Now somebody is feeling for a point along your spine. He pounds it with his rifle butt until you start gasping for air. Later you will need a long time in treatment for the slipped discs. One of them starts slicing off your ear, but he is stopped by someone else. Then your almost half-severed ear is kicked by someone in heavy army boots. You say nothing. When they stub out cigarettes on your naked body, it feels like a holiday. The pain from the cigarettes is so trivial after everything else that you rest. You rest and implore God: ‘Either send me the Angel of Death or grant me the strength to bear this torture.’ For the moment He grants you the strength. Of all your emotions, only two remain: hatred and fury. Hatred for your enemies and fury towards yourself. It does not even enter your head to feel self-pity. You are too furious over your mistake to feel sorry for yourself. You have nobody to blame. Nobody told you to take that track; quite the reverse, they tried to talk you out of it. You not only went, but you were even lulled into complacency, badly misreading the situation. And for the moment this anger is giving you the strength to endure the pain and humiliation. They know that the moment you start feeling sorry for yourself, you’ll crack. That’s why they keep on urging you: ‘Come on, have pity on yourself. Surely a young guy like you wants to live? Think about your loved ones, your mother, they’re all waiting for you, they love you. So why don’t you take pity on yourself? Just tell us everything and the torture will stop. No one will lay a finger on you, and before you know it you’ll be on your way home. You’re a smart guy; why shield those gangsters who are trying to ruin our shared country? You’re a sophisticated man, just look at that clean-shaven chin, now how on earth did you end up with those rebels?’ From time to time they pause the torture and take you back to be interrogated. They ask you the same questions and you give them the same answers; then they start up the torture again. And so it goes on for hour after hour. They are getting tired. So it seems torturers do get tired, just like peasants at their honest labours. You lie in your position, face down. You are tremendously thirsty. It feels as if a drop of water could make you strong enough for a whole new life, like in the fairy tale. There is a damp strip hanging down from the blindfold on your eyes. You catch it with your lips and suck on it. With enormous pleasure. Its liquid is salty, but that doesn’t worry you. It is moisture, after all. Someone speaks above your head: ‘He’s sucking from that rag all soaked in blood and water.’ And the immediate command: ‘Tuck in the strip! Let him die of thirst!’
When the naked wires are attached to your fingers and toes and the electric current shoots through you, the pain is extreme. But it can be tolerated. You have to strain every sinew, but you can bear it. The pain won’t let you flag, it’s sustaining the rage that you need so badly now. But there are parts of the body that are particularly sensitive to pain. When the current hits those parts, it becomes nearly impossible to bear the pain even briefly, and certainly impossible to bear it for long. And they know this. They are professionals; they know their field well. And that’s why it is so horrifically painful. What can you do with this pain devouring you from within, like a sudden horrific affliction? You can oppose it with a weapon that is even stronger: love. You can love this pain. Understand that this is cathartic. Become a masochist for a while. This is your purgatory, but afterwards there will come eternal rest. You have no life left to fight for, but you still have your death. So fight for that! The right to die also needs to be fought for. All this pain… The pain from all this torture you’ve endured here, it will last just a little longer. The day’s not over yet. But it will be followed by eternal rest. Whether you cry or laugh, curse your enemies or beg them for mercy, they’ll kill you all the same. So why not die without tears? No, not ‘with a smile on your lips’. Just without tears. The only way to get revenge on your executioners is to frustrate them. They’re expecting you to weep and beg for mercy; they’re hoping to see your moral death before you die physically. For them you will only be defeated once you’ve died spiritually. But your spirit is not yet broken. Even if you once had the luxury of a choice, you don’t any longer. You must die as their mortal foe. Even in death you must haunt their dreams and blight their lives. You died long ago, yet for some reason your soul is in no haste to abandon this miserable apology of a body. But you are persistent, you’ll get what you want. You won’t tell them anything more. Something’s happened to your lower lip, but you haven’t worked out what exactly. It seems to have split, and some skin is hanging from it. If your hands were free, you would rip off this skin. It’s disturbing you.