Needle in a Haystack by Ernesto Mallo Read Free Book Online

missed: one passed through his shoulder and entered his lung. But he was young then, strong and determined. He carried on running and running until he collapsed in a clearing.
    Using the photo to get the rest of the reward money, Schultz assured Shlomo that Elías was hiding in a safe place waiting to leave the country. Biterman senior doubled the prize on condition that Schultz passed on a weighty sum to Elías so that he could buy a passport from Vignes, the Consul at the Argentine embassy.
    Hopeful he’d done enough for his son and not daring to stay any longer for fear of being denounced, Shlomo and his wife began their arduous pilgrimage to Buenos Aires. Three years later, tired of the persecutions and penuries, he died, leaving his wife four months pregnant.
    Naturally, Schultz kept all the extra money and, furthermore, used what he’d been told to extort the embassy official. With his small fortune, Schultz opened a factory making saucepans and kitchen utensils. His contacts provided slave labour from the concentration
camps and soon his factory was supplying the front line. Sick of the sweet smell of burnt flesh that billowed from the chimneys of the crematorium, he bought a medical certificate and was discharged from active service. He became rich, but the stench remained stuck up his nose, until the 28 May 1969, when he put the barrel of his Walther PPK between his teeth and pulled the trigger. His children inherited the business and became, with the passing of time, prosperous industrialists, extremely concerned with the quality of their products, which they exported all over the world.
    Elías, on the other hand, was rescued by a group of bandits with a den in the heart of the forest. They were natural enemies of the established order, no matter the order. They instinctively took the fugitive to be one of their own. His rescue and recovery were not simply a matter of loyalty to some unwritten code, but also they reasoned that a burly, determined lad like Elías would prove a useful addition to the gang. Politics didn’t interest them in the slightest, they simply felt an animal aversion to uniforms, whatever the colour. This band of highwaymen usually ambushed isolated Nazi patrols, plundering them for arms and supplies. Their attacks were quick and clinical, sparing no enemy lives nor resulting in casualties of their own. On one of their raids they were surprised by an SS squadron, which had been on their trail. They were decimated. Elías was one of the few survivors. Fleeing through the night, he came upon a village in the early hours and found what would prove to be his safe conduct: a wheelbarrow. With this perfect disguise, he set off along the country pathways. He walked armed with a Luger, stolen from one of the SS. If he sensed that all was lost, he would use it on
himself. He decided under no circumstances would he go back to the concentration camp. Whenever he came across soldiers or patrols, he was taken for a villager going about his daily business and treated with casual indifference. When it proved necessary, he stood to attention, raised his right hand and offered the usual Heil Hitler! Always pushing his barrow, he headed south. He crossed Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria. In Trieste, he abandoned his prop and slipped aboard a boat as a stowaway. He was discovered in Dakar and thrown onto the quay without further ado.
    In total, it took him five years to reach Buenos Aires, find his mother, learn of his father’s fate and that he had a brother, Horacio. The long years of solitude, living in a state of constant danger, turned Elías into a shy and silent being, one concerned solely with never becoming destitute again. His past is an interminable collection of horrors that deserve only to be cast into oblivion; the future is uncertain and needs securing; the present is a battleground on which to establish your terms of retirement. Thrifty to the point of ridiculousness, everything seems