MATTER WHAT.
VALERIE.
I wondered what was so bad that Val had to try so hard to make me feel better.
And what the hell had she thought of my other jottings? I turned back to my own writing.
abandon all hope arbeiters this isnt freedom its a lie I know its a lie
cold and hunger and arbeit makes you dead the dead are free they sent the dogs into the hut today hot breath slevers cold nose sniffing me wanting to make me run and then hunt me down you had to lie he maketh me to lie down in green pastures yet will I fear evil not moshe moshe didnt lie was always afraid we were all afraid but moshe wore it like a coat the dogs love that they love fear it drives them mad I chucked the notebook down on the floor and stumbled into my office. I pulled out my bottle from my desk drawer and poured a big shot into my tumbler. Then I sat down on my visitors chair in my pyjamas and rocked and rocked. In my minds eye was a day, two days, all the days in the camp. A double row of wooden huts inside a high barbed wire fence. On the edge of a sleepy little village, a thousand years old, not far from Munich. I often wondered why the villagers stayed there. Afterwards. Why would you want to live in a suburb of hell? The name Dachau tainted for evermore?
I saw Moshes chubby face. One of the worlds helpless types. Couldnt do anything for himself. His mother had cootered him all his days. A big baby. The Nazis loved hurting him. Bullies always picked on the weakest. They kept him alive just so that they could go on hurting him. He was so good to hurt.
They would take him away and bring him back blubbering and howling, his pants wet, tears soaking his bruised face. At least he had a face, until they sent in the dogs. All you could do was bury yourself into the wooden bunks two of you to a bunk. Hide your head and your hands, anything that the dogs could get their fangs into. You didnt try to escape. Moshe did. Terror overcoming sense. Moshe ran and we watched him from our safe bunks get almost to the door before they brought him down and went at him. Like theyd found a rat and were going to worry it to bits. Moshe stopped screaming when they tore his throat out. His heels went on kicking on the wood floor a while longer, but finally stopped.
They pulled the dogs off. They didnt want them sated. They made us clean the mess up and take it to the big pile by the ovens. For three days Moshes skull grinned at us from the rotting heap of human remains. The skin had blackened and puffed up and the crows had his eyes before they found room for him in a batch, and consigned him and us to something like rest.
I sank the whisky and poured another. It stung my lip and I cursed Wilson again.
But at least the pain was real. Sometimes when I went out into the London crowds for the solace of watching folk doing normal things the gap seemed to be between two worlds.
When I was a kid, everything was in colour like some of the latest Pathé News.
Then there was now, and it was monochrome. I sometimes wondered how far back my amnesia really went and if my early recollections were really mine. I have a sense of me that doesnt fit with the earlier images. I wander the crowds and go out hunting for people and places I knew before the gap, to see if they can make the bridge.
Doc Thompson told me it might be like this, but he was really guessing; none of them really knew the effect of the damage to my brain. They took off the bandages one day but whatever theyd done inside my head wasnt working. I was in constant pain. In fact I was pain. It was the centre and reason for my existence. Morphine worked until it became a problem; that is I couldnt get enough.
Were going to try something, he said.
I was barely listening, could barely hear him, for the pain. Anything. Try anything. Try cutting my head off, Doc, if that would help. I was feeling pretty bloody sorry for myself, lying
VALERIE.
I wondered what was so bad that Val had to try so hard to make me feel better.
And what the hell had she thought of my other jottings? I turned back to my own writing.
abandon all hope arbeiters this isnt freedom its a lie I know its a lie
cold and hunger and arbeit makes you dead the dead are free they sent the dogs into the hut today hot breath slevers cold nose sniffing me wanting to make me run and then hunt me down you had to lie he maketh me to lie down in green pastures yet will I fear evil not moshe moshe didnt lie was always afraid we were all afraid but moshe wore it like a coat the dogs love that they love fear it drives them mad I chucked the notebook down on the floor and stumbled into my office. I pulled out my bottle from my desk drawer and poured a big shot into my tumbler. Then I sat down on my visitors chair in my pyjamas and rocked and rocked. In my minds eye was a day, two days, all the days in the camp. A double row of wooden huts inside a high barbed wire fence. On the edge of a sleepy little village, a thousand years old, not far from Munich. I often wondered why the villagers stayed there. Afterwards. Why would you want to live in a suburb of hell? The name Dachau tainted for evermore?
I saw Moshes chubby face. One of the worlds helpless types. Couldnt do anything for himself. His mother had cootered him all his days. A big baby. The Nazis loved hurting him. Bullies always picked on the weakest. They kept him alive just so that they could go on hurting him. He was so good to hurt.
They would take him away and bring him back blubbering and howling, his pants wet, tears soaking his bruised face. At least he had a face, until they sent in the dogs. All you could do was bury yourself into the wooden bunks two of you to a bunk. Hide your head and your hands, anything that the dogs could get their fangs into. You didnt try to escape. Moshe did. Terror overcoming sense. Moshe ran and we watched him from our safe bunks get almost to the door before they brought him down and went at him. Like theyd found a rat and were going to worry it to bits. Moshe stopped screaming when they tore his throat out. His heels went on kicking on the wood floor a while longer, but finally stopped.
They pulled the dogs off. They didnt want them sated. They made us clean the mess up and take it to the big pile by the ovens. For three days Moshes skull grinned at us from the rotting heap of human remains. The skin had blackened and puffed up and the crows had his eyes before they found room for him in a batch, and consigned him and us to something like rest.
I sank the whisky and poured another. It stung my lip and I cursed Wilson again.
But at least the pain was real. Sometimes when I went out into the London crowds for the solace of watching folk doing normal things the gap seemed to be between two worlds.
When I was a kid, everything was in colour like some of the latest Pathé News.
Then there was now, and it was monochrome. I sometimes wondered how far back my amnesia really went and if my early recollections were really mine. I have a sense of me that doesnt fit with the earlier images. I wander the crowds and go out hunting for people and places I knew before the gap, to see if they can make the bridge.
Doc Thompson told me it might be like this, but he was really guessing; none of them really knew the effect of the damage to my brain. They took off the bandages one day but whatever theyd done inside my head wasnt working. I was in constant pain. In fact I was pain. It was the centre and reason for my existence. Morphine worked until it became a problem; that is I couldnt get enough.
Were going to try something, he said.
I was barely listening, could barely hear him, for the pain. Anything. Try anything. Try cutting my head off, Doc, if that would help. I was feeling pretty bloody sorry for myself, lying
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