What World is Left (18 page)

Mother and Father bring me to the infirmary, but they can't stay with me. Neither of them can afford to be away from their work. So now I am alone with Dr. Hayek, a Czech Jew with a kindly face and bags so heavy under his eyes it is a wonder no one tried to search them at the
Schleuse
.

Dr. Hayek has a habit of laughing at his own bad jokes. “Do you know what we call this instrument?” he asks when I sit down on the hard chair in the little operating room.

I shake my head. “A guillotine!” he says, chuckling so hard the bags under his eyes wobble.

The word “guillotine” makes me shiver. I remember how Marie Antoinette, the beautiful Austrian princess, daughter of the empress after whom Theresienstadt was named, died on the guillotine.

I hear Dr. Hayek shuffling next to me, then washing his hands in the small sink. “The actual procedure will only take three or four minutes. I'm going to reach in with my guillotine, take hold of your tonsils and remove them. All in one fell swoop.”

I clutch the sides of my chair. Why does Dr. Hayek have to keep saying the word “guillotine”?

When Dr. Hayek puts his instrument into my mouth, I gag. “Anneke,” he says, sounding more like a schoolteacher than a doctor, “you have to cooperate. The sooner we get this procedure over with, the better.”

And so, though I want to gag, I don't let myself. Instead I clutch the chair so hard my nails dig into the wooden arms. I can feel my face getting hot as the long sharp end of the guillotine slides down the middle of my throat. The pain comes a moment later. A sharp searing pain—more terrible than anything I've ever felt before. I see a flashing silver light and then, just like that, I feel my mind leap out of my body. It flies off somewhere overhead, high, high up, past the rafters and the spider web, while my body remains seated in the infirmary chair.

It is Dr. Hayek's laughter that brings my mind back to my body. “I've never seen such tonsils,” he cackles. “These are twice the size of normal tonsils. If I were a fisherman, I'd call this a good catch. A wonderful catch—the catch of the day!” That makes him laugh all over again. Only the sound seems to be coming from very far away.

Dr. Hayek pats my shoulder. “There, there, Anneke,” he says. “All done. Would you like to meet your tonsils?”

I want to say no, thank you very much, I have no interest in meeting my tonsils, or anybody else's for that matter, but no words come out. My throat throbs as if, during the surgery, my heart had changed locations.

But I manage to open my eyes and when I do, I see Dr. Hayek with his guillotine. His eyes are shining. Hanging from the bottom of the guillotine are the ugliest things I have ever seen. Long and pinkish red, my tonsils have spots of white pus all over them.

I shut my eyes even more tightly than during the operation. At some point, Dr. Hayek must have helped me up from the chair, because when I wake up, I am lying in a cot, my throat more sore than ever.

“You have to drink. Dr. Hayek says there's a danger of dehydration,” Mother is telling me. But I can't sit up, let alone drink.

There are new lines around Mother's eyes, and I feel guilty for making her worry. But when I try to lift my head, my shoulders slump back on the mattress.

“She may not be ready yet to take water,” a soft voice says. The voice belongs to a woman, though I can't see her. But someone, probably the woman, pries open the window and a gust of freezing air blows into
the little room. A moment later, Mother is hovering over me with a blanket.

“Let her try this,” the woman's voice says.

Strange hands pass me a chipped bowl. Inside is something frozen and green. “It's soup,” the voice says, handing me a spoon. “I left it out on the windowsill for you.”

I scrape at the frozen soup. Though the spoon is badly bent, it does the trick. Soon I loosen a few green slivers. It is pea soup. And when the frozen slivers touch the sides of my throat I think how I've never tasted anything quite so delicious.

“You're very kind,” Mother tells the woman.

“I do what I can to help,” the woman says. Now I can see her. She has straight dark hair that falls to her shoulders. It is Franticek's girlfriend.

Her name is Berta. During the four days I spend recuperating in the infirmary, she often looks in on me. Though Berta is part of the cleaning crew in the infirmary, she does what she can for the young patients, making us more comfortable on our cots, bringing fresh water when it is available and comforting those who have no parents to visit them.

On the second afternoon, I awaken to find Berta sitting on the edge of my bed, studying my face. “He loved you,” she whispers.

Of course, I know she means Franticek. I must be getting stronger, because now, when I try to sit up, I don't topple over. I straighten my back and return Berta's look. Though her face is sweaty and her hands are raw and red, there is no question that she is a beautiful woman. A grown woman, one with whom I know I can't compare. I look down at my own bony, ill-shaped body and I hate her.

“You didn't mean a thing to him,” I say.

Berta nods.

I don't know why I want so much to hurt her.

She turns to the window. “You're probably right,” she whispers. “After all, he gave you the necklace.”

Dr. Hayek kept Franticek's gift safe, and yesterday Mother tied it back around my neck.

I stroke the piece of leather.

The next day, while Berta sweeps around my mattress, I ask about her husband. “Don't you care for him?”

Berta stops sweeping and leans on her broom. “I used to care for him very much,” she tells me, “but the war changed everything between us.”

She tells me her husband is a Christian. When they first fell in love, the difference in their religions meant nothing. But later, when the Nazis came to power in Czechoslovakia, he turned on her. “He called me a dirty Jew and accused me of ruining his life. But when the
Nazis rounded up the Jews in our town, they took him too. ‘If you're married to a Jew, why then, you're also polluted!' the Nazis told him.”

“Oh, Berta, I'm so sorry.”

“That wasn't the worst of it.” When Berta resumes her sweeping, I know she doesn't want to tell me more.

But I feel as if I need to know. “What was the worst of it?” I venture.

Berta closes her eyes and shakes her head. “The worst...,” she says, hesitating for a few moments before she can go on, “were the beatings. He used to beat me and the boys also.” When she reaches for my hand, I let her take it.

I feel my heart opening to Berta. I can't hate someone who's lived through such misery.

“That was why I fell in love with Franticek, because he was gentle. Because he'd never have hurt a fly,” Berta says. There are tears in her eyes.

“You were in love with Franticek?”

Berta nods. For the first time, I don't begrudge Berta for what she had with Franticek.

That night I have trouble falling asleep, perhaps because I've already spent so much of the day resting. Why is it, I wonder, that things always turn out to be so complicated?

Berta's not the monster I imagined. Nor is Father without courage. Even Commandant Rahm did one good thing.

How am I to make sense of all this?

It proves to be a hard winter, with more transports, each one larger than the last. Those of us who remain look at each other with a painful recognition. We are like the last chess pieces on the board. Will we survive until the end of the game?

According to the “old woman,” the Nazis are continuing to sustain losses on the battlefront. But that doesn't necessarily help our situation. Life in Theresienstadt has become destabilized. The Nazis continue to bark orders, humiliate prisoners and organize transports to the east, but when they do so, we sometimes catch them looking over their shoulders, as if they know the end is near and they may have some explaining to do.

Like always, the old people whisper that the war is nearly over. Only now, I dare to believe them.

In April, when the air begins to warm up again, a representative from the International Red Cross comes to the camp. I am walking near the main square on the lane reserved for Jews when he takes leave of Commandant Rahm. I witness their stiff handshake outside the Nazi headquarters. Something appears to have been decided.

The visit gets the old woman's tongue wagging again. “The international community is going to do something at last,” people say. Others are less hopeful. “The Red Cross didn't intervene to help us before. Why,” they ask, “would they help us now?”

But exactly a week afterward, a bus pulls up at the front gates. It is white with large red crosses on each side. Then comes an announcement on the public address system: “All Danish prisoners have one hour to report to the main gates. With their satchels.”

I can hardly believe the news. Surely, it bodes well for all of us.

Theo is collecting firewood near the gates when the bus drives off. “Commandant Rahm was there watching,” Theo tells us that evening when we are picking the bugs off our blankets.

“What did Commandant Rahm say?” Opa wants to know.

“What did Commandant Rahm do?” Father asks.

Theo clears his throat. You can see he is enjoying the attention. “Commandant Rahm didn't say anything. He didn't do anything. He just stood there like a zombie.”

I hope the departure of the Danes bodes well for those of us who remain. But things get worse—far worse— before they begin to get better.

The very next afternoon a train arrives in Theresienstadt. There is no point in sending the people who get off to the
Schleuse
because it is clear they possess nothing of value. It is also clear from their greenish complexions, and the way they are doubled over, some with cramps,
some because their heads ache too much for them to stand up straight, that these new inmates are ill.

“Keep as far away from them as you can,” Berta warns when Mother and I meet her and her boys in the soup line. Then she drops her voice so the boys won't hear what she is about to say. “The newcomers have typhus. Dr. Hayek says the disease is highly contagious and that if we're not careful, the Nazis won't have to bother killing us.”

The newcomers don't bring only contagion, they also bring news. The old woman says they have come from other camps, places like Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Panic-stricken that the Russians and perhaps even the Americans are moving closer, the Nazis are trying desperately to empty the death camps.

The Council of Elders does what it can to ensure that those with the dreaded disease are kept in quarantine in a separate barracks. But typhus, a disease transmitted by lice, is so contagious it is almost impossible to prevent its spread. We are constantly on the lookout for its early signs: exhaustion, chills and a spotty rash.

When Theo wakes up two mornings later with red spots on his chest, Mother, whom I've never seen cry, even on our worst days in the camp, begins to wail. “You can't get sick now—not after we've been through so much,” she tells Theo, making it sound as if he's caused the rash himself. But by evening, the rash disappears, and Mother calms down.

Father shakes his head. “Your mother is the strongest woman I have ever known,” he tells me when Mother's back is turned. “But even strong women have their breaking point.”

Of all of us, Opa seems to be faring the best. Because he was imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen, he recognizes some of his former bunkmates among those who stepped off the trains from the east. “My God,” he calls out one evening after we've slurped down our soup. “There goes Igor Spivack! Spivack! Wait!”

It turns out Igor Spivack is nearly deaf (he was boxed on the ears by the Nazis for not shoveling quickly enough), so Opa sends me after him. I tap on the old man's shoulder. “Are you Igor Spivack? My grandfather is over there. He says he knows you from Bergen-Belsen.”

When Spivack and Opa fall into each other's arms, all I can think about is that Spivack might be carrying the typhus bacteria. I lead the two of them to the nearest bench and take a few steps back, just in case. Of course, if Spivack infects Opa, I'll end up infected too, and then Mother and Father and Theo will also fall ill. Mother is right: Dying now, when we are so close to what we all hope is the end of the war—well, that would be too much to bear.

I watch Opa wipe his eyes as Spivack, a Rumanian Jew, tells him about their other bunkmates, nearly all of whom were gassed. “I still don't know why they spared me,” Spivack says, sounding as if he thinks it
would be better to be dead than a witness to all he's seen.

Afterward, Spivack turns in my direction. “There's something about you, something about the way you watch people,” he says, shaking a wrinkled finger in the air, “that reminds me of a girl, a German girl about your age whom I knew in Bergen-Belsen. She and her family were hiding in Amsterdam when the Nazis rooted them out. Her name was Eva. She had a sister. Ilse was her name, I think.”

I freeze in the spot where I am standing. Eva. My old friend from the Jewish Lyceum, the girl with the beautiful outfits and the dark eyes. “Where is she now?” I manage to ask.

“Dead. She and Ilse, both. Of typhus.”

Even if the end of the war really is coming close, I begin to feel as if I want to give up. I've heard Mother and Father whisper about prisoners who have committed suicide in Theresienstadt: people who've hanged themselves, and a man who slit his wrist with glass from a broken windowpane. Before I came to Theresienstadt, I never understood why someone would take his own life. But I understand now: They simply wanted to put an end to the pain. Unbidden, a line from Heinrich Heine's poetry pops into my head: “My heart, my heart is heavy.” Heine understood how I feel now. My heart is so heavy I can barely stay standing.

There has been so much pain, so much loss, I almost can't see the sense of living anymore. Franticek, Hannelore, and now Eva and Ilse, all gone. Gone! Vanished from the face of the Earth without a trace! And those are only the ones I cared for. What about all the others, the hundreds of thousands of others, perhaps even more than that—and all the people who cared for them? I feel as if our collective sorrow will leave us as bent and broken as the sickly souls who come on the cattle cars from Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. How will we ever find the strength to stand tall again? I don't think I have my mother's strength.