Beyond the Shadow of Night(63)

“Names and occupations?” the man said in Polish.

“Why do you need to know that?” Asher asked.

“Because this is a labor camp and we need to find the most suitable work duties for you.”

Asher and Rina told the man their names, and said they would be prepared to do anything. He scribbled this down in a book.

Then he looked up. “All your valuables on the table.”

“I’d . . . rather not,” Rina said.

“It’s not an option,” the man said. “All money, jewelry, valuables of any sort. Put them all here. You’ll have a shower to get rid of the lice, and then you’ll get them back.”

“Are you Ukrainian?” Asher asked.

The man snorted a laugh. “Yes. Would you prefer me to ask you in Ukrainian?”

“But we’re both Ukrainian too,” Asher said. “We’re compatriots. Can’t you let us keep them?”

“It’s only for safekeeping. Please, don’t be awkward or it could get unpleasant for you. Now, empty your pockets.” He laughed again. “Would a fellow Ukrainian lie to you?”

Asher could see the reluctance on Rina’s face, but she removed the two rings from her fingers, took a bracelet from her pocket, and placed them on the table. Asher pulled a few mangled zloty bills from his pocket and put them next to the jewelry.

“Are you absolutely sure that’s it?” the man said. “No gold, spectacles, dentures, or false limbs?”

They shook their heads.

“Very well, women go this way toward—”

A German official interrupted, talking to the Ukrainian guard. At close quarters, Asher could make out the death’s head insignia on his cap. This was an SS man.

The Ukrainian guard nodded to the German, then pointed at Asher. “You go that way,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction, to a much smaller line of four or five men, all in relatively good health by the look of them.

Asher could feel Rina gripping onto his arm.

“My sister,” Asher said to the guard. “We stay together.”

“No, you don’t,” he replied loudly. “You go this way, she goes that way. You can meet up together after the delousing shower.”

“But—”

Then Asher hit the ground. He felt something trickling down in front of his ear. He wiped it and saw blood.

“Do as you’re told!” the guard shouted, pulling his arm. “Get over there!”

Asher scrabbled to his feet and obeyed, glancing back to see Rina in the crowd, staring at him, her face creased up in distress. Seconds later, she was merely another figure in a tide of women and girls slowly drifting away. This was his big sister, the woman who had assured him as a little boy that she wouldn’t allow him to be lonely, who had kept the family fed by risking her life, who had bravely fought in the resistance. Now she looked like a little girl who knew she was drowning.

Asher told himself he would see Rina soon, perhaps later that day or the next. If this was a labor camp, they were bound to see each other again.

In all the panic and drama, he’d become accustomed to the strange smell that enveloped the place, and for the moment it hardly mattered. The buildings, however, were still bothering him; they still seemed familiar.

A few minutes later, a guard started barking orders out in Polish and beckoning the men toward him. As Asher followed he got a good look at the others. They were all young men, stronger and fitter than the average Jew from Warsaw.

They were shown through a security gate into an enclosure surrounded with barbed wire, and from there into a long cabin. A large burner stood in the middle, with a row of bunk beds along each side. The men were told to occupy the beds along the left-hand side, and that someone would return later with food and water. The guard left and locked the door.

Asher asked the other men what was happening, what this place was. He was answered with shrugs and a “How would I know?”

The men all chose bunks, and Asher settled back on his, trying to rest, trying to put his apprehension to the back of his mind. He had to be positive. This was a prison of sorts, but at least he would see Rina again. She was probably in a similar cabin, and whatever was going on at this place, there would be time to see her one day soon.

It was many hours before the cabin door opened again, and it wasn’t for food to be provided, but for more men to enter the barracks. Asher sat up and watched them trudge in and collapse onto the beds on the opposite side. There were about twenty of them—all young, but very different to those on Asher’s side of the cabin. These men were sinewy and sunken-chested—rake thin, even—and filthy. Their eyes not only seemed to have retreated into their sockets, but were also devoid of any emotion. There was no talk between them, and no obvious acknowledgment of Asher and the new arrivals.

The man on the bunk below Asher stood up and faced them. “So, what goes on at this place?” he said. “Is it some sort of labor camp?”

“You could call it that,” one of them replied.

“But what have you been doing?” the man persisted.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” another one replied. “But you should rest while you have the chance.”

Asher sat back for a moment. He thought of Rina, and how her headstrong, confident manner had been chipped away to a bare fear of everything. He decided he had to ask for her sake, if not for his own.