Playing for Time (16 page)

His friend had a warm southern accent.

“When he knew you were here, poor lad, he went so pale that I thought it was the end. Then he began to talk and talk. He wrote this weeks ago, but he couldn’t find anyone to bring it to you. He’d gone on about it so much that when I knew I was coming here, I brought the note for him, and that’s the story.”

The bridge of his nose looked as though it were about to tear through his skin, his striped cap made him look like a convict; he wasn’t handsome now and he never had been. But he was bringing me everything I lacked—men, love, my country. I’d have liked to kiss him and my eyes filled with tears, which he no doubt misinterpreted; but he would pass the good news back to Leon and so, this evening, Leon would be happy.

Here, love was in short supply like everything else. Here one didn’t love in a very romantic fashion. Clara, who’d lost all modesty, had become a
kapo’s
girl; Lotte, with her protruding stomach and hidden charms all too visibly available, sickened us all. In this setting, the few lines from Leon took on an unexpected value, became especially precious; I would have liked to keep them, but it would have been risking death. So I opened the stove and, before destroying the letter, held it screwed up in the palm of my hand, warmed by my warmth. Then I threw it in; it caught fire almost immediately and turned unexpectedly into a bright vision of horror. The crematoria were so close!

Furious bellowings from Alma cut short my musings. What was happening? Once again, with long-armed violence, Alma had slapped Florette, who was standing defiantly before her, white with anger. Seething, our
kapo
declared that Florette’s stupidity and ineptitude made her head ache; then she marched rapidly back into her room.

Florette’s face was red and swollen, bearing the imprint of Alma’s fingers; she was weeping amid the almost general hostility, snivelling like a little girl. The day was starting off badly and everyone blamed her.

Alma called me to her room. She claimed that her head felt terrible, and it must have been severe migraine because she was lying on her bed. I didn’t feel the slightest desire to alleviate it. I’d rather have returned her intolerable, unfair slap. Yet I began gently to massage her temples with my fingertips.

She closed her eyes, her hands lying close to her body, misleadingly relaxed. For some days now Alma had been particularly edgy, oddly distracted. She would leave us at attention for long stretches as if she were unaware of our very existence. When I put a new score on her desk, she would take no notice, then pick it up mechanically; the girls would hardly have begun sight-reading it than she would raise her baton, shouting
“Ruhe! Ruhe!
That’s enough. Start again!” The result was abysmal; it was as though sounds reached her with delayed action, because she stopped the cacophony only after a few bars. Then at last she would emerge from her daydream, rant and rage, throw her baton at a player’s head, slap whoever might be playing worst, complain of a headache, and stop the rehearsal. What could she be so worried about?

“One can’t make music without discipline. It’s incomprehensible to me that that girl can’t accept a slap she’s deserved.”

“Why should she accept it from you?”

Alma drew herself up in amazement.

“What? But it’s reasonable, it’s my right. I’m here to make music, not to indulge in sentimentality. You French are so irresponsible, you seem to forget that there’s a time for everything; you confuse work and play, you mix everything up, and worst of all you put emotions in where they don’t belong. It’s not dishonourable to be slapped or hit with a baton by your conductor, indeed you ought to be glad. It’s not an insult, it’s a lesson. When I was young, I was often punished for wrong notes, and I always thought that that was right. In Germany, it is traditional for the conductor to mete out corporal punishment to his musicians. The great Furtwangler did so. Once, there was a great scandal, which I personally witnessed. The first violinist fell ill and was replaced by a Frenchman. Twice Furtwangler pointed something out to him and the third time, for the same mistake, he slapped him. The Frenchman slapped Furtwangler back. Now, how could that be right?” The memory clearly still outraged her. “The same mistake three times—some such action becomes inevitable, don’t you think? The Frenchman didn’t agree, but that’s absurd. After all, we’re the best musicians in the world. Without discipline, your orchestras will never be able to rival ours. One can’t make good music without obedience. And here it’s so difficult with these imbeciles, they feel no love!”

She meant love of music, of course. Did she realize what she was saying? Her anger mounted, her hands worked nervously.

“In a word, we must do our work properly; the officers must be satisfied. That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?”

No, Alma! We are here to die, we are all just temporarily reprieved, orchestra included. I was beginning to regard her as a real monster. I gritted my teeth to keep silent.

Alma got up and paced nervously up and down the room. Incredibly, her dark eyes burned with a sort of desperate passion which moved me despite myself.

“Sit down and listen to me. Do you think I don’t see anything? You’re wrong. I
won’t
see anything. I refuse.”

She leant forward, took me by the shoulders, then let me go and stood up. There was a moment of indecision. Then she began to talk and her French, usually excellent, began to fail her, becoming patchy and jumbled: “You don’t understand! None of you understand! I mustn’t be like the rest of you, perpetually softhearted, I have to be hard.
Ach,
if I spent my time pitying those who were being gassed, if I thought that all of you could go up in smoke just like that”—she clicked her fingers—“then I would sit in a heap and cry.”

She clasped her thin hands convulsively till the bones whitened at the joints. I wondered whether it was the selections or the possible death of the orchestra that caused her the most despair. I was amazed to see her like that, no longer mistress of her thoughts or words. She sat down on the edge of the bed in front of me, her knees touching my own.

“The railway in front of our door is a horrible thing. They should never have done that, they should respect our block, respect music. These trains are a strain; if I looked at the people getting out of the carriages, as you do, if I cried at the sight of such young children, I’d never, never be able to manage my orchestra. Yesterday morning, during the
Blocksperre,
I stayed in my room. You were all at the windows, glued to them morbidly like flies.”

It was my turn to become impatient: “Yes, we dared to look, and we were upset: three-quarters of the people were dead, taken out of the train by the shovelful. There were little children running around and crying for their parents. I stared like that so as not to forget what the Nazis have done, so as to tell the world! So that they’ll be damned forever!”

“I’ve been keeping a close eye on the transports to see whether there are any good musicians,” she said slowly. “You’re as stupid as all the rest! If I let myself luxuriate in the general mood I wouldn’t be able to hold out any longer and we’d all produce bad music. Commandant Kramer and Mandel would do away with the orchestra. Now I’ll come back to what you said about the Germans. When I arrived at the camp, I realized that Nazi society wasn’t good, this aspect of it, I mean. Disorder was ruining my country; it needed a leader. As I told you, I didn’t know anything about politics, but I did approve of the coming of Hitler. Only, when the Jews began to be hunted, I became worried. Why destroy us? We were Germans like the rest. The Nazis said nothing to me: I gave concerts freely, that was how I managed to go to Holland. And that’s where I was imprisoned; I was almost immediately deported, without going back to Germany, without being able to inform my father. Perhaps he’s still playing.

“My arrival at the camp was very upsetting. I didn’t go through quarantine, they put me in the experimental block. I went into a huge room, very clean, almost like a hospital, with women lying on beds; I didn’t understand, I wasn’t ill. They made me undress and put me to bed. I still didn’t feel too anxious. Why should I, I hadn’t done anything wrong. One thing did worry me, though: the number tattooed on my arm, which seemed to me somehow ignominious. I was shy, I didn’t dare question the women. I could see quite clearly, from the way they looked at me, that I was incapable of making myself liked. That’s something I’ve never been able to do. Finally, without my having to ask, my neighbour on the right volunteered: ”Every morning an SS comes in with a list, he calls out numbers and the women on it
get
up and go through that door over there. Very few come back; in fact I’ve never seen any, but apparently some have managed. It seems that they all die, during or after the experiments: horrible surgical operations without anaesthetics.“ What operations? She didn’t know. Everyone was waiting and dreading their turn, I too. And yet I found it hard to believe. After the SS had been in, one was left in peace for the day. I don’t know how many days I stayed there. I missed my violin, I’d have liked to have it by me like a baby. One day a new SS came in. He seemed to be looking for someone, and it was me. Are you Alma, the violinist?”

“Yes, Herr Offizier.”

“Then follow me.”

I left that room without a backward glance, and entered a wooden hut, heated, with well-dressed girls holding musical instruments. We looked at one another in silence. It was all so odd. I hadn’t known of the existence of this—well, orchestra. A coarse, hefty woman with an arm band displaying a white lyre informed me in bad German that she was the conductor, Polish, and a descendant of the great Tchaikowsky. Taken aback, I asked her to repeat herself; but after all, the whole thing wasn’t so surprising. We Germans value music, we’re a musical people, so why not an orchestra? The SS officer returned with a very fine violin for me. Fania, when I touched it, I was crying. Like you the day you ran to the piano.“

I was amazed she’d noticed and remembered.

“Play,” he ordered. I played and played, oblivious of my surroundings, and totally happy. I was no longer among savages, I had a violin and I had been asked to play it. They seemed to appreciate my playing: “
Sehr gut,”
said the commandant. “You’ll take over the conducting. You’ll be
kapo,
Tchaikowska will be blockowa. But now the orchestra must play pieces other than marches; we want concerts for ourselves and the prisoners. We want music!” Conductor—can you imagine how alarmed I was? I’d never conducted in my life, I’d never learnt to read a score; my position was more precarious than ever. The SS officers went out, Tchaikowska handed me her arm band. The girls were waiting, I had to do something. I ordered them to play something they knew. It was horrifying, frightful. Then I was afraid and I wondered whether there was anything I could do with them. Most couldn’t sight-read; there were only four professionals, and the rest weren’t even poor amateurs; and I had to create an orchestra out of this incongruous bunch. My life and theirs were at stake. I decided that strict discipline was the answer—they had dared claim to be musicians and they must prove it! I wouldn’t let them massacre music!“

Her dark eyes shone with the fanaticism of a Judith. Her passion made her beautiful and inhuman.

“With me, you won’t trifle with music. That I cannot tolerate. It’s as if you were spitting in my eye, trampling on my soul. I’ve given my life to music and it’s never let me down. Through music, with music, I’ve known happiness. Even here I’ve made sacrifices for it—do you think I was so different from the rest of you when I arrived here? They gave me this little room; I chose Regina, a very poor musician, to make my bed, clean my boots, bring me my meals. Have you ever wondered whether I might not prefer to sit with you, to chat, not to be so isolated? Only, if I’d done that, I’d never have been able to keep order. The conductor must keep his distance, he’s destined to stand alone. He must be respected.”

“And loved, Alma.”

Astounded, she stared at me, head elegantly tilted. “You can’t love a conductor without respecting him first of all. And anyway, love, here… from the very first, I noticed the incredible animosity that exists among these women. As soon as I’d turned my back, there’d be quarrelling, shouting, stealing, crying, laughter, fighting… it’s a madhouse. So I have to shout the loudest, I insist on order in everything: in dress, in work—seventeen hours a day. Rehearsing must be done properly. I punish them or slap them for a single wrong note, and that’s natural, essential as I’ve already said. I care about them all, though I prefer the good musicians, but that’s natural. When they brought me Marta, a German born in Breslau, an excellent cellist although she was only seventeen, of course I was pleased. She is a well-educated girl and speaks very good French. She was brought up like me in true German fashion and was highly disciplined; she set an excellent example, and that was helpful for me. I looked after her, I got her sister Renate put in Canada: one plays better when one’s mind is at rest.”

I’d scarcely had time to admire this humane action than I realized that it too had been performed solely in the interests of music. She was silent now, absorbed in her thoughts. Should I slip out discreetly? But there was something in this passionate woman that fascinated me. After hearing her story, I was more puzzled than ever by one thing: Was she more German than Jewish? Was that problem the source of her inner conflict?

“I don’t know whether you realized it, Fania, but it’s actually Mandel rather than Kramer who supports us. One can’t ask anything of Kramer. Maria Mandel values the orchestra, it flatters her pride. She likes to think that Birkenau is the only camp in Germany, and indeed in all the occupied territories, with a women’s orchestra.”

I wasn’t too sure whether we were really the pride and joy of the SS, but we were certainly the apple of Alma’s eye. Proud as a peacock, she wallowed in the idea of conducting that unique group. Her pride was leading her astray.

“I find the bad behaviour of these girls most upsetting—their disobedience, their irresponsibility. Here or elsewhere, what one does must be done well, if only out of self-respect. Sometimes Frau Mandel asks me if the girls are hungry. Of course they’re hungry, of course I could ask for food. But when they play so badly, is it not my duty to keep silent?”