Death in Twilight (26 page)

In a second, he was wearing his friend’s jacket with the crucial red patch on the lapel. It took longer to get Aaron’s warmer coat unto Kaczynski’s uncooperative body, but then it was done.

Aaron put his arms under Kaczynski’s, holding him up as he had on the morning march. This time it was no kindness. He did it only to drag Kaczynski back into the light and lay him down. Aaron picked up his shovel and went back to work, trying very hard not to look around to see if he’d been observed. He kept his back to where Kaczynski’s body lay.

Finally, Aaron reached up to wipe sweat from his forehead. He used the motion to surreptitiously check if anyone had noticed the dead man. No one had. The guards were still busy with their fun. The man who’d dare disapprove of their antics was screaming in a way Kaczynski had never had the opportunity to. Finally, Aaron couldn’t take it any longer.

“A man’s dead here, I think!” he shouted.

That got the attention of two of the guards. In no rush, they ambled over to confirm what Aaron had said.

“You think?” one of the guards asked. His name was Weber and he was known for his particular sense of humor. “I would imagine you’d be able to tell by now.”

The other guard laughed.

“Yes,” Aaron said. “He’s dead.”

“Good, good. A little more for the rest of you on the chow line tonight!” he said, and both of the Germans laughed. The joke was so funny because no matter how many slaves died in a day, the portions at breakfast or dinner never changed.

When Weber had recovered himself, he turned back to Aaron.

“What was his name? I’m sorry, but I can’t keep track of all of you. You never seem to last long enough. It’s not that the name matters, really, but we have to keep the paperwork straight.”

Aaron looked Weber in the eye, on the edge of impudence, but lowered his gaze before he crossed the line.

“Chaim,” Aaron said, “Chaim Rosen.”

“Not Rosenstein or Rosenberg, or one of those other names you all have?”

“Rosen,” Aaron said, once again skating the edge of defiance.

“Good, good.”

Weber was quite cheerful.

“So, what are you waiting for?” the Nazi said. “Don’t just leave him there!”

It was grim duty, but Aaron had done it before. Kaczynski was so thin that dragging him to the pit outside the fence was easier than lifting a shovel. A guard opened the gate and followed Aaron out to the shallow burial ditch. Aaron laid Kaczynski down and pushed a few clods of dirt on top of him while saying the Kaddish for a Catholic Pole he had killed with his bare hands.

No one at the quarry had bothered to glance closely enough at Kaczynski’s body to see the obvious cause of death.

The walk back to Kronberg took years. Aaron felt trapped by the pace of the column. He needed to get away from Kaczynski, he needed to get back to the camp so that he could be released. He had no time for the walking corpses who were plodding in front and behind.

An unexpected kink in the line, caused by someone’s attempt to remove a rock from his shoe without entirely stopping, caused Aaron to hit his nose on the top of another man’s head. Aaron cursed, but not loudly.

With the sun sinking, the water on each side of the path was slowing to syrup. It would be frozen before Aaron had finished his evening soup. He turned his thoughts from what he’d done and tried to imagine where he would be when all of Poland’s snow had melted. Feverish daydreams of Yelena and a cottage in a world turned green distracted him from the march and helped him finish it.

The camp, when he got there, was the same, but the soup tasted more wholesome. Neither the guards, nor the loudspeakers said anything about an impending release of prisoners. Aaron was not worried. After all, it was only the sixth night since Kaczynski told Aaron that he had a week left on his sentence. The announcement would come in the morning.

As the curfew descended, Aaron shared his bunk with the two men who had always lain beside him and Kaczynski. If they noticed there was a different man wearing the red patch on his coat, they said nothing. If they noticed anyone was missing at all, they asked no questions. By the end of the day, exhaustion had dulled the eyes of the keenest observers and starvation lulled the senses.

How could one tell the difference between two men with light-brown beards, dirty blond hair and muddled blue eyes? Dirt and a beard could hide a multitude of sins.

At first Aaron slept badly, and then he slept worse. A shout in a dream became a squeal in the dark that woke no one, except himself. For a second night in a row, sleep wouldn’t return. For the first night since his arrival, Kaczynski’s body offered no warmth.

Aaron lay and listened again. He heard the winds wake up and saw the first new snowflakes landing, obliterating yesterday’s promise of warmer weather. Kaczynski’s face covered the walls, but Aaron tried to focus on his freedom, on the fact that he wouldn’t have to carry a hammer or shovel a thousand miles out in the snow and crush stones until his back was broken. Even if he had to wait for every second to pass, the morning and freedom were coming for him, he told himself. He brushed away voices telling him that he didn’t deserve to see either.

Somehow he dozed. Not for long, but long enough for the guards to start another day. Aaron fled his bed and was the first to the latrine, thinking that it would be the last time he used it. That fact didn’t make it smell any better. Nor did it make the stares of the guards and their heckling easier to take.

Aaron took his place in the pointless parade in the camp’s central square, the filthy red patch on his lapel there for the guards to see.

Time froze. The men and women in the square froze.

And then it was breakfast. No one was called out of line, no one was exempted from duty.

Aaron drank his coffee alone, though he nodded to a few others. He told himself that the guards would stop him before he picked up a shovel.

Then the ten minutes of breakfast were over. Aaron returned his mug. He’d eaten his bread. He had no one to share it with, and what reason was there for hoarding it?

The line for the tools formed and Aaron hung back. Not in the line, not separate from it. The men inched forward and the distance between Aaron and his nearest neighbor grew. The man behind gave Aaron a little shove. He refused to be beaten just because someone else was half asleep. Aaron moved forward a step, then another. Finally, he had no choice but to grab a shovel.

The line of march was beginning to form up, and again Aaron held back. He was carrying a shovel but surely it was a mistake. He would be stopped before he marched out the gate. Aaron joined the others when the guard — Weber again — swatted him playfully and painfully on the back of his thigh with a truncheon.

It must be some kind of mistake, he said, I’m supposed to go free today.

But he’d been in the camp too long to speak the words aloud. Whatever was going on, he knew there was no chance of mercy from the men who would lead him to the quarry, and he saw no officer to ask.

The labor crew that he had done murder to leave filed its way out the gate, with Aaron last in line.

Aaron had no idea he was marching, that he was carrying anything, that he waited or that the gate was opened. He had no awareness of breaking rocks, carrying rocks, shoveling rocks or clearing rocks. His conscious mind had completely deserted him. There was no room for it in his body.

He had killed a man who had shown him kindness for nothing but false hope. For something that he thought he knew, but knew nothing about. There was no way for Aaron to keep both who he knew himself to be and the knowledge of what he’d done in the same skull.

So he went away.

And worked.

And men suffered.

And men drank.

And men sang.

And men were beaten.

And men died.

And the day passed.

The march “home” — what else to call it? — began. Aaron’s body got into line and fell in step with the rest.

When there was less than a third of a kilometer to go, Aaron’s feet tangled themselves, his legs buckled and his face hit the ground. A guard was on him almost instantly, shouting and brandishing a club. There was no one to hear the threats.

The club swung down and blood spurted from a gash near the crown of Aaron’s head.

A hand reached out and gently restrained the arm holding the club.

“Ah, let him live. This one’s going home tomorrow.”

“That’s hardly like you, Johann. Such sentiment!”

“I’m feeling sentimental. It’s my anniversary today, and Gretchen is so far from here,” Johann Weber said. “Maybe this guy has a wife, too.”

“And he’s not a Jew.”

“Exactly.”

Aaron heard none of this. The blow to his head had brought back his wandering mind and extinguished it. Two Jews, newly arrived, were forced to carry him the rest of the way back to the camp, where he was put in a bunk and given no further attention.

No one tried to wake him, so he missed his dinner. No ghosts visited him during the night. The shouts of the guards and the shaking of the bunks finally brought him back to earth. Another morning had begun before sunup.

Aaron’s mind and body occupied the same bunk, though neither was happy about it. Remorse filled every fissure in his soul. And as he got up and felt the pain that the guard had left him from the day before, he resolved that he would die before he left the camp for the quarry. He was done and the only marching he would do today would be straight to Hell.

Still, he got up. He took a leak. He ached and found his place in the parade. And then he stood, working up his courage for a leap at one of the guards — Weber if he was lucky. He would take Weber with him, either killing him with his hands, as he had Kaczynski, or placing the guard between himself and the bullets that would come.

He waited.

No Weber. No announcements, either. Aaron decided he might as well have breakfast before committing suicide, so he joined the queue, drank his coffee, pulled at the hard bread and tried to grind it into pieces small enough to swallow.

Men were grabbing heavy tools and Aaron decided taking out a guard or two would be much easier if he had a weapon in his hands. He waited his turn and was able to secure a pick. He followed the others and joined the line as if to head for the quarry.

He could make out Weber coming down the line.

Wait, wait
, he told himself.
Be sure. Let him come close
.

As casually as he could, Aaron lifted the pick from his shoulder, readying to swing. A few more steps. And now the column was moving forward.

Ready, ready …

“Kaczynski? Stefan?” Weber called out, looking Aaron in the eye. “Today’s the day!”

The strength went out of Aaron’s arms. The pick fell and hit him a glancing blow on the shin on the way down. Aaron grabbed his leg and hopped. Weber guffawed.

“Good news, bad news, I guess!” Weber said. He took Aaron by the shoulder and began pushing him toward the administrative hut. With a limp, Aaron let himself be pushed.

Once inside, the warmth shocked Aaron. He hadn’t felt the cold when he was swinging his shovel in the quarry, but had felt no other kind of warmth in days. He looked through tear-blurred eyes at the young officer with the death’s head on his collar. The man was poring over some papers, content to let Aaron stand.

A dismissive hand flicked out, Weber clicked his heels and removed himself. There were other guards in the room.

“Stefan Kaczynski, Lucknow, Poland, correct?” the officer asked, still staring at his forms and files.

“Yes, sir,” Aaron said.

The officer finally looked up, his gaze flat.

“I assume you’ve learned your lesson?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The Reich will not tolerate drunken displays from our new citizens!”

The officer warmed to his work.

“In the future, you will show the proper respect to your superiors. And we are all your superiors.”

“Yes, sir!”

“If someone tells you to toast the Fuhrer’s health, that is what you will do!” the officer ordered.

“Yes, sir!”

“Now get the fuck out of here! If I see you again — ever — you are a dead man.”