" 'Would you like to see her?'
" 'No,' I said.
"'Yes,'said Helen.
"I went with her. The dead woman had stopped bleeding. When we came in, two refugee women were washing the body. They turned it over like a white plank. The hair hung down to the floor. 'Get out!' one of them hissed at me.
"I went. Helen stayed. A little while later I came back to get her. She was standing alone in the narrow room at the foot of the bed, staring at the white sunken face, in which one eye was not quite closed. 'Come now,' I said.
" 'So that's how one looks,' she whispered. 'Where will they bury her?'
" I don't know. Where the poor are buried. If there's a charge, the concierge will take up a collection.'
" Helen did not answer. Cold air blew in through the open window. 'When will she be buried?' she asked.
" 'Tomorrow or the day after. Maybe they'll want to do an autopsy.'
" 'Why? Won't they believe it was suicide?'
"'Oh, I guess they will.'
"The concierge came in. 'They're taking her to a hospital tomorrow for an autopsy. That's how the young doctors learn to operate. It makes no difference to her, and that way it's free of charge. Would you care for a cup of coffee?'
" 'No,' said Helen.
" 'I need one,' said the concierge. 'I'm all upset, though I don't see why. We've all got to go some day.'
" 'Yes,' said Helen. 'But no one wants to believe it.'
"I awoke in the middle of the night. She was sitting up in bed and seemed to be listening. 'Do you smell it, too?' she asked.
" 'What?'
" 'The corpse. I smell it. Close the window.'
" 'There isn't any smell, Helen. It doesn't happen so quickly.'
" 'I do smell it.'
" 'Maybe it's the leaves.' The roomers had set some laurel boughs and a candle by the deathbed.
" 'What's the good of that?' Helen asked. 'Tomorrow she'll be dissected; when they're through, they'll toss the pieces in a bucket and sell them to the zoo.'
" 'They won't sell anything,' I said. 'After the autopsy the body will be cremated or buried.' I tried to put my arms around Helen's shoulders, but she pushed me away. 'I don't want to be cut up,' she said.
" 'Why should you be cut up?'
"She didn't hear me. 'Promise not to let them cut me up.'
" 'I promise.'
" 'Close the window. I smell it again.'
"I got up and closed the window. The moon was bright, and the cat was sitting on the sill. It hissed and jumped away when the window grazed it. 'What was that?' Helen asked behind me.
" 'The cat.'
" 'See, she smelled it, too.'
"I turned around. 'She sits here every night waiting for the canary to come out of the cage. Go back to sleep, Helen. You've been dreaming. Really there's no smell coming from her room.'
" Then it must be me.'
"I stared at her. 'Nobody smells, Helen; you've been dreaming.'
" 'If it's not the corpse, it must be me. Stop lying!' she replied angrily.
" 'Good Lord, Helen. Nobody smells. If there's any smell, it's garlic from the restaurant downstairs. Here.' I took a little bottle of Cologne—one of the articles I was selling on the black market—and sprinkled a few drops on the bed. 'See, now everything smells fine.'
" She was still sitting bolt upright. 'So you admit it,' she said, 'or you wouldn't have sprinkled the Cologne.'
" 'I don't admit anything. I did it to comfort you.'
" 'I know what you think,' she said. 'You think I smell. Like the corpse. Don't lie! I can see it by the way you look at me. I've seen it for weeks. Do you think I don't notice how you look at me when you think I'm not looking? I know that I disgust you; I know it, I see it, I can feel it every day. I know what you think. You don't believe what the doctors say. You think I've got something else, and you think you can smell it. I disgust you. Why don't you admit it?'
"I stood perfectly still. If she had more to say, let her say it. But she stopped. I could feel that she was trembling. Propped up on her arms, she was leaning forward, a pale, indistinct shape. Her eyes were too big for their sockets and her lips were heavily made up. She had taken to putting on make-up before going to bed. She glared at me like a wounded animal ready to spring at my throat.
"It was a long time before she calmed down. In the end I knocked on Baum's door on the second floor and bought a flask of cognac from him. We sat on the bed drinking and waited for morning. The men came early for the body. We heard their heavy boots on the stairs, and the stretcher bumped, colliding with the walls of the narrow hallway. Their jokes could be heard indistinctly through the thin partition. An hour later the new roomers moved in.
CHAPTER 17
"For a few days I peddled kitchen utensils, graters, knives, vegetable peelers; small objects for which no suspicious-looking suitcase is needed. Twice I came home earlier than usual and found Helen gone. I waited, growing more and more worried; but the concierge assured me that no one had come for her, that she had gone out a few hours before, that she often went out.
"It was late when she came in. Her face was hostile. She did not look at me. I didn't know what to do, but not to ask would have been stranger than asking. 'Helen, where have you been?' I asked finally.
" 'Out for a walk.'
" 'In this weather?'
" 'Yes, in this weather. Don't try to keep tabs on me.'
" 'I'm not trying to keep tabs on you,' I said. 'I was only worried that the police had picked you up.'
"She laughed harshly. 'The police will never get me.'
" 'I wish I could believe that.'
"She glared at me. 'If you keep on asking questions, I'll go out again. I can't stand being watched all the time, can't you see that? The houses outside don't watch me. I'm of no interest to them. And I'm of no interest to the people on the street. They don't ask me questions and they don't watch me.'
"I saw what she meant. Outside, no one knew of her sickness. Outside, she was not a patient, but a woman. And she wanted to go on being a woman. She wanted to live; to be a patient meant a slow death.
"At night she cried in her sleep. In the morning everything was forgotten. It was the darkness she could not bear. It settled like a poisoned spiderweb on her terrified heart. I saw that she needed more and more sedatives. I spoke to Lewisohn, formerly a doctor, now a peddler of horoscopes. He told me it was too late for anything else. Just what Dubois had told me.
"She often came home late after that. She was afraid I would question her. I didn't. Once a bunch of roses was delivered when I was alone. I went out, and when I came back the roses were gone. She began to drink. Friends found it necessary to tell me that they had seen her in bars—not alone. I clung to my last hope—the American consulate. By now I had permission to wait in the lobby; but the days passed and nothing happened.
"Then I was caught. I was twenty paces from the consulate when suddenly the police set up a cordon. I tried to get through and that made them suspicious. Once inside, you were safe. I saw Lachmann disappear in the doorway and broke loose in an attempt to follow him, but a gendarme thrust out his leg and tripped me. 'Keep a good hold on that one,' said a smiling young man in civilian clothes. 'He's in too much of a hurry.' Our papers were checked. Six of us were held. The police withdrew, leaving us in the hands of a group of civilians. We were loaded into a closed truck and taken to a house in the suburbs. It was isolated, with a big garden around it. It sounds like a Class B film," said Schwarz. "But have the last years been anything but a stupid bloodthirsty movie?"
"Was it the Gestapo?" I asked.
Schwarz nodded. "Today it seems a miracle that they hadn't laid hands on me before. I knew that Georg wouldn't stop looking for us. The smiling young man mentioned Georg the moment he saw my papers. Unfortunately, I had Helen's passport on me, too; I had thought I might need it at the consulate. 'At last we've got our little fish,' said the young man. "The female won't be long in coming.' He smiled and punched me
in the face. He seemed to have rings on all his fingers. 'Do you agree with me, Schwarz?'
"I wiped the blood off my lips. There were two other men in the room, also in plain clothes. 'Or mightn't it be wiser,' the young man said, 'to tell us the address?'
" 'I haven't got it,' I answered. 'I've been looking for my wife myself. We quarreled a week ago and she ran away.'
" 'Quarreled? How nasty!' Again the young man hit me in the face. 'There, that's for quarreling with your wife.'
" 'Should we swing him, chief?' asked one of the gorillas.
"The young man with the girlish face smiled. 'Tell him what swinging is, Möller.'
"Möller explained that a telephone wire would be tied around my genitals, and then they'd swing me. 'Know what it's like?' asked the young man. 'After all, you've been in a camp.'
"I didn't know. 'My invention,' he said. 'But we can start with something simpler. We bind off your jewels so tight that not a drop of blood can get through. In an hour or so you'll be making a fine hullabaloo. To quiet you down, we stuff your little mouth with sawdust.'
"His eyes were light blue and strangely glassy. 'We're full of interesting little ideas,' he went on. 'Have you ever stopped to think what can be done with a little fire?'
"The gorillas laughed.
" 'With a fine red-hot wire,' said the smiling young man. 'Remarkable results are obtained by introducing it slowly into the ears or up through the nostrils, Mr. Schwarz. We're very fortunate in having you here to help us with our experiments.'
"He stepped hard on my feet. I could smell his perfume. I did not move. I knew it was useless to resist and even more to make a display of courage. My tormentors would have been only too delighted to break down my resistance. At the next blow, administered with a cane, I collapsed with a moan. They all guffawed. 'Revive him, Möller,' said the young man tenderly.
"Möller drew at his cigarette and pressed it to my eyelid. It was as if fire had been poured into my eye. The three roared with laughter. 'Get up, son,' said the Smile.
"I staggered to my feet. I was hardly up when he struck me again. 'This is only warming-up exercises,' he explained. 'We have time, a whole lifetime—yours. The next time you take it into your head to malinger, we. have a marvelous surprise in store for you. You'll hit the ceiling.'
" 'I wasn't malingering,' I said. 'I've got a bad heart. It's perfectly possible that I won't get up next time, whatever you do.'
"The Smile turned to the gorillas. 'Our boy says his heart is bad. Should we believe him?'
"He hit me again, but I could see I had made an impression. He couldn't hand me over to Georg dead. 'Have you remembered that address?' he asked. 'It would be easier to tell us now while you still have some teeth.'
" 'I don't know it. I wish I did.'
" 'Our boy's a hero. How touching! Too bad that nobody but us will ever know.'
"He kicked me until he was tired. I lay on the floor, trying to protect my face and genitals. 'Seems like enough for now,' he said finally. 'Lock him up in the cellar. After dinner well really get started. Night sessions are so stimulating!'
"I was familiar with this sort of thing. It was as much a part of German culture as Goethe and Schiller, and I had been through it in the camp. But I had my poison on me. They had searched me, but not very carefully; they hadn't found it. I also had a razor blade inserted in a strip of cork—sewn loosely into the cuff of my trousers; they hadn't found that either.
"I lay in the darkness. Of course I was in despair. But strange to say, what really got me down wasn't so much the dark prospects as the thought of my stupidity in getting caught.
"Lachmann had seen them arrest me. He didn't know it was the Gestapo, because the French police seemed to be involved. But if I were not back in twenty-four hours at the most,, Helen would try to reach me through the police and probably find out who had arrested me. But would the Smile wait for that to happen? I assumed that Georg would be notified immediately. If Georg was in Marseille, he would 'interview' me that night.
"He was in Marseille, all right. Helen's eyes had not deceived her. He came and gave me his personal attention. I won't bore you with the details. When I passed out, they poured water on me and dragged me back to the cellar. It was only the poison I had that enabled me to hold out. Luckily Georg had no patience with the refined tortures that the Smile had promised me; but in his own way he was no slouch.
"He came back later that night. He brought in a stool and there he sat in all his barrel-chested self-righteousness, a symbol of the absolute power we thought we had left behind us in the nineteenth century and which nevertheless—or perhaps for that very reason—became the hallmark of the twentieth. That day I saw two embodiments of evil—the Smile and Georg, absolute evil and unadulterated brutality. If distinctions are in order, the Smile was the worse of the two—he tortured for the pleasure of it, Georg to impose his will. Meanwhile I had thought up a plan. I had to get out of that house. When Georg came back, I acted as if I were completely broken. I'd tell him everything, I said, if he would spare me. He had the well-fed, contemptuous grin of a man who has never been in such a situation and consequently believes that if he were he would behave like a hero in a school-book. The fact is that his type goes to pieces completely."
"I know," I said. "I once heard a Gestapo officer screaming because he had squashed his thumb in an iron chain he was beating somebody to death with. The man who was being beaten didn't let out a peep."
"Georg kicked me," said Schwarz. " 'Oho,' he said. 'So now we're trying to bargain?'
" 'I'm not trying to bargain,' I replied. 'But if you take Helen to Germany, she'll run away or kill herself.'
" 'Nonsense!' Georg snarled.
" 'Life doesn't mean very much to Helen,' I said. 'She knows she has cancer and that it's incurable.'
"He stared at me. 'That's a lie, you swine. She hasn't got cancer. It's one of those women's ailments.'
" 'She has cancer. It was discovered the first time she was operated on in Zurich. Even then it was too late. The doctor told her so.'
'"What doctor?'
" 'The surgeon who operated on her. She wanted to know.'
" 'The inhuman swine!' Georg roared. 'But I'll get him too! Switzerland will be German in another year.'
" 'I wanted Helen to go back,' I said. 'She refused. But I think she'd go if I were to break with her.'
" 'That's ridiculous.'
" I could be so beastly that she'd hate me for the rest of her life,' I said.
"I saw that Georg's mind was working. I had propped up my head in my hands and was watching him. I had a pain between the eyes from trying to force my will upon him.
" 'How?' he answered finally.
" 'She thinks I'd find her repulsive if I knew of her sickness. That's her greatest fear. If I said that, she'd be through with me for good.'
"Georg pondered. I could follow his thoughts. He saw that my suggestion offered him his best chance. Even if he tortured Helen's address out of me, she would go on hating him; but if I behaved like a scoundrel, she would hate me and he could step forward as her savior and say: 'I told you so.'
" 'Where does she live?' he asked.
"I gave a false address. 'But there are half a dozen ways out,' I said, 'through cellars and other streets. If the police try to arrest her, she can easily escape. She won't run away if I go alone.'
" 'Or I,' said Georg.
" 'She'd think you had killed me. She has poison.'
" 'Nonsense!'
"I waited. 'And what do you ask in return?' Georg asked.
" 'That you let me go.'
"He smiled for a moment, showing his teeth like a beast of prey. I knew that he'd never let me go. 'All right,' he said. 'Come along with me. That way you won't try any tricks. You'll tell her in my presence.'
"I nodded. 'Let's go,' he said. He stood up. 'Clean yourself up at the faucet over there.'
" 'I'm taking him with me,' he said to one of the gorillas, who was loungin
g in a room decorated with antlers. The gorilla saluted and escorted us to Georg's car. 'Get in here beside me,' said Georg. 'Do you know the way?'
" 'Not from here. From the Canebiere.'
"We drove off into the cold windy night. I had hoped to drop out of the car when it slowed or stopped; but Georg had
locked my door. It wouldn't have done any good to scream; no one would think of responding to cries from a German car, and before my scream was half out, Georg would have knocked me unconscious. 'You'd better be telling me the truth,' Georg snarled, 'or I'll have you skinned and rolled in pepper.'
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