"I didn’t," Ludwig whined. “I had no reason to." He was crying now, fat tears pumping out of his eyes.
But the Lageralteste wasn’t listening. I had stopped by his block before coming to meet Ludwig and told him that Ludwig was the killer. The Lageralteste didn’t doubt it for one second. After all, he knew how much Ludwig had hated Franz. Enough to bring him to the Lageralteste’s attention. More than enough to kill him.
And there was another reason he believed me. Because I’d shown him that I would not let an innocent man die to save my own skin.
Ludwig was still protesting when the Lageralteste kicked him in the face. The crunch of bone gave me shivers. Ludwig fell back with a groan, rolling over the lip of the ditch and down its slope to the spot where Franz had died. The Lageralteste followed him down. Otto moved closer for a better view. I stayed where I was, and so did Mathias. The heavy thuds of punches and kicks, coupled with the Lageral-teste's grunts and curses, floated up to us from the ditch. At first, there were also Ludwig’s screams, but these died down very quickly.
A number of prisoners started to come over to see what the raucous was about, but quickly scattered when they saw Mathias.
I wished I could shut my ears, block out all sound, but I didn’t. When you bring about the death of a man, you shouldn’t shy away.
Finally, the Lageralteste climbed back out of the ditch. He was breathing hard, and his face was drenched with sweat and spattered with blood. Red streaks covered his boots, matching the blood smeared on his hands.
He looked like a wild animal directly after a feed, vicious and untamed and gruesomely sated.
Flashing me a grin, he said, "You did well. I knew you could do it.”
"Are we good?" I said.
He wiped at a red spot on his chin, but that only served to transfer more blood onto it from his hand. "You mean, will I let you live?” He paused, drawing the moment for effect. "Yeah, sure. You did your part. You earned it. I might even consider letting you stay in the Kanada Kommando, if you beg me to.”
I shook my head. “Thank you, but I’d rather return to my old one."
He looked both surprised and disappointed, and I realized that he had been playing with me, that he’d wanted me to ask him only to refuse me. “Why the hell would you want that?"
What was the point of explaining it to him? How could a man like that understand what being in Kanada was like? Surrounded by the possessions of the dead, hearing the cries of the victims as they were led to the gas chambers, and breathing air so foul with the stench of burning flesh that your mind felt as though it would tear itself asunder if you remained there a minute longer? There was food in Kanada, but in many ways working there was worse than digging trenches under the blazing sun.
“It’s simply what I prefer," I said.
He huffed and shrugged and grunted. "Have it your way, Jew.” To Otto and Mathias, he said, “Let’s go."
The Lageralteste and Otto started off, but Mathias said, “I’ll come over in a couple of minutes. I’ll get some prisoners to clear the body."
"Fine, fine," the Lageralteste said without turning around. Then he clapped Otto on the back. "Make sure they have strong stomachs. Ludwig’s not a pretty sight." He and Otto laughed. Mathias and I waited quietly until they had disappeared from view.
"Congratulations, Adam," Mathias said.
"Thanks.”
"You don’t look happy."
I wasn’t. The only thing I felt, apart from relieved that I had kept Vilmos and myself alive, was an insistent sense of wrongness, of something that did not quite fit.
I bent down and picked up the knife Ludwig had wielded. I turned it over in my hands, while turning other things over in my mind, and that sense of misalignment only grew. I looked toward the ditch where Ludwig lay dead, then at the smoke rising from the crematoriums, then at the knife again.
And I knew, though I wished I could pretend that I didn’t, that I had made a mistake.
33
Vilmos was waiting for me outside the block. We started walking, and I told him what I’d learned about Ludwig and how the Lageralteste had killed him. The sky was darkening now. Soon it would be curfew and we would be confined to our block for the night. Within me, rivaling emotions battled. On the one hand, I was overjoyed that Vilmos and I would live. On the other, I could not shake off my certainty that I had been wrong.
"I don’t think Ludwig killed Franz," I said.
"Why not? He certainly had motive.”
"Did he?”
In a nearby watchtower, an SS guard was peering down at us. We turned and walked away. One could never know when one of them would get itchy fingers and start shooting.
"The girl,” Vilmos said. "He wanted the girl, and he decided it would be best if Franz was gone ”
"Franz was already gone. He couldn’t go to Kanada anymore, couldn’t see Aliz, and there was no hope that would change. Ludwig had her all to himself."
"You said so yourself—Ludwig came to the conclusion that the only way Aliz would let go of Franz completely was if he was dead."
I shook my head. “Ludwig had managed to persuade himself that Aliz loved him. And there are other things that make me believe he wasn’t the killer."
"Such as?"
"When I asked Ludwig why he didn’t simply kill Franz in the first place, he said he’d never killed anyone in his life. I think he was telling the truth."
"But he was talking about the time before he sacrificed Franz to the Lageralteste.''
"That's a possible interpretation, but I think he was speaking generally."
"That's not very persuasive, Adam,” Vilmos said gently.
"True. But that's not the main reason I think he wasn’t the killer.”
"So what is?"
I paused, kneading the back of my neck. "Franz was killed by a single stab wound to the throat. That’s not an easy way to kill a man. A killer might get lucky, of course, but usually such a killing requires proficiency with knives."
"And?"
"And Ludwig wasn’t proficient. Not even close. He held the knife wrong, and he’d telegraphed his move so early, I could have smoked a cigarette and still evaded him. I’d wager that he’d never used a knife on a human being before attacking me."
We resumed walking, while Vilmos contemplated this.
Eventually, he said, "If not Ludwig, then who?"
"I don’t know. The redheaded man, perhaps.”
Again I wondered how I might find him among the thousands of prisoners in the men’s camp, and whether he had been transported to another camp—if he was even still alive, that is.
"I hope you don’t feel guilty about Ludwig," Vilmos said.
"I don’t. Ludwig got what was coming to him. What he did to Franz was unpardonable. But that leaves the question of who murdered Franz."
"You still want to find the man who did it?"
"I do. Even though one death shouldn't mean much in this horrible place. I’m already invested, you see. I want to see this through. I feel like I owe it to Franz."
We walked a few dozen paces in silence before Vilmos said, "There’s a good chance, Adam, that you’ll never discover who killed him."
I gave a wry smile. "There’s always hope, Vilmos. You taught me that.”
34
The next day was Sunday, and officially it was a day of rest. But actually, it was just another day of torment.
Right after breakfast, a bunch of us were ordered to the Appellplatz, where we were subjected to a vicious session of hinlegen, a particularly cruel type of exercise devised by the warped minds of the SS. Hinlegen required us to fall to the ground, stand up, jump high in the air, and fall to the ground again. This was done over and over until the SS guards tired of it. Those prisoners who broke down in the course of this torture were dragged aside and lashed with whips or beaten with truncheons. A couple were shot.