The Last Night At Auschwitz

CHAPTER I | A VOYAGE INTO THE UNKNOWN-3

Pondering on the perspective of staring at the ribbed ceiling planks for hours on end, I decided to continue the conversation and to change the subject at the same time:

‘By the way, how did you get here? If you don’t mind the question, of course... Certainly, I could start, if you concur...’

Their still, pale faces suggested that they were listening.

‘Well, in my case, the story would be downright hilarious if it didn’t end tragically for me, and the outcome is right in front of you! I was born in the little town of Burgkirchen, close to the German border and the famous Braunau am Inn village, the criminal chancellor’s birthplace. My ancestors immigrated from the east, from Romania, two generations ago, for reasons unknown to me. I attended elementary school right next to my home, but I went to high school in Linz. You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all these unimportant details? Because in my high school class I had a friend, my desk mate, Hans Burch. A brilliant boy, and, same as me, he was passionate about art and history, especially ancient history, in which I later specialized for that matter. During those years, Hans and I were inseparable: we lived together, attended the same classes, took girls out for ice cream or to the opera, in brief, our colleagues jokingly called us Castor and Pollux, the famous Dioscuri. Years went by and life separated us, so that for almost twenty years we had no news of each other. Just until two weeks ago... I was coming down the stairs of the university where I used to teach the Ancient Egypt course, when I bumped into a man who seemed familiar. We looked at each other for a few seconds as he was frowning glumly, then I realized that the person in front of me was my good friend Hans! I started laughing in amazement and I reached out to hug him, but he pushed me forcefully in the chest and stepped back, as if I my presence had soiled him.

‘My friend,’ I said to him, ‘don’t you recognize me?! It’s me, Severin, from Linz...!’ Hans spat straight into my face, pushed me again and shouted: ‘You jerk! You dare address me on the stairs of this German cultural establishment? Why aren’t you back at your birthplace, in the Middle East, what scheming against our great Reich has detained you around here?! You dare lecture our youth, instill your filthy, infamous teachings in their minds?! Polizei...! Polizei...!’ Long story short, I was arrested. At his insistence and under his guidance, they checked my family tree and afterwards threw me in jail, where I spent a few agreeable days, before boarding this delightful train.’

The little guy remained silent, but professor Morritz cursed the infamous character under his breath.

‘Such people, my God, such awful people...’ he finally gritted out.

‘In a way, the story is a parable in itself, from a philosophical perspective it probably has a meaning, too! But for me the consequences were much too unfavorable to allow me to speculate on Hans’ behavior. I prefer to take it as it is, as if destiny had wanted me to go through this trial. I assume in your case the story is most probably similar or not much different...’

Feeling in danger of skipping his turn, little Joachim interrupted me, saying that he wanted to tell his story, too. I had nothing against it, because I didn’t want to tell them anything about Elsa and the children, it was much too painful for me...

Unawares, a young lady carrying a child in her arms appeared between me and mister Morritz. The wagon’s penumbra prevented me from discerning her features, except for her big, sad, famished, light-colored eyes, the eyes of the defeated. The child was no more than a few months old and he was asleep, probably fallen deep into the sickly lethargy caused by dehydration.

‘Miss Carla,’ she introduced herself, and she bravely extended a thin, firm hand, which we all shook.

That touch had an almost supernatural significance there, in that train heading towards an unknown destination. We were all bitterly aware of the fact that it could be the last in this life. The sad smile the young lady gave us, while a single tear was softly sliding down her right cheek, could have been the last smile received in this world from a living being.

The little guy coughed nervously, and then began his story.

‘You know, I inherited this bakery in the center of Vienna from my father. I was selling bagels, apple pies and almond flakes, apple fritters, white oven-baked bread, with seeds...’

At that moment, multiple people who had been eavesdropping cut him short simultaneously. A deep grunt from a bulky, thug-like man, melted poor Joachim completely, he almost dropped at my feet. I caught his shoulders and shook him a little, reminding him to shorten the story and skip his delicious recipes.

‘So ... I just wanted to say that our produce, made only following traditional recipes, kept in our family for generations, were much appreciated by the Viennese, but also by tourists. One day, about two weeks ago, some individuals in black SS uniforms entered the store. I was in the kitchen, I didn’t see them, and a new employee was at the cashier, a girl barely in her twenties. They selected their pies and then attempted to leave, so the girl reminded them to pay for the purchased goods. I wish she had let them go... Not an hour, not a minute goes by without me obsessing about it...!’

‘They didn’t go, did they?’

‘Of course! Drunk or not, they felt offended... They surrounded the poor girl, laughing and encouraging one another, then they started groping and pinching her. The door was ajar so I saw it all, drawn by her frightened screams. Things became heated fast, they ripped off her blouse and bra and started pushing her around, like an object, a ball. They were sturdy and tall, we looked like pixies out of children’s tales compared to them. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I intervened, trying to speak nicely, but they slapped me and pushed me to the ground. After a while they got bored and wanted to take off, but one of them, who was obviously a local and probably knew me since his childhood, asked me: “Wait a minute ... I know some things about you ... aren’t you a little Yiddo?! Come on, be honest, as one friend to another...”’

‘My God, such bad luck...’ Carla murmured.

‘Yes, what do you know, rotten luck indeed! They devastated the store, broke the windows, then they had me bring my identity papers. I was done in! They left the girl alone, thank God, but they dragged me to their headquarters for additional checks. And here I am, two weeks later, in here with you!’

He tried to smile, but his lips were much too dry and chapped for it. The poor soul had wasted the little energy he still had to tell us the story, but it was probably his last reserve. I saw him turn white and stagger, about to fall. We rushed to hold him, but he asked us to just lay him down on the floor, gently, as his feet were failing him.

The professor was showing signs of fatigue, too, his eyes half-closed, and he was drowsing in a semi-conscious state. I touched him gently:

‘Would you tell us your story, how you got here?’

He barely shook his head and spoke softly, just a whisper: “Some other time...”

Young Carla seemed eager to say something and I signaled her discreetly that I was listening, but she burst into silent, tearless weeping. What had happened to her was much too painful, I concluded. She nevertheless managed to open her mouth and, her face contorted with suffering, she started speaking:

‘We were three siblings: two girls and a boy, the youngest in the family. Our father was an engineer in a bearing factory, near Salzburg, but the crisis left him unemployed. He barely resisted the temptation to drink along with the other unemployed workers he met, precisely because he understood that the little money he was making was vital for us, his family. He went into politics and was lured by the communists, who were promising everyone the world, abundance, the distribution of the bourgeoisie’s properties to the poor. It was probably the desire for vengeance, for seeing himself own a tiny part of the factory he had been fired from, it hardened him even more, or maybe he just wanted to gather some wealth, so that we could live better. The fact is that, when the Nazis came to power, they made lists with the members of the leftist parties who, unbeknownst by them, were all sentenced to death. After Anschluss, things deteriorated rapidly: my father was dragged out of his bed one night, along with my mother, and I never saw them again... I had given birth in May, the child’s father didn’t want to have anything to do with us, we were living with my family... It was horrible ... each time I close my eyes I can hear the kicks and bangs on the entrance door, followed by the sound of smashed wood and the sound of boots stomping on the floor... This is how I got here, after they beat and bullied me in every way you can imagine, threatening that they would kill my child...!’

She went on crying softly, careful not to wake her baby.

I couldn’t say a word, I just hoped that sharing her burden with us had managed to ease her suffering a little. The few barely visible faces around turned, flustered by their own helplessness. The wagon pounded heavily while crossing a switch, then we all felt the train steer briskly to the right. We were most probably entering a branch line.

I looked up and resumed my distraction, counting the wood veins in the planks. I knew them by heart, but I kept on exploring them, hoping to catch a new detail that would change the whole picture. A fly or a bug resting their body there for a few seconds would have been a real visual feast!

I finally dozed off unwittingly, unawares, and I lingered in that strange state, while standing, for who knows how long. I dreamt...

In my dream, I was attending a big rustic celebration somewhere outside of town, in a raw green meadow, by the forest. There were thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people there, probably not only from the outskirts of Vienna, but from the entire world, as far as I could figure out, judging from their clothes and the sounds of conversations reaching my ears. They were all prepared for picnic, they had spread their tiny cotton blankets on the grass and were either eating sandwiches or clinking their glasses of blood red wine. To my amazement and delight, some colorful hot air balloons were floating in the sky, while others were just rising from the ground. The people in the baskets were waving and laughing, overjoyed. Every now and then, a tipsy passenger would bend over too much and slip towards the ground, but their flight partners would always catch them.

Some circus music started nearby, where the children were crowding in front of a sweets kiosk. My stomach churned, so I hurried over there. I was happily walking through the perfectly mowed grass - much like the one you find on the best golf fields - bypassing the people sitting down. A sweet, spring wind was spreading the scent of the blooming trees nearby.

‘Pardon me,’ said a woman I had unintentionally bumped into, in my ravenous rush. I looked up and saw her big, sad, tearful eyes but, as if by magic, her whole face transformed into a joyful grimace. The woman was wearing clothes from the beginning of the century and was holding two children by the hands. They were all staring at me in surprise, as if they had seen a freak. They seemed so surprised that I involuntarily raised my hand to my face to feel it, but everything seemed to be in order, as far as I could tell.

“Please excuse me...” I blabbered, intimidated.

The woman smiled at me sympathetically and moved on, but the children kept on turning their heads towards me, gaping, long after they started fading in the crowd.

“Strange...” I told myself, while picking up my pace towards the sweets kiosk.

As I got there, I got caught in the sea of children patiently waiting for their turn. There was a machine for making cotton candy, in various colors, a popcorn machine, some big bottles of syrup mixed with water, ice cubes, big plates of huge, marvelous pancakes and donuts! Colorful, kaleidoscope lollipops, mountains of candy, roasted peanuts, cakes covered in marzipan, croque-en-bouche oozing sugar syrup and caramel ... a festival of aromas and colors, a delirium of the senses, before which I thought I was about to faint!

Time and again, a white gloved hand appeared from behind the machines, holding the ordered product that it handed out to the child. I couldn’t see the kiosk owner’s figure from where I was standing. Everything was free, apparently, I didn’t see any child paying for the sweets that the hand was generously sharing.

“What would you like, sir?” a silky voice woke me from my reverie.

Somehow, without realizing, I found myself in front of the counter, and the seller was looking at me and smiling, arms akimbo. He was a clown, slender and quite tall, so well made up that he seemed almost real. His hair, bright orange and ruffled, shone like a living flame. A pair of green eyes, the size of jam saucers, were watching me from under his tall forehead, so white it seemed powdered with flour. His nose was tiny, barely visible, and his mouth – smothered in blood red paint – was smiling so widely that the corners reached beyond the cheekbones and disappeared into the hair, towards the ears.

I unintentionally flinched, which made him burst into a shrill laugh, like the yelping of a beaten dog. Right at that moment, the crowd went “AAAaaaa . . .!”, all pointing somewhere above our heads, where a passenger who had lost balance in the basket was falling down to the ground. I could hear some women shriek, then everyone continued their picnic and the glasses, filled with red wine, clinked again with a charming tinkle.

Meanwhile, the clown had not taken his eyes off me.

“What would you like, sir...?!” he repeated the question.

I got up the nerve to tell him, I was much too hungry to assess his eccentricities objectively.

“I would like some roasted peanuts, one apple fritter, one cotton candy and ... ten assorted macaroons...” I breathed out in relief, staring at the products in the display case.

The clown laughed his shrill laughter, then started to clap his hands appreciatively, as if I had just said a good joke. He stopped, took a short break, then lifted his index in the air, signaling he’d just had an excellent idea. He smiled widely, so wide that I briefly shivered in fear, he leaned towards me, gracefully swiveling his lean body, and grabbed my shoulders. Slowly, slowly, he turned me towards a place at the edge of the forest and he pointed out to a spot located a bit further away.

“There...” he whispered hoarsely.

On the background of the colorful meadow, above which floated a plethora of hot-air balloons, there were two massive brick chimneys, spitting a black, dense smoke, which was writhing towards the sky in coiled wisps, blown by the spring wind. The smoke was climbing higher and higher until it faded in a low-altitude curtain of black clouds, which concealed the sunlight completely.

“What is this...?” I asked, overcome with a strange dread.

The clown swiveled back behind the counter and started to laugh louder and louder, his gloved hands on his hips. His big red mouth opened wider and wider, while his teeth turned into ivory-white blades.

In my dream, I screamed.