self examination

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small, but the circIe of lights is smaller. The u~loadillg will have to b, done gradually. Somewhere the trucks ale growling. They back up against the steps, black, ghostlike, their searchlights flash across the trees. Wasser! h@! ~ h , same all over again, like a latt showing of the same film; a volley o f $hob rhe train hlls silent. Only this time a litrle girl pushes hcrsdf Mfway through

., : the small window and, losing her balance, falls out on to rhe gravel. Stunned, she Lies still for a moment, then stand5 up m d bqins w&ng around in a c idq fwter and Faster, waving her rigid arms in che air, breathing I o d y and spasmod ically, whining in a faint voice. Her mind has grven way in che inferno inside,t]le trai~~. The whinmg is hard on the nerves: an S.S. man approaches calmly, his heavy boot s d e s between her shou2dtrs. She falls. 1-Ioldtng her down mth I& foot, he draws hr. revolver, fms once, then again. She remains face down, hchng the gravel wich her feet, until she stiffens. They proceed to unseal the train. ,

I am back an the ramp, standrng by the doors. A warm, sickening smeU ',

gushes from inside. The mountain of people filling rhe car almost halfway up to the ceiling is motionless, horribly tangled, but still steaming,

' ~ ~ ~ ~ n ! " " comes the command. An S.S. man steps out from the darkness. Across his chest hangs aportable searchhght. We throws a stream of light inside.

"Why are you standing about like sheep? Seart unloading!" His whip flies and falls across our backs. I seize a corpse by rhe hand; the fingers close rightly ' around mine. I pull back with a shriek and stagger away, My heart pounds, '

jumps up to my thraar. I can no longer control the nausea. Hunched under che main I b e ~ n to vomit. Then, like a drunk, I weave over to the stack of tails.

1 lie against the cool, kind metal and dream about returning to the camp, about my bunk, on which there is no mattress, about sleep among comrades who are not going to the gas tonight. Suddellly I see the camp as a haven of peace. I t is true, others may be dylng, but one is somehow stilI alive, one has ''

enough food, enough strength to work. . . . The lights on the ramp flicker with a spectral glow> the wave of people- lso

feverish, agitated, stupefied people-flows on and on, endlessly. They &ink that now they will have ta face a new life in che camp, and they prepare rhemselves emotionally for the hard struggle ahead They do not know that in just a few mo- ments they will die, tlm the gold, moneyJ and diamonds which they have so pru. -,

deently hidden in their dothrng and on their bodies are now useless to them. Ex- perienced professionals will probe into wery recess of their flesh, will p d the gold from under rhe tongue and the diamonds from the uterus and the colon. They will rip out gold tecrh. In tighdysealed crates they will ship them to Berlin. '*

The S.S. men's black figures move about, dignified, businesslike. The gen- tleman with the notebook puts down his find marks, rounds out the figures: fifteen thousand.

Many, very many, trucks have been driven to the crematoria today. It is almost over. The dead are being cleared o f f the ramp and piled into

the last truck. The Canada men, weighed down under a load of bread, mar- malade, and sugar, and smelling of perfume and fresh linen, line up m go. For '$ several days the entire camp will live ofr this transport. For several days the en- tire camp will talk abous "Sosnowiec-13~dzin." "Sosnmviec-Bqdzin" was a good, '

rich transport. .: The stars are already beginning to pale as we walk back to the camp. The ';; sky grows manslucent and opens high above our heads -it is getting Liglat. ' - I !

Il r ,̂ .'

A w s M ! : "Unloadl" ?

-<:A

Great columns of smoke rise from the crematoria and merge up above into 155 ge black river which very slowly floats across rhr sky over Brkenau mcl dis- ,m beyond the fo~~ests in the direction of Trzebinia. The "Sosnowiec- ,inn transport is dteady burning. we pass a heavily armed S.S. detachment. on its way to change yard. The march briskly, in step, shoulder to sl~oulder, one mass, one will. "Utzd ,mmgen die gnze Welt . . ." " rhey.sing at the top of their lungs. "Rech~ nanl To the right march!" snaps a command from up front. We re out d their way,

, . WeL "And tomorrow the whole world. . ."

m L , .CONNBFTIONS TO OTHER SBLECTIONS 1. konsider the nature of whar it means to be a prisoner in this story and in

. Ressie Head's "The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses" @elow). How do you ac- ' . - 1 ) count for the differences? Are there any significant similarities? - , 2. Discuss the use of violence in Borowski's story and in Tim O'Brien's "How

, to Tell aTrue War Story" (p. 548). How does the violence in each story affect bu? How is it relared to the themes of each story?

3, Explain how a reading of this $wry affects your response to William Heyen's poem "The Trains'' (p. 850).

, . Born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, Bessie Head was the daughter of a black father and a white mother. After growing up in a foster home and or- phanage, she taught grammar school and wrote fiction for a local paper. In her twenties she moved to a farm commune in Botswana ta avoid the apartheid,of her homeland. Her first novel, Wbm Rain Clouds ds~adfer, was hblished in 1969. Her collection of stories, The Collector of Tveas~res and

kher Bo&wdna Vilbge Tale1 (19771, was foIIowed by two other n wels, Semrue: sage 4th R a i ~ Wind (1981) and A Bewitched Crossroad (1984). Head's $md- *riv .wid1 oppression and the daily - - A -. difficulties -. -- - - endured . . - by its victims pro-

~ ~ d k h a work a heightened sensitivity .- - . - to - the --.. necessity-for human de- U h "The Prisoner WfIio-wore Glasses,'' uppression and decency turn L r o A - ~ r s .

sci of

~ r e l y a breath of wind disturbed the stillness of the day and the lung rows cabbages were bright green in the sunIight. Large wlGre clauds drifted

'W~Y across the deep blue sky. Now and then they obscured die sun and u"d a chill on the backs ofthe prisoners who had to work all day long in the

'7'--"- Head/ Thr pniowr Who Wme G h ~ s e ~ 1 631

7 abbage field. This trick the douds were playing d r h the run eventu* ,

caused one of the prisoners who won_glases to stop m r k str- , - -- --- -7.- --- - -- 3 -BP>,%d pea s h o r r ~ i ~ l ~ t e d l y ~ ~ ~ them. He was a thin lirde feilow with r h ~ H ~ ~ ~ d - ~ ~ ~ "

diesfdn~carnit-k-nobhly knees. He dso had a lor of fmciful ideas because hr , smiled at che clouds.

'Ib kind 0

Dok 'ere," he mid. '<I don't take orders fiLun..zkfixna I don't know what d j F kaffir you dnk you are. Why dm't you say Baas? I'm your Baas. Wby

"Perhaps they want me to send a message to the chiidien," he thoughc renderiy, noting that the clouds were drifting in the dimtion of his home some hundred miles away Bur before he could f i - m e the message, he wardCr in ch=ge of 5 s work span ' shouted: "Hey, what ou dnk u're doing, Brine?

The prisoner swung rwun6;6linking rap1 a F - 3 y, yer at r r s m e t~rn=%,~ :

up the enemy He was P new warder, named]acobus Stephanus mt IE. His ' - eyes were the color of the sky but they were frightening. A simple, pnmirive, brutal soul gazed our of rhem. The prisoner bent down quickiy and a measage was quietly passed davn rhe line: "We'rh-h For trouble rLs rimG -5."

- - - . ..&. , ('Why?" rippled back up the Line. "Because<. he:^. ear human,'' the reply rippled down md yet only the

crvnihing of tlre spades as thsyturned wa rhs w h disturbed the stiIInas. ;: This prticula work span was known as Span One. It w a sompaaed of

ten men and they were all political prisoners. They w n gmuped together foi i convenience as it was one of the prison regulations that no black warder 'i should be inAargegF a political p r j sone rb rhlprisoner ~on-hirn-t& 1 cews. 1~ never seemed to occur to the a u r h ~ t i & tliat-&is

reasoning wrJ the smngth of Span One a d a clue to the strange tenor &ey aroused in he w d e r s . AJ politicd prisoners hey were unlike the o~her prisonem in th, ' 1' sense that r i y felt no p i i r nor were they o~t~aqn oiaoriea Ail,lv rnrn ih : , snnrrively cower, which was why it was the kind d piison where men got ,',

knocked out cold with a blow at the back of the head from an imn bar. up . until the arrival of Warder Hannejk, no warder had dared bear any member of S p a One and no warder had lasted more than a week with r h w . The b&

endrely pyhologi~d. S p a One was assertive and it beyond the scope of white warders to handle assertive black men. Thus, spa One h d got out of

c0ntrol. Thw,wae the be~v-hieves and liars in the cam& ~h y lived dl an KW-rabbagas. ~ ~ ~ d ~ ~ ~ ~ r o b a t ~ ~ . ~ ~ n d --- r i ~ e they mowd, t h ~ ~ h 5, and acted as Q~_%,c!Iw h a d , a _ e ; [ e ~ ~ d , _ e v e ~ r , t e c h ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ n ' l ' cealrnent. +- -

Trouble began that very day bemeen Span One and Warder Hame+. it .i

because of rhe shorrrighrrdnws of Brille T h t uns the nickname he - given in prison and is the AfrikaansS,wX For sornmne uho -rs glwses, ' ,

@ r e c o u l d never judge the approach of the prison gates and on previ- "US occasjoru he had munched on cabbages and dropped rhem almost at the

1 1 feet of rhe watder and all previous warders had wedooked this. Not so Warder , Hmnetjie.

-dort7K Y Br "I'

+n mill

. - lou say B m , hey?" ille blinked his eyes rapidly hut hy mntrasr his mice was strangely c d m a ,twenty years older rlran you," he i d . I t was the first thing that came

b- - Ld but the comrades seemed to think it a huge joke. A titter swrptup the Lc+ &, line The next thing Warder Hani~eriie wllipped-out a knobkerrie' md@ve fiqf ''-.k B ~ p d & L o ~ s 2 1 m u t the h& What surprised his comrades w the yL((.c

wlrh which firill-mwed his glasses or else they would have been shed to pieces on the ground.

evening in the crll Brillc was very apologetic. "I'm sorry, comrades," he said, "I've put you tnro a hell of a mess." .Never mind, brorher," they said. "Wh,ab~pnppens t o - ~ ~ o @ s , happew f i d

&

k

first 1

been child G bet drf

I cne c a bii have cid3 give the blot m'dl

whi

on't hungry.'" )rivately, Brille was very philosophicJ about his head wounds. It was rlie ime an act of violence had been against hun but he had long

a witness of extreme, almost unbelievabl~ human brutaliry g&ad twelve rn and his mind trayled back t$t-e_ve_$~&m.uugh the sixteen y e a s of (.P --- -_

llam in wKXE had l i d . 1r.W dl happened in a a m d drab little three- iroorned house m a sma l l drab litde street in the Eastern Cape and the chil- :n kept coming year after yeu because neither he nor Martha ever managed

-onrracepuves the right way and a reacher's sdary never allowed moving to g e t house and he was dwkys tddng exams m improve his sdary only it d eaten up by hungiy mouths. Everything was pretty horrible, espe-

y the way the children fought. They'd get hold of each orher's hnds and them a good bashing against the wall. Martha gave up somewl?ere along line so they worked our a thing bemeen tl~ern. The bsPhinp, biting, and >d were ro operate in full swing unrd he came hame. He wa5 to be the bogey- I and when ir worked he never failed to have rsenscof godhead at the wty in ch his presence could &mge savages into fairly removable human b-s. 1 Yet somehow i t was thisrhags.md qismanagemcnr at the center or his that drove him into polder. It w a really an ordered beautiful world wirh+ --I_ "__. _ ._. _ ^ _ _ : a few%asic slogans to lparn dong w i t h the rights of mankind AT one ge,%iFdr~ i l ~ i i n ~ S b e c ~ ~ ~ v e r ~ bad, there were conferences co atrend, all very

'who dropped that cablage?" he Lundcred. . I Brille stepped out of line. I "I did," he said meekly. . :. I

I a , "flAght," sad Hannetjir "The whole S p a gow t h m ofih wBur 1 told you 1 did it: Briril protested.

I I 8 .

The blood-rushed tq Warder Hanne j i e k f ~ ~ e .

r

just si5

nl try to & up for it, comrades," he said. "1'11 sred somerhing so that 20

79

Ear away from hame. "Lrt's face it," he thought ruehrlly "I'm ollly learning right now what it

LO be r politician All rhia while Sve been running a w y from Martha1 d the kids." + And the pain in his he;ld bmug1lt a hard lump to his throat. Tnrt was

what the &Idrtn did to ocher daily and Martha wam'r managing and if

Warder Hannetjir had tlor interrupted him that morning he would have senr the fofiouiny! message: "Be good comrades, my childen. Cooperat+ rhen will run srnc&hly."

The next day Warder Hannajic caught r ius old man a€ twelve children 25

sreding grapes from the farm shed. They were an ellormom quanety d grapes

@r: A black South African; often used as a disparaging term. robkcme: A dub .