Werner followed Dr. Ziegler into the rooms behind the lab. It was a maze of twists and turns, or maybe it only appeared that way to him because his mind was racing. He was trying to think of something to say or do that would get him out of the situation he was in, something, anything. He couldn't drop the box of syringes and run, that would get him reported and punished. He couldn't fake the full, he'd be seen as potentially dangerous and be rumored to have smallpox. He couldn't-.
"We're here, Werner. You're going to need to put a mask on, we don't know if they have anything." He handed his assistant a doctors mask. Werner's face pulled itself together in disgust. He'd always hated when the doctors were bent over him wearing the masks, they didn't look like humans anymore. There'd only been one doctor he hadn't minded it by and that doctor had had the most gentle eyes. But he was sure to the poor souls in the adjacent room that they're eyes wouldn't seem gentle and friendly. "Let's go." Dr. Ziegler said.
The air in the small room reeked of desperation. The nine men who stood in a line seemed even thinner than the workers outside. They looked like rats, with pointy faces and big noses and rib-cages where the skin fell in. They were all shirtless. They're legs dangled in their pants. To Werner's surprise he hadn't frozen in the doorway, he'd been able to follow his superior to the single table in the room where he set down the box.
"Der Lagerführer hat mir gesagt, dass es hohe Gefahr auf eine Pockeninfektion gibt. Darum wollen wir euch jetzt impfen. (the Lagerführer told me that smallpox is going around, we're here to vaccinate you)" Dr. Ziegler said in a calm and empathetic voice. For the first time in the short while that Werner had been working with the man, this was the first time he'd talked in his doctors voice. He sounded truely concerned about the lot, sounded like he wanted to help them. But Werner knew it was all a lie. The folks had started to whisper to each other when they'd heard the word 'smallpox' but now they sighed from relief that they were going to be spared such a terrible destiny. "I'll show where to inject the vaccine." Dr. Ziegler said to Werner, still in his doctors voice, still smiling. Werner nodded. Dr. Ziegler pulled two syringes and handed one to Werner. He went up to the first man, a tall and gangly jew with a hooked nose. "You just take their upper arm, like here, and then you inject the fluid." The bicep of the man was small enough for Dr. Ziegler's big hand to close around. There wasn't much muscle and fat for the vaccine to be injected in, but he still managed. The older jew winced. "Alright Werner, you start at the other side of the line and I'll keep going here."
Werner stared at the man who was looking at him with a nervous expression. He'd apparantly noticed that Werner had never done this before. But years of being around doctors had given Werner the privelage of possesing the 'doctor voice' as well. "It's going to be alright." He reassured the man. "You'll be much safer with the vaccine, it might hurt for a few minutes but afterwards you'll be happy you got it." As he'd talked to his patient he'd taken his arm and placed stuck the tip of the needle into it. And then he quickly pressed the little bout of liquid in. The man shuddered, but he seemed fine. Werner had sucsessfully vaccinated his first patient.
The next patient looked almost identical to the first patient that he'd treated. It wasn't just that they were both starved and with shaved heads, their face shape and the curve of their noses were the same. Werner knew he coudn't ask them if they were related, so he grabbed the second man's arm and injected the vax.
He reached behind him to grab another syringe. When he turned back forwards to face his next and last patient his heart skipped a beat. The lad was much younger than himself, probably about fifteen. His skin was deathly pale but dirty, his eyes were sunken into his skull. You could see the lines of the cheekbones through his face. The scare-crow-like boy stared into Werner's eyes. Werner smiled at the boy, his smile was genuine, and he asked him to please hold out his arm. He gently injected the vaccine. The boy bit his lip, not wanting to show pain. "You did great. And you're going to be alright if you catch smallpox, that's the most important thing, right?" The kid nodded. Werner smiled at him again and put his hand on his shoulder.
"You can put your shirts on again." Dr. Ziegler announced. The men picked up their shirts and struggled to pull them on. From the left side of the room a man in a white lab coat entered. It could have been the chemist that Werner had saluted, but it could have been someone else too.
"Come with me please...no not that way, this way."
"We're not going back? You promised we could go-."
"You're going somewhere else, where it's safer..." The voice of the nurse became inaudible. Werner stared at the door which swung shut before his eyes. That poor jewish boy...
"You did well, Werner. Let's take these back to the room, shall we?" Dr. Ziegler said with a nodd at the box.
"Danke, ja natürlich, Herr Doktor. (yes, thank you, doctor"