Imre Kertész - Fatelessness

At other times it was Bandi Citrom who slightly amazed me. Whether at work or during a break, I often heard, and quickly learned from him, his favorite song, which he had brought with him from his labor service days in the punishment company: “We clear mines from land in the Uk-raine, / But even there we’re never chicken…” was how it began, and I was specially fond of the closing lines, which go: “If a com-rade, a good bud-dy, should be lost, / For those back home our ri-poste / Is: / Come of us what may, / Our dear old home-land, / We’ll not de-ceive you, at any cost.” A noble sentiment, undeniably, and the somber tune, more on the slow side than snappy, along with the ditty as a whole, did not fail to exert their influence on me too, naturally— only somehow they merely jogged my memory of the gendarme, that time back on the train, when he reminded us of our being Hungarian; only in the end, strictly speaking, the homeland had punished them too. I mentioned this to him once, what’s more. He did not come up with any counterargument either, yet he seemed to be just a little put out, even annoyed one could say. On some occasion the next day, though, very wrapped up in something, he again started whistling, humming, and finally singing it as if any recollection of that had been clean forgotten. Another frequently repeated refrain was that he would again “set foot on the pavements of Forget-me-not Road,” that being where he lived back home, and he mentioned the street, even the number of the house, so many times and in so many ways that finally I too knew all its attractions by heart, almost longed to go there myself, even though in my own recollections I actually knew it only as a fairly secluded backstreet somewhere in the neighborhood of the Eastern Railway Terminal. He often spoke about, evoked, and also reminded me of other places too, squares, avenues, houses, as well as certain well-known slogans and advertising signs that blazed on their roofs and in various shopwindows—“the lights of Budapest” as he called them, though here I had to correct him, being obliged to point out that those lights no longer existed on account of the blackout regulations, and the bombing, to be sure, had knocked the city’s panorama about a bit here and there. He fell silent, but as far as I could make out the news was not very much to his liking. The next day, though, as soon as the opportunity presented itself, he again started to go on about the lights.

But then, could anyone be acquainted with all the variants of stubbornness? For I can assure you, had I but known, there were many variants I could have chosen from in Zeitz. I heard about the past, the future, and a lot, a very great deal, about freedom above all; indeed, I can safely say, nowhere does one hear as much about it, it seems, as among prisoners, which naturally makes a lot of sense after all, I suppose. Yet others took some strange pleasure in an adage, a joke, a wisecrack of sorts. I heard this one myself, naturally. There is an hour of the day which falls between returning from the factory and the evening Appell , a distinctive, always bustling, and liberated hour that I, for my part, always looked forward to and enjoyed the most while in the Lager; as it happened, this was generally also supper time. I was just pushing my way through the milling, trading, and chatting knots of people when someone bumped into me, and a pair of tiny, worried eyes above a singular nose gazed at me from under the loose-fitting convict’s cap. “I don’t believe it,” we both said almost simultaneously, as he had recognized me and I him, the man with the bad luck. He immediately appeared to be delighted and inquired where my quarters were. Block 5, I told him. “Pity,” he said regretfully, since he was lodged elsewhere. He complained that he didn’t “get to see familiar faces,” and when I told him that I didn’t either he somehow looked crestfallen, though I don’t know why. “We’re becoming split up, all split up,” he observed with an implication in his words and the shaking of his head that was somewhat lost on me. Then his face brightened all of a sudden, and he asked, “Do you know what this here,” pointing to his chest, “this letter ‘U,’ signifies?” Sure I did, I told him: “ Ungar , Hungarian.” “No,” he answered, “ Unschuldig ,” meaning “innocent,” then gave a snort of laughter followed by prolonged nodding of the head with a brooding expression, as if the notion were somehow highly gratifying, though I have no idea why. Subsequently, and quite often in the beginning, I saw the same on others in the camp from whom I also heard that wisecrack, as if they derived some warming, fortifying emotion from it — that at least is what was suggested by the unfailingly identical laugh and then that same softening of features, the dolefully smiling and yet somehow euphoric expression with which they told and hailed this witticism each and every time they told it, in much the same sort of way as when a person hears music that deeply touches his feelings or some particularly moving story.

Yet all the same, with them too what I noticed was the same endeavor, the same good intention: they too wanted merely to be seen as good prisoners. Make no mistake about it, that was in our interest, that is what the conditions called for, that is what life there, if I may put it this way, compelled us to do. If the rows were perfectly in line and the numbers tallied, for instance, the roll call did not last so long — at least to start with. If one was diligent at work, for example, then one might avoid a beating — usually, at any rate.

Even so, at least to start with, I believe the thinking of each and every one of us cannot have been guided entirely by that gain alone, not exclusively by that kind of benefit alone, I can honestly say. Take work, for example, the first afternoon of work, to start with that straightaway: the task was to unload a wagon of gray gravel. If, after Bandi Citrom and I — naturally having sought permission beforehand from the guard: on this occasion, a soldier who was getting on in years and, at first glance, more docile-looking — had stripped down to the waist (that was the first time I saw his golden-brown skin with the big, smooth muscles lithe under it and the darker patch of a birthmark below the left breast), he said, “Now then, let’s show these guys what Budapesters can do!” then he meant that perfectly seriously. And I tell you, considering it was after all the first time in my life that I had handled a pitchfork, that both the guard and the foreman-type guy, no doubt from the factory, who would nose around every now and then seemed rather satisfied, which only made us reintensify our efforts, naturally. If, on the other hand, a stinging sensation declared itself on my palms after a time, and I saw blood all around the base of my fingers, and then our guard in the meanwhile called over: “ Was is denn los?” [13] “What’s the matter?” so I laughed and held up my palm to show him, whereupon he, abruptly turning surly, even giving a jerk on his rifle strap, demanded: “Arbeiten! Aber los!” [14] “Work! Snap to it!” — then it was only natural, in the end, that my own interests should also turn to other things. From then on, I paid attention to just one thing: the times when he did not have his eyes on me, so I could steal the occasional quick breather, or how I might put as little as possible on my spade, shovel, or pitchfork; and I can tell you, later on I made very considerable progress in such tactics, at any rate gaining a great deal more expertise, schooling, and practice with them than in the performance of any job of work that I completed. And anyway, who profits from it, after all? — as I recall the “Expert” once asking. I maintain there was some problem here, some obstacle, some mistake, some breakdown. A word, a sign, a glimmering of appreciation now and again, nothing more, just a scintilla, might have proved more efficacious, for me at any rate. For what malice do we in fact have to bear against one another at the individual level, if one thinks about it? And then, after all, one retains a sense of pride even in captivity, so who would not, in the final analysis, lay claim, in his heart of hearts, to a drop of kindness, to say nothing of getting further with a considerate word, so I found.