Erich - Eight.

Erich   

            I stood over Gerhardt Fuhrmann as he clutched his dislocated jaw. “Come on!” I roared in German over the cheering of the other boys. I leaned over the rope and someone passed me a beer. “Who’s next?”

            In the three days since I kissed Gabe I’d boxed in ten matches. After we argued I went straight back to the hotel and into the ring. I knocked Georg DeWitz out with one swipe. I thought Dietrich would have my head for putting someone down like that. But no one ratted on me. So I kept coming back. Ten matches in three days and I was undefeated.

            We didn’t have a proper boxing ring. Just a lopsided shape roped off in a lounge off the bar. Must have been a smoking room or something. About twenty viewers could gather around. The boys had set it up long before I arrived in the city. Really it wasn’t even proper boxing. There were no gloves and some of us knew the rules and techniques better than others. Dietrich and the higher-ranking officers didn’t want us getting put in comas or our teeth knocked in or our noses broken. So we didn’t fight to knockout. We’d wrap our hands and go at it until someone stopped fighting. Usually that meant punching. But when that failed the fight sometimes came down to wrestling. It didn’t matter how we played it. I was the best.

            Mostly the other boys fought for rations and good guard shifts. But it wasn’t what I wanted. Rations I could bring to the other side of the wall. But I could steal them just as easily. And I couldn’t afford the trouble that switching shifts created with Dietrich. I didn’t want anything for winning. Not even the fear and approval of the other soldiers. I only wanted to feel safe.

            Fighting had always made sense to me. It cleared my mind. It reminded me that I was tough and in control. That I was good at something. I could keep the monster at bay if I felt strong.

            There was something menacing and cruel inside me. I knew that. No way around it. A monster that roared out of my soul and hurt people around me. But the monster wasn’t my rage. I knew I had the ability to control my anger. Sometimes I lapsed. But it was something I could handle. My hatred for myself was what was monstrous about me. I couldn’t help despising myself. No matter what I did, I was always someone worth hating. Used to be I was a cowardly, unmanly disappointment. Now I was killer Nazi scum. I hated myself for having gone for England and for having left it. I hated myself for wanting Gabe and I hated myself for pushing him away. Nothing I ever did was right. Fighting at least made me feel good about one thing.

            Gabe. Most of the time I didn’t feel the monster around Gabe, either. But it had come out three days ago. I had made him so angry. Gabe wasn’t scared of me anymore. That was a good thing. I didn’t want him to be scared of me. But I’d lashed out at him because I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t explain to him what had happened. He would have understood if I had told him. I know he would have. But I couldn’t own up to the terrible choices I’d made. I didn’t want to explain that I hadn’t done anything right for more than two years.

            In the moment before I kissed Gabe I had realized how stupid I’d been. I had seen that there was no reason not to be with Gabe. Not when we both wanted it so much. I thought for a second that I could finally be done pushing him away. The idea of continuing to pretend now was agonizing. I wanted to make this right. I wanted to let him kiss me like he had three days ago. I wanted him to lie on top of me with our chests pressed together and our legs tangled up and his hands on my face and his smoky sweet breath in my mouth. I hadn’t stopped thinking about it. I wanted him to sit next to me and just hold my hand. I’d been at my absolute worst when the spasms started. But Gabe hadn’t cared. He’d touched my hideous hand and destroyed arm. No one else had touched me there since the fire. Brigitte told me it was disgusting.

            “That was the last of them this afternoon, Amery,” someone outside the ring answered in German. It was Johannes. He had been running the matches and bookkeeping the bets. “Even if anyone else had signed up, I don’t think you’d have anymore challengers,” he snorted in the direction of the howling Gerhardt. “Why don’t both of you get down to medical, huh? Get that hand looked at.”

            I snarled in response to his calling attention to my hand. Fighting in my undershirt I knew all the boys could see my burned up arm. During fights I didn’t care. The scars only made me more threatening. And boxing was always rough on the hands. But after ten fights my crippled hand was hardly functioning at all. The skin was all split and bloody around the knuckles and my fist had barely unclenched for hours. By then I didn’t care so much anymore. Further damage would only speed up the inevitable. Still it couldn’t hurt to go to medical.

            I spat and bent down to get Gerhardt up. “F*****g cowards,” I growled exaggeratedly. The boys liked a show. “Someone help me with this b*****d!” Two of the bigger guys ducked under the rope. Grabbed Gerhardt under his arms and followed me out of the ring.

            The medical bay was set up in the smaller of the hotel’s two ballrooms. Maybe twenty tall hospital cots were spread out around the perimeter of the room. Mostly empty. Not enough happened around here that required much medical work. Frostbite, infections sometimes. Occasionally someone would catch something from inside the ghetto. A few weeks ago Albrecht shot himself in the foot.

            The boys who had carried Gerhardt in dropped him on a cot and left. “Another one, Amery?” Mathias Düeffert asked. I’d already put two guys in the medical bay. Dewitz was still out of service with a concussion and a few hours ago Ritter had gone down with a dislocated shoulder. Both had gone back to their rooms now.

            Düeffert got up from his chair. He was an assistant medic. But the head one got called out to other barracks sometimes. Then Düeffert was in charge. He was young for his job. Just twenty-four. Not even halfway through medical school when he had to join up. Always said he’d rather be back home in Stuttgart. And he didn’t heil when he greeted me. I liked him for that. He was one of the friendlier guys. We weren’t friends. I wasn’t really friends with anyone on the base. But when I wanted to talk to someone I talked to Düeffert.

            “Messed up Fuhrmann’s jaw, I think,” I responded. Gerhardt growled indistinctly. He couldn’t close his mouth and had started to drool.

             “Let me take a look.” He made his way over to Gerhardt. But he stopped abruptly in front of me. “That hand again?” I’d been to Düeffert for my hand before. When the tremors kept me off duty. He had tried to relax it. But nothing worked. He said surgery might help. But I would have to go to a real hospital for that. I scowled. I knew what he would say. “I told you, you shouldn’t be fighting with a hand like that. You’ll cripple yourself.” As if I didn’t know that. As if I wasn’t crippled already.

            “It’s nothing,” I lied angrily.

            Düeffert sighed. “Go get the alcohol in the back. I’ll patch it up in a second.”

            I made my way around to the back. The room looked more like a hospital behind the partition. Bright lights and medical supplies and an operating table. Hardly used. Just for emergencies. The bottle of rubbing alcohol was still out on the counter from my last visit. Behind me I heard, “oh this is not so bad.” A snap and a screech as Düeffert set Fuhrmann’s jaw straight. By the time I came back Düeffert had knocked him out.

            “He’ll be down for a while. Not a bad dislocation, though. You make it easy on me,” he joked. I just handed him the bottle. I was not in a mood to talk. “You’re going to get yourself in trouble, Amery,” he said more seriously. Blotting the alcohol onto a white cloth. “I covered for you earlier, you know, with Dietrich.”  

            I hadn’t known. “You did?”

            He nodded. “Ritter missed a shift. Dietrich came down to see what had happened to him. Ritter was out cold, so he couldn’t snitch. I told Dietrich he’d fallen down the stairs. But you know he’ll come after you if this keeps happening.”

            I was shocked by his loyalty. I didn’t know anyone here cared what happened to me. “Well, thanks,” was all the sentiment I could muster.

            Düeffert smiled a little and clapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, anything for a kamerad, right?” I hoped he couldn’t see how I shuddered. How I grimaced. My word for Gabe. Kamerad. It seemed unnatural that anyone else should use it. No one else had in England. But to everyone here it was just another word. Comrade. I don’t know why I chose it for Gabe. It wasn’t a word I got to use much before I met him. Hearing it made my heart hurt. Düeffert must not have noticed. “Just between us, anyway, I hate the man.”

            Dietrich was not popular among the soldiers. But he was intimidating enough that we didn’t talk about how much we hated him. I was glad to have someone who wasn’t so scared of him. “He’s a prick. S**t!” Düeffert had pressed the cloth to my hand. The alcohol burned into my split knuckles.

“You’re worse than Fuhrmann.” He nodded to the unconscious Gerhardt. “S**t, this hand, Amery. You said it was a cut and then a fire? That’s some rotten luck, even for Berlin,” he observed. I just nodded. No need for any more details. “Anyway, Dietrich’s worse than a prick. He’s a b*****d and a killer and I can’t wait until the day I’m not under the thumb of a man like him anymore.” He didn’t look up. Switched from my right hand to my left. “I don’t care so much if we win or lose this war anymore, you know? Just as long as I get to go home.”

            His feelings weren’t so different from a lot of the men’s. The whole thing was starting to feel like a lost cause. Especially here. Those who weren’t really committed to wiping out the Jews couldn’t see a purpose. The spirit of German superiority had faded from all of our minds. Official reports said Germany was the dominant force in the world. But the Soviets and the Americans and British were advancing fast. Closing in from the east and west. I knew enough about war to know you can’t win with enemies on all sides. I could almost agree with Düeffert. Almost. “I haven’t really got a place to go back to.” I would never go back to Berlin. Never make that mistake again.

            He sighed. “I hope there’s at least a Germany.” I wasn’t really listening to him anymore. He had started in pressing small squares of gauze onto the stinging cuts. I was flooded with a feeling I didn’t like at all. I remembered how Gabe had wrapped up my hand before. I was scared by how much this felt the same. Mathias was gentle. He was good. He was handsome, with brown-gold hair and friendly brown eyes under thick eyebrows. I remembered Gabe’s accusation. He thought I had slept with another soldier. I hadn’t. I couldn’t. But I still felt it sometimes. Not for everyone. Hardly ever for girls anymore. Not even for most guys. Certainly not for Jim or Hersch. And no one made me feel like I did about Gabe. But sometimes someone made me warm and dizzy. And I didn’t like that I felt fluttery when Mathias touched my hand.

            Düeffert had asked me something. I snapped embarrassedly out of my stupor. “What?”

            “I asked if you’ve got a wife.” The question was jarring. Especially after my moment of weakness just then. I still didn’t answer him for a second. Looked down at his hand. This time I saw the wedding band on his finger. He’d told me about his wife before. Pretty Marie-Luise back in Stuttgart. He’d shown me a picture. A baby too, I think. Yes. A wife was good. A wife meant he didn’t feel warm when he touched my hand. A wife meant I couldn’t do anything stupid.

            The thought of ever getting married was ridiculous to me. But from the outside it wouldn’t have been so surprising. I had turned twenty-one in August. Plenty of guys younger than me had married their girls before shipping out. I shook my head no. “What about family? They still in Berlin? There must be something out there for you to go home for. Christ, I don’t think a man could go on like this without something to look ahead to.”

            I took a second to think. “My mother,” I answered cautiously. I tried not to tell anyone much about my family. “I’d like to take her somewhere safer, I guess.” He had let go of my hand. Thank God. Düeffert turned back to Gerhardt and started wrapping his jaw up with bandages. It was easier to talk to him when I didn’t have to look at his face. “Honestly I can’t think ahead more than one day at a time anymore.”

            Deep down I knew I couldn’t see myself making it out of here. I was walking too thin a line now. Dietrich was bound to find out I’d betrayed the battalion. It was a relief really. To have a reason not to think ahead. I didn’t like to think about the future. I couldn’t see myself doing anything. I wasn’t good at anything. War had been my whole life and I didn’t know what would happen to me when it was over. I wished I could imagine a life with Gabe. But I didn’t even know what that would look like. How could we ever live as if everything was normal?

            I thought Düeffert would tell me to cheer up. But he just looked solemnly at me. I felt sorry for ruining his good mood. “You think it’s true, what Dietrich says about the liquidation?”

            Dietrich had been telling us to run drills to prepare for the liquidation. But not everyone was quite convinced. Especially since the official order hadn’t come down yet.  The only person who was sure of Dietrich’s absolute power was Dietrich. “It has to be true,” I mumbled. “Like Dietrich says, this place is a waste of men. They want to make us move on.”

            Düeffert looked anxious. “I just don’t want any part of that, you know?” He scratched nervously at the rank patch on his sleeve. “I mean, I’m a doctor, damn it! I’m not going to kill people.”

            I didn’t know what to say. Would I even be here when the liquidation happened? I wished I could tell him everything. “There are always ways to stay out of it,” I said without confidence. He must have heard the reluctance in my voice. A gunshot sounded far away. Almost prophetic. Who died this time? Would a day come when I went to headquarters to find out Hersch was dead? Or Jim or Rebecca? Or Gabe.

            We sat there for a while. Just thinking about the terrible things that were coming. Finally Düeffert growled, “That b*****d Dietrich. Hey, you want to see something?” I nodded and he got up. Disappeared behind the partition. He came back with an envelope in his hand. “I found these in the files of our Herr Doktor.”

            “What is it?”

            He passed me the envelope. “It’s him, on the day he got cut up.” There were four photos in the envelope. Bad quality and a few years old. I took one out and squinted at it. “That’s the worst one, with his whole face.”

            I wouldn’t have known it was Dietrich if Düeffert hadn’t told me. The thing was so gruesome I might not have believed it was human. But I recognized the scar pattern. Dietrich on the day he killed Katarzyna. On the operating table with his face cut nearly off.

            The first photo really was awful. Turned your stomach. I gagged. Tried not to let Düeffert see me retch. The picture must have been taken right after the fight. Dietrich’s cheek was almost totally severed from his face. A flap of raw dead skin that folded back to reveal bloody broken teeth and gums. A splinter of cheekbone. An eye leaking blood and fluid from its crushed socket. A lip torn all the way to the chin. There was a ragged patch of skin where his earlobe was missing. He was just meat. A skinned slab of meat at the butcher’s.

            Hersch did this. My head was swimming. Stomach churning. Hersch was capable of this kind of rage. This violence. Hate. He was more brutal than Berezovsky. Than me. I couldn’t even imagine how he had inflicted this kind of injury. I pictured it. Hersch holding Dietrich down. Cutting into his face. Slashing away his cheek and his ear. The smashed eye. Hersch must have hit him with the knife handle. Caved in Dietrich’s whole eye socket. He must have kept doing it even when Dietrich couldn’t move. But Hersch hadn’t killed him. He could have killed Dietrich if he wanted to. He’d already killed Stein. But he didn’t kill Dietrich right away. He wanted to cause him pain. Why didn’t you just kill him, Hersch?

            How could I ever look at Hersch again? All I ever felt was anger and even I couldn’t imagine doing that.

            But then I thought, what if Dietrich killed Gabe? What if Dietrich shot him in the street and left him to die in the snow? What if I watched Gabe bleed to death? What would I do? My grip tightened on the picture just thinking about it.

            I would kill him if he did that. I would kill him if he laid a finger on Gabe. I would tear his arms off. Snap his neck. Crush his skull. I would cut him to pieces. Hersch would look like an angel of f*****g mercy next to me.

            “The others aren’t so bad,” Düeffert said over the roaring in my ears. I could hear myself growling under my breath as I flipped through the other pictures. Two were just closer photos of the worst damage. His cheek and his eye. By the last one Dietrich was stitched up. Big black stiches crisscrossed all over his face. A bloody bandage wrapped over his eye. He looked like a monster in a movie. “You know he says he got it when he chased down Abrahamson?” Hersch’s name was practically legend. “But I hear that’s not true.”

            I swallowed hard. “It’s not,” I fumed. “He killed Abrahamson’s girl. Abrahamson chased him down.” I didn’t know how much more to say. But looking down at the photo I decided to say a little more. “B*****d deserved it.” I kept looking down at the pictures. I didn’t even realize Düeffert had stopped talking.

            “Erich,” he said seriously, “where do you go?” He pushed my hands down so the photos dropped out of my view. I tensed. I didn’t want to have to hurt Düeffert. But if he knew anything I would have to deal with him. “I’ve heard you sneak off your night shift.”

            I bared my teeth at him. “Nowhere. You didn’t hear anything.”

            Düeffert backed off a little. “Alright, whatever you say. I don’t have to know” He paused for a meaningfully long moment. Lowered his voice. “But when you go nowhere, take some supplies.” My head snapped up and I looked him in the eye for the first time in the whole conversation. “A case of antibiotics here and there might go amiss. Bandages, penicillin, ja?” I was so shocked that he knew about the Resistance I barely even processed that he wanted to help.

            “Jesus, Mathias �" Düeffert �" I can’t let you…”

            “I’m not doing anything but smudging the paperwork,” he said quickly. “Supply orders get misfiled all the time.”

            He got to his feet and went to his desk. I sat with my forehead in my hands. Hersch would be furious if I let another soldier in on the deal. Berezovsky would murder me. But Düeffert was good. He was genuine. I knew it. And from what Jim said, medical supplies would go a long way. “It’s dangerous,” I said. I hoped he would change his mind so I wouldn’t have to make the choice.

            Düeffert looked up from his desk. So calm. Like nothing had even happened. “Amery, I might never get to be a doctor. Give me a chance to do something good.”

            I rubbed my eyes with my thumb and forefinger. My mind made up. “All right. Have a pack ready for me tonight.”

            “Thank you,” he looked back down at his paperwork. I didn’t want to stay there another minute. Düeffert had made me feel far too much. In only fifteen minutes in the medical bay he had yanked my emotions every direction. It was overwhelming. I hopped off the cot and rushed out of the room.

            Halfway down the hall I froze. From rooms away I could hear Dietrich screaming and swearing. “Everyone outside! I want every available man out on the goddamn street right now! I want the Jew scum responsible for this found!” I don’t know if I had ever heard him so angry.

            I continued nervously out into the lobby. He couldn’t be after me, could he? The boys who had been at the ring were scrambling into their uniforms. “Amery, get your coat!” Johannes tore past me.

            “What happened?” I called back. Panicked.

            Johannes looked back over his shoulder on his way out the door. “Hochberg’s dead! Jew shot him!” My throat closed up. Fear and rage rushed through me. In my mind I flipped through the people who I knew had guns. Hersch Jim Gabe. Oh God please none of them. Probably Berezovsky now. I’d brought in three pistols and half the machine gun. He probably had one. Who did this?

            Dietrich appeared in the lobby. Shoved another half-dozen boys out of the mess hall. He looked like he would kill us all. “Where did a cockroach get one of our own f*****g guns?”