Carol O’Connell - Shell Game

Yes, she did. And thanks to Rabbi Kaplan, who had invented the concept of irony, Mallory had even predicted the punch line.

She pulled out her pocket watch and frowned at the time. Well, this little warm-up chat was definitely over. „The rabbi said you had a story about Malakhai?“

„Oh, yes.“ He looked at the watch in her hand, nodding his understanding that she had more important business elsewhere.

„You spoke to him at the rabbi’s house the other night.“ She kept the watch open in her hand, a visual prompt to make him talk faster.

„Yes, I was surprised by how well he looked – how young. Only his hair had grown old.“

„How old was he the first time you met him?“

„In the camp? He was about my age, maybe seventeen. I was unloading mailbags from the train. That was my – “

„This was a concentration camp?“

„Yes, but there were no ovens, no gas chambers in this place. It was a transit camp, a limbo station on the way to worse places. It was prison, but there was food enough. And that day there was music. There was always music when we had visitors from the outside. That was the day the Red Cross inspection team arrived. While they were touring the camp, the train came in with new prisoners to be processed. Later, the list of names would be called out for boarding. When the train pulled out again – “

He winced at some old memory and looked down at the pavement. „Well, you never wanted to be on the outward-bound trains. My parents, my whole family had gone down that track to Auschwitz. Not one of them ever came back. Not one cousin, an aunt or an uncle. And I knew my name would be on that list one day.“ He paused again. „But I’m rambling – sorry.“ He leaned down, the better to see the face of her pocket watch.

Mallory snapped it shut and put it away. „I have time,“ she said. „All the time you need.“

The old man nodded and took a package of cigarettes from his coat pocket. He held them up to ask if she objected. She didn’t.

„Louisa had been in the camp for about a month. I didn’t know her name then. I never spoke to her. But I saw her every day when she was led to the commandant’s office. Her eyes were always in a faraway trance – a walking dreamer. I thought she had lost her mind.“

He stabbed the air with one finger as if marking a moment in time. „But that day was different. Louisa stood on the bandstand and played her violin to entertain the visitors. The Red Cross team had come to inspect the camp. The commandant was anxious to show them how well treated we were. The camps down the track – what went on there… It was the worst-kept secret on earth. The prisoners all knew about the death camps. And the Red Cross people – they knew. Yet they came to photograph the transit camp, to show this to the outside world.“

He held an unlit cigarette as he dug into another pocket for his matches. „I was standing by the train with my cart, waiting for the mail car to open. Malakhai just appeared by my side – a young boy, straight and tall. His eyes were the same dark blue. Odd that his eyes never changed. His long hair was the color of lions. Such a handsome boy, but so strange and out of place. It was a warm day, but his shirt collar was buttoned up and his sleeves were pulled down. I knew he hadn’t gotten off the train with the others. Not a prisoner, not a soldier either. Later, I decided he must have come in with the people from the Red Cross.“

Mr. Halpern’s wooden match made a false strike on the side of a small box. „After the mail was unloaded, the boy walked along with me and helped to push the cart. No guard ever looked his way. They only recognized fear and covert acts. Nothing else got their attention. As the cart rolled along, Malakhai never took his eyes off the bandstand. It was maybe ten feet high, a stage on four thick legs, and guards were posted at the foot of the stairs. The lines of prisoners from the train moved around it like a living river.“

Mallory was aware of someone standing close to them. She turned to see a small bearded man wearing a ski cap and pretending sudden interest in a shopwindow. Was he hiding something?

She turned her attention back to Mr. Halpern’s story.

„There were three musicians on the bandstand. The cellist and the oboe player were middle-aged women. Louisa was only a schoolgirl. Long red hair and light blue eyes. She had milk-white skin like yours. I can still see her face in every detail. But her expression is what I will remember till I die. I don’t think she knew what was happening. She seemed so lost in her music, dreaming or insane.“

The old man was seeing it all over again in that middle ground of vision, looking back at time. „The prisoners marched past the bandstand. A soldier called out names for the death train. And the music was Mozart.“ He waved the wooden match in the air, a tiny baton conducting a memory.

„I was distracted, listening for my name on the list. I wasn’t called that day. When I turned to the young stranger, he was gone. I looked up at the bandstand, and Louisa had also vanished. The two older women were still playing their instruments. The guards stationed at the foot of the stairs didn’t seem to notice that one musician was missing. No one was aware of the escape, though it happened in front of hundreds of people. No one saw it.“

„Do you remember anything else going on?“

„You mean a diversion?“ He put the unlit cigarette in his mouth. „Yes, I figured that out afterward. I remember a commotion somewhere beyond the lines of prisoners. I didn’t see what it was – I was so intent on the list of names. Louisa must’ve jumped into his arms while the guards were distracted.“

Mallory nodded. „If the diversion was on the ground, the guards wouldn’t have any reason to look up.“ Most people went through their days without ever looking any higher than their own heads.

The cigarette dangled between his dry lips. „The train was loaded, ready to pull out. The last time I saw the boy and girl, they were hiding in the brush by the side of the tracks – too close. I wanted to warn them that the soldiers would see them when they secured the train. And then I realized that Louisa and Malakhai meant to climb aboard.“

Mallory was watching the other man, the smaller figure with the ski cap. He was hovering closer now, holding a valise in his arms, cradling it like a baby, as he skated back and forth on his sneakers. A pickpocket looking for a likely mark? No, that didn’t fit with the valise. She looked around the square. Why were there no cops?

„I wanted to stop them, to warn them,“ said Mr. Halpern. „It was insanity to board the death train. When they climbed into the mail car, I was so frightened for them. Then I looked away. I didn’t want to draw attention to them with my own fear. The search of the mail car only took a few minutes. Not a big security problem. Who would willingly get on board? That way down the rail was death and worse things.“

He struck another match absently. It failed to light. „The soldiers checked inside the mail car, but they never found the boy and girl. The train rolled out.“

„So Louisa and Malakhai hid in the mail sacks?“

„That’s what I thought when I made my own escape. There were always ten or twelve mailbags on that car. Only one was unloaded at the transit camp. All the sacks were large enough to hide a body, and most of them were never full. I figured the train would make a number of stops before it entered Germany. Until that moment, I never thought of escaping death that way – on a train to an extermination camp.“

Mallory was distracted again. The bearded man with the ski cap slid back into her field of vision, still clutching his valise. He was waiting for something or someone.