Tattoo

Tattoo

The girl, waif-like and empty as an echo, scratched absently at the sensitive skin of her inner arm. It was a habit – a reflex action. Subconsciously, perhaps, she thought that if she raked away enough layers of skin, the ugly black brand would disappear. And a brand it was, the mark of ownership, reminding her that she was livestock, chattel.

The tattooed line of numbers goose-stepped across her death-pale skin, delicate as moth wing, so thin that she could see blue veins twisting through the numbers like vines through a fence.

The whistle of the train in the distance reminded her that at least she was prime livestock, not fresh meat for the grinder like so many of the terrified creatures being herded into the camp from the station. Their stick-like bodies, huddled in big coats against the nipping wind, reminded her of a Lowry picture she had seen in a magazine once.

The poor souls, she knew from experience, would be sorted, and those like her, young and strong enough to work, would be sent to the bathhouse to be scrubbed, shaved and saved. The remainder – the small children, the sick and the elderly - would be driven into the huge brick building with the big chimneys and they would never come out.

Work, she knew, was her saviour. It was the reason that she was still alive, and while her fingers were nimble and her mind agile, she would be safe. Her job was to sort through the dead people's belongings looking for valuables, which would be passed on to the Camp Commandant.

In the distance, a siren squealed like a stuck pig. Nearly time for work. She crawled from the hole that was her bedroom. The dormitory was a long, dark room with a huge wooden structure along one wall. It looked like the pigeonholes in a post office, only person-sized. Two hundred people bedded down there every night, squirming feet-first into the little holes. Unfortunately, her berth was at ground level. The rats had been busy last night and she could feel a dozen
little stings on her legs and arms.

She made her way sleepily to the bucket at the end of the room and relieved herself quietly. Her skin itched with the need to wash, but it was still two days to wash day. Once a week, they were allowed to use the rudimentary cold shower outside in the yard. It consisted of a bucket attached to a pole which, when you pulled a string, tipped and dumped freezing water over you. There was no enclosure and you had to strip naked in the frigid air with no privacy, but it was
worth it to feel even a little clean.

The girl grabbed a hunk of bread from another bucket that had been left near the door and took it back to her cubicle with a tin cup of water to make a meagre breakfast. She stared intently at the wall, concentrating on a series of marks scratched there that functioned as her calendar, marking the days of her life in the camp.

She frowned and counted again, to make sure, before allowing herself a small smile. She was eleven today. She had survived to see another birthday. Above the calendar, she had used a rock to scratch "My name is Ellie Krantz". No one called her by name any more and she needed to remember who she was. Also, if she died in her sleep, she hoped that the other prisoners might bury her and mark her grave, so there would be some sign that she had once walked this
earth.

Sighing, Ellie took a sip of water to wash down the last grainy crumbs of stale bread. She stood and walked slowly to the door, her back bent like that of an old woman. She spent between twelve and sixteen hours a day hunched over the clothes and suitcases in the
sorting shed and often wondered if she would ever be able to stand straight and tall again.

She straightened her blouse, brushing crumbs off of the yellow star sewn onto the front. She didn't really understand why the star meant that she had to live and work in the camp, but it was obviously important to the guards, so she tried to keep it clean.

Ellie walked out into the freezing morning air. It seemed to bite her skin as deeply as the rats and she hugged herself with her skinny arms, trying to keep warm.

She walked across the compound into the huge sorting shed, past the mountainous piles of discarded spectacles, big hearing aid amplifier boxes and earpieces, and assorted prosthetic limbs which were the only pathetic memorial to thousands of lost souls.

She knew that somewhere in the heap of twisted metal, glass and plastic, were her father's gold-rimmed, half moon spectacles. Fleetingly, she recalled him taking them from his jacket pocket,
polishing them carefully with a lawn handkerchief and setting them upon his hawkish nose before reading her a bedtime story. The memory was faint, as if coming from behind a fluttering net curtain, or maybe from a previous lifetime, brought back in a hypnotic trance.

Eventually, she reached the even larger mounds of suitcases and clothing. These had to be painstakingly examined, so as not to miss anything of monetary value.

The poor deluded people often sewed valuables into the lining of their clothes – jewels, bonds, cash, even works of art – in the vain hope that they might be saved and used to fund a new life. But there would be no life for them now, new or otherwise.

Sometimes, guilt pressed down on Ellie like the thick air of a thunderstorm. Her job was like grave robbing. She would go to sleep at night and dream of the accusing eyes of those she had stolen from. She would see the woman whose beloved wedding ring she tossed
into the huge bin of jewellery, or the elderly man who had invested his life savings in a small, but important work of art.

Surely they would understand that she was just trying to stay alive. She protected herself by making dark little rooms in her mind and shutting the thoughts away like whimpering children locked in a cupboard.

The hours passed in dreary monotony, broken only by the brief midday break for more bread and a little cheese, only slightly green around the edges. She sorted through the remains of hundreds of lives, mechanically separating money and jewellery from other items, until
another siren sounded hours later.

She stood, stretched as best she could, and stepped outside into the now black night.

Suddenly the stutter of gunfire rent the air and instinctively, she hit the floor, trying to make herself as small as possible. She lay for endless minutes, her nose pressed into the thick mud until she thought she might drown. Finally, a hand touched her shoulder and she flinched, letting out a keening wail of terror.

A deep and soothing voice crooned into her ear. She knew the language was English because she had learned it at school in that other lifetime, but the accent was strange to her ears. She sneaked
a quick look up through her matted and filthy hair and saw a large man with a gentle smile, wearing a brownish uniform and rounded, green tin helmet.

"It's OK little girl, we've come to take you home," he said in a voice as soft and smooth as chocolate.

Ellie shook her head in confusion. In a small voice, rusty with lack of use, she said, "But this is home. Isn't it?"