Martin Amis - The Zone of Interest

If not in dress then certainly in silhouette (with her face occluded), Hannah Doll conformed to the national ideal of young femininity, stolid, countrified, and built for procreation and heavy work. Thanks to my physical appearance, I was the beneficiary of extensive carnal knowledge of this type. I had hoiked up and unfurled many a three-ply dirndl, I had eased off many a pair of furry bloomers, I had tossed over my shoulder many a hobnailed clog.

I? I was six foot three. The colour of my hair was a frosty white. The Flemish chute of the nose, the disdainful pleat of the mouth, the shapely pugnacity of the chin; the right-angled hinges of the jaw seemed to be riveted into place beneath the minimal curlicues of the ears. My shoulders were flat and broad, my chest slablike, my waist slender; the extensile penis, classically compact in repose (with pronounced prepuce), the thighs as solid as hewn masts, the kneecaps square, the calves Michelangelan, the feet hardly less pliant and shapely than the great tentacled blades of the hands. To round out the panoply of these timely and opportune attractions, my arctic eyes were a cobalt blue.

All I needed was word from Uncle Martin, a specific order from Uncle Martin in the capital — and I would act.

‘Good evening.’

‘Yes?’

On the steps of the orange villa I found myself confronted by an unsettling little character in thickly knitted woollens (jerkin and skirt) and with bright silver buckles on her shoes.

‘Is the master of the house at home?’ I asked. I knew perfectly well that Doll was elsewhere. He was out on the ramp with the doctors, and with Boris and many others, to receive Special Train 105 (and Special Train 105 was expected to be troublesome). ‘You see, I have a high-priority—’

‘Humilia?’ said a voice. ‘What is it, Humilia?’

A displacement of air further back and there she was, Hannah Doll, again in white, shimmering in the shadows. Humilia coughed politely and withdrew.

‘Madam, I’m so sorry to impose,’ I said. ‘My name is Golo Thomsen. It is a pleasure to meet you.’

Finger by finger I briskly plucked off the chamois glove and held out my hand, which she took. She said,

‘“Golo”?’

‘Yes. Well, it was my first attempt to say Angelus. I made a mess of it, as you see. But it stuck. Our blunders haunt us all our lives, don’t you think?’

‘… How can I help you, Mr Thomsen?’

‘Mrs Doll, I have some rather urgent news for the Commandant.’

‘Oh?’

‘I don’t want to be melodramatic, but a decision has been reached in the Chancellery on a matter that I know is his paramount concern.’

She continued to look at me in frank appraisal.

‘I saw you once,’ she said. ‘I remember because you weren’t in uniform. Are you ever in uniform? What is it you do exactly?’

‘I liaise,’ I said and gave a shallow bow.

‘If it’s important then I suppose you’d better wait. I’ve no idea where he is.’ She shrugged. ‘Would you care for some lemonade?’

‘No — I wouldn’t put you to the bother.’

‘It’s no bother for me. Humilia?’

We now stood in the rosy glow of the main room, Mrs Doll standing with her back to the chimney piece, Mr Thomsen poised before the central window and gazing out over the perimeter watchtowers and the bits and pieces of the Old Town in the middle distance.

‘Charming. This is charming. Tell me,’ I said with a regretful smile. ‘Can you keep a secret?’

Her gaze steadied. Seen up close, she was more southern, more Latin in colouring; and her eyes were an unpatriotic dark brown, like moist caramel, with a viscid glisten. She said,

‘Well I can keep a secret. When I want to.’

‘Oh good. The thing is,’ I said, quite untruthfully, ‘the thing is I’m very interested in interiors, in furnishings and design. You can see why I wouldn’t want that to get about. Not very manly.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘So was it your idea — the marble surfaces?’

My hope was to distract her and also to set her in motion. Now Hannah Doll talked, gestured, moved from window to window; and I had the chance to assimilate. Yes, she was certainly built on a stupendous scale: a vast enterprise of aesthetic coordination. And the head, the span of the mouth, the might of the teeth and jaws, the supple finish of her cheeks — square-headed but shapely, with the bones curving upward and outward. I said,

‘And the covered veranda?’

‘It was either that or the—’

Humilia came through the open doors with the tray and the stone pitcher, and two platefuls of pastries and biscuits.

‘Thank you, Humilia dear.’

When we were again alone I said mildly, ‘Your maid, Mrs Doll. Is she by any chance a Witness?’

Hannah held back till some domestic vibration, undetectable by me, freed her to go on, not quite in a whisper, ‘Yes, she is. I don’t understand them. She has a religious face, don’t you think?’

‘Very much so.’ Humilia’s face was markedly indeterminate, indeterminate as to sex and indeterminate as to age (an unharmonious blend of female and male, of young and old); yet, under the solid quiff of her cress-like hair, she beamed with a terrible self-sufficiency. ‘It’s the rimless glasses.’

‘How old would you say she is?’

‘Uh — thirty-five?’

‘She’s fifty. I think she looks like that because she thinks she’s never going to die.’

‘Mm. Well, that would be very cheering.’

‘And it’s all so simple.’ She bent and poured, and we took our seats, Hannah on the quilted sofa, I on a rustic wooden chair. ‘All she’s got to do is sign a document, and that’s the end of it. She’s free.’

‘Mm. Just abjure , as they say.’

‘Yes, but you know… Humilia couldn’t be more devoted to my two girls. And she’s got a child of her own. A boy of twelve. Who’s in state care. And all she’s got to do is sign a form and she can go and get him. And she doesn’t. She won’t.’

‘It’s curious, isn’t it. I’m told they’re meant to like suffering.’ And I remembered Boris’s description of a Witness on the flogging post; but I would not be regaling Hannah with it — the way the Witness pleaded for more. ‘It gratifies their faith.’

‘Imagine.’

‘They love it.’

Seven o’clock was now nearing, and the room’s blushful light suddenly dropped and settled… I had had many remarkable successes at this phase of the day, many startling successes, when the dusk, as yet unopposed by lamp or lantern, seems to confer an impalpable licence — rumours of dream-strange possibilities. Would it be so unwelcome, really, if I quietly joined her on the sofa and, after some murmured compliments, took her hand, and (depending on how that went) gently smoothed my lips against the base of her neck? Would it?

‘My husband,’ she said — and stopped as if to listen.

The words hung in the air and for a moment I was jarred by this reminder: the ever more bewildering fact that her husband was the Commandant. But I endeavoured to go on looking serious and respectful. She said,

‘My husband thinks we have much to learn from them.’

‘From the Witnesses? What?’

‘Oh, you know,’ she said neutrally, almost sleepily. ‘Strength of belief. Unshakeable belief.’

‘The virtues of zeal.’

‘That’s what we’re all meant to have, isn’t it?’

I sat back and said, ‘One can see why your husband admires their zealotry. But what about their pacifism?’

‘No. Obviously.’ In her numbed voice she went on, ‘Humilia won’t clean his uniform. Or polish his boots. He doesn’t like that.’