He shakes his head, distinctly, refusing. Disorientation can last a while after a seizure depending on how bad it was. I know this. I learned this from him. It must have just happened. He’s not thinking correctly.
I use the sleeve of my smock and wipe away some of the blood on his mouth as the metal from the clipboard pinches between the bunk and my chest. The exterior door creaks. A reminder that Weyman is counting the minutes, waiting for me to move quickly.
“You need to stand. You must.”
His face crumples with pain. “Can’—”
I move my mouth closer to his ear. “You must. There’s no other option. You understand?”
His eyes steady on me, focusing more, as if my words are coming through clearly now. He struggles to move his hands beneath his chest but manages to push himself up. The effort steals his breath, possibly every breath in his lungs. His arms shake as he maneuvers himself to roll off the side of the bed.
I step down and back up, allowing him more space as he nearly crumbles to the ground.
“Efficient.” The word, cold and brazen, traveling from the door. “Preference is unwise, Fräulein Kaufman.”
Weyman’s voice hits me like a boulder shattering against concrete. I twist, peering over my shoulder toward the door, finding him watching me, not the line. He scratches something down on a notepad then steps back and slams the door shut.
What have I done?
My lungs grow cold asStefan catches a wooden beam and digs his fingernails into the soft wood, managing to hold himself upright. I peel the clipboard away from chest and mark him as “fit” despite Weyman accusing me of giving Stefan preferential treatment. He couldn’t see which prisoner I was interacting with. He was too far away. It could have been any one of them. I must believe this. He will punish me, me alone. I can take it.
“Good. You’re all right. You’ll be fine,” I whisper to Stefan. Will he? Where did he have the seizure? Who saw?
His nostrils flare and lips shiver. He can see the truth in my eyes. I can feel it. We both know he’s not fine.
My eyes close for a blink, imagining him smiling, making a joke, teasing me until I throw an insult back at him. That man is still in this body, but all I see are flesh and bones. “I love you,” I say so softly, I’m not sure even he could hear me.
I turn away as my eyes fill with tears. I can’t wipe them away. I can’t touch my face. They’ll just streak, leave marks along the ash that’s caked along my flesh throughout the day. I still need to finish the remainder of the list, but my heart thrashes against my ribcage, knowing Weyman will be scrutinizing my decisions, even though at least half of the men in this barrack didn’t respond to their number.
And there aren’t two lines.
Only one.
Moving back and forth between the Auschwitz compounds and the Weyman residence feels much like straddling a thin line between summer and winter. Warmth greets us at the front door of his house because there’s never a lack of firewood, or dry heat escaping the kitchen’s oven. The clamminess along my palms burns from carbolic solution I scrubbed my hands and face with to disinfect after leaving the isolation barrack. My face must be red and splotchy, too.
The scent of clean linen, polished wood, a hint of lemon and lavender, all of which are subdued by a pungent assault of perfume, anger me. It’s all for the sake of living in denial. Perfume can’t conceal death.
I wonder if his wife and children smell Auschwitz on us when we step inside at the end of the day. Musty bodily waste, sweat, blood, and rotting corpses. “After my family’s greetings, you’ll wash,” he utters.
That’s all he’s said to me since leaving Auschwitz. Not a word about preferential treatment.
As usual, I stand back by the entrance as their family’s evening greetings commence in the middle of the foyer. A loving homecoming after a brutally long day of torturing people.
Does Stefan remember the way I used to smell? Can he recall that type of memory? Can anyone there? The sight of his unfocused eyes, and blood seeping out of his mouth flash through my mind, curdling what little remains in my stomach.
Lotte, Weyman’s golden-haired, blue-eyed wife with their infant baby cradled in her arm, doesn’t even twitch upon offering her husband a kiss hello. Her gaze shifts to me, eyes narrowing ever so slightly before returning her attention toWeyman. “How was work, dear?” If there weren’t a handful of prisoners from Auschwitz working mindlessly throughout the rooms of this house, I’d think Lotte is an ideal wife and mother of four with how put together she always appears.
Every night, she asks her husband how work was even though she must know exactly what he spends his day doing.
“Good. Productive,” he says, his stare grazing past her to me. His eye twitches, a hint of what he hasn’t forgotten from today. But his words, they’re lies his family expects to hear.
Never mind the bodies. The screams. How many innocent people were sent to their death in a matter of hours. Wouldn’t want the children to know he’s incapable of thinking for himself or being anything but the monster he is.
“I won an award at school today, Father,” Claude, Weyman’s only son says, holding up a brass statue of an eagle with its pointy wings, prodding into his fingers, the swastika shining as if polished the occasion. “Most prompt salutes this week.” He’s seven and I’ve declared him ill with potato-rot—a deteriorating state-of-mind caused by naive admiration.
“Well done, son. That’s a fine quality to be acknowledged for. But you didn’t salute me upon my arrival.” Weyman raises a brow and crosses his arms over his chest.
Claude snaps upright, straightens his shoulders and slices his hand through the air, fingers and arm straighter than an arrow. “Heil Hitler,” he barks.
