wide, dark eyes and animated mouths looked like shifting black holes in pallid faces, giving captors and captives alike the illusion that they were the dead come to life.

The smell of something burning replaced the stench of the boxcars. Christine put her hand over her nose and mouth. Recognizing the distinct odor of burning flesh, she fought back the urge to vomit. She looked along the tracks toward the hissing, wheezing engine and saw hundreds of people spilling onto the gravel beside the train. Several people fell out; some refused to come out by any means. A handful of soldiers climbed into the boxcars and pushed out women, children, and old men. On the platform, men carried suitcases and women carried small children on their hips, holding tight to the hands of older siblings. Piped over loudspeakers from inside the camp, a German waltz played into the cool night air. The music sounded metallic, abrasive, haunting, yet eerily carefree. Signs that read:
“Achtung Gefahr der Tötung durch Elektrischen Strom,”
“Warning: Danger of Electrocution,” hung from high electric fences topped with coils of barbed wire. Above the main entrance, a welded iron sign read
“Arbeit Macht Frei”
: “Work will make you free.”

The soldiers had started yelling as soon as the doors to the boxcars slid open, and now they continued, nonstop. “Move! Get out of the train! Leave your luggage beside the train. It will be delivered to you later, after you’ve settled in.”

A dozen prisoners in gray and white striped uniforms handed out pieces of chalk, instructing people to write their names on their suitcases. Christine and Isaac had nothing but the clothes on their backs, but she knew it didn’t matter. Isaac had told her they would take everything. She knew the soldiers were lying, trying to make the newly arrived inmates believe they could trust their captors, so they wouldn’t cause trouble.