As I was leaving the block, I saw Mathias approaching.
"You’re walking better,” he said.
“Because of you. Thank you for the clogs."
He nodded. His expression was as flat as ever.
"Why did you give them to me?"
"Their previous owner had no more use for them.”
"Yes, but why go to the trouble of bringing them to me?"
"I figured you already had enough problems without every step causing you pain."
"Why do you care about my problems?"
"I don’t. But why should a man who has so little time to live not walk comfortably?"
I had no answer. I wanted to ask him about his mother, why he had killed her, but that might have upset him, and I wanted him on my side as much as it was possible.
"I have a request, Mathias," I said, hoping I wasn’t overstepping the mark but feeling I had no choice in the matter.
"Oh?”
"My friend is sick. He has a fever. He needs medicine."
“The friend who is to join you in death this Sunday?"
I nodded.
"What good would medicine do him?"
"If I solve the case, it might save his life."
"I don’t have any medicine. Occasionally, the hospital has some.”
"He can't go to the hospital."
Mathias didn’t ask me why. He simply accepted it as a fact.
"I’m sorry, Adam, but I can’t get you any medicine. Not quickly, anyway, and probably not at all.”
I inhaled slowly and nodded, despair cloaking itself around my shoulders and chest.
He began to move past me but halted when I asked, "Mathias, did Franz looked scared in the final days of his life?"
"Why do you ask?"
"I was just wondering if he felt threatened by anyone."
"Not that I know. Franz didn’t look any different than usual."
I wanted to ask him why he had tried to cheer Franz up, and Bruno too. But what did it matter? Perhaps it stemmed from the same notion that had led him to gift me my new clogs. Whatever the reason, I was grateful to him. For my sake, and for the sake of the dead boys too.
29
I found Vilmos in our block. He had taken off his shirt and was inspecting it for lice. I joined him, squashing the little creatures between thumb and forefinger, unable to stop thinking about the nine boys who had been molested and killed.
"What is it, Adam?” Vilmos asked.
"It’s the case. I don’t have much time left."
"You’ll figure it out. I’m sure of it. Anything you want to share?"
"Let’s find somewhere private to talk," I said.
We headed toward the northern fence, close to where we had talked with the Mumbler. Again I scanned the drooping, staggering figures of the women prisoners in Mexico, hoping I’d see one of my sisters. And again, I did not.
I told Vilmos about my day. Working in Kanada, seeing the people being marched into the crematorium. Talking to Ludwig and Stefan. The redheaded man Stefan had seen threatening Franz. The man with the bloody shirt, and how I’d told the Lageralteste that he was innocent.
"You did a brave thing, Adam. The right thing.”
I wondered if I should tell him that I had inadvertently put his life at risk too— that if I failed to solve the case, he and I would both die a horrible death.
But what would be the point? Why pile more worry on his narrow shoulders? Either I solved this case and we lived, or I didn’t and we died. Like me, Vilmos would not choose the only escape if it meant that ten innocent prisoners would die. Yet I found it difficult to look at him without being gnawed by guilt.
Then I told him what I'd learned from Rolf and Otto, and what the Lageralteste did to his boys.
Vilmos shut his eyes. “Dear God, such cruelty. Such evil.”
I said nothing, thinking that because of me, Vilmos might soon fall prey to that same cruelty, that same evil.
"Those poor boys," Vilmos murmured.
"Maybe Franz is better off dead," I said, gazing at the fence.
Vilmos rested a hand on my arm. "Here in Auschwitz, Adam, each of us makes a decision every day. A decision whether it is better to struggle on living or to end the suffering by dying. And who can say with certainty which decision is the better one? But it’s a decision that belongs to each man and no one else. It’s one of the only things we still own. Whoever killed Franz robbed him of that decision."
I nodded, massaging my forehead. "I’m just worried that I don’t have enough time to catch this killer. I have no leads apart from the redheaded man Stefan saw threatening Franz, and I have no idea how to find him among all the thousands of prisoners. But I’m sure I saw such a man recently.”
"It’s odd, but I have the same feeling. Like you, I just don’t remember where or when it was."
"We could go block by block and ask. But if word reaches the Lageralteste, every redheaded man in the camp would be at risk. I don’t want that on my conscience.”
"I understand," Vilmos said. "Perhaps it’ll come to you soon. Or to me.”
We walked a few more steps before I spoke next. "There are a few things that are bothering me."
"What things?”
“The knife or whatever was used to stab Franz. The killer took a big risk by taking it with him. If he was caught with it, he would have died terribly. So why didn't he leave it at the murder scene?"
"A knife is a valuable thing," Vilmos said. “Perhaps the killer didn't wish to part with it. Yes, he took a risk, but once the blade was wiped clean of blood, it would no longer be incriminating."
"That's only true if the killer is a regular prisoner, one who would find it difficult to obtain a replacement. Prisoner functionaries could get another knife pretty easily. And so could Ludwig, I imagine."
"You’re probably right."
"So here's the problem, Vilmos. You told me that the bread you took from Franz's body was easy to find.”
"It was."
"Then why was it still there? If the killer was a regular prisoner, would he have kept the knife, knowing the risk, but not taken two seconds to search the body? I don’t think so.”
"You’re right," Vilmos said. “It’s strange. What else is bothering you?"
“The fact that Franz was carrying bread in the first place."
"We all save a portion of our bread every now and then, Adam."
"But we don’t work directly for the Lageralteste. Whatever horrors Franz endured, he didn’t lack for food. He had no reason to keep bread for later, unless he was planning on giving it to someone else."
"Who?"
"I don’t know. Ludwig said Franz had no friends but himself. And if any of the prisoner functionaries had seen him with another prisoner, the Lageralteste would have killed him by now, just to be on the safe side. And we know from Zoltan that Franz was not in the selling business anymore.”
I paused to squint at a woman dragging her feet near the fence of Mexico. Something in her build and the set of her shoulders reminded me of my sister Sarlota, but then I saw, with a twinge, that the woman was not her.
"Which means,” I said, "that somewhere in this camp, there's a prisoner who had some sort of a connection with Franz. But I don't know who he is. Nor do I have any idea how to find him.”
"You think this mystery man is the killer?"
"It’s possible. Or he might know something that would lead me to him.”
Vilmos coughed long and hard, half bent with his hands on his knees. When he straightened, I noted how drawn his face was, how the skin under his eyes was black with fatigue. “You’re very ill, aren't you, my friend?"