The Ghost-Eater and Other Stories (19 page)

‘Really? I totally overslept and just
threw
on this bandanna.' She adjusted it in the mirror, flirting with herself. ‘We stayed out so late drinking last night. It was really fun.'

This conversation finally propelled me outside. We walked along the platform and I was able to see the notorious train tracks up close. I bent down and picked up a stone and slipped it in my pocket.

We walked across a green field to some ponds and stopped at the edge of one of them. They were populated by luminous frogs, camouflaged by the matching brightness of the algae in the water. There must have been hundreds of them and their croaking filled the air, drowning out all other sounds. If I really concentrated on them, I could almost ignore the brick chimney looming in the distance. Their natural beauty, the grace in their movements which made them visible for a moment until they disappeared into the green once again, distracted me from the forest of birch trees behind me that gave this place its name: Birkenau.

I was brought back to reality as Avi explained that these ponds were artificial. A place was needed to dump the ashes from the crematorium. This pond was built to receive these remains.

Avi continued to describe the events that took place here, as we walked through to the other half of the camp, Auschwitz. ‘There we were stripped of our clothing; here the famous Dr Mengele separated us from our parents, our children. Here we were sent to be deloused.' He pointed and gestured as he spoke, describing events as he had been all along, his use of pronouns forcing us to identify with the victims.

 

‘The ends justify the means,' a friend of mine insisted when I saw her in Israel the next week and described the propagandistic techniques Avi used in his narration. She worked for the Jerusalem branch of the organisation. ‘When you think about the spiritual holocaust of intermarriage that plagues us today, you realise that we're losing more souls than we did in World War Two. So if he could get those students to have a sense of their Jewish identity by whatever means, then he must. Then they can go to their colleges and get involved in Israel advocacy.'

 

We continued through Auschwitzland, pushing through the throngs of tourists. The buildings were clean and neat, the displays carefully considered. Groups of different nationalities wandered the streets between administrative buildings and the houses of Nazi officials. On the way to the exit, outside the final gas chambers, their doors scratched by fingernails of desperation, we passed a friendly kiosk where we could buy sweets, chips and hamburgers. I wondered if I'd see a life-size rendition of one of the familiar pictures of a group of skeletal prisoners huddled behind a barbed-wire fence, with holes cut out so visitors could stick their heads through for a photo opp.

 

In Krakow we stopped for lunch in a big green park. All the food had been brought with us from Israel. This is a common practice among holocaust tourists, who want to come and witness the sites for themselves while pumping as little money as possible into the Polish economy. The city of Krakow was cosmopolitan and charming. The streets were lined with little bistros and charismatic pubs filled with young people laughing and having a beer with their friends. This appealing city was the site of such death and pain that I cannot comprehend it; I find it impossible to understand. Parts of the ghetto wall remain intact, and tourists can go to see a plaque memorialising the people who lived and suffered and died here, or who were transported from the ghetto to their deaths. In a nearby square big steel chairs are placed: an installation? A memorial? The square was almost empty; people seemed to skirt it. The chairs looked small until you were right next to them. I read later that the chairs were designed by two architects, and are meant to be reminiscent of the furniture and belongings left behind by the people who gathered here before deportations. The architects won 25 000 euros for their design.

Back on the bus, we watched
Schindler's List
. In the seat behind me, someone said, ‘Do you think we'll be much longer? I really want to get to Lublin. They say it has amazing nightlife.'

The guys from the South African group got on famously with the American girls. There was lots of flirting and giggling. I remained silent unless addressed. I had never defined my Jewishness only in terms of the holocaust, even though it was a common theme throughout my education. But I also couldn't identify with my fellow tourists. Hitler would have found us all equally Jewish. Would I proudly stand alongside this group of people and be shot into a mass grave?

 

Our next stop was a beautiful forest. The trees were green and there were flowers and mosses; the birds sang ceaselessly in the trees. I could imagine fairytales being written about this place, fanciful and magical. Then we arrived at an open copse which was fenced off. Further along were more fences. Some were painted white, some blue. These were the mass graves of thousands of nameless people shot down over pits. The same thing had happened all over the country, in similar forests.

We went onto the town of Tarnow. Some of the buildings lining the main square dated back to pre-war times. People rode by on bicycles; children kicked a soccer ball. Two old men sat on a bench in the sunshine. In this square, Jews had been forced to sit on their knees without moving for two days. Anyone who had looked up off the ground was shot instantly. I expected to see blood come seeping up between the paving stones.

I remained silent as I saw the spacious-looking ghettoes, once so overcrowded, the forests fertilised by bodies shot down in their prime, the town and village squares filled with the laughter of people oblivious to the silenced voices and the cemeteries neglected because no one is left to look after them. And I finally understood what my grandmother meant when she said I would be walking on the blood of her family.

 

I'm lying on an old hessian sack that smells of goat urine and manure. The smell of goats has always been unwelcome to my nostrils, but who cares tonight? The luxury of cosy blankets and soft pillows is not for me tonight as it was many nights ago. The starry sky is my blanket and the hard earth my bed. My bedroom is a garden, which has a thick banana plantation on one side and a small patch of vegetables – some rape, a few cabbage heads and legumes of doubtful hybridity – on the other. A slow-flowing perennial stream snakes its way through the garden, dividing it into two. The bananas and vegetables are growing on its banks.

The dark September sky is punctured by sparkling stars. The stars remind me of a story I heard when I was still very young, telling that those stars are small holes in the floor of heaven and reveal its brilliance. The Milky Way is running askew across this sky. It would be such a beautiful night if all things were equal, but the desire to admire such a scene is far from my instincts now. Not tonight, when far-distant mortar explosions and the crack of gunfire is floating to me through the dense night air reminding me that a war is raging all around the country. No, not tonight when I know lurking somewhere is a posse of soldiers hunting for me.

From the dug-up and watered patch of the garden the damp smell of riverine soil mixes with the smell of the goat urine and manure and causes me to suppress a great urge to sneeze. Sneezing is the last thing that I would like to enjoy at this moment. This smell has been in my nose ever since I jumped into this garden seeking cover for the night. The soldiers followed my tracks throughout the afternoon until I managed to cheat their vigilance by jumping into a pool and concealing myself under the water. I spent the better part of the afternoon underwater with only my nose protruding to catch some air. The pool was on the lower part of the same stream that runs through the garden where I lay but here there were many trees on the banks.

Mosquitoes whine as they fly past my ears in their ecstatic search for my exposed arms, face and ankles. I'm sure most of them haven't tasted human blood during their short life. They fall over each other, scrambling for space to land and dip their needles to suck me up. The temptation to squash them with my open palms is so great, but I can't. I'm afraid of making that clapping noise that might reveal my hiding place to the soldiers. I have to squeeze their tiny bodies against mine to kill them. They have already perforated my exposed skin, creating bumps that are so sore and require frequent scratching.

At this point my mind slips into the past, bringing the events of the previous day into focus. We were seated under the shed of my father's bedroom hut, playing cards to kill the long hours of the chimurenga war days. The three of us: my friend who liked to call himself A1, my older brother and I, liked to sit here where we could see far and wide. Our homestead's position on a knoll enabled us to see the soldiers when they were still far away, affording us time to run into the thick bushes to the west of the village to hide.

Most often we would be listening to a two-band short-wave radio that my father had bought for us when he returned from a two-year political detention at Gonakudzingwa. Our favourite radio station was LM Radio which broadcasted from Lourenço Marques in Mozambique. We liked this radio station because it played pop music – the kind that we enjoyed at boarding school during those days. The small radio sometimes alerted us when soldiers were approaching. When the soldiers were in the area and using their walkie-talkies, it whizzed and shrilled, the frequencies colliding. Sometimes we even picked up their voices clearly and we would listen to snatches of their messages. But on this day, the battery was flat and we relied on our eyes and ears.

It was the sound of motorbikes that alerted A1 to the approach of the soldiers and he pointed in their direction. They were rushing across the brown fields towards us with dust billowing behind them like those airplanes that spew smoke in flight. We had recently heard that they were now using bikes to chase and shoot village boys and girls whom they thought were helping the freedom fighters. The village boys were called mujibhas and the girls were chimbwidos. We were the mujibhas. So we took flight towards the bush with G3 and FN bullets whizzing in the air around us. I could see small branches of trees falling from trees where they had been nipped by the whizzing bullets. As soon as we reached the edge of the bushes, we split up, each one in his direction. The freedom fighters, also known as The Boys, had taught us some basic survival tactics. I ran towards this small river and jumped into a deep pool which was overgrown by trees such that the tree branches overhung right to the middle of the pool. When the sun sank and darkness enveloped the countryside, I came out of the water, drenched, my body whitish all over from being too long under the water. I plodded upstream, looking for a place to spend the night.

The night goes by slowly. The Milky Way shifts like the hand of a giant clock whose dial is the star-spangled night sky. From previous observations, I know that when the starry band is running east to west, the day will be breaking soon, but I cannot tell the exact time. The cocks in our village are good at keeping time for us, but there are no cocks or hens left. They have been slaughtered for the freedom fighters who always like to eat sadza with chicken and nothing else. If dogs could take over their duty, it would be very welcome tonight because they are abundant and their barking carries far, but dogs have never been good at keeping time.

Eventually the eastern horizon begins to redden. Twilight heralds the rising of the big star and the beginning of another day of cat-and-mouse brushes with the Rhodesian soldiers. The strengthening light chases the mosquitoes to the darker corners of the plantation, to my great relief. Their feeding is over for the day.

One of the poles from the garden gate squeaks and tells me that there is someone coming into my hiding place. Instinctively, I quickly roll behind a bed of cabbage heads as my heart jumps into my mouth. Have the Rhodesian forces woken up so early to flush me out? Perhaps they saw me from afar with their binoculars and have come to fetch me. To my relief, it is the owner of the garden coming to work. I stand up, my knees weak with fright, and we greet each other. He asks why I'm in his garden that early. I know him. He knows me, too. But I can see that he is suspicious of my presence there. Perhaps he thinks I'm there to steal his vegetables. I tell him that I had to spend the night in his garden hiding from government soldiers. He understands. He sympathises with me. The soldiers are after the mujibhas and the chimbwidos who are the messengers of The Boys and not elderly people like him. He knows this, too. Capturing a mujibha or a chimbwido and torturing him or her provided them with valuable information about the whereabouts of the terrorists and the kind of arms that they would be carrying. This man knows what is happening around the country.

By now the rays of the September sun are becoming needles. They are already attacking our bare skin demanding that we seek the relief of some shade. The green vegetables are already bowing down to them. While the gardener and I are busy talking an authoritative voice challenges us. I dive into the leafy green of the banana trees and crawl deep into the mulch of the cast-off brown leaves.

‘Don't waste your time hiding! We've already seen you, terrorist! Just come out before we shoot you!'

This is the beginning of my agony.

 

 

He stood at the window of his room looking out at the rain falling in sheets. The corrugated iron roof of his garden flat was loud with the noise of it. No view of the mountain, just a white, wet diffuseness outside. Puddles in the garden forming from the overflow of water gushing from the gutter pipe into the drain. June in Cape Town.

He turned his back on the window and looked about the room. The fridge hummed. Clothes lay draped over furniture for drying. He smelled the room's dankness and sensed the things it contained enlarged with moisture. With nothing demanded of him that day and good weather for sleeping off his faint hangover he considered climbing back into bed and letting the rest of the morning slip by.