“Yes,” said Schlossberg, who hadn’t heard a word. “Colonel—”
“You know,” the colonel said reminiscently as if Schlossberg had not spoken, “when I joined the SS it was an elite organization. It had high standards—” He started to stroll in the direction of his villa; the doctor, not wishing to be impolite, was forced to walk with him. “It was limited to men from fine families, and there were many qualifications, physical qualifications, educational qualifications. Nowadays—well, look at Mittendorf as an example! We’ve let the bars down completely. A Brown Shirt bully-boy! He’s short, fat, he looks like a pig and he has that animal’s mentality, not to mention its manners. If he managed to get through the first form in school I should by very surprised, and God knows where he comes from. A navvy’s son, by the looks of him.”
“Yes, sir,” said Schlossberg, who had been waiting impatiently to get a word in. “Colonel—”
“Ah, Franz! That is your name, is it not? You must call me Helmut. We are friends, nicht wahr? And destined to become much closer friends, I’m sure.”
“Yes, sir, Colonel. I mean, Helmut.” The doctor hesitated, his hand automatically coming up to pat and then rub his bald head. “Could I ask you a question, sir? Helmut?”
“Of course.”
“Did you—I mean, were you responsible for my transfer? The way Commandant Mittendorf spoke—”
They were passing the barracks of the women guards at the northeast corner of Field I; there was the sound of giggling from the second floor of the building. As they walked the colonel screwed a cigarette into his holder, held his lighter to it, and inhaled deeply. In the growing dusk the cigarette end glowed and ebbed.
“Colonel—”
“Helmut,” said the colonel, and smiled. “Look, Doctor. Franz. We have a very long and very tiresome drive ahead of us tomorrow if we are to make Weimar and the Buchenwald camp in one day. We’ll have more than ample time to speak of anything you wish in the car. It will be diverting.”
“But—” Schlossberg floundered. “I was simply wondering why—”
Von Schraeder raised an eyebrow as he looked at the thin medical officer. For the first time he seemed slightly disappointed with his new-found friend.
“Why? Why what? Have you any objections to being transferred?”
“Oh, no! No, no! I was simply wondering—”
“We’ll talk of it tomorrow,” von Schraeder said firmly. “It’s too nice an evening to discuss Mittendorf or other unpleasant subjects. Come over to the house and have a drink.”
“I really can’t, Colonel.”
“Helmut,” von Schraeder said patiently. “Why not?”
“I really don’t have the time. I’ve got to pack, and I have to turn all my work and notes over to Zellerbach, my assistant, and—oh, there are a hundred things to do.”
Von Schraeder looked at the doctor this time in genuine surprise.
“Do you mean it? Do you honestly and truly mean it? Franz, Franz! The Russians are within days of this place, a few weeks at the most. Do you really think it makes the slightest difference if you turn your work over to whoever-he-is, or if you don’t?”
“But Zellerbach will have to handle the problem of the prisoners we’ve been experimenting with,” Schlossberg said sincerely, truly wishing the colonel—Helmut, his new-found friend—to understand. “You heard the orders; they came from Berlin, not from the commandant. Zellerbach wasn’t at the meeting. He’ll have to be told they want all evidence of what we’ve been doing here destroyed.”
Von Schraeder snorted.
“So you can tell what’s-his-name that in two minutes. Come along and have that drink. There is no chance that Mittendorf, our brilliant commandant, will have the time—or the ability to use it—to dynamite the gas chambers and the ovens, let alone spread them over his cabbage fields and hide them. Grass, for heaven’s sake! The man’s a maniac. It’s a dream at best, don’t you see?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“And I wish you would get over that habit of saying ‘I beg your pardon’ all the time,” von Schraeder said testily. Despite his best intention of being charming, the doctor was beginning to grate. “It’s most annoying. We’ll have to talk about that in the car tomorrow, as well.”
“But I mean—a dream …?”
“A fantasy,” von Schraeder said firmly. His tone was that of a teacher trying his best to drive a lesson through the head of an exceptionally obtuse student. He took Schlossberg by the arm, as if taking him into his confidence. “For one reason, how can we possibly hide what we have been doing here? Everyone in Lublin knows what we have been doing here; anyone with a nose has been able to smell it for years. People from the town write in to the camp asking for clothes from the victims; they want the best pick of everything before we ship it to the central warehouse in town. One woman, bless her, even wrote in asking for a baby carriage; she said she preferred a new one if we could let her have it. At least she was considerate enough not to specify color.” He looked at the doctor. “It’s true, you know.”
“I believe you, but—”
“But what?” Von Schraeder did not wait for an answer. “Is our genius of a commandant going to cap the total destruction of the Maidanek camp by dynamiting the entire city of Lublin as well? Assuming Müeller can find the dynamite? Is he going to order the bulldozing over of a whole city? Does he intend to plant his precious grass on what is left of Lublin Castle afterward, and plant sod on the rubble of Radziwell Palace? And what about the million pairs of shoes in the central warehouse? Is he going to cover them with his grass seed and hope the Russians will think the shoelaces are plant shoots? It’s ridiculous!”
“Still—” Having said that, the doctor had nothing more to say. He marched along, studying the ground beneath his feet.
“Besides,” von Shraeder added, not particularly touched by the look of woe on the doctor’s face, but feeling the man needed a little encouragement none the less, “when and if an exact description of what we have been doing here is given to the world, very few will believe it. Very few. Atrocity stories are old. They wouldn’t believe it coming from Catholic nuns, let alone from the mouths of Russians.”
Of course the very few would probably include the justices at any war-crimes trials, but von Schraeder saw no need to mention this to the doctor, at least not at this time. This was one further point for discussion in the car the next day, and had been planned, almost orchestrated, for that period. He paused to eject his cigarette stub from the holder, blew through the holder to clear it of remaining smoke, and tucked it into his pocket. Above them the floodlights suddenly blazed into light from the trapezoidal watchtowers set about the six fields, bathing the area in cold unnatural light, wiping the sight of Lublin’s silhouetted skyline from the night. Von Schraeder sighed.
“But enough of these topics. Let’s get that drink. Besides, you’ve had your eye on that girl Sarah ever since I picked her out of the last shipment and brought her home. I have a feeling you’d be willing to postpone your packing for an hour or so if you could take her to bed.”
“I? My eye on her? Never!” The doctor did his best to sound shocked at the suggestion. “I don’t even know her—”
“The girl you examined for venereal disease,” von Schraeder said gently. “The last one, less than ten days ago. I was there when you examined her, remember? I saw the look on your face. And the bulge in your pants.”
“Oh, her,” Schlossberg said, his face reddening. “She’s Jewish—”
“True,” von Schraeder said dryly, “and the vodka we’ll be drinking is Russian, and the slivovitz will be Polish, and that never stopped us from enjoying them, did it?” He smiled at the doctor. “If it eases your conscience, she isn’t circumcised. I’ve looked.”
They were almost by Field I by this time, approaching the baths and the gas pens. The flower beds surrounding the baths and the gas chambers gave a heady perfume to the night; water splashed from the fountain in fr
ont of the death house the prisoners had built under orders. Within the angled barbed wire of Field I prisoners stood or wandered about aimlessly. Those at the wire, staring hopelessly out, turned quickly at sight of the trim colonel and his awkward-looking companion; Colonel von Schraeder had been known to select men for the gas chamber merely because he had not cared for the way they looked at him. But tonight they were safe; the colonel’s thoughts were on the girl in his villa, and particularly on the doctor’s reaction to her.
Schlossberg wet his thin lips and tried to sound noncommittal, as if he were merely making male conversation.
“What’s she like?”
“You obviously mean in bed.” Von Schraeder gave him a lewd wink. “She’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced! She comes to bed like a statue, resolved each time to lie there like a broomstick and not give me the slightest satisfaction. Everything about her is limp. I take her hand and put it between my legs and she makes no attempt to either resist or comply; she just lets her hand rest where I put it, neither holding me nor squeezing me, and for some reason this excites me more than if she were all over me with her hands or her mouth. She simply lies there, those marvelous breasts of hers as soft as pillows, and when I touch them and rub the nipples gently, and then run my tongue around them and find the nipples with my lips, they get hard as rocks, swelled out like grapes. I know she hates herself for not being able to control them. And when I slide my hand gently over her belly and run it down her legs, I do it very gently—not like that bull Mittendorf coupling with one of his cows down at the brothel.”
He glanced across at the doctor. Schlossberg was breathing more rapidly, his eyes slightly glazed, his mouth a bit open. Von Schraeder bit back a smile and went on.
“She’s quite hairy between her legs, you know, and I like that. It’s not the wire you find on some women; it’s soft, like thick moss. When I part the lips and start to stroke her there, I barely touch her. I just barely run the tip of my finger over her little button and she shivers and starts to breathe faster, and then she begins to cry, as silently as she can, and I know she hates herself more and more—more, I think, than she hates me. And she hates me, believe it! But she can’t help herself; she gets wetter and wetter and she twitches every time my fingertip slides up and down her slit. It’s like rubbing your finger in jelly. And when at last I finally get on top of her and go into her, it’s like being dipped into a pot of hot honey. She does her best to lie still but she can’t help responding, and before we’re done she’s panting like a mare in heat, using every muscle she has to suck me deeper and deeper inside of her. And when we finally explode together—because she can’t help exploding any more than I can—she lies there, still pulsing inside, and bites her lips until they bleed.” He looked over at the doctor. “You’ll find her everything you’ve dreamed about, Franz, I’m sure.”
Schlossberg wet his lips and tried to act as if the picture of the girl writhing sensuously beneath him in bed was not all that was on his mind at the moment.
“And what will happen to her after tomorrow, when you leave?”
Von Schraeder shrugged.
“What difference does it make? As you said, she’s a Jew. Maybe Mittendorf will take her, just because he thinks it will get back at me somehow—although I have a feeling he’ll be a little busy these next few days to spend much time worrying about women. Or he may send her to the ovens, just because I enjoyed her. Or, if she’s lucky, she still may be alive when the Russians get here.”
Chapter 3
They left Maidanek at dawn the following day, with the windows of the heavy military limousine drawn up against a rather unusual chill morning breeze, driving through Lublin when the ancient city was just beginning to show signs of life. They passed the square, avoiding the market that was beginning to be set up blocking traffic, swung past the railroad station deserted in the early hours, and drove swiftly through the empty streets past the university and out of the city. The chauffeur had chosen the Radom road through past experience and they drove through the awakening countryside at a high rate of speed, taking advantage of the untrafficked road conditions, conditions both von Schraeder and the driver knew would not last for long.
The colonel sat quietly in one corner of the large rear seat of the official military limousine, smoking a cigarette, looking out at the neat farmhouses and the grazing cattle with vast disinterest, his mind on other things. In the other corner Dr. Schlossberg sat, his eyes half closed, the faint lascivious smile on his face clearly indicating he was reliving the pleasures of the night before. The girl had been everything the colonel had promised, nor for a moment did he believe she was Jewish, since intercourse between Aryan and Jew was forbidden. But why the colonel had presented him with that extraordinary delicacy was something the doctor did not understand. In fact, the sudden friendliness of the previously cold colonel was as mysterious as the offer of the girl’s services.
It was very odd. In the year since Franz Schlossberg had been transferred from repairing shattered bodies and faces at the Laukhammer Military Hospital to Maidanek camp at Lublin, Poland, he had seen the colonel various times. He had, of course, seen him at the officers’ mess, evenings in the canteen, at meetings, and occasionally on the camp grounds, but his only personal contact had been when he had examined the girl Sarah for venereal disease. He recalled that examination very well, with the girl on the table, her marvelous breasts straining the hospital gown, the gown up around her waist, her feet in the stirrups, those lovely legs spread wide to open that fabulous slit to view, and that mask of dead indifference on her face that did nothing to hide her hatred for a moment. Who would ever have thought he would have a chance to delve those sweet depths with anything but a rubber-gloved finger?
The smile faded from his lips as he suddenly remembered something else. In the year since he had been at Maidanek, Colonel von Schraeder must have taken at least ten girls to bed according to canteen rumors, few of them lasting much more than a month, and each had previously been checked for disease—but this was the first time the colonel had specifically asked that Dr. Schlossberg handle the assignment. Actually, it wasn’t really in his field. Very odd. As odd, for example, as this sudden transfer back to Germany—
“Colonel—”
“Helmut,” von Schraeder said as if by rote, not taking his eyes from the pastoral scenery outside the speeding car.
“Helmut.” The name seemed difficult for the doctor to say. “We were going to speak of my transfer.”
“If you insist.” Von Schraeder finally brought his attention back to the interior of the car, his thoughts from far away. He crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray, followed his usual ritual with the holder, and then leaned forward, sliding the glass partition shut between the chauffeur and themselves. He then leaned back negligently, crossing one leg over the other, one hand stroking the smooth polished leather of the boot sensuously, almost as if it were Sarah’s belly or haunch. “Well? What about it?”
“I mean—did you arrange for my transfer from Maidanek? The commandant seemed to think you did.”
“And for once our genius of a commandant was correct,” von Schraeder said calmly.
“But—why?”
“Quite simple,” von Schraeder said evenly. He had been studying exactly how to answer this question and had come to the conclusion that the truth would be as confusing to the doctor as anything. “It’s possible that I may need your help.”
“My help?” The doctor was truly surprised. Von Schraeder looked in the peak of health, although there was, of course, the stories he had heard of the colonel’s poorly set arm. “Is it your arm?”
“It was never my arm, it was my shoulder,” the colonel said shortly. “But that’s not it.”
“Then what help—”
“You might help me survive.” Von Schraeder looked at the doctor across the width of the car. “It is not certain yet that I will need your help, but I don’t believe in leaving things to chance.”
>
“Survive? I don’t understand—”
“What don’t you understand? The meaning of survival?” Von Schraeder tented his fingers and stared at them. He looked quite professorial. “Survival, my dear Franz, is living longer—or continuing longer—than another person or thing. In my case survival is living longer than I would if I didn’t take the necessary steps to stay that way. To me it’s rather important.” Having made that understatement, he glanced at the doctor from the corners of his eyes. “If, after our experience at Maidanek we haven’t learned that, we’ve learned nothing.”
“What has Maidanek got to do with it—?”
“My dear Franz, have you ever looked through the peephole into the gas pens when the crystals are dropped?” The doctor stared at him dumbly and shook his head. Von Schraeder shrugged. “A pity. You would know what I was talking about. You would have seen the prisoners fighting like animals, trying to get to the door, even though they know it is useless. Some of them have heard stories—there were a few escapes from Auschwitz and stories got around—but they couldn’t bring themselves to believe them. And when they go into the showers and there really is water coming from the shower heads, they are relieved. But when they get into the pens and the door is locked behind them, and then the crystals start coming down like blue snowflakes, then they finally know. They know, do you understand?” Von Schraeder was leaning toward the doctor now, more intent than he had planned to be. “They climb all over each other, scratching, punching, pulling, screaming, begging, crying, shitting and pissing all over each other and sliding in it trying to reach that door that means nothing. Why?” He leaned back, relaxing a bit. “Trying to survive, my friend. Trying to survive.”
The doctor was staring at him, his eyes wide. He had never seen the usually imperturbable colonel like this, nor had he ever imagined to see him like this. Von Schraeder went on in a calmer tone.
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