Martin Amis - The Zone of Interest

‘I’ll be seeing her tonight. Or I certainly hope and trust I will. The Old Boozer is having a dinner for the Farben people.’

‘You know, she tends to cry off, I’ve heard. And it’ll be deadly if she isn’t there. How to describe life in the agricultural station question mark . You’re pleased, though, so far.’

‘Oh, yes. Thrilled. I even made a kind of verbal pass, and I gave her my address. I wish I hadn’t in a way, because I’m always thinking she’s about to knock on my door. You couldn’t say she leapt at it, no, but she heard me out.’

‘ The work is pretty strenuous comma. You can’t have her to your place — not with that nosey bitch downstairs. But I love the countryside and the open air full stop. ’

‘Anyway. She’s magnificent.’

‘Yes, she is, but there’s too much of her. The conditions are really very decent colon. I like them smaller. They try harder. Our bedrooms are plain but comfy open brackets . And you can fling them about the place. And in October they’ll be giving out … You’re mad, you know.’

‘Why?’

‘Him. And in October they’ll be giving out these gorgeous eiderdowns. For the colder nights close brackets semicolon . Him. The Old Boozer.’

‘He’s nothing.’ And I used a Yiddish expression — pronouncing it accurately enough to give Miss Kubis’s pencil a momentary pause. ‘He’s a grubbe tuchus . A fat-arse. He’s weak.’

‘ The food is simple comma true comma but wholesome and plentiful semicolon . Old fat-arse is vicious, Golo. And everything is immaculately clean full stop . And he has cunning. The cunning of the weak. Huge , underline that, please, huge farmstead bathrooms… with great big free-standing tubs full stop. Cleanliness comma cleanliness dash. You know those Germans exclamation mark .’ Boris sighed and said with adolescent or even childish petulance, ‘ Miss Kubis. Please look up now and then so at least I can see your face!’

*

Smoking cigarillos, and drinking kir from conical glasses, we looked out at Kalifornia, which resembled, simultaneously and on a massive compass, an emptied block-long department store, a wide-spectrum jumble sale, an auction room, customs house, trade fair, agora, mart, soukh, chowk — a planetary, a terminal Lost and Found.

Beetling heaps of rucksacks, kitbags, holdalls, cases and trunks (these last adorned with enticing labels of travel — redolent of frontier posts, misty cities), like a vast bonfire awaiting the torch. A stack of blankets as high as a three-storey building: no princess, be she never so delicate, would feel a pea beneath twenty, thirty thousand thicknesses. And all around fat hillocks of pots and pans, of hairbrushes, shirts, coats, dresses, handkerchiefs — also watches, spectacles, and all kinds of prostheses, wigs, dentures, deaf-aids, surgical boots, spinal supports. The eye came last to the mound of children’s shoes, and the sprawling mountain of prams, some of them just wooden troughs on wheels, some of them all curve and contour, carriages for little dukes, little duchesses. I said,

‘What’s she doing over there, your Esther? It’s a bit unGerman, isn’t it? What use is a bucket of toothpaste?’

‘She’s looking for precious stones… You know how she won my heart, Golo? They made her dance for me. She was like liquid. I almost burst into tears. It was my birthday and she danced for me.’

‘Oh yes. Happy birthday, Boris.’

‘Thanks. Better late than never.’

‘How does it feel to be thirty-two?’

‘All right, I suppose. So far. You’ll find out yourself in a minute.’ He ran his tongue over his lips. ‘You know they pay for their own tickets? They pay their own way here, Golo. I don’t know how it went with those Parisians, but the norm is…’ He bent to wipe a wisp of smoke from his eye. ‘The norm is a flat third-class fare. One-way. Half price for children under twelve. One-way.’ He straightened up. ‘It’s good, isn’t it.’

‘You could say that.’

‘… The Jews had to come down from their high horse. Which was accomplished by 1934. But this — this is fucking ridiculous.’

Yes, and Suitbert and Romhilde Seedig were there, and Frithuric and Amalasand Burckl were there, and the Uhls, Drogo and Norberte, were there, and Baldemar and Trudel Zulz were there… I–I of course was partnerless; but they balanced me out with the young widow, Alisz Seisser (Regimental Sergeant Major Orbart Seisser having very recently passed away, in stupendous violence and ignominy, here at the Kat Zet).

Yes, and Paul and Hannah Doll were there.

It was the major who opened the front door. He reared back and said,

‘Ahah, he’s in full fig! And he has a commission, no less.’

‘It’s nominal, sir.’ I was wiping my feet on the mat. ‘And it could hardly be more basic, could it?’

‘Rank is not a sure gauge of importance, Obersturmfuhrer. Scope of jurisdiction’s the thing. Look at Fritz Mobius. He’s even lower down the scale than yourself — and he’s a fizzer. Scope of jurisdiction’s the key. Come on through, young man. And don’t worry about this. Gardening accident. I took a nasty clout to the bridge of my nose.’

And, as a result, Paul Doll had two fulminant black eyes.

‘It’s nothing. I know what a real wound is, I think. You should’ve seen the state of me on the Iraqi front in 1918. I was in bits. And don’t worry about them , either.’

He meant his daughters. Paulette and Sybil were sitting at the top of the stairs in their nightdresses, holding hands and patiently weeping. Doll said,

‘Dear oh dear. They’ve got their knickers in a twist about something or other. Now where’s my lady wife?’

I had resolved not to stare. So Hannah — huge and goddessy and freshly sunburnt in an evening dress of amber silk — was almost at once consigned to the wastes of my peripheral vision… I knew that a long and tortuous evening was stretching out before me; and yet I still hoped to make some modest headway. My plan was to introduce and emphasise a certain theme, and thus exploit a certain rule of attraction. It was a regrettable rule of attraction, perhaps; but it nearly always worked.

Tall, slender Seedig and portly little Burckl were in business suits; all the other men loomed in dress uniform. Doll, bemedalled (Iron Cross, Silver Wand Badge, SS Honour Ring), stood with his rear to the log fire and with his legs absurdly far apart, rocking on his heels and, yes, occasionally raising a hand and letting it tremble over the gruesome whelks beneath his brows. Alisz Seisser was in mourning clothes, but Norberte Uhl, Romhilde Seedig, Amalasand Burckl, and Trudel Zulz were ablaze in velvet and taffeta, like playing cards — queens of diamonds, queens of clubs. Doll said,

‘Thomsen, help yourself. Go on, get stuck in.’

On the sideboard there were many platters of canapés (smoked salmon, salami, pickled herring), plus a full bar and four or five half-empty bottles of champagne. I shuffled along with the Uhls — Drogo, a middle-aged captain, who was built like a docker, and had a split chin grey-blue with stubble, and Norberte, a frizzy, fussy presence wearing skittle-sized earrings and a gilt diadem. Not many words were exchanged, yet I made two mildly surprising discoveries: Norberte and Drogo strongly disliked each other, and they were both already drunk.

I got hold of Frithuric Burckl and talked shop for twenty minutes; then Humilia came through the double doors, gave a shy curtsey, and announced that dinner would presently be served.