Litzmannstadt, nicht?’ He took a draught that lasted several swallows. ‘Look at me. With your eyes. Look at me . . . Yes. Rightly do you find that difficult, Sonder.’
He sluices his gums and spits skilfully between his lower teeth (the liquid ejected in a steady squirt, as if from the mouth of a ceramic fish in a municipal fountain).
‘Afraid to die. But not afraid to kill. I see it in the set of your lips. You’ve got murder in your mouth. Such people have their uses. Sonderkommandofuhrer, I’ll leave you. Work well for Germany.’
I watched him go, listing slightly (curious that drunkenness, at least at first, makes Doll more fluent in thought and speech). Geheimnistrager: bearer of secrets. Secrets? What secrets? The whole county stops the nose at them.
The snake that lives in Doll’s whip is a viper, perhaps, or a mamba or a puff adder. As for the snakes that live in Doll’s fire, they are pythons, boa constrictors, anacondas, every last one of them, ravenously trying to get hold of something solid in the night sky.
*
Is there companionship? When squads of heavily armed men come to the crematory and this or that section of the detail knows that it is time, the chosen Sonders take their leave with a nod or a word or a wave of the hand – or not even that. They take their leave with their eyes on the floor. And later, when I say Kaddish for the departed, they are already forgotten.
If there is such a thing as mortal fear, then there is also such a thing as mortal love. And that is what incapacitates the men of the Kommando – mortal love.
CHAPTER III. GREY SNOW
1. THOMSEN: FINDING EVERYTHING OUT
Herr Thomsen:
I want to ask you to do me a service, if you would. You remember Bohdan, the gardener? I’m told he has been arbitrarilly transfered to Stutthof.
He is also said to have been involved in a very shocking incedent, resulting in the death of poor Torquil (the tortoise), and this seemed to me so utterly out of charecter, so impossible in relation to him, that I began to doubt the truth of the story I was being given. His name is Professor Bohdan Szozeck. He was a great favourite of the girls, and of course they’re inconsolible about their pet tortoise, as I think you saw tonight. I told them Torquil had just gone missing. They plan to get up at dawn tomorrow to search the garden.
I’m sorry to burden you with this but to be frank there’s no one else I can ask.
Every Friday I may be found by the sandpit at the Summer Huts between the hours of four and five.
Thank you. Yours sincerley, Hannah Doll
PS. I apolagise for my spelling. They say I have a ‘condition’. But I think I’m just not up to it. And it’s funny, because the only thing I’ve ever been any good at is langauges. HD.
SO, NO, IT was hardly the glazed summons or the desperate solicitation for which I had perhaps callowly yearned. But when after a day or two I showed the letter to Boris he tried to persuade me that it was, in its way, quietly encouraging.
‘She’s long lost all trust in the Old Boozer. That’s good.’
‘Yes, but yours sincerely ,’ I said with some petulance. ‘And Herr Thomsen . And there’s no one else I can ask .’
‘You fool, that’s the best bit. Pull yourself together, Golo. She’s saying you’re her only friend. Her only friend in the whole world.’
Still writhing slightly I said, ‘But I don’t want to be her friend.’
‘No, naturally. You just want to . . . Patience, Golo. Women are very impressed by patience. Wait till the war’s over.’
‘Oh, sure. Wars do not observe the unities, brother.’ The unities of time, place, and action. ‘Wait till the war’s over, indeed. Who knows what’ll be left? Anyway.’
Boris obliged me and promised that he would interrogate Szozeck’s Block Leader. He added,
‘Adorable PS. And she’s got nice handwriting. Sexy. Unselfconscious. Flowing.’
And in my solitary contemplations, with Boris’s inspiring words
He sluices his gums and spits skilfully between his lower teeth (the liquid ejected in a steady squirt, as if from the mouth of a ceramic fish in a municipal fountain).
‘Afraid to die. But not afraid to kill. I see it in the set of your lips. You’ve got murder in your mouth. Such people have their uses. Sonderkommandofuhrer, I’ll leave you. Work well for Germany.’
I watched him go, listing slightly (curious that drunkenness, at least at first, makes Doll more fluent in thought and speech). Geheimnistrager: bearer of secrets. Secrets? What secrets? The whole county stops the nose at them.
The snake that lives in Doll’s whip is a viper, perhaps, or a mamba or a puff adder. As for the snakes that live in Doll’s fire, they are pythons, boa constrictors, anacondas, every last one of them, ravenously trying to get hold of something solid in the night sky.
*
Is there companionship? When squads of heavily armed men come to the crematory and this or that section of the detail knows that it is time, the chosen Sonders take their leave with a nod or a word or a wave of the hand – or not even that. They take their leave with their eyes on the floor. And later, when I say Kaddish for the departed, they are already forgotten.
If there is such a thing as mortal fear, then there is also such a thing as mortal love. And that is what incapacitates the men of the Kommando – mortal love.
CHAPTER III. GREY SNOW
1. THOMSEN: FINDING EVERYTHING OUT
Herr Thomsen:
I want to ask you to do me a service, if you would. You remember Bohdan, the gardener? I’m told he has been arbitrarilly transfered to Stutthof.
He is also said to have been involved in a very shocking incedent, resulting in the death of poor Torquil (the tortoise), and this seemed to me so utterly out of charecter, so impossible in relation to him, that I began to doubt the truth of the story I was being given. His name is Professor Bohdan Szozeck. He was a great favourite of the girls, and of course they’re inconsolible about their pet tortoise, as I think you saw tonight. I told them Torquil had just gone missing. They plan to get up at dawn tomorrow to search the garden.
I’m sorry to burden you with this but to be frank there’s no one else I can ask.
Every Friday I may be found by the sandpit at the Summer Huts between the hours of four and five.
Thank you. Yours sincerley, Hannah Doll
PS. I apolagise for my spelling. They say I have a ‘condition’. But I think I’m just not up to it. And it’s funny, because the only thing I’ve ever been any good at is langauges. HD.
SO, NO, IT was hardly the glazed summons or the desperate solicitation for which I had perhaps callowly yearned. But when after a day or two I showed the letter to Boris he tried to persuade me that it was, in its way, quietly encouraging.
‘She’s long lost all trust in the Old Boozer. That’s good.’
‘Yes, but yours sincerely ,’ I said with some petulance. ‘And Herr Thomsen . And there’s no one else I can ask .’
‘You fool, that’s the best bit. Pull yourself together, Golo. She’s saying you’re her only friend. Her only friend in the whole world.’
Still writhing slightly I said, ‘But I don’t want to be her friend.’
‘No, naturally. You just want to . . . Patience, Golo. Women are very impressed by patience. Wait till the war’s over.’
‘Oh, sure. Wars do not observe the unities, brother.’ The unities of time, place, and action. ‘Wait till the war’s over, indeed. Who knows what’ll be left? Anyway.’
Boris obliged me and promised that he would interrogate Szozeck’s Block Leader. He added,
‘Adorable PS. And she’s got nice handwriting. Sexy. Unselfconscious. Flowing.’
And in my solitary contemplations, with Boris’s inspiring words
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