Free Playing for Time by Fania Fénelon Page B

equality!”
    Little Irene flared up, “I bet those wretched kitchen workers have stolen all the potatoes again!”
    “Have you ever seen any?” exploded Florette. “I’ll give you those bitches’ recipes: anything, all the perishable remains from the suitcases and stolen parcels, everything that can’t be put on the SS table or get sent to Berlin is for us—rotten bacon, musty raisins, mouldy jam, cake crumbs, treacle, sausage skin. In it all goes, and you stir it all about! It’s nourishing and vomitatory!”
    Suddenly my teeth came upon something slightly more solid, a couple of inches long; since I wasn’t in high society, I proceeded to extract this unidentifiable something, which I contemplated with interest.
    “Well, well,” commented Jenny, “a bit of potato peeling. That proves that potatoes were on the menu. Eat it!”
    “You’re lucky, it’s something to bite on.”
    No one smiled. Food wasn’t a subject to be joked about. You could laugh about death, but not about what kept you alive.
    We went back into the music room and, as on one of those clocks from which figures march out, Alma came out of her room the moment we were seated. She made her entry with such precision that it was almost as though she spied on our movements from behind her door. Indeed, why not?
    The hours passed. The rehearsal was over. The orchestra prepared to leave; having “helped” the work detachments on their way, it would now “help” them to return. That was the end of the musicians’ labour. All we had to do then was to undergo the second roll call, when again we were counted like cattle. Then came supper: a bit of bread and, this evening, a minuscule piece of cheese—a real feast; by some oversight it wasn’t even mouldy.
    This day etched itself into my mind as the typical day, the model of those to come, the first link in the chain. How many would there have to be before my account with fate was settled?
    We were exhausted and famished, and escaped into oblivion.
    The Girls in Canada
    A c H A I N of whistle blasts encircled the barracks with their web of sound. Around me no one woke, but the noise must have disturbed their sleep because some turned over and groaned. I looked at them and suddenly felt a rush of protective tenderness.
    Outside, soldiers ran heavily; arms clicked, whistles blew, ordering incomprehensible movements. My heart beat furiously. Wasn’t this colossal upheaval just the kind of thing that would precede the liberation of the camp? They would be running madly, beside themselves with panic, losing their heads and, pretty soon afterwards, their lives… I was impatient to know what was going on. Who could tell me?
    Big Irene was sleeping like a baby, an impression reinforced by her protruding lower lip. Ewa, flat on her back, looked like a noble figure stretched out on a Polish tomb; Florette groaned in a voice woolly with sleep: “Shit! They make me sick!” Even in sleep her language was foul.
    Little Irene sat up and looked questioningly at me. I didn’t dare share my hopes, so I asked her what was happening.
    “
Blocksperre
,” she said unilluminatingly.
    “What does that mean?”
    I caught a fleeting look of pity in her dark eyes, still dimmed by sleep.
    “Of course, you don’t know: Confined to quarters, no going out.”
    “Why?”
    “Because they’re going to make a selection.”
    There are some words that need no explanation. No sooner had I heard that one than I understood its meaning: the selection of those who were to die.
    “Does it last long?”
    “It depends on the size of the convoy—from two to six hours.”
    “Does it always happen at night?”
    “No, but they prefer it that way. Things go better in the dark, it’s all more efficient. People are half asleep, there’s less shouting, less fuss…”
    “So a
Blocksperre
also means the arrival of a convoy?”
    “Usually, but it’s not the only sort of selection during which we’re confined to quarters.”
    I