I can’t help also moving my head a little as I stare at him.
Alex tuts angrily. Tugs on the wires. Crawling around Lebo on all fours, idiot. He doesn’t have a clue that I’m boiling over inside.
So you really don’t think he wanted to be here? Alex says, still showing me his back.
I can sense the movement next to me. It’s Rolf. Shaking his head. Shaking his head: no.
Go fuck yourself, I tell Alex. Really loud. He turns around. Looks at me. Sees the pliers. I’m holding them over my head. I can see his eyes and the terror in them. Now he knows. I have to tolerate it. And I do: I swing my arm and he gets the pliers smack in the face. Teeth crack. He topples over, skull slamming against the concrete. And bang, with the second swing I take out the bulb. I don’t want to see Lebo like this. Humiliated, helpless. More defenceless than when he was a baby. Now he’s just a black lump in the black darkness.
The two of us move. Down the passageway, bits of glass crunch under our feet. We come to an intersection. Stuffed people on every side. In the recesses. Mummies in chairs along the walls. A light bulb or two flickering. But some of the candles have burned out. Never mind, I know my way by heart. Rolf sits down on the ground. Hands me a key. I take it and stick it in my pocket.
Get up, man! We’ve got to run for it!
He shakes his head. I tell him to get up, in both our languages. He shakes his head. I smack him in the face. Hard. And again. He doesn’t even blink. Maybe they’ve been beating him.
You want to stay here with the mummies? You’ll go right off your rocker! Come with me!
He shakes his head.
I put my ear to his lips.
It’s great here, he whispers.
Bullshit!
I’m staying with them. I like it. It’s the closest you can get.
To what?
To horror.
I feel sick. From breathing the air. And Alex might come to. I didn’t finish him off, didn’t have it in me. Thought I did, but I don’t. I’m not going to wait around.
So you’re not getting up?
Go fuck yourself, Rolf says to me.
You too, I tell him, marching off.
Arms stretched in front of me, I run straight into the soft belly of an old woman, dead eyes beneath her scarf, rocking back and forth in a creaky chair. The gloom and darkness don’t bother me, I know how these tunnels work. But Terezín’s were empty. I run, dropping the pliers. Trip over a tool on the ground, bump into the tub, liquid splashes out. I’m bumping into mannequins too, chopping bodies down as I run. Knocking over candles too, the puddles turn blue with flame, drops fly through the dark with a hiss, but now I’m sprinting up the steps. I couldn’t finish Alex off, but the fire isn’t my fault, is it? Yes, no, yes, no, I don’t know. At last I see the massive plate covering the door: the exit.
I run out. Slam the door shut behind me. Take a deep breath. And another. Drink in the air, relief. Suddenly the noose pulls tight around my neck, and I slip, fall on my back, I can’t feel a thing.
So the two of you worked it out? says a voice as I come out of my fog. My head is in Maruška’s lap. We’re in the tent.
Does it hurt? You had a rope around your neck. I just tugged it for fun. Sorry!
Ice, I say with some effort. My head feels like it has axes floating around inside it.
She drops two pills in my mouth. Hands me a glass. Takes one herself.
Alex was on my case pretty bad, what with you running away all the time. So I snagged you. Just for practice, though!
I sit up. Look around.
So you finally wised up and decided to give us those records of yours.
How do you know? Everything’s better after those pills. As usual. But my neck is going to be one giant bruise.
Alex would never have let you leave otherwise. From the museum. I would’ve been upset if he’d gutted you.
Upset? You mean it?
You swallowed it, didn’t you?
I nod.
So go shit it out.
She didn’t have to be so vulgar about it. If Alex was going to gut me, she’d have given me an injection. But nobody’s going to take out my guts. I lie on my back. It’s nice here. Stove glowing. Rain beating down on the tent.
At least with the rain it’ll take a while for the fire to make its way out of the basement and reach the wood of the cabin. At least I think there’s a fire. There were flammables all over the place. But maybe it went out. And Alex’ll be back any moment. We need to get out of here.
Maruška, I’m embarrassed! I can’t do that in front of you.
Oh, please! You’re like a little kid!
Why don’t we go for a walk so I can loosen up my bowels? Just for a couple minutes, OK?
I don’t know!
I’m frozen solid. You’re a nurse. You should understand.
I could give you something to make you vomit.
Come on, please!
OK, but if that doesn’t work, I’m giving you a laxative.
In the end she agrees to go for a walk. I set off, leading the way. Up the hill towards Khatyn, the dead village. That way we’ll have the hill between us and the museum, in case there’s smoke — she won’t see it. I don’t know what I’ll do if Alex turns up.
The first chimney rises up from the mist ahead of us. And Khatyn’s first demolished house. What’s left of it. We walk side by side. She’s got her satchel. Just like when we were walking in Minsk, Sun City.
Hey, I say to her, getting my courage up. What about your boys, your kids?
What about them?
Who are they with now? Their grandma?
No.
So where are they?
They stayed in the house. With the other kids. The older ones. They’ll figure it out, they’ll either run away or hide. Those people won’t hurt them.
You don’t sound too sure.
Nothing’s for sure. But it’s part of the plan, part of the teaching technique.
What plan?
The plan to survive.
Huh?
My boys are faced with situations. Like all of our children. Different situations, so they learn how to cope from early on.
I remember the crazy mob, the screaming, the stones, the sticks, the way the house shook from the explosions.
That’s pretty harsh.
They have to learn how to cope. Nobody knows what’ll happen.
That’s true. Who are the other kids you were talking about?
Our friends’ kids. Mark Kagan was the one who came up with the teaching technique. But the boys are probably safe by now. They’re probably with their dad.
Huh? I thought your husband was Alex.
He’s my brother.
I grabbed her hand and squeezed so hard she gave a little squeal. There was no way she could’ve known that a boulder had just been lifted from my heart. Depriving someone of their brother is awful, I admit. But if I had made orphans of Maruška’s boys, I don’t think I could ever have forgiven myself.
We keep walking uphill. Then along the black stones, past the other ruins. A bell tower or two. Made of stone, not wood. The bells don’t move an inch, even in the wind.
Normally you hear the death knell all the time here, Maruška says, pointing to the belfries.
Yeah?
In memoriam. The bells run on electricity, but we need it for the museum now. Some say it’ll bring us bad luck. What do you think?
It takes all I’ve got not to slip and fall on the rocks.
Our mum survived the Khatyn massacre. I’m sure Alex told you. She was seven. They nailed our grandfather to the barn. Burned everyone else alive in the cottage. She hid in the shed. They ran her through with bayonets and burned down the shed, but somehow she managed to crawl out and get away.
Her little brother, my uncle, that is, was wearing boots with soles cut from old tyres. People wore them in those days. My mum saw the executioners coming, so she told him to take them off. So he wouldn’t burn too long in the rubber. So he wouldn’t suffer any more than he had to. But my mum’s bad luck was that officially there were no survivors of Khatyn, especially not a little girl like her. That’s how it was written down, that’s what they reported. And all of a sudden she comes out of hiding and says, I was there, I saw it, and those men were speaking Ukrainian.