The day after tomorrow. So soon, thought Alice in panic. Less than two days. That’s all the time I’ve got to find a way to save him. ‘What kind of experiments are they doing in that annexe?’ she said. ‘Ilena, please tell me.’
‘Several different ones. But Mengele’s main interest at the moment,’ said Ilena unhappily, ‘is to pinpoint the breaking point in the human mind – to understand precisely how much pain and how much fear a man can endure before his mind splinters. They are trying to establish if pain or fear is the dominant factor – and that means applying both to their victims, and then observing the results.’
‘We could hide him,’ said the Russian girl some time during the night. ‘Some of the others have done that with children. Hidden them under clothing.’
‘But they’re always caught,’ said Alice.
‘And where could we hide him?’ said Ilena, with a swift angry gesture around the bare wooden floors of the hut and the narrow bunk beds.
Alice was dizzy with exhaustion and fear, but she was managing to force her mind to concentrate because there must be a way out of this. The women had not even tried to sleep; they had talked for hours, sitting up in their narrow beds, several of them grouped around the iron stove for warmth and comfort, all of them trying to think of a way to save Alraune from Mengele.
‘What about the SS jeeps?’ asked one of the older women hesitantly. ‘Could the two of you get into the boot of one? You might even be taken out through the gates without them realizing. I know it’s been tried, but—’
‘The guards are very aware of that trick,’ said the Russian girl. ‘They search every inch of every vehicle that goes in and out of here. Lu and Alraune would be found and shot.’
‘Then,’ said Alice, ‘it looks as if all I can do is take him out of here now – tonight – and go on the wire.’ She felt the shiver go through them at this. ‘On the wire’ meant, quite simply, walking up to the electric fence surrounding the camp and trusting to God or the devil that you could get through it before the guards saw and fired. Even if the guards, by some fluke, did not see you, you ran the risk of being electrocuted by the wire itself. But there was still that tiny chance of success that had driven a few prisoners to try it.
‘Impossible,’ said Ilena. ‘I’d tie you up before I let that happen.’
‘I know we can’t actually hide Alraune,’ said one of the women, speaking slowly as if she was examining each word before letting it go. ‘But is there any way we could confuse the guards – and Mengele’s people – by moving him around?’
‘From hut to hut?’ asked Alice.
‘From hut to kitchens, from kitchens to laundry, wherever we can find a corner that might go unchecked for an hour or two,’ said the woman. She was one of the quieter occupants of the hut, but when she did speak she was always listened to with respect. She was a little older than most of them; she seldom talked about herself, other than to say rather offhandedly that she had been a teacher. She said, ‘Auschwitz is so huge it might be days – weeks, even – before he was found.’
‘But they would find him in the end. And then they would certainly hang Lu,’ said one of the other women. ‘I don’t think it would work for more than a few days.’
‘But a few days might be all that’s needed. And if we could keep one step ahead of the Gestapo—’
‘To what purpose?’
‘I don’t know exactly. But it would gain us time, and in that time there might come some opportunity to get him safely out.’
‘The Polish lot would help us to hide him for some of the time,’ said someone from the stove.
‘Yes, they would, and their hut has that bit of a space where the roof slopes upwards,’ said the Russian girl eagerly.
‘And some of the Poles work in the laundry – they might be able to smuggle him in for a while, inside a linen basket or something—’
‘Can we trust the Poles? There aren’t any spies in their hut, are there?’