Aaaiiieee (2 page)

Both of us said nothing for several minutes as we watched others drop one emaciated being after another over the side, like mummies being reinterred, but without the finery. I flicked a louse off my arm; the officer had been right. Parasites. We had called the Jews parasites. Vermin to be exterminated with no more compassion than we would feel spraying insects, or killing rats.

These conversations, philosophical as they were, put me in mind of our motivations as Nazis, brought to mind the analogy of vermin. And seeing the interlaced arms and legs, the entwined skeletal bodies below, made my thoughts take another leap. But a very strange one, unsettling. I shuddered unaccountably; it was the first time staring into the pit, staring at the heaped corpses, actually brought out goose flesh on my arms.

“Have you ever heard,” I asked my new-found friend, “of Rat Kings?”

We looked at each other; he said, “No.”

“My grandmother told me about them. Of course, it’s always grandmothers who tell you such things. In any case, she told me that when rats were more plentiful amongst us than they are today, sometimes in a nest of rats a Rat King would be found. This was a group of say a dozen rats or more, whose tails had all tangled together so that they couldn’t pull apart, with their heads all facing outwards. Because they were stuck together like this they couldn’t move very far, and were often found pitifully starving or already dead. They seemed like many-headed monsters to those who found them, and that was why they were thought of as Rat Kings. Did you know there is a Rat King in
The Nutcracker?
But they call it a Mouse King.”

“Yes…that’s right. But all this about rats with their tails knotted up sounds like wives’ tales and nonsense.”

“Perhaps it is, though my grandmother swore to me that such things were truly discovered. As a child she herself had a neighbor who supposedly found one in their barn consisting of two dozen rats, which was why she told me about all this. It could be that huddling together in the winter, it was their own frozen urine that was linking their tails together. In any case, only the attic rat, as we Germans call them, have been found as Rat Kings. These are the black rats. They’re smaller and more rare than the brown rat…mostly because the bigger and stronger brown rats have preyed on them and diminished their numbers greatly. Nearly wiped them out. The brown rats are the more successful and superior species.”

“An interesting science lesson. But why would only the weaker black rats get bound up into these Rat Kings, then?”

I shrugged, smiled enigmatically. “One of the many mysteries of life, friend.”

The officer drew up closer to me, and thus nearer to the edge of the pit. He gazed down into it on today’s cairn of corpses, one hand cupped over his lower face as a filter. “Here’s a mystery of life for you. I just can not
accept
this. Look at these bodies. So wasted. Many of these men were once muscular and strong. Tanned. Many of these women were lovely, shapely, fussed over their hair. Now they all look the same. Horrid. Are you really
looking
at them? Look at that young girl. See? Look at her posture.”

I looked. Her arms flung, her legs spread. Her patch of pubic hair seemed too large for her skeletal frame. It was so bluntly exposed. Probably swarming with lice. Pubic hair and sunken eye sockets were the black areas that showed up most against all the masses of white torsos and limbs. There was something very disturbing, even I had to admit at that moment, in seeing so many naked figures so shamelessly exposing private parts that in life they would have shyly hidden. Had these same women been alive and healthy, seeing them naked and sprawled on a bed would have aroused me greatly. This motionless orgy of plaited cadavers, however, made me wonder how I would feel the next time a woman spread herself for me. Would memories of these images get in the way of my view? Would I fear that black nest of hair? Fear its smell of rot, and the lice hiding there in wait for me?

I grew irritated with myself. What effect was this delicate British fop having on me? Was I actually letting him stir feelings of guilt in me, with his admonishments?

My contempt for him at this moment gave me the perverse desire to exploit his interest in me further, to manipulate him as he was seeking to manipulate me. I reached out and picked a piece of lint from his jacket’s breast. He stepped back from me, a look of potential alarm in his eyes, but I showed him the lint before I blew it off my fingers. I then lightly patted the place on his breast where I had plucked the lint, as if dislodging some dust that actually wasn’t there.

“A handsome uniform, my friend,” I told him.

“Thank you.”

“It makes me embarrassed for you to see me this way. Filthy, sweaty. I take pride in my appearance. I wish I could talk to you clean and smelling properly, like a human being.”

“I’m sure I prefer you this way. I have no interest in seeing you in your SS uniform.”

“As I say, we both wear uniforms. We both do our jobs. But if we were both naked right now, we would both be the same, wouldn’t we? Not German, not English. Not demon and angel. Just two men. Together. Talking.” And I spread a slow smile for him, like the bearded smile between a woman’s legs.

I saw his adam’s apple bob once. It gave me a weird satisfaction. I felt more in control again, after my stumble of guilt.

“I know you despise me, my friend,” I told him, “but I, in fact, enjoy your company. I respect you and enjoy talking with you. Perhaps this evening after I have bathed and changed I could join you for a cigarette and some more stimulating conversation? Then I would feel less ashamed of my condition.”

“It sounds to me as though you mean to trick me, SS man, and take me off guard. Grab for my pistol. Hold me hostage and try to escape.”

“Oh, come now. Are you afraid of me? We can meet in full view of others. The guards, your men. But if you’d rather not, then so be it…”

“I’ll come and get you. I find you unpleasantly…educational. But if you try anything foolish I promise you I will put a bullet through your head.”

“Thank you. I look forward to conversing with you more as a gentleman.”

“You can bathe and change, sir, but you will still not be a gentleman, and you will still have every right to be ashamed of your condition.”

Yes, I thought, but you’ll still keep that date, won’t you? And your heart will be beating heavier as you come to search me out…

I had no intention of attempting escape. Of inflicting harm on him. As I told you, I just wanted to see if I could use him to my benefit. And I liked to see his adam’s apple bob.

*     *     *

My officer fetched me after dinner, after the sun had set. Lights washed the camp, leaving few dark corners, and he must have felt safe enough to stroll with me. Straight off he had given me one of his cigarettes, and while he lit it for me a soldier patted me down for hidden weapons. As we walked off I asked him, “Did your superiors ask why you were permitting me this pleasant liberty?”

“I told them you were talkative. They asked me to write down what you tell me in my report.”

I laughed. “Will you write about Rat Kings?”

“I may have to, but I was hoping you would tell me more in depth what your people did here and at the other camps. The death camps.”

“I have never been to one of these alleged death camps, sir.”

“Listen, I can take you back and let you be hanged with all your knowledge intact. Or maybe you can be cooperative and make things easier for yourself.”

Ah, so this was how he had justified our date to himself. He was going to question me as part of an investigation. He was going to probe the criminal mind. I remember how amused I was at his desperate attempt to rationalize or excuse his interest in me. As earnestly as I could sound, thus amused, I told him, “Sir, I am only a simple soldier. I acted on orders. The vision I followed was that of men far removed from me. But I can tell you what my responsibilities were, as that soldier. I can cooperate to that extent. But if I am to hang…well…what would be the point in helping you?”

“Your superiors will no doubt hang. I hardly think we will hang every last guard and soldier; we are not barbarians like you fiends are. I was only trying to frighten you.”

“Well, I am relieved. I will help you. But you have to promise to protect me. Please.” I stopped to face him, and he faced me. We were still within view of posted British soldiers, but were too far
for anyone to hear our words. “Please protect me…”

“Write down a full report of your activities here. Everything you learned about operations, your superiors, anything you think would be valuable to us. You’ve seen the film crew. We need to make the world believe this horror really happened. Maybe in some small way you can exonerate yourself.”

“And you will take care of me?”

“I told you; I’ll do all I can.”

I took his hand and clasped it in both of mine. Squeezed it. He stood silhouetted against a flood lamp; had his adam’s apple shifted? “What is your name, my friend?” I asked softly, still holding his hand.

In a hesitant, uncertain voice, he told me. But I will not tell you what he said. He was a fine officer. A good man. I would not want to sully his reputation, even if he might be dead now. I was trying to corrupt him, confuse him. I was finding vulnerable places in him. It is my reputation that should be sullied. I am the one who should feel embarrassed.

We strolled on, smoked another cigarette. He walked, I noticed, so that his holstered revolver was on the far side of him. His nervousness, his tension, was electric in the air but I don’t think he was really nervous that I would assault him.

Why did we walk at last to the pit? Remember, I had become immune to much of the stink of Belsen, but my companion surely hadn’t. I think now that we ended up there because it was as deserted a place as the camp had to offer. It left us in intimacy. And thus far, the pits had been the place of our rendezvous. Like a garden where lovers meet.

This particular pit had not been filled to capacity, that evening, so it had not yet been plowed over by the bulldozers. It gaped as a huge crater, and was black except for the far wall, where one flood beam slanted into it. There were thousands of people down at our feet, and yet we felt alone.

“Here we are, drawn back to the nightmare,” I had to remark. “It fascinates you.”

“It horrifies me! I can’t comprehend it!”

“Yes. But it fascinates you. Just as you find me interesting. Perhaps fascinating.”

“I find you disgusting.”

“But you met me tonight,” I said in a near whisper, stepping so close to the man I’m sure he felt the breath of my words on his cheek.

I heard him swallow. It amused me, but I think my game of seduction had begun to consume me, really. By projecting those
energies toward him, I believe I had actually started to become aroused by the game. His reactions to my manipulation were giving me a very odd gratification. My attempt to dominate him was resembling those times I had coaxed some young girl out of her virginity. The desire in her, but the fear. Then the succumbing…

I am not a homosexual. And yet, at that moment, a hungry warmth spread through my lower body and it was almost dizzying. So I reacted to it, without thinking. If I thought anything at all, I suppose I justified  my actions to myself as an attempt to seduce him utterly, so that he would let no harm come to me. That’s what I told myself then. But I know now it was the warmth in my belly.

What I did, you see, was step even closer to him, and press my lips onto his lips. I reached one hand down to lightly cup his testicles. My tongue began to slide into his mouth, where the taste of our cigarettes mingled.

But it was only an instant, and then the blow under my jaw sent my head back with a snap. I had bitten my tongue badly. Light filled my vision as if a spotlight had fallen on my face. In his fury, the officer had struck me with incredible force.

Thus dazed, I stumbled back from him. And in stumbling back, I toppled into the pit.

I rolled down the dirt incline. Then I sprawled on my belly across the floor of the pit. And the floor of the pit was an ocean of bodies. An ocean of stench. Totally dark. It was more the bottom of an ocean, and the stench was drowning me, filling my lungs. One of my boots had wedged between several bent limbs, and in thrusting out my hand it slipped off a set of ribs and slid into a space between bodies so that my arm became buried to the shoulder. I grunted, spat blood, fought to extricate my arm and roll over, tangled as I was.

A hand brushed my cheek. It was light, a caress, then gone. But I hadn’t imagined it. In my fall I had caused the heaped bodies to shift, I thought…for a body then flopped onto the backs of my legs. It must have tumbled from a bit higher up the slope.

I couldn’t hear the officer up there. Had he stormed off in disgust, embarrassed, enraged? Had he thought I deserved nothing more than to be left down here, where a monster like me belonged? I had not been able to roll over yet to look. As I struggled to do so, another body sprawled onto my back and the back of my head, pressing my face down against flesh. Pressing my lips against flesh. I made a convulsive effort, at that point, to jerk my buried arm free.

I jerked, but it resisted. Something down below me in the heap had snagged the cuff of my sleeve.

Fingers, it must be…bent into claws in death, I thought. The idea horrified me; hooked claws or not, I should be able to rip my arm free. But I couldn’t when I tried again. And now a terrifying idea came to me. A vision born of my growing desperation as it approached panic. I imagined that it wasn’t fingers that had caught hold of my sleeve…but teeth.

A hand slid across the left side of my face, one finger trailing teasingly into my ear as it went, and I screamed.

I rolled onto my back with a surge of strength, a burst of adrenaline, and in so doing it seemed I upset an entire hill of corpses looming just beside me, for the hill then toppled over me, and what I saw of the night sky for a moment was eclipsed when I was suddenly and utterly buried beneath a languid, rubbery avalanche of the dead.