by Jaume Cabré
The boat took advantage of a warm western wind to get some distance from the nightmare. The next evening it stopped in Ciutadella, on Minorca, where six more people embarked, and three days later it arrived in Palermo, Sicily, where they rested for half a week from the seasickness brought on by the roughness of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Once they had recovered, taking advantage of favourable winds, they crossed the Ionian Sea and docked at the Albanian port of Durrës, where the six families embarked, fleeing from tears towards some place where no one would be offended by their whisperings on the Sabbath. Since they were warmly welcomed by the Jewish community in Durrës, they established themselves there.
Dolça Xarom, the fleeing girl, had children there, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and at eighty years old, still stubbornly recalled the silent streets of Girona’s Jewish Quarter and the hulking Christian cathedral, silhouetted against the stars and blurred by tears. Despite the nostalgia, the Xarom Meir family lived and prospered over twelve generations in Durrës and time was so insistent that a moment came when the memory of the ancestor burned by the ungodly goyim shattered and was almost erased in the memory of the children of the children of the children, just like the distant name of their beloved Girona. One fine day in the Year of the Patriarchs 5420, the nefarious Year of the Christians 1660, Emanuel Meir was drawn by the commercial boom to the Black Sea. Emanuel Meir, eighth great-great-grandson of Dolça the fleeing girl, moved to bustling Varna, in Bulgaria on the Black Sea, in the period when the Sublime Porte ruled there. My parents, who were fervent Catholics in predominantly Lutheran Germany, wanted me to be a priest. And I spent quite some time considering it.
‘You would have made a good priest, Obersturbannführer Höss.’
‘I imagine so.’
‘I’m sure: everything you do, you do well.’
Obersturmbannführer Höss puffed up with the well-deserved praise. He wanted to dig deeper into it, with a more solemn air: ‘What you just made out to be a virtue, could also be my ruin. And especially now that Reichsführer Himmler is going to visit us.’
‘Why?’
‘Because as Oberlagerführer, I am responsible for all the failings of the system. For example, I only have two or three cans at the most left from the last shipment of Zyklon gas and the quartermaster hasn’t even thought to tell me to make an order. And so I’ll have to ask for favours, get some lorries to come that probably should be somewhere else, and stifle my craving to yell at the quartermaster because we are all working at our limit, here at Oświeçem. Pardon at Auschwitz.’
‘I imagine that the experience of Dachau …’
‘From a psychological point of view, the difference is vast. At Dachau we had prisoners.’
‘From what I understand huge numbers of them died and still do.’
‘Yes, Doctor Voigt, but Dachau is a prison camp. Auschwitz-Birkenau is designed, created and calculated to exterminate rats. If it weren’t for the fact that Jews aren’t human, I would think we are living in hell, with one door that leads to a gas chamber and another place that’s cremation ovens and their flames, or the open pits in the forest, where we burn the remaining units, because we can’t keep up with all the material they send us. This is the first time I talk about these things with someone not involved in the camp, Doctor.’
‘It’s good to vent every once in a while, Obersturmbannführer Höss.’
‘I’m counting on your professional secrecy, because the Reichsführer …’
‘Naturally. You, who are a Christian … In short, a psychiatrist is like a confessor, the confessor you could have been.’
For a few moments, since he was letting it all out, Oberlagerführer Höss considered mentioning something about that woman, but, despite strong temptation, he managed not to bring it up. He realised it was a close call. He would have to be more careful with the wine. He expanded on the fact that my men have to be strong to carry out the task they have been entrusted with. The other day a soldier, more than thirty years old, not some teenager, burst into tears in one of the barracks in front of his comrades.
Doctor Voigt glanced at this guest and hid his surprise; he let the other man gulp down another glass of wine and waited a few seconds before asking the question the other man was anxiously expecting: ‘And what happened?’
‘Bruno, Bruno, wake up!’
But Bruno didn’t wake up, he was howling and his agony bled from his mouth and eyes, and Rottenführer Mathäus had the superior officers called in, because he didn’t know what to do, and three minutes later the Oberlagerführer himself, Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höss, showed up just in the moment when the soldier Bruno Lübke had pulled out his pistol and stuck it into his mouth, still howling. An SS soldier! Every inch an SS!
‘Stand at attention, soldier!’ shouted Obersturmbannführer Höss. But since the soldier was howling and sticking the barrel down his throat, his superior made a motion to stop him and Bruno Lübke pulled the trigger with the hope that he would go straight to hell and thus escape Birkenau, the ash they had to breathe in and the gaze of that little girl, who was identical to his Ursula, whom he’d pushed into the gas chamber that very afternoon and seen again when a Jewish rat from the Sonderkommando shaved off her hair and put her in the pile in front of the crematoria.
Höss disdainfully contemplated the soldier – that cowardly jackal – laid out on the ground in a puddle of pale blood. He took advantage of the occasion to improvise a speech in front of the shocked soldiers, and he told them that there is no greater inner consolation and spiritual joy than having the absolute certainty that your actions are carried out in the name of God and with the intention of preserving the holy Catholic and apostolic faith from its many enemies who will never rest until they annihilate it, Friar Miquel. And if some day you falter and discuss in public whether or not the amputation of the confessed prisoners’ tongues is appropriate, as much as I recognise your services to me, I can assure you that I will report you to the higher courts, for lassitude and weakness unworthy of an officer of the Holy Inquisition Tribunal.
‘I spoke thus out of mercy, Your Excellency.’
‘You confuse weakness with mercy.’ Friar Nicolau Eimeric began to shake with repressed rage. ‘If you continue to insist, you will be guilty of very serious insubordination.’
Friar Miquel lowered his head, trembling in fear. His soul shrank when he heard his superior add, you are starting to seem suspect of lassitude, not only for weakness, but for collusion with heretics.
‘For the love of God, Your Excellency!’
‘Don’t take God’s name in vain. And be warned that weakness makes you a traitor and enemy of the Truth.’
Friar Nicolau covered his face with his hands and prayed fervidly for a little while. From the depths of his reflection came a cavernous voice that said we are the only eye attentive to sin, we are the guardians of the orthodoxy, Friar Miquel, we have and we are the truth, and as harsh as the punishment we inflict on the heretic may seem, be it to his body or to his writings, as was the case with the abominable Llull whom I lament not having been able to send to the stake, remember that we are applying the law and justice, which is not exactly a fault, but rather of great merit. In addition, I remind you that we are only responsible before God and not before men. While those who hunger and thirst to be just men are happy, Friar Miquel, those who apply justice are much more so, especially if you remember that our mission was explicitly designed by our beloved Führer, who knows that he can trust in the integrity, patriotism and firmness of spirit of his SS. Or is there any doubt about the Führer’s plans? He looked at each man, dominantly, defiantly, as he walked inaudibly among them. Or do any of you doubt the decision-making ability of our Reichsführer Himmler? What will you say to him when he arrives the day after tomorrow? Eh? And after a dramatic pause of a full five seconds: Take away this carrion!
He drank a couple more glasses of wine, or perhaps four or five, and he explained more things that he doesn’t entirely remem
ber, carried away by the euphoria the evocation of that heroic scene instilled in him.
Rudolf Höss emerged from Doctor Voigt’s quarters quite reassured and slightly dizzy. What worried him was not the hell of Birkenau, but human weakness. No matter how many solemn vows those men and women had made, they weren’t able to withstand having death so close. They didn’t have souls of steel and that was why they made so many mistakes, and there was no worse way to do things than having to repeat them because of … Disgusting, really. Luckily he hadn’t even insinuated the existence of that woman. And I realised that, without wanting to, he watched Kornelia out of the corner of his eye to see if she smiled at the other visitors or … I don’t want to be a jealous chap, I thought. But it’s just that she … Now! Finally there are ten people and the tour can start. The guide entered the cloister and said Bebenhausen monastery, which we will now visit, was founded by Rudolf I of Tübingen in 1180 and secularised in 1806. I searched out Kornelia with my eyes, and found her beside a very handsome boy, who was smiling at her. And she looked at me, finally, and it was cold at Bebenhausen. What does secularised mean? asked a short, bald man.
That night Rudolf and Hedwig Höss didn’t sleep together in their marriage bed. He had too much on his mind and the conversation with Doctor Voigt kept coming back to him. Had he spoken too much? Had the third or fourth or seventh glass of wine made him say things that should never have come out of his mouth? His obsession with perfect order crumbled in the face of the enormous blunders his subordinates had made in recent weeks, and he could absolutely not allow Reichsführer Himmler to think that he was failing him, because it all began when I entered the Order of Preachers, guided by my absolute faith in the Führer’s instructions. During our novitiate, led by the kindly hand of Friar Anselm Copons, we learned to harden our hearts to human misery, because all SS must know how to completely sacrifice their personality to the absolute service of the Führer. And the basic mission of the preacher friars is precisely that of eradicating internal dangers. For the true faith, the presence of a heretic is a thousand times more dangerous than that of an infidel. The heretic has fed on the teachings of the church and lives within it, but at the same time, with his pestilent, poisonous nature, corrupts the holy elements of the sacred institution. In order to solve the problem once and for all, in 1941 the decision was taken to make the Holy Inquisition look like so much child’s play and programme the extermination of all Jews without exception. And if horror was necessary, let it be infinite horror. And if cruelty was necessary, let it be absolute cruelty, because now it was history that was picking up the baton. Naturally only true heroes with iron hearts and steel wills could achieve such a difficult objective, could carry out such a valiant deed. And I, as a faithful and disciplined friar preacher, got down to work. Until 1944, only a handful of doctors and I knew the final orders of the Reichsführer: start with the sick and the children and, solely for economic motives, make use of those who could work. I got down to my task with the absolute intention of being faithful to my oath as an SS. That is why the church doesn’t consider the Jews infidels, but heretics that live among us insistent in their heresy, which began when they crucified Our Lord Jesus and continues in every place and every moment, in their obstinacy at renouncing their false beliefs, in perpetuating human sacrifices with Christian babies and in inventing abominable acts against the holy sacraments, like the aforementioned case of the consecrated hosts, profaned by the perfidious Josep Xarom. That is why the orders given to each Schutzhaftlagerführer in all of the camps dependent on Auschwitz were so severe: the road was narrow, it depended on the capacity of the crematory ovens, the crop was too abundant, thousands and thousands of rats, and the solution was in our hands. Reality, which never comes close to pure ideal, is that Crematorium I and II have the capacity to incinerate two thousand units in twenty-four hours and, to avoid breakdowns, I cannot go above that figure.
‘And the other two?’ asked Doctor Voigt before the fourth glass of wine.
‘The third and fourth are my cross to bear: they don’t get up to even one thousand five hundred units a day. The models chosen have sorely disappointed me. If the superiors paid attention to those in the know …’ And don’t take it as a criticism of our leaders, Doctor, he said during dinner, or perhaps with the fifth glass. There is so much work that we are snowed under, and any sort of feeling at all akin to compassion must not only be ripped from the minds of the SS, but also severely punished, for the good of the fatherland.
‘And what do you do with the … the residue?’
‘The ash is loaded onto lorries and dumped in the Vistula. The river drags off tonnes of ash each day, towards the sea, which is death, as the Latin classics taught us in the unforgettable lessons of Friar Anselm Copons, during our novitiate, in Girona.’
‘What?’
‘I am only the substitute for the notary, Your Excellency. I …’
‘What did you just read, wretch?’
‘Well … that Josep Xarom cursed you shortly before the flames …’
‘Didn’t you cut out his tongue?’
‘Friar Miquel forbade it. By the authority invested in him by …’
‘Friar Miquel? Friar Miquel de Susqueda?’ Dramatic pause of the length of half a hailmary. ‘Bring that carrion here before me.’
Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, who arrived from Berlin, was understanding. He is a wise man, who realised what pressure Rudolf Höss’s men were under and elegantly – what elegance – ignored the insufficiencies that had me so mortified. He approved the daily elimination figure, although I saw in his noble forehead a shadow of concern, because, it seems, finishing off the Jewish problem is urgent and we are only halfway through the process. He didn’t discuss any plans with me and, in an emotional act with the Lager staff, he offered up my humble personage as an example of how each officer, from the first to the last, should conduct themselves on the Inquisition’s high tribunal. I could well consider myself a happy man because I was faithful to the most sacred vows I had taken in my life. The problem, however, was that woman.
Wednesday, when Frau Hedwig Höss had gone out with the group of women to buy provisions in town, Obersturmbannführer Höss waited for her to arrive at his home under the supervision of her guard, with those eyes, with that sweet face, with those hands that were so perfect that she looks like a real human being. He pretended to have a lot of work piled up on his desk and he watched her as she swept the floor, which, although she did it twice a day, was always covered in a fine layer of ash.
‘Your Excellency … I didn’t know you were here.’
‘No bother, continue.’
Finally, after days of tension, sidelong glances, demonical obsessive imaginings that were increasingly powerful and insuperable, the demon of the flesh possessed Friar Nicolau Eimeric’s iron will. And despite the sacred habits he wore, he said enough is enough and he clasped that woman from behind, with his hands pressed against those tempting breasts, and he sank his venerable chin into her nape that promised a thousand delights. The woman, terrified, dropped the bundle of firewood and remained rigid, stiff, not knowing what to do, against the wall in the dark hallway, not sure whether she should scream, whether she should run off or whether, on the other hand, she should lend an invaluable service to the church.
‘Lift your dress,’ said Eimeric as he untied the rosary of fifteen beads that was wrapped around his habit.
Prisoner number 615428, from shipment A27 from Bulgaria in January of 1944, saved from the gas chamber at the last minute because someone decided she would do for domestic labours, didn’t dare to look into the eyes of that Nazi officer, horrifically afraid, and she thought not again, no, Lord, merciful almighty God. Obersturmbannführer Höss, understanding, without growing irritated, repeated his order. When she didn’t react, he pushed her towards the armchair, with more impatience than brutality. He tore off her clothes and caressed her eyes, her face, her oh so sweet gaze. When he penetrated her, enraptured b
y that savage beauty born of weakness and destruction, he knew that number 615428 had got under his skin forever. 615428 had to be the best-kept secret of his life. He got up quickly, once again in control of the situation, fixed his habit, told the woman get dressed, six, one, five, four, two, eight. Quickly. Then he made it clear that nothing had happened and he swore to her that if she said anything about it to anyone, he would imprison the Wall-eyed Man of Salt, her husband, as well as her son and her mother, and he would accuse her of witchcraft, because you are nothing more than a witch who tried to seduce me with your evil powers.
The operation was repeated over the course of a few days. Prisoner 615428 had to get down on her knees, naked, and the Obersturmbannführer Höss penetrated her, and His Excellency Nicolau Eimeric reminded her, panting, that if you speak a word of this to that wretch, the Wall-eyed Man of Salt, it will be you sent to burn at the stake as a witch, you’ve got me under your spell, and 615428 couldn’t say yes or no because she could only weep in horror.
‘Have you seen the rosary I wear around my waist?’ said His Excellency. ‘If you’ve stolen it, you’ll pay.’
Until stupid Doctor Voigt took an interest in that violin and crossed the line that no Inquisitor General could ever allow anyone to cross. Despite that, Voigt won the match and Oberlagerführer Eimeric had to put the instrument down on the table with a thud.
