Langhof continued to hold the book toward Ginzburg. “Please, read it.”
Ginzburg shook his head. “No.”
“But why not?” Langhof asked.
“Let’s just say that my eyes are tired.”
Langhof pressed the book into Ginzburg’s hands. “Please,” he said quietly. Then he stood up and left the room.
Langhof did not see Ginzburg again for two days, and when he did something odd happened. Langhof was in the dissecting room with Ludtz and Kessler. He was standing over one of the metal tables, the body of a young woman spread out in front of him. His coat was red with blood, and little slivers of the woman’s spleen dangled from the tip of his scalpel. Suddenly Ginzburg entered the room, carrying a box of supplies. As he walked toward Kessler, he glanced at Langhof, and at that moment Langhof’s hand began to tremble. He was mortified, utterly mortified, not because of the absurdity of what he was doing, but because someone he thought as intelligent as himself had observed him doing it.
THE BOW of the canoe gently skirts the bank, bumping it slightly, and I take the rope and tie it to the tree beside the water. Across the river I can see the first hint of dawn, a soft, bluish light that fades into blackness above the mountain ridges. Far to the south, El Presidente squirms beneath his silken sheets, his mind tumbling through kingdoms of moist thighs. And only a few meters distant, Dr. Ludtz wheezes into the white light of his room, his eyes squeezed shut, his lips muttering softly in the forbidden tongue.
The clay gives slightly under my feet as I make my way up the embankment from the water’s edge. All day the river seeps indifferently into the surrounding earth, licking at it, eating it away. A thousand years from now, the hill upon which my compound rests will be nothing more than a million pebbles whirling in the waves where the river meets the sea.
At the stairs to my verandah, I pause and draw in a long, slow breath. Someday I will climb them for a final time. I will look out from the heights, my hands squeezing the railing, and watch the thunderclouds tumble over the ridges or the flamingoes glide over the green, reedy plain. And I will say, “Enough,” and close my eyes.
During all his years in the Camp, Langhof thought that he would find that point where men would say, “Enough.” He saw them inject blue dye into the irises of children’s eyes, and he thought: This is the limit. Beyond this, they will not go. Then he saw them time castrations with a stopwatch, madly ripping at the testicles with scalpels and surgical scissors, and he thought: This is the limit. They will not do more than this. Then he saw them tie the ankles of pregnant women together and watch them go into the agony of labor, writhing on the floor until they died. And so he came to know that there was no limit and that that was why Ginzburg did not willingly take his little book of recorded horrors. The little comedian knew that everything he had recorded there was little more than introduction to man’s possibilities.
And yet Langhof continued to believe that something had to be said about the Camp and that perhaps the accumulation of detail was the best way of saying it. In his little black book there would be no editorialization. The prose would be simple and direct, an empiricist’s worksheet. In his foolishness he hoped that Ginzburg would be able to understand what he was attempting to do, and he was insanely curious as to how the little comedian had received his work. Consequently, when he was instructed to go to the railway station to pick up a package of incoming medical supplies, he chose Ginzburg to go along. The gates of the Camp opened for them and they passed through, riding together in a battered jeep.
Ginzburg twisted himself around and looked back at the closing gate, then straightened himself in the seat. “How did you manage to arrange this?” he asked.
Langhof watched the road, the fingers of his hands drumming lightly on the steering wheel. “I told Kessler I might need some help in case we ran into partisans on the road.”
Ginzburg smiled. “I have acted my part brilliantly,” he said. “Kessler thinks that if we ran into partisans I would fight for you.”
“Yes,” Langhof said. He took his cap from his head and placed it on the seat between them. “That book I gave you,” he asked nervously, “did you read it?”
“Yes,” Ginzburg replied. He kept his eyes on the road.
Langhof waited a moment, but Ginzburg added nothing. “Well, what did you think?” he asked finally.
Ginzburg turned to look at Langhof. “You are a curious man, Langhof,” he said. “What could you possibly expect me to think?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, what do you expect to accomplish by jotting down all these details about the Camp?”
“Someone has to do it,” Langhof said defensively.
“Why?”
“The world has to know what happened,” Langhof said. “All the details, I mean.”
Ginzburg laughed. “The world will know the details, my dear doctor,” he said. “You may be sure of that. I think you have another idea in mind.”
Langhof looked at Ginzburg curiously. “Other idea?”
“You are trying to redeem yourself,” Ginzburg said. “It’s quite clear. You want the world to know that you suffered great agonies of conscience, and that these agonies were every bit as horrible as the physical suffering in the Camp.”
“I don’t think that’s entirely it,” Langhof said weakly.
“Perhaps not,” Ginzburg said. “But just in case, let me tell you something about the agonies of conscience, Langhof. They are a joke. No one would trade the worst of them for a toothache.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Do you think I don’t have these so-called agonies? I do. Every time Kessler slips his cock up my ass, my conscience recoils. But as much as he revolts me, as much as I revolt myself, I wouldn’t trade my place with anyone in the general Camp population.” He leaned forward, his eyes burning into Langhof. “Would you, Doctor?”
“No,” Langhof said quietly.
“So let’s just drop the nobility, if you please,” Ginzburg said. He leaned back in his seat. “I’d rather just enjoy the day, if you don’t mind.”
Farther down the road, Langhof brought the jeep to a halt and waited while a farmer herded a group of cows across their path. He turned to Ginzburg. “There’s something I want to tell you.”
Ginzburg watched as the farmer slapped the cattle with a long rod.
“For a long time I lost touch with everything,” Langhof began. “I mean everything in the Camp. It was as though it didn’t exist for me. I was there, but I wasn’t there. Do you know what I mean?”
“I envy you,” Ginzburg said lightly.
“Please listen,” Langhof said. “It’s important to me.”
“I’m sorry,” Ginzburg said, turning to Langhof. “Go ahead.”
“Some months ago Kessler came into my room and said there was something he wanted me to see,” Langhof began again. “I followed him outside to the courtyard behind the medical compound. There were a lot of people, naked people, sitting in the snow, freezing. It was a freezing experiment.”
Ginzburg casually returned his eyes to the cattle. “People freeze all the time.”
“It wasn’t that,” Langhof added quickly. “I really don’t know what it was. I may never know. But something broke through to me. The Camp broke through, somehow. So I started walking around, taking notes, recording everything in that little notebook you seem to find so ridiculous.”
“I don’t find the notebook ridiculous,” Ginzburg said. “Only useless.”
The last cow made its way across the road, and Langhof leaned forward and started the engine. The farmer smiled gently and waved to them as the jeep passed.