Death in Twilight (25 page)

Aaron could only assume that he looked no better, but a day of hard labor had shown him that his injuries weren’t quite as bad as he’d first supposed. While his chest still felt as if it were in a vice, he had to acknowledge that there was no way he could have lifted a hammer, let alone swung it, if his ribs were truly broken. He was also getting the sight back in his left eye, which had swollen shut thanks to Clausewitz.

Sticking a hand into a pocket for warmth, he discovered yet another reason for unreasonable optimism: he had forgotten to eat his slice of bread during the day, meaning that he now faced the happy prospect of bread to lap up his soup.

Yes, things were looking up.

At the front of the line, a man stumbled and was pushed off to the side without comment. It mattered to nobody if he was alive or dead. The cold would finish him if nothing else did.

Two steps ahead of Aaron, a man lunged out of line and went to the prisoner who had fallen. Aaron was touched by the sentiment. The brave soul would surely be beaten for his act of kindness.

If that was what it was.

As the apparent hero leaned over the maybe corpse, he pulled and struggled, finally coming away with the fallen man’s coat. The guards were on the scavenger seconds after and he was beaten bloody.

But he kept the coat.

Numbed feet and minds were finally roused by the sight of harsh floodlights ahead. The camp was near and the men’s steps quickened to a shuffle. Aaron could see that his wasn’t the only group returning. There were other squads of men and also women. God alone knew where they had been or what they had done with their day.

Inside the grounds, everyone was forced into lines again. Vats of something steamed under the lights. Jewish trustees were stirring the “broth” and serving out the mugs. Aaron found Kaczynski in the line, which was only possible because his position in it was
behind
Aaron. If Aaron had tried to cut
ahead
in the line, there was no doubt in his mind that he would have sparked a riot, no matter how tired everyone was.

“How did you enjoy your first day?” Kaczynski asked tiredly.

“I’m lucky it wasn’t my last,” Aaron said.

“I say that to myself every day.”

“There’s no way to survive this place, is there?” Aaron asked. “The man who owned the watch was right, wasn’t he? They couldn’t give a shit whether we work. We’re just here to die.”

“Yes, I think so,” Kaczynski said solemnly. “Even those of us who are only supposed to be here for three months, six months. As you can see, we’re all treated the same.”

The mug that Aaron grabbed was cold in his hand, but the woman with the dull eyes and the ladle poured in wonderful warmth.

The two men took their steaming soup and stood apart. Aaron brought out the brown bread and broke it, careful not to let a crumb fall to the ground. He passed precisely half to Kaczynski. The two men dipped the bread and brought it to their lips slowly, savoring the moment and the most simple of pleasures, now a treat.

The taste was terrible, the broth mostly water, some beets perhaps playing a peripheral role. The bread was rough-textured and Aaron wouldn’t have been surprised if sawdust had been stored too close to the flour. But hunger and cold were the only spices the meal needed, and those were available in abundance.

“I wonder what my wife is eating tonight.” Kaczynski said, as he chewed slowly.

“Hopefully it’s better than this,” Aaron said.

“Perhaps.”

“Even in the ghetto, I ate better than this,” Aaron said.

“It’s bad there?”

“Yes, it’s bad. Not much for anyone to eat. Not much medicine, warm clothing, fuel. Not much of anything, really.”

“I’m not sure there’s much of those things anywhere. Outside of the German storerooms, I mean,” Kaczynski said.

“No.”

Aaron didn’t want to argue with his new friend, or compare suffering with a man who had lived in Kronberg for more than a few days.

The two men shared a bit more of their lives with each other, but were cautious lest they reveal anything of interest to the guards.

More shouting. It was time to head to the barracks. No one minded. There wasn’t any food left, anyway. There hadn’t been for a while. The men and women brought their bone-dry mugs back to the tables. People in different barracks nodded to each other as they passed. A man saw his wife, their hands touched and then both were forced to turn away.

In the barracks, Aaron saw the man who had taken a beating for a coat. He was curled up in it, and though his lips were split, he was smiling.

At least someone was warm, Aaron thought wryly.

“Six days,” Kaczynski said as he turned away from Aaron, positioning himself for sleep.

They were the last words spoken that night.

Chapter 17

A
aron was woken by dreams of Yelena and the erection they brought with them. He was astonished to find that his body was capable of such a reaction and relieved to find himself lying on the outer edge of the bunk and facing out as well. As knowledge of his surroundings returned to him, he wondered at his unconscious mind’s ability to feel lust for anything other than food or warmth.

Aaron still had no idea what had happened to Yelena on the night that he was captured. Much of his interrogation by the Gestapo was fog. The pain and exhaustion had melded days and nights together, along with conversations and waking dreams — nightmares rather. Still, one name had never come up. Aaron had never mentioned Yelena and neither had his interrogator, Clausewitz. If Clausewitz had her — or even knew about her — he would have used Yelena ruthlessly, and without hesitation. She would have become the primary implement of Aaron’s torture.

Still, it spun and spun in Aaron’s mind. Why had she failed to make the rendezvous? Had she seen the Germans readying for the raid and held back? Had she been killed without the Germans ever learning who she was, or her relationship to Aaron?

Had she faced her own betrayal? Aaron had never been happy with bringing in Andrusz, the gunrunner. He’d only agreed because there was no other way to get the weapons.

But a necessary risk wasn’t necessarily a smart risk. While Aaron had reasons to believe that Andrusz had nothing to do with his own capture, none of them was a guarantee of the man’s fidelity. Just because he hadn’t betrayed Aaron didn’t mean he’d kept faith with Yelena.

The need for answers had helped keep Aaron alive in both frying pan and fire. The answers lived in Miasto and Aaron was going back to find them. Soon.

It had been seven days spent in Hell. Aaron had used that word indiscriminately all of his life, but now it was more than a mild expletive or even an abstract notion. Aaron had grown to know Hell intimately, along with its demons, devils and the condemned. He knew which guards killed for pleasure or caused pain to pass the time. He knew which of the other prisoners were still capable of compassion and those who had turned feral in their time at Kronberg labor camp, stealing what they could and informing for the slightest imagined infraction.

Seven days had been enough for Aaron. It was time to go, and he knew how he would do it.

Contemplating his task kept sleep at arm’s length. An extra dose of exhaustion would be no help, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Aaron listened to the sounds that filled Kronberg’s walls.

Within the barracks were the snorers, the moaners, the night farters.

Generators pounded, keeping the spot and floodlights on, perhaps creating heat for someone.

A little further out, a dog was barking, a guard was cursing, complaining about the cold. Further yet, a scream, its cause unknown.

Night.

Aaron saw no hint of a sunrise, had no watch to check, so he took the word of the bugle and the hollers of the guards as proof of approaching dawn. Kaczynski stirred next to him. Everybody groaned and turned, stretched as they could and climbed down from the bunks. As always, the guards urged them to move faster.

On the way to the latrine ditch, Aaron noticed a bunk with a solitary, unmoving figure on it.

Isaac
, Aaron said to himself, putting a name to the body. A hint of guilt tickled the back of his mind when he realized he’d already assessed the dead man’s possessions before remembering his name. But Isaac’s rags had become shreds. Aaron had no need of them.

He passed on and did what was necessary, making it out to the parade ground to stand pointlessly without being hit. He stood with everyone else, slumped at attention — if such a thing was possible.

A slow hour passed. A woman in some other group fell, as someone seemed to do every morning during this assembly. Maybe that was the point. No other reason had ever been given for the time they stood every day in freezing inactivity.

The woman’s friends — comrades? bunkmates? — gathered her up quickly and there was no punishment meted out.

Nothing else happened. Then it was time for breakfast and a grateful sigh swept the open place, unheard beneath the morning’s wind.

Kaczynski looked particularly weak to Aaron. He’d been watching his friend closely. In the week before his scheduled release, the man had grown sicker and more frail. The bloody cough was more frequent and Aaron had seen more blood in the man’s urine.

After they had received their breakfast Aaron gave Kaczynski half of his bread, though he knew it wasn’t going to make a difference. Both welcomed the warm water flavored with just a touch of dirt and remembered coffee.

The two men returned their mugs, picked up their heavy tools and joined the march to the quarry. As the sun finally rose, the air changed. The edge seemed to have fallen off the wind. It was blowing from behind for once, making the walk a little easier. Aaron wondered, looking around, if maybe the snow was melting a little? Was water streaming at the side of the road?

It would be a good day to go home.

Kaczynski stumbled ahead of Aaron, his feet crossed up. His shovel fell to the ground with a clang. Aaron sprang into action, grabbing his friend under his armpits, desperately trying to get him back on his feet and in rhythm with the rest of the line. Kaczynski had already called attention to himself, which was dangerous enough. Falling out of line might have been the end of him.

The man behind Aaron also did his part to save Kaczynski, grabbing up the shovel as he passed it with a quick bobbing motion. The man passed the shovel forward to Aaron; Aaron passed it forward to Kaczynski, who took it up as if he was bearing a cross to Calvary.

“Thank you,” Kaczynski breathed and immediately started coughing, blood flecking the ground.

One of the guards opened the gate to the quarry as usual and the men took their places, with the exception of a few prisoners who had arrived on a train the night before. There was little to teach, and in a few minutes the new men were situated and could hardly be told from the old, except by their strength.

In his week breaking rocks, Aaron’s hands had grown callused and the tools he used familiar. Today they were heavier than yesterday, when they had been heavier than the day before. He became lost in the rhythm, left himself behind. Around him, people worked, they fell, they were beaten. The guards laughed and tried to keep warm by stamping their feet and drinking brandy. They drank through every day and their amusements turned darker the drunker they became.

Aaron needed the guards to get good and drunk today and they were happy to oblige. As the sun — which, in a break from Eastern European tradition, was visible today — began to lower itself toward the far horizon, the SS began to sing a sentimental favorite. A few swayed slowly back and forth, arm in arm. A Jewish man in his pit made the mistake of looking up at the guards with an expression of disgust. A guard who wasn’t singing looked down and saw him.

“What do you think you’re looking at?” the guard shouted. “And what’s that look on your face? You don’t appreciate a little patriotic signing?”

It was time for Aaron to move.

Kaczynski was working next to him. Aaron grabbed his arm and dragged his friend against the wall of their own pit, into the shadows.

“I’m sorry,” Aaron said, and grabbed Kaczynski by the throat. He squeezed the thin reed that supported the Pole’s gaunt head. Kaczynski’s arms flailed feebly at his unimagined attacker. His eyes bugged out, but still they managed to ask, “Why?”

Aaron knew this wasn’t a moment to listen to his conscience, but he couldn’t finish what he was doing without trying to justify himself.

“Every day that we’ve been here, you’ve been sicker and sicker. You can hardly lift your shovel. You cough blood in the day and it’s worse when I’m lying next to you at night.

“But you don’t die!” Aaron hissed. “You won’t die!

“You won’t last two days after they let you out, but they’re going to let you go any hour now. You keep saying so yourself! What choice do I have? I need to live! I have to find my wife! I can’t die now!”

Kaczynski’s head began to slump, finally falling to the side and still. The eyes remained open. Aaron denied the urge to close them. Dignity had no place in what had happened. Instead, he kept Kaczynski’s body standing against the wall by leaning his own body in. He reached down, fumbling with numb fingers at the buttons of his own coat, followed by Kaczynski’s. He struggled, tugged and pulled. He felt the air on his sweating skin as his coat came off.