When he had finished reading his mother’s words, Paul cried for a long time.
He shed tears for Ilse, who had suffered her entire life because of love and who, out of love, had made mistakes. He shed tears for Jurgen, who had been born into the worst possible situation. He shed tears for himself, for the boy who had cried for a father who hadn’t deserved it.
As he fell asleep he was overcome by a strange sense of peace, a feeling he didn’t recall ever having experienced before. Whatever the outcome of the madness they were about to attempt in a few hours’ time, he had achieved his goal.
Manfred woke him, tapping him gently on the back. Julian was a few meters away, eating a sausage sandwich.
“It’s seven p.m.”
“Why did you let me sleep for so long?”
“You needed the rest. In the meantime I went shopping. I’ve brought everything you said. The towels, a steel spoon, the shovel, everything.”
“So let’s begin.”
Manfred made Paul take the sulfonamide to stop his wounds from becoming infected, then the two of them sent Julian to the car.
“Can I start it?” the boy asked.
“Don’t even think about it!” shouted Manfred.
He and Paul then stripped the dead man of his trousers and boots and dressed him in Paul’s clothes. They tucked Paul’s documents into the jacket pocket. Then they dug a deep hole in the floor and buried him.
“This’ll confuse them for a while, I hope. I don’t think they’ll find him for a few weeks, and by then there won’t be much of him left,” said Paul.
Jurgen’s uniform was hanging from a nail in the stalls. Paul was more or less the same height as his brother, though Jurgen had been stockier. With the bulky bandages Paul was wearing around his arms and chest, the uniform sat reasonably well. The boots were tight, but the rest fitted.
“That uniform fits you like a glove. The thing that’s never going to pass is this.”
Manfred showed him Jurgen’s identity card. It was in a little leather wallet, together with his Nazi party card and an SS card. The resemblance between Jurgen and Paul had increased over the years. Both had a strong jaw, blue eyes, and similar features. Jurgen’s hair was darker, but they could solve that with the hair grease Manfred had bought. Paul could easily pass for Jurgen, except for one small detail, which Manfred was pointing to on the card. In the section about “distinguishing features” were clearly written the words “Right eye missing.”
“A patch isn’t going to be enough, Paul. If they ask you to lift it…”
“I know, Manfred. That’s why I need your help.”
Manfred looked at him in complete amazement.
“You’re not thinking of-”
“I’ve got to do it.”
“But it’s madness!”
“Just like the rest of the plan. And this is its weakest point.”
Finally Manfred agreed. Paul sat on the driver’s seat of the cart, towels covering his chest as though he were at the barber’s.
“Ready?”
“Wait,” said Manfred, who seemed terrified. “Let’s go over it again one more time to be sure there are no mistakes.”
“I’m going to put the spoon at the edge of my right eyelid, and pull my eye out by its roots. While I’m taking it out, you have to put the antiseptics and then the gauze on me. All right?”
Manfred nodded. He was so scared he could barely speak.
“Ready?” he asked again.
“Ready.”
Ten seconds later, there was nothing but screaming.
By eleven that night, Paul had taken almost an entire packet of aspirin, leaving himself two more. The wound had stopped bleeding, and Manfred disinfected it every fifteen minutes, putting on fresh gauze each time.
Julian, who had come back in a few hours earlier, alarmed by the shouts, found his father holding his head in his hands and howling at the top of his lungs, while his uncle screamed hysterically for him to get out. He’d gone back and shut himself away in the Mercedes, then burst into tears.
When everything had calmed down, Manfred went out to fetch his nephew and explain the plan. On seeing Paul, Julian asked: “Are you doing all this just for my mother?” He had reverence in his voice.
“And for you, Julian. Because I want us to be together.”
The boy didn’t answer, but he clung tightly to Paul’s arm, and still hadn’t let go when Paul decided it was time for them to leave. He climbed into the backseat of the car with Julian, and Manfred drove the sixteen kilometers that separated them from the camp with a tense expression on his face. It took them almost an hour to reach their destination, as Manfred barely knew how to drive and the car kept stalling.
“When we get there, the car mustn’t stall under any circumstances, Manfred,” said Paul, concerned.
“I’ll do what I can.”
As they approached the city of Dachau, Paul noticed a dramatic change compared to Munich. Even in the darkness, the poverty in this city was evident. The pavement was badly maintained and dirty, the traffic signs pockmarked, the facades of the buildings old and peeling.
“What a sad place,” said Paul.
“Of all the places they could have taken Alys, this is definitely the worst.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Our father owned the gunpowder factory that used to be situated in this city.”
Paul was about to tell Manfred that his own mother had worked in that munitions factory and that she’d been dismissed, but found he was too tired to start the conversation.
“The really ironic thing is that my father sold the land to the Nazis. And they built the camp on it.”
Finally they saw a yellow sign with black letters informing them that the camp was 1.2 miles away.
“Stop, Manfred. Turn around slowly and go back a bit.”
Manfred did as he was told, and they backtracked as far as a small building that looked like an empty barn, though it seemed to have been deserted for some time.
“Julian, listen very carefully,” said Paul, holding the boy by his shoulders and forcing him to look him in the eye. “Your uncle and I are going to go into the concentration camp to try to get your mother out. But you can’t come with us. I want you to get out of the car now with my suitcase and wait in the back of this building. Hide yourself away as best as you can, don’t talk to anyone, and don’t come out unless you hear me or your uncle calling you, understand?”
Julian nodded, his lips quivering.
“Brave boy,” said Paul, giving him a hug.
“And what if you don’t come back?”
“Don’t even think about that, Julian. We will.”
With Julian installed in his hiding place, Paul and Manfred got back in the car.
“Why didn’t you tell him what to do if we don’t come back?” asked Manfred.
“Because he’s an intelligent child. He’ll look in the suitcase; he’ll take the money and leave the rest. Anyway, I don’t have anyone to send him to. How does the wound look?” he said, turning on the reading light and pulling away the gauze from his eye.
“It’s swollen, but not too badly. The lid isn’t too red. Does it hurt?”
“Like hell.”
Paul looked at himself in the rearview mirror. Where previously there had been an eyeball, there was now a patch of wrinkled skin. A little thread of blood trickled from the corner of his eye like a scarlet tear.
“It’s got to look old, for fuck’s sake.”
“They might not ask you to take the patch off.”
“Thanks.”
He took the patch from his pocket and put it on, throwing the pieces of gauze out of the window into a ditch. When he looked at himself in the mirror again, a shiver went down his spine.
The person looking back at him was Jurgen.
He glanced at the Nazi armband on his left arm.
I once thought I’d rather die than wear this symbol, thought Paul. Today Paul Reiner is dead. I am now Jurgen von Schroeder.
He got out of the passenger seat and moved into the back, trying to remember what his brother was like, his contemptuous air, his arrogant manner. The way he projected his voice as though it were an extension of himself, trying to make everyone else feel inferior.
I can do it, said Paul to himself. We shall see…
“Start her up, Manfred. We mustn’t waste any more time.”