Past Tense
May. 26th, 2008 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skull_bearerPart five, chapter two
It doesn’t take long to discover that they’re not the only ones who have been offered the choice to leave. Erik suspects the man -- Dr. Shomron, as he introduces himself -- would have been very happy to invite along just about anyone who wanted to leave; which is almost everyone. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, he’s only allowed to take the very sick. He and Charles follow the doctor like lost ducklings as he enters the hospital. It’s much emptier than Erik remembers it, although the aids and nurses still look frazzled and short of sleep. They are delighted when Shomron tells them why he’s here, although they shoot Erik and Charles odd glances when they follow the doctor inside the ward.
“They’ll be leaving with us,” Shomron explains before they can stop them. “We could use some help over there. Now, if you could be good enough to show us who else should be leaving with us, we’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”
Erik hates this; he hates how the knot of fear -- completely irrational in this place -- refuses to go away. It’s not a dangerous place; it’s probably the least dangerous place they know right now, but it‘s unfamiliar, so many unfamiliar places are dangerous, and it frightens him. He hates that. And he hates himself most of all. He instinctively takes a step towards Charles, only to find his friend has felt the same, and they bump shoulders, almost tripping over each other’s feet. Shomron looks back at them, and they disentangle themselves.
The nurses bring them to the hospital doctor, who leads them around the wards. Erik’s not sure what they should be looking at. Some of the patients look almost normal -- or at least, as normal as he or Charles look, which isn’t normal at all -- while others are behaving strangely. One man is sitting up, but doesn’t appear to be looking at anything, rocking rhythmically. There are scabs on the back of his head from banging into the iron bedstead, and the nurses have had to stuff a pillow behind his head to stop any further injury. Several more are lying in a fetal position, eyes open and blank. One woman is chewing on her fingers, not noticing they are wrapped in gauze.
He’s amazed they survived at all. It’s all so sickeningly familiar.
Most people like that didn’t. By that point they didn’t care what happened to them. By that point death would have been a mercy. Erik avoided them, tried not to think about them; everybody did. Because if they did, they would wonder what could bring people to such a state, and they would know, because it was the exact same thing that had happened to them. And if they thought about that too long, they would end up in the same state.
Erik has to fight down the urge to reach for Charles. There had been times… Perhaps were still times…
He wouldn’t have survived without Charles. He knows that as well as he knows his own name. A good deal of this is just plain common sense; if Charles hadn’t been on the train, he’d have arrived in
He doesn’t want to think about it. He knows the answer.
He can’t help it, and glances at his friend. Charles is staring at the bed in the far corner, and Erik recognises the girl. She’s no longer screaming; instead she’s one of those staring at the ceiling without moving. Charles gaze tracks from her, to the next bed with its rocking occupant, to the woman biting her hand, then looks away with a shudder Erik can certainly empathise with.
“Muselmann.” He reaches over to touch Charles’ arm, but starts back when Charles steps on his foot.
It’s more of a shock that any real pain, but Charles’ eyes are burning. “No.” He hisses. “They are not.”
“Charles?”
“I’m sorry.” He seems almost out of breath. “But they’re not.” He takes a deep breath. “They are people, Erik. Like us. And we are going to help them. We can help them.”
Erik is about to speak, but decides against it. For once, Charles is right. The thought frightens him, and again he feels as though the world is opening up under him, no longer obeying the old, cruel rules he knows. He looks back the patients in the ward, feeling lost. Charles is the one who touches his arm to comfort him. “Come on.” He nods towards the two doctors standing beside the girl. “If they want us to help, we should start.”
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The real world might not be the mythical, longed-for place he’d dreamed about, people might behave in ways that remind him of the camps, but God, Charles isn’t going to let Erik become one of them. He’s overreacted, he knows that, and he’ll apologize again once they’re alone, but when he remembers the look on Erik’s face, the way he looked at the patients… That closed-off look, not letting himself feel for them for fear of what it would do to him. Staying cold in the face of human suffering because pity would weaken him.
It had been something that had shocked him to the core, those first few days: the cheapness of human life. Not just from the guards -- that was easier to understand, if no less repulsive -- but from the other inmates. They helped each other stand during the interminable roll-calls, shared food with friends and kept watch over each other, but there was a reason. Everything, no matter how small, was never selfless, they always expected something back. No one would help those who couldn’t help you back.
He’d hated in the camp, even when he began seeing it in himself, but dear God they don’t need that here and Charles never wants to feel or see it again, especially from Erik.
At times, he had wondered if Erik ever thought about him like that, and what his friend had expected back. He doesn’t think like that now, any more that Charles does, but once, had Erik ever looked at him with eyes like that? He couldn’t remember, perhaps because he hadn’t wanted to.
Shomron has put a pair of glasses on and is waving a pen in front of the girl’s eyes, checking for any reaction, although Charles suspects that if she were to suddenly wake up and ask him what he was doing he would still find an excuse to take her along. The examination is just a formality. Her eyes don’t follow the pen, staying fixed on the ceiling.
“She’s been like this for weeks, since we sent her out.”
“How was she before?”
“…Unstable.” The hospital doctor clearly expects some sort of reprimand. “She would have lucid phases, before lapsing into… this. We thought it was just a side effect from an illness.”
Shomron’s mouth jerks, not pleased, but he doesn’t remark on the man’s actions. “And now? Any change?”
“None.”
“What have you been feeding her?” He replaces the pen in his breast pocket.
“The same thing as everyone else,” He looks guiltier still. “She eats if you feed her, but otherwise…” He spreads his hands.
“Hmm.” Shomron brushes down his shirt, and then turns to them. “What do you make of this?”
He’s smiling, but Charles feels Erik jerk as though it was a threat. His own mind seems to have jammed, trying to dredge up the information he knows must be in there somewhere. It’s like rusty machinery, and the worse part is that Charles knows it’s an easy question. The hospital doctor’s eyes are on him too, and he feels the panic build up. They expect them to answer; they are supposed to have some modicum of medical training and if they don’t answer, Shomron might reconsider. He wants them to look away, he doesn’t want this, he wants to grab Erik and run, and this is an easy question, and he should know-
“Catatonia.” He blurts out. Too loud. Erik jerks again, and Charles feels his muscles twitch as he knocks against him again.
The doctors are still staring at them, and Charles wishes they would look at something else; can’t they see they don’t want the attention?
The hospital doctor looks at Shomron and shrugs, Shomron nods, “Quite right.” He’s still smiling, and Charles wonders if he knows the effect he’s having on them, and if he really is the best man to look after people even worse off than they are. They are beckoned over, and Charles has to tug on Erik’s arm to get him to move.
Closer to, the girl looks quite well. She’s very young, fourteen at most, and very pretty; with long dark hair and large eyes, and much healthier than most on the ward -- healthier than he and Erik, in fact.
“Was she in
“As far was know. She was probably sent there from somewhere else, most of them say they were, but she didn’t talk about it when we asked.”
Can they honestly be surprised? Charles wonders who else they’ve tried to get information from. Maybe he and Erik would have talked, if they’d been asked -- sometimes it had seemed like the whole point of surviving in the first place, to bear witness -- but a child like this?
“Did she tell you anything?”
“Only her name: Gabrielle Haller.”
“Have you tried to find if she has family?”
“Where do we suggest we start, given these circumstances! We tried to ask, but she wouldn’t speak, so I would say no.”
Shomron sighs and looks at Charles. He takes a step back and hits Erik. This is anything but comfortable, but if it allows them to go elsewhere, somewhere where they might be able to recapture at least the semblance of a normal life… He has no idea what
“Well,” Shomron says, “We’re expecting the trucks later today. It’s not the most ideal option, but it can’t do any more harm” -than you’ve already done goes unspoken- “And she would do better in one of our hospitals, and it would relieve the overcrowding here.”
“You’ll be taking others then?” The relief is barely disguised in the hospital doctor’s voice.
“Those in this ward to start with. More if we’re able to.” He glances at the two of them. “You probably don’t know that the British are being very unhelpful when it comes to allowing people into
Charles can name at least five off the top of his head, but keeps his mouth shut.
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Erik really hopes this isn’t going to backfire. That the British are more reasonable than Nazis and won’t shoot them if they don‘t allow them in. It’s a silly thought, the British army would hardly have saved them from the train to shoot them later, but the fear doesn’t leave.
He and Charles have been dismissed back to their tent to ‘pack.’ The way Shomron said it; he obviously expected it would take them a while. He’d barely been able to stifle a snort. They have at best four sets of clothes each and not much else. Hardly worthy of being called ‘packing.’
It’s only one the way back that Erik realises they don’t have anything to pack with. The same thought has obviously struck Charles and they hesitate, then shrug. They can probably carry their meager belongings in their hands if need be.
The tents look strange when they reach them. It’s hard to imagine that when they left, they didn’t know it would be one of the last them they would be here. When the trucks come to take the patients away, they will be leaving with them.
He’d disliked this place, this nowhere, but now that it’s time to leave, he doesn’t want to. It’s safe here. They’d been so scared of being sent away, and although they’re not really being sent away -- at least they know where they’re going -- the dread of being lost in a fathomless, uncertain world will not be banished.
Erik had never thought he’d be in a position to miss this place, but despite the attitudes of the nurses, it’s the first decent place he’s been to in… in…
Crawling through a chink in the wall around the ghetto, his brother at his heels. It was tight, and even with so little to eat, he was growing too tall to fit. He didn’t shove the bag of stolen food through first, in case someone on the other side -- someone as desperate as he was, with a family as hungry -- stole it.
A shout, a scrawny, ragged woman pointing at them and shrieking for the police -- “Thieves! Jew thieves!”
His brother shoving him through in panic, the bag falling from his hands and running, seeing his brother race off in the other direction, the last time he’d ever see him.
The police van driving towards his old house, and those defending it. Pushing the cart away while their erstwhile neighbors laughed. The same police who’d spoken at his school. The same neighbors who’d let him take apples from their orchard. The same people he’d known all his life. His sister’s boyfriend spitting at her, egged on by his friends.
Charles tugs at his arm. He’d stopped in the middle of the road. He blinks, then starts forwards again. Is anywhere truly decent? Is there anywhere that is truly safe? They threatened him with morphine here, which would have killed him as surely as a bullet or gas. Would
They reach the tent, walk inside and flaps fall closed, sealing them into their little cocoon of security.
Charles touches his face, eyes narrowed in concern, and Erik can’t help himself, wrapping his arms around his friend and pulling him into a tight hug. Charles’ hand drops to his waist and he hugs back. Maybe it’s just from the tiredness, the long walk and the metal and the emotional disruption, but Erik suspects he should be crying right now. He presses his cheek against Charles’ head, and screws his eyes shut, willing tears to come.
As so often before, they don’t.
Charles gently pulls away, although he keeps his hands on Erik’s shoulders. “Listen. Let me gather what we have. We won’t be leaving for hours yet. Get some sleep.”
It’s the best idea Erik has heard all day.
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It probably means a great deal about his state of mind that when Charles shakes him awake a few hours later; Erik jerks awake on autopilot and throws his legs over the side of the bed, trying to climb off the bed as thought it were a three-tier bunk before remembering where he is and collapsing on the floor.
Charles has his hand over his mouth, hiding a smile. “How are you feeling?”
Feeling? Better. A lot better. His mind feels clearer and sharper, and the memories that were threatening to pound his mind to pieces have been pushed back as far as they can go. “Are we leaving?”
Charles nods. “I think so. The trucks have just arrived and I think they’d expect us to help them move the people.”
Erik gets up; his legs are stiff from the walk and his hip hurts where he landed on the floor. Charles is sitting on the bed with two oddly shaped bulging bags. They look like the shirts they had been given on first coming here. Charles has stuffed their other clothes in them and tied up the holes, making crude sacks. Erik picks up his, and throws his coat over his arm -- it’s too hot to wear, but he likes it and won’t leave it behind. Charles also gets up. He’s got his shoes on, and Erik was too tired to take his off before going to bed, and they move towards the door. Erik looks back at the ragged camp-bed, the sagging tarpaulin, the ruined cardboard and wood covering the floor. Their home for the last two months.
“When I was younger,” Charles says softly, “And we went on holiday, we would sit on the sofa just before we left and imagine where we were going to. My mother said it brought good luck.”
Erik’s hand covers his smile. “When we went away, I would go around my room and remember where everything was, so if a thief came when I was away, I would know what was missing and could tell the police.”
They smile at each other and look around the room again. “Were you thinking about
Charles shakes his head. “I tried, but I have no idea what it’s like.”
Erik doesn’t either. “It’s can’t be worse.”
Charles nods. “It can’t be as bad.”
And with that certainty at least, they leave.
