“That is the only known photograph of him before the war.”
An unexceptional face; but a mean mouth. I remembered there were other sorts of humorlessness and fixed stare besides Conchis’s; and much more unpleasant ones. There was a certain similarity with the face of the “colonel” on the central ridge; but they were different men.
“And these are excerpts from newsreels taken in Poland.”
As they came on, Conchis said, “That is him, behind the general”; or “Wimmel is on the extreme left.” Though I could see the film was genuine, I had the same feeling that films of the Nazis had always given me; of unreality, of the distance, enormous, between a Europe that could breed such monsters and an England that could not. And I saw that Conchis was trying to enweb me, to make me feel too innocent, too historically green. Yet when I glanced at his face reflected in the light from the screen, he seemed even more absorbed in what he saw than I was myself; more a victim of the past.
“What the guerrillas must have done is this. As soon as they realized their boat had been burned they doubled back towards the village. They were probably already only just outside it when Anton came to see me. What we did not know was that one of them had relations on the outskirts of the village—a family called Tsatsos. It consisted of two sisters of eighteen and twenty, a father and a brother. But the men happened to have left two days before for the Piraeus with a cargo of olive oil—they had a small caïque and the Germans allowed a certain amount of coastal traffic. One of the guerrillas was a cousin of these girls—probably in love with the elder one.
“The guerrillas came to the cottage unseen, before anyone in the village knew of the catastrophe. They were no doubt counting on using the family caïque. But it was away. Later a weeping neighbor arrived to tell the sisters the news of the killing and all that I had told the village men. By then the guerrillas were in hiding. We do not know where they spent that night. Probably in a cistern. Parties of hastily constituted vigilantes searched every cottage and villa, empty and lived-in, in the village, including the Tsatsoses’, and found nothing. Whether the girls were simply frightened or unusually patriotic we shall never know. But they had no blood relations in the village—and of course the father and brother were safely out of it.
“The guerrillas must that next day have decided to split up. At any rate the girls started baking bread. A sharp-eyed neighbor noticed it, and remembered that they had been baking only two days before. Bread for the brother and father to take on the voyage. Apparently she did not suspect anything at once. But about five o’clock she went to the school and told the Germans. She had three relations among the hostages.
“A squad of die Raben arrived at the cottage. Only the cousin was there. He threw himself into a cupboard. He heard the two girls being struck, and screaming. He knew his time was up, so he leapt out, pistol in hand, fired before the Germans could move—and nothing happened. The pistol had jammed.
“They took the three to the school, where they were interrogated. The girls were tortured, the cousin was quickly made to cooperate. Two hours later—when night had come—he led the way down the coast road to an empty villa, knocked on the shutter and whispered to his two comrades that the sisters had managed to find a boat. As they came through the gate the Germans pounced. The leader was shot in the arm, but no one else was hurt.”
I interrupted. “And he was a Cretan?”
“Yes. Quite like the man you saw. Only shorter and broader.
“All that time we hostages had been up in the classroom. It faced over the pine forest, so we could not see any of the comings and goings. But about nine we heard two terrible screams of pain and a fraction later a tremendous cry. The one Greek word: eleutheria. You may think that we cried in return, but we did not. Instead we felt hope—that the guerrillas had been caught. Not long after that there were two bursts of automatic fire. And some time after that the door of our room was thrown open. I was called out, and another man: the local butcher.
“We were marched downstairs and out in front of the school to the wing where I believe you masters live now—the western. Wimmel was standing at the entrance there with one of his lieutenants.
“On the side of the steps behind them the collaborationist interpreter was sitting, with his head in his hands. He looked white, in a state of shock. Some twenty yards away, by the wall, I saw two dead bodies. Soldiers rolled them onto stretchers as we approached. The lieutenant stepped forward and signaled to the butcher to follow him.
“Wimmel turned and went into the building. I saw his back going down the dark stone corridor and then I was pushed forward after him. He stood outside a door at the far end and waited for me. Light poured from it. When I got there he gestured for me to go in.
“I think anyone but a doctor would have fainted. I should have liked to have fainted. The room was bare. In the middle was a table. Roped to the table was a young man. The cousin. He was naked except for a bloodstained singlet, and he had been badly burnt about the mouth and eyes. But I could see only one thing. Where his genitals should have been, there was nothing but a black-red hole. They had cut off his penis and scrotal sac. With a pair of wire-cutting shears.
“In one of the far corners another naked man lay on the floor. His face was to the ground and I could not see what they had done to him. He too was apparently unconscious. I shall never forget the stillness of that room. There were three or four soldiers—soldiers! of course torturers, psychopathic sadists—in the room. One of them held a long iron stake. An electric fire was burning, lying on its back. Three of the men wore leather aprons like blacksmith’s aprons, to keep their uniforms clean. There was a disgusting smell of excrement and urine.
“And there was one other man, bound to a chair in the corner. He was also gagged. A great bull of a man. Badly bruised and wounded in one arm, but evidently not tortured yet. Wimmel had started first on the ones most likely to break.
“I have seen several films—like Rossellini’s films—of the good human’s reactions to such scenes. How he turns on the Fascist monsters and delivers himself of some terse yet magnificent condemnation. How he speaks for history and humanity and forever puts them in their place. My own feelings were of immediate and intense personal fear. You see, Nicholas, I thought, and Wimmel left a long silence to let me think, that I was now going to be tortured as well. I did not know why. But there was no reason left in the world. When human beings could do such things to one another…
“I turned round and looked at Wimmel. The extraordinary thing was that he seemed the most human other person in the room. He looked tired and angry. Even a little disgusted. Ashamed at the mess his men had created.
“He said in English, These men do this for pleasure. I do not. I wish, before they start on that murderer there, that you will speak to him.”
Conchis spoke with quite a good imitation of a German accent. Pauses, to mark the dialogue.
“I said, What must I say?
“I want the names of his friends. I want the names of the people who help him. I want the positions of hiding places and arms places. If he gives me these I give to him my word he will be executed in a correct military manner.
“I said, Did they not tell you enough? Wimmel said, All they knew. But he knows more. He is a man I have long wished to meet. His friends could not make him speak. I do not think we shall make him speak. Perhaps you can. You will say this. The truth. You do not like us Germans. You are an educated man. You wish only to stop this… procedures. You will advise him to speak what he knows. It is no guilt now that he is caught to speak. You understand? Come with me.