“That was in ‘42.”
She froze, but kept her presence of mind as in all moments of danger. She knew this side of her temperament — she would tremble with fear up until the very moment of decision. At that instant some unknown force liberated her from it, from all unnecessary thoughts, hesitation or doubt. A fraction of a second when she made her decision. So far things had gone well. Now she had to wait for his reaction. She wondered if he was trying to prove her a liar. Had she already made a mistake that would cost her dear? She felt his questioning eyes on her. He was wondering.
“What happened to your parents?”
“I think they were killed. They took us to the camp and then they sent me here, along with my papers. They’re with Oberführer S chimmelpfennig. “
“What did you do at the camp?”
“They did x-ray experiments on me. They sterilized me.”
His expression told her that he understood. She came from that Czech region where, as Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich had declared, the Czechs had no business.
“Did your parents have anything to do with it?”
“No.”
“You’ll never have children,” he said slowly. “Maybe that’s a good thing. For them and for you.”
He was running his fingers through her hair. She hated those wandering fingers, but she lacked the courage to flinch.
“If war is a game, then we’ve lost already,” he said. “We started something we can’t finish — others will finish it for us. It will not be what we’d planned. If we had won, our victory would wipe out the mistakes and obliterate the crimes we have committed. As it is, we’ll be remembered only for our mistakes, our excesses. Only the complete picture determines the value of everything. We have sentenced ourselves to prolonged insignificance. Perhaps for ten, a hundred, a thousand years. Then we shall be known again for what we are good at. Manufacturing motor cars, cameras — anything. My father knew August Horch, I even think he named me after him. Horch began as a foreman at Benz & Cie. They entrusted him with the production of cars. You probably aren’t interested in a universal joint or in chrome steel gears. My Horch is a 1939 model. They no longer make it. If we’re blown up — my car and I — we’ll both end up in a museum.”
He laughed. He pushed the blanket off, feeling warm, and fell silent.
She listened to the wolves on the plain, to the footsteps in the corridor, to the bell of Big Leopolda Kulikowa.
“You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to. I don’t wish to interrogate you, that’s not my business. I’m only asking out of curiosity. Have you got any brothers or sisters?”
“I had a brother. They separated us when we got to the camp. I never saw him again.”
“What age? You’ve no idea where he is?”
“No. He was 13.”
“Perhaps they put him with a family that had lost a child.”
“It’s possible,” she said.
“Would you like that?”
“I’d like to believe he was alive.”
“They could have put you with a family too.” He wondered how she would get on in a German family. Would his family accept someone whose parents had been killed for the assassination of the Reich Protector? Was she really as old as she said?
“Did they teach you anything after school?”
“Hairdressing,” she said quickly.
She had a sudden vision of Slavomîr Slâma from their block of flats in Prague, and just as quickly it vanished. In 1941 Mr Slâma had begun to learn German so that he could cut the hair of Wehrmacht soldiers. He ordered German colour magazines for his salon, including an issue of Der Adler with pictures of airmen, planes, balloons and Zeppelins. The airmen on the cover were laughing. Her brother Ramon had stood outside the window, looking at the pictures. They were all still alive. Lying here naked in bed with a German captain, she could not reproach Mr Slâma. For the past eight days she had concealed her Jewishness. A few clever questions would be enough to make her give herself away.
The captain began to speak again.
“Funny, at the beginning of the campaign the enemy hardly interested me. I was only interested in how much Germany was growing. I experienced the friendships that war offered, it stripped me of all worldly ties and money questions. How willing women were in wartime. How everything tested you: were you up to it or not, what effort could you make? What you would eventually return to. And what would never be the same again.”
“On my last home leave in Berchtesgaden I went to the home of a fellow officer. I couldn’t find his father or mother, his brothers or sisters, to tell them that their boy, recently awarded the Iron Cross, was well, in good shape and happy. I couldn’t even find the house. There was only a big bomb crater there and they were still clearing up. There are more of those craters in Germany than mouse holes.”
It occurred to her that this was where they were now retreating to and where they would end up one day — a day she would like to live to see.
*
“Would you mind if I had a short sleep?” the captain asked.
He was full of that tranquillity which comes only after sex. That was how sleep, death’s sweeter sister, came to a man when he had tired himself with what he’d wanted to do. Perhaps one day the captain would wish to die the way he now wished to sleep. He thought of the dignity and indignity of death, of not having to ask when his hour would come. It was with him all the time.
“You look after the stove meanwhile, or else have a nap yourself. Or if you don’t want to, wake me after an hour or so. You can look at my watch. Just shake me by the shoulder.”
The captain was dozing already, only vaguely aware of her unease. She had been uneasy ever since he had arrived and he had attributed it to her inexperience and her youth, and to his rank. He noticed her relief when he told her he would sleep. It neither irritated him nor gave him particular pleasure.
The fire in the stove and in the flue lit up her face and shoulders, her breasts and hands. He liked her. Captain Hentschel thought sleepily that she was young and that he would be able to train her given the chance.
He fell asleep thinking of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she had been sterilized. He had spent the night there out of necessity. It was not a place he was curious about. He accepted that it was one of those historical inevitabilities, the primeval face of war — of this war, which was a total war. For a moment he wondered how his wife was managing without him, and what his children were doing. Thanks to the family’s considerable assets he did not have to worry too much.
The captain’s face brought back a memory. A woman, the mother of four Wehrmacht soldiers, had been brought to Terezin from the Reich the previous year. Her four sons, one after the other, had been killed in battle. When the last one fell she had lost the protection of the law. The young men had mixed blood on their mother’s side. They had all worn the same uniform as Captain Hentschel. They also wore the same uniform as the two Wehrmacht officers who were brought to Terezin when it was discovered that they had Jewish grandmothers, and who were sent east inside a week. Like the mother of the dead soldiers, they had dissolved in the Jewish ocean, in the ocean of ashes from which Skinny had escaped to No. 232 Ost, so she could gaze on the purplish, sleeping features of Captain Daniel August Hentschel. She looked at his huge hands, his neck, his greatcoat on the door, at the flashes of his rank.
She waited fully an hour, and then he began to cough a little. Her father had coughed just like that when he woke from his afternoon siesta. She could see him in her mind’s eye, returning from the Aschermann café on Dlouhâ Street with the news that the Germans were beginning to transport Jews to Terezin.