skull_bearer | Past Tense- Part three

Chapter two

It had been quiet again for a while, and Erik knows he should have suspected something would happen. He likes it when it’s quiet, when it’s just him and Charles and they don’t need to talk- perhaps in a few years they would enjoy talking; when they actually had things to talk about- but silence had been such a rare commodity for so long that they want to enjoy it. The days roll around as regularly as a clock counting out the hours, the meals are finally starting to become something they can recognise as real food- vegetable stew most days- and nothing to do but sleep or sit outside in the sun, or lately even walk around a little, his legs no longer feeling as though they were about to collapse under him.

He should have realised, how Charles always said he ate his share of bread outside when he went alone to get their meals, the way he now seemed to get tired more quickly than Erik did, so many little clues that he had ignored as stalwartly as he had ignored the signs of his own illness. The quiet was dangerous because he wanted it to go on badly enough to ignore their problems until they were right on top of them.

Erik sighs and glares at Charles for the hundredth time. He can’t believe that his friend would be so foolish as to cheat himself here. As much as he hated Charles doing it in Belsen, he might be able to understood why, but here…

“Why didn‘t you just ask them for more?” He whispers, too exasperated to put any strength in his voice.

Charles smiles up at his, a touch of irony in the expression, “Would you?” He asks, with a slight challenge in his voice. Erik ignores it, Charles knows the answer to that. He coughs, then continues in a more even voice “There are too many people here for them to give out any more than they already are.” Another cough, and Charles pulls the blankets closer around him. Erik would have left his coat as extra bedcovering for his sick friend, but Charles wouldn’t hear of it, and after he had threatened to throw it on the floor, Erik had taken it back.

They have already had breakfast, and Erik had braved the hospital to demand something for Charles, who was feverish and had found it hard to eat.

The fears are fading, Erik realises. Two months ago, finding Charles like this would have terrified him beyond any nightmares, but while he does worry, the fears have been muted, fading under the curtain of security the hospital has thrown over them. It might not be the paradise Charles- and yes, he- had once dreamed of, but it is a safe place. A place where he could go to the nurse for medicine for a sick friend, and not be afraid of being shot or beaten or given poison in the guise of healing.

They had seen many such cases, working in the hospital in Auschwitz. A fellow worker forced into giving a patient arsenic by an SS doctor, or perhaps a fatal does of painkillers, just so the sadistic creature could observe what the effects would be. They had never been put in such a position, thank heavens, because if the hospital worker refused, the SS took it that he was volunteering to take the patient’s place and would poison him instead.

The medicine had helped, although Erik isn’t sure how much Charles was exaggerating when he said he was fine. He stands up nevertheless, and steels himself to walk out of the tent alone. Since he’s started to walk again he’s always tried to go with Charles to fetch their meals, although most mornings his friend lets him sleep and gets them himself; probably to give Erik as excuse as to where his share of the bread had gone.

He’d been eating supper that night, when half the bread he was using to wipe up the last of the soup fell away. Two pieces pressed together as one. A clever trick. He’d looked at Charles, shocked and furious that Charles would trick him into betraying him.

“How long have you been doing this?”

How long have I been eating your share?

How long have you been going without for my sake?

The day is colder than usual, cloudy and grey which matches Erik’s mood perfectly. He had promised himself, in a promise that had nothing to do with empty words but everything with true intent, that he would never hurt Charles either willingly or unwillingly. His friend was the one thing he refused to betray, the last boundary before the end of the world, and Charles had tricked him into crossing it. He hadn’t spoken to Charles for the rest of that evening, only had only started again when his friend had woken with a fever.

The morning dew has already soaked through the holes in Erik’s boots, and the relief of walking again is not so great that he can tolerate his feet getting wet. The hem of his coat is trailing along the grass, and it too is getting sodden, the greyish fabric turning black along the edges.

The hospital has very little running water, apparently many of the pipes burst the last winter and haven’t been replaced. Those staying in the tents who need water have to draw it from the well and Erik and Charles are no exception. The hospital staff warm some once a week to use for bathing.

By the time Erik reaches the large drum from which the hot water is being ladled out, he’s wet and shivering and impatient with the world. The orderly hands him a tin bucket as he passes, and for a moment Erik pauses, turning the metal in his hands. It’s poor quality, and rusty in several places, but he feels an odd surge of gratitude towards the man for giving it to him.

He’d always loved metal for some reason, and one of his earliest memories involves playing with a heavy iron candlestick and being subsequently scolded for it by his mother. He’d collected scraps of metal when he was younger, even during their time at the ghetto.

Erik ran a finger along the metal rim of the pail. Familiar. Comforting in a strange way.

The hard, jagged edge of the spade.

“Wo ist Charles?” A German voice breaks though Erik’s thoughts and he starts, almost dropping his pail. The nurse in charge of sharing out the hot water is looking at him inquisitively. She’s smiling, and it’s all Erik can do not to grit his teeth. The woman- he’s never bothered learning their names- is almost as tall as he is, with her blond hair pulled back in a severe bun, stretching the lined skin of her face. She makes it a policy to learn everyone’s name, something Erik finds even more threatening than her language.

In the camps, anonymity had been their ally, to be just another face in the crowd a protection. Erik remembered reading, long ago when he’d still been allowed inside a library, about how some animals protected themselves from predators by vanishing into a crowd of their fellows. Charles had found the analogy particularly fitting. To stand out was to make yourself a target for people who didn’t need a reason to kill you.

“Charles nie jest tutaj.” Erik snaps back, deliberately in Polish- Charles isn’t here. He sees the woman’s smile fade and her face close as she fills his bucket and hands it back to him. She probably believes he hates with her for what her people did to him. Good. Let her think that. It’s nothing but the truth and he knows he’s not the only one who feels that way.

The handle of the bucket has a round wooden grip, but this is cracked and covered in splinters, and Erik starts off carrying it by the metal. The weight feels enormous and keeps pulling him off balance. The metal cuts painfully into his hands and before long he has to stop and hold it by the wooden grip. Even using two hands, it’s too heavy, and Erik can feel the weight drag on his shoulders, the old pain coming back from where they never had a change to heal.

After his parents had been shot, Erik had crawled out of the grave, only to be caught almost immediately by the thunderstruck German soldiers. He had twisted out of their hands and escaped, only to run straight into another SS guard. He had screamed himself hoarse and kicked and bitten and Erik suspects that if they hadn’t been so bewildered as to how he’d managed to survive, they would have shot him again on the spot.

They didn’t. Instead they dragged him into the truck and drove to the station. The train he had initially believed they would be taking had left long ago- en route for Treblinka, he heard the SS say- but another would be coming from France to take on fuel on it’s way to Auschwitz. They’d put him on that, and let the guards at the camp do what they liked with him when he got there. They did not want him as their problem.

But there were several hours before the train would arrive, and many of the soldiers had received scratches and bruises from Erik’s wild flailing, as well as a few unpleasant remarks about their marksmanship from their superior, and were quite happy to take it out on the cause of their misfortune.

They had found the rope in one of the cabinets, and lashed one end to a hook on the wall. They’d thrown the other end over a ceiling beam, and used it to tie Erik’s hands behind his back. He’d believed he was only being restrained, and didn’t fight- his struggles earlier had already brought him a cuff around the head. It was only when the rope was pulled up and he was lifted off the ground that he started screaming again. The strain pulled his arms painfully up against the joints and it took all of Erik’s strength to keep his body upright, holding himself straight.

He couldn’t keep that position for long, and he now knew that the Nazis would be perfectly willing to leave him there until his arms were torn off completely. He’d held out for as long as possible, but after the horrors and strain of the day, his strength had eventually flagged and his body fallen again. Again he’d pulled himself up, and again he’d fallen. It had gone on, and each time he couldn’t hold himself up as long, and each time the pain in his shoulders increased until he was screaming again. Next door, he had heard the German soldiers turning up the volume of the radio to drown out his voice.

Eventually, he couldn’t pull himself up any longer and had to just hang there, with no company but the muffled music from the German radio and his own ragged breathing. Even these years later, he still had nightmares on how it had felt to hang there, feeling his muscles slowly twist and tear like raw meat, and listening to the creaking of his joints as the bones were pulled apart.

He didn’t know if he could have heard the sound his shoulders made when they finally dislocated, because that pain, combined with the agony of having his full body weight put on his already torn muscles, had caused him to black out completely.

He’d woken on the floor, when the Germans had come to cut him down and thrown a bucket of cold water on him to wake him up. Woken to freezing cold and unbearable pain and the horrific sight of his own distorted arms. It was nothing short of a miracle that the heavy work in Auschwitz hadn’t dislocated the bones again- either that, or Charles was a far better doctor than he let on- but his shoulders had never felt quite the same way again, and when he carried heavy loads- as he did now- the old pain came back, a stabbing ache starting in the small of his back and quickly deepening into the intolerable.

Erik puts down the pail and stretches, rolling his shoulders and flexing his back, trying to work out the insistent, nagging pain. It fades a little, and Erik picks up the bucket again, trying to hold the metal against his chest in an effort not to aggravate the stabbing in his joints.

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Charles looks up when Erik walks in, carrying the pail. They haven’t been out here for a week yet, and he’d been hoping they would share carrying the water. Judging by how he’s holding himself, Erik’s shoulders are hurting him horribly. He doesn’t say anything, but Charles knows that he’s blaming him for the pain. Erik never blames him aloud, but Charles knows him well enough to guess what he’s thinking.

Erik hadn’t said ‘I told you so’ when Charles had woken up sweating and sick that morning, he hadn’t needed to. He’d sent him a look that was part accusing, part exasperated and part worried, and that had said more than words ever could.

“I’m sorry.” Charles sits up, and pulls the blankets more closely around him. He feels dizzy and slightly nauseous but ignores it. His throat hurts when he speaks above a whisper.

Erik doesn’t turn around, only shrugging stiffly in response as he busies himself with the pail.

Charles sighs, “Come here.”

Erik looks at him, and he moves away from the side of the bed, inviting him to sit down. Erik growls something indistinct in his mother tongue and drags the bucket beside the bed before sitting down on the edge. He gives a soft groan when Charles starts kneading his shoulders.

Erik’s shoulders are like the rest of him, bone covered with paper, tied with string. He digs between the planes of bone with his thumbs, rubbing up and down and Erik’s indrawn hiss of pain is exhaled in a groan. There are tight knots of muscle in his shoulder joints, scar tissue from where the muscles had healed badly.

They hadn’t worked the first few weeks that had spent in Birkenau. Quarantine. They had stayed in their barrack and only come out for roll-call, which could take hours when everyone had to be counted, living and dead. Once they had had to stand for more than a full day while the Kapos searched for one elusive prisoner. He and Erik had taken turns to lean against each other and sleep, his head resting on his friend’s chest, Erik’s on his shoulder. Eventually the man had been found hanging off the electric fence, and Charles suspected there wasn’t a man in the kommando that didn’t curse his memory for the ordeal he had made them go through.

But as gruelling as the roll-calls were, it was better than working, and if Erik had been made to work immediately after arriving, his shoulders would have dislocated again. Even afterwards, when Erik had healed as much as he was going to and they were put to work, Charles tried not to imagine what it must have been like to work with his arms in that state.

Erik finally pulls away from his hands, “The water is getting cold.” he explains shortly, but there’s no bite to his words and Charles can tell when Erik reaches over his shoulder to squeeze his wrist that he’s been forgiven.

Charles doesn’t particularly want to get himself wet in his condition, but hot water is just too good to miss. He leans over the side of the bed, lying on his stomach to splash his arms up to the elbows. He cups his hands, pouring the water over his bare head to wash away the dirt of the last few days, then again, rubbing over his face. It’s a surprise when his fingers touch the stubble on his cheeks and chin.

He has never had to shave before, although he remembers looking forward to learning how to back in his parents’ house. It was a mark of adulthood, and he recalls how he used to watch his father shave, when the man was still alive. Looking forwards to the day when he would do this himself.

And now when the long-awaited moment had finally come, it was more of a nuisance than a point of pride. Charles runs a thumb along his jaw line, trying to get used to the feeling; he’s going to have to, since they don’t have a razor, mirror or even soap.

He sees Erik watching and smiles, “You?”

Erik shrugs- the motion seems easier than it had earlier- and shakes his head before sitting down next to the bucket. Charles vaguely remembers something he learnt back at university, that starvation or long sickness could delay the body’s development.

Charles sits back up and dries himself as best he can on one of the blankets- he feels too hot to have them all on, and they may as well be used.

Erik does the same, washing his face and hands, then cupping them and pouring water over his head, it’s the first chance he’s had to wash his hair since it’s started to grow back, and he runs his hands through it thoroughly before taking of his coat and using the lining to rub it dry. Even partly clean, his hair is an odd colour, not at all like the dark brown Charles remembers.

“You’ve gone grey,” He remarks, reaching out to touch the wet spikes.

Erik looks up at him in surprise, and runs his hand through his hair again, as though he could tell the colour by touching it. Then he shrugs a third time and continues washing his forearms, “And you’ve gone bald.” He replies simply in the tone of someone who can’t be surprised by anything any more. “And if it was because of something they to us while we were in the camps, we wouldn’t be the only ones.”

Charles closed his eyes, it’s not the first time they’ve had this conversation.

The first time was the day after Charles’ dream. He was sick and shaking and very glad to be awake, and Erik was trying to understand what had happened. He tried to explain.

“I had a dream-” He stopped, it was no dream.

“A nightmare-” It was no nightmare either, and to pass it off as such was an insult to those who had died. He couldn’t stand to look anywhere near the crematorium that morning.

“I felt-” Better.

“They gassed people last night,” He blurted out at last, too loud. He lowered his voice, “The people from the transport. I felt them die.” He put his hands to his head, he could still hear them screaming in there. “I felt was it was like to die.” He felt sick, so sick that he wondered how he was going to be able to eat anything.

Erik touched his arm gently, Charles was half expecting his friend to pull away in disgust and tell him he was crazy, but strangely, Erik almost looked relieved.

“When they shot my parents,” Erik said, his lips thinning at the memory, “I was there. I was to die with them. They lined us up and shot us, and none of the bullets hit me.” He looked down at his hands, as though he couldn’t believe it even now, “They were standing right behind me, and they couldn’t hit me, it was as though the bullets bent away from me.” Then back up, at Charles, “Is that any less impossible than what you just told me?”

When Charles had shaken his head, Erik turned and looked over at the hospital block. “Do you think they did something to us?” He asked, “In the ghettos, and here? To make us do these things?”

They hadn’t continued the conversation there, because the bell had rung for roll-call and besides Charles wasn’t sure how well they could talk about medical experimentation with a shared vocabulary of rough German, bad English and a few scraps of Polish. They had come back to it again though, when they had been able to understand each other better.

“You know what I think.” He says firmly. He doesn’t believe that Erik’s experience and his dreams were a product of some mad Nazi doctor’s experiments, for all that Erik does.

After all, the first time he had seen it work was long before the Nazis could have done anything to him. The dogs, snarling and howling as they tore into his family, then turning to him, cowering away from them. He can remember the terror, the knowledge that he would soon end up like his family, a torn rag-doll in those jaws. He remembers screaming almost instinctively at them to get back, throwing out his arm as if that could stop them.

And, astonishingly, it had. The dogs had stopped in mid stride, their growls turning to whines. The SS had looked thunderstruck when their dogs had started to back away, no more amazed than Charles was himself.

He’d told Erik this, but his friend had just shrugged, asking him if he had a better explanation.

“And you know what I believe.” Erik throws his coat over on the other bed, washing his upper arms and the back of his neck. “You saw what they were doing in there, how else can you explain what happened?”

His suspicions are well placed, Charles admits, they’ve both been in Mengele‘s laboratory, they’ve both seen what he was trying to do.

A young girl, her eyelids pulled back so far that she was crying constantly, a needle in the muscle of her eye to inject dye into the iris…

Cutting and knotting veins and muscles, binding two twins together in a grotesque experiment…

The living vivisection of a creature unlike anything Charles had ever seen before…

Charles tries not to shudder, this time it has nothing to do with feeling sick. He turns his head to the side, watching Erik, “Why would they do that? We were Jews to them, filth of the earth, why were they trying to give us this…” he pauses, unable to think up the right word either in English or any other language.

Erik runs his hands in the water again- it’s looking noticeably dingy now, Charles notices. “To avoid testing it on their own precious people,” He sneers, “Even if they knew what it would do. They probably didn’t, and just thought it would kill us.”

Charles rolls over on his back, he’s tired and his head is starting to pound, and he doesn’t feel like re-hashing this old argument again. The main reason he disagrees with Erik, the reason he thinks his friend- who is rightfully fond of the powers that saved his life, wherever they might have come from- might not like, is that Charles can’t imagine who would want to have the power to find out what it feels like to die.