Pyramids in His Eyes - A Short Story

Being an artist has always gotten him in trouble, but never before was trouble anything like this. As a child he doodled in his notebooks to keep from falling asleep in class and was often sent to the headmasters office for disciplinary measures, especially when his doodles included naked members of the opposite sex. “If Rembrandt were drawing in Mr. Hoffman's class, nobody would attack him for the content of his work.” He would say in his defense, only to be told that he can tell that to his parents while he sits at home for his three day suspension from school.
While in art school, he was told that under the new government his art might be considered degenerate and lead to his arrest and imprisonment. They had already confiscated and destroyed several works of masters like Ernst Ludwig Kirschener and Franz Marc, but Marc was French and a Jew and his work was degenerate just by virtue of his genes. Kirschener, on the other hand, was a patriot. He served in Germany's defense during the Great War and was loved by everyone. What could Hitler possibly see wrong with Kirschener's canvasses?
Being Jewish was never really and issue for him. He was a Jew, but with a name like Boris and no outward signs of a Jewish pedigree, it never seemed to matter, not in Kiev. He was an artist, a cosmopolitan and a socialist, as were all the intelligencia.
When the guards entered the barracks on this particular winter morning, there was no reason to believe that this was different than the usual erratic interruptions that were slowly becoming part of the rhythm of this place almost like that American jazz music he would listen to when he was in his studio. How could he have known that they would search the ground under the munitions factory that was the original purpose of this God forsaken place. Dachau was not meant to be a concentration camp. It's original barracks were built for six thousand laborers who worked tirelessly to feed the German military machine in exchange for salaries and pride in their dedication to the motherland. Who would have thought that those same barracks could house over thirty thousand political prisoners, Communists, criminals, and Jews, at any given time, and that this modest camp between Freising and Munich could become the model of all the concentration camps of the Reich?
When he entered the camp, that first night, he punctured the skin of his thumb to draw blood and paint the portrait of his beloved Marie on bottom of the wood of the third layer of his bunk. This brought new meaning to the saying, “One man's ceiling is another man's floor,” as the bed of the guy who snored above him became his Sistine Chapel.
He didn't know this at the time he was arrested, but Marie's mother directed the Gestapo to his studio and exposed his Jewishness, which had never been in question, to keep her daughter from “making the biggest mistake of her life,” and marrying this Russian Jew. Even under annexation by the Nazi forces, Claudette, Marie's mother, was still more disdainful of immigrants than occupiers. For Boris, his portrait of Marie would be the first in his red period, which he only resented because Picasso had beaten him to the idea, but surely Picasso didn't fill his canvases with his own blood. Maybe, if he could just make it out of here and get his work to the critics and gallery owners, his brilliance would be discovered and he would find his place on the Kunst Museum walls, or, better yet, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, far away from Europe.
When the Nazis found the cachet of drawings he and the others had stashed under the bricks of the dilapidated munitions factory, he knew he would have to take the fall for his partners in crime. He volunteered to do it. Why shouldn't he? He was the only Jew among them and, as such, his death was a sure thing. The group had agreed that in the absence of photographic evidence of these horrors, they served a holy purpose by documenting the insanity and inhumane behavior of their jailers. Boris would be their Jesus and would die for the group's collective sins.
“Achtung!” yelled the soldier when he entered the barracks. Everyone knew the drill and jumped from their beds. “Who among you is the bastard who drew these pictures?”
Heads turned, but not a sound was spoken. Then Boris stepped forward.
“Are these pictures yours?” Asked the soldier.
“They are.” Responded Boris.
“Follow me,” said the soldier, as led Boris from the barracks.

The next thing he knew, Boris found himself in the commandant's office. The was not a mere suspension. This was the real thing. He looked around and observed the orderliness of the office, the commandant behind his desk and a family sitting on a couch.
“Did you draw these?” Asked the commandant.
“I did.”
“They are pretty awful. What were you trying to do with these?”
“I paint what I see.”
“That is not the answer to my question. What were you planning to do with these pictures?”
Boris continued in a quiet tone. “Nothing Sir. I just paint what I see.”
“And this is why they were hidden under the factory? Because you paint what you see?”
“I couldn't bring them back with me to the barracks.”
“You certainly couldn't.” Replied the Commandant. Then he asked as he pointed toward his family on the couch. “Now tell me, what do you see here?”
“A family.”
“A family as awful as your paintings of this camp?”
“No Sir.”
“And if I let you paint a picture of this family, how would you paint us?”
“As I see you, Sir.”
The next thing he knew, Boris was given a palette and paint. He was even given a cup of water beside the glass of turpentine. As he painted, the commandant engaged him with questions. “What are you drawing now? Who would you say are your inspirations for your art? Do you think that art is something a person can learn? Or is it inherited?”
Mostly Boris answered with a yes or a no.
“Do you think an artist is better at his craft when he is aware of art history? I'm not an artist, but I know a lot about the history of art. Did you know that when the pyramids were designed, the Pharaohs would treat the architects like royalty and let them feast with them the entire time of the building of the pyramids? They would. And even after the conclusion of the project, they would live as royalty until the death of the pharaoh. Then they would be ordered by the new Pharaoh to lead the team of servants, with the pharaoh's dead body into the pyramid. The servants would be killed and buried with their master so they could serve him in the afterlife, but the architect was needed to seal the pyramid so that nobody would know the entrance. It was all very secretive. Like this portrait that you are painting for me and my family. The only difference is that we are not going to die.” Then the commandant corrected himself, “Let me correct myself. My family is not going to die. You are.”
Boris remained silent as the commandant searched for signs of a reaction on the face of his captive artist.
“I'm going to have to kill you after you finish this painting, you know. It's not possible that you should live and it should be discovered that I commissioned this portrait from a Jewish artist. Then I would be the dead one among us and you would seal the pyramid on me.”
Boris kept painting as if he were deaf and couldn't hear a word that was said t him.
“Do you understand what I am saying to you?”
“I do,” replied Boris. “You will need to kill me once I am through.”
“And what do you have to say about that?”
“What would you like me to say?”
“That is not an answer to my question.”
“I'm afraid I have nothing to say.”
Then there was quiet as Boris continued to paint. In his mind, he was painting a family portrait of himself and Marie and the children they never had. Instead of starring at the commandant's family, Boris imagined a huge mirror with himself and his family positioned on a couch. All he could think of is how he longed to kiss Marie on the back of the neck and clasp his fingers around hers and chew on the lobe of her ear.
“Are you a fan of American cinema?”
“Excuse me.”
“I asked if you are a fan of American cinema. In American movies they always give a man a nice dinner before he is executed. I think I will arrange a dinner for you before you die.”
“I'm not sure you should speak like this in front of your children.”
“Are you questioning my parenting? You have nerve. I could kill you right now if I want to.”
“I think it may not be wise to speak about this in front of the children. I'm only thinking about them. What is the difference for me if I meet my maker with a full or empty stomach?”
At that moment, the commandant called out to his secretary and ordered a gourmet meal for Boris. When the painting was finished, he was moved into another room where he was served under the watch of a Nazi soldier. As he ate his asparagus, Boris thought about ways he could escape this destiny. He imagined pleading with the soldier to let him escape. He wondered if he could convince the commandant to have him paint more portraits before he would be killed. All of this was really about one thing; he needed to see Marie just one last time.
Then a piece of steak got caught in his throat and the soldier came to pat him on the back, an unexpected nice gesture from a Nazi which was greeted with another unexpected gesture. Boris raised his steak knife and cut the guard's throat. He jumped up from the table where he was eating, smashed the soldier's head against the wall, made sure his victim could no longer resist and started to undress him before the uniform would be completely covered in blood.
Dressed as a Nazi soldier, Boris reentered his barracks, pointed his newly acquired gun at the guy who snored in the bed above his and the one who shared a piece of bread with him when he was feverishly ill, and led the two of them at gunpoint to the Dachau gateway. Work had set him free.
In a patch of trees, Boris fired two shots, handed his gun to the prisoners and started on his journey back to Paris to see his beloved Marie and take her as far away from Europe as he possibly could. Maybe they'd go to Egypt, he thought, to see the pyramids.