The Tattooist of Auschwitz (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #1) - Heather Morris Page 0,50
gems to jangle.
‘This makes me very angry, Tätowierer. You are good at your job. Now I will have to find someone else to do it.’ He turns to the escorting officers. ‘Take him to Block 11. He’ll soon remember the names there.’
Lale is marched out and placed in a truck. Two SS officers sit either side of him, each ramming a pistol into his ribs. During the four-kilometre drive Lale silently says goodbye to Gita and the future they were just imagining. Closing his eyes, he mentally says the names of each of his family members. He cannot picture his siblings as clearly as he used to. His mother he can see perfectly. But how do you say goodbye to your mother? The person who gave you breath, who taught you how to live? He cannot say goodbye to her. He gasps as his father’s image comes before him, causing one of the officers to push his pistol harder into his ribs. The last time he saw his father he was crying. He doesn’t want this to be how he remembers him, so he searches for another image and comes up with his father working with his beloved horses. He always spoke so warmly to them in contrast to the way he expressed himself to his children. Lale’s brother Max, older and wiser. He tells him he hopes he hasn’t let him down, that he has tried to act as Max would have in his place. When he thinks of his little sister, Goldie, the pain is too much.
The truck comes to a sudden halt, throwing Lale against the officer next to him.
He is placed in a small room in Block 11. The reputation of Blocks 10 and 11 are well known. They are the punishment blocks. Behind these secluded torture houses stands the Black Wall, the execution wall. Lale expects that he will be taken there after being tortured.
For two days he sits in the cell, the only light coming in through a crack under the door. While he listens to the cries and screams of others, he relives every moment he has spent with Gita.
On the third day, he is blinded by sunlight spilling into the room. A large man blocks the doorway and hands him a bowl of liquid. Lale takes it, and as his eyes adjust, he recognises the man.
‘Jakub, is that you?’
Jakub enters the room, the low ceiling forcing him to stoop.
‘Tätowierer. What are you doing here?’ Jakub is visibly shocked.
Lale struggles to his feet, his hand outstretched. ‘I often wondered what had happened to you,’ he says.
‘As you predicted, they found work for me.’
‘So you’re a guard?’
‘Not just a guard, my friend.’ Jakub’s voice is grim. ‘Sit and eat and I will tell you what I do here and what will happen to you.’
Apprehensively, Lale sits and looks at the food Jakub has given him. A thin, dirty broth containing a single piece of potato. Starving a few moments ago, he finds his appetite has now left him.
‘I have never forgotten your kindness,’ Jakub says. ‘I was sure I would die of starvation the night I arrived here, and there you were to feed me.’
‘Well, you need more food than most.’
‘I’ve heard stories of you smuggling food. Are they true?’
‘That’s why I’m in here. The prisoners working in the Canada smuggle me money and gems and I use them to buy food and medicine from the villagers, which I distribute. I guess someone missed out and told on me.’
‘You don’t know who?’
‘Do you?’
‘No, it’s not my job to know. My job is to get names from you – names of prisoners who might be planning to escape or resist, and of course the names of the prisoners who get the money and jewels to you.’
Lale looks away. The enormity of what Jakub is saying begins to register.
‘Like you, Tätowierer, I do what I have to do, to survive.’
Lale nods.
‘I am to beat you until you give me names. I am a killer, Lale.’
Lale shakes his hanging head, mutters every swear word he knows.
‘I have no choice.’
Mixed emotions race through Lale. Names of dead prisoners flit through his mind. Could he give Jakub those names? No. They’ll find out eventually, and then I’ll be back here again.
‘The thing is,’ Jakub says, ‘I can’t let you give me any names.’
Lale stares, confused.
‘You were kind to me and I will make the beating look worse than it is, but I will kill you before I let you