The Perfect Justice

Had he known then how technology would take off, he could’ve prepared for this. Unmistakably, here he stood before Auschwitz, not as he was before, but as a prisoner.

Arbeit macht frie.

****

He heard them whisper.

He’s a murderer. A serial killer.

Maybe he’s just dumb, an old and lonely man with no family left.

That doesn’t explain the crazy look in his eye, like a man being led to the gallows.

Oh, he heard them whisper, though he wished he could block their filthy tongues from his precious ears. They’d forced him to live in the larger, more cramped upstairs room of all places. He knew below his feet were smaller and more private rooms; though still packed with people, he would’ve been around less of them.

****

His old bones trembled as he raised the pick high above his head; the only force put onto the rocks was by gravity, too weary was he to engage his muscles further. This was the only relief he got during his twelve hour workday, and he reveled in the feeling of his arms falling. He did his best to ignore the feeling of the whip against his back.

You’re not working fast enough. Don’t you want to be freed?

Arbeit macht frie.

Oh, he wanted to die like the others, to finally be released.

But he hadn’t seen him yet.

He must keep going.

****

He would not find him today, for today it rained; he hates the rain.

He stared up; when was the last time he felt rain against his skin?

It had been at least four decades.

Yet he felt no cleaner than the rest of the week, washing his grimy body and clothes with grimier water. Each drop was like a needle piercing deeply through his flesh, the cold unlike anything he’d felt before.

When did he grow so old that even the rain despised him?

****

A scream rang out across the filthy grounds. There he stood in all his youthful beauty: golden tresses and starlit blue eyes, he clutched in one hand a serrated pocket knife and in the other, a fistful of a woman’s long black locks.

The others tried to keep working, stealing glances at the scene whenever they felt it was safe.

Not him. He stopped entirely and stared intently at the man across the way. He felt the sharp bite of the whip on his back but had grown used to ignoring it.

The blonde man backhanded the woman with spiked knuckles; he took his massive boot and he stomped the woman’s throat into the mud, again and again. He only stopped when other officers grabbed his arms and pulled him back.

He caught his intense gaze as he was led away.

Him. That was who he’d been searching for.

****

At last, he found himself alone with him, Gerhard Weber. The chair scraped menacingly as he sat, the light, far too bright, swung wildly on its chain.

“Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” Gerhard asked.

Finally, he heard him speak, and it shocked him.

“Is that… truly what I sounded like?” He responded in perfect German.

Gerhard sneered. “Though your tongue is filthy, you know the proper language. Do you know who I am?”

“Ah yes, you are the man so lost in pursuit of power he couldn’t recognize his own face if it was presented before him.”

“Ah… yes, they do call me that, don’t they?” Gerhard scoffed. “Though I have no idea what it means.”

“I didn’t either.” He blinked wearily.

"Your face and name have been omitted from the manifolds." Gerhard leaned forward “Who are you? Where did you come from?”

With a wheezing cough, he chuckled. “If you can’t figure that out, you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were.”

Pain laced through the bones of his cheek; Gerhard backhanded him with his spiked knuckles. “Lest you want another, answer me.”

“Very well.” He took in a deep breath. “I am Gerhard Weber, I am you after…”

Blood trickled down his cheek; another lash from those spiked knuckles.

“Speak my name again and die.” Young Gerhard delicately cleaned his weapon with a laced cloth.

“Then let me try a different approach.” He felt the wind press through the newly opened holes in his cheek. He had one chance, and this was it. “Shall I tell you your past and your future, Sir?”

Gerhard raised his hand again; he flinched, expecting the strike to follow.

It did not.

“Very well, let’s see what you think you know.”

“Born in Dachau to Esther and Freidrich Weber, you had four older siblings and two younger. They all ignored you, even when you screamed at the top of your lungs, even when you lashed out for negative attention.

“’Ignore him,’ Esther would say. ‘He’ll stop on his own.’”

Gerhard leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.

“You came here despite your family’s concerns; they had a bad feeling about this place, they wanted to protect you. Though you were cautious to hide it, so cautious that only the two of us know…” He leaned forward. “You are not a natural blonde.” He leaned back with a creak of his old bones and a moan from the splintering wooden chair. “When they come for this place, you will cry and throw yourself at the ground, claiming you were forced into doing everything. You will think of Bruno, lost and alone in the rain until he died of hypothermia, to bring tears to your eyes, but for the people here, you will feel not a single smoldering ounce of regret. You knew you’d never survive outside of this place lest you be arrested for your violent tendencies and forced into either an execution or ‘community service’ that would result in your death.”

Gerhard had raised an eyebrow, an unfamiliarly dangerous look flickered in his eyes.

Is this really what I looked like? The expressions on my face? He marveled.

“How interesting it is to talk to someone who thinks they know me so well. Please, do tell me more about myself, filthy pig.”

“Very well.” He tilted his old head, hearing the bones of his neck crack. “You will spend forty years in a much nicer prison than this one. And then, you will be sent back in time as an old and frail man to finish your punishment, because they all knew there would be no way to convince you of my identity.” His stare intensified. “I do not show up on the manifolds because I am you, from the future.”

The two men stared at each other for several long minutes. Then, Young Gerhard scoffed and shook his head. “It’s amazing the things you people come up with to try and escape. Why would you attempt to leave here this way when all you have to do to be freed is work away your sins?”

“Like I said before… an idiot.” Old Gerhard shook his head.

“No one’s ever had the nerve to call me that before.” Young Gerhard leaned forward and rested his chin on his hands. “Do it again.”

Old Gerhard glared. “You, good Sir, are an id-klegh!”

Young Gerhard grabbed his jaw and pulled from his old cracked lips a shriveled tongue. With several slow, agonizing slices of his serrated pocket knife, Young Gerhard removed his tongue. He threw Old Gerhard back when finished and threw the writhing bloodied piece on the filthy floor.

Without a tongue, there was no longer any hope.

Gerhard Weber died at age 65 less than a week later; the perfect justice had been executed.

And yet, four decades into the future they wondered despite their fury and resolve: did Gerhard Weber deserve what we did?

Does anyone deserve to suffer that fate?