Roots of Evil(107)

‘What about the SS jeeps?’ asked one of the older women hesitantly. ‘Could the two of you get into the boot of one? You might even be taken out through the gates without them realizing. I know it’s been tried, but—’

‘The guards are very aware of that trick,’ said the Russian girl. ‘They search every inch of every vehicle that goes in and out of here. Lu and Alraune would be found and shot.’

‘Then,’ said Alice, ‘it looks as if all I can do is take him out of here now – tonight – and go on the wire.’ She felt the shiver go through them at this. ‘On the wire’ meant, quite simply, walking up to the electric fence surrounding the camp and trusting to God or the devil that you could get through it before the guards saw and fired. Even if the guards, by some fluke, did not see you, you ran the risk of being electrocuted by the wire itself. But there was still that tiny chance of success that had driven a few prisoners to try it.

‘Impossible,’ said Ilena. ‘I’d tie you up before I let that happen.’

‘I know we can’t actually hide Alraune,’ said one of the women, speaking slowly as if she was examining each word before letting it go. ‘But is there any way we could confuse the guards – and Mengele’s people – by moving him around?’

‘From hut to hut?’ asked Alice.

‘From hut to kitchens, from kitchens to laundry, wherever we can find a corner that might go unchecked for an hour or two,’ said the woman. She was one of the quieter occupants of the hut, but when she did speak she was always listened to with respect. She was a little older than most of them; she seldom talked about herself, other than to say rather offhandedly that she had been a teacher. She said, ‘Auschwitz is so huge it might be days – weeks, even – before he was found.’

‘But they would find him in the end. And then they would certainly hang Lu,’ said one of the other women. ‘I don’t think it would work for more than a few days.’


‘But a few days might be all that’s needed. And if we could keep one step ahead of the Gestapo—’

‘To what purpose?’

‘I don’t know exactly. But it would gain us time, and in that time there might come some opportunity to get him safely out.’

‘The Polish lot would help us to hide him for some of the time,’ said someone from the stove.

‘Yes, they would, and their hut has that bit of a space where the roof slopes upwards,’ said the Russian girl eagerly.

‘And some of the Poles work in the laundry – they might be able to smuggle him in for a while, inside a linen basket or something—’

‘Can we trust the Poles? There aren’t any spies in their hut, are there?’

‘I don’t think so. Yes, I believe we could trust them.’

I don’t think I can bear this, thought Alice, listening to them. I don’t think I can bear the thought of a child – my own child, never mind how he was conceived – being shunted around this appalling place to avoid being the subject of some grotesque experiment that might maim him physically or mentally…

‘We’d be questioned,’ said Ilena. ‘About where he was.’

‘Interrogation,’ said a very young girl, shuddering and glancing uneasily towards the door. ‘It’d be awfully dangerous.’

But several of the women had turned to look at the corner of Alice’s bed, where Alraune was asleep. The dark hair fell forward over his forehead, and there was a sheen of moisture on his eyelids. Alice felt again that stir of deep protectiveness.

‘We’d just say he had disappeared – that he had wandered off. As somebody said – oh, it was you, wasn’t it, Bozena? – Auschwitz is so big he could be lost for days.’

‘Yes, we could say that.’ They seized on this suggestion gratefully. ‘We could be very convincing and we might get away with it.’

‘Lu, you’d have to be the most convincing of us all – you’d have to be distraught. But you could do that, couldn’t you? You acted in films and you could do it?’

‘Yes, I could,’ said Alice.

‘The rest of us will pretend we’re rather glad Alraune’s gone – we’ll let them believe he’s been a nuisance, getting in our way, having to be looked after and fed, keeping us awake by crying—’

The Russian girl said, ‘It would be the most terrific gamble, but if we kept our heads and our nerve we might get away with it,’ and at once Alice’s mind snapped to attention, and she thought: a gamble! All a question of keeping your head! I know better than anyone about taking gambles, about keeping your head!

The tiredness sloughed away from her, and she sat up straighter. ‘I think it might work,’ she said. ‘But only if you are all prepared to risk the danger – the questioning. If even one of you is unhappy or fearful, I won’t attempt it.’

‘We’re all prepared to risk it,’ said several voices, and the rest nodded.

‘We’re all frightened, of course,’ said one of them. ‘Personally I’m absolutely terrified – but it’s unthinkable that Mengele should make use of a child in his experiments. I’ll do whatever’s needed along with the rest of you.’

Alice was fighting not to cry. She thought: if I live to be a hundred – if worlds end and the stars falter in their courses – I will never again know friends as good and as true as these women. These remarkable women who have become closer than sisters to me, and who are prepared to lie and to risk their lives to protect Alraune.