At breakfast, Ginger told them that, if it came to it, she could look after the entire backlog of soldiers. There was no upper limit where she was concerned. Fasting did not do her any good. Her body was like a fish, it needed water, or better still a river, even a lake. She felt like a sponge, if they knew what she meant. The choice was theirs. With a full stomach she could do wonders. Long-Legs ate the sugar she had received for giving blood all in one go. They had been given sausage, which smelled, and potato salad made from frozen potatoes.
Twelve: Fritz Knoll, Raymond Stoll, Gerd Hartmann, Adalbert Neustadt, Hugo Brill, Karl Rek Neumann-Zaneski, Igor Vogel, Paul Scheer, Wolf Neugebauer, Siegfried Sessendheim, Marcel Seebauer, Jens Lindauer.
The girls’ latrines were surrounded by a partition made of rough planks covered with tarred paper. The paper was held only by a few nails and was regularly torn off by the wind. From outside it was possible to see the figures moving about inside. Occasionally a guard would peep in. The girls sat next to one another, wrapped in their coats and with kerchiefs round their heads, leaving only a gap for the eyes, each holding a stick for driving away the rats. At 25 degrees below it was difficult to maintain personal hygiene. The soldiers had inflamed backsides, brownish emissions, rashes, eczema and blisters, but from the girls they expected total cleanliness.
“I had a bellyache with all of them today,” Long-Legs announced. She kicked some rats away from her. What were they trying to do? Bite off her nose? How could such disgusting creatures be considered sacred in India? She had an aristocratic nose — experts on Aryan features had drawn her attention to it. Her legs and her high, foal-like ankles were as slim as her nose. When there was nothing she could steal from a soldier she would make do with twisting off his buttons.
“I’m passing blood,” Skinny said.
“Maybe it’s only diarrhoea.”
“Perhaps it’s from drinking melted snow.”
“You’ve got to drink something. I can’t get that general in the train off my mind. He was crushed by the walls of the carriage. The compartment was lined with purple plush, with windows that had little dark red curtains with gold braid bands. Those bandits must have had God on their side. Maybe the Jewish God. Before they made me a whore I had a Jewish boyfriend. My family weren’t exactly ecstatic about it, but I would have run away from home rather than give him up. The Jews have hard heads. They’d sooner have their heads cracked like a walnut than give in.”
She remembered how her lover had prayed, also for her: Baruch ata, Adonai: Praised be our God, king of the universe. She’d liked the fact that he never hurried to climax before she got there. He waited for her. She didn’t want to know where he was. Or was not.
Beautiful was pouring water into the tub.
“I’m not ashamed of anything I do. I haven’t done anything so far that I couldn’t admit to my mother, although she’s no longer alive. The nuns told me that a good girl waits. You can wait as long as you like, but you don’t escape that face above you.”
Beautiful had a voice that enchanted everyone, not just the soldiers. Her words floated liltingly, as if she didn’t want to wake from a dream. With the sleeves of her sweater pushed up, she poured in more water. There was passiveness in her eyes. Helplessness, perhaps, or a kind of chastity. Madam Kulikowa had given her perfume and glass earrings.
“Your voice is like a balm,” Skinny said to her.
Beautiful spoke as though she were interpreting. She immersed herself in her own resurrection, somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness, an errant soul, almost languid, in contact with her mother. She was wearing a trace of lipstick.
“Can’t appear on roll-call all pale. Maybe I’ll tell him I menstruate 31 days a month.”
“You’re stooping today,” Skinny said.
Beautiful hunched, making her shoulder blades stick out from her back so that her breasts would not be too prominent. One soldier had told her that she had a bosom like the waves of the sea.
The tub was now three-quarters full.
“Ever thought that you might die by the side of a soldier?” she asked.
“Perhaps.”
“Or he at your side?”
Twelve: Fritz Rattenhuber, Rudolph Mansfeld, Karl Kersten, Hans Lammers, Heinrich Zeitler, Kurt Wunderbar, Julius Scheller, Karl-Ludwig Woos, Dietrich Stahl, Arthur Kengerhausen, Erich Kruger, Hermann Junge.
Twelve: Markus Frotzinger, Joseph Gruss, Bertram Hahn, Franz Prochaska, Roloff Frankenberger, Kurt Boskowski, Willi Titzelm, Juppe Schwartz, Nicolaus Ebner, Jürgen Pazzeller, Bruno Rahm, Ferai Kranz.
Twelve: Peter Drier, Dutrow Tello, Franz Hase, Egon Stolzfuss, Benedikt Bergmeier, Bartolomeo Stein, Martin Luther, Edmund Bernard, Franz Dietel, Dietrich Blumenbauer, Siegfried Ripke, Sepp Springer.
“I can’t rinse that soap off,” Estelle said. “Rub yourself with your towel,” Skinny said. “My skin gets all dried out in the cold.”
The noises of the night were carried away by the wind. Now and again a searchlight cut through the darkness. Another train clanged over the bridge.
“What astonishes me is that I hate myself almost as much as they hate me,” Estelle said. “They want a world without you or me. So that only they are left. The noble race. This morning a lance-corporal told me how two Judenweiber had been hiding out in a coal shed by the depot. He caught them as they were trying to get rid of the tattooed numbers on their forearms. One of them was cutting her skin off with a knife; the other was trying to burn the numbers off with a candle. War to the Germans is a vendetta. The honour of the knights must not be diluted by Slavs, Jews or Gypsies.”
*
Madam Kulikowa looked drunk, but wasn’t. There were dark rings under her eyes and fine red lines formed a pattern on her eyeballs after the thrashing she’d received. The Oberführer was not one for kid gloves. Her long fur coat was torn at the seams and on the sleeves. Skinny offered to mend it for her after evening roll-call. The Madam noted, without comment, how quickly Skinny had learnt Polish.
“I know what I’m saying. And I know, unfortunately, who I’m saying it to.” The Madam spat out a tooth. “Defending oneself isn’t always as fine a gesture as one might want it to be.”
At roll-call the Oberführer yelled at them.
“Maybe someone promised you you’d have a ball here every day?”
The Oberführer had forbidden the dormitories to be heated. He had been up all night, planning urgent measures. If there was the slightest unrest, he informed Madam Kulikowa, he was prepared to nip it in the bud. The back wall was still there.
The Madam had no illusions. The Frog’s severity probably signalled the coming end of No. 232 Ost. The approaching gunfire spoke for itself. She had no doubt that he would unhesitatingly hand them all over to the execution squad.