But oddly, she is not afraid now. Her senses are keener than they have been since Max's disappearance, and Anna notices the clumps of crocuses, the coo of mourning doves, as though she were still storing these details to bring to him in the room behind the stairs. This is ludicrous, of course; it isn't as though she is going to have tea with the man in the Buchenwald mess! But the inconsonant joy Max inspires in Anna is as strong as it ever was, and to catch sight of him, even from a distance, is all she wants. Perhaps she will be able to exchange a message with him somehow-
So thinking, Anna doesn't see the stone quarry until it yaws before her. She shrinks back among the trees, her heart thudding, a taste of iron in her mouth. Unlike what she has heard of the camp proper, the quarry isn't encircled with barbed wire, but the guards standing at regular intervals denote a sentry line. The sight turns Anna's muscles to gelatin. Mathilde has assured her that the quarry will be deserted at this hour, the prisoners having been marched back to Buchenwald for evening roll call. The baker has either forgotten about daylight saving time or underestimated the SS zeal for production.
When she has recovered herself, Anna steals around the circumference of the quarry until she spies the enormous pine Mathilde has described. The bread will go in its hollow trunk; beneath the flat stone at its base, Anna might find one of the information-bearing condoms. She will obviously have to wait, however, until the quarry is empty. Anna debates retreating to a safer distance. It is the more intelligent course of action, the wisest being to abandon the venture altogether. But Anna fears that if she does, she will never be brave enough to try again, and she can't stomach the thought of returning with her full sack of rolls to the bakery and Mathilde's derision. Besides, Max is here. So Anna conceals herself behind the tree, and waits, and watches.
The prisoners, laboring in tandem against a sunset striated the gentle lemon and orange of sherbet, are a black organism from which smaller organisms detach to carry rocks to one side. The Kapos who oversee them are likewise indistinguishable. But the SS who supervise the Kapos stand closer to Anna, and she has read enough of the prisoners' messages to discern that the taller one is the infamous Unterscharführer Hinkelmann. The shorter fellow, nondescript as a bank clerk, is Unterscharführer Blank. Or is it the other way around? In any case, they both look bored, and also quite drunk, passing a bottle of cognac back and forth between them.
Yet apparently the precious liquor isn't enough to keep them occupied, for the taller officer, Hinkelmann or Blank, levels his truncheon at a prisoner who makes the mistake of staggering too close to him with a boulder.
You, he says. Come here.
When the prisoner, trying to remain invisible, trundles onward, Blank or Hinkelmann lunges unsteadily at him, knocking the man's cap off with the club.
Pay attention when I talk to you, he says.
The prisoner, dazed, releases the boulder.
Yes, Herr Unterscharführer, he says. Blood trickles in a thick rivulet from his ear.
Hinkelmann or Blank fishes the cap from the mud with his truncheon, not without some difficulty, and slings it through the air. It sails past the guards.
Get your cap, he orders.
But Herr Unterscharführer, begging your pardon, that's beyond the sentry line.
Blank or Hinkelmann fetches the man such a blow to the head that he falls to his knees.
I said, get your cap. Are you fucking deaf?
The prisoner blinks up at the Unterscharführer through the blood sheeting down his face.
No, and I'm not fucking crazy either. Get it yourself.
Hinkelmann or Blank pivots, gaping at his SS brother in burlesque amazement.
Did you hear that? he asks. Did you hear what he said?
He delivers a kick to the prisoner's kidneys, driving the man face-first into the mud, then clubs him in the head, across the shoulders, on the back. He flips the prisoner over with his foot. He waits until the prisoner has regained consciousness, then stands on his throat and presses down with his full weight. The prisoner's limbs flail, his hands scrabbling for purchase on the officer's boot. When he has stopped gurgling, Hinkelmann or Blank bends over and peers into his face. Satisfied, he administers a last kick.
Another one shot while trying to escape, he says. Did you get that, Rippchen?
He turns to an adjutant standing a few meters away. Orating like an actor projecting to the last row, pantomiming the act of writing down the words, the Unterscharführer bellows: Shot-while trying-to escape.
I got it, Herr Unterscharführer, the adjutant reassures him.
Behind them, the prisoners continue working, with a bit more energy than before.
Jesus Christ, Blank or Hinkelmann says, frowning at the smudges the prisoner's death grip has left on his boot. Give me some of that.
His partner hands him the cognac.
Neither notices a third officer who has arrived during the beating. This fellow, whose decorations proclaim him to be of higher rank than Hinkelmann or Blank, is bigger than both, dark-haired, sober. He moves with purpose to the pair and holds a brief conference with them, his voice pitched too low for his words to carry. The Unterscharführers react with indignation.
Come on, Horst, Blank or Hinkelmann says. You've had this shit detail. You know how it is!
He swirls liquor from cheek to cheek and then spits it onto the ground near the corpse.
The third officer says something else, and Hinkelmann or Blank gives an extravagant salute.
Yes SIR, Herr Obersturmführer, SIR, he says, and gestures to the adjutant, who blows a whistle. The prisoners each pick up a rock, form columns, and run double-time to the entrance of the quarry, helped along by blows from the Kapos. The Obersturmführer lingers behind, inspecting the dead prisoner.
Suddenly, as though he were a dog scenting the air, the Obersturmführer's head snaps up and rotates toward Anna. He stares in her direction, and Anna thinks for a moment that he is blind. Then she realizes that this is, of course, not the case; it is simply that his eyes are so light that he appears from this distance to have no pupils. Yet even after he turns and leaves, Anna's fear of him is so great that it approaches superstitious conviction. Somehow, the Obersturmführer has seen her. He knows she is there.
She huddles behind the tree, her hands over her mouth to stifle the tiny, terrified hitching noises she makes as she weeps. How can human beings do such things to one another? What thoughts ran through the prisoner's mind as his life was squeezed out of him, as he looked up at a slice of Blank's or Hinkelmann's face, knowing that the foot on his throat belonged to a man with the same skin, blood, the same basic tube of meat between his legs, as his own?
Eventually, when it grows dark, Anna undoes the sack and shoves the rolls into the rotted hollow of the pine as fast as she can. Somehow she remembers to scrabble beneath the big stone for the condom. Her hands are shaking so that she tears the thin greasy membrane while excavating it. She stuffs it into her pocket nonetheless and picks up the empty flour sack and flees in the direction from which she came.
16
BY DECEMBER, THE RESTRICTIONS OF RATIONING HAVE tightened even further. Weimarians exist on a diet consisting almost solely of lentils and turnips. They queue in lines for hours for the privilege of purchasing meat so gristly as to be inedible; they come to blows over bones and hooves for broth. The forests of Thuringia are said to be devoid of game. The loaves Anna and Mathilde produce are heavy as rocks and in fact often contain small pebbles, as even the flour provided by the SS is substandard.