Last Train to Istanbul (34 page)

Fifteen days later, a new instruction relieved the monotony of their existence. After the morning coffee, before going out to move barbed wire, they were made to walk in lines of five down a new corridor they hadn’t seen before and into another hall.

“Strip down!”

No one moved.

“Strip down, I tell you!”

They were baffled, but looking at each other, they started stripping down to their underpants.

“Take your underwear off too!”

“My God!” said an old man.

“What have you got to hide, you decrepit old man,” said a soldier.

They removed their underpants as well, held the bundles of clothes in front of themselves, trying to cover their embarrassment while waiting and waiting. A couple who couldn’t cope standing in the cold fainted and fell to the floor.

“Single file!”

They lined up, and the soldier holding a stick in his hand checked them individually for lice. Another threw their clothes into a steam machine, then immediately took them out. Then they were sent into a large room with lines of showers hanging from the ceiling. They showered, shivering under the ice-cold water. When they got out of the shower room, they were given back their damp clothes from the steam machine and sent back to carrying barbed wire.

Time went by, day after day. Some left when their numbers were called, never to be seen again. Some older men became ill and were taken away. They knew which people died when their straw mattresses were rolled up and removed, but they never found out what happened to those young men whose numbers were called and who never came back.

One morning, after the torture of waiting to be counted and having drunk coffee from their tin bowls, the men saw a soldier walk in.

“Three-two-three-three!” he shouted. No one moved.

“I said 3233, you fuckers.”

That’s me, thought David. I’m 3233. What should I do now? He took one step forward.

“So you’re 3233, are you?”

“Yes.”

“Go to your hut; collect your bowl, spoon, blanket, and number; and come back here.”

David walked to his hut, picked up his blanket from his bunk, and his bowl and spoon. His number was in his pocket anyway. Then he returned.

“Have you got everything?”

“I have.”

“Move!”

David looked at his fellow prisoners still standing in line. Some bowed their heads and others winked good-bye.

“They’ll probably shoot him,” someone whispered.

David heard him but wasn’t sorry. He was glad to be saved from this brown liquid called coffee, the soup worse than mud, the solid piece of brown bread, and shifting the barbed wire. No more missing home while lying on his straw mattress, feeling desperate that he would die without kissing Stella, being stripped of his dignity and relegated to just a number. He followed the soldier. They walked into a small office. The civilian man sitting at the head of the table had a huge book that looked like a tax registry in front of him.

“Your number?” asked the man.

“Three-two-three-three.”

The man opened the book. “Look for your name on this page!”

His name! David remembered he had a name. But what was it?

He bent forward, looking at the book. Everything was blurred. The letters were dancing all over the page. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, carefully. First he saw his number, 3233. His name was written beside it. He pointed at it.

“Did you find it?”

“Yes.”

“Read it!”

“Robert David Russo.”

“Leave your things behind.”

David looked at him blankly.

“Why are you looking like that? Put everything—your bowl, spoon, blanket, and number—on the table.”

David carefully placed his bowl, spoon, and blanket on the table, then he put his number on the blanket. The man checked the items as if they were precious jewels, then he asked David to sign for each one.

“Where am I going?” asked David.

“To hell!” the man answered.

“May I speak to my family one last time before I die?”

The man smiled.

“Or would it be possible to send them a message?”

“What about?”

“That I’ll be put before a firing squad.”

“Is that what you think?”

“If I’m not allowed to speak to them, if I give you a telephone number, would you kindly tell them what’s happened? I’m sure they’d rather know than just be wondering.”

“Know what?”

“That I’m dead.”

The man smiled mockingly. Nasty dog, thought David.

The soldier who’d escorted David ordered him to move again, and David followed him outside the building. They crossed the courtyard and entered the gate of another building with the German flag and a swastika hanging outside. Inside, they walked up some stairs, and along a corridor.

“You wait here,” the soldier said before entering a room. David collapsed on a bench by the door. He even thought of stretching out on it. He presumed he could do anything now that he was going to his death. For instance, he could spit in the face of his escort or the officer passing by. He could swear at them or even unbutton his trousers and pee all over the place. What difference would it
make? He thought all this, but did nothing; the fresh air was making him feel extremely lethargic. It was as though he had no energy for anything except unraveling and carrying barbed wire, as though this were the duty given to him at the gates of hell, the only thing he would ever be able to do.

The soldier returned with a file in his hand. “Move!” he said again. David tried to get up from the bench but realized that he didn’t have the strength.

“Move!”

He tried again, dragging his feet, and managed to follow the soldier. Had he not been ashamed, he would have crawled. They went back down the stairs, out of the courtyard, and into the street, finally entering a garden full of chrysanthemums. David saw an elegant villa in front of him.

David, he thought, you’re a dead man, you’re just not aware of it! That street…this beautiful garden…these flowers…this villa…surely it can’t be true…I must be dead. I am dead. Thank God. I didn’t feel a thing. I’m saved. Finally, I’m saved. Hooray, death!

A guard saluted the soldier as he passed. David saluted back, bowing almost to the ground. The guard looked in amazement, waving back. The soldier led David up the steps to the villa and into a marble hall with fantastic paintings on the walls. David kept expecting a houri to appear from one of the rooms. He wished her eyes would be like Stella’s and her voice would be like his mother’s. True, there were no houris or angels waiting for Jews in heaven, but he had heard that Muslim men were supposed to be greeted by pretty young virgins called houris. He had died carrying a Turkish passport…He smiled to himself. He wasn’t in the mood for pretty girls right now, but he desperately needed to see someone he knew, a friendly face, someone to remind him of his past. That’s why he wished the houri would look like Stella. As for his mother’s voice, it had never occurred to him, even in his wildest dreams, that
he would miss his mother’s voice. All he wanted was to hear his mother saying, “My son, my lovely son,” and to be able to respond, “Mother, I missed you so, Mother!”

“Take this and go into that room. I’ll be waiting here,” the soldier said, handing over the file. David took it and went into the room, which was furnished with expensive furniture. A man was sitting behind a Louis XIV desk.

“Can you find your name in this notebook?” asked the man.

Can you!
Yes, he was dead all right; he was going to heaven. David approached and looked at the notebook. His vision didn’t blur this time and he found his name.

“Here…my name’s here.”

“Sign next to your name.”

He signed.

“Here you are, this is for Auschwitz, and this is your ticket to Paris.”

“Pardon?”

“Your exit certificate and your train ticket. You’re free to go. Good-bye.”

“Where am I going to? Do you mean I’m going home?”

“What sort of imbecile are you?” The man saluted like a soldier and pointed to the door. “Straight to Paris,” he said with a bad French accent, “and when you get there, make sure you get down on your knees and kiss the hand of the Turkish consul!”

David left the room and followed the soldier who had been waiting outside down the stairs, out of the villa, through the chrysanthemums, to the gate. No, he wasn’t dead; he was being set free. What is freedom? he wondered. The soldier went into the guards’ hut, said something to them, and one of the guards opened the gate.

David walked out.

He had weighed sixty-five kilos when he arrived at the camp two months earlier. Now he only weighed forty-seven. He looked
like a skeleton or a ghost walking between the bare chestnut trees. He felt nothing, neither happy nor hungry. He wasn’t excited; he had no expectations. It was as though he was just drifting toward the station where the train would take him home. Who was he? What of his heart…what of his whole being? All he was now was a wretched number and old, very old, even older than his father, whom he referred to as “the old man.” He was now 3,233 years old.

PARIS

Selva had begun to like some of the people she taught very much, and Margot was one of them. She and Selva had become very close. Maybe because Margot was Hungarian, she had been able to pick up the Turkish language more easily than the others.

One day she said in Turkish, “I have Turkish friend.”

“Yes, of course you’re my friend,” Selva responded sincerely, putting her arms around her. Margot smiled, a little startled.

After Margot had been dismissed from her job, she’d started to visit Ferit’s apartment very often, trying to help Selva. While Selva was teaching, she’d look after Fazıl. She’d take him out for fresh air and also help with the shopping.

When Selva asked, “Didn’t you at least ask why they sacked you so suddenly?” Margot had replied, “I thought it better not to ask too many questions. What could I have said if they told me it was because I’m Jewish?”

She was one of those people who had decided if they couldn’t take refuge in Paris, it was better to go to Palestine via Turkey.

“You never know, you might like Istanbul enough to settle there for good,” Selva had said. “We might even find you a handsome Turk.”

“Turks don’t fancy me.”

“I don’t believe that, Margot! Turks are mad about blondes.”

She contented herself with just a smile, murmuring, “If only…”

Because of the close friendship that had developed between them, Selva had asked Margot to help her. They were to stick photographs in passports brought home by Ferit, write Turkish names inside, and have them ready by lunchtime.

Selva and Ferit had tried to think of new names that were as similar as possible to their own. Roxanne had become Rüksan, Constance became Kezban, David, Davut, Lillian, Leyla and Marie, Meryem. But Selva had difficulty finding a name for Margot.

When Margot arrived that morning, Selva asked her in French, “Margot, would you like to be Meral?”

“Aren’t there other names beginning with
M
?”

“Let me see now, there’s Makbule, Madelet, Mergube, Mehire…”

“Why don’t you choose one for me?”

“I think Meral’s the best. It’s a young person’s name.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s modern.”

“I’ve heard of names being fashionable, but modern?” Margot said.

“I assure you, Margot, there’ll be many more surprises in store for you once you’ve reached Turkey,” Selva replied. “I promise you, you’ll be surprised by things every day. My country is very different.”

“Oh!” Margot said with a sigh. How wonderful it would be, she thought, to be able to return to my own country as easily as this woman can.

They spread the passports out over the work surfaces in the kitchen. Selva was sticking the photographs on and Margot was pressing them hard with a heavy iron. Most of the passports had
been issued by the Turkish government to students. They were now removing the original photos and replacing them with those of the Jews. Those over a certain age had to use other passports provided by the Organization.

Ferit had asked them to have them ready by his lunch break so he could collect them and have them stamped. When the doorbell rang, Margot ran to open it, thinking Ferit had arrived. The voice Selva heard from the kitchen was familiar.

“What on earth are you doing here?”

“Excuse me, I should be asking you the same question!”

“I need an explanation immediately.”

“How dare you speak to me in that tone of voice.”

Selva rushed to the hallway when she realized that the voices were getting harsher. Both Tarık and Margot were looking daggers at each other. They were baffled and taken aback.

“Tarık! I thought it was Ferit at the door. Please come in.”

Tarık held Selva by the arm and dragged her into the kitchen. He closed the door and spoke in Turkish.

“Selva, do you know this woman? Who on earth asked her to come here?”

“Tarık, she’s Margot…my friend.”

“I know who she is, but where did you meet her?”

“Here.”

“What do you mean here?”

“Ferit brought her here so she could learn Turkish along with the others. She’ll be getting on the same train.”