“Okay, fine. For the sake of argument let’s say I accept what you’re saying. What do you think my tikkun is?”
“I don’t know. Often, the things that cause us to react in the most negative ways are the things that require the greatest correction. The pain you’re experiencing, the pain that is blocking the Light from reaching you… I believe it has something to do with your separation from your wife. Resolve the cause, and you resolve the effect.”
Rounding Riverside Drive, they came to the western gate of an ancient graveyard.
Trinity Cemetery: Twenty-four acres of historic hillside overlooking the Hudson River. In 1776, its earth had been bathed in the blood of British and Rebel forces during the Battle of Washington Heights. In 1842, an outbreak of cholera, typhoid, and smallpox had converted the land into grave plots. Today, more than thirty-two thousand deceased were buried in tight rows or held in mausoleums on the property.
Shep hesitated, unsure about entering the graveyard.
“It’s all right. The Angel of Death has no interest in a cemetery.”
Virgil entered first, leading him past hundred-year-old oaks, the trees’ thick branches creaking in the wind, their knotty roots bursting through the broken cement walkway that ascended to its snow-covered summit. Shep helped Virgil up a narrow path bordered by ancient headstones aged with America’s history. John James Audubon. John Jacob Astor. John Peter Zenger.
The slope steepened. The old man breathed heavily. “I need to rest.”
“Over here.” They sat together on a dry landing, the moon peeking between clouds.
“Virgil… the Grim Reaper, is he evil?”
“No. The Angel of Death is a neutral force that tailors his pitch to his audience. There have been cycles of darkness in the history of mankind where Satan has grown very strong, blocking the Creator’s Light. When evil becomes widespread, when lust and avarice lead to a depravity that runs amok, then the wickedness of the world summons the Angel of Darkness to stalk the earth. These are trying times, but the darkest hours can yield the greatest Light.”
“You lived during those times. Tell me about the Holocaust. How did you manage to survive?”
“Why is this suddenly so important?”
“I don’t know. Something inside of me needs to hear it.”
Virgil closed his eyes. For a long moment he said nothing, his expression appearing pained in the moonlight. “Like the Iraqi child you believed you had to kill, I, too, was only nine the night the Nazi soldiers dragged my loved ones from our beds and marched my family and the other Jews through our Polish hamlet to the train station. They squeezed us into cattle cars… it was so difficult to breathe. People were climbing on top of one another to reach a solitary air vent. I must have passed out; the train’s whistle summoned me from my dreams when we arrived at our destination — Oswiecim — Auschwitz.
“I can still see the bright searchlights and the soldiers in black uniforms armed with machine guns. Like it is tonight, the air was frigid, the heat from the train’s engines expelling whirling gusts of steam. Moving through this fog was a well-dressed man, an embodiment of evil. We later learned his name: Dr. Josef Mengele.
“That was the first time I saw the Angel of Death. He was dressed in a white robe and hood, hovering over Mengele’s left shoulder. He looked at me, then he looked at my mother and my three sisters, each eye socket clamoring with dozens of fluttering eyes — witness eyes — eyes that had looked upon evil. As I watched, the green-tinged blade of his scythe began dripping fresh blood.
“Mengele motioned to me and my father, and we were separated from the women and led away to the right. The rest of the women, the mothers with young children, the sisters and daughters, the aunts and the elderly… all were sent to the left. I remember people screaming as families were separated. I remember one mother refusing to pick up her wailing infant, knowing the bond would seal her fate. I saw the SS shoot her on the spot.
“That was the last night I saw my mother and sisters alive. We would learn that they were taken to the gas chambers. Later, when the crematoriums were built, the children were tossed directly into the ovens or thrown into open burning pits.”
Shep felt ill, his body trembling.
“The men and boys deemed strong enough to work were marched down a road bordered by fencing and barbed wire that led to the main gate. There was a sign posted in German, Arbeit Macht Frei—Work Brings Freedom. There was no freedom at Auschwitz-Birkenau. There was no Light, only darkness.
“Each morning began with roll call and the daily selections. We were forced to stand naked in the cold, sometimes for hours while the doctors examined us, determining who would live and who would die. I was instructed by my father to run in place to flush my cheeks and show them how strong I was. They fed us rations that would starve a dog — a piece of bread, a ladle of soup. A slice of potato was a good day. We became walking bags of bones — human skeletons, the muscle and fat gone, our pulses visible through the skin. My mouth became sore from abscesses, and the chronic hunger drove me insane. One day I found a patch of green grass, ate it, and became deathly sick, the diarrhea nearly ending my life. The clothes we wore were foul, the shoes were wooden clogs, impossible to move very fast in, but it was better to wear them than be naked. To be naked was to be defenseless. To be naked increased our shame.
“Things grew worse after the crematoriums were up and running. The furnaces ran night and day, funneling fumes through a single chimney that billowed a great column of black smoke, darkening the sky like a winding river. There were days I imagined Satan’s face in the thick air, watching us, laughing. I saw the Angel of Death several times after that, only his garments by then were black.”
“Did you fear the Angel of Death?”
“No. I feared the Nazis. I feared Mengele. The Reaper was death, and death was salvation, but the Nazis made the journey so horrible that you did whatever you could to stay alive. We had also made a pact, deciding it was our duty to our families to survive, if only to inform the rest of the world about the atrocities we had suffered.
“We labored on the dead. We became dentists, extracting metal fillings and bridges. We loaded possessions — luggage, women’s purses, jewelry, clothing. We disinfected the hair of the gassed victims and dried it in the attics. We emptied gas chambers and fed the ovens, the furnaces fueled by the fat of the deceased. We ground the remains of our people into compost and used it to fertilize the camp fields.
“We were living in Hell, but as your friend, Dante, illustrated, Hell has many circles. The deepest was Block 10, the medical-experimentation block. This was Mengele’s pathology lab, his personal chamber of horrors, where he conducted experimental surgeries performed without anesthesia. Sex-change operations. Fluid transfusions. The removal of organs and limbs. Incestuous impregnations. Mengele preferred to do most of his work on children, especially twins. Young Jews and Gypsies were castrated, others placed in pressure chambers or frozen alive. They were blinded, tested with drugs, and exposed to tortures too gruesome to speak aloud. You would think these horrors would cause revulsion among the German medical institutions. Instead, their physicians flocked to Auschwitz to take part in Satan’s circus, relishing the opportunity to work on human cattle. And every day, the trains brought Mengele fresh victims.”
“Didn’t anyone try to escape?”