Martin Amis - The Zone of Interest

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning, sir.’

‘Meaning, sir?’

‘There would be a further 800 Davidoffs. Of course.’

‘Meaning, sir?’

‘Sodium evipan. Or phenol. A simple cardiac injection… Oh, stare not so, “Doktor”. You’ve selected, haven’t you. You’ve done selections. You’ve separated out.’

‘That has sometimes been asked of me, yes, sir.’

‘And you’ve disposed of live births,’ I said. ‘There’s no point in denying it. We all know it happens.’

‘That has sometimes been asked of me, yes, sir.’

‘Quite heroic in a way. Secret deliveries. You risk death.’

She didn’t reply. For she risked death every day, every hour, just by being what she was. Yes, I thought: that’ll put a few bags under your eyes and a few notches on your mouth. I gave her an interrogative stare, and she gulped and said,

‘As a student, as an intern, I had such very different things in mind. Sir.’

‘No doubt you did. Well, you’re not a student now. Come on. What’s 1 jab?’

‘But I don’t know how to do that, sir. The cardiac injection. The phenol.’

I came close to suggesting that she walk down the corridor, at the SS-HI, and put in some practice — it was called ‘Room 2’ and they did about 60 per day.

‘It’s easy, isn’t it? Perfectly straightforward, I’m told. 5th rib space. All you need’s a long syringe. It’s easy.’

‘It’s easy. All right, sir. You do it.’

For a moment I turned away in thought… My earlier dialectic, as regards Alisz Seisser, had, in the end (after much to and fro), gone as follows: why take a chance? But the alternative wasn’t free of hazard either; and there’d be the usual sullen intractability of the corpse. I said,

‘Now now. Most likely the Chancellery will adhere to its original adjudication. I’m pretty sure there’ll be no change of plan. Boiling water, eh?’

I suppose too that I wanted to bind her to me. For insurance, obviously. But now we are beginning to think about the exploration of darkness, we may say that I wanted her to come with me, out of the light.

‘When can I assess the patient, sir?’

‘What, beforehand? No, I’m afraid that’s impossible.’ This was literally true: there were guards down there, witnesses down there. ‘You’ll have to do her sight unseen.’

‘Age?’

‘29. She says. But you know how women are. Oh yes — I almost forgot. Is it painful?’

‘Without at least a topical anaesthetic? Yes, sir. Very.’

‘Mm. Oh well. We’d better have a topical anaesthetic then. You see, we can’t have her making much noise.’

Miriam said she’d need money for that. 20 US, if you please. I had only 1s; I started counting them out, employing mental arithmetic.

‘1, 2, 3. Your uh, great-aunt,’ I said with ½ a smile. ‘4, 5, 6.’

Back in Rosenheim, during my Leninist period (ever a dreamer!), I used to puzzle with my future wife over the chief Luxemburgian oeuvre, The Accumulation of Capital (and Lenin, despite her criticisms of his use of terror, did once call her ‘an eagle’). In early 1919, just after the pathetic failure of the German Revolution, Luxemburg was arrested by a Freikorps unit in Berlin, not my Rossbach boys but a pack of hooligans under the nominal command of old Walli Pabst…

‘10, 11, 12. Rosa Luxemburg. They clubbed her to the floor and shot her in the head and threw her body in the Landwehr Canal. 18, 19, 20. And how many languages did she speak?’

‘5.’ Miriam straightened her gaze. ‘This procedure, sir. The sooner the better. That’s axiomatic.’

‘Well. She’s not showing,’ I said (my mind was made up). ‘She seemed fit enough the last time I saw her.’ And it’s good, not using Parisians. I expressively crinkled my nose and said, ‘I think we’ll leave it a bit.’

Szmul was bringing his expertise to bear on 1 of the new installations, namely Crema 4: 5 3-retorters (capacity: 2,000 per 24 hours). This particular facility had proved to be a major pain right from the start. After 2 weeks the rear funnel wall collapsed; and when we got it going again it lasted a mere 8 days before Szmul pronounced it ‘burnt out’. 8 days!

‘The firebricks got loose again, sir. And fell into the duct between the oven and the chimney. There’s nowhere for the flames to go.’

‘Shoddy workmanship,’ I said.

‘Poor materials, sir. The clay’s been qualified. See the discoloured veins?’

‘Wartime economies, Sonder. I take it 2 and 3 are holding the fort?’

‘At ½ volume, sir.’

‘Good God. What do I tell Communications? That I’m refusing transports? Ach, back to the pits, I suppose. And more Crap from Air Defence. Tell me…’

The Sonderkommandofuhrer straightened up. He shut the grate with his foot and slid the lateral bolt on the oven door. Some distance apart, we stood in the grey gloom of the vault, with its low ceiling, its caged lights, its echoes.

‘Tell me, Sonder. Does it feel different? Knowing your uh — time of departure?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Of course it does. April 30th. Where are we now? The 6th. No, the 7th. So. 23 days to Walpurgisnacht.’

He took an indescribably filthy rag from his pocket and set about scouring his fingernails.

‘I’m not expecting you to confide in me, Sonder. But is there anything… positive about it? About knowing?’

‘Yes, sir. In a way.’

‘Calmer and all that. More resigned. Well I’m sorry to be a killjoy. You may not relish your last duty. You may not exactly warm to the final service you’ll render me. And render the Reich.’

And I gave him his assignment.

‘You lower your head. You look downhearted. Take comfort, Sonder! You’ll be saving your Kommandant no end of trouble. And as for your poor little conscience, well, you won’t have to “live with yourself” for very long. About 10 seconds, I’d say. At the most.’ I rubbed my hands together. ‘Now. What are you going to use? Get your bag… What’s this? What’s this fucking spear here? Mm. A kind of marlinspike with a handle. Good. It’ll go up your sleeve. Try it… All right. Now put it back.’

I made a motion. We climbed up from the basement and walked down a tunnel covered in sheets of creaking, whistling tin.

‘Oh, we know where your wife is, Sonder.’

Actually, and annoyingly, this had ceased to be the case; Pani Szmul was no longer to be found in the attic above the bakery at number 4 Tlomackie Street. And when the kitchen foreman was brought in for questioning he confessed that he’d had a hand in getting her out of the ghetto — her and her brother. They were heading south. No mystery there: Hungary, where the Jews, apart from the odd razzia and massacre, were just 2nd-class citizens (and weren’t even badged). And this despite the personal guarantee of President Chaim Rumkowski. Most scandalously of all (I can’t get over this), most scandalously of all (I really can’t get over this), it happened right under the noses, right under the noses of the Uberwachungsstelle zur Bekampfung des Schleichhandels und der Preiswucherei im judischen Wohnbezirk! And how much money did I disperse? I said,

‘Halt.’

Na, I wasn’t really discouraged. Shulamith’s flit was only a theoretical or platonic reverse: the threat would still hold; the charm was still firm and good. Having taken the trouble to locate the woman, though, I found it an aesthetic irritation, somehow, to think of her strolling scot-free down the boulevards of Budapest.

‘Well, Sonderkommandofuhrer. Until the 30th. Walpurgisnacht, nicht?’

Mobius took a pull on his drink. He wiped his mouth on a serviette. He sighed and said quietly,