Three Sisters (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #3)(38)

‘Rita’s coming,’ whispers Livi suddenly, as the kapo approaches the sisters. The girls get to their feet.

‘I have a new job for you, Livi,’ Rita says, without preamble. ‘And you start tomorrow.’

‘A new job?’ Cibi says. This is the worst news. They cannot be apart.

‘I’ve put your name down to be one of the couriers delivering messages for the SS. Don’t look so worried – it isn’t a hard job.’

‘What will I have to do?’ asks Livi. She looks at Cibi for the answer, but Cibi is staring at Rita.

‘Tomorrow morning, after everyone has left, I’ll take you to the front gates where you will wait to be given messages. You will then deliver these to the officers all over the camp. It couldn’t be simpler.’

When Livi doesn’t respond, Rita raises her voice. ‘Do you understand?’

‘Will she be safe?’ asks Cibi. ‘I mean, the SS .?.?.’ She trails off.

Rita raises an eyebrow, but smiles. ‘No one working as a messenger has ever been hurt. They are lazy bastards, these men. If they can get away with sitting around on their arses all day, then that’s what they’ll do.’

‘It’s OK, Cibi, I can do it,’ says Livi.

‘Mostly, you’ll just be standing around and waiting. It’s boring work. But it’s safe.’ With that, Rita turns on her heel, leaving Livi to wonder if this woman has any understanding of the word safe.

*

Rita is right: Livi’s new role as a messenger is easy work. Together with a couple of girls, she stands at the entrance to Birkenau, beside the small office where the Nazis are on duty, monitoring the comings and goings of all who enter. The girls grow bold, risking a chat now and then, as they wait to be sent hither and thither with messages around the camp.

When Livi returns to the gates one afternoon after distributing the mail, she finds herself alone, the other girls still busy with their own deliveries. It is almost the end of the day and the men working outside the camp are returning. Some of them are hefting between them the bodies of prisoners who died that day. With bullet wounds, cracked skulls and broken limbs, these men didn’t drop dead of exhaustion. Livi watches them numbly. When did she become so immune to brutality on this scale?

Two SS officers are standing either side of the gates watching the men stagger into the compound. A male kapo is pacing up and down, screaming at the men to keep moving, to hurry up.

‘Give me your stick,’ the kapo says to an SS officer. ‘This is the only way to get them inside.’

The officers exchange a smile before one pulls a baton from his belt and hands it to him. Livi knows she should leave – nothing good is about to happen here and she doesn’t need to see anymore – but she finds she can’t move.

The kapo raises the baton and launches himself at the incoming prisoners, beating them about the head, the torso, laughing all the while, cursing the men for being so stupid, so lazy, so weak. Those who collapse under his blows are quickly pulled to their feet and dragged away. Two prisoners, however, are not fast enough to catch the proffered hands, and they remain on the ground, struggling to get to their feet, failing.

Livi looks away as the kapo bears down on them. She hears the repeated thuds of his baton cracking bone and skull. When she looks back the prisoners are obviously dead, a bloodied heap of rags and blood. But the kapo appears to have lost his mind – he continues to strike out with the baton, breaking fragile bones and pounding his hatred into Jewish flesh.

‘That’s enough!’ orders one officer, holding out his hand for the baton. The kapo doesn’t hear him, lost in his work.

‘I said, that’s enough!’ the officer screams. The kapo gives the pile one last kick and then wipes the bloody stick on his trousers before handing it back.

And then he sees Livi.

‘Want some too, do you, girlie?’ he sneers, revealing two rows of broken, yellow teeth. He is a squat man with wild eyes, his unkempt black hair hanging in damp ribbons around his sweating, filthy face. ‘Give me back the stick,’ he yells to the SS officer. ‘I’d like to have a go at her.’

Livi feels herself float away. She is staring at this animal, but she is also hovering over this scene, looking down at him, at the bodies of the dead men, at the officers, one of whom is now planting himself in front of the kapo.

‘Leave her alone. She works for us, not you.’

‘I could kill her with my bare hands,’ spits the man. ‘And enjoy it.’

‘Girl, get out of here,’ the other SS officer says, over his shoulder. ‘Go back to your block.’

‘I’ll remember you, girlie. Isaac never forgets a face.’

Livi snaps back into her body and runs.

*

Every day they witness the trains entering Birkenau and disgorging the thousands of men, women and children abducted from their homes. They watch as the SS, with a flick of their wrists, consign the inmates to the right – the camp, or to the left – the gas chamber. Livi, in her new role as a camp messenger, can’t avoid the distress of these families as they await their fates and, once again, she begins to withdraw.

Tomorrow will be 16 November, my birthday. I will turn seventeen, she tells herself. Will I see eighteen? She wonders what Mumma would make for her birthday tea, if Mumma were there – no, if she was back home with Mumma. Cibi would remind her that she is still the youngest, Magda would search the backyard for a flower from the oleander bush.