I poured more water on his scalp.
"Stop it!" he said. "It’s freezing."
"You have a fever. I'm trying to bring it down.” Again I doused his head. This time he took his treatment in silence. He looked quite miserable, dripping and shivering like a wet dog, and all trace of amusement drained out of me. Vilmos was sick, and there was nothing I could do for him.
Then I thought of Mathias and felt a sprinkling of hope. Maybe he could do something. But would he be willing?
We made our way slowly to the breakfast lines. Vilmos drank his coffee gingerly, each swallow painful. He protested when I offered him my bowl.
"Take it,” I said. “You need it more than I do.”
"I’m fine, I told you."
"Take it, goddammit, or I’ll dump it all on the ground.”
He saw I was serious. "At least take a few sips," he said.
I did. Then, as he drank, I scoured the milling crowd around me. Where was Mathias?
Vilmos handed me my bowl back. "Thank you, Adam."
"Maybe you should go to the hospital," I said.
He shook his head firmly.
"You’re sick. You need to rest."
"I’m not going to that place."
"You could die, Vilmos.’’
"I could die in the hospital, too. I’d rather take my chances digging trenches."
I didn't argue with him, because he might have been right. In his condition, the hospital was a gamble.
"I’ll try to get you into an easier kommando,” I said, again searching for Mathias in the sea of prisoners around us, "so you won’t have to work so hard."
I was about to tell Vilmos that I was going to look for Mathias when we were summoned to the Appellplatz. I swore under my breath. Where was he?
We gathered with the other prisoners, and then came a loud bark of a command: "Achtung/”
We jumped to attention, as still as pillars. Looking around me, my heart plummeted. For there, at the edge of the Appellplatz were four SS doctors in their pressed uniforms and starched collars. With them were a few dozen guards.
We weren't about to form our kommandos. At least not yet. First, there was going to be a selection.
Only then did I see Mathias, standing to one side with his arms folded across his chest. He had nothing to worry about. He was not a candidate for death. Beside him stood the Lageralteste, a vicious grin on his face.
"Form rows!" an SS guard ordered. And once we did: "Do not move! Silence!"
The four SS doctors began to amble along the rows of prisoners, as casual as though they were on an afternoon stroll. Here and there, one of them would point at a prisoner, and this unfortunate soul would be pushed at gunpoint by an SS guard off to the side.
Some accepted their fate with quiet dignity. Others broke into sobs and had to be dragged away. And yet others begged and pleaded, claiming a vigor they no longer possessed. Their pleas were ignored. Their death had already been ordained.
My mouth turned as dry as dirt as one of the doctors approached. I chanced a glance at Vilmos. His cheeks were aflame, his forehead was damp, and his breath hissed through his mouth. He stood stooped like an old man.
"Stand straight, Vilmos," I whispered. "Don’t give up."
Vilmos didn’t reply, nor did he straighten his posture. The doctor was now just ten prisoners away. In one hand he held a pair of gloves, which he was lightly tapping into his other palm. Five prisoners away. Four, three, two, one...
The doctor gazed at me closely. I stared ahead, careful not to look him in the eye. My stomach was flipping itself over. My heart was bouncing around my chest. My knees were quaking. Could he see that? Could he sense that somehow?
He had a pinched mouth and cold, reptilian eyes. A round, shaven face from which wafted the fresh scent of cologne. His nostrils flared as though he savored my stench. I was gripped by the irrational thought that he was feeding on my fear.
In my head I pleaded with a God I was no longer sure I believed in to spare me, to spare Vilmos, to let us live. I offered no promises in exchange. No oaths of future worship or adherence to religious laws. Just a simple, desperate supplication to postpone our deaths.
The doctor moved on. I had not been selected. But no relief came. There was still Vilmos, and he was sick. If he was sent to the gas chambers, I did not know what I’d do.
The doctor had barely paused before me, but he stopped before Vilmos. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him tilting his head a bit as he examined Vilmos’s face.
"Have you got a fever?" the doctor asked. His tone was mild and pleasant. A good doctor’s voice. Calming, reassuring, inviting confidence. Camouflaging his true, evil nature. This was how the devil sounded as he tricked you out of your soul.
"No, Herr Doctor,” Vilmos replied, and I was astounded at the resonance and clarity of his voice. No hint of a rasp. “I'm just hot. I ran when I heard the gong."
"Where are you from?"
"Hungary, Herr Doctor.”
"So you’re new here."
"Yes, Herr Doctor."
"And how do you like living here so far?"
"It’s a new experience, Herr Doctor."
The doctor’s sneer bloomed into a smile. He had thin, haughty lips, as pink as a girl’s.
"Which kommando do you belong to?" and when Vilmos replied, he said, "Hard work, eh?"
"Yes, Herr Doctor."
"Are you sure you’re up to it?"
"Yes, Herr Doctor."
"What was your profession before the war?"
"I was a history professor, Herr Doctor.”
"Ah, an educated man. Wouldn’t you rather be assigned an office job? Something less taxing, more restful?"
His amiable tone plunged a dagger of fear into my stomach. This was a trap or part of some demented game. For this was a man incapable of true kindness, at least to us. If Vilmos answered in the affirmative, the doctor would view it as an admission of physical weakness.
"I like working with my hands, Herr Doctor," said Vilmos. "And the sun does me good."
"Or maybe you’d rather go to the hospital? You look tired, perhaps even sick."
"I feel quite well, Herr Doctor.”
Abruptly, the doctor’s voice shed itself of all pretense of concern. Now only icy imperiousness remained. "Lift up your shirt. Higher!"
I barely restrained from wincing. For I knew what the doctor would see: Vilmos’s gaunt, pasty torso, the skin so thin the blood vessels showed blue and stringy underneath. You did not need to be a doctor to see that Vilmos was sick and weak, on the brink of collapse. Any second now, the doctor would point a crooked forefinger at Vilmos, and he would be taken away.
For a few agonizing moments, the doctor neither spoke nor moved his predatory eyes from Vilmos. I heard the rhythmic tapping of his leather gloves as they slapped against his palm, like a small, wicked heart beating in anticipation of sin. So unlike my own heart, which was stuttering in my chest.
I imagined each tap of the gloves signifying the turning of a flipped coin as it somersaulted through the air. Heads, you live; tails, you die.
Then it stopped, so abruptly that I almost gasped. Next came the doctor’s voice, arrogant and slick. “All right. I wish you a pleasant day of digging. Just be sure to not change your mind and try gaining admittance to the hospital. I’ll be watching for you there.” Then he moved on down the line, his gloves once more tapping.
I turned my head a fraction so I could better see Vilmos. I watched as his shoulders sagged like a puppet no longer held by its strings. He closed his eyes and let out an almost inaudible exhalation. His hands trembled at his sides.
It was a display of extraordinary determination. Proof of the incredible power of the will to live. A warm wave of emotion and, yes, love engulfed me as I looked at Vilmos, seeing how much of his little strength it had taken to fool this doctor of death. How I wished I could put my arms around Vilmos and lend him some of my energy. But we were not allowed to move from our spots. At that moment, I was willing to postpone my investigation, to give up this day, just to be by Vilmos's side. For I feared that the only way he would be returning to camp this evening would be on the shoulders of other prisoners. Dead.