Martin Amis - The Zone of Interest

‘Oh, Paul…’

The cot, the footstool, the washbasin, the chemical toilet.

‘God have mercy on you if you tell anyone. Besides, it’ll just be my word against yours. And you’re a subhuman. Technically I mean.’

‘Then how come you did me without 1 of them Parisians on!’

‘… Because I ran out,’ I said broodingly. ‘Now watch it, my girl. Oy. Behave. Remember. Just your word against mine.’

‘But who else could it be?’

This stopped me short. Alisz had been in here for just over 3 months; and the custodial staff consisted of 2 buxom Aufseherinnen and 1 incredibly old Rottenfuhrer.

‘The end of your career,’ she snivelled. ‘What about the end of my life? You get storked up here and they go and bloody well—’

‘Not neccessarily, Alisz.’ I gave a brief lift of the chin. ‘Well. Crying won’t help you. Wha wha wha. Listen to her. Wha wha wha wha wha wha. Come on now, girl. I’m the Kommandant. I’ll think of something or other.’

‘Oh, Paul…’

I said, ‘Stop it. Stop it. You’re pregnant… Get off .’

Lately I have been applying my new mental attitude to a reconsideration of our war aims.

Objective number 1 . To acquire Lebensraum, or living space, or land empire.

Even if unquestioned supremacy eludes us, a compromise can doubtlessly be hammered out (and let’s ignore all that guff about ‘unconditional surrender’). We’ll probably have to give back France, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus, Yugoslavia, and Greece, but with any luck they won’t mind if we hang on to Lithuania, say, the Sudetenland and the rest of the Czech entity, plus our half of Poland (I don’t think the matter of Austria will even come up).

So, objective number 1: mission accomplished!

‘Now Wolfram. That shemozzle in Block 33. Please explain.’

‘Well, Paul, there’d been a massive selection. And they crammed them all in Block 33. 2,500 of them.’

‘2,500 in 1 block? How long for?’

‘5 nights.’

‘Good God. Why the delay?’

‘No reason. They just didn’t get round to it.’

‘They let them out for roll call I assume?’

‘Naturally. There’s got to be Zahlappell , Paul. No, the trouble was they gave them some food. They don’t usually bother. And it was a great mistake.’

‘The food was?’

‘Yes. The Kapos intercepted it. All very predictable. They went off and swapped it for alcohol. Blah blah blah. But then they came back, Paul… And they messed with them. The Kapos messed with the prisoners.’

‘Mm. You see, that’s what comes of feather-bedding. Food , indeed. Whose bright idea was that?’

‘Probably Eikel.’

‘Na. How many Stucke did you say?’

‘19. Regrettable. And not to be tolerated. But it doesn’t really make much odds. They’d been selected anyway.’

‘… Menschenskind , Hauptsturmfuhrer! The Zahlappell! The Zahlappell !’

There was a silence. Prufer was frowning at me with what seemed to be intense solicitude. He gave a discreet cough and said quietly,

‘Paul. Paul . With a Haftling headcount, Paul… As long as the total number tallies, there isn’t any difficulty. Remember? They don’t have to be alive.’

After a moment or 2 I said, ‘No. No. Of course they don’t. You’re quite right, Wolfram. How foolish of me. Yes. They can be dead if they want. They don’t have to be alive.’

My rumpy girl Friday, little Minna, knocked and put her head round the door. She asked after the whereabouts of a certain file and I told her where I thought it might conceivably be.

‘How’re you finding the ramp work, Wolfram?’

‘Well, I can see why you got cheesed off with it, Paul.’

‘It’s very good of you to stand in. I’ll be my old self again soon.’ I tapped my desktop. ‘Well. What’ll we do with the Kapos? Got to be firm. Phenol? Small calibre?’

Again the look of solicitude. ‘Waste of materiel, surely, Kommandant. You know — simpler just to revise their status. Then, Paul, the Jews can sort it out for themselves.’

‘Mm. So much better for esprit de corps … That’s French, Wolfram. It means team spirit. You know, morale.’

Sybil grows lovelier with each passing day. Her abiding passion — rather reprehensibly — is still cosmetics. She filches items from her mother’s dressing table. Lipstick, nicht? And it’s rather comical. There she is, alternately smiling and pouting at me with crimson smears on her teeth.

And you should see the tangles she gets into when she tries on Hannah’s brassieres!

Goal number 2. To consolidate the 1,000 Year Reich.

You know, so it lasts as long as the 1 we had before — the 1 started by Charlemagne and ended by Napoleon.

As I’ve already conceded, there’s a bumpy patch up ahead, most probably. Once we’ve weathered that, however…

Here’s a fact that’s not often enough stressed. In the election of July ’32 the NSDAP polled 37.5 %: the highest vote for a single party in the history of Weimar . Solid evidence, then, of the profound affinity between the simple yearnings of the Volk and the golden dream of National Socialism. It was always there, do you see. By November ’33, plebiscitary acclamation reached 88 %, and by April ’38 it settled at just over 99! What clearer token could there be of the rude sociopolitical health of Nazi Germany?

Ach, once we’re over this somewhat rocky stretch of road, and once we’ve made a few modifications (including, in the fullness of time, the appointment of a rather more centrist head of state), there’ll be no earthly reason why we shouldn’t cruise on for the duration of the next millennium.

So. Goal number 2: mission accomplished!

*

My visit took place at the usual hour. Alisz was crouched on the stool with her hands slowly writhing on her lap.

‘All right, woman, you can stop your moaning. You can switch off the waterworks. I’ve talked to the physician. A simple procedure. Routine. She does it all the time.’

‘… But Paul. There are no women doctors here.’

‘There are 100s of women doctors here. They’re Haftlinge.’

‘The prisoner doctors haven’t got any instruments. They’ve got toolkits!’

‘Not all of them.’ I had Alisz sit beside me on the bed, and I strove to reassure her for a considerable period of time. ‘Better now?’

‘Yes, Paul. Thank you, Paul. You always find an answer.’

And to my great surprise I felt the retreat of those higher scruples which, in the presence of a fertilised female, generally inhibit me. I said,

‘Go on. Go on. Here. Just hoik it up a bit.’

And yes I went ahead and gave her 1 then and there. Thinking (and it was a form of words that I often applied to the larger situation), Well. In for a fucking penny. In for a fucking pound.

They are deeply necessary, my engagements with Alisz Seisser — for how else can I maintain my dignity and self-respect? I of course allude to the appalling conditions that obtain in the Doll villa. Alisz’s unfailing gratitude and esteem (not to mention her trills of amatory bliss) form a crucial counterweight to the, to the…

I am afraid of Hannah. There. It takes a certain kind of courage to commit such a sentence to paper — but it’s the case. How to describe this fear? Whenever we happen to be alone together, I feel a vacuum in my solar plexus, like a globe of hard air.

Starting on the night of the Dezember Konzert, Hannah has reinvented her appearance, her outward form. Whilst she was never a great 1 for the clogs and the dirndls, her raiment was always commendably demure. Now she dresses like a man-pleaser — she dresses like an experienced pleaser of men.