The Tattooist of Auschwitz (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #1) - Heather Morris Page 0,5
offering no deal, no promise of freedom in exchange for toil, Lale realises the sparkling mirage has gone. He’s in another prison.
Beyond this yard, disappearing into the darkness, is a further compound. The tops of the fences are lined with razor wire. Up in the lookouts Lale sees SS pointing rifles in his direction. Lightning hits a fence nearby. They are electrified. The thunder is not loud enough to drown out the sound of a shot, another man fallen.
‘We made it.’
Lale turns to see Aron pushing his way towards him. Drenched, bedraggled. But alive.
‘Yeah, looks like we’re home. You look a sight.’
‘You haven’t seen yourself. Consider me a mirror.’
‘No thanks.’
‘What happens now?’ says Aron, sounding like a child.
•
Going with the steady flow of men, they each show their tattooed arm to an SS officer standing outside a building, who records the number on a clipboard. After a forceful shove in the back, Lale and Aron find themselves in Block 7, a large hut with triple bunks down one wall. Dozens of men are forced into the building. They scramble and shove each other out of the way to lay claim to a space. If they are lucky or aggressive enough they might share with only one or two others. Luck isn’t on Lale’s side. He and Aron climb up onto a top-level bunk, already occupied by two other prisoners. Having had no food for days, there isn’t much fight left in them. As best he can, Lale curls up onto the straw-filled sack that passes for a mattress. He pushes his hands against his stomach in an attempt to quell the cramps invading his guts. Several men call out to their guards, ‘We need food.’
The reply comes back: ‘You’ll get something in the morning.’
‘We’ll all be dead from starvation by morning,’ says someone in the back of the block.
‘And at peace,’ a hollow voice adds.
‘These mattresses have got hay in them,’ someone else says. ‘Maybe we should continue to act like cattle and eat that.’
Snatches of quiet laughter. No response from the officer.
And then, from deep in the dormitory, a hesitant, ‘Mooooooo …’
Laughter. Quiet, but real. The officer, present but invisible, doesn’t interrupt, and eventually the men fall asleep, stomachs rumbling.
•
It’s still dark when Lale wakes, needing to take a piss. He scrambles over his sleeping companions, down to the floor, and feels his way to the back of the block, thinking it might be the safest place to relieve himself. Approaching, he hears voices: Slovak and German. He is relieved to see that there are facilities, albeit crude, for them to shit. Long ditches run behind the building with planks of wood placed over them. Three prisoners are sitting across the ditch, shitting and talking quietly to each other. From the other end of the building, Lale sees two SS approaching in the semi-darkness, smoking, laughing, their rifles hung loosely down their backs. The flickering perimeter floodlights make disturbing shadows of them and Lale can’t make out what they are saying. His bladder is full but he hesitates.
In unison, the officers flick their cigarettes up into the air, whip their rifles around, and open fire. The bodies of the three who were taking a shit are thrown back into the ditch. Lale’s breath catches in his throat. He presses his back against the building as the officers pass him. He catches the profile of one of them – a boy, just a bloody kid.
As they disappear into the darkness, Lale makes a vow to himself. I will live to leave this place. I will walk out a free man. If there is a hell, I will see these murderers burn in it. He thinks of his family back in Krompachy and hopes that his presence here is at least saving them from a similar fate.
Lale relieves himself and returns to his bunk.
‘The shots,’ says Aron, ‘what were they?’
‘I didn’t see.’
Aron swings his leg over Lale on his way to the ground.
‘Where are you going?’
‘A piss.’
Lale reaches to the side of the bed, clutches Aron’s hand. ‘Hold on.’
‘Why?’
‘You heard the shots,’ says Lale. ‘Just hold on until the morning.’
Aron says nothing as he clambers back into bed and lies down, his two fists curled against his crotch in fear and defiance.
•
His father had been picking up a customer from the train station. Mr Sheinberg prepared to lift himself elegantly into the carriage as Lale’s father placed his fine leather luggage on the seat opposite. Where had he travelled from? Prague?