The Polish women had been as good as their word: Alraune had been carried, unprotesting, in a bundle of sheets, and put into a tiny stone-floored room at the end of a long narrow passage. There was not very much in the room; several scrubbing-boards and two huge mechanical mangles standing over drain-holes. A drum of scouring powder of some kind, smelling faintly of old-fashioned lye soap. Alice thought it a terrible place, but it seemed safe for the moment. The two Polish women would spend as much time with Alraune as they could, and Alice would try to slip back here unnoticed during the afternoon. If the women heard the guards coming there would be time to get him out, they said. They would be very watchful.
Alice returned to the laundry block after the midday meal, doing so openly and unconcernedly, so that any of the guards watching would think she had been assigned to duties there. Concealed in her sleeve she had a slab of bread and a square of rubbery cheese for Alraune to eat. The two Poles who worked in the laundry glanced at her, nodding almost imperceptibly to indicate that all was well, and Alice went down the passageway to the grisly stone room. There was still a trickle of light from the small windows, but the shadows were starting to edge across the floor, and in the gloom the huge mangles took on the aspect of malevolent beasts: creatures that would snap at your hands and ankles, and chomp you up in their rolling maws…Your blood would drip through their rollers and down into the drain directly beneath…Alraune had been shut in here all day – had he watched those machines? Had he seen their sinister qualities as Alice had, and been frightened?
Alice set herself to create a light-hearted atmosphere; she had brought one of the slates on which Alraune liked to scribble meaningless patterns, and the coloured chalks they had managed to cajole out of one of the guards. She wove cats’ cradles for him as well with a length of string, and sang the nursery rhymes of her own childhood, keeping her voice low, although the thick walls of the room would muffle any sound. All the time her mind was considering plans for their next move, thinking that he could spend the night in the kitchen block and that she could slip out again to be with him – he could not be left by himself in the dark. And then the next day was Wednesday, the day Mengele wanted him. She wondered if she dare risk the laundry-basket ploy to get him out after all. How much of a gamble would it be?
There was no means of telling the exact time, but it must just be coming up to the evening roll-call, and she was just thinking that she would have to slip out and be in her place for that, when there was a flurry of activity beyond the stone room. Alice’s heart leapt in fear, and she backed into a corner of the room at once, drawing Alraune with her.
‘We’re still playing the hiding game,’ she said. ‘So we’ve got to be quiet – like little mice.’ Puzzlement flared in the dark eyes at this. ‘But tomorrow,’ said Alice, hating herself, ‘it’ll be our turn to be the big furry *cats who do the chasing and that’ll be a very good game indeed.’ Absurd to talk like this – he had never seen a cat in his life. ‘You’ll have a cat of your own one day,’ she said. ‘A lovely black furry one with green eyes. It’ll be all your own, and it’ll purr and curl up in your lap. But until then, we’re two little mice, and we won’t even make a squeak.’