The Kingdom of Shadows

FOURTEEN

The guards pulled back the canvas flaps, and sunlight flooded the rear of the truck. Pavli blinked and squinted at the figures outside, gesturing with their rifles.

“ Heraus -” The lead guard’s voice sounded bored. “You’ve arrived, time to get out. Come on, move along.”

“Watch your head,” whispered the young man who sat next to Pavli on the truck’s splintery plank bench. “Don’t let them slug you with a rifle butt. And if they do, don’t fall down, no matter what. They’ll kick you in the spine until it snaps.”

Pavli didn’t think any of that was going to happen. Only a handful of guards; two of them had slung their rifles back over their shoulders and now stood by the fence topped with barbed wire, idly smoking and talking to each other. The third one made little marks on a tally sheet as the Lazarene men and women began clambering off the back of the truck. The mothers handed the infants and smaller children to the fathers.

“Don’t let them fool you.” The fellow sitting next to Pavli kept his head lowered, eyes darting quickly to follow everything that happened. He had grabbed Pavli’s arm, holding him back as the others had jostled their way out. “They act nice to you, so they can trick you into doing something stupid. Then they work you over until you’re all blood and bruises.”

The warning, and all the others before, confused Pavli. “Why would they do that?”

“Because they like to. They don’t need any more reason than that.” He jumped to his feet, jerking Pavli upright by his jacket collar. “Hurry – it’s best not to be the last ones out, either.” He shoved his way past the knot of elders awkwardly dismounting from the truck.

Outside, in the middle of the fenced compound, Pavli kept close to his new adviser, the better to hear whatever came out of the corner of the fellow’s mouth. They worked themselves into the center of their crowded brethren, as far as possible from the lackadaisical scrutiny of the guards.

“This is a new camp -” The fellow raised himself on tiptoe, to see past the others. “They’ve never brought anyone here before.”

“How can you tell?” Pavli tried to keep his voice as low as possible, but still caught an angry glare from the other.

“Idiot – can’t you smell it? The wood, the fenceposts. It’s all fresh stuff.”

Pavli filled his lungs, and he caught the raw scent of new-cut lumber, like the odors that had spilled from the doorways of the carpenters’ shops back in Berlin. He hadn’t even noticed it before; he wondered how many other clues he missed, that his nervous, twitching companion seized on. Past the legs of the surrounding Lazarenes, he could see sawdust scattered around the fenceposts, that hadn’t yet been trod into the mud.

“Is that good?” He lowered his whisper to hardly more than an exhalation.

“I don’t know -” Pieces of the other’s face jerked, as though they had been snagged by fishhooks under the skin. “I don’t know, it all depends. If they brought the guards here from the other camps, or if they’re new as well… I don’t know, I don’t know -” His voice had risen, until the man standing in front had looked over a shoulder at him. He’d clamped his mouth shut, biting off the rush of words, and shrinking into himself where he stood, his dirty jacket swallowing him like a turtle’s shell. Pavli tried to ask another question, but the fellow just shook his head, a quick snap to either side as he anxiously watched the loitering guards.

Pavli concentrated on keeping himself upright on his weakening legs. The long ride in the truck had tired him as much as the small children who leaned against their mothers’ skirts. He would have fallen asleep on the way, despite the jouncing of the truck as it had traveled over the rutted dirt roads, if it hadn’t been for the other’s string of murmured warnings and bits of advice. He’d latched onto Pavli even before they’d gotten onto the truck, back in the widest street of the Bayerisches Viertel, where the SS troops had rounded up the Lazarenes, turning them out of their beds into the grey morning light. The other had bumped into Pavli’s side as the uniformed men had squeezed the cluster of people tighter.

“That won’t do any good,” the other had muttered, gazing scornfully at the few women who’d started crying. “They’ll just think it’s funny.” A nod of his head had indicated the hard faces of the soldiers.

It had taken Pavli a few seconds to recognize the fellow, he’d changed so much. Der falsch Zigeuner. A Lazarene such as himself – the eyes of two colors told that – but one who’d always slipped away to spend days and weeks and even months with gypsies in the camps at the city’s wooded edges. With his darker skin, he’d even looked as though he’d had a tinge of those other tribes’s blood. That had been his misfortune, when the gypsies had been rounded up and sent southward in locked boxcars; he’d been caught with them. Only when his shirtsleeve had been ripped open, so that a number could be tattooed in the crook of his arm, had the error been realized. A doctor had seen the Lazarene tattoos, the blue markings of Christ’s stigmata, at the young man’s wrists, and had arranged for his release from the camp. But it had taken months for the order to work its way through the maze of paper between Berlin and the camp in Silesia, a camp near a little village that the Poles who lived there called Oswiecim. And in those months, the fellow had seen things, terrible things that he could darkly hint at, or that could be read in his haunted eyes or deciphered from the shouts with which he woke, struggling or cowering from invisible blows, while his one relation, a spinster aunt, wept and tried to soothe him, telling him that it was all right, he wasn’t behind the barbed wire any more…

One time, a few days after the false gypsy had come home to the Lazarenes, the family in the flat next to his aunt had stupidly left a flame beneath a skillet with a scrap of fatty pork in it, and the smoke and stench of something burning, something that had once been alive, had rolled through the hallway. The fellow had run screaming into the street.

When his keepers had let him go from the camp, they had warned him not to speak of the things he had seen there. To speak, to put into words the memories shouting inside his skull, would be crime enough. They would come for him again and take him back there. And he wouldn’t leave another time, except the way the others in the camp did, by way of the smokestacks. The birds of the sky would learn his name in the grey stormclouds. So he had kept silent, and Pavli and his brother Matthi and all the other Lazarenes kept their questions inside themselves, and let the trembling, hunch-shouldered figure pass among them like one who had returned from the dead.

The lock of the fellow’s silence had broken underneath the canvas arch of the truck. In the moonlight that had angled through the truck’s canvas flaps, Pavli had seen the fellow’s hands clenching, the tendons drawing tight beneath the skin. Then at last his sharp-boned fingers had clutched Pavli’s forearm, drawing him closer so that he could whisper his warnings, everything that he could no longer keep inside.

“You’re lucky you look so young… that helps.” The fellow’s lips had brushed against the curve of Pavli’s ear. “But not a child. They get rid of children first, because they’re weak and cannot work. So you must always try to look strong and healthy. Throw your shoulders back when they line you up, and don’t start coughing no matter how sick you are.” The fellow’s breath had broken into panting, from the effort of imparting all the life-or-death information he had brought out of the camp. “When you grow pale, slap yourself, or rub your cheeks with little twigs, anything to get the blood up into your face. The pale ones are Muselmanner, they’ve already died, everybody knows it…”

All the way, during the long night hours of the journey in the truck, the whispers had continued. Once the fellow had started, once broken the commandment to remain silent about what he’d seen, he couldn’t stop. Everything the false gypsy said made the assumption – a truth so obvious, like the dawning blue of the sky above the newly fenced enclosure, that it didn’t need to be spoken – that they had entered into a world ruled by murderers. The same as the world outside, but here, behind the keen-toothed wire, the murderers no longer had to pretend to be anything other than what they were. And one had to throw one’s shoulders back and rub blood up into one’s face, to please them and be allowed to live another day.

A trill of birdsong sounded from the tops of the trees beyond the fence. Pavli looked up and saw a flash of green and black darting into the sky, scared away by the gate being pulled open to admit another truck. Two more were visible farther along the road, working their way along the narrow forest road. The trucks held the rest of the Lazarene Community, the men and women and the children of his blood. He wondered if any had escaped, had managed to hide in the city’s back alleys before the rounding-up had begun. Would it matter if there had been? He knew that he wouldn’t have wanted to be such a one, sneaking from one dark corner to another. If his brother had tried to send him away – and Matthi had spoken of it – he would have come back, he would have run toward the crowd in the street, surrounded by the hard-eyed SS men. He would have pushed his way between the rifles and taken his place with the rest.

Because I wouldn’t want to be left behind, thought Pavli as he watched the bird flicker and disappear into the sky. He kept silent; the other wouldn’t have understood. I’d rather be here than be left behind, all alone.

The guards began unloading the people from the newly arrived truck. The younger men jumped down and helped their elders. Pavli stood on tiptoe, craning his neck, despite the desperate tug on his sleeve and hissing from his companion. He managed to catch a glimpse of his brother. Matthi had been separated from him in the confusion of the street, the press of bodies lashed by the orders barked at them. Pavli couldn’t tell if Matthi had spotted him in turn; before he could call out his brother’s name, he was nearly knocked off his feet by the crowd surging backward like a single creature.

A scuffle had broken out at the back of the truck, and the guards waded into it, the stocks of their rifles raised in their hands. Pavli stood where he was, letting the crowd thin before him so that he could see what was happening.

A man with his head swathed in dirty bandages, his clothing torn and darkened with his own blood, knelt on the muddy ground, his broken hands clawing at the belt of the uniformed figure standing before him. The SS officer gazed down with cold disdain as a sobbing cry emerged from the toothless mouth.

“ Ich bin kein Jude! ” The words rose to a howl. “I’m not a Jew!” The figure managed to drag himself upright, eyes taking in with horror the sea of watching faces and the barbed wire written along the sky. “I’m not, it’s a mistake… it’s always been a mistake, I tell you…”

The officer struck the figure across the face, sending him sprawling. “Why do you speak such nonsense?” The officer glanced at the huddled Lazarenes, then back to the sobbing creature at his feet. “There are no Jews here at all. Why would there be?”

No words came from the mouth of what had been a human being, only red spittle and a moan of terror.

Pavli watched, feeling his own hands grow damp with sweat. The broken man hadn’t been with the Lazarenes when they’d been driven into the street. A black car had pulled up and the two men in the back seat, in civilian clothes – the car had came from the direction of the Gestapo headquarters on the Prinz-Albrecht-Stra?e – had dragged the silent figure out between them. A chill scent of prison cells, an odor of damp iron in darkened spaces, had clung to the near-unconscious man. He’d dangled limp as dirty laundry as he was handed over to the SS guards manning the trucks; his last beating had rendered him mute.

Two guards hoisted a ragdoll up by its arms. The eyes in the black-and-red face looked beseechingly at the crowd, as though someone might step forward and bestow his freedom.

Before, in the street back in Berlin, Pavli had caught only a glimpse of the man before he’d been loaded into one of the trucks. Now Pavli recognized him. Underneath the bruises and crusted blood was a face he’d seen in his uncle’s camera shop, a face that had once glowed with smug self-satisfaction, the knowledge of one’s own cleverness. The man once had bragged of the plans he’d made, that would save him and his family from the knife-edged winds that were already blowing across the land, a storm that would batter his foolish and improvident brethren…

The thing of dirty rags and swollen flesh was the father of the angel in the shop’s window. Marte Helle’s father.

“What a fool,” muttered Pavli’s dark companion. His voice held the perfect contempt of one who’d steeled his heart for survival, despising those who stayed human and fated for death. “He’s in for it now.”

The broken man had achieved freedom of a sort: the gate had been opened long enough for the two guards to drag him out, his heels inscribing two lines in the mud. The guards disappeared with him into the dark ranks of trees.

Pavli whispered from the corner of his mouth. “Will they shoot him?”

“No -” The other shook his head. “They won’t waste a bullet on him. One of them can just stand on his throat until he’s quiet.”

The guards came back a little while later, by themselves, one of them smoking a cigarette, the other wiping his hands with a cloth he tucked back into the pocket of his uniform jacket.

Some of the elders and the women with small children had sat down on the ground. The mothers kept the restless children close to themselves, hushing them when they cried, rocking the infants in their arms and shielding their pink faces from the sun.

It was close to noon when the car arrived, a high-fendered cabriolet from the Bayerische Motoren Werke, the whine of its supercharger cutting through the distance before it could be seen. The guards stiffened to attention, a couple of them hurriedly fastening the tight collars of their uniforms, as the driver held the door open for his passenger.

The Scharfuhrer, the sergeant in charge of the guards, extended his arm in salute. “All shipments of the subject population have arrived and been accounted for, Herr Doktor Ritter.”

The false gypsy hissed in alarm. “It’s him! ” He clutched his fingers tighter on Pavli’s arm. “He was there, at Auschwitz!” That was the other name, the German one, for the little Silesian village and the camp from which the fellow had been returned. “In Block Ten -”

There wasn’t time to ask what Block Ten was. The officer – Pavli could see the insignia of a Hauptsturmfuhrer SS on the man’s uniform – acknowledged the guard’s salute with a nod, as he pulled the gloves from his hands. His gaze moved across the crowd behind the fence.

“Line the males up.” The gate swung open to admit the officer. He pointed to the open space a few yards away. “Right there will do nicely.”

The Scharfuhrer presented the tally sheet to the officer. “You will find the group to be short one subject, sir. A death occurred during transport; the man was not well.”

“Oh?” The officer raised a skeptical eyebrow. He smiled coldly at the guard. “During transport, you say? How unfortunate. What was done with the subject, upon your learning of his demise?”

“The body was removed -”

“But not yet buried? Good.” The officer gestured with a flick of his hand. “Have it brought inside. We shall waste nothing here. Every one of our guests, breathing or not, is of value.”

They made no effort to lower their voices, to keep the Lazarenes from overhearing. Pavli let himself be herded forward with the other men. The guards kept their rifles slung behind their shoulders as they shoved the group into a rough straight line.

Pavli could see the officer better now. He stood only a few feet away, running a finger across the names on the tally sheet. Shorter than all but one of the guards, with eyes of watery blue socketed in finely wrinkled skin. He had the thin lips of an unloved woman. He didn’t seem to Pavli like a doctor, but these things were hard to tell anymore. In this world, he had already learned that all words were arbitrary; they could easily mean the opposite of what they had meant the day before.

The officer and the Scharfuhrer started at the left end of the line. “Your arm, bitte.” Before the Lazarene could respond, the Scharfuhrer had grabbed the man’s forearm, twisting his palm upward. The tight double row of buttons were torn open, exposing the white skin of the Lazarene’s wrist.

“Ah…” The officer breathed a connoisseur’s sigh of appreciation as he looked at the blue-inked tattoo that ran toward the inside crook of the elbow. He reached out a forefinger and traced the length of the representation of Christ’s stigmata. “A fine specimen.” To Pavli, watching from the corner of his eye a few places farther down the line, the officer did seem like a doctor now, examining an interesting skin condition. “Open your shirt.”

The Scharfuhrer let the Lazarene male undo the buttons himself. Herr Doktor Ritter pushed the cloth aside with one hand. The Lazarene drew in a sharp, involuntary breath as the officer’s fingertips brushed the tattoo running vertically across the ribs.

“Perfect.” Ritter stepped in front of the next in line, who’d already had his shirt pulled open by the Scharfuhrer. He gave a cursory glance to the traditional Lazarene marking, then moved on.

When it was Pavli’s turn, the officer’s face darkened into a scowl. “What is this individual doing here? He’s not Lazarene!”

It was the first time he’d ever heard the word spoken by someone not of his blood. He wondered what other secrets were known by this man who was somehow both a doctor and an SS officer.

The Scharfuhrer looked confused. “I don’t understand, sir…”

“His arm, idiot. Look at his arm!” Ritter grabbed Pavli’s forearm, yanking it up to the sergeant’s baffled inspection.

The white skin, from the delicate veins at the bend of the wrist, up to the elbow, was completely unmarked. There was no tattoo of the Savior’s holy wounds.

“Your instructions were to bring only the members of the Lazarene Community here.” Ritter’s cold voice lashed the other man. “This individual is obviously old enough to have been received his initiation into their faith, yet he does not bear the ritual markings.”

“No, sir…” The Scharfuhrer mumbled his response.

“Therefore, he cannot be Lazarene, can he?” Ritter slapped the rolled-up tally sheet against his palm in irritation. “I did not anticipate errors cropping up quite so soon. But I suppose it’s inevitable.” He glanced at Pavli, then back to the sergeant. “I suppose it was his eyes that misled you. Well, he’ll have to be taken care of,” said Ritter in a lower voice. “You and your men seem capable of that, at least. You can mark it down as another loss in transport…”

A shock of panic hit Pavli, freezing him where he stood. He could see, as though it were happening to someone else, the two guards dragging him out the gate, as they had done with the bandage-swathed broken man, and out to the distant trees. From which they would return by themselves, without him.

Another voice spoke up. “Excuse me, mein Herr…”

The Scharfuhrer turned on his heel, face furious. “Silence!” He raised his hand to strike the Lazarene who had shown such daring.

Matthi, a few places farther down the line, ignored the Scharfuhrer. He looked straight at the SS officer. “But the boy is Lazarene, sir. He is my brother -” His head snapped to one side as the back of the sergeant’s gloved hand hit his jaw.

Another blow was stopped by Ritter grabbing the Scharfuhrer ’s arm. “Just a moment.” He stepped in front of Matthi. “Your brother? Why hasn’t he been given the markings?”

Though he met Ritter’s gaze without flinching, Matthi hesitated a moment. “He has not been initiated into the Lazarene faith at all. The elders and I thought it best not to do so.”

“Oh?” One of Ritter’s eyebrows lifted. “Why is that?”

Another heartbeat of silence. “What my brother does not know, he cannot be forced to tell.”

That brought a grim half-smile to Ritter’s face. “How clever of you. I had heard rumors that the Lazarenes were aware of my interest in them – but this is the first confirmation I’ve had.”

“We knew nothing like that. But these are times of war. Best to be cautious.”

“Such wisdom.” Ritter nodded in appreciation. “Perhaps that alone explains the survival of your people. But as of now, there is no war for the Lazarenes.” He took a step backward, raising his voice to address the line of males and the huddled group of women and children a few yards away. “You are all under the protection of the Ahnenerbe, the department of research into ancestral heritage of the Reich’s Schutzstaffel. You will come to no harm, provided, of course, that you remain cooperative and follow all orders, precisely as they are given to you.” He made a gesture of welcome, a sweep of one hand that was almost a bow. “You should consider yourselves to be guests, not only of me, but also Reichsfuhrer SS Himmler and even the Fuhrer himself. I apologize for the inconvenience and discomfort you may have suffered thus far. But I promise that all efforts will be undertaken to make sure that your time spent here will be more congenial.”

Pavli’s companion hazarded a mutter under his breath. “Lying son of a bitch…”

“Take them inside.” Ritter handed the tally sheet back to the Scharfuhrer. “I’ll inspect the rest of the males later.”

The guards moved the Lazarenes in two groups, the men still separated from the women and small children. Pavli tramped along in the middle, aware of his brother’s presence ahead of him.

“There is your new home.” One of the guards pointed ahead of the group. “As Herr Doktor Ritter said -” There was a sour note of sarcasm in the guard’s voice. “Welcome.”

Pavli looked past the shoulders of the other Lazarene men, and saw a four-story building, white with green shutters. It looked like a hospital, a tuberculosis sanitarium or perhaps an asylum for the insane. New-looking iron bars had been welded into place over the windows.

His companion, the false gypsy, was unimpressed. “They can make anything look wonderful,” he whispered. “If they want to.”

Inside the building, there was an odor of carbolic acid. Standing in the entrance hallway with the others, Pavli caught glimpses through partly opened doors, of rooms whose walls and floors were covered with the same pale green tiles, with a tarnished brass drain plate set in the center. Other rooms were filled with wicker-backed wheelchairs, piled into rusting mountains with broken gurney carts.

“Move along.” The guards jostled against the rear of the crowd. “Keep going.”

The interior grew dimmer, farther removed from daylight, as they shuffled down a central corridor. Electric lights had been strung along the ceiling, with black cables snaking overhead. The lights flickered and buzzed; somewhere outside, a petrol-fueled generator chugged steadily. In the cavernous spaces, echoing against the tiled walls, came the distant voices of the women and children, taken to a separate wing of the building.

“Stop here.”

The Scharfuhrer had to shout to be heard over the voices of the Lazarene men; they had been put sufficiently at ease by the SS doctor’s assurances to have begun talking among themselves, even joking and laughing.

This room smelled of damp and soap. Along the concrete walls, near the ceiling, were patches of black mold.

“You are to undress,” ordered the Scharfuhrer. “Remove all articles of clothing, fold them neatly, then place them on top of your shoes or boots against the wall. Remember where you place your own things – thievery will not be tolerated…”

He didn’t hear the rest of the words being barked at the group. His attention was distracted by the false gypsy, the man of warnings and whispers. Pavli looked to his side and saw the fellow panting rapidly, face drained white and eyes widened in sudden fear.

“… after washing thoroughly, you will line up here, at this spot, for application of the delousing compound…”

The false gypsy screamed.

“No!” He propelled himself shoulder-first against the man at his other side, scrabbling with a terrified animal’s clawed fingers to find a way through the press of bodies around him. “He’s lying, they’re all lying -” His words were lost in the rising pitch of his cry.

The crowd of Lazarenes parted, each pushing to get away from the contagion of the fellow’s madness. A hubbub of mounting voices battered against the tile and concrete. Pavli tried to grab the fellow’s arm, to pull him back and clap a hand over his mouth, but he had already broken through. He stumbled onto his knees, then scrambled upright, throwing himself toward the room’s open doorway.

The other guards caught him, pinioning his arms and wrestling him clear of the floor. His legs kicked furiously.

“ They’re lying! ” He was no match against the guards, a bear hug squeezing the breath from his lungs. “The showers!” He dug his fingernails into the uniformed sleeves wrapped around his abdomen. “That’s… how they do it! The showers… and the gas…”

Another guard swiped the back of his fist across the fellow’s mouth, silencing him in a spatter of blood. He crumpled to the tiled floor when he was let go.

Pavli was almost knocked from his feet as the crowd of Lazarene men surged toward the doorway. Their voices had risen into shouts, deafening in the enclosed space. The guards scrambled for their rifles, raising them chest high and bracing themselves.

“What is the meaning of this?”

The voice of Herr Doktor Ritter struck the men like a whiplash across their faces. The SS officer pushed his way past the guards, confronting the milling crowd of Lazarenes.

As they clustered tighter against each other, their voices falling to silence, the Scharfuhrer drew Ritter to one side. The guards kept the false gypsy on his knees as the officer listened to the Scharfuhrer ’s whispered explanation. Ritter nodded, glancing at the individual in question.

“So.” Ritter strode before the Lazarene men. “I see that my assurances to you are doubted. You would rather listen to the slanderous rumors spread by cowards and lunatics such as this.” His voice boomed in the tiled hollows. “To doubt the honor of an officer of the SS – that is an un-German thing.” He shook his head, contemplating the grievous insult. “You bring shame upon yourselves, upon the name of your people, by doing so.”

A spattering rain-like noise followed the quick gesture Ritter made to the Scharfuhrer. Clear liquid streamed from one of the washroom’s metal fixtures. Ritter leaned forward, holding his hand beneath the pipes, the sleeve of his uniform darkening in the spray. He drew his arm back, studying his own wet hand for a moment, then touching a finger to his lips.

“This is water, is it not?” He smiled, his voice calm and measured. The water ran down his wrist as he thrust his palm before the nearest of the Lazarene men. “It is not heated, I grant you – the boilers have not yet been returned to service – but surely you can endure that slight discomfort, that small sacrifice for the benefit of all Germany? It’s not too much to ask, is it? And this -” He bent down and picked up a thick grey lump from just inside the raised edge of the shower area; he held it to his nose and sniffed. “It seems to be soap. Not of the finest quality… but your homeland is at war.” The smile disappeared from his face as he squeezed the rough block in his fist; the soap crumbled between his fingers, bits falling to the damp floor. He wiped the mess off with his handkerchief.

Ritter had spoken softly. The sudden change in his voice snapped the Lazarenes awake again.

“I promised that no harm would come to you.” The anger spoke in the officer’s booted stride as well. “But then, that depends upon you, does it not? Upon your cooperation, upon your following orders, upon your trust.” Ritter’s voice dropped to a whisper once more. “You do not know, from what dangers I have already saved you. And this is how you repay me…”

His steps took him to the guards and their kneeling prisoner. Pavli could see the cringing fear in the eyes set in the blood-spattered face.

“There are none of you so valuable,” said Ritter, “that I can tolerate the spreading of falsehoods.” He didn’t turn to address the crowd of Lazarenes. He nodded to the guards, who yanked their prisoner to his feet. “You should learn from this one’s example.”

Herr Doktor Ritter strode out of the room. The guards dragged between them the false gypsy, no longer struggling, another thing of rags.

The Lazarene men didn’t speak among themselves as they stripped off their clothes. They listened even as they lowered their heads beneath the icy sting of the showers.

Pavli heard the distant rifle shot, as did the other men, from out in the forest, beyond the walls of the building. A sound that Ritter and the guards had wanted them to hear.

The cold water trickled into the corners of Pavli’s mouth. When he closed his eyes, he could see the startled birds wheeling up from the tops of the trees and vanishing into the sky.