Rausch pulled fiercely at Langhof’s sleeve. “I said double time,” he shouted.
They trudged up a slight incline, moved through a small stand of trees, and then to the edge of a gulley.
“Halt” Rausch shouted.
Langhof stopped beside him and looked down into the ditch. Twenty or thirty prisoners were standing below him, idly watching the guards.
“Get into the ditch,” Rausch commanded the prisoners. “Get in there with the others. Quick!”
Haltingly, the prisoners followed Rausch’s orders, sliding down into the ditch. Some did not get up when they reached the bottom. Others got quickly to their feet.
Rausch glanced at the guards who stood on the other side of the ditch. “That’s all for now,” he said.
The guards straightened themselves and waited.
Langhof felt something harden in his stomach. His eyes moved through the group of prisoners, scanning their faces. He saw Ginzburg squatting to the left, a trickle of blood flowing from his nose. Instantly he stepped back from the bank, so that Ginzburg would not see him.
“What’s the matter, my dear doctor?” Rausch said fiercely.
“What are you going to do?”
Rausch smiled. “What do you think?”
“No,” Langhof said. “You can’t do this.”
“I have to,” Rausch said. “It’s too late to do anything else.”
“But there’s no need for this,” Langhof pleaded. “It’s over. It’s all over! Can’t you see that?”
“Nothing’s over,” Rausch said. “We have to take it to the bottom this time.” He turned toward the guards and nodded. They began positioning their weapons. Langhof could hear a groan rising from the ditch.
“Rausch, please,” he said, “think about what you’re doing. For the rest — I don’t know — for you there may have been reasons for everything. But no more. It’s over. There’s no reason for this.”
“Only cowards take just one step, Langhof,” Rausch said.
“Do you think it takes courage to kill this way?”
“Under these conditions — knowing what’s to come — absolutely.”
“Please, Rausch, don’t do this.”
Rausch readied his pistol. “You have to take it through to the end, Langhof. Otherwise, you fail.”
“But this makes no sense, Rausch,” Langhof said.
Rausch smiled. “None of it ever did.”
“Please. Rausch, you must listen to me. You must —”
“Draw your pistol, Doctor,” Rausch said evenly.
“Me?” Langhof said, astonished.
“Yes, you. Draw your pistol.”
“No,” Langhof said.
Rausch raised his pistol and pointed it steadily at Langhof’s head. “Draw your pistol,” he said quietly. “You can aim it at the vermin, or you can put it in your mouth, but draw your pistol.”
“No,” Langhof whispered.
Rausch clicked the chamber into place. “If you think this is some joke, you’re wrong. I will kill you right now, Langhof. I will kill you right here.”
Langhof stood rigidly in place.
Rausch smiled. “They are groaning in the ditch, Doctor. Imagine the hell they’re going through. You can end it for them by drawing your pistol. I don’t care where you put it.”
Langhof listened to the wailing. It was growing louder and louder, clinging to the trees like rotting corpses. But over the wail he could hear something much stronger, the beating of his heart. He wanted to live.
“Draw your pistol,” Rausch said.
Langhof unsnapped his holster and slowly drew his pistol from it.
“Good,” Rausch said. “Now step forward.”
Langhof stepped to the brow of the ditch, his eyes instantly searching out Ginzburg. He saw him lying down with his hands crossed behind his head, his legs stretched out and crossed, the heel of one foot resting casually on the toes of the other. His eyes were staring off into the sky, as if he were thinking of what he might like to do later in the afternoon. He was whistling, but Langhof could see that his body was trembling too.
Rausch stepped forward next to Langhof. “Fire!” he shouted.
The guards opened fire, and the prisoners began to twitch and fall as the bullets raked them. Langhof held his pistol toward the ditch, but he did not pull the trigger.
Rausch watched the pistol shaking in Langhof’s hand. He smiled. “Good enough,” he said, “I wouldn’t want to demand too much.”
Langhof kept his pistol in place. He could see Ginzburg’s body still lying in place. Dead.
“All right, Langhof,” Rausch said, “let’s go get another batch, shall we?”
Langhof whirled around to face him. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“You’ve proved your point, Rausch,” Langhof said.
“Do as I order.”
“No.”
Rausch stared evenly at Langhof. “Let’s not go through this again. It’s getting tedious.”
“No,” Langhof repeated.
“Come now, my dear doctor,” Rausch said. “The New Order has only a few more minutes to bequeath whatever gifts it can to mankind.”
Langhof felt the pistol jerk forward instantly. He did not feel the pressure of the trigger as he squeezed it. The bullet struck Rausch in the throat, and he fell backward into the snow. The last gasp of air rushing through the hole in his neck sounded like the gurgling of a child.
IT IS MORNING NOW. I can smell the food my servants are preparing for El Presidente. Tomorrow the feast will be set on the tables beneath the striped tent, and should El Presidente come in Casamira’s guise he will taste a bit of everything. While the rest of us stand at our seats, he will circle the table, dipping his spoon into every bowl, turning the fruits and vegetables over his tongue, nipping at the spiced meats, sipping a single swallow of each juice and wine. Then, when he is satisfied, he will generously bid all to join him and the feast of his assumption can begin. When the meal is over, El Presidente will have the remaining food thrown to his dogs. They have been trained to fight for it, and for the next few minutes El Presidente will laugh and slap his belly while the dogs tear at each other’s throats.
In the world that calls itself developed, those born between clean sheets find beauty in portraits of naked women reclining drowsily on great burgundy pillows. They find beauty in misty lakes reflecting pastel skies. They find beauty in stern, immobile faces bordered by neatly trimmed Vandykes. In the deep placidity of the developed world, beauty finds expression in that sense of delicacy and restraint which is meant to pluck the chords of quiet contemplation.
But here in the Republic, the principles of aesthetics take on a more robust character. Here El Presidente, the arbiter of art, finds beauty in the frenzy of his dogs, finds something uplifting and sublime in the simplicity of their appetites and the purity of their violence.
On the day I fled the Camp, I did not expect to discover a new aesthetic principle. Under the illusion that by killing him I could kill the things for which he stood, I had shot Rausch in the throat. The guards around the ditch watched me in a state of profound confusion, but they did not move. I thrust the pistol in my coat pocket and quickly walked away. I went back to the Camp, much of which was burning by then, clambered up the stairs of the medical compound, and took the box of diamonds from the shelf in my room. I tucked them under my coat and ran outside. I saw Ludtz whimpering in the muddy snow and pulled him up by the arm and took him with me. I did not know where I intended us to go. We ran on and on, and as the Camp disappeared behind us, as the sound of the guns and the smell of the smoke dissolved with distance, we entered a field of inexpressible beauty. It was as if the Camp had fallen behind the curvature of the earth and we were left alone in the forest. The trees were etched black against the sky, leafless, their raw branches outlined with small, rounded banks of snow. It was a world of simple colors, a bleak, wintry landscape that might have been drawn by some dour Norwegian melancholic. I fell to the ground, dragging Ludtz with me, my boots plowing up two gullies in the snow. I remember that the barrel of my pistol still seemed warm, although it could not have been, and the crunch of the diamonds as they slid to the opposite side of the metal box sounded like a single shake of the maracas. To the moralistic imagination, these two figures, Ludtz and myself, might compose a perfect representation of the devastated souclass="underline" Here they sat, Joseph K., bereft even of his castle, and his partner, the absurd Dr. Ludtz, a panting Punch slouching against a tree, the bill of his torn cap dangling ludicrously at his ear. Here, then, the New Order in its ruin.