Amerikan Eagle

“No, you don’t,” the Dutchman shot back. “Here. I will tell you a tale. Mmm, no, not a tale but a true story. In the South, cutting trees, I knew a schoolteacher from a village in Poland. His name was Rothstein. One day, months after the invasion, special German police units came to his village and took out all the Jews and brought them to the town square. There, in the hot June sun, they made them sit still. No water. No shade. No food. And the Germans laughed. And they took photographs. They told the Jews, ‘You move, you will die. Understand?’ An old man, he couldn’t help himself. He tried to stretch his cramped legs. They shot him. A woman screamed. They shot her. Near Rothstein, his two-year-old nephew, he squirmed out of his mother’s arms, tried to run away, and the mother cried and a German policeman, he picked up the boy by his ankle, dangled him before everyone, and put a pistol to the child’s head and shot him. Rothstein, he was splattered with his nephew’s blood and brains. That happened in a place where Jews had lived for hundreds of years in safety and sanctuary. Now… nothing. Even here, in your America. We are no longer safe. So tell me, are you going to have me killed? Or one of my bunkmates? Are you so important that this will happen?”

Sam didn’t reply. Otto said, “And about your Jews. They have moved themselves to ghettos, haven’t they, afraid of what might happen to them. We know that news as well. Your Jews have not been rounded up, eh, not yet the pogroms and the arrests. But will their time come? Like ours?”

A whistle blew, sending them all back to work, ensuring Sam didn’t have to come up with an answer, for he had none to give.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The afternoon dragged by, monotonous and backbreaking work, splinters from the shovel handle digging into his palms, blisters breaking into blood and pus, keeping his head down, just shoveling, trying not to breathe in the stone dust kicked up by the drilling and cutting. When the whistle blew again, he trudged back to the barracks with his new bunkmates, and he understood the look of those prisoners he had seen. It was the look of hopelessness, of giving up and knowing one’s place. What was real was what was before one’s nose, and nothing else. To live was to get through a day without being beaten, without being shot, and to eat as much food as possible, all to live one more day.

That was the life inside the wire.

And to get out, to successfully escape, was to doom some stranger in his barracks to death. Up ahead was Barracks Six, and the line of men moved in. A Legionnaire he recognized from yesterday was standing by the door; he crooked a finger at Sam’s direction.

“You, cop.” The Legionnaire’s face was pockmarked from old acne scars. “Time to finish some business.”

The Legionnaire grabbed Sam’s arm and pulled him out of line. Sam’s bunkmates cast their eyes down, as if afraid that by paying any attention they, too, would be dragged away. Sam shook off the man’s arm and the man laughed easily. “All right, pal, just come along and there won’t be no problem.”

He walked with the Legionnaire, each step heavy and painful, seeing a wooden and wire gate ahead of them open up, with watchtowers on every side. Now they went to the right, to a small concrete building that stood next to yesterday’s processing facility. Inside it smelled of chemicals and sweat, and an older man in a white coat and with wavy gray hair sat at a wooden table, glasses perched on the end of his nose. Nearby were bottles of ink and shiny instruments. The old man looked up and asked in a German accent, “He’s not a Jew, is he?”

“Nope,” the Legionnaire answered. “But he’s a guest here, just the same.”

The old man laughed. “Knew he wasn’t a Jew. Can always tell. All right, bring him over.”

At the man’s elbow was an open thick leather-bound ledger, and Sam saw rows of names and numbers. It was as if icicles were tracing themselves up and down his back. He knew what was planned for him. He was about to be branded as a hunk of meat, like the poor bastards around him, like his homicide victim.

“Hey, now,” the older man instructed. “Hold your wrist out. And be quick, I’m late for my supper.”

Sam didn’t move.

The Legionnaire slapped him. The pain shot through him. The Legionnaire urged, “Now, boy, hurry up!”

Sam glared at the Legionnaire, then rolled up the sleeve on his left arm. He held his wrist out, the man pulled a humming metal instrument close, a tattooing needle at the end of a handle, brought it down to Sam’s wrist, and he felt the harsh sting as the painful marking began, branding him forever as a prisoner—