“No anesthesia?” he asked aloud.
“Hush,” she said. “Von Schneir is a doctor. He knows what he’s doing. He’ll bring the anesthesia along with him when he returns. I’m sure of it.” Yet judging by her puzzled face, she clearly was not sure.
Still, she left them cuffed and guarded with no chance of escape.
Not that there ever was a real chance, Chaim thought. For the first time he realized how hopeless the voice in his head now sounded.
As she went out the door, Madam Grenzke said something to the guards, speaking just loud enough that the three children could hear her.
Chaim was pretty sure she’d done it on purpose. Though for what purpose he couldn’t imagine.
“Do not harm them in any way. The doctor will be performing some operations and will not be pleased if they are injured beforehand. I am his nurse. He has tasked me to tell you this.”
Of course, he did no such thing, Chaim thought.
One of the guards put a hand on Madam Grenzke’s shoulder, and she shrugged it off. He laughed and said, “Orders from Berlin, eh?”
Chaim shuddered. He wanted to call her back. Small as she was, she was the only one standing between them and the dark.
However, the guards—well practiced in obeying authority—did as she bid, remaining by the door, not threatening their prisoners. They grumbled—as soldiers do—about how long the doctor was taking to get back, how their feet had grown wider or the boots smaller since the start of the war. One even mentioned something about the enemy at the gates.
Not for a moment did Chaim really believe they meant real enemies at the actual gates of Sobanek. He knew a useful metaphor when he heard one. But nonetheless, there was also great comfort in believing that the Americans or Soviets or British or French—or even the Poles—were massing outside the camp, as the old men often said, preparing to rescue them all. It gave him that bit of courage he knew he would need in the next few minutes. Or hours.
* * *
• • •
Dr. von Schneir returned at last, carrying a wicker basket with a double handle and a closed top. He looked remarkably like a man about to go off on a picnic, not readying himself to operate on helpless prisoners. Walking between the guards, he didn’t bother to greet them or acknowledge them in any way, as if they were footmen at a palace, and he the king.
Chaim sat up straighter and tried to see what the doctor unloaded onto the small cart next to the table. Maybe something with tubes, or bottles that might turn out to be the anesthesia, proving Madam Grenzke right.
Suddenly it was incredibly important that she be right.
Von Schneir lifted the lid of the basket and carefully took out a sandwich and a canteen. Poured himself a cup of coffee. The smell filled the room.
Chaim’s stomach responded with a rumble. It reminded him of breakfasts with Mama and Papa. He almost cried.
From the corner of his eye, he could see Gittel fidgeting in her chair, trying to figure out what the doctor had unloaded. He started to turn toward her, wondering if he could whisper what he’d seen.
“Sssst,” she hissed at him as if to tell him not to look at her.
He turned back and stared blankly at a spot over the doctor’s head.
Von Schneir paid neither the children nor the guards any attention. His mind seemed entirely on his lunch.
Or perhaps that’s what he wants us all to think. Chaim was more confused than before.
Madam Grenzke suddenly came in through the door with a basket of her own in which there was most likely “just a little” food. Walking between the guards, she nodded at them almost companionably, then set down the basket between Chaim and Gittel.
Von Schneir turned. Eyes narrowed, he asked, “What is in the basket?”
“A little food. They have not eaten in two—”
He interrupted. “This is surgery, Madam. Orders from Berlin. Here you do not make decisions on your own. This is my territory.”
One of the guards made the mistake of snickering.
Von Schneir reached into his basket and this time pulled out a Luger. He aimed it at the guard’s head, his arm never wavering. Speaking mostly in Polish, he said, “What are you laughing at, Dummkopf?”
The guard answered in broken Polish, “The woman, Herr von Schneir. Laughing at woman. How she dares . . .” There was an actual tremor in his voice.
He knows he’s facing a madman with a gun, Chaim thought.
“Dares?” Still the hand and arm did not waver, not by an inch.
The other guard, hoping to defuse the situation, quickly said in slightly better Polish, “Dares to anticipate your orders, sir. And badly, I add.”
“Hmmmmf!” Von Schneir’s arm with the gun dropped. He set the Luger back into the basket with exquisite care, making a huge show of doing so. Then he turned to Madam Grenzke. “Are you anticipating?”
She drew in a shallow breath before answering in a small, nonthreatening voice, “No more, Doctor, than any good nurse in surgery trying to help the surgeon with his difficult work. I was an operating sister in two of the Warsaw hospitals before the war, and after Grenzke died a hero, I came here to help with the effort at Sobanek. But until you came, there was no doctor for me to serve, and I am certain my skills have grown rusty.”
“A hero?”
“God called him to be one.”
Chaim wondered why she spoke to the doctor this way. To help herself? To help him? To help us?
“Good, good,” von Schneir said, at which point everyone in the room seemed to take the same deep breath. “I have much to teach you, Nurse, if you follow my lead—don’t anticipate. I have commendations from Berlin.”
This time the mention of Berlin drew no snickers. Not even the shadow of a smile from the guards.
“Come—Nurse Grenzke, is it? Scrub up. We have work ahead,” he continued. “As Dr. Mengele did, I shall do even better.” He turned to the guards. “Bring me the tall boy, the half twin. His body has much to tell us.”
Chaim let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding and felt immediately shamed because his reaction was one of relief that it hadn’t been his name or Gittel’s that the doctor called.
Madam Grenzke gave the set of handcuff keys to the second guard, and they unlocked Gregor’s cuffs and dragged him toward the table.
Gregor turned his head and called to Gittel and Chaim, “Don’t forget my name. It is Gregor Brodsky. My brother was Gid—” He didn’t get to finish the sentence, because as soon as he was close to the table, von Schneir stuffed a gray kerchief in his mouth.
Gregor didn’t seem surprised. In fact, he looked as if he’d expected this. Almost, Chaim thought, as if he’d longed for it. As if he knows he will soon be with his brother again.
Chaim was certain the kerchief had belonged once to some member of the Boy Guides, possibly someone who’d been in the underground and captured, brought to Sobanek, maybe even someone assassinated the way Rose had been.
The thorny Rose—he hadn’t thought about her for months. And now . . .
The two guards grabbed Gregor’s arms and legs and dumped him onto the table, faceup. They cuffed each of his hands and his feet to a table leg so that he lay spread-eagled. Then they set the keys to the side of the doctor’s basket.
“Good, good,” von Schneir said. He turned to address all of them—though clearly his audience was supposed to be the judges in Berlin. “Now I will show what greatness is.” He tied a bibbed green apron around his body, pulled on a pair of rubber gloves.
“Where is the anesthesia, Doctor?” Madam Grenzke said. “So that I may sedate the patient.”
“This is an experiment in pain, Nurse,” von Schneir said, as if speaking to a child. “I learned this at Mengele’s right hand. What good would sedation do? That is a different operation I shall try at another time. On
another patient.”
“I don’t understand,” Madam Grenzke said.
“You don’t have to understand. It’s beyond your understanding. You are only a woman. And a nurse. And a Pole. I am a man, a German. Commended by Berlin. Your duty is to obey.”
“But your oath . . .” she tried again.
“Be silent, or you will be removed.” The doctor turned toward his patient.
“And now watch while I make the first cut.” He tore Gregor’s shirt open, the buttons popping like spent bullet casings. Then he picked up one of the scalpels in his right hand.
Chaim thought, This is no operation—this is a slaughter, and tried to shut his eyes to the horror. But his lids refused to close. He’d promised to be a witness, so he watched the rest, wide-eyed.
The scalpel slipped through Gregor’s chest as if the skin and muscle were made of butter. His whole body shuddered with the slice. But he made no sound. It was not just the cloth in his mouth that silenced him. Instead it was as if he’d died long before the blade went in.
Beside Chaim, Gittel was mumbling a prayer.
But Chaim couldn’t pray. He wasn’t certain anyone was listening. How could a just God allow this slaughter to continue? Instead he heard lines of a poem in his head, and he whispered them.
Gregor’s skin is not a fortress, can hold back nothing.
The knife enters silent as a thief, steals him away.
His ribs show like the arch of cathedral stone.
The doctor worships there, without mercy or prayer.
If God is watching, He is weeping. If He is not,
He is dead.
Chaim didn’t make a sound until the doctor raised his bloody hands above his head, with Gregor’s heart held firmly, like a piece of fresh meat the butcher was about to put in the case.
That was when Chaim gulped in air in a huge, shuddering breath, though he hadn’t realized he’d been out of breath before that.
One of the guards cried out, “Oof!” and dropped heavily to his knees in a puddle of Gregor’s blood, before passing out on the floor, almost tripping the doctor, who kicked him.
“Get this stupid fool out of here,” von Schneir yelled at the other guard. “This coward. I’ll have the High Command send him to the front!”
Dragging his blood-drenched companion by his arms, the other guard did as ordered, and the front door closed behind them with a click as final as death.
Chaim expected to feel relief at that, but only felt horror.
Certain his order would be followed, von Schneir casually set Gregor’s heart on the scale. Then he bent over to look at the weight. He made a tch sound with his tongue, then said, “Nurse, prepare the other boy.”
35
I am the other boy, Chaim thought, strangely unable to feel terror. Only a slowly dawning relief. Soon he, too, would be free. Free of pain, of hunger, of fear.
“But, Doctor . . .” Madam Grenzke’s voice was shaking, and Chaim could see tears sliding down her cheeks. “What do I do with the first one?”
Chaim wanted to tell her not to weep. That he forgave her. That there would be one painful cut and then peace.
“I’m all right,” he whispered to Gittel, wanting those to be his last words, his epitaph.
“Pull him off the table,” the doctor said. “You know what to do. Do I have to explain everything?”
It took her a while, for she had to find the keys to the cuffs first and unlock both the legs and arms before she could pull Gregor’s body down. She seemed to be using as much care as she could manage, setting him to one side against the wall. And soon she was as bloody as the doctor, for where she’d held Gregor, the front of her dress was soaked through.
She came over to Chaim gingerly; the floor was now awash in Gregor’s blood. Looking down at him, she whispered, “Forgive me, child.”
The doctor turned. “Too much time,” he said. “Bring me the other one quickly.”
“The cuffs are difficult,” she began, as she knelt down to unlock them.
Von Schneir came up behind her, pushed her to one side. “You are no good at this, Nurse. I’m losing my temper.” He grabbed the keys from her.
From out of nowhere, Gittel—both hands suddenly released from both her cuffs—leaped off her chair and pushed von Schneir on the chest with such force that he fell over backward. His feet slid in the puddles of blood and went up in the air so that he hit the floor headfirst. It sounded like the crack of a rifle and was so loud, it filled the room.
For a moment, none of them moved, though it was immediately clear that the doctor was dead.
Then Madam Grenzke said to Gittel, “Quick, quick, child, sit down, put the cuffs back on. I’ll handle this. I’m good in the operating theater. Calm. Just watch me.”
As soon as Gittel had done what she asked, Madam Grenzke cleaned off Gittel’s hands with the underside of her uniform; then she stood, went over to the doctor, knelt, and felt his neck. She put her hand on his chest. Then she held his wrist for a minute as if trying to find a pulse. Took his feet and scraped the shoes against the bloody floor.
Only then did she begin to scream.
The sound of it was like a fire engine, and Chaim didn’t comprehend until the one guard still standing raced back into the house.
“What?” he cried. “What?” He saw the doctor on the floor and said, “What?” again.
Madam Grenzke flapped her hands and whimpered, “The doctor, he turned, slipped in the blood on the floor—so much blood, look, you can see the marks here, and here.” Her hands described two arcs above the floor. “He toppled backward and hit his head. So hard. So hard.” Her hand went up to the back of her head to demonstrate. “I’ve tried my best to resuscitate him, but he’s gone. Gone,” she wailed. “No pulse. Nothing.”
The guard looked suspiciously at Chaim and then at Gittel before asking in his broken Polish, “Them? They do something?”
“How could they? You cuffed them yourself. And where are the keys?” She looked around suspiciously behind Chaim, then behind Gittel, pulling at their arms, lifting their feet. “Ach,” she said to the guard, “I can’t find anything. Everything I touch has the boy’s blood on it. Perhaps you need to look.”
The guard nodded, then suddenly cried out, “Here! I have them. The keys. All bloody, in the doctor’s hands.”
So she hadn’t been looking for the pulse, then, Chaim thought. She was planting the keys. Who is this Madam Grenzke?
“Don’t touch the keys,” Madam said. “They are evidence.”
“Evidence?” He didn’t seem to know the word.
“Proof,” Madam Grenzke said carefully.
“Why proof?” The guard was once more alert.
Madam Grenzke drew a careful breath and explained in a trembling voice, in the simplest words she could, “Proof that no one here, not me, not you, not your fainting friend, not these two children still handcuffed, and not that dead Jew in the corner . . .” She pointed to Gregor’s bloody body. “That Brodsky—had anything to do with the doctor’s terrible accident.” She crossed herself three times, and her voice trembled. “A horrible accident,” she repeated, and then added, “Oh, what is God telling us?”
“To keep our mouths shut, Madam,” the guard said.
“As God is my witness,” she answered, fingers trembling against her lips.
He circled the doctor’s body carefully. “But what should we do now?”
She thought a bit, then asked plaintively, “Should we tell the commandant?”
He shook his head vehemently. “Bad idea. Bad!”
“I have no other.” She bent her head as if subservient to the guard’s wishes.
And suddenly Chaim understood. She was playing with the guard, playacting the silly woman who needed guidance from a strong man. And yet in the end, she’d get him to do exa
ctly what she wanted. And then he would be so complicit, he’d have to leave them alone.
Chaim glanced surreptitiously at Gittel and saw that she’d realized the same thing. She nodded, looked down at her feet. Chaim did the same.
“It would be best,” the guard began, “if this accident had never happened . . .”
“You mean,” Madam whispered, her hands in front of her mouth as if afraid to say what she had to. “You mean—if the doctor’s body . . . disappeared? But how?” Now her hand was on her breast, fluttering.
Chaim knew that neither he nor Gittel had a say in this. So he waited, turned his head slightly, and saw that Gittel was waiting, too.
Then the guard did something that Chaim would ever after call a miracle of imagination. Or a sending from God. If there were a mezuzah on the door of the Welcome House, he’d kiss it on the way out. If he got to go out.
The guard’s pointer finger thrust upward, made the chimney sign.
Madam Grenzke said in a very small voice, “I . . . do . . . not . . . understand.”
“We must put him in the oven, with the Jew.”
“But, but how?” she asked. And then in an even smaller voice said, “Maybe I have an idea.” Her hands trembled, came up to her mouth, almost obscuring it. She whispered into her hand, just loudly enough that the guard could hear it. “But the idea may be very hard to do.”
“Tell me, woman, and I will judge how hard.”
“Well, if we shave his beard and mustache, dress him in those striped pants and shirt—”
“He’ll look,” the guard interrupted, as if he’d just thought of it himself, “like a dead Jew. But who can we get to shave him?”
Gittel was about to volunteer a name, but Chaim kicked her foot. She understood, said nothing.
Madam said, “There’s a Jew who shaves the heads of the prisoners. I suppose I could ask him.” She made herself even smaller, if that were possible.
“I know this man . . . Manny. But I will not ask him. I will order him!” the guard said.
“Should I—”
“You’ll make a hash of it,” he told her. “I will do it. Stay here with the children.”