consciousness, but only long enough to try, unsuccessfully, to vomit. Then he was away again. It was clear to me that Mutschmann was dying.
Apart from the doctor, whose name was Mendelssohn, and three or four medical orderlies, who were themselves suffering from a variety of ailments, there were about sixty men and women in the camp hospital. As hospitals went it was little more than a charnel-house. I learned that there were only two kinds of patient: the sick, who always died, and the injured, who sometimes also got sick.
That evening, before it grew dark, Mendelssohn came to inspect my stripes.
'In the morning I'll wash your back and put some more salt on,' he said. Then he glanced disinterestedly down below at Mutschmann.
'What about him?' I said. It was a stupid question, and only served to arouse the Jew's curiosity. His eyes narrowed as he looked at me.
'Since you ask, I've told him to keep off alcohol, spicy food and to get plenty of rest,' he said drily.
'I think I get the picture.'
'I'm not a callous man, my friend, but there is nothing I can do to help him.
With a high-protein diet, vitamins, glucose and methionine, he might have had a chance.'
'How long has he got?'
'He still manages to recover consciousness from time to time?' I nodded.
Mendelssohn sighed. 'Difficult to say. But once coma has set in, a matter of a day or so. I don't even have any morphine to give him. In this clinic death is the usual cure that is available to patients.'
'I'll bear it in mind.'
'Don't get sick, my friend. There's typhus here. The minute you find yourself developing a fever, take two spoonfuls of your own urine. It does seem to work.'
'If I can find a clean spoon, I'll do just that. Thanks for the tip.'
'Well, here's another, since you're in such a good mood. The only reason that the Camp Committee meets here is because they know the guards won't come unless they absolutely have to. Contrary to outward appearances, the SS are not stupid.
Only a madman would stay here for any longer than he has to.
'As soon as you can get about without too much pain, my advice to you is to get yourself out of here.'
'What makes you stay? Hippocratic oath?'
Mendelssohn shrugged. 'Never heard of it,' he said.
I slept for a while. I had meant to stay awake and watch Mutschmann in case he came round again. I suppose I was hoping for one of those touching little scenes that you see in the movies, when the dying man is moved to unburden his soul to the man crouching over his deathbed.
When I awoke it was dark, and above the sound of the other inmates of the hospital coughing, and snoring, I heard the un-mistakeable sound, coming from the cot underneath, of Mutschmann retching. I leaned over and saw him in the moonlight, leaning on one elbow, clutching his stomach.
'You all right?' I said.
'Sure,' he wheezed. 'Like a fucking Galapagos tortoise, I'm going to live for ever.' He groaned again, and painfully, through clenched teeth, said: 'It's these damned stomach cramps.'
'Would you like some water?'
'Water, yes. My tongue is as dry as ' He was overcome by another fit of retching. I climbed down gingerly, and fetched the ladle from a bucket near the bed. Mutschmann, his teeth chattering like a telegraph button, drank the water noisily. When he'd finished he sighed and lay back.
'Thanks, friend,' he said.
'Don't mention it,' I said. 'You'd do the same for me.'
I heard him cough his way through what sounded like a chuckle. 'No I fucking wouldn't,' he rasped. 'I'd be afraid of catching something, whatever it is that I've got. I don't suppose you know, do you?'
I thought for a moment. Then I told him. 'You've got hepatitis.'
He was silent for a couple of minutes, and I felt ashamed. I ought to have spared him that agony. 'Thanks for being honest with me,' he said. 'What's up with you?'
'Hindenburg Alms.'
'What for?'
'Helped a Jew in my work kommando.'
'That was stupid,' he said. 'They're all dead anyway. Risk it for someone who's got half a chance, but not for a Jew. Their luck is long gone.'
'Well, yours didn't exactly win the lottery.'
He laughed. 'True enough,' he said. 'I never figured on going sick. I thought I was going to get through this fuck-hole. I had a good job in the cobbler's shop.'
'It's a tough break,' I admitted.
'I'm dying, aren't I?' he said.
'That's not what the doc says.'
'No need to give me the cold cabbage. I can see it in the lead. But thanks anyway. Jesus, I'd give anything for a nail.'
'Me too,' I said.
'Even a roll up would do.' He paused. Then he said: 'There's something I've got to tell you.'
I tried to conceal the urgency that was crowding my voice-box. 'Yes? What's that then?'
'Don't fuck any of the women in this camp. I'm pretty sure that's how I got sick.'
'No, I won't. Thanks for telling me.'
The next day I sold my food ration for some cigarettes, and waited for Mutschmann to come out of his delirium. It lasted most of the day. When eventually he regained consciousness he spoke to me as if our previous conversation had been only a few minutes earlier.
'How's it going? 'How are the stripes?'
'Painful,' I said, getting off my bunk.
'I'll bet. That bastard sergeant with the whip really lays it on like fuck.' He inclined his emaciated face towards me, and said: 'You know, it seems to me that I've seen you somewhere.'
'Well now, let's see,' I said. 'The Rot Weiss Tennis Club? The Herrenklub? The Excelsior, maybe?'
'You're putting me on.' I lit one of the cigarettes and put it between his lips.
'I'll bet it was at the Opera I'm a big fan, you know. Or perhaps it was at Goering's wedding?' His thin yellow lips stretched into something like a smile.
Then he breathed in the tobacco smoke as if it was pure oxygen.
'You are a fucking magician,' he said, savouring the cigarette. I took it from his lips for a second before putting it back again. 'No, it wasn't any of those places. It'll come to me.'
'Sure it will,' I said, earnestly hoping that it wouldn't. For a moment I thought of saying Tegel Prison, but rejected it. Sick or not, he might remember differently, and then I'd be finished with him.
'What are you? Sozi? Kozi?'
'Black-marketeer,' I said. 'How about you?'
The smile stretched so that it was almost a rictus. 'I'm hiding.'
'Here? From whom?'
'Everyone,' he said.
'Well, you sure picked one hell of a hiding place. What are you, crazy?'
'Nobody can find me here,' he said. 'Let me ask you something: where would you hide a raindrop?' I looked puzzled until he answered, 'Under a waterfall. In case you didn't know it, that's Chinese philosophy. I mean, you'd never find it, would you?'
'No, I suppose not. But you must have been desperate,' I said.
'Getting sick was just unlucky But for that I'd have been out in a year or so by which time they'd have given up looking.'
'Who would?' I said. 'What are they after you for?'
His eyelids flickered, and the cigarette fell from his unconscious lips and onto the blanket. I drew it up to his chin and tapped out the cigarette in the hope that he might come round again for long enough to smoke the other
