Erdinger
To Werner it seemed as if the smoke had followed him around camp all day. It was thick and black and smelled even worse than burnt plastic. It smelled like something humans should never have to smell. Luckily for him it didn't reach the lab, the walls of the medical buldings in Auschwitz were thick enough to keep anything out.
His day had consisted of mixing substances together; he had to work carefully and without flaw. If he put even one drop too much of something into the mix he was forced to toss the whole thing out. He tried not to think about what this would be used for; he tried not to imagine the jews and political prisoners who'd get the liquid he was preparing injected. Dr. Ziegler hovered over him like a ghost, but he was politer than usual and also quieter. Werner felt a twinge of satisfaction at the fact that the doctor seemed a bit scared of him. He also felt guilt. He'd made a nazi scared. Didn't that mean he was an abosultly horrible person? But he was able to calm himself. Werner was a rational thinker; he'd learned that while going through his cancer. He wasn't a horrible person, the reason Dr. Ziegler was nervous and jittery was probably something personal and had nothing to do with him.
After work he stepped outside. He'd forgotten that the air was contaminated with the revolting smell. He'd been looking forwards to fresh air. As he opened the door a wave of polluted oxygen greeted his nose. He almost puked. It tasted bitter on his tongue. He hurried to the building that dinner was served in.
But the flavour of mashed potatoes and greenbeans with gravy didn't wash away the burnt burnt taste that seemed to come from inside him. No one else seemed as bothered as Werner. One of the other men made a comment about how it reeked terribly and the others agreed, but the discussion stopped there.
"Ich hab gehört wir haben en Wagen voller Weissbier bekommen. (I heard we got a load of Weissbeer)." One of the SS-Officers said. The whole table errupted into cheers. Though Werner's family had taught him about German culture, the language and the history, he'd never had German beer. He'd only drunken Guiness or locally brewed beer.
"Have you ever had Erdinger?" Nikolai asked him, shouting over the loud cries of the other soldiers. Werner shook his head. "I bet you'll love it, it's one of my favourite beers. Comes from Bayern." Two of the overjoyed Germans stood up to fetch beer for the table. Nikolai licked his lips; he had felt deprived of alcohol. Beer was something he'd consumed on an almost daily basis back in Germany. "I hope they have enough to get me drunk." He said with a laugh. Werner shrugged. He hadn't gotten drunk often. Before he'd had cancer he'd been to young and during his illness it was strongly advised to keep your hands off drinks.
The two men brought two crates of beer which each had twenty-four bottles in them. There were only eighteen people at the table. Nikolai grabbed two, one for himself and one for his comerade. He opened them with his keys, something Werner would try to learn but fail to be able to. After popping the caps the men at the table clinked bottles with anyone near to them. 'Prost' echoed across the table and through the hall.
Werner took a sip. He was suprised at how good the beer tasted. He made a mental-note of the brands name so that he might be able to buy some more of it later in life.
Nobody would have thought it possible for Nikolai to be in even more of a good mood than he already always was. But after he'd popped the cap on his third beer he was beaming with happiness. He ended up leading the table in a chorus of 'Westerwald' an old German marching song that most of them new by heart. Soon half of the room had joined it.
The beers had been large. They were 0.5 Liters, the normal size in Germany. Werner not only didn't know the text to the German songs he also didn't feel up to singing. The Erdinger hadn't lifted his mood, or perhaps it had, maybe it was just the sight of all these German officers who were sinners down to the bones enjoying their lives while the people in the barracks outside were shivering from the cold that bothered him. He looked at them. They had jolly-red cheeks and merry twinkles in their eyes; they elbowed each other in the ribs, hung their arms around the shoulders of their comerades and sang as loudly as possible. There weren't only two crates on the table, there were four empty crates and two half full ones. How could these men celebrate when others were dying.
Werner suddenly stood up. He squeezed himself through the festive Arier, past the endless tables of SS-Officers. He started to feel himself panic. He tripped over the legs of chairs and officers, stumbling towards the exit. He just wanted to leave, wanted these roudy men away from him, far away, he was afraid of them. He almost fell on one of the folks once. It turned out to be the Lagerführer who was as merrily drunk as his friends. He clapped Werner on the back and said something that Werner couldn't have understood even if the hall was quiet and he'd been sober. He pushed towards the exit.
He sat in one of the stalls. The floor didn't gross him out. How could it? How could he be disgusted by a bathroom floor when he was in Auschwitz? The things he saw on a daily basis were ten times more revolting and upsetting. Werner rocked back and forth, crying. How could the world be this terrible? How could people like these men be so horrible during the day and yet so fun and playfull at night?
The door to the men's bathroom burst open. "Werner?" He recognized Nikolai's voice even though he'd spoken in a slurred way. "Bist du das? (is that you?)" Even though Werner hadn't answered Nikolai entered the stall. The second the tall, handsome man saw his friend curled up on the floor crying he dropped to his knees and took the boy's face into his hands. "Oh Killy, don't cry." He situated himself in a seating position and took Werner into his arms. "I'm so sorry that you have to be here." Nikolai whispered.
He held the young man like a father would hold his child. Close to his chest. It calms children to hear a heartbeat. Werners sobs turned to sniffles. He grabbed the coller of Nikolai's jacket. Nikolai's heart ached. He missed his family, caring for Werner in this way ripped open the wounds. He hadn't seen his two daughters in two months. The sounds of their voices still woke him every morning and the touch of his wife's lips kissed him good-night. But only from far away. Nikolai closed his eyes and prayed to God. He prayed for his children back home in Germany and he prayed for the boy that he had taken under his wing.
And he prayed for every child in Auschwitz who was cold and fatherless.