My stomach curdles and burns. I twist my legs together and reset my focus to the straw mattress beneath me, moving my hands to my ears to block out some of the screaming. I clench my eyes, but the image is still present. The muffled screams stop, and I release the pressure over my ears slowly. I won’t look back toward the partition…
“He’s dead now,” the boy utters. I tilt my head in his direction, wondering how his voice is so calm. “Those are the screams that always end suddenly.”
They’re numb to it. How many times have they heard that scream? How many times has Rosalie? Even from the other side of the entrance. She must realize what she was forced to send me into. It explains the look in her eyes, the fear that has multiplied since the last time I truly saw her here, outside my mind’s eye.
What has she seen? Or witnessed?
What if that becomes me?
Is that why I’m here?
So I won’t procreate children who may end up with the same condition as me?
The eugenics sterilization program the Reich started in 1939—it never ended as they said it did in 1941. The fear has never subsided. But the proof has been hidden here in barracks like this. The Reich’s only ploy is to remove the “broken” and multiply those of the so-called greater race. The Aryans.
Why would they let Rosalie witness this? It’s obvious they plan to kill me, but I also know what they do with people who know too much. I’m supposed to be protecting her, I promised, but instead, it’s she who has protected me, and all it seems I’m doing is leading her right into a lion’s mouth.
“Do they all die?” I ask the boy.
He shakes his shaven head. “No. They don’t do that to everyone. Everyone is different. Uncle Pepi has a different use for each of us.”
“Uncle Pepi?” I repeat.
“That’s what people call the doctor in charge. He’s brought us chocolate before.”
The words keep spinning around my head, forcing me to question if I’m hearing things or distorting them somehow.
A nurse, a woman with blonde hair pinned beneath her white cap, stops in front of my bunk with a clipboard in her left hand, and holds out her right hand toward me. “Arm,” she demands.
I slip my arm out from behind my chin and stretch it toward her, my fingers unsteady, a tremor in my wrist.
“1705—” she mutters my number. “Come with me.”
My body is limp as I pull myself forward to swivel out of this hole. I follow the blonde woman into the partitioned room. The man is gone. In his place, blood. On the table and floor. Thenurse grabs a rag from a hook on the back of the door and soaks up the blood, smearing it from one side to the other until the metal table gleams through a blur of smudges. Where did the man go?
The room is hardly large enough for two people, never mind three—the doctor, Uncle Pepi, I assume, standing in the far corner with another clipboard. Black-rimmed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose, a gap between his two front teeth that he’s pressing his tongue against as he jots down notes. I might vomit. I’m not sure what will come up, but my body is giving up on me. Maybe I’ll pass out. That might be best.
“This is an easy one to start with,” the doctor says, a lisp evident. “Seizures are caused by a lack of food and sleep deprivation. We’ve already got that here.” The doctor laughs at his own attempt to joke. “How often do you experience seizures?”
Is there a right answer?
“I don’t have seizures. I’m not sure what you’re asking.”
“There is a report stating you seized during farm labor last week outside the isolation barrack.”
“I was weak from hunger and shivering from the cold.”
The doctor peers at his notes again, his glasses slipping down his nose more. “I also have a note here stating that Phenobarbital was found in your pocket upon arrival at the gates—a prescription with your name. Phenobarbital is most used as an anticonvulsant—a treatment for seizures.”
“That prescription was to help me sleep,” I utter another lie. Lie after lie, and I sense it’s too late for that.
“Intriguing—I’ve never considered such a strong drug for insomnia.” He squints and stares up in thought. “In any case, you’ve been withdrawing from this…strong medicine for,” he flutters his lips and stares past me for a moment. “About two months. You should be clean at this point.”
“What are you looking for?” My question is out of turn, means for punishment, or worse, but I just saw a man die from castration. It’s my choice to know what comes next.
He waves his hand around, his pen woven between his fingers. “A slurry of things. Answers scientists and doctors haven’t found in people like you. A defective gene perhaps, something that can be carried on through generations. Which is just a shame. You’re a good looking fellow, symmetrical features—rare for a Jew.”
“As I’m sure you know, insomnia can be caused by many determinants, most of which don’t point to a defective gene,” I say, my voice wavering in volume—my unease clearer than it should be.
