Early the third morning, his two men arrived a few minutes apart. The first prisoner in was a burly central Asian with a pumpkin-shaped head, an Uzbek named Krull, who said he’d been drafted into the Soviet army and sent to fight in Poland. When the Red Army launched its attack on Berlin, he’d had enough of war, went AWOL, and got caught heading east.
“I got east,” Krull said. “Just not far enough.”
The second man through the door was the last person Emil wanted to see. Nikolas had to stoop and duck his head to get through the smallest of the three doors. He’d lost a lot of weight and still limped.
He grimaced at Emil. “What are you doing here?” he said.
“I work here,” Emil replied. “Just do what I tell you and we’ll have no problems.”
“I don’t take orders from you, Martel.”
“Yes, you do,” Ivanov said.
The site superintendent had just come through the door with guards behind him carrying winter clothing and boots. “You will do exactly what Martel says when he says it. Is that clear? Or would you prefer to work outside all winter?”
Nikolas wasn’t happy, but he said, “I’ll stay.”
The heavy boots and clothes were a big improvement in warmth, and the walls and roof kept them less exposed to wind and weather, which worsened through November 1945. But tripling the output had Emil working harder than ever, moving enough raw materials, and water, and mixing and pouring to feed Ivanov’s demand for concrete while winter growled louder and louder from the north. On his way back to the city hall basement and his evening meal, he’d linger and pick up an armful of scrap lumber and tote it to the cook for another ruble in his pocket.
Day after day, Emil told himself it would get easier, that he’d find a way to make more concrete blocks and work less. But he didn’t or couldn’t. Even with the bigger troughs to mix in and the paddles, he, Nikolas, and Krull were working so hard to make the quota, most days after gathering wood for the cooks, he was left too tired and too hungry to think clearly, even with the double rations.
The rest of the prisoners in camp got more winter gear soon after Emil’s crew did, and they were all given an extra quarter ration of food to offset the demands of toiling in the cold. But the warmer clothes and the extra food could not extinguish the diseases that continued to smolder, catch fire, and sweep through the basement of the museum and through the other nearby basements where the rest of the surviving prisoners bunked.
Three dead one morning. Two that evening. Three the next morning. Five in the evening. Then typhus reared its head again. Six men were found dead the following morning. Five in the evening. Nine the next morning. Emil heard the pony pant with effort and the burial cart’s axle groan when it left with two new prisoners who’d volunteered for the detail.
The Soviets responded to the typhus outbreak by forcing the men to strip off their heavy clothes, which were soaked in a boiled lye solution. After they were put through yet another delousing shower, they were forced to put the wet wool clothes back on and wear them through the day in the cold so they would not shrink. Men began to contract pneumonia.
“Every one of us is going to die,” Nikolas said bitterly later in the month, as they mixed their ninth big batch of concrete for the day. “It’s just a matter of time.”
“It always is,” Krull said.
Nikolas sneered at the Uzbek. “Who asked you?”
He shifted from Russian into German, lost his grit, said, “I don’t feel right here, Martel.”
“Who does in this hole?”
“It’s more than that: inside and up here,” Nikolas said, touching his left chest and forehead. “Everything feels heavy and dark. I keep having nightmares and thoughts that won’t stop. They’re all telling me it’s just a matter of time.”
“Like Krull said, it always is,” Emil said.
Nikolas shook his head violently and shouted at him. “You don’t understand! I’m doomed, and so are you, Martel! We were doomed for our sins, doomed the moment we took the gun and decided to pull the trigger on those Jews. This is just one step down into the deep hell that awaits us after we shit or cough ourselves to death!”
The triangle began to ring outside, signaling the end of the workday. Emil’s heart ached as he finished pouring the last of his concrete. He tried to think of Adeline, but her image would not come to him because Nikolas’s words kept ringing in his head.
Doomed the moment we took the gun and decided to pull the trigger . . . This is just one step down into the deep hell that awaits us . . .
He recalled that night in Dubossary, saw Haussmann aiming his Luger at him, and felt himself change his mind and decide to pull the trigger on those poor Jewish kids all over again. Emil heard echoes of his own voice, then the SS officer’s, and then Nikolas’s.
Okay, I’ll do it.
Wise choice.
Doomed the moment we took the gun and decided to pull the trigger.
As he was walking behind Nikolas to the mess hall, eating, and then marching back to the museum, those three voices would not stop playing in Emil’s head. They continued in the basement, in the dark, and as he fell into a restless sleep where he was plagued by nightmares, sweats, and cramping in his chest so painful, he thought he was having a heart attack.
Eight men died that night. Six succumbed at work the next day, and twelve passed from typhus before the following dawn. There
