Paul Erdman - The Billion Dollar Sure Thing

But his eyes told him this was impossible. The mattress upon which he squatted provided all of six inches elevation. That was the only object in the room. The walls, smooth and glistening with moisture, offered no shelves, no ledges, no footholds, no toeholds. The tiny barred window facing the courtyard was a full eight feet up.

Then the rat moved again. This time right to the edge of the pit, and right in the direction of Rosen. He began to shiver, first ever so slightly, but soon arms, legs, and then his entire body were shaking in uncontrollable convulsions, as his every fibre revolted against the utter horror of the situation.

“My shoes,” he thought, in desperation.

But he had no shoes. They had been taken away. Nor did he have anything else with which to combat this enemy. The only items in maximum security cell 113 were one rat, one human, his shirt, his trousers, his socks, his underwear, one mattress, one dirty woollen blanket.

And then a second head appeared. Another grey-brown body oozed up from the drain, hesitating, perhaps adjusting its eyes to the unaccustomed glare of light in Rosen’s cell. Suddenly Rosen remembered. The alarm bell! Just to the right of the cell door. Only to be used, it had been stressed, in cases of extreme emergency, of sickness which required immediate attention. The bell was twelve feet away. The rats, six.

Rosen moved ever so slightly, inching his way along the mattress in the direction of the door. Then he stopped. Neither rat had changed its position in the slightest. But they were watching. Rosen moved again. Still no challenge. Then he was on his feet. He moved his back against the cell wall and, gaining confidence, slid further toward the button which would bring deliverance. Still no movement in the open-pit toilet. He pressed the alarm bell hard, then again, and again. He forced his head against the steel separating him from the corridor, and within minutes he heard footsteps rapidly approaching. Then keys rattled in the door. It swung open, but no one entered.

“Stand back against the far wall!”

The man spoke English. Thank God.

“Back to the far wall,” said the voice, this time harshly.

Stanley moved back, but only a few steps. The two guards, one with a drawn gun, just watched him from the corridor.

“Hands behind your head!”

Rosen obeyed.

Now one guard stepped in. The other remained just on the threshold of the cell, eyes wary. His revolver pointed at Rosen’s feet.

“What’s wrong?”

Rosen nodded his head backwards, toward the open toilet. The two men just stared at him.

“Rats,” said Rosen, finally.

“What?”

“Rats,” he repeated.

“Where?”

“In the corner. In the toilet pit.”

The guard inside the cell stepped to the side and looked.

“I don’t see any rat.”

“Rats,” repeated Stanley, “two of them.”

Now the guard with the gun moved into the cell.

The two men in uniform glanced at each other, and then back at Rosen.

“We don’t have rats here. This is Switzerland, a clean country. I think that you have rats in your head.”

His index finger tapped the side of his head. His colleague with the gun thought that was rather funny. Obviously he did not understand a word of English, but could hardly miss the meaning of the gesture.

“I tell you—”

“You,” interrupted the guard, “do not tell me anything. We’ve been warned about you. That you’re a troublemaker. Maybe. But although you might be able to make trouble in America, you’re not going to make any trouble here.”

“All right,” said Rosen, “maybe I did imagine things. But could you somehow cover up the drain in that toilet? Please?”

“Do what?” was the incredulous response.

“Cover up the drain. That’s where the rats came from.”

“With what? A wooden plank? So next time you can hit us over the head? Don’t be stupid. You know as well as I do that there are no rats here. Now what do you really want?”

Rosen just let one hand slip from behind his head, and across his eyes.

“Put those hands back where I told you.”

No response. Then came a sudden jab, right into Rosen’s gut. He doubled over. Both guards stepped carefully back.

“All right. That’s enough of this. Your behaviour will be reported first thing in the morning. You, my little American friend, are heading for a lot of trouble in this place. One last thing. Don’t press that alarm bell anymore. Because no one is going to respond. Get it? No more alarm bells!”

The two men backed out. The cell door slammed. The key turned. And immediately thereafter the light went out.

Rosen froze. Then he pounded on the door.

“Turn the light back on,” he screamed. He pounded again.

“The light! Please turn on the light!”

But there was to be no light. Just the fading laughter of the two guards as they moved off. Then utter silence. Rosen slumped there against the door, now sobbing quietly. His stomach had recoiled into a hard painful ball after the blow. His heart began to flutter irregularly. Stanley was afraid. For his very life. Because he knew that he could not survive for long under these conditions, neither physically nor mentally. He was not a coward. But he was a Jew, and like so many of his race he lived his life with a memory, an abhorrence, of the unthinkable. Of Dachau, of Buchenwald, of the unspeakable silent extermination of six million of his race. In central Europe. In German Europe. The cynical accusations, the helpless confinement, and finally death—by suicide, slaughter, or simply the slow surrender of life through organic decomposition. In the dark recesses of so many Jewish minds this represented the ultimate horror, a horror which had to be kept deeply submerged lest the joy of life be lost forever.

But now for Stanley Rosen it was a horror which had become reality, with stunning swiftness and brutal certainty. For no one could help him. Not tonight, or tomorrow night, or the night thereafter. They had him. Imprisoned. In central Europe.

As if in a dream, with mind paralyzed and spirit crushed, Rosen stumbled back into his corner, on top of the mattress. He pulled the blanket over his body, and then his head, curled into a ball, and entered a twilight stupor. All his senses simply turned off as, mercifully, his mind withdrew from a world which simply could not exist.

AT just before ten the next morning, Saturday, November 8, the door to Stanley Rosen’s cell opened again. He still lay, curled up, on his mattress.

“ Wach auf , du! ”

Rosen swung his feet to the floor, his eyes wildly moving toward the door.

“ Komm steh auf. Du wirst verlangt. ”

“Look, I don’t understand German,” said Rosen wearily.

“ Blöder Amerikaner. Immer dasselbe. ”

The prison guard did not waste any further words. He went to Rosen and pulled him to his feet. Then a second guard appeared, with Stanley’s shoes, jacket, coat, even tie.

“ Anziehen ,” was the next order, this time accompanied by a few motions. Stanley got it. He put the clothes on.

“ Du sollst zum Staatsanwalt gehen. Verstanden ?”

For a crazy moment Stanley thought he had been freed. He pointed at himself and then at the door and said, “ Gehen ?”

“ Ja , ja. ”

Jubilantly Stanley lurched toward the open door.

“ Nein , nein. Bist Du verrückt ?”

Both guards grabbed Rosen, and it was firmly in their grip that Stanley Rosen left the cell. As the trio walked through the prison corridors, nobody took any notice of them. Within a few minutes, after the unlocking and locking of a series of doors, they entered the adjoining building. Soon Stanley was back into familiar territory, as he once again entered the office of the prosecuting attorney. This time he got the name, since it was printed in bold letters outside the door: Dr. Amadeus Weckerlin.