"Did Franz have a relationship with any of these women?"
"You mean a romantic relationship?"
"Yes.”
"No idea. Like I told you, I didn't know him all that well. Barely saw him for more than a couple of minutes at a time since he began working at the warehouses."
I looked at him, suddenly suspicious. Why was he stressing the shallowness of his acquaintance with Franz? To throw me off? So I would not consider him a suspect?
"I can’t imagine anyone having a romantic relationship in this place," Jakob said, gazing around us at the blocks and fences and watchtowers. "How would you court a girl? Bring her a piece of potato instead of flowers?"
It would be far more useful than flowers ever were, and suggest an immeasurably deeper emotional bond. A man willing to go hungry for a woman was a man head over heels in love.
Jakob might not have believed romance could bloom in Auschwitz, but I knew otherwise. Vilmos was proof of that.
"What did Franz look like?" I asked.
"He was a good-looking boy. Sort of gentle, boyish features. Blue eyes, blond hair, though that was shaved of course. Not tall, but that might have changed with time. He still had a few years to grow. He must have been getting his hands on proper food because he looked healthy. First time I saw him, I was surprised to learn he'd been in the camp for months. He looked like he’d just gotten off the train.”
I remembered Mathias telling me that Franz was adaptable and knew how to survive in the camp. Apparently, this had been true even before he became the Lageralteste's servant.
"Did he ever tell you anything about his past, his family?"
"Just that he was from Holland, and that he was alone here. I didn’t ask too many questions. I hardly ever do. If people I work with die, I’d rather know as little about them as possible."
Which might have explained why he hadn't asked anything about my history, or my family, or even what my last name was. Then again, I hadn’t asked him any of these questions, either.
"Did Franz have any friends?" I asked.
"One that I know of. A youngster named Ludwig. He also works in the warehouses."
"As young as Franz?"
"No. Nineteen or twenty, I think. They seemed pretty chummy."
"Anything else you can tell me about Franz?"
He began shaking his head, but then he paused and examined his calloused hands.
"What is it, Jakob?"
He didn’t answer right away. He obviously wasn’t sure he should say whatever was on his mind. I decided not to push him. It was better if he chose to tell me on his own.
"It was shortly after I began working on the platform," he said. "A train arrived. Not as big as this one; maybe seven hundred people or so. I think they were French, but maybe I’m not remembering right. What I do remember is that about half of them were affluent. You could tell by their clothes and luggage. Apparently, the Germans over there in France didn't fleece the Jews as much as they did here in Poland and elsewhere. Not until they got to Auschwitz."
He fell silent, his jaw moving, as he relived that day in his mind.
"And Franz?”
Jakob rubbed his cheek with his thumb. "Franz acted a bit strange when we moved the luggage onto the trucks. He grabbed just the nice luggage and took it all to a single truck, even when there was a closer one he could have used. When I asked him about it, he said it would make it easier to sort the stuff in the warehouses. Then he winked at me, which I thought was inappropriate, given that the owners of that luggage were at that moment being gassed."
"Why do you think he did that?"
"I don't know." Then he sighed and ran a tired hand over his face. "I don’t know why I’m telling you this. The boy’s dead. I shouldn’t be saying anything that might paint him in a bad light. Don’t ask me any more questions, all right? The boy’s dead, and nothing’s going to change that. And your whole investigation or whatever you may call it is stupid and worthless. There is no justice here, Adam, can’t you see that? No justice whatsoever."
17
I had hoped that after lunch I’d be sent with the trucks to the Kanada warehouses, but the Kapo informed us that another train was coming. The hungry monster of Auschwitz had not had its fill for that day.
We hurriedly cleared the platform of every trace of property. The new victims needed to have no clue of what lay in store for them. The Germans wanted them to suspect nothing. It would keep them hopeful. And obedient. Which would make the process of killing them tidier and smoother and more efficient. Like a conveyor belt in a factory. Only this factory produced nothing but death and ashes and tears.
Jakob worked in ponderous silence, his mouth set in a downward arc of grim isolation. He hardly looked at me. My questions had upset him deeply. I gave him what little peace I could bestow and did not speak to him anymore.
The heat of the day had turned oppressive. The sun beat down like a jackboot stomping on my head. I could see my fellow prisoners were all suffering from the heat and thirst. But there was no shade, no water, no break. Once the platform was clear, we were ordered to stand in formation and wait for the new train.
It was similar to the first one—a black beast with a cargo of victims—more than two thousand desperate, hungry, disoriented people, liberated from the nightmare of the cattle cars only to be plunged into a worse one. Mothers clutched frightened children to their bosoms; men stooped, made smaller by the crippling certainty that they were now powerless to protect their families; old people hovered near unconsciousness or death, with some having crossed the boundary during the trip. And we, the prisoners who met them, knowing what awaited these poor brothers and sisters of ours, and also knowing we could do nothing to save them.
As before, I walked among them, memorizing faces, my shoulders bent with the guilt of my silence. But as I did so, I could also feel a distance building between me and these people. A detachment. They were already dead, and I was still alive. If I got too close, I would go insane.
The loot was even bigger on this transport than the one that preceded it. We worked continuously until evening, by which time every muscle in my body felt like weak rubber. The wound in my foot screamed with each step. It was getting worse. By the end of the day, I had developed a limp, and I feared that soon I would not be able to walk at all.
We left the platform as we’d found it that morning, empty and lifeless. The train departed, vacant, but not for long. The trucks took the plunder to the Kanada warehouses.
I needed to be in those warehouses tomorrow. I needed to see where Franz had worked before he’d become the Lageralteste's servant. Mathias had posted me to the wrong section of the Kanada Kommando, and now a precious day had passed with not a whole lot to show for it—just the name of another prisoner who was said to be Franz’s friend, and a description of Franz carrying a specific sort of luggage to a single truck.
Whatever this information proved to be worth, I had paid a painful premium for it. I had no doubt that for as long as my heart beat and my lungs drew breath, what I’d seen and heard that day would haunt me. That and the guilt I would forever carry.
I staggered back to camp and found Vilmos. He took one look at me and said, “What happened?"
I told him a little, sparing him the worst of it. "When people say Kanada is a good posting, they must mean the warehouses. Because I’d rather dig trenches than work on the platform.”
He did not look all that well either. His cheeks held an ominous pinkish flush, and his breathing was scratchy. But he swore he was feeling fine. Obviously a lie for my benefit.