As the snowflakes sailed down, he quoted from Adelbert von Chamisso, one of his teachers:
Die Sonne bringt es an den Tag. Du weisst nun meine Heimlichkeit, So halt den Mund und sei gescheit…
He wished that he had written such a jewel himself.
With his right arm raised he saluted the Oberführer, who was watching some men unloading boxes of books, covered in snow. It was enough to make him sick. The army were retreating, and Berlin was sending them literature via Cracow.
Obersturmführer Sarazin disappeared into the building.
The Lebensborn and the field brothel — two related institutions, the former giving way to the latter as the requirements of the Herrenvolk and its army changed. For the Party and the army high command, Sarazin had the gratitude of a son, a closer filial relationship than he had enjoyed with his own father. He was filled with warm recollections of the Lebensborn. His seven days there had given him, day by day and night by night, the self-assurance a man has when he has impregnated a woman. That deep, irrepressible primitive feeling. The triumphal attitude of a man who has conquered a woman or to whom a woman has submitted, a woman he has helped to have a child, his child. The sense of immortality a man has when he looks up at the stars. He remembered a few of the women’s names, mostly just their first names. He was never quite sure he remembered those names correctly, but that was unimportant. It was part of the rules of the game not to ask to whom he was giving a child, just as the women did not ask who he was. All that was needed was mutual attraction and orders from above. The authorities would deal with everything else. The future of the Reich was being laid down, and from the best material. As the German children would be, so would the nation. As the children were brought up, from swaddling clothes and dummy, to kindergarten to elementary school, and from there to secondary school and university, then to the army — so would the country be in the years to come. This knowledge was enough for inspiration and arousal, for a sense of satisfaction. Added to this was the secrecy, like the secrecy of the night, the lure of a woman’s body in the cubicle with its curtains drawn to ensure that the combination of darkness and light stimulated the participants. It was wonderful not to know who that woman was. The Lebensborn, the Spring of Life, was an island in a white snowy sea, a silver moon with its invisible side in a deep-blue cradle.
He listened to the sound of his boots on the floor, the impact of 38 steel nails in each sole and the metal edge around the heel. For a moment his memories of the Lebensborn — the first steps towards a Germany without frontiers, towards a vast territory running from the Rhine to the Ural — merged with the prospect of having an unknown young whore, one he had ordered for himself. The Madam had told him her name, but he had forgotten it.
Obersturmführer Stefan Sarazin didn’t like Big Leopolda Kulikowa. Stout women always reminded him of cows. He had reconciled himself to the fact that he couldn’t eliminate all the people he did not like. He had his vision of an ideal world. A slightly arrogant one, perhaps, but wasn’t arrogance beautiful? If it were up to him, the world would already look different — something like an overpopulated paradise.
He sniffed the air to see whether Madam Kulikowa, in her eagerness to please him, had sprayed too much perfume. He didn’t care for it, and he had warned the Madam in advance. Perfume gave him migraine. He found it repulsive, as he did mushrooms in potato soup. But what he smelled, more than perfume, was the stench of rats. Hideous creatures. The stench of rat poison and of rats — how could he forget that smell? He could not even stand the perfume they used for spraying the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, at Treblinka, Majdanek and Sobibor, so the new arrivals didn’t panic but let themselves be gassed without struggle. It was a pity to waste a single bullet. He reminded himself that he was the bearer of a Reich secret, one of the initiates.
Unconsciously he straightened his back. He wouldn’t have minded being three or four inches taller, but he had a reputation he could be proud of. Women never had him totally in their power, even if he needed them. His steps were guided not by Venus but by Mars. His military assessments noted his hardness, toughness and fighting spirit, by which he compensated for what he had lost after suffering a severe head wound. Few people knew that a grenade had struck his head like lava hurled from a volcano, turning him into a living torch, and that his comrades had saved him by dousing the flames. There were consequences, of course, both internal and external. His scalp had not escaped damage. Die Sonne bringt es an den Tag. He didn’t need to remind himself of it, the scar reminded him constantly. As for that other weakness, the army doctor had assured him that it was not life-threatening.
He was filled with a sense of superiority which would have been appropriate in someone twice his age. This did not exclude, but on the contrary confirmed, a craving for brutality without which he probably would not be in the Einsatzkommando. As for proving himself, there was no stiffer test than the Einsatzkommando. At Treblinka he had forced a professor of mathematics to thank him in advance for sending him to the next world. After terrifying him by putting a pistol against to his head he gave the man the option of running along to join his own people. For his age he ran quite well. At the last moment he joined a column destined for the gas chamber. He did not enjoy his escape for long. There had been irony and drama in it; a piece of theatre with its dénouement. That Jew was said to have been an expert on differential calculus. He spoke German, English and French fluently and could make himself understood in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. He played Bach on the piano from memory. He had been married twice. He had come with two sisters and three grandchildren. He was even able to bring his first wife with him. The impertinent Jew! To cap it all, he was called Faust and had studied in Heidelberg. Chutzpah, as the Jews say. What did a Yid know about blood, about Germandom, about pride or about soil?
Obersturmführer S arazin knew that there were many people in the Einsatzgruppen who thought the same as he did. Life was a string of pearls of varying sizes. Everybody born of a good race was entitled to reach the highest level. Apart from the prostitute Ginger and that acrobat, Long-Legs, he knew in advance that even if he left having achieved what he wanted he would be unsatisfied. Sometimes a prostitute had a good body — the Madam, say — and a lousy nature. Or she might be good at her job but be unwilling to let herself go completely. He was looking for a girl who, without being told, could read from his eyes what he wanted. He did not believe that anything should be denied him. It was he who held all the cards — well, nearly all.
He had read somewhere that everyone carried their own invisible baggage with them. He was not prepared to stop judging people by his own yardsticks.
As he walked towards the cubicles he thought he saw a rat rising to its hind legs under a dangling lightbulb at the far end of the corridor. He did not change his pace. If he drew his pistol and fired at it he would rouse the soldiers from their mattresses and frighten the girls. Why shouldn’t they have a bit of fun? He was only a few steps from Cubicle 16. He had passed Number 13 on his left. Number 16 would be on the right, as in a bad hotel. His hands and forehead were perspiring, probably because he’d come indoors to the warmth from the biting cold outside. Sometimes a thought would make him sweat, no matter whether it was a decision, or a verse, or an even target in the sight of his gun. Barrel, sight, trigger. Load, fire, a Jew. He enjoyed the idea, if only for the fraction of a second, when — thanks to him — his enemies were meeting the mother of everything on that other side of existence. That most faithful mistress of existence. A gift only he appreciated. Palm, butt, barrel, sight, a Jew. In his mind he heard the echo of nearly all the shots he had fired, had indulged in. He perceived it all as a huge detailed picture. That was how poets saw things.