I’ve worked plenty of construction jobs throughout my life, but never alone. I don’t know if they realize this isn’t a one-person task…or if they just don’t care.
Probably the latter.
The last rafters will go in over the next few days, then I can move onto the roof decking—solid cover instead of a tarp that traps heat and barely keeps out the rain.
The floor beneath me shivers as heavy steps trudge up the stairwell. Must be Oskar making his rounds. He steps in through the doorless entryway in his matching uniform, a clipboard in hand, and a scowl he can’t seem to erase. “What is your progress?”
I stare at him, wondering why he can’t take his eyes off his notes to look up and figure it out himself. “Still working on the rafters,” I say, pointing to the unfinished back right side.
“You should be finished with the rafters,” he says.
I fold my arms across my chest, feeling a pull in my shoulders and a heaviness weighing on my knees. “The timber was just delivered a week ago. I didn’t have all the necessary tools until three days ago. With proper tools and materials, a person working alone should be able to install three or four rafters a day. I’ve gotten a maximum of five up in the hours I’m here, even on the days I had to come up with makeshift supports. Do you have a suggestion on a way to save time? I’m sure you’re aware that poor quality and skipped steps could cause the house to collapse beneath us.”
I’m starving, tired, sore, and weak too, but no one cares about that. Especially not a privileged kapo who receives extra daily rations for marching around with a clipboard in his hand.
Oskar takes a slow step forward, drumming his fingers along the brim of the clipboard. “Are you questioning me?” he growls.
I should have kept my mouth shut. My throat closes around another response in defense—instinct, but I keep it buried within me.
He grabs my wrist, digging his fingernails into my flesh, and bares his teeth at me. I was terrified of this man when I first arrived at this house in May. Now, I see him as a coward, but a coward who can still have me killed before I have the chance to fall asleep tonight. He holds the power, not me. We’re all afraid to die, or to make a wrong move. Even him. He just doesn’t want the rest of us to know he’s no better than us. But I see it.
“Thirty minutes,” he hisses. “Be out front and ready to leave.”
The calluses on my hands burn against the railing as I head down the steep stairs as a heart-wrenching cry bounces between the walls, growing louder the closer I get to the baby’s nursery. I glance into the room, finding her in Halina’s arms, thrashing her tiny arms, fists clenched, and her face red as a tomato.
A smashing crack echoes from within the room, a fist against a wall or furniture. “I said, quiet her!” Frau Schäfer shouts. She must be sitting in the rocking chair in the far corner of the room just watching Halina struggle. “You have no idea what this is doing to my head. How many times a day do I have to tell you I suffer from horrific headaches?”
I hesitate in the hallway as I catch sight of Halina, her high-set rosy cheekbones and soft expression along her porcelain skin. Her tawny hooded eyes, fringed with long lashes, carry a silent plea for help as she spots me. I don’t know how she’s gone four days like this but the look in her eyes tonight, it’s different from the last time I saw her. It’s as if her armor has cracked.
If I could help her, I would, but she’s not mine to protect. But someone should. I’d step right in front of her and tell that awful woman she’s an unfit mother and doesn’t deserve the affluence she claims as if earned. I’d take the baby from Halina’s arms and tell her to take a break.
Halina curls the baby into her chest a little tighter, the infant swatting at Halina’s tensed collarbone. Hair has fallen loose from her braid, the struggle clearly wearing her out. She breaks her pleading gaze from mine and returns her attention across the room. “I followed your instructions,” Halina tells Frau Schäfer.
I head down the main stairwell, wishing I could have given her better advice in the few short moments we exchanged words. There’s no proper way to prepare someone for what they’ll experience here.
Outside, to the right of the house, in a dirt pit road. Half of the other prisoners have already formed two lines, one for men and the other for women. Two other houses on the short street are occupied by SS officers as well and require a set of prisoners to aid them with various tasks. Some of us are shared between houses depending on the work—like Adam.
Oskar, and Sylvia, the kapo responsible for the women prisoners, stare at us in our respective lines, clipboards in position, waiting for just one of us to arrive a second too late. Adam and I have concluded that they must be rewarded for every infraction they report. Something must be benefiting them to enjoy ratting us out as much as they do.
A middle-aged man is the last to arrive. He reminds me of Pa, still shows a sense of strength, but must be fighting through each day with every bit of strength he has left inside of him. He looks like Pa too, with his sad eyes and dimpled chin. He was assigned work on this street a week after I was. He’s been brought here to chop wood for a winter stockpile for all three houses.
If Pa were with me, I wonder if he’d be working here too? I’m glad my family isn’t here, and I hope they’ve still been spared. Each morning, I question the likelihood of if it will be the day I find out about my family, or news the war is ending, or—the Jews are being set free, but no one hears good news here. Or any news at all, for that matter.
Oskar steadies his stare on his watch, waiting for the older man to step into line one second too late. The man tries to hurry his step, but stumbles on a knotted root. He manages to catch his bearings and slips into the line, but I can’t avoid the thought running through my head. He won’t last much longer. He’s just on time, but Oskar steps forward anyway and backhands him, a biting clap that makes the man’s cheek split. Blood trickles. “I’ll let your tardiness slide today,” Oskar says while jotting down a note on his paper.
The middle-aged man doesn’t make a sound, just straightens his shoulders and prepares to keep going.
I clench my fists, my heart pounding with rage. I swallow hard and Adam nudges me in the back. “Don’t do it,” he whispers.
Together, we shuffle forward between the trees, careful not to trip on our own feet in the growing darkness, waiting for the glow of watchtower lights to guide us toward the front gates.
An SS Officer stands just ahead, clipboard in hand, his shadow stretching across the dirt and gravel. He waves forward the two kapos with a stiff hand gesture, then collects their reports. He scans each of our numbers as we pass by, slow, with a threatening purpose.
The center square is crowded with new arrivals, their dirt-smudged faces are sunburned and, glistening with sweat. Each one of them, still unsuspecting of what lies ahead while a suitcase dangles from their white-knuckled grips. Mothers cling to their children while the elderly waver from toe to heel. And Ihate that I search each person, praying I don’t spot my brothers or parents among these crowds. “This is hell,” I say.
“At least they don’t know yet,” Adam whispers.
No one ever knows until it’s too late. Not until the screaming begins. By then, it’s too late to do anything but plead for the end.
