Death in Rome
Page 20
He staggered across the square. With every step, he felt he was sinking into a bottomless pit, sliding down, for ever, he had to clutch the air in order to stay up. He knew what had happened, and he didn't know what had happened. He had fired shots. He had contributed to the final solution. He had fulfilled the Führer's orders. That was good. And now he had to hide. Final victory hadn't been secured yet. He had to go into hiding again, he had to go back to the desert, only the red mist was in the way. It was hard to find a hiding-place in all this red mist. There were some ruins. In Berlin he had hidden in the ruins. In Rome, you had to pay an entrance fee to be admitted to the ruins. Judejahn paid the entrance fee to the museum in the baths. He went though some passages, climbed a flight of stairs. There were naked figures standing in the red mist. It must be a whore-house. Or a gas chamber. That would explain the red mist. He was in a large gas chamber full of naked people who were being liquidated, in which case he had to get out of here. He wasn't supposed to be liquidated. He wasn't naked. He was the commandant. The hell hounds had turned the gas on early. What a pig's breakfast. He had to take action. Discipline must be maintained: Gallows must be erected. Judejahn reached a room that was the command post. The mist lifted. There were old mirrors here. The mirrors were blind. He stared into the blind mirrors. Was that him? He couldn't recognize himself. There was a purple face. A swollen face. It looked like the face of a boxer who had taken a lot of punishment. He had lost his dark glasses somewhere. He didn't need them any more. But then he saw a better mirror, and he recognized himself in it, he stood in front of the mosaic of an athlete, there was his face, his neck, his shoulders, it was his reflection from his prime looking back at him, he had stood in the arena, he had fought with a short sword, he had finished off a lot of adversaries. And there was Benito too. He saw the mosaic of the cat with the bird. Benito had had a lot to eat. The world wasn't such a bad place. They had done a lot of killing and eating together. They could be satisfied with themselves. Judejahn staggered into the garden. Naked women, naked Jew women were hiding behind the hedges. It wouldn't do them any good. Hedges didn't protect you against liquidation by Judejahn. He had to make his way through—and then he collapsed.
Adolf had seen him coming, with fear and trembling he had watched his approach, and then he saw him collapse, he fell down as though poleaxed, and Adolf ran to him, and the heavy body of his father lay there lifelessly. Was he dead? His face was purple. A museum attendant arrived, and he called to another attendant, and together the three of them carried Judejahn into a shed where plasterers restored the ancient plastics, and they laid him on the ground in front of a relief on a sarcophagus. The relief depicted a triumphal procession, arrogant Romans with humiliated German warriors tethered to their horses. The Roman plasterers stood around Judejahn in their white coats. One plasterer said: 'He's dead.' And another plasterer said: 'He's not dead. My father-in-law took a while to die, too.' The attendant went to telephone the first-aid post at the station. His father was not yet dead, and then the most important thing occurred to Adolf: there was Hell there was Hell there was Hell. And now there wasn't a moment to lose, he ran through the garden, he ran through the gates, he ran into the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. The German-speaking priest was still there. He was reading in his breviary. There was no one kneeling at the confessional. Stammering, Adolf asked him to give the Last Sacrament to his father who was dying, and the priest understood and made haste; he fetched the holy oil, and went with Adolf to the server, and they hurried as quickly as they decently could, and the ticket inspectors let them pass, and the attendants took off their caps, and the plasterers respectfully stepped aside. Judejahn lay there lifelessly, but he wasn't dead. Sweat and secretions dribbled out of him, preceding his dissolution. He was purging himself, cleansing himself. Purgatory is the winnowing fire. Had he reached it yet? Judejahn lay in a deep coma. No one knew what was happening to him. Was he riding to Valhalla, were devils coming for him, or was his soul jubilant because deliverance was at hand? The priest knelt down. He went on to perform the extreme unction, and grant conditional absolution as was right for one who had lost consciousness. With the oil that a bishop had blessed, the priest anointed Judejahn's eyes, his ears, his mouth and the palms of his hands. The priest prayed. He prayed: 'Through this Holy anointing and its most tender mercy, may the Lord forgive you whatever sins you have committed through your sense of sight, through your sense of hearing, of smell, of taste and touch.' Judejahn did not move. Was he not moved by the words of the priest? Judejahn never moved again. He lay there motionless, and the Roman priest commended him to God's mercy, and his son in the cassock of a Roman priest prayed for his father—two envoys from the enemy.
The ambulancemen came, and a doctor closed his eyes. The ambulancemen were dressed in field-grey, and they carried Judejahn off as though from a battlefield.
That same evening, Judejahn's death was reported in the press; its circumstances had made it world news, though the fact of it can have shocked no one.
4Er Aber, sags ihm, er kann mich im Arsch lecken'—Goethe, Götz von Berlichingen, Act 3.
{†} A Hamburg greeting.