“How come you speak German?”
“I learnt it.”
“In army courses? At home?”
“At home and at school,” she replied.
“Everything’s a school,” he said. “Do you know any German proverbs?”
“Like which?”
“Unkraut verdirbt nicht. “ Weeds don’t perish. “Aller Anfang ist schwer.” Every beginning is difficult. “Ende gut, alles gut.” All’s well that ends well.
She did not want to explain her knowledge of German. Her father and mother had gone to German schools under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Besides, both were born in Prague, where every other person spoke German.
“My favourite proverb is: Das Hemd ist uns näher als der Rock.” Our shirt’s closer to us than our jacket.
Was he going to teach her German proverbs? He couldn’t hurt her with proverbs, could he? She blushed again. Maybe it would be better if the captain pounced on her and stopped asking questions.
“Most of the foreign words I know I learnt in bed,” he said. “How about you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you got used to this place?”
“I have.”
“Where were you born?”
“Prague.” The flush left her cheeks only slowly.
“I know of one of your famous countrymen — Rilke. Life is heavier than the sum of all things. We keep only what we love. I have Ernst Jünger’s Marble Cliffs in my pack.”
She had no idea what he was talking about.
At last the captain began to unbutton his greatcoat. On his tunic she saw the Iron Cross. Candle wax was running into the plate on the table and as it cooled it stabilized the candle.
He walked over to the table with his coat open, bent down and blew out the candle. A pale light still shone through the window.
“Do you know why I did that?” She did not answer.
“It’ll be cosier like this, we’ll be closer. Don’t you want it to be better rather than worse for you?”
She was thinking — as so often, without really knowing why — of the bodies of the drowned that, together with other girls from the Frauen-konzentrationslager, she had pulled out of the mud of the Harmanze pond near Auschwitz-Birkenau, so they wouldn’t poison the air the Germans breathed. Of the girls in Terezin and their arguments about what was improper for a girl in relationships with boys. Of the girls at Auschwitz-Birkenau who would dress up as men in order to get past the sentries, so they could see their fathers, brothers, husbands or lovers, or sometimes just to convince themselves that they were still alive. She had seen many others who were worse off. The more courageous took considerable risks just to see their loved ones for a few seconds by the wire. The risk seemed greater because what they took it for was so little. At the Harmanze pond she had envied the wild ducks. She had collected gulls’ eggs for the S S men, as she watched the flight of the wild geese. The eggs had a brittle shell and some-times they broke in her hand. She had secretly eaten a few.
The captain was listening to the blizzard and, distinct from it, the sound of artillery fire. The units fighting were not his.
“Somewhere around here there’s supposed to be an officers’ mess. Also a distillery.”
“I don’t know the area.”
“I’ve driven here from Festung Breslau. There are a number of small concentration camps along the road. I stopped at the biggest one, at Auschwitz, to collect greatcoats like the one I’m wearing, for my battalion. Also boots, scarves and gloves, winter equipment. I stopped there for the night.”
She pressed her lips together, not what Madam Kulikowa had advised her to do. It was part of her job to listen to the captain talking. She sensed danger. He had spent the night at the camp as if it were a hotel. Didn’t it worry him that his coat came from there? That his men would keep warm in pullovers, gloves and socks taken from murdered people? Perhaps he didn’t realize.
He was looking at her clothes, which were tight across her chest.
“You’re not exactly dressed in something light and airy.”
She did not understand.
“It fits all right.”
She could see him assessing her breasts.
“How old are you?”
“18.”
“When will you be 18?”
“I am 18 already.”
“Why not 30 or a 120?” Captain Hentschel laughed. “You look 15.”
Again she blushed. She felt the blood in her cheeks.
“I’ll soon be nineteen.”
“You look 15,” he repeated.
He was taking off his tunic. She almost felt relief. Soon he wouldn’t ask any more questions. There was a fresh noise outside. A larger unit had arrived, several cars, or perhaps buses. The captain unclasped his holster belt and hung it up, along with his tunic, on the hook by the door.
“Don’t you want to take your things off?”
“As you wish.”
“Make yourself comfortable. With your permission I intend to stay here for quite a while.”
She did as he said, feeling his eyes on her. In his voice and gaze she read something between condescension, contempt and curiosity. A girl was a bottle into which they emptied themselves. She did not want to go over what she had told herself a dozen times the previous day and a dozen or more times on each of the preceding days.
Her gaze was full of fear. He had not come for anything that could threaten or hurt her. And it was one of his principles, where sex was concerned, to share his pleasure as far as possible in equal measure.
“I don’t want you to be sad,” he said.
“I’m not sad,” she said. She couldn’t pretend that he hadn’t put this very nicely. What would not be nice was what was to come.
Was she pleasing him by undressing quickly? She was losing the last shred of her privacy. She was losing her sense of shame, and that sense of shame was different now. She ought to be glad that she was with a German officer. But her brother and her father were watching her from somewhere above.
Skinny felt Captain Hentschel’s presence without looking at him. She was undressed now, her head hung as she looked at her toes. Was she clean? She had scrubbed herself in icy water. She knew that the captain was watching her in the way that soldiers looked at a girl, in admiration, with a touch of contempt, with a desire in which there was some condemnation.
“I’d say you’re making yourself older, my girl, though in a few weeks or years you’ll be making yourself younger again.” He smiled briefly. “Are you concealing your age?”
“No.”
“I wonder if you’re doing this for your benefit, or for mine.”
Instead of waiting for an answer the captain began to undress. He placed his clothes tidily on the chair, as if he were already thinking of his departure. He put down the items one by one. She closed her eyes, hearing the familiar sounds, the clink of his belt and buckle on his trousers, the rustle of his shirt. He wore double winter underwear, a white and a grey set, both clean. Underpants with a tie-string. She lowered her head again. This moment always embarrassed her. She was not just ashamed for herself, she knew that this was pointless. For some reason, as the soldiers undressed, she thought of the sick at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Of the four castrated boys her own age, on whom Dr Krueger had operated with the assistance of two Jewish doctors who knew perfectly well that before long they would themselves be turned to ashes. She had been aware throughout of what was going on, just glad that it did not concern her. She had collected the boy’s underwear in a basket. It was not ridiculous, it was pitiful. They would no longer need it.