“Bill Smith is dead!” Heather hissed.
Marta stared at the table, her vision blurring as the scarred and pitted surface dissolved into nothingness. Each syllable of Heather’s announcement struck her like a blow to the chest, leaving her gasping for air that wouldn’t fill her lungs. The world around her receded, the constant drone of the camp fading into a distant hum. How could life continue with such casual cruelty?
“Another round of medals is going out, I’m sure,” Judith’s tone was dry, indifferent.
“Medals?” Heather repeated, her curiosity piqued.
Rachel nodded self-importantly. “They all got them, after Marblehead.”
Danielle flinched at the mention, unable to hide her discomfort, but no one paid her any mind.
Marta, who’d never mentioned Bill by name, tossed the trousers she’d been examining into a bin with a mechanical motion. Reaching for a quilted smoking jacket, next, she barely registered its satin texture. Her hands, thankfully, had begun to go numb in the sorting room’s cold. The pain came in jabs so sharp tears sprang from her eyes, especially in the mornings, before fading to a gnawing presence in the background. Even when she slept, it was there, a cruel anchor to reality that seemed more and more nightmare-like. Each movement felt like wading through molasses, her body disobeying her commands in slow, agonizing increments. She wondered bitterly if Klaus had received any commendations for mutilating her, for reducing her to this broken shell. The image of him festered in her mind, deepening the abyss of her despair.
“And get this,” Rachel added, dropping into a conspiratorial tone. “The Butcher of Marblehead’s getting married.”
Danielle’s grip tightened on the seam ripper, her knuckles turning white. With a fierce motion, she stabbed at a vest, the action filled with barely contained fury. Fabric tore under the pressure, as if she were venting her impotent rage on Klaus himself.
“The President resigned this morning, too.” Rachel examined a sock, affecting disinterest in her own gossip. “I heard that from Kevin, the Kapo in Block 9. He was some kind of loan shark before the war, but he still knows everybody—and everything.” Pursing her lips together in a moue of mock distaste, she pretended she wasn’t jealous; Rachel had been a reporter for the New York Post, where no doubt the entire bullpen dreamed of breaking into organized crime. “The Vice President is negotiating with Berlin,” she finished. “But I heard that from his friend.”
“Kevin has friends?” Judith frowned at this improbable allegation.
Heather’s expression turned thoughtful. “So the President’s for the guillotine next?”
“Camp David,” Rachel corrected her. “To enjoy his retirement. Which, in a month or so, will tragically be cut short. What do you think,” she asked, “a fall from his horse?”
Horses were too majestic for Heather; her laugh sounded like a donkey’s bray.
“What’s the point of the President resigning?” Judith pressed, turning some suspenders over and sniffing at a suspicious stain.
Rachel shrugged. “Guess his cock-sucking skills aren’t up to par.”
“Too bad.” Judith leered at Marta. “Our resident whore could’ve given him some pointers.”
Heather waved dismissively. “Entertaining petty tyrants? That’s Danielle’s job.”
Danielle’s cheeks flushed a deep crimson, her eyes flickering with shame and something else—perhaps a glimmer of affection she refused to acknowledge. Petty tyrant had to be the nicest thing anyone had ever called Olsen, but if Marta hadn’t known better, she would’ve sworn the girl was biting back a defense. He wasn’t called the Beast because he was such an animal in bed, however; he terrorized the entire camp, including Danielle, with and without provocation.
Slumping in her chair, Danielle finally offered up her own tidbit of information. “Chicago fell. Last week.”
Judith grunted noncommittally, and Heather sighed. The last bastion of free America collapsing or more Page Six hearsay, it was all the same to them. Good for Charlotte, she’d get to be an honest woman, although Marta hadn’t thought aristocrats married their concubines. Dassel wasn’t a real aristocrat, of course, not anymore; his grandfather had dropped the von to fit in, according to Bill. Not that Dassel exactly came across as a man of the people—and, remembering the glint in his eye, she could well believe the rumors about his grandparents also being siblings. Those decrepit old families had roots more gnarled and twisted, and useless, than Marta’s fingers.
“How much more of the country can there be to conquer?” Judith whined.
“Texas had the right idea, inviting them in.” Rachel blew her nose on a blouse, the harsh sound echoing even in the din of the damp and cavernous space.
Marta’s eyebrows shot up. “How can you say that, with us sitting here?”
Coughing, Rachel dabbed at bloodshot eyes. “If the president had been smarter, maybe we wouldn’t be sitting here.”
“They claim they’ll have the United States fully under control,” Heather replied, “within the next six to nine months. They’re already talking about dividing it up into different zones. New England will be one of them, then the Great Lakes. California, I think, is its own deal.” She readjusted the kerchief around her shaved head, considering. “Then the South is going to be New—
“The South,” Judith cut in sharply, “is going to the nigg—
Rachel whacked her upside the head. “Don’t talk like that.”
Judith spat, the sound wet and defiant.
“Stop it!” Rachel glanced nervously at the nearest guard, a slack-jawed Cletus from some hog farm in Bavaria who looked like counting taxed him, and who’d ignored them since he’d arrived.
Marta kept her tone studiedly casual, masking her urgent need for information. “But there was an execution?”
Heather sniggered. “The Führer was there.”
“No, he wasn’t.” Rachel sniffed again, sounding both annoyed and exhausted. She was lucky, Marta reasoned, she couldn’t smell the mold making them all sick. It was even worse than usual lately, permeating the vast warehouse with its damp, musty stench. It clung to their clothes and filled their lungs with every breath, a sour reminder of their deteriorating conditions. The persistent exposure was taking its toll, their coughs echoing through the cold, dimly lit space.
“Nobody ever sees the Führer.” Judith chewed at a hangnail. “Only his pet nut.”
Heather spared her a withering look. “I’m sure somebody does.”
Marta rubbed her hands against the back of her neck, attempting to seem like just another busybody with a thirst for irrelevant information. She couldn’t appear too interested in Bill, or someone would remember that they’d both come from the same neighborhood in South Boston. Polish and Irish, glaring at each other from across laundry lines, both attending Our Lady of Czestochowa Catholic Church. She’d learned the hard way that sharing too much could be dangerous. “Smith was executed?” she prompted. “Was it with one of those guillotines?”
“Fallbeil, technically.” Rachel, ever the know-it-all, couldn’t resist correcting.
“Oh.” Marta wanted to ask more but held back, swallowing her desperation for answers. She didn’t want to make a spectacle of herself like Danielle had, the poor little fool; everyone joked about how long Olsen would last, this time, whenever he dragged her off.
Heather turned to Danielle, her tone probing. “They hung your man, didn’t they?”
“Which one?” Judith barked a low, sullen laugh at her own joke.
“No,” Danielle mouthed, the word lost in the din.
Heather persisted, poking her in the arm. “Well? What happened, then?”
Danielle’s hands shook slightly as she continued working, the memories clawing their way to the surface. She took a deep breath, her words halting and fragile. “Dassel made him kneel down. At first, I thought…because some of the other soldiers had. You know.” Her voice cracked, and this time she yanked a pair of overalls nearly in half, the fabric ripping violently. “Then he made Dana suck on the barrel of his gun, like it was a….” She swallowed hard, her gaze fixed on her lap. “Then Dassel shot him in the crotch and just stood there, watching him scream. Then he shot him again, and then he….” She bit a trembling lip, her eyes brimming with tears she refused to shed. “He didn’t wait, for Dana to die.”
Judith’s eyes gleamed with morbid fascination. “You saw this happen?”
Danielle glanced up briefly, her eyes haunted. “Yes.”
Marta wasn’t surprised, she’d always known Dassel was a fag.
That Olsen’s personal whore was too much of a prude to say penis, let alone anything more adult, was still amusing her when the day’s next big event occurred. A dozen or so members of the guard battalion marched in, their boots ringing out on the concrete. They were led by one of the new officers, a figure of authority whose presence demanded immediate attention. Work stopped at all the tables, the silence thick and heavy as everyone waited in tense anticipation. Kevin himself had come with them, the slime; relating something to the officer in a low tone, he pointed.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Marta didn’t recognize the hapless slag who clutched at herself, her face going white, and didn’t want to. At a gesture, the officer dispatched a pair of guards to grab her and haul her forward, her sobs cutting through the low whir and thump of uniform production. Nobody in the sorting room dared utter a word, or even breathe, all eyes fixed upon the unfolding tableau before them.
The officer glared down at her, his shoulders squared, his back ramrod straight. “Is it true?” he demanded.
“I don’t….” The woman blinked rapidly, her whole body quaking with fear. She opened her mouth and shut it again, trying to find her voice. “I don’t know what you’re asking.”
Stepping back, the officer jabbed a thumb at his subordinates. “Search her,” he ordered, sounding bored and more than a little irritated to have been called out from his cushy, warm office. Despite his annoyance, he seemed professional enough, and Marta found herself wondering what he’d done to wind up at Williston. The camps were where the SS sent its own worst people as well, keeping them out of the way until they either died or got too old to cause trouble. Most of them were total perverts, too broken by war to do more than torment the prisoners and each other. Olsen’s time in California explained him, she supposed, but this kid looked too young.
The other inmates remained stoic as the woman’s clothes were pulled from her body, leaving her shivering while she tried vainly to cover herself. An apple bounced and rolled away from her shirt, stopping at the officer’s boot. He picked it up, tossing it idly into the air as a one of his lackeys retrieved a knife she’d taped to her leg. Some sausages came next, and Marta licked her lips, the sight of food an overpowering reminder of her own hunger. The officer didn’t speak; he didn’t need to. His expression was knowing as the woman stared at him, wide-eyed. Then, turning, he made an upward motion. “Come on, people. You know the drill.”
Chairs scraped back.
The officer spoke again, his voice as coldly dispassionate as it was authoritative. “Your fellow prisoner here has been caught stealing. Stealing from us, yes, but also stealing from you.” He paused, letting his words linger in the oppressive atmosphere. “Do any of you find your rations so plentiful that you don’t mind the idea of going without?” His eyes moved slowly from table to table. “Would anyone here like to give up meat for a week to spare her punishment?”
There was no sound save for that endless, bone-jarring rumble.
“Fine, then.” He sounded somewhere between amused and disappointed. At his signal, the woman was led away by a guard, but he wasn’t done. Instead, he bit into the apple. “Unfortunately for her, we’re lacking a certain…team spirit around here. Fortunately for the rest of you, it can be taught. This is called collective punishment, friends. Now, step forward.”
Marta, like the other women, did as she was told.
“Remove your uniforms, and shake them out.” The officer glanced at Marta, his mouth twisting in disgust. “One of you, help the cripple.”
Kevin sauntered over, a slow smile spreading over his face as he savored this latest chance to humiliate her. She’d had him as a client once; he was friends with the guards, but not all of them. Regarding him warily, she tensed as he stopped and looked her up and down. Then, his hands like striking snakes, he grabbed her shirt and pulled. Buttons exploded everywhere, one hitting him in the eye. One of the goons giggled, and the officer shot him a look.
After that, the cavity searches began.
Marta tried not to react as Kevin's greasy, sweaty hands slid down over her flank. He inserted first one finger, and then two, into her rectum. He might enjoy this, or he might not. He probably did. But that was the problem, in a place like this: one became complicit in one’s own dehumanization, however decent one might have been to begin with. She didn’t think that anyone here had started out truly bad, not Judith and not even Kevin, not really.
In this environment, love and kindness and decency were stripped away piece by piece, replaced by a primal need to survive. The constant surveillance, the arbitrary punishments, the relentless deprivations—they all worked together to erode the very concept of what it meant to be a human being. Here, the guards became predators and the prisoners did, too, unless they were smart. But everyone was trapped in the same cycle of degradation that, like the mold, spread and spread until it consumed everything within its reach.
Eventually, the prisoners were allowed to redress themselves and return to work.
Talk resumed moments later. It wasn’t as animated as before, not at first, but soon their little blip might as well not have happened. Like a pebble passing through the surface of a pond, the memory joined a thousand identical memories, lurking beneath their collective consciousness. No one seemed to know the officer’s name; he’d just arrived the night before. Heather expressed hope that things might not be so bad on his watch. As an Obersturmführer, he outranked Olsen; he was only an Oberscharführer, a staff sergeant. Maybe he’d manage to keep Olsen in check.
“Or maybe,” Judith sniped, “he’ll ask Olsen for advice on where to find girlfriends.”
Just before the end of her shift, Marta heard that someone in laundry had been sucked into a mangle.
Danielle touched Marta’s hand lightly. “I can fix your buttons.”
Rachel shifted in her seat. “My ass hurts,” she muttered, grimacing.
Heather found this statement hilarious, for some reason, her braying guffaws echoing through the grim surroundings. “Wouldn’t be the first time!” she asserted, to no one in particular.
Judith’s lip curled into a sneer. “Bet our little miss had fun,” she observed tartly. “She likes having German fingers inside her. Don’t you, Danielle?”
Rearing back, Danielle clutched a pair of jeans protectively in front of her. Marta, still holding her ruined shirt closed, stared long and hard at Judith. “Olsen is Norwegian,” she corrected the bitch flatly. “But if you’re that jealous, I’m sure one of the other guards can oblige you.”
As Heather did her donkey impression again and the other women giggled, Judith made a point of focusing rather ostentatiously on her work. Marta felt a certain warm glow of satisfaction, knowing she hadn’t entirely lost her edge, tinged with regret that now she knew what passed for fun in Hell. Olsen had a second nickname, the Angel, because he looked like one—terrifying and beautiful.
Rachel spat phlegm into a sock. “Where is he?” she asked, her voice filled with weary resignation.
Just about the last thing Marta wanted to know was where Olsen was; mentioning his name aloud really did feel like summoning the Devil. At evening roll call, nonetheless, she found out what he’d been doing, instead of alternately dragging Danielle off like some caveman and slipping mash notes into her pocket. Danielle wore the shoes he’d given her, and the belt. Marta would, too, in her position; she, like most prisoners, didn’t have more than slippers and knotted cord.
Williston was a massive complex, purpose-built by the Reich to house a maximum of three thousand adult men and women. Eighteen buildings had been divided into four discrete areas, ranged around a central courtyard. To the east were the women’s barracks; to the west were the men’s. The southern section was dedicated to manufacturing, which included the intake room, mess hall, and kitchens. There were separate facilities for the guards, accessed through the north gate; they didn’t fraternize with prisoners, except to make their lives somehow even more miserable. And next to the north gate, of course, was the Doll’s House.
Roll call, both morning and evening, took place in the courtyard—the Appelplatz.
One of its less delightful features was a special apparatus called the goat.
In size and form, it resembled the average kitchen table. However, it wasn’t flat; a swale ran lengthwise down the middle. Additionally, there was a box at one end, near the ground. The prisoner’s feet were immobilized in that, and he was bent forward with his arms stretched. Sometimes another guard held them. Sometimes, like tonight, they were tied.
Olsen stood behind the man, who was naked.
Marta nudged Rachel. “Who is he?” she whispered into the other woman’s ear.
Rachel shook her head, indicating that she didn’t know.
Neither woman wanted to be there, but witnessing these little demonstrations wasn’t optional unless the entire camp wanted to suffer another collective punishment. Marta wrapped her arms more tightly around herself, in a futile effort to protect against the biting cold. Olsen wasn’t shivering; he was snug in his greatcoat, which was wool and had a fur collar. His eyes bore into his captive, who stood naked and trembling, but he lacked his superior’s cool disinterest. With the deliberate slowness of a gourmand sitting down to a Michelin starred chef’s tasting dinner, he began uncoiling his infamous whip. Black like his gloves and fully ten feet in length, it was the work of a master craftsman. When it landed, the sound it produced was louder than a shotgun blast. His captive, well-schooled in Olsen’s sadistic habits, counted his lashes in German. If he lost count, everyone knew, Olsen would start again.
With each crack, Danielle flinched as though she herself were being struck. Furrows opened on the prisoner’s back, the skin splitting under the force of the whip. Blood oozed from the wounds, mixing with the rain that had begun to fall and trailing over his skin in runnels.
A bullwhip, when thrown properly, moved faster than the speed of sound.
Olsen stopped at twenty-five lashes. The rain had begun to fall harder, and he didn’t want to get wet. Marta waited until he’d left, going wherever guards went to have their dinner, before following the last of the stragglers to her own. No amount of torture was enough to dull her hunger, and hadn’t been for a long time. She could’ve stood there as Olsen entirely flayed the man alive, then shoveled in as much food as anyone would give her. For some reason, though, Danielle seemed to have lost her appetite. Marta wondered if Olsen made her thank him afterward, too.
Rachel learned, waiting in line, that Olsen’s latest victim had been caught trying to escape—and that, more pressingly, they’d all have to endure another inspection. Those were more of a hassle for Marta than most, with her having her own room that she had to keep clean and tidy. Her friends, if she could call them that, slept on tiered bunk beds in rooms that held two dozen each.
She gestured at Danielle’s untouched soup. “You going to eat that?”
Danielle pushed it across the table. “Here.”
“Marta’s lost so much weight,” Judith joked, her voice bright with malice. “She needs to gain some back.”
Rachel forced a laugh, a weak attempt to join in the mockery without fully committing.
Heather gnawed on her roll, ignoring them both. “What happened to that girl, earlier?”
“She’s in the infirmary,” Danielle replied quietly, averting her gaze.
Judith shot a malevolent glare at her. “Your boyfriend tell you that?”
Blushing, Danielle nodded. “Yes.”
“You should keep up your strength.” Rachel patted her hand, trying to sound supportive but only coming off as condescending. “You need it.”
“I bet he’s hungry.” Judith’s chuckle was an ugly, bleak sound. “Even if you’re not.”
Danielle cast a sidelong glance at her tormentor. “Stop it.”
“Your hair’s growing back in.” Judith’s pronouncement dripped with scorn. “Mine’s not.”
All of the women at Williston, save for an unfortunate handful, were bald.
That included the women at the Doll’s House, but Marta would’ve traded her hair for working hands.
After dinner, she trudged back to her quarters to prepare for the rest of the night. The camp had turned them all into wraiths, mere shadows of their former selves who stared in silence from the shadows. Faces once full of life were now hollow, eyes vacant, as if the soul had been leached out, leaving behind only empty shells. Survival meant numbing oneself to the constant suffering, detaching from any semblance of normalcy. She thought of Giles Corey being pressed to death, understanding for the first time why he’d asked again and again for more weight.