Rex tremendae majestatis,
Qui salvandos salvas gratis,
Salva me, fons pietatis.
The newcomers began to get down from the trucks. The rear doors had been unlocked and swung open, and in each group of guards, one raised his arms to help the prisoners down, a second sang out numbers which a third checked against a list, and the remaining two held their machine guns and looked on. The waltz tripped into the frozen night. Dogs howled. And the prisoners got down, some accepting the guard’s raised arms, some jumping down unaided, all silent, motionless for a moment, some rubbing their eyes, others bowing their heads, some laughing, others crying. Comrades looked for comrades, husbands for wives, parents for children. Old men wearing overcoats and hats. Men with their coat lapels and collars turned up against the cold. Women bundled in blankets, with children in their arms. Girls in woolen socks, scarves around their heads. Boys in short pants, woolen caps. Little girls carrying dolls. Cardboard suitcases, boxes tied with twine, bundles of clothing, a sewing machine, a cobbler’s bench, a violin case. Stars pinned to lapels or sewn to their backs. Many did not get down from the trucks. They were dead on their feet, as dead as all were silent.
The Commandant informed Berlin that for the day of the official visit to confer decorations there would be a banquet and a concert. Franz, standing beside the canteen stove, remarked that the facilities that the Commandant had granted the musicians and chorus, and now at last their performance, indicated that things were not going so well at the camp. Almost proof that they had failed. Those gathered about him laughed and raised their mugs of beer beneath the Bavarian lanterns.
The old man carrying the cobbler’s bench stopped and looked around smiling as if pleased by the scene and the music. A dark-haired little girl dropped her doll and its porcelain head broke in half. Franz, remembering a dead dwarf in a refrigerator, smiled. The little girl cried and tried to put the head of her doll together again. The old man caressed her gently and wrapped her in his shawl, saying over and over, “Vacation. It’s vacation.”
“Isabel. Forgive me, Isabel. I heard you.”
“When, Franz?”
“Earlier, when Javier was with you. I couldn’t help it.”
“But what I told him was different. We were talking about splitting, Franz, playing it alone. Do you understand me? Alone.”
“Not alone, Isabel, you can’t. If you take something, no matter what it is, it’s because someone else has given it up. Ulrich refused to do that. I stood in his place and witnessed what he refused to accept.”
“Franz, I don’t know who Ulrich was. You have to explain everything. I’m not going to tell anyone. Never, I swear it. It’s between you and me and no one else will know. Understand me, Franz, I take all my chances alone. That was what I was telling Javier. I don’t rely on any man, anyone. Not now. Maybe it was better when I did. But I don’t know. All I know is that all of a sudden you find yourself kicked in the teeth, and I say to hell with that. You can trust me, Franz. I’ll never repeat one word you tell me.”
“Franz! Franz, Franz!”
A woman tried to move away from her group, spreading her arms toward a man in another group who answered her quietly as she was drawn back: “Here, Teresa! I’m all right. Teresa, Teresa.”
The orchestra played a Lehar medley and Franz hummed the words. I always go to Maxim’s at night. And there with the grisettes I await the new sun. Loló. Frufrú. Margot. The guards formed the prisoners in files. From the Hundenkommando came the barking of the dogs.
“For-ward!”
They walked in file across the bridge then into the fortress beneath the rain-bleached legend, Arbeit Macht Frei.
Confutatis maledictis,
Flammis acribus addictis
Voca me cum benedictis.
“In Berlin they no longer have such diversions,” the Commandant smiled. “It will be an agreeable interlude for everyone. Visitors, ourselves, and, not least, the Jews.”
But she knew, and she would have told Franz if they had ever spoken again, that Epstein, the president of the Jewish community, had said to Schachter: “You are shaming us. These are our people you have gathered together and now they are going to sing for our oppressors. You have made our suffering worse. The sick have been thrown out of the hospital. So much suffering, merely for a show. No, Schachter, it isn’t right. You will be honoring those who oppress us. At their request. They will think that you have surrendered everything to them. You, Maestro, a Czech. Maybe they will give you a medal yet. Do something. Cancel the concert. Do something. I am helpless. But I tell you, it isn’t right. I’m afraid.”
Under the faint light that hung above the keystone of the arch the prisoners entered as the small band reached its final crescendo and the waltz ended. They were conducted to the receiving room, a hundred and forty of them. There they were made to face the wall. A long line of backs, but that did not matter, their backs were the same as their faces. Twenty in the first group, while the rest waited in a file that stretched all the way to the bridge. The room had bare yellow walls. Their backs were their names. Burian knew it and walked slowly, studying them as they stood facing the wall. Guards collected the suitcases, the bundles and boxes the prisoners had set down on the floor beside them. Burian himself took the cobbler’s bench from the old man, who turned and looked and smiled. Every word or movement of protest was squelched. Burian gave an order. They removed their watches, medallions, combs and hair ornaments, cuff links.
“Name?”
“Marketa Silberstein.”
The guard with the notebook spoke a number and wrote it down. Burian walked back and forth, watching them. An ear uncovered by drawn back hair trembled. Franz stared. He knew that hair. He remembered her.
“David Rosen.”
“Six-five-seven-eight-two.”
“Kamilla.”
“Kamilla what?”
“It’s Kamilla Neuberg. She’s my daughter.”
“Six-five-seven-eight-three.”
Burian stopped behind a young man who was leaning his arm against the wall. Next to him was the girl. She was small and was wearing sandals. She leaned her forehead against the wall too. Burian touched her shoulder and pulled her back. He took the violin case she was holding. Franz was about to step forward. The same green eyes. The same clean-lined facial bones. Franz slowly kissed Isabel; she rubbed his head.
“Always, Isabel, always…”
“What? Always what?”
“You always have to give up something so that the other can go on living.”
“Who Franz?”
“You. I. We. Betty. I don’t know.”
“Go on, Franz. Go on, güero. I’m listening.”
They filed out of the receiving room, passed the guardroom, where the teletype could be heard tapping. Maloth appeared with a bundle of mail in his hand. He gave several letters to Franz, and the new shipment of prisoners moved on into the clothing room, where Wacholz measured each of them with his eyes and selected garments for them.