A great taste in a bath would be helpful to nerve relaxation and meditation but it would never prepare Hubert for the upcoming terror he needed to face and a painful interrogation of his conscience. It was the first day of his inspection and sarcastically, the shock it gave him was powerful enough to cause a tsunami within his heart.

The day started perfectly with the perfect colour of blue and the perfect proportion of clouds distributed from one side of the sky to another. He had a good night slumber, quite a surprising outcome he found for sleeping on the floor with two layers of soft quilt to mimic the wonder of a bed mattress. In fact, Aurora left a space for him when she first got to sleep. Resting in an unfamiliar bed was difficult and she just got used to the one of the Von Bach.

While waiting for her mind to venture in the dreamland, except the showering water from the washroom, she also heard a lot of ideas popping up in her brain. The ideas of how selfish it would be for her to abuse the genteel nature of Hubert and how impossible it would be to shrink in the sofa and how uncaring it was for her to forgo the decision of letting her to take the sofa when he even took her to his household and provided a shelter for her in such a strange land! Oh, beloved, she couldn’t sleep.

Therefore, to ease her mind, she purposefully emptied a space next to her side. Of course, she could just lay on that pathetic sofa, but the sight of it was just too powerful that it revoked the decision back into the shadow. Then, feeling a bit better and less selfish, she slept. However, her generosity had far too underestimated Hubert’s sophisticated manner and behaviours. He chose the floor rather than the sinister attempt to invade the space of a fair young lady.

“So, you asked for four more quilts last night?” Armond playfully asked which brought him back to the present that they were on their way to the camp, for their first inspection.

“You see, for a person who is late for one day, you really get news quick,” Hubert teased.

“You see, for a person who is engaged with a strange maiden met in the snow is romantic, not realistic,” Armond turned to Hubert from his view at the window and continued, “By the way, I’ve informed two days early to my superior of my late arrival. It doesn’t count as being late at all.”

“Armond, you know why. It is for her protection and......"

“It’s for your feeling, right?” Armond was well known for cutting off people’s speech and Hubert had already gotten used to that but this time, he felt a bit hurt. He wanted his best friend to understand him and to respect his past.

“I am sorry. I know I’ve crossed the line. However, Bert, you must know that by marrying a strange lady can neither help you fix your past nor can it help to mend the wounds in your heart. She is not the real Auro….”

“Aroma! It’s the aroma,” Hubert stated alarmingly which shocked the driver quite a bit and lowered down his voice, he asked, “The aroma here is strange. What is it if I may know,” he turned to his left where the Commandant sat.

“Oh, Lieutenant Colonel, your language is more than what the substance is actually made of. But I shall take it into consideration. For your question, I believe you will soon find out. And I hope, since from your language one could tell you are a sensitive person, I hope you wouldn't have too much for lunch.”

“Why?”

“I believe the knowledge you have learnt will force you to give up on any meal,” finished by the commandant in a witty tone as if what they were doing was a game, a funny game merely and all of them were cloth dolls which their job was simply to tear them piece by piece and throw away all their cotton into a big burning bush.

“So, I believe your room must be the coldest,” Armond coughed and pretended he said nothing that offended him previously.

“I believe so,” Hubert replied in such way that one could easily mistake as impatience from disappointment. 

***

They arrived. It was a place of grey and ash. A violent shout from a soldier and all prisoners lined into two paths, neat and close. Their shadows cast onto the two sides, on snow, spread apart as a pair of wings, desired to flee but entrapped.

They were living skeletons wearing all the same fabric that was too thin for a frozen winter in Poland. All of them, breathing with smoke escaped their nose which turned red already because of the temperature. Shivering, they stared at their feet, afraid of what would happen to them if they caught a glance directly from one of the demons.

“Are these all the prisoners?” Armond asked, looking at the Commandant. He found that it was easier to look at the abusers rather than the victims.

“No, no, it is just a portion at this side of the camp.”

“Perhaps we should ask them to go back to their cubicle if they are not needed in this inspection, It’s rather cold for them to be in here with those thin layered covers only.”

“Oh, Lieutenant Colonel Von Bach!” The Commandant teased, “Please, they are important ones, right? Here, it’s the first chapter of the inspection. To accomplish the project at a more rapid pace, at the same time, having fun in doing so.”

“What? Pardon me, Commandant, I don’t understand.”

“Here, allow me to demonstrate, Lieutenant Colonel,” the Commandant took out a gun and smirked, “Let’s play a game, shall we?”

Perhaps the prisoners had already been so familiar with that word that they knew what would happen and shuddered, not because of temperature this time.

“Lieutenant Bruno,” the Commandant turned to his assistant and asked, “would you want to help to demonstrate the rules to Lieutenant Colonel and Lieutenant Armond?”

“Of course,” he nodded obediently.

“Here, you see, there are many of them. I don’t even know the correct total number. I’ll say a number, randomly, and Bruno will help me count.”

Hubert’s face explained to all that he knew what it might be but didn’t want to admit it. He had been in many of these kinds of situations before but this time was different. Instead of signing papers and listening to the jokes from his colleagues, he got to face it eyes to eyes. He believed he could touch them just by stepping a few steps forward and would catch in a breath of smell from their skin and heard the rhythm of their heartbeats, a life touching a life.

“Bruno! What’s the number?”

“Let the lucky one be four, I suppose?”

“Fine!” The Commandant said sharply but his voice was barely heard and his head gave a quick nod.

Slowly passing by, Lieutenant Bruno counted, “One! Two! Three! Four!” He looked up from his tattered pants to his ashen face, an old man who had lived twice the life of his. He pointed the pistol at his forehead and grinned with his head cocked by side, “I wonder why they haven’t sent you into the shower the first day you arrived.”

Hubert was holding his breath and disconnected, from their beliefs and the world, into his heart. There, he remembered the goodness of the ages passed. He remembered the melody his father played for him and the voice of her mother singing nearby the piano. He remembered the first day his father taught him playing the violin, the instrument which had the most beautiful voice. He remembered the dew on green plants and the smell of nature’s freshness when sneaking out into the backyard hillside of the orphanage with Aurora in the early morning. He believed if he placed his ear close enough, he could hear her giggles under the sunlight again.

He saw her dancing under the sky which was so unrealistically blue and marvellous. Her hair cascaded down as a gold stream portrayed in any myth tales. The wind brought her aroma to his presence and she was singing, “Edelweiss, edelweiss, every morning you greet me. Small and white, clean and bright, you look happy to meet me……”

And at this point, he would join in with her and sang confidently, “Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow, bloom and grow forever…..” He knew her voice very much that he would never fail to harmonise with her at the last verse, “Edelweiss, edelweiss, bless my homeland forever….” The music would never stop. He held her hands in his and they danced with the wind. If only time permitted, he would fly into the air with her, until he heard the gunshot. It was a violent end. When he believed he would see her lifeless face when he opened his eyes.

But the body belonged to the old man. Now, he laid flatly with his face down on the ground. A narrow stream of flood escaped his gashed skin and flew along with the snow. Its warmth could melt the snowflakes bits by bits if it wouldn’t cool down so quickly. The warmth evaded as his spirit did from its shell.

“Next, twelve!” The Commandant teased, “this time, why don’t we give the honour to Lieutenant Colonel Von Bach?”

Armond took a glance at their face and he saw evil. The same evil he witnessed many years ago which those people also took away his happiness as they took away the lives of so many others.

“Pardon me, Commandant, but when will we be able to proceed with our inspection? I believe there are so much more to observe beside playing games,” Armond suggested, concealed with his classic sarcastic tone.

“Lieutenant Armond, we shall, of course. But a bit of fun won’t kill,” Lieutenant Bruno argued with a manner of a hooligan.

“By first, they are humans, not toys! They are not a game. What you are saying and doing is disgusting! The entire human race is ashamed of you, you don’t deserve to be a human! You two, demons!” Armond shouted and, with all the indignation popping up within him, he really wanted to finish the entire sentence. Yet, he was stopped by Hubert just when he managed to pronounce the first two words of his sentence.

“Lieutenant Armond is right. We come for an inspection and we shall proceed to do that.”

“As the Commandant here at the camp, I believe I should have the obligation to instruct our flow of schedule.”

“Yes, very well, but I am the Lieutenant Colonel,” Hubert turned to face him with a glance that would impose the power as sea rocks, thrusting against him, and he breathed, “Commandant!”

***

As they walked closer and closer to the end of the inspection, Hubert almost forgot the reason he was doing the pose for. He wanted to impress, that was the initiation, but then, what for? It was one life after another, crawling in the hell they had crafted. He believed his first time was the only time for him to intrude a life and which he tricked his conscience by telling himself that moment was a ticket for him to move upward. A life in exchange for a position and a position in exchange for fatherly affection. That one time, he never forgot. And, today, he saw more. The horrors started to make him doubt.

“What about the final project? The one that I am supposed to inspect on?” asked Hubert seriously.

“This is the final project, this gas room.” The Commandant pointed at a room which Armond believed was an incinerator for waste in the camp. However, what he and Hubert hadn’t prepared for was the answer that it was for humans.

“The actual function of this room will be introduced in the coming meeting after lunch. Of course, it will not be discussed here.”

Everything seemed to get rationalised under their art of language. However, it was that craft of language that made the line became obscure. The line between good and evil. What was it then that they were looking for? And what was the force to drive them to impose such horror onto another group of human beings? In here, Hubert started to think and he started to believe something new.