She viewed the world as a huge camp that contained a variety of divisions and reservations. If she was lucky she might stay in one of them for a long time, perhaps all her life, in transit. But to ever escape, to ever be truly free, seemed out of the question to her.
I met Skinny every day because I came to feel as though every hour, minute or second I was not with her was lost time. I talked to her of everything possible. I didn’t search for details, even though I nearly knew. It was several weeks before I saw her Feldhure tattoo. She didn’t show me her belly for the reasons I would have preferred. She wanted me to know where I stood with her. And perhaps also where she stood with me, or with herself.
On Petrin Hill I spoke of love for the first time in my life. I was sending a message to Skinny, Hanka Kaudersovâ, that the waters were receding — as with Noah’s ark. I loved her blindly — if love is blind. This I did not say, I only thought it. I was starting out on a new life, like her, willing to squeeze a whole ocean out of every puddle. I loved her with that invisible urge which has to overcome the boundary between the courage and fear to say that we are in love, because the fact that it’s not a lie is not nearly enough.
I loved her with that wonderful and vertiginous balancing act between what we have and what we dream of. The moment when no disease is infectious, no sin unforgivable, no obstacle insurmountable. And, ultimately, no past forbidding and no bad experience decisive. It was not only uncertain, tormenting and wonderful at the same time; there was also an element of ambition, a wish to climb a steep hill regardless of what we might see from the top.
In her mind she returned to Poland. The worst day had not been the first day at No. 232 Ost, but the second when she told herself, “Oh Lord, now It’s starting all over again.”
Twelve: Gustav Habenicht, Sepp Bartels, Rolf Baltruss, Fritz Puscha, Heinrich Rinsfeld, Otto Scholtz, Heine Baumgarten, Friedrich Heindl, Wilhelm Kube, Johann Kurfürst, Hans Bergel, Rudolf Weinmann.
The Oberführer appeared at the end of the corridor in fur-lined boots and a fur coat that reached to his ankles. The girls fell silent. He looked at them as if they were not naked, or else it made no difference to him. He regarded them as inferior beings.
A huge gale had uprooted the remaining trees by the river. It had swept through at 90 miles an hour. The torn-up trees were lying in the direction of the wind, their roots uncovered and their branches snapped. The Madam had ordered the girls to drag the branches into the yard. The guard who accompanied them had lost his faith in army meteorologists.
Madam Kulikowa had to chase the girls away from the window. Bumping over the frozen snow, one wing almost dragging on the ground, was a Heinkel. It came to a halt by the gate, its fuselage full of holes. The guards ran up to it and released the pilot from his harness. His temples were crushed, he was bruised and blood was oozing from a shoulder wound. His knees gave way and he sank down and crouched on the ground, letting out his breath as if it were his last. The weak sun was reflected from the gilt tin eagle over the entrance and cast flickering patches on the pilot. He looked like a caricature of an airman from the film Quax, the Pilot without Fear or Blemish that the Madam had seen. The guards picked him up carefully.
“Where am I? Mein Gott…”
“Feldbordell No. 232, Herr Hauptmann,” a guard with a scar stretching from one ear to the other reported smartly.
Oberführer S chimmelpfennig came running out to the sentry box by the gate. He introduced himself, giving his rank and title.
“Into my surgery,” he commanded.
The airman’s blood had stained his flying helmet. He was on the brink of fainting. In his half-closed eyes there was guilt, lethargy and exhaustion. He was shivering now, all but unconscious. Life was draining from him.
“You’ll be all right,” the Oberführer assured him. His voice was serious but not compassionate. His eyes swept over the aircraft. Pride not pity. We were born to perish, the Oberführer thought.
The guards carried the dead airman away. His blood was on their gloves and on their white snowsuits.
The truck from the Wehrkreis that arrived to remove the plane delivered some cases with winter wear. It included three pairs of felt boots with thick soles.
That evening, in her room with the vaulted ceiling, the Madam was massaging Major von Kalckreuth’s back. A sebaceous cyst had formed on his right side. He hoped it was nothing worse. The Madam told him that she had dreamed, of all things, of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Each time she mentioned the camp she emphasized that she had been in the Aryan section.
The massage made him feel good.
“Know what I heard?” he asked. “That a baby in his mother’s womb will turn into the correct position, head down, if they prick her thumb with a needle and at the same time light a candle with a special Chinese herb.”
The major was interested in alternative medicine. The Oberführer did not hold with it.
“The Chinese practise acupuncture on most parts of the body, something our doctors don’t even dream of.”
He heaved a sigh. He recalled what he knew about the Japanese attack on Nanking, when the soldiers had practised bayonet drill on their Chinese prisoners of war and the civilian population. He had also read in a brochure that the Chinese police in Shanghai were the first, as early as 1920, to equip their men with pistols with six-round magazines. History was racing ahead, that was a fact.
“All our watches are showing five minutes to midnight,” he said. “How come you don’t have a portrait of Adolf Hitler in here?”
He heaved another sigh.
“Some people still confuse freedom with impertinence.”
Twelve: Horst Hoffe, Jünger Strasser, Hermann Bock, Franz Klang, Hans Rössel, Manfred Kaas, Ernst Tippelkirsch, Gregor Schleichner, Uwe Hugehberg, Boris Fricke, Hans Besitz, Harry Höppner.
Estelle had narrowly escaped a flogging.
“I’m marking off the days,” she said. “So far I’ve got away with it. I’m being careful.”
Something familiar made them compare their fates. Skinny examined every remark, every hint of Estelle’s. In Germany and the occupied territories there were masses of such girls, driven into brothels by the authorities. And thousands who had volunteered.
They were waiting in the corridor for a tub to become vacant. On the thick wooden floor slats, which could be lifted and stacked up, Estelle looked slight, almost frail, with long black hair whose ends she singed and mother-of-pearl earrings in delicate lobes. She burped, but she didn’t have sour breath.
“I’m waiting all the time,” she said, undoing her buttons. Had she crossed the boundary beyond which girls were no longer forgiven?
“I get cramps — herpes. I’m terrified I might get a rash. When I bleed I’m afraid I might be dying. I feel like when you crack a hazelnut, or when someone steps on your belly.”
They stood facing each other. White steam came from their mouths.
“You’re warming me,” said Estelle.
“The Oberführer went to Festung Breslau this morning.”
“To recruit girls?”
“I don’t know.”
“The first three hours are the worst for me.”
It was with them all the time, even if they appeared hardened: Virginity, the first experience, the worst and the better ones, anything that was the first time and began to repeat itself, like menstruation.