firm, bordering on hard. “Just do what he says, okay? Go with him. You can trust him.”
“Kevin, please, this isn’t the time to play games.”
“Don’t tell anyone anything, Max.” He added, “And be careful. The people who are after me, well, suffice it to say they’re powerful. Very powerful.”
“Who?”
Kevin ignored the question. After a long silence, he continued. “I knew you’d come. I knew I could count on you.” Then, “Be careful, Max.”
“Kevin …”
But he’d hung up already.
9
Auschwitz-Birkenau, September 28, 1943
Emil Rosca glanced through the crack in the drapes. That was when he saw it for the first time: a gigantic birthday cake, transported by three camp aides assigned to the Stammlager’s kitchens. A celestial vision for Emil, who still went hungry every day. The men had transported the cake through the camp right before the eyes of famished detainees.
The young Rom let the curtain fall back. Behind him the other musicians hadn’t noticed a thing. Emaciated faces, half-dead men and women barely able to hold up their instruments, much less play them. An hour ago they’d been ordered to wait in this large room, a former office, perhaps. There was no furniture here now, and the floors were covered in dust.
Upon reaching the house of SS-Obersturmbann-führer Rudolf Höss, they’d been forced to remove their rags and put on fresh clothes. Real clothes. This did nothing at all to improve their looks — quite the contrary. One knew what to expect when everyone was wearing stripes. Prisoners looked like prisoners. Man and costume were one. But now, floating in a dark jacket and white shirt two sizes too big for him, Emil felt as if he were participating in a sinister masquerade.
The sight of the cake reminded him he hadn’t eaten anything yet that day. Being in the orchestra was no picnic. Every morning at dawn the musicians played military airs to accompany the kommandos as they left for the work sites. At night, more music, this time for the return of the detainees. Between the two, the musicians also had to break their backs over piles of rocks. Except for Roma like Emil, who’d been exempted from forced labour for reasons he didn’t quite understand. Perhaps it was so that Dr. Josef’s guinea pigs could remain in decent shape to be harvested.
Usually, Oskar Müller could be counted on to be tolerant, even understanding. Other times, however, he’d lose his temper. On the ground floor of Block 24, where the rehearsals were held, he’d snap his conductor’s baton in two and go on a rampage, breaking everything around him. The first few times Müller had gone mad Emil had folded himself protectively around his Paolo Soprani, making himself as small as possible, trying to become invisible.
Soon enough, however, Emil had seen that Müller’s outbursts — as spectacular as they might look — were fundamentally harmless. The officer would eventually calm down, give a few taps of a replacement baton on his lectern, exactly like Herbert von Karajan had done at a concert Müller had seen in Paris in 1940, a little after the German invasion. Backstage, Oskar had had the exceptional privilege of shaking the hand of his idol, the famous conductor, the Third Reich’s favourite child. No, in the end, Müller’s anger was usually without consequence. But if the conductor came near a musician to tell him softly, “The way you play is a complete insult to Carl Robrecht,” it meant he’d just received his death sentence. The man would disappear with his violin or his flute, soon to be replaced by a new musician. Emil sat in the still-warm chair of a Jewish accordion player, a Pole from nearby Kraków. Another musician was likely waiting in the antechamber, ready to take Emil’s seat if his accordion squeaked.
In order to last, to survive, the only thing he could do was to play his best. Until the orchestra, the accordion had simply been a distraction for him, a pleasant one, surely, but a way to pass time. He couldn’t even remember the first time he’d held a gormónya; it had simply always been a part of him. Emil’s father loved the instrument, played it magnificently himself, and had shown his son how to hold it. The accordion was kept under a satin cloth in a corner of the vôrdòn, their means of transport. Emil was too small back then to hang it over his shoulder, but he’d managed to play it, anyway. He played casually without looking to improve. What would be the point of that? He played the accordion naturally, as others breathed, without effort. But in Auschwitz, improving was the only way to survive.
And so for the first time in his life Emil made an effort. He was getting better, learning what made Oskar Müller tick. Müller was completely unsophisticated when it came to the accordion, despite what he claimed. What he loved best were flights of lyricism, painful memories that induced tears, throbbing sounds. Emil gave him as much as he could. He’d conclude every one of his solos with pirouettes, acrobatics, flash, and thunder, keeping one eye on Müller’s face. Sometimes, carried away by his false enthusiasm, Emil exaggerated and could sense a grimace taking shape on Müller’s face, could sense his mood darkening. Immediately, Emil would change approach, adjust his interpretation. The others, bent over their instruments or looking elsewhere, didn’t adopt the same strategy. They never saw the storm coming.
Emil had left the Romani camp, and for the past ten days, since he’d joined Müller’s orchestra, he’d lived in one of the Stammlager’s Cell Blocks in the main camp. He shared the place with the other musicians, Jews mostly. Also at Stammlager, the women played in the orchestra of Alma Rosé, Gustav Mahler’s niece. Altogether there were six orchestras in Auschwitz, all of them led by prisoners, except for Oskar Müller’s.
As well as accompanying morning and evening work crews, Emil Rosca and his colleagues played at special occasions. The day following his enrollment, Emil had been summoned to the camp commander’s home. A reception that gave Oskar Müller an opportunity to impress Rudolf Höss and his wife, both lovers of Verdi. And of Romani music. Attracting Höss’s favour had been Müller’s reason for integrating an accordion player into his orchestra. That night Emil had seen, among the guests, Dr. Josef and Hans Leibrecht, his dreaded subordinate. When Leibrecht noticed Emil, he walked over and posted himself right in front, observing him, a sadistic smile on his face. Immediately, Emil’s fingers lost the rhythm. Müller noticed. He rebuked his accordionist as Leibrecht left for the buffet, caressing his own ear menacingly.
That night at the reception Hans Leibrecht wasn’t the only one to show interest in the orchestra. A corporal, a young man named Matthias Kluge, kept humming along to the sounds coming from Emil’s Paolo Soprani. At one point in the evening Emil overheard a rather heated argument between Kluge and Dr. Josef over the costs of Block 10. Emil understood that the former worked as an accountant for the SS-Standortverwaltung, which was responsible for the camp’s administration.
To the others, the cream of the crop of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the musicians didn’t exist; it was that simple. The music could have come from a phonograph; it would have made no difference. As he played, Emil had scanned the room, trying to find Christina Müller, the woman who’d saved his life. She didn’t seem to be there. Emil overheard Oskar Müller telling another officer that his wife was tired and wouldn’t be joining them that night. It didn’t seem to bother him overmuch, quite the opposite. Over the course of the evening, Müller moved from one woman to the next, like an excitable butterfly. Perhaps Christina knew her husband’s habits; she might have preferred not to witness his shenanigans.
Back in the dusty room, the door burst open suddenly and Oskar Müller appeared, clapping his hands. The collar of his tuxedo was tight around his neck, making his face an impressive shade of red. Or perhaps it was his nerves at the thought of leading his little orchestra in front of all his superiors. The Paolo Soprani strapped around his shoulder,
