FIFTY-TWO
Abraham, Premier Grand immolateur de ta propre humanité: ou ton couteau a-t-il touché ton fds plein de confiance? Antique Sumer, Sumer adorée, ruis-selante de pern. Renie le Juif et tu renieras ton passé. Dans quel coin mésopotamien de l’univers Dieu naquit-Il pour avoir abandonné jusqu’ à Sa divinité, Sa pureté, en laissatit mourir Son propre fils? Illustre Abraham: procréateur fanatique du Mythe sacrificateur. Le fanatique renie l’univers, n’y voit que cruauté, et singe misérablement cette prétendue cruauté qui, en fait, n’est que sublime équilibre. Ich liabe keine Wahl gehabt. Ich wurde gezwungen, ihren Richtlinien zuzustimmen. Ich beharrte darauf, ich war nicht jüdisch. Ich erklärte alles. Sie lehnten, mich zu sehr ab. Schliesslich hatte ich keine Wahl ausser mit ihnen übereinzustimmen. Sie hätten mich getötet. Sie töten mich schon.
It is winter again. With nostalgia we look back to the earlier days of the camp. Those who have boots are aristocrats. Those who do not have boots develop gangrene in the snow. Their feet grow black and swell and rot. They limp and hobble through the slush. They will die of poisoned blood if not of the cold itself, but few wish to be taken to the Revier. It is gaining an unsavoury reputation. The Lagerarzt is not known for his kindness.
The guards make jokes about us. When a transport comes in, they throw boots out into the assembly yard. This is against camp rules, but camp rules are increasingly ignored. The guards are as mad as the inmates. They watch the prisoners scramble and squabble for the boots like ducks over bread.
Few of us now see the horror on the faces of the fresh arrivals. Why should their approval concern us? We are Lagerfliegen. They will soon become like us. We crave the approval of the guards, of our captains. Once I longed for books and took every chance to visit the library. Now I loathe them. A reading man is not an invisible man.
I do not become a Mussulman. I have a piece of metal in my womb. Once it poisoned me. Now it is my strength. The metal is myself. I wear no star on my uniform. I have the star which was forged in Odessa. Those others have no core. I carry the star that guided the Wise Men to Bethlehem. Few know how to survive as I survive. At any moment a random action can destroy you. The secret is in routine. Everyone loves routine. Every animal in the world feels secure while it experiences repetition.
My boots fit. They were expensive. I have warm socks. Though filthy, I still have a violet armband. I have a guide, a master. I am always predictable. I have become the SS man’s pet Jew. I am his heart’s desire. My death will be harder for it, but my life is easier.
Sometimes Kolya visits the camp, interfering with my routine. He appears to have some seniority, though he wears civilian clothes. I am taken to his office in the Gestapo building. He always notes how well I look. I admire his office. It has fresh white walls, dark blue paint and looks out on high evergreen hedges. The only sign of the camp is the watchtower, the machine gun, the guard, the top level of barbed wire. I tell him of Schnauben, my faux-Virgil, and he asks me what lesson I am learning on my journey through Hell.
‘That God is either senile or insane,’ I tell him.
‘Well, Dimka,’ Kolya unbuttons his jacket. ‘At least you still have your imagination.’
‘Can’t you get me out of here, Kolya?’ Addressing him like this is the one risk I shall take. ‘I could serve the Reich.’
‘The Reich does not believe it needs you, dear.’
Is Kolya responsible for my captivity?
‘Not yet.’
I return to my routine.
FIFTY-THREE
Sturmbannführer Schnauben is promoted rapidly while at Dachau. Therefore I, too, am promoted. He is impressed by my relationship with Kolya. When he refers to Kolya I can hear a note of sardonic respect. Schnauben calls Kolya ‘your aristocratic pal from Berlin’. He will not tell me any more about my friend or the outside world. Schnauben only rarely discusses the news of the day, but through him I learn of the Nationalist overthrow of the Red government in Spain. He speaks happily of my suffering country and what Germany avoided through Hitler’s vision.
‘It could have been so much worse for us. That is why the public loves the Führer.’
The predicted Civil War has come. Heavy fighting around Madrid. Will it spread across Europe? Or will Hitler form an axis with Franco, Mussolini and other like-minded men to throw up a steel firewall against Red incursion?
Yuzmekligim yazim mu? Dicono che quell’uomo, Messer Zid, sia sceso all’Inferno e sia anche tomato indietro. Poco ci manco che morisse. Il hamdu lilla! Je voyage indépendamment à cavernes imaginaires découvertes près de la Seine. Méditations et Révélations. Zna arciblaz en Kartago? Eine zid? Israel zerstört in einem Tag. Karthago zerstört in einem Tag. Peru zerstört in einem Tag. Die Reiche der Sioux und der Zulu zerstört in einem Tag. Mandschurisches Reich zerstört in einem Tag. Russland zerstort in einem Tag. Was bleibt übrig ausser Stolz? Stolz vernichtete sie . . .
‘This place has been a rest cure for you,’ my master jokes. ‘In America you would pay thousands of dollars to be here. You must thank a benevolent state. Public health has improved considerably in Germany. Why, when I first knew you, you were a cocaine addict.’
I nod my agreement. To disagree would be to die. I was never addicted. I have not lost my love of ‘snow’, but I have ceased to regard it as part of my life. In many ways I am less reliant on human pleasures. Even sex no longer plays a central part in my thoughts. The last film I made with Prince Freddy also destroyed the chains of desire. I was relieved to learn that in the Third Reich all such material was automatically incinerated. However, the record of my shame might exist elsewhere.
‘The Führer is a great man,’ says Schnauben. ‘He has scoured Germany from top to bottom. These days even his old detractors admire him. The Americans send experts to study his methods.’
In the night, when everyone else sleeps, those triumphant eyes still mock me.
Therefore you are nothing.
‘For this,’ says Schnauben, ’everyone is willing to forgive us. You, Peters, are a small sacrifice.’
I am a small sacrifice. I understand.
‘Thank you.’
Poor Röhm. He gave up everything in the end for his Führer. Can I do less?
Sometimes I think of Röhm in Stadelheim, stripped to the waist in that cell, the gun with its single bullet upon the table. He refused to take his own life, knowing ‘Alf lacked the hardness of heart to kill him.
Schnauben is playing Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem on his new gramophone. Does the music inspire me? he asks. ‘It must be a consolation to you. It is to me.’