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I would be prepared to swear that I didn’t exchange a word with any stranger on the walk, yet it was to this that I can truly ascribe my more precise grasp of the facts. There across the way, at that very moment, fellow passengers from our train were burning — all those who had asked to be taken by car, or who up in front of the doctor had proved unfit due to old age or other reasons, along with little ones and the mothers who were with them and expectant women, so it was said. They too had proceeded from the station to the baths. They too had been informed about the hooks, the numbers, and the washing procedure, just the same as us. The barbers were also there, so it was alleged, and the bars of soap were handed out in just the same way. Then they too had entered the bathroom itself, with the same pipes and showerheads, so I heard, only out of these came, not water, but gas. This did not come to my notice all in one go but piecemeal, each time bringing further details, some disputed, others allowed to stand and added to. All along, I hear, everyone is very civil toward them, swaddling them with solicitude and loving-kindness, and the children play football and sing, while the place where they are suffocated to death lies in a very picturesque area, with lawns, groves of trees, and flower beds, which is why, in the end, it all somehow roused in me a sense of certain jokes, a kind of student prank. Adding to this, if I thought about it, was the crafty way in which, for instance, they had induced me to change clothes simply with the ruse of the hook and the number on it, or had frightened people carrying valuables with the X-rays, for example, which in the end had been no more than empty words. Of course, I was well aware that it was not altogether a joke, looked at from another angle, as I was in a position to convince myself of the outcome, if I may put it that way, with my own eyes and, above all, my increasingly queasy stomach; nevertheless that was my impression, and fundamentally — or at least so I imagined — that must have been pretty much the way it happened. After all, people would have had to meet to discuss this, put their heads together so to say, even if they were not exactly students but mature adults, quite possibly — indeed, in all likelihood — gentlemen in imposing suits, decorations on their chests, cigars in their mouths, presumably all in high command, who were not to be disturbed right then— that is how I imagined it. One of them comes up with the gas, another immediately follows with the bathhouse, a third with the soap, then a fourth adds the flower beds, and so on. Some of the ideas may have provoked more prolonged discussion and amendment, whereas others would have been immediately hailed with delight, the men jumping up (I don’t know why, but I insisted on their jumping up) and slapping one another’s palms — this was all too readily imaginable, at least as far as I was concerned. By dint of many zealous hands and much to-ing and fro-ing, the commanders’ fantasy then becomes reality, and as I had witnessed, there was no room for any doubt about the stunt’s success. Doubtless that is how they had all proceeded from the railway station: the old lady dutifully following her son’s wishes, the little boy with the white shoes and his blonde mother, the stout matron, the old gentleman in the black hat, or the nervous case up in front of the doctor. The “Expert” also crossed my mind: he would most likely have been utterly amazed, I suppose, the poor man. “Rosie” himself said “Poor old Moskovics” with a commiserating shake of the head, and we were all with him on that. Even “Fancyman” let out a cry of “Sweet Jesus!” for, as we were able to worm out of him, the boys’ hunch had been correct: he and that girl at the brickyard had indeed “gone all the way,” and he was now thinking of the possible consequences of that act which might show on her body over time. We recognized that the concern was justified, yet all the same, beyond anxiety, it was as if some other, less readily definable emotion were reflected in his face, and the boys themselves looked on him right then with a certain measure of respect, which I didn’t find so very difficult to understand, naturally.

Another thing that somewhat set me thinking that day was the fact that, as I was informed, this place, this institution, had already been in existence for years, standing here and operating exactly the same way, day after day, but nevertheless, as it were — and I admit this notion may, perhaps, contain a certain element of exaggeration — ready and waiting for me. In any event, our own block chief — more than a few people referred to this with distinct, one could say awe-struck, admiration — had already been living here for four years. It occurred to me that that had been a year of particular significance for me, being when I enrolled at the grammar school. The occasion of the opening ceremony for the school year was still lodged firmly in my memory: I too was there in a dark blue, braided, Hungarian-style uniform, a so-called “Bocskai” suit. Even the headmaster’s words had registered, he himself being a man of distinguished and, now I think back on it, somewhat commanding presence, with severe eyeglasses and a majestic white handlebar moustache. In winding up he had made reference, I recollected, to an ancient Roman philosopher, quoting the tag “non scolae sed vitae discimus”—“we learn for life, not school.” But then in light of that, really, I ought to have been learning all along exclusively about Auschwitz. Everything would have been explained, openly, honestly, reasonably. The thing was, though, that over the four years at school I had heard not a single word about it. Of course, that would have been embarrassing, I conceded, nor indeed did it belong to education, I realized. The drawback, however, was that now I would have to be edified here — to learn, for example, that we are in a “ Konzentrationslager,” a “concentration camp.” Not that these were all the same, it was explained. This one, for example, is a “ Vernichtungslager,” that is to say an “extermination camp,” I was informed. An “Arbeitslager” or “work camp,” on the other hand, it was immediately added, was something quite different: life there was easy, the conditions and food, the rumors went, bore no comparison, which is natural enough as the aim, after all, is also different. Now, given all that, we too would eventually be going to a place like that, unless something should intervene, which indeed it well might in Auschwitz, those around me acknowledged. At all events, under no circumstances was it advisable to report sick, the nuggets of instruction went on. The hospital camp, incidentally, was over that way, right at the foot of one of the chimneys, “Number 2,” as the better-informed were by now casually referring to it in shorthand among themselves. The hazard was concealed in the water, unboiled water — like that, for instance, from which I too had taken a drink on the way from the station to the baths, but there had been no way of knowing that then. To be sure, there had been a notice there, I could not dispute that, but all the same, the soldier ought maybe to have said something as well, I reckoned. But it then occurred to me that, hang on, what mattered was the end result; as best I could tell, I was feeling fine, thank goodness, and so far I had heard no complaints from the boys either.