The French Promise Page 2

  She ignored his wrinkled nose and disgusted tone. ‘Then why aren’t we being sent with them? My sister here has contracted lice,’ she tried, speaking more politely than she thought possible. ‘You are a doctor, aren’t you?’

  ‘I am Doctor Josef Mengele.’ He’d shifted into French. ‘I’m new here, like you,’ he said, waving her on and beckoning to Sarah behind her. ‘But don’t worry, you’ll be next,’ he’d thrown over his shoulder. ‘And your sister’s hair won’t matter, I promise.’

  Another guard pointed with his gun barrel. ‘You’ll all be reunited,’ he said scornfully in German, which she understood.

  ‘But I don’t understand why they—’

  The guard growled and Sarah gave a hissing sound. ‘Hush! You’ll make it worse.’

  Rachel watched the retreating backs of the longer queue and sensed the lie long before she’d ever learnt the truth. Even the strains of bright music being played on the Judenrampe by fellow Jews in a small orchestra and dressed in what had appeared to be prison motley were a mocking parody. Just looking at their vacant expressions revealed enough. She returned her attention to those she loved and watched the stooped shape of her mother, her bright headscarf easy to pick out, as she hobbled next to the elderly woman. Gitel held her mother’s hand but Rachel could tell her little sister was sobbing. Her heart lurched painfully for them but she was helpless and Sarah held her so tightly now there was nothing she could do.

  Guards motioned her line forward and they were not led in the same direction as the rest of the family for the promised disinfecting showers. Rachel looked back at their belongings that suddenly no longer mattered and yet they’d all guarded so jealously on the journey there. She watched with detachment as the various suitcases and bags were being gathered up by other prisoners, dully focused on her own small holdall that held two precious books that she would gladly swap now in order to have a final hug and kiss with her parents. Was it goodbye? She was sure she would not see them again but the pain was so acute it stopped her being able to talk, to think clearly, to even feel anger any more.

  After she and Sarah were herded into a nearby building everything she had left was stripped away, including the tiny gold cross and chain she wore. She quickly understood the doctor’s sly smile and the quip about her sister’s lice-ridden hair as she watched it cut away in a careless rasping hack with huge scissors before Sarah’s head was then shorn. The blade the man used on Rachel was blunt and it left two cuts so she emerged with blood running from the top of her head, behind each ear. Made bald and standing naked, however, was not the final indignity, nor was the foul-smelling powder they rubbed beneath her arms and onto her newly scraped scalp to delouse her.

  No, the final dehumanising insult was the careless, ugly tattoo made on her left forearm that had made Rachel realise she was no longer considered a person worthy of even a name. She was no longer Rachel Bonet of Saignon, lately of Paris; brilliant violinist, sister, daughter. She was now a six-figured number that began with one and ended with seven. Sarah’s ended in eight.

  She could see the tattoo now as she held the violin beneath her chin and played. Eight months had passed and Rachel assumed that her parents and dear little Gitel had been killed. They hadn’t even wasted the ink of the tattoo on the less useful members of her family. Rumours abounded in the Birkenau camp for women that behind their buildings were secret killing rooms. Wily prisoners had pointed to chimneys that belched cloying, sweet smoke constantly and warned that people were being killed in large numbers and their bodies burnt. Although she was still waiting for her promised shower, random selections continued for ‘showers’… but the prisoners chosen for theirs never reappeared.

  ‘They gas us, then burn us in communal ovens,’ one woman had said, tapping her nose and laughing in a hideous cackle to show her bleeding gums and few teeth. Her name was Ruth and she’d been there for nearly sixteen months. Most people barely lived beyond a few months. It was a shock to realise both herself and Sarah had survived this long, but Sarah was a good worker and Rachel had her music.

  Others ridiculed Ruth, claiming she was long lost to the ‘camp madness’ that took many in its maw, but Rachel believed her. She knew Ruth was well connected to the hierarchy within the camp. Ruth gave her body frequently and willingly to the kapos – mainly Polish men – who held positions of authority as functionaries of the Nazi hierarchy. In this way Ruth enjoyed access to information as well as a thin veil of protection that the majority were denied. Ruth had no reason to lie.

  As they played another Bach piece, Rachel looked around her and decided that the Nazis had done everything possible to reduce their will and turn them into moving corpses that only cared about the next heel of bread and fighting each other to get to the ablutions block. Once a day only were they permitted access to the latrines, which were nothing more than concrete drop holes side by side where prisoners would rub thighs, buttocks, backs and shoulders with others. According to Ruth it was worse for the men, but she didn’t elaborate. And they were only given twenty seconds each; some cruel female guards would amuse themselves by timing them, counting aloud if they knew someone had diarrhoea or constipation from the dysentery, typhoid and other nasty diseases that were rampant.

  In truth, all that mattered to Rachel each day was seeing Sarah return. Each morning her elder sister would be sent off in the numbing weather, with nothing between her and the snow or frost, rain or sleet, but a coarse cotton prison dress and a thin scarf. With her fellow wretched prisoners Sarah would walk the 6 kilometres to Farben Pharmaceutical to labour for eleven hours before retracing the journey for a single daily bowl of thinnest vegetable broth and perhaps some bread. She would leave in the morning with her body nourished only by ‘coffee’ made from bitter acorns … if she was lucky. Sarah, though determined to survive, had begun to sicken this week. It didn’t matter from what; there was no point in looking for answers … or cures.

  Auschwitz was a waiting room of death, for if the Germans themselves didn’t kill you for the smallest indiscretion, then the malnutrition, disease, hypothermia, overwork or plain heartbreak would. One officer liked to use clearly ailing prisoners for target practice and they’d be taken into the woods and told to wander. He would pick them off, usually complaining that his sights were off if he wounded before he killed. Roll call was the worst, though. After a brutal awakening at daybreak and their crude acorn gruel breakfast, the whole of Birkenau’s inmates might spend hours standing to attention in the frigid air of a bone-chilling Polish morning being counted off. Many died where they stood in that period, waiting to be counted. Anyone who couldn’t stand was removed and put out of their misery. Anyone who was late was shot as an example to all. Sometimes whole barracks were punished with vicious beatings because of one person’s momentary tardiness.

  Bodies of the newly dead were piled like litter to the side of one building in open view of them all. A cart would come mid-morning and pull each emaciated, partly frozen corpse aboard. Eyes of the dead that no one had bothered to close stared sightlessly in all directions.

  Rachel shivered at the recollection, glad to be dragged from the bubble of memories as she noticed the workers returning. The nearby guard waved his hands at the orchestra to shift from the chamber music into a rousing march. There were nearly sixty of them in this curious, gypsy-like ensemble and yet the music was surprisingly accomplished. They had more than twenty-five professional musicians in their midst. Rachel didn’t think that one of their cellists would survive the next few days, though, but she couldn’t worry about Marie. She only had enough room in her deadened heart for Sarah. Rachel craned her neck to catch sight of her sister but the raggle-taggle queue of workers seemed to be moving slower than usual. Instead she caught the guard staring at her and immediately intensified her concentration to appear enthusiastic about her playing. She knew he was looking at her for other reasons. He was young, hated his posting here and had seen something in her during the first week of his arrival
when she and a few other musicians had been asked to play at a welcome meal for new recruits. The ‘ensemble’ had been permitted to wash themselves properly with a small scoop of gritty soap paste; to rinse their mouths and do their best to look presentable despite bald heads, hollow cheeks and near skeletal frames. But Albert had noticed her that day when she’d played a brief solo; he was clearly a romantic, moved by the music, desperate not to be here amongst such horror and desolation.

  These days he regularly looked out for her, casting shy smiles, and she knew he was the one who left small gifts: extra bread, a small knob of real soap, even a scarf once. She had given the scarf to Sarah. And she was sure it had been Albert who had mentioned her to the camp commander when it turned out that Commander Hoss was looking for a music teacher. His family lived at the villa next door to the main complex – five children were growing up in the garden adjacent to where thousands of people were being murdered around the clock.

  It had been a horrible surprise for Rachel to be singled out as the perfect candidate. So now previous duties – save playing for the Germans at their functions, or for the camp, when required – were dropped in favour of teaching the two eldest Hoss children their violin and piano, and helping the younger ones to learn to read music. This new role required her to clean herself daily and that meant a brief shower in an outhouse before she stepped into the alien, terrifying world of the commander’s household. Here privilege assaulted her – fine furnishings, regularly laundered linens, fresh fruit, the children’s exquisite clothes, pretty flowers … But it was the attack on her senses that upset her most of all. Her life at Birkenau had become so colourless, so stripped of any smells but those of faeces, vomit, sweat, death, burning flesh, suppurating sores, rancid breath and decay, that she had lost the recognition of what real life – or rather ‘happy life’ – smelt like. When one of her young charges, Hans-Rudolf, handed her an apricot, she had wept at its blushing ripeness and returned it, but not before she’d inhaled its scent, her lips dangerously close to its velvet promise. It transported her to Saignon in Provence and its orchard groves of stone fruit that had spread for acres around their village.

  To eat the apricot would be more damaging than to resist it … Rachel could imagine what its taste would do for her yearning, how it might break her resolve to survive, how it would curdle in her belly at the thought that she was enjoying too many privileges.

  ‘No, thank you, Hans-Rudolf. You keep it,’ she’d said quietly, putting it back into his hands.

  ‘I cannot,’ he’d said casually. ‘Not now. Mama says we mustn’t touch anything a prisoner touches,’ he’d added in his childlike innocence.

  ‘But what about the piano? I touch that,’ she’d countered.

  ‘The piano is wiped down with stuff from a bottle,’ he’d said matter-of-factly, opening his book of music. She’d had to look away for fear of weeping.

  Rachel’s baldness had frightened the younger ones and apparently disgusted the eldest, Ingebrigitt, so she’d been permitted to grow her hair. Ingebrigitt had also demanded her mother provide their piano teacher with a scarf to hide Rachel’s ugly head, and the silken, plain red square she was given, after so long without anything of her own, might as well have been an Hermès scarf. Even so, she wanted to refuse it but daren’t. Ingebrigitt had wrapped it around Rachel’s head.

  ‘There,’ she said, impressed. ‘Now I can look at you without feeling uncomfortable.’

  Heidetraut, the youngest, also found Rachel’s skeletal appearance daunting and didn’t want to sit next to her at the piano. Her mother saw to it that Rachel was given an extra slice of bread – without sawdust – and some cheese daily before lessons, which she insisted Rachel eat in front of her. It had taken many days to acclimatise her belly to the cheese and real bread. Her scarce, monotonous diet of mostly hot water and potato skins meant her system was shocked by the arrival of richer food to digest. The commander’s wife, Hedwig, insisted a soft job be found at ‘Canada’ for Rachel when she was not teaching her children. Canada was so-called because it was the ‘place of plenty’ at Auschwitz, where all the stores were kept and where the black market flourished. Anything from a pair of boots to a new shawl could be had for a price. The madwoman Ruth had learnt early how to use the most popular female currency to acquire items but Rachel preferred to go without.

  But now, suddenly, she had privilege. And it sickened her, particularly how easily she had embraced the warmth of the fire in the music room, the soft piano stool to sit on, the sip of fresh water in a real glass left for her … and, above all, the food. Then there was the scarf, of course, which Frau Hoss sought permission for her to wear all the time.

  ‘It makes it easier for Rachel to be found, my dear,’ she’d said to her husband one day when he’d frowned at Rachel’s privileged appearance.

  Rachel gained some weight, could now feel hair sprouting, had clean skin and scrubbed nails. She smelt better and her eyes were clearer, according to Albert, who stole conversations with her at Canada when she sorted possessions from the suitcases of the new arrivals off the trains.

  The children were superior in attitude but not deliberately unkind; Frau Hoss was remote with her but that was to be expected. Hedwig had a softer side and clearly loved her children. Rachel could tell that the deluded woman had little, if any, idea of the horror going on outside her walls. She’d once overheard Hedwig describing the villa, surrounded by gardens, high walls and green fields stretching beyond, as a ‘paradise’.

  Even so, Rachel’s life had taken a slight turn for the better and she sometimes caught herself daydreaming that she might find Sarah a role in the household too.

  But the arrival of a new, keen member of the Gestapo changed everything. He’d been sharing a welcome lunch with Commander Hoss and his wife at the villa while Rachel had been guiding the children through a complex duet. Hedwig interrupted their practice without warning. Rachel was all smiles.

  A short man in a smart dove-grey uniform entered between the German couple.

  ‘Darlings, this is Kriminaldirektor von Schleigel. He remarked on the pleasant music he could hear and has requested to watch you play.’

  Rachel shrank back to the wall while the children stood and welcomed their visitor obediently.

  ‘Good afternoon, fine Klaus and pretty Ingebrigitt,’ he’d replied, but his small eyes seared a gaze towards Rachel. ‘Good grief, Commander, do you allow the parasites into your private rooms?’

  Hoss was lighting a cigarette and paused before he replied casually, ‘She is the children’s music teacher. We’re keeping their lives as normal as possible. We take what we can in the wilderness of Poland.’

  ‘What is your name?’ von Schleigel addressed Rachel directly.

  Rachel glanced at Frau Hoss. ‘Go ahead,’ Hedwig permitted.

  ‘Rachel, Herr von Schleigel,’ she answered, looking down.

  ‘All right, darlings, now play that piece you have been practising for us,’ Hedwig said, her tone bright. She directed their guest towards a comfy armchair.

  Von Schleigel accepted a cigarette and the lighter from his host, and as he lit up Rachel could feel his hatred as his gaze coolly assessed her. She didn’t once raise her eyes from the keyboard, instead tapping gently against the burnished walnut of the piano to count in her charges.

  The children managed to get through the piece with confidence. At its conclusion they both stood and bowed to the clapping trio in the audience.

  ‘Charming, charming indeed,’ von Schleigel said, stubbing out his cigarette so he could clap properly. ‘How accomplished you both are.’

  ‘Rachel has made a difference,’ Ingebrigitt ventured and Rachel held her breath, wishing the child had not mentioned her again.

  ‘Is that so?’ the Gestapo man asked. ‘Tell me, what is your full name?’

  Rachel had kept her eyes downcast and it was only when the room fell silent that she realised the question had been directed at her. She looked up, the b
reath catching in her throat now. Hedwig nodded permission. Swallowing her fear she answered him, shocked that he’d be bothered. ‘Rachel Bonet, Herr von Schleigel.’ She hadn’t uttered her family name in a year.

  He looked immediately surprised. ‘Bonet, you say?’ Von Schleigel looked around at the adults.

  Frau Hoss shrugged.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ her husband asked.

  ‘No, no,’ von Schleigel tittered. ‘It’s just amusing that the last case I worked on involved hunting down a troublesome Jew Resister called Bonet.’

  Rachel fixed her gaze on her wooden clogs and gripped her fingers.

  ‘How curious,’ she heard Hedwig remark, but in a tone lacking all interest. ‘Shall we take tea in the garden, Rudolf?’ she said over her shoulder as she swung around to the children. ‘Thank you, darlings. You were splendid.’ Rachel heard the swish of Hedwig’s dress as she stood. ‘Come, Horst. Let’s not waste the welcome spring sun,’ she said. ‘And I should like to show you our garden. It is very pretty at this time of year. We should take a photo as well, don’t you think, my dear?’ she said to her husband.

  ‘As you wish,’ he’d remarked, entirely disinterested.

  Rachel didn’t need to look at von Schleigel to know he still watched her.

  ‘Where are you from?’ he said, in French now.

  ‘The south, sir,’ she murmured.

  ‘Where in the south, girl?’ he whipped.

  ‘Provence. The Luberon.’

  He laughed and she didn’t believe she’d ever heard a more cruel sound.

  ‘The Bonets of Saignon?’

  She couldn’t help herself. Her eyes flashed up to see his vicious, pig-eyed stare that was full of loathing and yet laced with hunger. Her faltering look was her admission.

  ‘Tell me, your brother is Luc Bonet, the lavender farmer?’

  Her throat was so dry that she couldn’t speak even if she wanted to. How could this stranger know them? How could he be naming her family? She began to shake.