Affinity Konar - Mischling

“They’re not kosher,” he sniffed.

“Neither is the bread,” she retorted. I was starting to think that the book was her way of avoiding eye contact; she ducked into it immediately, as if shamed by her own words.

Her charge just looked at her sympathetically. It was then that it became obvious to me: Patient was being her patient just so he could keep her alive.

And Patient needed saving himself.

The problem was this: Patient’s brother was dead and so he wasn’t a twin anymore. The twinless were expendable. When you became twinless, you had days, maybe a week, before you were reunited with your twin in the mortuary for study. These reunions never announced themselves, but we all saw the pattern: We knew Mischa had died, and we saw Augustus disappear soon after. We learned that Herman was no more, and we waved good-bye to Ari, his nose pressed against the window of the ambulance. Disappearances were inevitable, marked with red crosses on the sides of the vehicles that carried our companions away.

As the keeper of time and memory, I saw fit to put notches in the wooden arm of our bunk to record each day that Patient remained with us.

“What are these for?” Stasha had asked, moving her fingertip over the initial four indentations.

“The members of our family,” I’d answered.

And when the notches numbered five?

“For the members of our family including our dead,” I told her.

Satisfied, she ran her fingers over the grooves to indicate her approval. As the notches increased, I came up with new explanations. I said that they were for the things I missed, the favors I owed Bruna, the kindnesses Stasha had shown me.

Fortunately, the forgetful-bread made this deception easy. Every new explanation rang true to her so long as the bromide continued to line her stomach.

When the notches on the bunk recorded more than nine days, I couldn’t imagine why he’d been spared for so long. I figured that Mengele was so busy with so many other bodies, he had momentarily forgotten about the boy. Or maybe he truly did have some respect for Stasha and was allowing her the fun of her own experiment. After all, Mengele was known for breaking the rules to foster his own amusements, and no one appeared to amuse him more than Stasha.

October 14, 1944

The white truck came to carry us off, chuffing up in the dust like some important beast with its false Red Cross insignia blazing over one side. And under the supervision of that false cross, stitched on the uniforms of nurses and doctors, splayed over the walls of the laboratory, Stasha’s blood was taken and given back to me; my blood was taken and given to a bucket; Stasha’s spine was prodded with needles while mine sang out with sympathy; we were photographed and drawn; we heard the cries of others down the hallway, saw the flash of the camera, and when the light got too bright, Mengele took Stasha from me with his usual long-dawning smile and a whistle of equal length. She looked back at me, over her shoulder, as they entered a private room.

The doctor would take special care of Stasha, Nurse Elma said.

Whether hours or minutes passed, I couldn’t be sure. I knew only that when Stasha emerged from that room she held her head at a tilt, like a marionette with a broken string, and she cupped her left ear with one hand as if trying to prevent the entry of a single sound.

But even before I saw Stasha’s injury I knew what made it.

I knew because as I’d waited in my chair I’d felt something pour and bubble down the canal of my ear; I’d felt it course and stream in a way that defied my understanding, and I cried out in recognition of this shared pain, which was very unfortunate indeed, because it attracted Nurse Elma’s attention. She turned from the reflective surface of the medicine cabinet, where she’d been passing the wait stabbing at her gums with a pick and smoothing her curls.

“What is the matter, girl?” She sashayed over to where I sat and poked the dimple we had in our chins. “I’m impressed that you have the strength to shiver.”

I told her it was nothing even as the sensation continued. I knew they were pouring boiling water onto Stasha’s left eardrum; they were drowning her hearing forever — I knew this even though she did not scream.

Seeking escape from our thoughts, I looked through the window and saw guards pushing a piano through the yard. I was quite sure it was our piano, the one we’d lost when we found ourselves crowded into the ghetto. We’d grown up together, that piano and Stasha and me. We’d learned to crawl beneath it. It could have been anyone’s piano, but I was quite sure that it was ours, and almost as soon as it appeared within the window, the guards pushed it out beyond the frame of my vision, and there was only a crash, a thud, a ruffle of keys, and a slew of curses.

I wondered where they were taking it. If I would ever see it again.

My vision of the old piano was then replaced with Mengele himself. He entered with his usual whistle. Mid-trill, he stopped and pointed to me, like a music teacher does when he’s looking for an answer.

“Beethoven’s Ninth?” I ventured.

“Ah, no, you are quite wrong.” It was a triumphant statement.

I apologized for my mistake. I would have said that my hearing felt a bit compromised at the moment, but I decided it was best not to let him in on this mystery.

“Can I have a second chance?”

I’m sure he heard these exact words too often. He began to laugh, and Elma gave him a look of mock reproach.

“Don’t be so cruel to the girl!” And then to me, she said, “You are right, of course. Sometimes our doctor here, he just likes to have a little fun.”

“To put you at ease,” he said, nodding.

“I believe it had the opposite effect,” Nurse Elma said. “Look at those pupils!”

“It works with Stasha,” Mengele said. “That girl just loves jokes, doesn’t she? You — you are a bit more reserved, yes?”

He removed his gloves and put on a fresh pair. He slid them on with the zeal of a boy suiting up for some sport, and then he held his hands up before him, in search of flaws. Finding none, he clapped a hand on my shoulder.

“Your sister has to rest a bit,” he said. “Perhaps we should do something else to pass the time?”

He always worded things that way, as if he were merely making a jovial suggestion.

He and Nurse Elma consulted with each other for some minutes before arriving at a plan. I did my best to appear uninterested, but pieces of their conversation made their way to me. I heard talk of which was the stronger one, who was the leader, the superior subject, and then they returned to where I sat, so cold on my bench.

“Something new this time,” he said finally, and with a smile. “Or new to you, at least. Your sister is already familiar.”

He looked for a vein. He didn’t have to look far. I cursed my veins for making themselves so available.

I don’t know what was in that needle. A germ, a virus, a poison. But I could be certain as I shuddered and a warmth shivered through me, hand in hand with a chill and a shake, that it would eventually overtake me. A stronger person might have been able to fight what that needle held, but I was not as strong as I’d been before we’d exited the cattle car.

Satisfied, Mengele stood back and surveyed me. He cocked his head like a nasty parrot that once swore at me in a pet store. I hoped he would remain at that distance, but he drew up a chair and stroked my forehead so as to observe the fever that was quickly setting in, and then he took a little hammer and applied it to my joints. My legs and arms jumped at the urging of his hammer, and his face was a strange mix of amusement and intent. He scampered about me as I sat on the bench, the long, white sleeves of his coat falling over my nakedness.