Spark of Life by Erich Maria Remarque

Author:Erich Maria Remarque [Remarque, Erich Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8562-7
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

Berger pretended to be helping to load two corpses onto iron stretchers. As a rule he was not given this kind of work; he was far too weak for it. But when the dismissed prisoners came upstairs the foreman had yelled at them all to make themselves useful, so the simplest way out had been to pretend to be carrying out the order.

One of the corpses on the stretchers was the woman with the loose hair; the other a man who looked as though he were made of dirty wax. Berger raised the woman’s shoulders and pushed her hair under them so that, while shoving her into the furnace, it would not be set on fire by the blazing wind, fly back and burn his and the others’ hands. It was strange that it hadn’t been cut off; at one time this had been done regularly and the hair collected. Now it was probably no longer worthwhile, since there were only a few women left in the camp.

“Ready,” he said to the others.

They opened the furnace doors. The blazing heat flared out. They shoved and the flat iron stretchers rolled into the furnace. “Shut the doors!” someone called. “Shut the doors!”

Two of the prisoners slammed the heavy doors to, but one of them flew open again. Berger could see the woman arch herself as though waking up. For a moment the burning hair surrounded her head like a wild yellow-white halo, then the door, on whose corner a small piece of bone had been caught, slammed to for the second and last time.

“What was that?” asked one of the prisoners, frightened. Up to now he had only stripped corpses. “Was she still alive?”

“No. That was the heat,” answered Berger, choking. The hot wind had dried out his throat. Even his eyes seemed to be burned. “They always move.”

“Sometimes they dance,” said a powerful man who belonged to the cremation gang and was passing by. “What are you doing up here, you cellar ghosts?”

“We were sent up.”

The man laughed. “What for? To be put in the furnace, too?”

“There are some new people downstairs,” said Berger.

The man stopped laughing. “What? New ones? What for?”

“I don’t know. Six new ones.”

The man stared at Berger. His eyes shone very white in the black face. “That can’t be! We’ve only been here two months. They can’t relieve us yet. They’ve no right to! Is it really true?”

“Yes. They said so themselves.”

“Find out! Can’t you find out for certain?”

“I’ll try,” said Berger. “Have you a piece of bread? Or anything else to eat? I’ll let you know.”

The man took a piece of bread from his pocket and broke it in two. He gave the smaller piece to Berger. “Here. But find out. We must know!”

“Yes.” Berger stepped back. Someone tapped him on the shoulder from behind. It was the green kapo who had led Mosse, Brede and the four others to the crematorium. “Are you the tooth-plumber?”

“Yes.”

“There’s one more tooth to be pulled downstairs. You’re to come down.

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