“You heard the order,” said the guard. He jostled the wooden stock of the rifle against Pavli’s shoulder blades. “Move!”
Another room, smaller, the naked forms of the ten Lazarenes filling one side. An eye of glass, a little curved window, stared at them; Pavli blinked at the distorted reflection of his own image before he realized that it was a camera lens. It was like a piece of another world, the one that had been left behind on the other side of the truck journey, the world that had held his uncle Turro’s shop on a narrow street in Berlin.
The guards shoved the Lazarenes in a line against the wall; the camera, mounted on a heavy tripod, stood only a few feet away from Pavli. A model he’d never seen before, a big professional machine, the likes of which had never been displayed in his uncle’s shop. At the front of the black folding bellows, the Zeiss lens seemed nearly as broad as his flattened palm; behind the blue glass, the blades of the shutter could be seen.
Raised voices, the harsh words of Ritter and the Scharfuhrer, brought Pavli back from his study of the camera.
On the other side of the room, near the doorway that led to the building’s central corridors, Ritter gestured with an upraised hand, his face darkened with anger. “Where is he? What’s wrong with him this time?”
The Scharfuhrer echoed Ritter’s demand, turning to call down the corridor. Another pair of guards appeared, dragging a man between them. A drunken man, from the looks and smell of him – the acrid scent of schnapps and sour vomit curled in Pavli’s nostrils as the man was thrust forward. He caught himself against the camera, nearly toppling himself and the tripod over to the floor. He swayed unsteadily, fumbling a hand across the stains that covered the front of his uniform jacket, the tight-fitting military collar loosened and flapping open. From just the color of the uniform, Pavli could see that the man was not SS, but regular German army.
“Get to work!” Ritter confronted the drunkard; a backhanded slap across the face brought the bleary eyes open wider, head wobbling upon the man’s neck. “There’s much to do. You’ve shirked your duties long enough.”
The other smiled, eyes slitted and red. “Put me on report, then… Herr Doktor Ritter. Send me to the Eastern Front. I don’t give a damn -”
“Shut up!” The Scharfuhrer ’s voice barked out, and the two guards lifted the drunkard even higher between them, so that his feet dangled, barely touching the floor.
“And to hell with you, too.” The drunken man’s gaze grew sharper, nostrils flaring as he looked down at Ritter. He knew how far he had already gone, that there was no turning back, no begging forgiveness. “I don’t care what you bastards do. But I’m not part of it anymore -” He struggled against the guards’ grasp upon his arms. His voice was raw with alcohol. “You hear me? You can send me back to the camps, you can put me on the other side of the wire, I don’t care. I’m not going to help you -” He started to kick, and the toe of one boot caught a slender wooden strut of the tripod, sending the camera crashing onto its side. “I’m not -”
Ritter struck the man with his fist this time, hard enough to knock him free from the support of the guards and send him sprawling against the corner of the floor and wall. The man suddenly burst into sobbing, his hand smearing tears through the blood pouring from his nose and torn upper lip.
“Get him out of here.” The guards scrambled to carry out Ritter’s orders. The drunken man was dragged out of the room while the Scharfuhrer righted the fallen camera. Ritter’s expression changed to one of exasperated disgust. “Cable the Ahnenerbe offices in Berlin; tell them we’ll need another photographer sent out. He’ll have to have the same security clearances as this last one… Schei?! ” Ritter ground his teeth together. “There’s no telling how long that will take.”
Another voice, one that had not spoken before. “Sir…” One that was neither a guard or an officer. “Excuse me, sir…”
All eyes, those of the uniformed men and the Lazarenes alike, turned toward Pavli, making him feel even more naked and exposed.
“Get back in line!” The Scharfuhrer gestured angrily at him. “Speak when you are spoken to!”
“Pavli…” His brother’s whisper hissed behind him, Matthi grabbing at his elbow to pull him back with the others.
He shook off his brother’s hand. “Sir, I can operate the camera. Any camera – I can do it -”
“Silence!” The Scharfuhrer slammed the heel of his hand against Pavli’s shoulder, knocking him back a step.
“Wait.” Ritter laid the tips of his fingers on the Scharfuhrer ’s arm, forestalling another blow. He turned a bemused smile toward Pavli. “Who is this, who volunteers his services so eagerly? What is your name, boy?”
“Iosefni, sir – my family name. Pavli…”
“Ah, yes.” Ritter nodded. He took his hand from the Scharfuhrer ’s arm and touched Pavli’s wrist. “Our rara avis, our oddity, the unmarked Lazarene.” His fingertip traced the path along the underside of Pavli’s arm, where the tattoo of Christ’s wound should have been. “Perhaps you are a surprising creature in more ways than one.”
“Sir…” The Scharfuhrer tried to butt in. “I’ll take care of this interruption. This impertinence -”
Ritter ignored him, continuing to gaze straight into Pavli’s eyes. “Do you claim to know something of photography, boy? You might be bluffing about that, for all I know. Or perhaps you overestimate your skills. What is required here is a technique suitable for a rigorous medical and scientific investigation. Not the snapping away of a few holiday shots with a cheap box camera, while on holiday on some sunny lake shore.” The needle of Ritter’s examination shifted from Pavli’s right eye, the golden-brown one, to the left eye, the blue. “What is the source of your supposed expertise?”
Inside Pavli’s head, he heard two voices, the one of the SS doctor murmuring questions almost at his ear… and the false gypsy’s whispered advice and warnings. Make yourself useful to them. That is how to survive…
He found his own voice. “My uncle owned a camera shop… back in the city. It was the best one in all Berlin.” He knew that would sound like boasting, but it had been true. “I worked there, with my uncle. He showed me everything. People came from far away, to buy, or with cameras that needed to be repaired. My uncle taught me how to do that, how to fix them, how they worked -” Pavli bit his lip, to keep the words from rushing out so fast. “I know these things.”
Herr Doktor Ritter nodded slowly. “Iosefni… yes, of course, the Josefsohn premises. A pity your uncle is no longer alive; I’m sure we would have found his expertise to be of value.”
“I know as much as he did, sir. He showed me.”
“Oh?” One of Ritter’s eyebrows lifted. “This is specially designed equipment, boy. Crafted for military requisition. I doubt if you ever saw its equal in your little shop.”
The false gypsy’s words, the whisper in his memory, prodded Pavli forward. “All cameras are alike, sir. They work on the same principles.”
Ritter smiled. “Very good -” He nodded in satisfaction. “If you are as much a craftsman in the darkroom as you are a budding scientist, you will serve well.” He crooked a finger at the Scharfuhrer. “Take him back out and get him his clothes. We can’t have him standing behind the camera completely bare-assed.”
Under the gaze of the Scharfuhrer, Pavli quickly drew on his trousers and shirt. He only had a moment to check the lining of his boots – the precious objects were still tucked safely there – before he was ordered to hurry up. He finished tugging on the boots and stood up, away from the little piles of the other Lazarene men’s belongings against the wall. Buttoning his jacket, he ran to catch up with the Scharfuhrer ’s long strides.
The camera hadn’t been damaged when it had been knocked over by the drunkard. He’d been worried about that, that the camera would turn out to be inoperable, and that he would have to tell the SS officer that; Herr Doktor Ritter would accuse him of being a liar and a time-waster, a useless creature. But there had only been a spot of black enameling knocked off a corner of the case, exposing the bare metal beneath, and a dent in the folding bellows that Pavli was able to straighten between his thumb and forefinger.