God of Hunger Page 9

  This is what the minutes say.

  “What are minutes?”

  “Sorry. The British call minutes the notes taken by the secretary at a meeting. A record of what was said. But why they call them minutes I do not know. Ask your old man. He attends lots of meetings.

  Misha paused for a second. Looked up at the ceiling and said at Theo “What these words actually meant was that all these people were to be killed by the most dreadful means. By a long drawn out process of suffering first in trains and then in camps, there to be poisoned in gas chambers and disposed of in furnaces.”

  “What do you mean by trains, suffering first in trains, why suffering?”

  “Theo, Theo, Theo. You have much to learn. ….. They collected people onto station platforms and forced them onto trains. Into cattle trucks. And when thy got out this is what you would see … Misha reached for a well marked book and read a passage:

  "It was early in December, 1943. The winter was extraordinarily severe, the temperature falling to 30 degrees of frost (C). I saw a train full of deportees enter the camp station. It was composed entirely of cattle trucks, sealed without water, lavatories, or any heat. The journey had lasted three days and three nights. The people confined in it were mainly women and children. When the trucks were opened, there got down from them spectres who could scarcely stand upright, all dirty and emaciated, in a state of terror. They began to undo their baggage. I approached them and saw that it was frozen children, frost bitten. One, two, ten, twenty, thirty or more. None of the mothers wept, they were as if petrified. Two half dead children had great lumps of ice on their cheeks: it was their tears frozen on their pale faces."

  Theo flinched and paled. Misha went on:

  “And now imagine that at the inauguration, the opening of the first crematorium, which occurred in March 1943, was celebrated by the gassing and cremation of 8000 Jews from Krakow. Prominent guests from Berlin, including high-ranking officers and civilian personalities, attended and expressed their highest satisfaction with the performance of the gas chamber. They used the spy-hole in the door of the gas chamber. After which spectacle some vomited ….”

  Misha got up red faced. “Oh Theo. I cannot talk any more.”

  The boy could see how upset he was. And he too stood up.

  Misha turned his face from him but stretched out his hand holding the papers. “Here take these notes with you. Read them in your own time and in your own time come again to talk. It is better this way. You will be able to tell me what you think and I can explain anything that will puzzle or concern you. Goodbye, Theo.”

  “Goodbye, Misha.”

  *

  Knowing that his father was away in Nairobi on business, Theo went to the coffee farm that night. His visit pleased his mother very much though she did notice how pre-occupied he was and left him alone in his bedroom. Theo made a note of three points in the minutes that he could not fully understand: What exactly was the Jewish problem? Who was in charge of the Final Solution? And what was it in practice? Also he wanted Misha to explain the term Lebensraum. His father could have provided answers but he dare not ask him for fear of another row sparked by the revelation that he had obtained the ‘minutes’ from Misha.

  Next day he went to see him. And put his questions to him. Misha did not quite know how to tackle them in their rawness and decided to cast them in the wider context of yesterday’s discussion.

  “Look Theo, … in the end,… by the end of the war, 6 million Jews perished in the German death camps on Poland's soil. In 1945, that nation's population was 24 m compared with 35m in 1938. Some 3m Jews, including nearly all of the pre-war Jewish working class had been killed. Poland lost 1 in every 5 of its pre-war citizens during the war - mainly in the period 1942-45. Think about it. When next in the Greek Club count around the room; one in every five of your friends removed. And I will not stop there. You have got to get the story in context. This war, as I told you yesterday, was a huge killer.”

  “The fate of the people in the Soviet Union suggests suffering on a somewhat smaller though comparable scale. The Soviet casualties, Russian and the other nationalities of the Union, show 20m dead and 10m wounded in a country with a pre-war population of 200m; decimation in its most literal sense, Theo; one in ten destroyed.”

  At first puzzled, Theo looked at Misha and nodded to show he understood, for the first time, the meaning of a word whose meaning he had not had to define before.

  Misha wiped his glasses, returned them onto his nose and continued: “Leningrad was blockaded by the Germans from 1941-1943 and one million Leningraders starved to death out of a pre-war population of 2.5m. The same in Stalingrad.”

  “But Stalingrad was also a catastrophe for the Germans at the turn of 1942/43. The surrender there of the German armies made plain to large sections of the civilian population at home in Germany that the war was lost.’

  *

  Misha sat back in his armchair and Theo copied him. They looked at each other. Misha spoke first. “Do you want a drink? I will get what you want. Ena bira? Theo smiled. Yes please, mia bira parakalo. They both had one.

  And both drank in silence. And drank in the silence as each went over what had been said. Theo had not ever in his life had the experience of being spoken to at length. With such care. With such purpose. He had heard the phrase ‘sitting at the feet of a teacher’ as when they spoke at the club of Socrates or Aristotle. But he had never experienced the act of which his compatriots spoke of with such pride but never practiced; poker was too great a diversion for any debate to develop beyond the initial stages of dialectical display.

  *

  “Okay, Theo. Now to your questions. Answers won’t be easy. Well, one will. Lebensraum means living space. The Germans demanded more room. In Europe. Sometimes you may hear that they wanted a place in the sun. This meant that they wanted this country back. But apart from the crowd in West Kilimanjaro I do not think Hitler wanted former colonies returned. He wanted to spread out in Europe at the expense of other nations and for this he went to war. Notice he, he, he. Hitler was a dictator.

  You know what that means?”

  “Yes of course.”

  “Okay. This man also wanted to get rid of all Jews. Why? Because he hated us. Why? Because he saw us as being different from Germans. Of course we are if you look at our religion. But we are, basically, just like any one else. Just people. Special to ourselves. Like Greeks are special to themselves. Which also makes them not German. And you can be sure that if Hitler had won the war there would be no Greek alive today. No Pole, Russian, Rumanian. Yugoslav, Czech etc. etc. They would probably have starved to death or at best remain alive as slaves who would be worked to death. He called non-Germans like these untermensch, not human; sub human.’

  Misha coloured. Then paled. And continued after the swift passage of emotion which Theo failed to recognize though he did reciprocate in as fleeting a show of discomfort when Misha said next: “People here are sometimes spoken of as monkeys. Once that is said anything can happen to them. You treat them differently. They are said to feel pain less. Or can go without food and water for longer than us. Or can work in the sun all day etc. etc. You know exactly what I am saying!’

  Theo changed his posture in the armchair. He did not rise to Misha’s accusation. It was an unspoken assumption amongst whites that blacks were able, from birth, to endure such conditions without complaint.

  Misha continued: ‘And what I am saying is that Hitler just took the next step. He wanted a racially pure Germany. Many people, before him and around him, believed in developing people like horses or dogs or cows. You know, breeding out bad characteristics to get a stronger or cleverer or more productive animal. But we were also seen by Hitler as an infection which weakened Germany as in the defeat in the First World War. He blamed us for it. I wont go into that debate. No need. Just know that Hitler wanted to clear Germany and his conquered lands of all Jews regardless of how the war was going. What do you Greeks say
? Valtakatopootapass?”

  As over the offer of a beer in broken Greek, Theo again smiled at Misha.

  “Well done. … well said: Valto kato pou to pass? Yes. A saying. Put it down, where are you going with it? Or in other words, hold on, this is crazy.”

  “Yes. Mad. But it was more than just a saying. The madness was put into practice. How, you ask. I have thought a lot about this and in the end found a simple answer: Human nature. Everyone around Hitler knew what he wanted. So if you were clever you did things for him before he even gave the order. In fact there is no paper signed by Hitler ordering the murder of millions. He did not need to issue it. His cronies, the ambitious ones, the arschlocks, got together and worked out how to do it. There were 11 million of us to kill. Living all over the place. How do you deal with such numbers? Build factories of death. You can only do it industrially. Think of Tanganyika Packers just down the road. They kill hundreds of cattle and pigs every day …”

  “Yes I have seen the factory. I have a friend there. The cows come in a line. They are shot in the head. Put on a conveyer hanging up by a hook, skinned, gutted, jointed and out of the other end as sausages or steak…”

  “Exactly. The same principles apply. Collect us like cattle onto cattle trucks and take us by train to the factory. Line us up, undress us, lead us into windowless rooms which we are led to believe are shower rooms, hence the sense of undressing, pack us in, bolt the door and pour in the gas like you do on the farm by tractor when you fumigate a crop. Half an hour later get other prisoner slaves to shift the mess into the ovens so that a body becomes dust for ease of disposal. …’

  Comprende amigo?”

  “Jeezus. Bloody hell.”

  “Yes. Bloody Hell.”

  *

  Many years later, when Theo was in a cancer ward in England, he was reminded, whilst watching television, of the conversation he had had with Misha:

  Baldrick: Permission to ask a question, Sir.

  Black Adder: Permission granted Baldrick.

  Baldrick: ... The thing is, the way I see it, these days there's a war on. Right? And ages ago there wasn't a war on. Right? So, there must have been a moment when there not being a war on went away, right, and there being a war on came along. So, what I want to know is, how we got from the one case of affairs to the other case of affairs?

  Black Adder: Do you mean how did the war start?

  George: The war started because of the vile Hun and his villainous Empire building.

  Black Adder: George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganyika. I hardly think that we can be absolved from blame on the imperialistic front. ....

  Baldrick: I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich 'cause he was hungry.

  Black Adder: I think you mean it started when the Archduke of Austro-Hungary got shot.

  Baldrick: Na, there was definitely an ostrich involved.

  Black Adder: Well, possibly. But the real reason for the whole thing was that it was just too much effort not to have a war ... You see Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two separate blocs developed. Us, the French, and the Russians on the one side and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the others deterrent. That way there could never be a war. (But) There was a tiny flaw in the plan.

  Baldrick; what was that, Sir?

  Black Adder: It was bollocks.’

  Faramdoula

  A year after his expulsion from school Theo received a letter from a school friend. A Perso- Iraqi by the name of Nooshin, ‘Noosh’. He too had attended Kongwa European School. The son of Dr. Faramdoula, the physician to the First Minister, he was not considered a racial anomaly by the school authorities but from the first day he was vilified as a wog by his schoolmates. He withstood the taunts with annoying stoicism such that a mastiff of a boy called Randy Milner challenged him to a fight. No one had ever prevailed against this edifice of thick bone and muscle. So when, at break, news got around of the impending fight all the boys who formed the circle with which such contests took place bayed for the obvious outcome; the only thrill came from being there to witness the damage done. “I’ll kill you you bloody chut,” from Milner was taken up in a chorus of “Go on Randy, kill the bloody chut.”

  As was the custom, blazers were given to seconds. Noosh looked around but no boy dared to do the honours for him. All except one. ‘Here, give it to me’, said Theo. And with that the fight started. Randy Milner’s face broke into a sneer of contempt as, fists up, he approached the boy.

  Noosh, kept his arms by his side. “Come on you funk. Put them up so I can smash you to kingdom come.” Nothing. Noosh just circled around the brute of a human pachyderm. It was galling to Milner to find his first punch, which would have felled a tree, fly into the air making him look stupid. He became properly angry. All anger hitherto was just for show. He rushed at Noosh expecting to collide. Still nothing. Milner tripped into an empty space and fell like a sack of flour onto the red gritty earth which sandpapered his arms, thighs and nose. He looked monstrously funny as he got back onto his trunk like legs. Saliva spilt out of a corner of his mouth, forcing him to lisp, ‘Yous suckin ssit’.

  A group of juniors could not contain their shock and amusement at the sight of their sweating, swearing, snivelling hero now screaming: I’ll get yous for this yous sucking ssit. Noosh smiled and parried yet another thunderous punch with a side step, making Milner swivel around the Perso- Iraqi boy’s right leg which stood rooted to the ground. Down went the big white boy. Again and again until he lay on the ground hoping his tears of exhausted frustration would be taken for sweat. No one was fooled. The game was up. The world had changed. And Theo had sensed it first. He walked back to class with Noosh. The two became friends and remained friends for life.

  After both had left school Theo was not surprised to receive a letter from Noosh who invited him to Dar-es-salaam where Dr. Faramdoula had his practice and where the family lived in airy comfort under palms in a large thatched bungalow raised off the ground on chest high posts. Up short stairs onto the verandah, Theo was greeted by a tall slim lady, her young daughter Yasmin, youngest son Fadhal and the pomegranate of her eye, Nooshin.

  “Welcome to our home Theo. Noosh has told us much about you.”

  The eyes of the two friends met, one showing concern in his eyes by what may have been said and the other returning a reassuring look suggesting that nothing but good had been imparted. Come and sit down. You must be tired after your journey. Would you care for tea? Care for tea! Such language. Such civility. Such serenity. All new to Theo. There was nothing like this at home. When foreign guests came and a party was hosted the situation was far from civil or serene. Throughout the proceedings the Xenee would be smiled at while in Greek Theo’s mother would provide a running commentary. E, morre. Pesane sto faghee sa ghourounia. Ma aftee ee kokeenokoleeee then trone sta speetia tous. Erhonte s’emas kai mia kai kalo. Vre papse gheeneka. Ase tous na fane. Tee se niazee? Tee meee nyazee. Oreeste. Tee me nyazee. Pote tha feeghoune. Na eeseehasoume (Well I never. They are in the trough like pigs. These red-arses do not eat at home. They come to us and shovel it in. Shut up woman. Let them eat. What is your problem? Well I never. What is my problem? When will they leave? To give us peace and quiet.) And so it went on. A nerve wracking undercurrent of criticism punctuating the occasional. ‘Yes. Welcome. Please. Have more. Help yourself. Of course ..’

  Life in the Kokopoulos household was hardly ever harmonious. Conversation was unusual. Communication within the family was hardly ever conducted at normal decibel levels. It was either shouts and screams or long brooding silence; followed by shouts and screams. Peace settled on the house in the afternoon when mother read her romances Romantzo and Theesavros sent out from Athens as journals printed on cheap paper. Stories of the heart interspersed with cartoons of Zacharias and Ee Hondree, h
is fat wife, cookery and embroidery read to the accompaniment of sounds from the roof caused by the expansion of corrugated iron being pounded by the midday sun. Father would be at the workshops stripping down a tractor, shouting at his son for a spanner whose size was never specified. There was sadism in the hot, oily air. And peace again at night as KK listened to the BBC World Service and Theo serviced the guns. In times between it was shouts and screams or silences like a distant volcano between explosions.

  At the Faramdoulas tranquillity was the norm. Speech was soft and none softer than in the mouth of the father who returned home after surgery to greet his house guest. Howw arrre youu? Gladd tooo meeet youu. And your famileee? Theo heard speech as soft as the breeze from the overhead fan. And he liked it. As he liked the house. And its contents. Each room panelled in delicate embroidery or fine weave. The Faramdoulas, he came to learn, were dedicated collectors of Persian art: ‘This one is from Isfahan. That from Ter’an. Tiles from Quom.’ Edged with a script Theo had not seen before. More beautiful than Greek in its flow and flourish. ‘What did it say?’ ‘Ah, quotations from the Holy Quoran. Come let us eat.’

  They sat on large well filled cushions around a low scented table. Theo was heard to inhale and the Doctor said ‘Camphor wood. It was given to us by a close friend from Oman who now lives on the island. As you know Zanzibar was long held by the Sultan of Oman. First he lived in Moscat and then chose to build a new palace for himself and his family in Zanzibar town. Theo did not know but he nodded his head in pretence that he did. And so it went on into the night. Between courses ‘we thought would remind you of your mother’s Anatolian cuisine: Tomatoes and Peppers stuffed with saffron rice, raisins, currants, walnuts and almonds. Bamias and Meliganes too. And, last at table, pomegranates, a fruit from Persia which arrived from its deserts in carefully packed gift boxes; gifts from the family at home.