William Styron: The Collected Novels: Lie Down in Darkness, Set This House on Fire, The Confessions of Nat Turner, and Sophie's Choice

by Styron, William

  Höss was puzzled by this phenomenon, deeply puzzled. In a communication addressed to Himmler on that third day of October—a day Sophie remembered as having the first brisk bite of autumn in it, despite the pervasive murky smoke and stench which so blunted one’s perception of the change of season—Höss theorized that there was one of four possible reasons, or perhaps a combination of the four, which caused the Greek Jews to be dragged off the cattle cars and boxcars in such a sorry state of deterioration, indeed with so many of the prisoners already dead or near death: bad nutrition at the point of origin; the extreme length of the journey combined with the poor condition of the railroads in Yugoslavia, through which the deportees had to pass; the abrupt change from the dry, hot Mediterranean climate to the damp and swampy atmosphere around the upper Vistula (although Höss added in an aside, uncharacteristic in its informality, that even this was puzzling, since, in terms of heat, at least in the summer, Auschwitz was “hotter than two hells”); and lastly, a trait of character, Ratlosigkeit, common to people of southern climes and therefore to those of weak moral fiber, which simply caused them to fail to withstand the shock of being uprooted and the attendant journey to an unknown destination. In their slovenliness they reminded him of the Gypsies, who, however, were conditioned to travel. Dictating his thoughts deliberately and slowly to Sophie in a somewhat harsh, flat, sibilant accent which she had earlier recognized as the voice of a North German from the Baltic region, he paused only to light cigarettes (he was a chain-smoker, and she noticed that the fingers of his right hand, small and even pudgy for such a rather gaunt person, were stained the hue of chestnut) and to brood thoughtfully for many seconds with his hand pressed lightly to his brow. He glanced up to ask politely if he was speaking too fast for her. “Nein, mein Kommandant.”

  The venerable German shorthand method (Gabelsberger) which she had learned at the age of sixteen in Cracow, and had employed so often in the service of her father, had come back to her with remarkable ease after several years’ disuse; her speed and skill surprised her, and she breathed a small prayer of thanks to her father, who, though in his grave at Sachsenhausen, had provided for her this measure of salvation. Part of her mind dwelled on her father—“Professor Biegański,” as she often thought of him, so formal and distant their relationship had always been—even as Höss, arrested in mid-phrase, sucked on his cigarette, coughed a phlegmy smoker’s cough, and stood gazing out over the sere October meadow, his angular, tanned, not unhandsome face wreathed in blue tobacco fumes. The wind at the moment was blowing away from the chimneys of Birkenau, the air was clear. Although the weather outside had a touch of frost in it, here in the attic of the Commandant’s house, beneath the sharply slanting roof, it was warm enough to be cozy, the rising heat trapped beneath the eaves and pleasantly augmented by still more heat pouring in from a brilliant early-afternoon sun. Several large bluebottle flies, imprisoned by the windowpanes, made soft gummy buzzings in the stillness or sailed out on tiny forays through the air, returned, buzzed fretfully, then fell still. There were also one or two vagrant, torpid wasps. The room was whitewashed with aseptic brightness, like that of a laboratory; it was dirt-free, spare, austere. It was Höss’s private study, his sanctuary and hideaway, also the place where he executed his most personal, confidential and momentous work. Even the adored children, who swarmed at will through the other three floors of the house, were not permitted here. It was the lair of a bureaucrat with priestly sensibilities.

  Sparsely furnished, the room contained a plain pinewood table, a steel filing cabinet, four straight-backed chairs, a cot upon which Höss sometimes rested, seeking surcease from the migraine headaches that assailed him from time to time. There was a telephone, but it was usually cut off. On the table was some official stationery in neat stacks, an orderly collection of pens and pencils, a cumbersome black office typewriter with the emblazoned trademark of Adler. For the past week and a half Sophie had been seated for many hours daily, hammering out correspondence either on this typewriter or another, smaller one (kept when not used beneath the table) that had a Polish keyboard. Sometimes, as now, she sat on one of the other chairs and took dictation. Höss’s delivery tended to run in quick spurts separated by nearly interminable pauses—pauses in which there was almost audible a thudding tread of thought, the clotted Gothic ratiocination—and during such hiatuses Sophie would stare at the walls, all unadorned save for that work of supremely grandiose Kitsch she had seen before, a multi-pasteled Adolf Hitler in heroic profile, clad like a Knight of the Grail in armor of Solingen stainless steel. Adorning this monkish cell, it might have been the portrait of Christ. Höss ruminated, scratching his rather peninsular jaw; Sophie waited. He had removed his officer’s jacket, the collar of his shirt was unbuttoned. The silence here, high up, was ethereal, almost unreal. Only two intertwined sounds now intruded, and these faintly—a muffled noise embedded in the very ambience of Auschwitz and as rhythmic as the sea: the chuffing of locomotives and the remote rumble of shunting boxcars.

  “Es kann kein Zweifel sein—” he resumed, then stopped abruptly. “ ‘There can be no question—’ no, that’s too strong. I should say something less positive?” It was an ambiguous question mark. He spoke now, as he had once or twice before, with an odd inquisitive undertone in his voice, as if he might be wishing to solicit Sophie’s opinion without compromising his authority by actually doing so. It was in effect a question addressed to both of them. In conversation Höss was extremely articulate. Yet his epistolary style, Sophie had observed, though workable and certainly not illiterate, fell often into clumsy, semi-opaque labyrinthine periods; it had the prosy, crippled rhythms of a man who was Army-educated, a perennial adjutant. Höss went into one of his protracted pauses.

  “Aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach,” Sophie suggested a little hesitantly, though with less hesitation than she might have demonstrated several days before. “That’s much less positive.”

  “ ‘In all probability,’ ” Höss repeated. “Yes, that’s very good. It allows the Reichsführer more leeway to form his own judgment in the matter. Put that down then, followed by... ”

  Sophie felt a glow of satisfaction, almost pleasure, at this last remark. She sensed a barrier being breached, ever so slightly, between them after so many hours in which his manner had been metallically impersonal, businesslike, the dictation delivered with the gelid unconcern of an automaton. Only once so far—and that briefly the day before—had he let down that barrier. She could not be sure, but she even thought she detected a trace of warmth in his voice now as if he were suddenly speaking to her, an identifiable human being, rather than to a slave laborer, eine schmutzige Polin, plucked out of the swarm of diseased and dying ants through incredible luck (or by the grace of God, she sometimes devoutly reflected) and by virtue of the fact that she was doubtless one of the very few prisoners, if not the only one, who, bilingual in Polish and German, was also proficient on the typewriter in both languages and knew Gabelsberger shorthand. It was in shorthand now that she completed Höss’s penultimate paragraph to Himmler: “In all probability, then, a reassessment must be made of the transport problem of the Greek Jews should any further deportations from Athens be contemplated for the immediate future. The mechanism for Special Action at Birkenau having become severely taxed beyond all expectation, it is respectfully suggested that, in the specific matter of the Greek Jews, alternative destinations in the occupied territories of the East, such as KL Treblinka or KL Sobibór, be considered.”

  Höss halted then, lighting a fresh cigarette from the butt of the last. He was gazing, with a slight daydream cast, through the partially open casement window. Suddenly he made a little exclamation, loud enough that she thought something might be wrong. But a quick smile spread over his face, and she heard him gasp “Aaah!” as he leaned intently forward to peer down into the field adjoining the house. "Aaah!” he said again raptly, drawing in his breath, and then half whispered to her, “Quick! Come here!” She rose and stepped to h
is side, approaching very close to him, so close that she could feel the touch of his uniform, and followed his gaze down into the field. “Harlekin!” he exclaimed. “Isn’t he beautiful!”

  A splendid chalk-white Arabian stallion was dashing in a long, mad, rapturous oval in the field below, all muscle and speed, grazing the surrounding paddock fence with a white tail held high that flowed behind him like a plume of smoke. He tossed his noble head with arrogant, insouciant pleasure, as if totally possessed by the fluid grace which sculpted and gave motion to his galloping forelegs and hindquarters and by the furiously healthy power energizing his being. Sophie had seen the stallion before, though never in such full poetic flight. It was a Polish horse, one of the prizes of war, and belonged to Höss. “Harlekin!” she heard him exclaim again, entranced by the sight. “Such a marvel!” The stallion galloped alone; there was not a human soul in sight. A few sheep were grazing. Beyond the field, crowding up against the horizon, were the bedraggled and nondescript scrubby woods, already beginning to turn the leaden hue of the Galician autumn. Several forlorn farmhouses dotted the rim of the forest. Bleak and drab as it was, Sophie preferred this view to the one from the other side of the room, which gave onto a busy, overpopulated prospect of the railroad ramp where the selections took place and the grimy dun brick barracks beyond, a scene crowned by the arched metalwork sign which from here read in the obverse: ARBEIT MACHT FREI. Sophie felt a shiver pass through her as, simultaneously, her neck was brushed by a vagrant draft and Höss lightly touched the edge of her shoulder with his fingertips. He had never touched her before; she shivered again, though she felt the touch was impersonal. “Just look at Harlekin,” he breathed in a whisper. The majestic animal sped like the wind around the confining rim of the fence, leaving in his wake a small whirling cyclone of ocherous dust. “The greatest horses in the world, these Polish Arabians,” Höss said. “Harlekin—a triumphl” The horse passed out of view.

  Abruptly, then, he returned to his dictation, motioning to Sophie to take her seat. “Where was I?” he said. She read back the last paragraph. “Ah, now,” he resumed, “finish with this: ‘But until further information is received, it is hoped that the decision of this command to employ the greater part of the able-bodied Greek Jews in the Special Detachment at Birkenau is approved. Placing those so debilitated in proximity to the Special Action seems warranted by the circumstances. End paragraph. Heil Hitler!’ Sign as usual and type that at once.”

  As she quickly obeyed his order, moving behind the typewriter and rolling an original sheet and five copy sheets into the machine, she kept her head bent toward her work, aware now that across from her, he had immediately taken up an official handbook and had begun reading. Her eyes’ periphery glimpsed the book. It was not a green SS manual but, rather, a slate-blue Army quartermaster’s manual with a title that all but engulfed the paper cover: Improved Methods of Measuring and Predicting Septic Tank Percolation Under Unfavorable Conditions of Soil and Climate. How little time Höss ever wasted! she thought. Hardly a second or two had elapsed between his last words and his seizing of the manual, in which he was now totally engrossed. She still felt the phantom impression of his fingers on her shoulder. She lowered her eyes, tapping out the letter, not for a moment fazed by the stark information which she knew lay embalmed beneath Höss’s final circumlocutions: “Special Action,” “Special Detachment.” Few inmates of the camp were unaware of the reality behind these euphemisms or, having access to Höss’s communication, would not be able to make this free translation: “The Greek Jews being such a pathetic lot and ready to die anyway, we hope it is all right that they have been assigned to the death commando unit at the crematoriums, where they will handle the corpses and extract the gold from the teeth and feed bodies to the furnaces until they too, exhausted beyond recall, are ready for the gas.” Through Sophie’s mind ran this adaptation of Höss’s prose even as she typed the words, articulating a concept which, a mere six months before, when she first arrived, would have been so monstrous as to have surpassed belief but now registered in her consciousness as a fleeting commonplace in this new universe she inhabited, no more to be remarked upon than (as in the other world she had once known) the fact that one went to the baker’s to buy one’s bread.

  She finished the letter without a mistake, appending an exclamation point to the salute to the Führer with such vigorous precision that it brought forth from the machine a faintly echoing tintinnabulation. Höss looked up from his manual, gestured for the letter and for a fountain pen, which she swiftly handed him. Sophie stood waiting while Höss scribbled an intimate postscript on a slip which she had paper-clipped to the bottom of the original, he muttering aloud in cadence to his written words, as was his habit, “Dear old Heini: Personal regrets at not being able to meet you tomorrow at Posen, where this letter is being routed air courier. Good luck with your speech to the SS ‘Old Boys.’ Rudi.” He gave the letter back to her, saying, “This must go out soon, but do the letter to the priest first.”

  She returned to the table, straining with the effort as she lowered the leaden German contraption to the floor, replacing it with the Polish model. Manufactured in Czechoslovakia, it was much less heavy than the German typewriter, and of a more recent vintage; it was also speedier and considerably kinder to her fingers. She began to type, translating as she went from the shorthand message Höss had dictated to her the previous afternoon. It concerned a minor but vexing problem, one having to do with community relations. It also had weird echoes of Les Misérables, which she recalled... oh, so well. Höss had received a letter from a priest in a nearby village—nearby, but beyond the perimeter of the surrounding area, which had been cleared of Polish inhabitants. The priest’s complaint was that a small group of drunken camp guards (exact number unknown) had entered the church at night and made off with a pair of priceless silver candlesticks from the altar—irreplaceable objects, really, hand-wrought works of art dating to the seventeenth century. Sophie had translated the letter aloud to Höss from the priest’s crucified, splintered Polish. She had sensed the audaciousness, even the brazenness of the letter as she read it; one or the other, or perhaps simple stupidity, had to impel such a communication from an insignificant parish priest to the Commandant of Auschwitz. Yet there was a certain guile; the tone was obsequious to the point of servility (“intrude upon the honored Commandant’s valuable time”) when it was not delicate to a fault (“and we can understand how the excessive use of alcohol might provoke such an escapade, which was no doubt harmlessly conceived”), but the plain fact was that the poor priest had written in a controlled frenzy of unhappiness, as if he and his flock had been divested of their most revered possession, which they no doubt had been. In reading out loud, Sophie had emphasized the obsequious tone, which somehow underscored the priest’s manic desperation, and when she had finished she heard Höss give a groan of discomfort.

  “Candlesticks!” he said. “Why must I have problems about candlesticks?”

  She looked up to see the wisp of a self-mocking smile on his lips, and she realized—for the first time after these many hours in his mechanically impersonal presence, when any inquiry he might have made of her had strictly to do with stenography and translation—that his mildly facetious, rhetorical question was addressed at least partially to her. She had been so taken off balance that her pencil flew out of her hand. She felt her mouth drop open but she said nothing, and could muster no ability to return his smile.

  “The church,” he said to her, “we must try to be polite to the local church—even in a country village. It is good policy.”

  Silently she bent down and retrieved her pencil from the floor.

  Then, speaking directly to her, he said, “Of course you are Roman Catholic, aren’t you?"

  She felt no sarcasm in this, but for a long space was unable to reply. When she did, answering in the affirmative, she was embarrassed at finding herself adding a totally spontaneous “Are you?” The blood rushed to her face and
she realized the extreme idiocy of the words.

  But to her surprise and relief, he remained expressionless and his voice was quite impassively matter-of-fact as he said, “I was a Catholic but now I am a Gottgläubiger. I believe there is a deity—somewhere. I used to have faith in Christ.” He paused. “But I have broken with Christianity.”

  And that was all. He said it as indifferently as if he were speaking of having disposed of a used piece of clothing. He spoke not another word to her informally, becoming all business again as he instructed her to write out a memorandum to SS Sturmbannführer Fritz Hartjenstein, commanding officer of the SS garrison, directing that a search be made for the candlesticks in the enlisted barracks and that every effort be exerted to apprehend the culprits, who would then be placed in custody of the camp provost marshal for discipline. And so it went—memorandum in quintuplicate, with a copy to be forwarded to SS Oberscharführer Kurt Knittel, manager of Section VI (Kulturabteilung) and supervisor of schooling and political education of the garrison; also to SS Sturmbannführer Konrad Morgen, head of the SS special commission for investigating corrupt practices in concentration camps. He then returned to the agony of the parish father, dictating a letter in German which he ordered Sophie to render into the priest’s language and which now, this following day, she was transcribing on her machine, rather gratified to feel that she was able to turn the dross of Höss’s German prose into finely articulated filaments of golden Polish: Dear Father Chybiński, we are shocked and distressed to hear of the vandalism of your church. Nothing is more grievous to us than the idea of desecration of holy objects and we shall endeavor to take every means at our command to ensure the return of your precious candelabra. While the enlisted men of this garrison have been inculcated with the highest principles of discipline demanded of every SS member—indeed of every German serving in the occupied territories—it is inevitable that lapses will occur, and we can only earnestly hope that you will understand... Sophie’s typewriter went clickety-clack in the stillness of the attic while Höss brooded over his cesspool diagrams and the flies droned and twitched, and the movement of distant boxcars kept up a blurred incessant rumble like summer thunder.