"You were imprisoned for an act of violence," I said. "Likely several of them. You did not use a gun, I think. Nor did you run anyone over with a car. Those would have been too remote. You did it up close, with your hands or maybe with a knife or a hammer or another such implement. And you either hurt someone badly or killed them. I would say the latter."
"You’re right about that," he said, grinning.
"This wasn’t the first time you had hurt someone, and not the second, either. Maybe the police couldn’t pin all those cases on you, but you had a reputation."
"Indeed I had. What else can you say about the criminal I was?"
Again, I considered whether to speak honestly or not. The crazy glint in his eyes convinced me to stick to the truth.
"You became a criminal as a means to make money. And you hurt people while committing other crimes—robbery, extortion, that sort of thing. But you didn’t beat or kill just when you had to—to get rid of witnesses or prevent bodily harm to yourself. You enjoy hurting others. A few times, you took it too far. You killed some people when a simple beating would have sufficed.
"As a criminal, you always hovered near the bottom rung of the underworld. You never ran a sophisticated operation. You never masterminded a clever heist. You did not own an illegal gambling joint or run a brothel—though you might have been a pimp at one time, but never of high-class prostitutes."
I paused, my breath catching in my throat, because he had lowered his chin and set his jaw, and his eyes were smoldering. His hands were on the table and curled into fists. He had enjoyed my depiction of him as a murderer, but he did not like how I’d correctly pegged him as a low-level criminal. He gave the impression of a volcano about to erupt. And I knew that once he did, he would not stop until I was a bloody, pulpy mass at his feet. I had to mollify him quickly, or I might not get the chance.
"But in prison,” I said, my voice cracking on the first words, "things changed. You discovered that your particular set of talents was well-suited for prison life. Your strength, your penchant for violence, your ability to dominate other prisoners physically—all these qualities helped you thrive behind bars. For the first time, you became a leader, with other prisoners doing your bidding, much as you had done the bidding of others on the outside.”
I held my breath and waited a beat. Some of the tension left his face and his fingers loosened a little, though his hands were still fisted.
"You did it the only way you knew how—by instilling fear among the prisoner population and meting out severe punishment for any infraction. You also took care to eliminate any competition that might have threatened your new exalted position. If I had to guess, you killed quite a few men during your imprisonment.”
"Quite a few," he said, with a smile of reminiscence. His fists unclenched all the way, and his posture returned to what it had been when I’d entered the room. I let out a low exhalation, feeling a sense of relief so acute that my hands trembled. I grew aware of how weary I was, how hard it was to remain standing here before this ruthless maniac. Again I wondered why he was asking me all these questions. Why this lengthy prelude to what had to follow—my violent death?
"In prison," I said, fearful that I would anger him again but figuring I should keep talking for as long as he let me, “you made a second discovery; one that you did not anticipate, perhaps. You realized that the authorities cared much less about what happened to prisoners than they did about the citizens on the outside. If two prisoners got into a fight and one stabbed the other, there would be an investigation, but not a comprehensive one. As long as there were no revolts or widespread disobedience or escapes, the authorities largely turned a blind eye to the internal dealings among prisoners. Which meant that there was room for certain understandings between the authorities and any prisoner who could maintain order and discipline in the general population. This was a golden opportunity for you. And it further cemented your position."
"I was like a king,” he said, but his expression was incongruous with his statement. Which led me to think that he had failed to hold onto his royal position for long. I scrambled for the reason, sensing it was important I discovered it. Gazing about the room, with its ostentatious display of relative luxury, a possibility came to me, and before I had the chance to examine it properly, I gave voice to it.
"You went too far," I said. My tone was tentative, because I was uncertain of my guess. "You hurt too many prisoners. Or you killed someone in a manner that could not be swept under the rug. Or maybe one of your victims, despite being imprisoned, had some connection to people in high places. You crossed the line, perhaps without knowing it was there, and the authorities reacted."
He stayed silent, neither confirming nor denying my guess. But the way his eyebrows knitted suggested I had hit the nail on its head.
"You lost the position you’d worked so hard to attain, along with its attendant privileges. That must have been difficult. Your life might even have been at risk. But then the Nazis came, and your fortunes turned."
"Mine and yours as well," he said, again showing me his teeth.
I nodded to mask the flare of anger I felt at his wanton cruelty. Then experienced a spark of surprise that I could feel anything but dread in the presence of this man. For a second I allowed myself the exquisite pleasure of imagining the two of us in the ordinary world before everything had gone crazy—he the criminal and I the policeman. How I would have loved to slip the cuffs around his wrists.
“The Nazis needed men like you for their concentration camps," I said, returning to reality. "To save manpower, they came up with a system in which prisoner functionaries ran the daily operation of the camps—ensuring a high level of productivity, maintaining order and discipline, and keeping everyone afraid at all times. Which camp did they put you in?"
"Dachau. The first camp the Nazis built. Right after Hitler came to power.”
"It was a perfect fit. A win-win situation. You had all the qualities the Nazis were looking for in a prisoner functionary, and the camps were just the sort of prison where you could employ your natural abilities with little fear that you would once again overstep the mark. The Nazis have a very dim view of their prisoners. Dimmer than the previous German government had of theirs. In Dachau, prisoners must have had very few rights."
"Nearly none," he said.
"You excelled at your new job. And why wouldn’t you? It was the perfect outlet for your proclivities. You could be cruel. You could hurt people with near impunity. You could watch them tremble just by walking by or glancing in their direction."
Again I stopped, shocked by my frankness. What was I doing? Was I angling for a harsher death than necessary?
But the Lageralteste did not appear to be offended or annoyed. In fact, his clear blue eyes were thoughtful and assessing. "Go on. Finish the story.”
"Dachau was a good place for you. You must have been concerned when you were informed that you would be moved to a new camp, and in Poland, of all places."
"Auschwitz is not in Poland," the Lageralteste said with a bite to his tone. “Not anymore. It was annexed to Germany in 1939."
How odd it was that despite his status as a prisoner, he was staunchly patriotic.
"When were you moved here?" I asked.
"Right in the beginning, in 1940. There were thirty of us."
"So you were sent to the main camp, not here to Birkenau.”
"Birkenau didn’t exist back then. Only the main camp, what the SS boys in administration now call Auschwitz-I. The prisoners there were mostly Polish; still are. It was before they started bringing in all you stinking Jews from everywhere. Birkenau, or Auschwitz-ll, was built by Russian prisoners of war, at least in the beginning. You should have seen them. There was nothing here. They had to build the blocks by themselves. They lived like animals, out in the open, exposed to the rain and snow. Some dug holes in the ground in which to take shelter. They died like flies."