For the fraction of a second she felt relief, then her fear travelled down to her guts. What had he meant by saying that everyone had secrets? She broke into a cold sweat. She thought of her father’s sacred books. The Obersturmführer might not realize how close he had come to the truth. Had he come to the end of his “test”?
“Why not tell Uncle Sarazin what’s on your mind? Do you think I want to shoot you?”
“That’s for you to know.”
“You’re wrong. Not yet. A pity they didn’t enrol you in our youth organization. You’d have learnt to fire a gun, or how to use a hand grenade. These things shouldn’t be put off. Were you in some youth association – when you were still at home?”
She could not say that she didn’t remember. But she didn’t want to trap herself. Surely he had asked her this question already? How was he testing her and what did he hope to discover?
“I used to go on school outings.”
From the age of ten she had been in the Jewish Girl Guides. They went on outings along the banks of the Vltava, to the Davie reservoir. For a second she saw the rock face under which they had erected their tents and made their camp fire. They would sing Czech and Zionist songs. None of them had been to the Promised Land. In the evenings they were taught to recognize the stars, during the day they went out into the woods and read signs or learnt to orient themselves with a compass. They had swimming and running races. Once she came first in the 400 metres. They shared anything they had brought along; they called it a commune. Everything was still ahead of them. Life was comprehensible then, the future was far away and good. She remembered every minute of it.
“Our young people know from earliest childhood what a dagger is, or a pistol, or a hand grenade. It’s the responsibility of the parents. At eighteen the boys put on a uniform and join the Waffen-SS or the Volunteer SS. They learn to operate anti-aircraft guns. Some as young as sixteen. They disdain death – that is the test. They do sentry duty at air-raid shelters, they guard factories and sewers to prevent saboteurs from damaging them. They disdain death because they love Germany. Killing is part of basic education, of basic morality. You’d better hurry and catch up with what you’ve missed. I know what I’m talking about.”
She remained silent.
“Two things are all you need – fire and a pistol,” he added. “The third is loyalty. Suppose you had to defend yourself? Or defend me?”
“We have guards here, watchtowers with machine guns, guard dogs,” she said carefully. “We’re protected by a wall. We’re here on your territory.”
He looked into her green eyes.
“I’m just like all the rest,” she said weakly.
He looked at his Luger with admiration and gratitude, with what he would call love and loyalty; something she didn’t understand and could explain to herself only by the power that the weapon lent him, the superiority it gave him. It frightened her, as did everything in which she could not orientate herself and against which she had no defence. She sensed the danger in her whole being. She watched him looking at his pistol. She was waiting for what he was going to say or do next.
Did she lack something the others had? Could she catch up or put it right if she didn’t know what it was?
She thought of Big Leopolda Kulikowa’s advice to accept everything as normal, even the most unexpected and the most eccentric. Hadn’t the Madam told them that people satisfied themselves in any way they could, even with ducks, sheep and bitches? She must hold on to what she could.
She fixed her gaze on his eyes. She didn’t know what would happen next. He was lying on his side, supported by his elbow, holding the gun with his finger on the trigger. Before her eyes was the whiteness that comes to those sentenced to death. Did it matter whether he shot her as a Jewess or as a whore with whom he had failed, or both? In her mind she wrestled with that invisible difference.
At the same time, she felt like that little girl she had seen on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, under the arc-lamps, which were swinging in the wind. The girl had been separated from her parents and her brother. Crowds of people walked past her. Then a woman invited her to join her. The little girl didn’t move. The woman took her by the hand and included her with her own family. All four of them came up before the doctor in the middle of the ramp. With a jerk of his thumb he sent them to the gas chamber.
What was going to happen now did not depend upon her. In her mind she backed away, into some kind of tunnel, where she might hide, where she might escape. The whiteness before her spread out like a fog, white blossoms on unfamiliar shrubs, a kind of warming light snow. The Obersturmführer confused her. She didn’t understand what he’d meant by a test of cowardice. She was as bewildered as the people on the ramp after arriving in sealed wagons at Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was holding his gun – his finger on the trigger, aimed at her chest. If he was trying to scare her, he had succeeded.
“Head up,” the Obersturmführer instructed her. “Sit straight. Lean against the bed. Don’t slouch. Pull your legs up, so you keep them to yourself and not near my toes. I want you to see the whole of me.”
She did as he told her.
“That’s better.”
They were now like pictures on a playing card, one at the top and the other at the bottom. She tried to lower her head so she wouldn’t seem taller than him. She was looking at his chest, not his face. Was he going to shoot her now? She could see the cubicle window out of the corner of her eye.
“Do you see me?”
“I see you.”
“Why are you lowering your eyes?”
She raised them.
He held the pistol out to her.
“Take it.”
“Why?”
“Do what I’m telling you. It’s only a piece of metal. It won’t bite.”
“I don’t know how to handle it.”
“Not kennt kein Gebot.” Needs must when the devil drives.
What need was he talking about? Why did he want her to take his pistol? So he could accuse her of something she hadn’t done?
“Do I have to beg you? Do as I say!”
She was afraid. If she extended her hand would the Obersturmführer change his grip on the pistol, slip his finger through the trigger guard and pull the trigger? Did she have to do what he demanded so he could shoot her when she reached out as if she had wanted to seize the pistol? Was it to be like in the camp when Rottenführer Schratz snatched the caps off prisoners, tossed them to the fence, and shot the prisoners when, on his orders, they ran to retrieve them? Did Obersturmführer Sarazin know which camp she had come from? He could have found out from The Frog.
He leant forward with the pistol. She knew it was a trap, that she would not live to play the scene out to its end. The livid scar on the Obersturmführer’s forehead had turned the colour of blood. He was concentrating on something that must be important to him, something that accelerated his pulse. They would know just as little about her as they did about Krikri. Just as nobody knew who Big-Belly was. Suddenly she felt close to both of them. She thought of Captain Hentschel’s green pullover. Of his – now her, though not for long – 30 marks. Those who might mourn her were no longer alive. Above all she felt weary now.
“We are both cold-blooded,” he said. “We are all cold-blooded animals.”
Had he changed his mind about his game with the gun or was he merely prolonging it?
“Do you hear me? Take the pistol.”
Her back was pressed against the wood of the bed. Were his eyes getting moist?
“Do as I’m telling you!”
“I’m doing what you say.”
“I’m not used to being argued with. Take it!”
He spoke as if he were giving orders to a dog after throwing it a bone. She half shut her eyes. She pressed her hands to her chest. Perhaps he would shoot her in the head and not between her legs. She felt the fatigue of her father. She felt something going numb inside her.
She reached out her hand and took the
gun. He didn’t snatch his hand away. He didn’t fire. His arm sank down on the sheet. Her hesitation had made the gun heavy even for him.
His scar was swollen. The Obersturmführer was aroused. She felt more and more confused.
“Very well,” he said. “It would have been worse if you hadn’t taken it. Now I’ll turn you into a killer.”
She had never held a gun before in her life, never held such a piece of metal, shaped for just one purpose.
Only then did it occur to her that she could shoot him. And that perhaps this was what he wanted. Was the gun loaded? Had he used the last round when he was firing at the wolves?
“Listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
Then she whispered “Yes,” although he had not said anything. Was the Obersturmführer letting her make a decision that was not hers to make? Was he treating her as if she were an Aryan? Should she shoot him? And what would happen then?
“I’m waiting,” she said.
“You know what I have in mind?” He was stressing every word. She tried not to move a single muscle in her face. “Die Sonne bringt es an den Tag.”
Could he read her mind? Was the pistol loaded?
“Are you afraid of me? Do you despise yourself?”
She knew that she must not reply. Did he want to be killed or did he know that the pin would strike an empty chamber?
“Speak up!”
“I don’t despise …”
She did not say who.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not,” she said softly.
Her exhaustion muted everything inside her. She was telling the truth when she said that she did not know how to fire a gun. In her head she heard an echo of Die Sonne bringt es an den Tag. Squeezing the trigger would not be difficult. She thought of all those who had been shot before her.
“You can do what you want,” he said. “You’re holding all the cards.”
He was savouring the sound and meaning of each word. He associated with them images of which she had no inkling. Did some words, whose sound fascinated him, carry him to regions where no-one had ventured before him? Where only people like himself were admitted?
“I don’t want anything,” she replied.
“You don’t know what you want?”
“No.”
“Is there a heart in your breast? Or just ice?”
She weighed up his words.
“Hold the pistol by its butt. Like this.” He leant forward and reversed the gun in her hand. She needed both hands to hold it up.
“That’s it,” he said. “Release the safety catch.”
“I don’t know how to.”
“That’s your fault. If you thought you’d be bored with me, or that you couldn’t learn something from me, you were mistaken. Every one of us is only what he’s good for. We’ll see. You need to have one hand free. You might at least become a better shot than you are an army whore.”
She studied the black surface of the pistol. The butt was rough, grooved and cold. Her heart was thumping. Was the Obersturmführer, even without a gun, stronger than she was with one? His scar stood out, blood-red.
“I’m counting to five,” he said. “Today’s number is five. Do you believe in numbers?”
“Sometimes,” she said.
She was afraid his scar would burst and blood would stream from his forehead. She was holding the gun pointing down. She did not touch the trigger. She examined the stiff mechanism to find the safety catch, studied the granular surface, the shallow grooves, the black metal fingered and smoothed by many hands.
Her facial muscles were twitching. She held her breath. With her forefinger she probed the catch. She pressed upwards. It didn’t move. She pressed down, the lever moved. It clicked like a light switch.
“At last,” he said.
Did he want her to shoot him or to shoot herself? Or did he want her to shoot him and then herself? She no longer thought that he was mad. The mad ones were those who didn’t understand, like herself, her mother, her father, her brother. Those who let themselves be put on trains and taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
“Hook your index finger around the trigger.”
It would all make sense if there was a round in the pistol, even if the magazine was empty. She remembered how he had slipped the magazine in earlier.
“Finger on the trigger,” he repeated.
She slipped her finger through the guard. Trembling, she felt the most delicate part of the gun, the metal of the trigger. She dared not move her finger. Would she get cramp in it?
“Aim at me. At once. Can’t you aim?”
She steadied her wrist with her other hand. She dared not look into his eyes.
“Finger, trigger, aim. Eye, barrel, sight. Higher! At my heart!”
He pushed his chest out.
“Here,” he pointed where his heart was.
She raised the gun to a horizontal position, extending her arm, her wrist still supported by her left hand. With her eyes she measured the distance between the barrel and the Obersturmführers heart. She lowered her eyes to the sight. She no longer looked like someone who did not know how to handle a gun.
“Shoot!”
She raised her eyes. She met his clouded gaze, his eyes like watery milk, threads of blood in the corners. “Look at me. Shoot!”
“Fire! Squeeze it!”
Skinny’s eyes had become bloodshot. Her green irises were floating in a reddish sea. She was trembling all over. At the same time she was sweating. She was afraid diarrhoea would get the better of her. Her muscles did not feel strong enough to control it.
“I wasn’t born to kill,” she said. “I’ve never killed anyone.”
“Fire!”
“Why?”
“Because I command you to. Haven’t you got the strength to squeeze the trigger?”
“You want me to?”
“It’s an order.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
The Obersturmführer’s forehead and hair were wet with sweat. Did he want to prove to her and to himself that he disdained death? Or to punish her for what he could not achieve in bed? Sweat was trickling down his upper lip into his mouth, down his chin, into the hollow between his throat and his chest. She saw black before her eyes. The sweat coming from his hair was caught in the groove ofhis scar. She was aiming at the heart of Obersturmführer Stefan Sarazin on his orders.
“I give you five seconds. I’m counting.”
She counted with him.
“One.”
She was waiting for him to say five. She did not know what he would do then.
“You’re made of sawdust. I will decide what happens. You can’t miss. I’m your enemy, German blood. Fire!”
She sensed the pain in his voice, masked by willpower. For a moment it reminded her of Tight-Lips and the NCO who had shaved her crotch and laughed. She preferred not to think of what had happened afterwards.
He did not take his eyes off her; she was afraid he might hypnotize her. She felt in his eyes the blood of all those he had killed. She let her hand sag, so that the gun was now aimed at his stomach. And then lower still. In the end she aimed to the side, past him.
“There you are,” the Obersturmführer said after a while, but without his earlier determination or urgency. “You could never be one of us. It’s obvious you weren’t in the Bund deutscher Mädel.”
He looked at where the gun was pointing. He smiled slightly. Die Sonne bringt es an den Tag. The commanding tone had been replaced by geniality with a touch of contempt.
“I knew you wouldn’t fire. Now I know everything about you.”
Did he know she was Jewish? Had he seen the invisible, the place where there were no secrets?
“That wouldn’t have earned you the Knight’s Cross.”
He took his pistol back. Had there been a last round in the gun or had it been empty? Had he really run that risk or had he merely pretended? What part in it all had been pl
ayed by the retreat of the German troops and by the Einsatzkommandos’ retreat from glory, which he was both admitting and denying to himself?
She would never know whether she would have shot him through the heart if she had pulled the trigger. He didn’t bother to take out the magazine.
“Maybe you’d make a Brown Nurse,” he said. “You’d have to volunteer for the support units. You’re a different clay from us.”
He spoke with contempt. He caressed his gun. If he had a bullet in the magazine he might still shoot her. Her fear had not left her, but shame had joined it, not only because she was naked.
“I must see to the fire or it’ll go out.”
“If you’ve got some more fuel, why not?”
She got up. Relief had made the blood course through her veins again. She crammed what was left of the firewood and coal into the stove and raked the grate. The gale howled in the flue. She did not look at the Obersturmführer. She was aware of how close he was without seeing him. She wondered how much longer he would stay.
“No-one reproves a victor. I’ll bring you some soap next time. Come over here. Sit by me.”
As she sat next to him she involuntarily touched his sweaty hand but she did not want to move away. She sat motionless, her legs crossed, her arms crossed over her breast.
“I am by no means the worst,” he said. And then seeing her drawn face, “I don’t want to hurt you. You’re still a lamb. You need time to grow into a sheep.”
She mistrusted his friendliness.
“You’re trembling, or am I imagining it?”
She remained silent.
“Am I imagining that you’re trembling?”
“I’m cold,” she said.
“Perhaps you should dress now?”
“Perhaps.”
“Die Sonne bringt es an den Tag”
She kept her knees together as if she were sitting on a bench at school, her hands were still folded over her chest, and she was red with fear and shame.
“Maybe you want to tell me something you haven’t told me yet?”
“There’s nothing.”
Evidently he had not yet finished with her. Would he let her dress now?
“You keep surprising me with one thing after another,” the Obersturmführer said.
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