Secrets

Dr. Ziegler returned to his office leaving the polish doctor and the german-irisch soldier alone. The second the door to the lab closed Werner spoke with Wojciechowski, asking him why he'd lied.

"I didn't lie, Werner." Wojciechowski said. "What I said was true, you don't have a brain tumor." He was a good liar. He'd learned to lie once he'd started working with the spies in his laboratory. They'd told him they were russians, soviets, and that they'd be reporting everything he found out back to Moscow. But Wojciechowski hadn't cared; he'd even supported the idea, because he cared about medecine and not money. He didn't care who brought out the cure for cancer or who sold it, just that it existed. And in his eyes; if the russians stole bis previous research and found the cure first, they still were the better doctors. He'd become good friends with some of the spies, and they'd taught him some skills they'd learned during their training. He'd never been terrible at lying, but he'd gotten considerably better. A lot of it was just appearance; you had to seem truthfull. 

"I have a brain tumor. I know that. I've underwent surgery, I can show you the scars." Werner said, suddenly becoming angry. "I understand if you have your reasons from keeping it from Dr. Ziegler, but why do you have to lie to me? I won't tell him."

"You don't have a brain tumor, Werner. I don't know what's making you think so, it may be trauma. Auschwitz is a terrible place for a young soul, especially a hypochondriac-."

"Are you saying I'm crazy?" Werner accused the tubby man. Wojciechowski shook his head and put his hand on Werner's arm. The way an adult might touch a child when trying to calm them. 

"No, I'm not. You're not crazy, just confused. You should think about your situation, Werner." Wojciechowski put on his psychologist voice, it was one he used on patients that didn't want to believe his diagnosis or on patients who didn't have anything and couldn't believe it. "You're a young man in a horrible place. You've done terrible things. And now you're searching for reasons for that; physical illnesses like brain tumors, have effects personality. You're unable to accept the fact that you've murdered, so you blame it on a terminal illness that has 'taken over your body'."

"I have a brain-."

"This is something very normal, and you're not a bad person for doing this. It's all on a subconcious level, Werner. But I can tell you one thing; you don't have brain cancer. So you can be happy about that. And you're stuck here in Auschwitz, there's nothing you can do to help the people. You don't need to make excuses." As Wojciechowski kept talking Werner's mouth hung open in disbelief. Why would the pole go out of his way to try and make Werner believe that he didn't have cancer when he obviosuly did? "If you ever want to talk about your problems, we can. I was never a psychiatrist, but I learned those things as well in medical school. I want you to feel better, Werner. Especially because you're my assistant now." 

"I have brain cancer."

"No," He shook his head again, but his voice was flat. He didn't want to keep arguing with the young man. "But you do have break now, go outside and smoke a cigarrette, it'll calm you down." 

"You do know that smoking is bad for you, doctor." Werner replied coldly. 

"I think you need to relieve your mind, however you do that." Wojciechowski answered with his smile. Wojciechowskis smile had started to put Werner off, it wasn't the joyous grin that Nikolai wore, it was the empathetic smile of a doctor or surgeon, someone who knew they had the upperhand, who knew everything that was wrong with their patient but knew that person would never understand any of it. Werner hated the feeling of other people knowing this about him that he didn't know. It made him uncomftorable. 

"I'm going to go out, and when I come back in fifteen minutes you're going to fucking tell me why you're lying. Or..." But he cut himself off. He'd almost threatened to hurt Wojciechowski but then he'd realized that that was something he could actually do, something that was done. He could shoot Wojciechowski on the spot and no one would care. He could sentence him to the gas chambers. No one would ask him why, even Dr. Ziegler wouldn't object. It scared him that he'd almost used a threat to scare Wojciechowski into doing what he wanted. He didn't want to be like that, he didn't want to be an oppresant. He didn't want to be a Nazi. 

He fled out of the room, forgetting the way he'd taken to the outside, there were several paths that lead to the dark reality past the grey walls. And he had no clue which route he'd taken. Was that a sign of his cancer, or was it anger? He couldn't be sure. Once outside he lit a cigarette, and the second he inhaled it's poisoned breath he felt better. Even doctors smoke. Even happy people like Nikolai smoked. So why shouldn't he, an already dead man, smoke?