Alexander Altmann A10567, page 5
Alexander stared up at the boy who was frozen in ascent, having realised his mistake. No one else was on horseback.
“Get down!” the kapo hissed, clawing at the boy’s pants. The boy swung his leg back over the horse but his foot didn’t touch the ground.
“How dare you!” The commander’s face twisted in anger. He grabbed Nussbaum by the collar, dragged him from the horse, yanked the boy’s arm behind his back and marched him from the paddock.
“Tie him up and bring the rest of them.” The commander stopped at an upright post sunk into the ground and shoved the boy onto his knees so that he kneeled before it. He kicked the boy’s arms out and waited for a guard to tie his wrists to the post. Alexander felt winded. He’d thought the post was for tethering horses. He looped Chestnut’s lead rope around a fence post and stepped into line. “Make sure they’re watching.” The commander turned to the inmates. “If anyone looks away, they get shot.”
Alexander was going to have to watch. He dug his nails into his palms and forced his eyes to follow the sweep of the commander’s boot. He saw the shiny black leather grow slick with blood, heard the crack of bone, saw bits of cloth cling to the heel. The breeder’s son cried out every time the commander drove the boot into his back but the commander kept kicking until the boy’s shirt hung in shreds and a river of dark blood leaked from his wounds, and then he kicked him some more. His face didn’t grow plum-coloured with exertion or grow slack with the effort of breaking another man’s bones. His face remained hard and unbending from the first kick to the last. Alexander watched it all with dry eyes, hypnotised by the commander’s easy cruelty, aware that the men beside him were blinking away tears. You’re a brick wall, he said to himself through gritted teeth. Nothing gets through.
The commander looked down at his boots. “I need someone to clean this.” He stuck out a smeared shoe and crossed his arms over his chest. The kapo pointed at Alexander.
“But I don’t have a …” Alexander meant to say rag, but a guard dragged him from the line and thrust him forwards. Alexander dropped to his knees in front of the commander and stared down at the man’s boot. Think, he said to himself, rubbing his brow. His fingers skimmed the fabric of his cap, then closed over it. He pulled the hat from his head and dragged it across the commander’s blood-spattered boot, back and forth until the leather gleamed.
The commander kicked Alexander’s hand away, jerked his boot free and asked for his horse. Alexander shuffled back into line, pulling the sticky cap back onto his head.
“These are not your horses. You don’t get to sit on them.” The commander grabbed a handful of mane, shoved his foot into a stirrup and swung up onto his saddle. He glanced at Nussbaum, lying curled on the ground. “Your job is to feed, groom and exercise them.” He paused. “And you do this by walking them to the paddock and letting them loose.” He scanned the stablehands assembled before him. “Those of you who have served here for some time know your position. Riding is not part of the job.” He ran his hand over his horse’s flank. “You’re lucky to be caring for such noble animals.” He scanned the group. “You might learn something from them. Like hard work.”
Alexander wanted to punch him between the eyes. He wanted to pull the commander’s gun from his holster and aim a bullet through his head. Instead he was forced to watch the man circle the yard on his horse while Nussbaum bled.
“Send him back to Birkenau,” he said eventually, sliding from his horse and pointing to Nussbaum.
Two guards dragged the boy to his feet and hauled him away.
The commander spun around and pointed to Alexander. “He can have Serafin.”
Chapter 6
Serafin snorted and tossed his mane.
“You don’t scare me,” Alexander hissed, taking the reins and stepping into the stable. “You’re a horse, and I know horses.” He turned to the stallion. In truth he’d never worked with a creature quite as fine. His father’s horses were good horses – strong, able, kind horses – but none of them looked like Serafin. None were as sleek and strong. None had a head as delicately chiselled or a coat quite as silken. Alexander reached out to pat the horse, to rub his neck and feel the velvet of his muzzle but before his fingers had even grazed Serafin’s skin, the horse bared his teeth.
Alexander grabbed the reins and hurried to find the horse’s stall, dragging the animal after him. The stall was easy to find; it was the one closest to the stable door and twice as large as the others. It was as big as his classroom back home. He bolted the door behind them and fell back against the hard wood.
“I’ll cut you a deal. I won’t pat you.” He stared into Serafin’s hard, grey eyes. “As long as you do as I say.” He hoped to God the horse was smart. He could handle a cold horse but a dumb one would get him killed. “If the commander thinks I can’t handle you …” He stepped towards the horse and blew three short puffs of air into his nostrils. Serafin’s eyes widened. “Okay,” Alexander said, his breath slowing, “you recognise a greeting, that’s good. You’ve got some smarts.” He let the reins drop and walked slowly around the animal, grinning as Serafin’s ears moved with him, tracking his footsteps. Alexander spread his fingers and placed them below the stallion’s withers. He held his breath and pressed into the animal and, to his relief, Serafin pushed back against his hands. It was what smart horses did. Rather than pull away from, say a wolf clamped down on their leg, they moved into the pressure to lessen the risk of having their leg torn off. The stallion was smart. Alexander exhaled. Smart as his master, and just as icy.
He eyed the stallion suspiciously. He’d never been rebuffed by an animal before. Never known a horse to shy from affection. Still, there were worse things.
“I don’t need you to like me,” he whispered into the horse’s ear. “I’m used to that.” He straightened up and unlatched the door. “I just need you to behave.” Alexander slipped from the stall to fetch a currycomb.
“Why’s the pony still outside?” the kapo cornered Alexander by the grooming tray. Alexander opened his mouth. “I thought …”
“You’re not here to think, you’re here to work. You’re responsible for two horses now. And neither of them must suffer. Finish up with Serafin and then attend to Chestnut.” He stared at the currycomb in Alexander’s hand. “After you groom the horses,” he said, passing Alexander a bottle of shampoo and a bucket, “you’ll want to muck out their stalls, top up the straw and clean their tack. Don’t forget to polish the stirrup irons and brush the dirt from the reins. The saddle polish and rags are over there.” He pointed to the far wall. “The other men can show you how to mix the feed. Best to prepare their dinner early. He pointed to a room which led off the stable. It’s all in there.” He turned to go.
“What about lunch?” Alexander asked, resting his chin on the top of the bucket, his arms straining under the weight of the bottles and buckets.
The kapo shook his head. “The horses are fed twice a day, at six am and then at night, just before you leave.”
“No. My lunch,” Alexander blurted. The kapo stiffened and Alexander edged away from him, wishing he could rein his words back in. Idiot! You’ve just seen a boy pummelled for slipping his foot into a stirrup. And now you talk back to a kapo?
“Lunch is at noon.” The kapo waved Alexander away with a calloused hand. “That’s two hours away. If you get everything done, which I doubt … ” He grabbed a sponge and dropped it into Alexander’s bucket. “Then you can eat.”
Alexander wasn’t daunted by the long list of jobs. He’d grown up cleaning tack and mucking out stalls. He’d spent his summer patching fences and stacking hay bales and his winters shovelling snow. Every morning before school he’d collect the eggs from the chicken shed and haul the milk tubs to the house. He didn’t mind hard work, he just didn’t want to do it for them.
Alexander lifted the saddle from Serafin’s back and ran a damp cloth over the leather. He’d dreamed of a place like this: a stable with a feed room, a tack room and dozens of stalls. He’d dreamed about owning one just like it with his friend Anton Hudak. Growing up on neighbouring farms, the boys had talked of little else. They’d planned their empire by the time they were twelve and found an abandoned paddock which they claimed as their own.
Over there, Anton would point at a patch of green, will be the training arena.
And there, Alexander would jump from his horse and walk to the fence, will be the stables.
Men would come from all over the country to have their horses tamed at the Galloping Stallion Equestrian Park. Alexander had even hammered two planks of wood together to make a sign, but he’d never hung it.
“I’ll still do it,” Alexander muttered. “And it will be bigger and better than anything I could’ve ever done with Anton.” Alexander filled the bucket with water, dropped a bar of saddle soap into the tub and dipped a sponge into the filmy liquid. He wiped down the saddle and the reins, hung them up to dry and turned to the horse. Serafin’s white hair was flecked with dirt.
“Let’s get you clean,” he said, grabbing the hard brush and running it over the horse’s back.
Serafin snorted and stamped his feet.
“Keep still,” Alexander said, pulling the brush through Serafin’s tangled mane. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can eat.”
Isidor poked his head over the stall wall.
“What makes you think he understands a word you say?”
Alexander ignored him.
“They’re animals. They’re stupid. If they had half a brain, they’d head for the hills.”
“Stupid? The first time …” Alexander didn’t have time for this; he had work to do. “Never mind.” He took Serafin’s head in his hands and sponged the stallion’s face.
The first time he’d saddled Sari he’d found himself sprawled in the dirt with the saddle hanging upside down under the horse’s belly. His father had laughed and told him that horses take a deep breath, just as you pull the straps tight. They’re smart, his father had said, plucking the straw from Alexander’s hair. You have to pull the girth tight, and walk them around until they breathe out.
There was a loud thwack and the wall dividing Alexander’s stall from Isidor’s shook violently.
“Keep it down!” a guard yelled from the other side of the stable. Alexander rose up on his toes and peered over the wall. Isidor was playing tug-of-war with his filly, trying unsuccessfully to pick up her foot to clean it. The horse struck out at the wall again, her pink nostrils flaring. She was a plain horse with an honest face and Alexander wondered where the commander had found her and if there was a kid, on a farm somewhere in Poland, who had been forced to give her up.
“Let go of her foot,” Alexander hissed. “You keep doing that and she’ll start squealing and spook all the horses. Grab the hoof pick.” He pointed to the curved tool lying on the floor of Isidor’s stall. “Now gently pick up her foot.” Isidor picked up the tool and reached for the filly’s leg. “See that vee?” Alexander pointed to the soft pad abutting the top of the horseshoe. “Use the tip of the pick to remove the dirt that’s caked in there. Pick it away from the heel towards the toe. You don’t want to push any grit into the sensitive part of the foot. Good,” he said. “Now set that foot down – easy, don’t drop it – and move to the next one.”
Alexander watched Isidor out of the corner of his eye. The boy was clumsy and clearly a novice, but he was gentle with the horse and did as he was told. “Now wipe her down. Watch me over the stall wall if you have to. You can copy what I do.” Alexander left Isidor tugging at a clump of grass. The boy didn’t deserve his help but the filly did. He turned to run a damp sponge over Serafin’s neck. The horse stood stiffly, his neck taut; obedient but cold.
Alexander stifled a yawn. The air in the barn was warm and thick with the sweet smell of hay. Best get to work, he thought, mucking out the stall. He shovelled the dirty bedding into a wheelbarrow, checked the floor for loose nails and raked clean straw over the ground. Then he got to work on Chestnut.
“Serafin’s getting impatient. He needs to eat.” The kapo pulled Alexander from Chestnut’s stall and marched him down the corridor. “This is where we keep the feed.” He swung open a door and walked into a room lined with bins of grain and buckets of hay. A guard sat in the corner of the room, peeling an apple with a penknife. Alexander watched the curling peel fall to the floor.
“You have to soak the sugar beet for twelve hours before feeding it to a horse,” the kapo said, grinding the apple skin into the dirt under the heel of his boot. “Carrots,” he said, pointing to another container, as if Alexander had forgotten what real food looked like. Alexander stared at the impossibly orange carrots and then at the apples – whole apples, red and green apples, plump with juice – in a basket by the door. “The potatoes are over there.” The kapo pointed to a full basket. Alexander stared longingly at the dirty brown vegetables. Potatoes. His stomach twisted.
“If anyone catches you with so much as an apple core down your pants …” The kapo’s face darkened.
“Of c-course,” Alexander stammered, rushing to the corner of the room to grab a bucket. He plunged his hands into a bin, pulled out a handful of oats and tossed them into Serafin’s feed bucket, feeling the grain slip through his hands before bringing his fingertips to his nose to inhale the scent.
“Don’t even think about it.” The kapo’s voice was wintry. “If you eat your horse’s feed, one of two things will happen. Either a guard will catch you and tie you to that whipping pole outside,” he paused, his bushy eyebrows knitted together, “or your horse will lose weight, and you’ll be tied to that whipping pole outside.” He swung the door open. “Feed your horse. The commander will be here to ride him at two o’clock.”
Alexander set the bucket down in front of Serafin and slipped back into the feed room to fetch a bucket of cool, clear water. He set the bucket of water down and waited for the horse to approach it, pleased that Serafin had left a smattering of oats and a beet at the bottom of the feed bucket. He bent over slowly and reached for the beet just as Serafin pulled his nose from the water and kicked out angrily.
“C’mon, you won’t miss one handful,” Alexander cooed, reaching towards the bucket. Arabians were desert horses, they could get by on scraps. The horse lashed out, his eyes bulging.
“The commander’s got you trained but he’s made you mean,” Alexander said, escaping the stall. He supposed he could make Serafin warm to him eventually. A horse could be trained to do anything, with time and enough sugar. Alexander had time – he wasn’t going anywhere – but he didn’t have the energy. Serafin was obedient and would do as he was told. And that was more than enough. Becoming attached to the horse would only complicate things.
They didn’t have to like each other.
Chapter 7
The lunch room was crowded with men bent over their bowls slurping soup. Some sat on chairs, others sat cross-legged on the cement floor sipping water from cups. The horses’ feed room was crammed with buckets of vegetables and baskets of fruit. The lunch room was empty save for a metal cauldron sitting on top of a table, a splintered wooden ladle licked clean beside it and an empty pitcher.
Alexander had missed lunch. He found a chair and collapsed into it, distraught. There was plenty of hay in the stable. If the horses could eat it, he consoled himself, so could he. He’d work faster tomorrow and when the lunch whistle blew, he’d be first in line. He sat quietly and watched the men eat.
“There’s still some left,” the kapo grunted between mouthfuls of soup. He pushed his empty bowl aside and dragged another bowl to his chin. Alexander unclipped his cup from his belt and peered into the tureen. A puddle of grey soup lay at the bottom of the pot. It looked like the water in his mother’s laundry bucket after she’d washed the floors, and smelled faintly of potato. He picked up the ladle, scooped out the remaining broth and slopped it into his cup.
At home, his mother had always given him the biggest portion. She liked to watch him eat, especially in those last weeks before they were sent to the ghetto, as if the act of filling his stomach might protect him from hunger later. He wondered where she was and hoped she had a job where she could skim a few potatoes from the bottom of a pot. Alexander’s mother had earned a business degree when she was young, before she’d given up the city for life on the farm with her new husband. Her mind was sharp as a tack and that would help. And she hated to be idle. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d returned home from school to find her sitting in the sun. She was either doing the books, ordering equipment, attending to dinner or milking the cows. She’ll be fine, he thought, tipping the cup to his lips. She’ll be worrying about me. He looked down at his stomach and saw that it was still caved in. He hadn’t expected potato dumplings for lunch but he’d hoped for something more than he’d been fed in Birkenau.
With their hunger dampened, the talk in the room turned to things other than food. The men around him talked of home and the end of the war and how they’d soon get to hold their wives and sweethearts. Girls were the furthest thing from Alexander’s mind. And even if he did have someone waiting for him back in Košice, he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell a bunch of strangers. Alexander had learned to keep his head down and his mouth shut. It was hard enough getting through each day without expending the extra energy required for conversation, so he sidestepped the banter, unless, of course, there was something to be gained.
“Commander Ziegler will be here in twenty minutes,” the kapo called to him. “You need to be in the yard with Serafin in ten.”
Alexander headed outside and found the toilets behind the stable – a slab of concrete with seven holes drilled into it, protected from the elements by a warped tin roof held up by four posts. There were no walls and no toilet paper, just a few strips of burlap torn from a sack, stuffed under a brick to keep the wind from carrying them off. It was the first time Alexander didn’t have to share the toilets with anyone, but he wasn’t alone. One of the stablehands was pulling weeds next to the toilet block. He looked up from the ground as Alexander lowered his pants, watched him for a few moments, then returned to his task.
