Hidden Away (31 page)

“That you’re cooking yourself.”

 

“Yes. What’s your point? The meatloaf’s done, I have to go.”

 

He lingers a bit before saying, “Well, have fun.”

T
HE
food is on the table and cooling when Kurt shows up. I rise from my spot on the porch and crush the cigarette. For a moment I’d thought he wouldn’t come, but here he is.

He is rubbing the scar through the fabric of his white shirt. Kurt looks handsome, but I wish he’d bring his eyes up to meet mine.

“Good evening.”

 

“Hi.” I wait for him to step through the door, but he doesn’t. “Will you come in?”

With a quick glance up, he gives me a shy smile, and moves into my home. I reach out and take his hand on impulse, but nearly drop it when I hear his sharp intake of breath. Maybe I’m being too forward or assuming too much, but if this is a date, then touching him should be a part of the package. I keep my hold on him, tightening my fingers, as I lead him to the kitchen table.

“Are you hungry?”

 

Pulling his hand from mine, he does the hats off motion as he surveys the food.

“Please don’t do that,” I say. When I realize my request makes him even more uncomfortable, I explain. “It makes me feel like you think I’m like them. I’m not, Kurt. I swear, I’m a nice man.”

He lightly touches the tabletop, fingertips rubbing against the polished wood. He won’t look at me still. I want to have his gaze on me, but I don’t know how to accomplish that and prove to him that I’m gentle at the same time.

“I know.”
I barely hear him. “What?”
“I know you are a nice man. You are not like

them, but there are things that have been beaten into me that I can’t get rid of. I wish I could.” Slowly he trails his eyes over my body, starting with my feet and ending with my eyes. “I don’t want to be frightened of everything. Of you.”

I picture myself pulling him into my arms, my lips pressed against his until they open so I can taste him. I can’t help my goofy smile, so I bite down on my bottom lip.

The distance between us is awkward but necessary.
“Are you hungry?” I ask again.

“Yes, I am.”
“You’re always so formal.”
“I beg your pardon?”
I chuckle. “When you want to say ‘yes’, try

saying ‘yeah’.”
“Ja is yes in German. I am trying to fit in, so I
should say ‘yes’.”
I motion to the chair beside him, then sit

down in my own. “Okay, I see your point, but instead of saying ‘I beg your pardon’, say ‘excuse me?’ It accomplishes the same thing, but makes you sound more relaxed.”

“Like I belong?” he asks.
“Yeah. Like you belong.”
“Is this the mean meatloaf?”

“No, I made kind meatloaf just for you.” I’m pleased when I see his bashful smile. “Would you care for wine?”

“No, thank you.”
“Do you mind if I have some?”
“Please do.”
After I pour my wine and serve the food, I

say, “I was beginning to think you never smile.”

It’s the wrong thing to say because any joy fades from his expression. He scoots his chair back and focuses on his hands in his lap.

“What?” I ask. “What did I say that hurts you?”

 

He shakes his head, so I urge him, “Please tell me. I don’t want to cause you pain.”

It takes him a minute, but he answers. “Peter said something similar to me when we first met. He thought I never smiled.”

“How did you meet?”
“He was a violinist from Berlin and came to Vienna to play the same concert as I. He was quite accomplished, and I was very intimidated to be on

stage with him. Before him, I thought I’d loved music, but I really hadn’t. It was Peter who released the passion within me.”

Irrational jealousy boils in my heart hearing of Peter releasing Kurt’s passion. I squash the emotion as best I can, and we eat our meal in near silence. I drink two glasses of wine before asking, “How do you like the meatloaf?”

“It is a nice food. Very kind. I enjoy it.”

His words lighten my mood. I stand up and drop my napkin on the table, then take his hand again. Out on the porch, I sit across from him. “I like when you talk.”

Kurt furrows his brow before dropping his gaze again.

“Will you tell me about Peter?” I might be asking for too much—from Kurt and from myself— but it is clear to me now that in order to know him, I need to know about the man for whom he grieves.

He doesn’t speak at first, but then I remember what Adéle said about being a statue and waiting for the little mouse. So I sit in silence, waiting for Kurt.

Chapter 16

 

Mauthausen, Austria
1942
“M
AY
I write a letter?”
“Pardon me?” the commandant asked after fastening his trousers.

“A letter. Some of the other prisoners are allowed to write their families and receive packages from home.”

“Not queers or Jews. I’m fairly certain that’s a pink triangle you wear.” His voice was not harsh, but it felt like a fist. “Out of curiosity, Inmate, who would you write to?”

He never called me by my name. I was always Inmate, Prisoner, or Queer to him. I never said his name or title; only Sir. Although I knew some of the guards and officers’ names, I never said them. They were animals, no,
worse
than animals. The SS didn’t deserve names.

I turned back to the piano and began to play again. “I would write to my aunt. My mother.”

“Who would want to read a letter from their filthy queer son? I’m sure your family disowned you as soon as they realized you were a degenerate.”

I wanted to ask him how his sexual relationship with me was any better. By the calendar on the wall, I knew I’d been coming to this room for nearly two months, and nearly every day we engaged in sex. Wouldn’t his perversion of misusing power make him more of a degenerate than just a homosexual?

His boots on the floorboards were loud against the silence. Papers were sorted and crinkled, and then he said, “According to your file, it was your uncle who turned you in.”

I missed a note in the Tchaikovsky piece I played. My whole body felt weak. My arms were nothing more than thin strings of yarn, waiting to be woven into something.

My uncle turned me in. He was responsible for my suffering. And ultimately Peter’s.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but the revelation still hurt. Had he known I would be raped? Had he known my lover would be starved and beaten?

“Why would your uncle want a letter from you?” he asked when he was near enough to touch me.

I ignored the tickling sensation of his fingers at the base of my neck. “He wouldn’t.”

 

“Are you hungry?”

I could’ve laughed at the question. Of course I was hungry. I didn’t know anyone in a striped uniform that wasn’t—even the kapos who stole food from lesser prisoners were starving.

A
FTER
eating, I fell into line at roll call. No punishments were meted out, so it was only an hour long. Back at the barracks, Peter looked so forlorn.

Now that we had a new kapo—a French political prisoner by the name of Jules who didn’t care about sexuality—I could touch my Peter freely as long as we were in the barracks. I recognized the new kapo as a clerk in the headquarters outside the walls.

I ran a finger over the sharp bone of his cheek. He’d grown weaker as the rattle in his chest became more pronounced. Peter was usually up all night coughing. Each night, he would make me promise not to let them take him to the sick barrack, and every night I kissed his knuckles and gave my word.

Tonight, he did not ask for assurance. He said, “You are my only sanity.”

 

“Peter, I—”

“I know what you do with the man in the uniform.” Peter’s voice was soft, not accusatory as it had been with Konrad. “I will make him bleed. It will be a concerto of his blood spilling, a sonata of bashed brains against the dirt, an opus—”

I shushed him quickly. Since Konrad’s death, no one had made many inquiries, and no one had accused Peter. But if he kept speaking like this, someone would guess his guilt.

He stared at me, a mindless smile slowly curving his lips. “I want to make love to you.” “We’ll get out of here soon and make love on the beaches of France.”

Peter shook his head. “Those are lies. I don’t want them. I want the truth of you in my arms, our bodies singing together like they have in the past.”

“Tonight, we can—”

“No. I don’t want to rub against you. I don’t want to pretend to make love.” Both his hands cupped my face as his voice grew louder. “I want to be inside of you.”

Aware of the others in the room, most of them willing to rat on another for food, I pulled away. “Shhhh. Peter, everyone’s listening and watching. We must be careful. We must—”

“I want to see my sister again.”

I rubbed my hands over my eyes and clenched my jaw. He made frequent jumps in thoughts these days. “You will, but it’s time to sleep now.”

In the morning, I stopped Peter from lining up outside Block 10. “You almost missed this one. Then where would we be?” I asked as I buttoned the top button of his tunic.

Prisoners were beaten when considered out of uniform. Our new barrack elder had not shown himself to be that type of man, but we were about to go before the SS, and they took great pleasure in torturing prisoners for small offenses.

Peter took my hands in his and held them tightly to his chest. He said nothing at first, then, answering my question, he smiled. “Dead.”

“No.” I wriggled my hands out of his hold and moved into line, then nodded him over to do the same. “We’re going to an island in the south of France to lie on the beach in nothing but our skin.”

Once behind me, he placed his hands on my hips until I removed them out of fear. “You have lovely dreams,” he said. “Remember when we played together in Vienna?”

We marched to the square, but he kept speaking. My gut clenched as we fell into rows of ten and he still murmured. “Shhh.”

When the counting officer came by, Peter took off his hat immediately. Pain and fear had etched those habits into all of us, and today I was grateful for it. But while Peter’s body mechanically obeyed the rules of roll call with little interference from his fragile mind, I still worried for him. Before the end of the assembly, I shushed him twice. If I could hear him singing, so could others.

As was now routine, Emil took over for me as we parted ways. He helped Peter stay in line, but I knew he would have little control over his mouth. I worried what my lover would say to his foreman or the SS at the quarry.

At the commandant’s office, I sat at the piano for more than an hour staring at the keys. He was not here—the first time that had ever happened. I dared not snoop around. There was no information I needed that would be worth the risk of being caught. My caution paid off when he entered the room, followed by another man in uniform.

The commandant snapped his fingers at me. I began to play.

 

“Oh, dear God. You have a prisoner in your office?” The man’s voice was light, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“Yes.”
“Just to play piano?”
“Yes.”

“How can you stand to be in the same room with one?” Footsteps approached me. The man flicked my ear. “They smell.”

“He has talent.”

The man turned and leaned against the keys of the piano, his backside ruining Beethoven’s Pathétique. I did not allow my hands to stop though. I kept playing, just changing key as the man looked down on me. Obviously seeing my pink triangle, he said to the commandant, “Ass-fucker talent.”

Something knocked against wood behind me, and then I heard the commandant clear his throat. When he spoke, his voice was hard and authoritarian. “That is not the talent that interests me.”

The other one pushed off the piano, used his hand to shove my head to the side, then moved away. I dragged in a shaky breath as I heard his footsteps retreat behind me. Eyes down, I continued to play.

“I should hope not. Hitler and Himmler are sending queer SS to the camps themselves. How long do you think they last?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Not long, I should think. Imagine how disgusting it would be to see them arrive in their uniforms and to know their perversion led them to soil it.”

“So you’ve been to other camps you’ve said?”

“Yes. Some of them are real shitholes, but I like yours. Headquarters are outside the walls here. Other places I had to walk among the prisoners.”

A flying object hit my right shoulder and knocked me forward. The music faltered, but I didn’t look around to see what had hit me. I heard it thud to the floor but focused on picking up the song again.

“Stop that,” my commandant said. “He can’t play when you’re throwing paperweights at him.”

The other man sighed deeply. I heard the leather davenport squeak and saw him sprawled out of the corner of my eye. “They’re tattooing at Auschwitz now. They have so many prisoners they have to tattoo them when they enter the camps. Well, at least those fit to work. The rest are just liquidated without the fuss.”

They were silent until I changed pieces. In the beginning notes of Mozart’s Piano Sonata Number 11, the leather squeaked again, boots on the wooden floor came closer, and the man’s voice was next to me. “At least he’s not a Jew.”

He placed a hand on my head. He pulled it to the left, then to the right. I kept playing, even when he moved his hand to my jaw, turning and squeezing so I’d open my mouth. I focused on the collar of his Nazi jacket. The man pinched at my cheeks, pressed his thumbs into my cheekbones to move the skin and flesh away from my eyes as he studied me.