The Pianist’s Wife

Chapter Twenty-Four Fred

Chapter Twenty-Four

Fred

Fred had lost all track of time. He no longer knew how many days had passed since he’d been arrested, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, and he certainly couldn’t recall the last time he’d been given water. At one point, a guard had opened the door to the wagon, the light painfully piercing Fred’s eyes after so long in the dark, and thrown water on them. There had been a mad rush to lick every drop from their skin, people clamouring to get closer to the guard to soothe their cracked lips and parched throats, but then the door had slid back across with force, the noise reverberating through the wagon, plunging them into darkness once more.

Fred kept his legs slightly parted and steady, knowing that the train could lurch forward again at any moment. It had happened so many times now, everyone falling into one another, and with standing room only they all kept toppling into each other, with almost everyone vomiting from the swaying motion once they were moving again. Every time he felt as if he couldn’t stand another second, he repeated in his mind how fortunate he was for his warm clothes. He’d even found a shoe along the way that he’d quickly slipped his foot into, fallen from some other man likely dragged down the street. Now he had two left-footed shoes, but it at least meant he wasn’t hobbling with only one. Some of the people wearing their nightclothes must have been snatched from their homes in the middle of the night, and others had bare feet, so he had much to be grateful for as he stood in the cold. But even as he told himself these things, he knew how ridiculous it was to believe he was one of the fortunate ones. Nothing about what had happened to him was lucky.

He thought of Christoph, and for the first time, truly understood what he must have been through. Months ago, he would have been on the same type of wagon, his shirt sticking to him from sweating so profusely, his shivers chilling him as that sweat suddenly began to cool as night fell, his body retching against the smell of so many humans. Everyone was the same in that wagon: traumatised, terrified, lonely, and desperately afraid of what was to come.

Fred had tried to convince himself that perhaps it wasn’t so bad, that the war would one day end and that he and Christoph would be reunited, but that hope was rapidly fading. Even the music he could usually compose in his mind had fallen silent. They were transporting them as if they were less than human; starving them and humiliating them by creating conditions no man or woman should ever experience, which told him that wherever they were going would be no better. In his heart, he believed it was the end.

This time when the train stopped, Fred heard shouting and a commotion outside. After so long in the dark, with only cracks of light coming through, it was as if his hearing was heightened to make up for his lack of sight. When the door slid open, someone yelled at them, and they all moved forward as one, shoulder to shoulder, their feet wet from the human excrement slick across the floor, and he couldn’t help but wonder how the people with no shoes were faring, or the ones who’d simply had socks on. These small questions kept his mind occupied and stopped him from giving up, from crying out in pain at the desperation of it all.

‘Raus, raus!’ Out, out. They shouted it over and over as everyone moved.

Fred kept his eyes half shut, squinting into the light, but it was the cold wind that was even more painful than the brightness. It cut straight through him, and he wrapped his arms around his body to protect himself.

There were people gathered everywhere, and as they walked across the platform and down the ramp, Fred saw the numbers of guards lined up, some of them with snarling shepherd dogs on leashes beside them. He looked away, not wanting to think about what would happen to anyone who stepped out of line. But it also made him think of Otto. The little dog had run off, frightened, when Fred had been taken, and he was grateful that Amira had scooped him up and held him close as he’d been led away. What he wouldn’t give to be at home with her, to feel safe again. Because for the short time they’d been married, he had felt safe, for the first time in so long, and he couldn’t stop thinking about the way she’d screamed for him, fought for him, as he’d been hauled away.

Clearly not moving fast enough, Fred was prodded in the back, and he stumbled before finding his balance again. Someone yelled at them to move faster, and then someone else yelled for them to line up, and Fred moved with everyone else, not wanting to draw any attention to himself.

He could hear the teeth of some of the other transportees chattering, and they stood for what felt like forever as some men walked back and forth, inspecting the new arrivals.

The children were eventually all moved to form a different group, along with obviously pregnant women and older people. Some stood hand in hand, defiant, their heads held high, but most of the people were either crying or looked to be in shock, barely registering what was happening. Eventually a man, who appeared to be a doctor, came down the line to where Fred stood, and he was asked to open his mouth, before a light was shone in his eyes.

‘Occupation?’

‘Musician,’ he said, not recognising the husky, low voice that came from his mouth.

‘You are not a Jew?’ the doctor said, squinting at him. ‘Political prisoner? Homosexual?’

Fred’s skin felt as if it were on fire, hating the word, wishing he never had to hear it again. But he nodded, and the doctor seemed to immediately lose interest in him, moving on to the next person, but must have given some indication for where Fred was to go, because a guard grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him, pointing to the group of older people, women and children. He had no idea why he had been selected to go with them, when other men his age where being gathered and marched away, but he kept his head down, not wanting to draw attention to himself. He kept glancing up to see where they were going, and it appeared they were being marched to a concrete building in the near distance.

The selection process went on and on, and Fred estimated that there were maybe five or six hundred people, with more and more humans being escorted on to the platforms from wagons and down the ramps. Some resisted and were hit with batons, one woman had screamed and thrashed so violently upon being separated from her children that she’d been violently beaten and left in a pool of blood for those coming behind her to step over, but most just kept moving forward. They were all too frightened to do anything else.

As he slowly raised his head, he realised that two more trains had arrived, pulling a long row of cattle cars. Full of people. The faded red cars were not full of the heavy animals they’d been intended for, they were full of people – men, women, children, families. The volume was almost impossible to comprehend.

He lifted his hand to wipe the tears from his eyes as dogs began to bark, as children began to scream in fear.

There were two little girls, identical in looks and with their hair plaited in the same style, dressed in warm coats and leather shoes. Fred couldn’t take his eyes from them, at their utter despair at being ripped from their mother’s arms. She was sent to the right, to Fred’s group, along with a man he presumed was her husband, and the pretty girls were sent left as the doctor smiled, his eyes seeming to light up at the sight of the twins.

But Fred didn’t get the chance to observe any longer, for they were being marched forward again, this time towards trucks. It took a long time for their group to move, much larger than the group that had been directed right, who were walking to the concrete building. He wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or concerned that he wasn’t going with them.

Fred wiped his eyes again as fresh tears appeared, and he looked into the distance, seeing thick plumes of smoke chugging into the sky. I’m sorry, Amira. I’m sorry I promised you that you’d be safe .

When he looked at the sorrowful expressions of those around him, he doubted that he would ever see her or little Otto again.

Fred closed his eyes as the people around him started to panic – there were more people crammed together around him now than there had been in the wagon. The room had seemed large when they were first walking in, but as more and yet more people were forced inside, it no longer felt as if there was space to breathe, let alone move. It had taken what felt like forever but was likely only an hour or so for them to be transported to this other building set away from the camp, and there was still no indication of what was to happen next.

The old man beside him was crying, his arms wrapped tightly around himself, and the smell of so many humans huddled together made Fred’s stomach turn. Everyone was naked, everyone had been forced to remove every stitch of clothing. There was nothing left in his stomach though, so even if he’d tried to be sick, he doubted anything would have come out.

‘Halt!’

The voice echoed through the room, and the guard Fred could still see over the heads of those gathered stood to attention. There were whispers among the guards, and someone held up a list.

It was as if the entire room were moving and breathing in unison then, waiting to see what would happen; whether it was necessary to panic, to fight, or to surrender.

‘Are there any skilled labourers present?’ barked the same voice that had called out for a halt. ‘I am looking for skilled men to come with me.’

Me. Fred’s head lifted again as shuffles and murmurs surrounded him. When they’d asked for his occupation, he’d given it truthfully, but he hadn’t always been a pianist.

‘Electrician,’ Fred said, but his throat was so dry the words were barely audible. It had been many years, but he had the strongest sense to call out and declare it. ‘I trained as an electrician!’ he called out, louder this time.

‘Step forward,’ the officer yelled.

‘I am a builder,’ another man said.

Fred made his way forward, as did the other man, but this man held the hand of a small boy, presumably his son.

‘You, out,’ the man ordered Fred. ‘And you.’

Fred began to move, shuffling through at the same time as the man was ordered to leave his boy. He knew he should hurry, but he couldn’t help but listen to the conversation, surprised when the German guard told the man to stay with his son if he didn’t want to leave him, but they would not take them both. It was an act of kindness that Fred hadn’t been expecting, but as he glanced back and saw the relief on the man’s face, still holding tightly to his son, something didn’t sit right with him. These guards know no kindness. Kindness doesn’t exist in a place like this.

Fred tried to cover his nakedness as he walked, surprised when he was nudged in the back and told to return to the undressing room where he’d taken off his clothes only minutes earlier, only he had no hope of finding his own pile. There were prisoners in striped pyjamas fossicking through everything, scavenging as if they were thieves.

They’d been told to undress because they needed disinfecting, that their clothes would be washed and returned to them and to leave them in neat piles with their shoelaces tied together, but now Fred had the feeling that none of those people he’d travelled to Auschwitz with and been processed alongside were going to be wearing their clothes again.

‘Keep walking,’ the guard behind him said.

They prodded him towards another room, and indicated that he should pick up the striped clothes that were the same as the other prisoners were wearing. He bent over and retrieved them, dressing as quickly as he could.

‘Shoes,’ they said, pointing back to the other room.

Fred nodded and did as he was told, looking for the shoes he’d carefully put on top of his folded pile of clothes, but to no avail.

‘Those ones,’ the guard said, pointing to the closest pair of boots, a pair that Fred immediately knew would be too big for him.

He leaned down to take them, even more certain now that the owners of these belongings were never going to see them again. But as he reached down, he also saw a thick pair of socks. He took them, as well as another pair of smaller ones that may have belonged to a woman, putting them on and then the thicker ones over the top, before pushing his feet into the boots. He didn’t even have time to lace them before he was prodded again, sharply in the back with what he imagined was a pistol.

‘Get moving.’

Fred did his best to walk in the large boots without tripping over the laces, but when they emerged back out into the cold wind, his feet stopped moving, his jaw falling open as tears immediately filled his eyes.

‘No,’ he gasped.

‘Keep moving!’

But Fred couldn’t. He couldn’t take his eyes from the bodies being pulled from the very building he’d been standing in, only minutes earlier. They were being dragged by the prisoners in striped suits, and the first two bodies he saw were the man and his son, their mouths gaping open. Dead.

‘How?’ he asked, turning to the guard. ‘What is this place?’

‘The crematoria,’ the guard said, with a shrug. ‘They have no idea what’s coming until those doors are closed.’

He must have seen the confused look on Fred’s face, because he laughed.

‘They think it’s going to be water to clean them, but it’s Zyklon B. Our favourite poison.’

Fred began to cry then, and he was shoved once more as another guard joined them. The road seemed to stretch out for miles ahead of them as Fred shuffled forward, one foot in front of the other. Gas. They were killing them silently with gas, their screams muted by the concrete walls of the chamber they were standing inside, walking like lambs to the slaughter with no knowledge of the horror that was to face them.

He’d been seconds from death, it seemed. And somehow, by the skin of his teeth, he’d survived. By saying the one thing he’d hated about his life, the job that his father had wanted for him that he had not. Now he just had to hope that he wasn’t asked to do anything too complicated, because he had given up his apprenticeship after less than a year when he’d been accepted to study music.

‘Get this one on the train, I’ll get the others,’ the second guard said to another.

And Fred’s first thought was to be thankful that he wasn’t being transported or put to use on his own. He’d never been afraid of solitude before, often craved it when he was composing or rehearsing, but Auschwitz was not a place in which he wanted to be alone. He was hopeful at the simple word: others .

‘They try to escape, shoot them,’ the guard said, gesturing at Fred. ‘They’re going to be useful, but don’t bother chasing them. There’ll always be more.’

‘Why were you spared?’

The whisper came from a man who seemed to appear from nowhere, but must have been sitting in the shadows by the train platform. He moved slowly, as if to make sure he wasn’t going to be told to halt. Or perhaps he was exhausted and couldn’t move any faster even if he’d wanted to.

‘I was once an electrician,’ Fred said. ‘And you?’

‘A plumber,’ the man said. ‘I’ve been here for almost three days, and they just came through and asked our kapo for any labourers.’

Fred nodded, wishing he had something to drink. His throat felt as if it were burning.

‘You came here alone?’

‘I did,’ Fred replied. ‘You?’

The man shook his head, his sadness obvious. ‘My wife and two children came too, but they were separated from me when we arrived and I haven’t seen them since. I’m hoping they keep the women and children somewhere nicer.’

Fred refused to let his face fall, coughing to disguise the emotion rising inside of him. The images of the bodies came back to him, the smell inside the room before he was escorted out, the people crying and huddled together, not knowing their fate. He had no doubt that was where this poor man’s family had been taken, but he simply couldn’t tell him. All he’d be doing would be to take away what little hope the man had – any will to survive what they were about to face.

Fred turned away, not able to look him in the eye.

‘Do you think they’ll feed us, since we’re to be working for them?’ the man asked.

And that was when Fred noticed that his striped clothes were hanging from him, his face gaunt, eyes sunken. Unlike Fred with his oversized boots, his feet were bare, the dirt embedded into his skin.

Fred nodded, but in truth, he doubted anything was going to improve for them. There was only one reason Hitler sent anyone to the camps, and Fred was under no illusion that as soon as their labouring skills were no longer needed, they’d be killed too, especially after what he’d just witnessed.

‘Would you like my socks?’ Fred asked, slipping his feet from his boots and giving the man the thicker woollen socks he was wearing.

‘You’re certain?’

Fred nodded. ‘I am. Perhaps we could look out for each other?’

When he put his boots back on, he knew they were so loose that walking would now cause blisters on his heels and toes, if he could even keep them on, but at least this way they’d both avoid their feet from freezing. Although no act of generosity would stop him from feeling guilty about not telling the poor man the truth about his family.

‘Do you know where they’re taking us?’

Fred shook his head. ‘I don’t know. They didn’t tell me anything.’

He closed his eyes and turned his face up to the sky. Wherever it is, I hope it’s better than here.