"No, it’s not,” Vilmos said. “You told me so yourself.”
"What are you talking about?”
"You said that after you got out of here, you’d go to Tel Aviv, that you thought you’d like it there. Well, guess what, Adam? There are no Nazis in Tel Aviv. No one for you to take revenge on. So what are you going to do there if not live your life?”
I had no answer. But I also had no hope. It was just a dream, all of it. Exacting vengeance on those who killed my family, and later starting life afresh in Tel Aviv. As delusional as the Mumbler's imaginary feast. It had always been that and nothing more. Because I was going to die here. My body would be stuffed into a crematorium oven and there would be nothing left of me but ashes and dust.
Before I got this case, I’d thought I would die of starvation, or maybe I’d be marked for death in a selection, or an SS guard would shoot me for fun. And for some inexplicable reason, not knowing precisely how and when I would die had made it easier to cope. But now I knew the date and means of my demise: I would be beaten to death in two days, once I had failed the Lageralteste’s mission. The hopeless mission. And that inescapable certainty, that pre-determined fate, was crushing my spirit.
"I can’t do it, Vilmos,” I said, my voice cracking. "I’m not a detective anymore."
"Yes, you are."
"I’m not. You said so yourself, remember?"
"I was speaking in anger,” he said. "And I was wrong.”
"Oh yeah? What made you change your mind?"
"Seeing you in action—how you talked to Zoltan and the Mumbler. You asked all the right questions, got more out of them than I ever could.”
"But nothing useful.”
"It looks that way now, but if you keep asking the right questions, the way you know how, that’s bound to change. Maybe the new things you’ll learn will shed new light on what now seems useless, and everything will suddenly make sense.”
I scoffed, kicking at a loose clod of earth. "I know you mean well, Vilmos. But I know how I feel. It’s hopeless.”
Vilmos looked about to say something more, but then closed his mouth with a snap of finality, as though he were throwing spadefuls of dirt into a loved one’s grave. Seeing his expression plummet into dejection made me wish I had lied and feigned a hope I no longer felt. Now it was too late. Too late for everything.
"Let’s go,” I said. “Curfew’s not that far off."
We walked to the block in heavy silence. Around us, the crackle of camp life seemed darker and more ominous than usual. Vilmos had his head down, deep in his own thoughts. I thought of the family I’d lost, all the many regrets that now weighed on my soul.
Then my mind turned to the case, to the question that had begun niggling at me. Why had the killer taken the murder weapon with him? It was a big risk. If he had been seen with it, or if it had later been found on his person, he would have been as good as dead.
Just outside our block, we saw the Blockalteste lurking about. He spotted me and said, “You there. Come here."
Without saying a word, Vilmos broke away from me, looped around the Blockalteste, and entered the block. There was no anger on my part. This was not a desertion, just common sense. He could not help me, so why put himself in jeopardy?
The Blockalteste looked me up and down with distaste. “What did you do, bend down with your trousers by your ankles? How old are you, anyway?"
I looked at him with bewilderment. What did he mean?
He sneered at me. "You wait here."
He was gone for less than a minute. Upon returning, he threw something hard at my chest. Two things, actually. I only managed to block one with my hand. The second robbed me of breath when it bounced against my ribcage.
"Here you go," he said, then swung around and went inside the block.
On the ground before me lay two clogs. Big ones. It took me a second before I realized who had left them with the Blockalteste.
I wasted no time removing my tight clogs and slipping on the new ones. I sighed, wiggling my toes while bowing my head and closing my eyes. The new clogs were too big and not comfortable by any means, but sheer heaven compared to my old ones. These would not rub the skin off my feet. Now my wound would have a chance to heal.
Why had Mathias left these for me? Why would he care? Perhaps this unexpected kindness was similar to that shown a condemned man shortly before his ascent to the gallows. The condemned man received a last meal, but here this was not possible. Perhaps this was my last meal, the chance to take my steps over my final days with reduced agony.
Or maybe this was as emotionless as oiling a machine so it would function properly. I was no longer a human being, after all, but a tool designed to perform a task for Mathias’s master. If I limped, if I were in pain, I might do a suboptimal job.
Either way, gratitude suffused me as I entered the block, gratitude and something so unexpected I had to pause for a moment to examine it until I was sure I had identified it correctly.
Hope.
It was hope. Just a tiny bit of it. A filament of flame, flickering and faint, giving hardly any heat. But it was there. Unmistakable. And it did not strike me as unfamiliar. Rather, it had been hiding somewhere deep inside me, pushing me onward day by day without my knowing it.
Maybe Vilmos was right. Maybe I could solve this case after all.
I became aware of the muscles in my cheeks straining, and it took me a second to realize I was smiling. My steps lighter than they had been in many days, I hurried to our bunk to tell Vilmos of the hope I now felt.
21
That night, Vilmos took a turn for the worse. He shivered the whole night through, and he was boiling hot. It had been building up for over a week: the cough, the flush on his cheeks, his ragged breathing. Something bad had settled in his lungs, and now his body was trying to burn it out.
As the light of early dawn began to filter through the narrow high windows of our block, I could see his suffering etched on his face. His eyes were knotted shut, his forehead was creased and sheened with sweat, his mouth was pressed tight. At a rare moment of quiet in the block, I heard his teeth chattering.
I looked at him with dread and a crippling sense of impotence. I didn’t know how I could help him. There was barely any medicine in Auschwitz; not for the prisoners, that is. Not even in the hospital.
The wake-up gong jolted me out of the bunk. I helped Vilmos down and, looping his arm across my shoulders, walked with him to the latrines.
"It’s all right,’’ he rasped. “I can walk."
I didn’t answer; just carried him along. The heat radiating off him was intense. He needed medical attention, but the only place there were doctors was in the camp hospital, and what could they do without equipment, with hardly any medicine?
We were slow getting to the latrine and had to wait a long while. My bowels ached. Vilmos leaned against a wall, his head drooping. He looked like he would fall without the support.
But when we found two vacant holes, he managed to lower his trousers by himself and later pull them up again.
"I’m fine,’’ he said, then went into a fierce coughing fit that bent him over at the waist.
"Yeah,” I said when the fit ended, again draping his arm across my shoulders. "You're as good as new."
In the washroom, I cupped cold water in my palms and poured it over his head. He winced, swearing at me. It was so unexpected, and he’d chosen such a juicy curse word, that I broke out laughing, and was gratified when he joined me.
"I wouldn’t have guessed you were capable of such profanity,” I said.
"My vocabulary is quite extensive. Do that again and you’ll find out exactly how much."