Lotte slipped out of the skirt, which seemed to melt as the dirt washed down the drain.
“Good, but you must remove everything,” Leonie said, pointing at her blouse.
She grumbled but turned her back and unbuttoned the filthy shirt. She slipped off one sleeve, but then stopped, keeping the other one wrapped around her arm.
“Many women here have the numbers,” Leonie reassured her. “There is no shame in it.”
Lotte glanced over her shoulder, winked at Leonie again, and then crouched down to urinate. In the moment Leonie turned her head away, Lotte removed the other sleeve and sat on the floor, leaning against the wall with her legs stretched out in front of her.
She sat with her head tipped back under the water, which had warmed up enough to release some mist into the air. Lotte sighed and, for a moment, let her arms rest beside her, which is how Leonie caught sight of what looked like an oddly shaped bruise on the inside of her left bicep.
She turned off the water quickly, hoping for a clearer view of it before Lotte folded her arms.
“Here,” Leonie whispered, holding out a towel and watching as Lotte pulled on a long-sleeved white shirt and a blue skirt that was too big around the waist.
“I’ll get you a belt from the barrack,” she added, “and a comb.”
Tedi and Leonie walked on either side of Lotte, who kept her eyes on the ground and her shoulders pinched back. As soon as they crossed the threshold, she bolted to her bed and burrowed under a new, clean blanket.
Leonie took Tedi’s arm and pulled her outside. “You have to tell me everything that you know about this woman.”
“What’s the matter?” Tedi said. “You’re shaking.”
“She has a tattoo.”
“No, she doesn’t,” said Tedi. “I saw both her arms when I dragged her to the shower. There was nothing there.”
“It’s up here,” Leonie said, pointing to the underside of her arm, near the armpit. “And it’s not a number. She is SS.”
“SS?” Tedi gasped. “That can’t be possible, is it? Are you certain?”
“Not completely,” Leonie said, suddenly not trusting herself. “What do you know about her?” she pressed.
“Shayndel said that she had been in Ravensbrück,” said Tedi. “I heard that they did terrible medical experiments on the prisoners there, which explains her terror of Aliza. But she cannot be a Nazi; Shayndel told me that she has family here in Palestine. I’m going to go tell her about this right away.”
“Not yet,” said Leonie, gripping Tedi’s arm. “Let me make sure. Don’t tell anyone about this. If it turns out that I am wrong, the accusation would be too awful to forgive. I’ll talk to Aliza, so she can stay in the barrack until I can get another look at her arm and make sure, one way or another.”
Tedi groaned at the prospect of another night with Lotte beside her, but didn’t argue; she could see that Leonie was set on getting her way. “But if you are right about her, why in the world would such a person come here? How could that happen?”
“I don’t know,” Leonie said slowly. “But there are times I do not know why I am here, either.”
Tedi nodded. “I know what you mean. I look at the ones from the concentration camps and the ones who dreamed of coming here their whole lives, and I feel like a fraud.” She glanced nervously at Leonie. “If she really turns out to be a Nazi, it might explain the way she … smells.”
“I don’t understand,” said Leonie.
“I never told anyone this before because it makes me sound like a raving lunatic. But ever since I got here, I’ve been able to …” Tedi searched for a way to explain. “My nose, I mean my sense of smell—it became so strong, so keen. I can tell a lot about a person from the way she smells. Sometimes I think I can smell moods
, states of mind, even something about the past.”
“What do I smell like?” Leonie asked.
“Shame,” Tedi blurted, but rushed to add, “Almost everyone here smells of shame, which is like fruit going rotten.”
Leonie kept her face blank. “And what about Lotte? What do you smell on her?”
“I cannot describe it, but it’s not shame. It’s not fear, either. Everyone in Atlit smells of fear, except for the little babies. Guilt, too—I smell that on everyone. Guilt is sour,” she wrinkled her nose, “like unwashed clothes.
“But on Lotte there is no shame. No fear or guilt, either. Even after the shower, she stinks of something like gasoline but stronger, and mixed with something animal and dark, not musk exactly. Whatever it is, being anywhere near her makes my throat close and my eyes burn.”