Martin Amis - The Zone of Interest

‘So you…’

‘Oh. Straight away I got the girls and took them to Romhilde Seedig’s. And we left the minute we could.’ She placed a flat hand just beneath her throat. ‘And I knew who he was. Now, Herr Thomsen, the Referendar, what do you make of all that?’

I spread my hands. ‘You’ve had five years to think. You must’ve got somewhere with it.’

‘Mm. Well in the end the worst thing, really, was that he stopped Szmul from killing himself by his own hand. Instead he destroyed his face. You know, I used to say good morning to Szmul in the lane. And whatever else he was he wasn’t a violent man… Now this is right, isn’t it? Doll had, I don’t know, persuaded Szmul to hurt me or even kill me.’

‘The thing I always feared. Persuaded him, put pressure on him. I wonder how.’

‘That’s what I wonder too.’

‘For the rest you saw it right, I think.’

St Kaspar’s ponderously reminded us that it was eleven forty-five. A Sunday, but no other church bells were audible, in this city of a hundred spires.

‘Do you want to know what happened to Dieter? What did Doll say happened to him?’

‘Well he said he was dead. Which is the case, isn’t it? Oh, Doll said all kinds of things. And kept misremembering and contradicting himself. He said they cut all the nerves in his groin. They locked him naked in a kind of fridge of dry ice. Then they—’

‘No, no, none of that’s true.’

‘I could tell it couldn’t all be true.’

‘He was martyred,’ I said firmly. ‘He died for his cause, but it was quick. And early on. January ’34. I learned that from the Reichsleiter.’

‘… You were in prison, weren’t you? Not in a camp.’

‘Camps at first, then prison, thank God. Compared to camp, prison is bliss. Stadelheim, eighteen months in the political wing… I’ll tell you about it another time. If there is another time.’

It was eleven fifty-four, and I had to speak.

‘Hannah, I wasn’t imagining it, was I? You did have some feeling for me, back then?’

She lifted her face and said, ‘No, you weren’t imagining it. And it seemed, I don’t know, it felt right when you hugged me in the pavilion that time. And I went out into the garden for you and I was glad to do it. I thought about you a lot. A lot. And I wished I hadn’t had to destroy your letter. And I tracked down the poem you quoted from. “ The Exiles ”.’

‘ Gas-light in shops, The fate of ships. ’

‘ And the tide-wind Touch the old wound …’

She nodded sorrowfully and went on, ‘But something’s happened. Back then, you were my figure for what was sane. For what was decent and normal and civilised. And now all that’s been turned on its head. I’m… It’s sad. You aren’t normal any longer, not to me. When I see you, I’m there again. When I see you I smell it. And I don’t want to smell it.’

I eventually said it grieved me to admit that this made a kind of sense.

‘Can you believe, I was married to one of the most prolific murderers in history. Me. And he was so coarse, and so… prissy, and so ugly, and so cowardly, and so stupid. Dieter was hopeless too in his way. A head full of someone else’s ideas. Stalin’s. See? I’m no good at it. I’m just not up to it. Doll. Doll. The thought of being with a man is alien to me now. I haven’t given them a glance in years. I’m finished with them. I’m so finished.’

I considered for a moment — or for a moment I stopped considering. ‘You haven’t got the right to say that.’

‘Haven’t got the right ?’

‘No, you haven’t, I don’t think you have. Only a victim has the right to say there’s no coming back from it. And they hardly ever do. They’re desperate to restart their lives. The ones that are truly broken are the ones we never hear from. They’re not talking to — they’re not talking to anybody. You, you were always your husband’s victim, but you were never a victim .’

She shook her square head at me. ‘It depends on the person, doesn’t it? Suffering isn’t relative. Don’t they say that?’

‘But oh yes suffering is. Did you lose your hair and half your body weight? Do you laugh at funerals because there’s all this fuss and only one person died? Did your life depend on the state of your shoes? Were your parents murdered? Were your girls? Do you fear uniforms and crowds and naked flames and the smell of wet garbage? Are you terrified of sleep? Does it hurt and hurt and hurt ? Is there a tattoo on your soul?’

She straightened again and was still for a moment, but then said steadily, ‘No. Of course not. But that’s exactly what I mean. The thing is we don’t deserve to come back from it. After that.’

I said, ‘So they’ve prevailed, have they? In the case of Hannah Schmidt? True? Till your nerves are numb And your now is a time Too late for love. Saying Alas To less and less .’

‘Exactly. Grown used at last To having lost. And I don’t mean the war.’

‘No. No . You’re a fighter. Like the time you gave Doll those black eyes. With one punch — Christ, you’re like Boris . You’re a fighter — that’s who you really are.’

‘No it isn’t. I was never less myself than I was back then.’

‘And is this who you really are? Cowering in Rosenheim. And finished.’

She folded her arms and looked to the side.

‘Who I am doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘It’s simpler than that. You and me. Listen. Imagine how disgusting it would be if anything good came out of that place. There.’

The first gong sounded: thirty-six seconds.

‘I will arise and go now.’

And I arose. Overhead, above the grey — more grey, and no ghosts of blue. Again I swallowed hard, and said quietly,

‘May I write? May I visit? Allowed? Forbidden?’

The refolded arms, the second look to the side.

‘Well I’m — well I’m not forbidding it, am I. That would be… But you’re wasting your time. And my time. Sorry. I’m sorry.’

I swayed before her. ‘You know, I came to Rosenheim hoping to find you. And now you’re near and not lost, I can’t give up.’

She looked out at me. ‘I’m not asking you to stay away. But I am asking you to — to give up.’

My knees creaked as I made a shallow bow and said with a show of briskness, ‘I’ll let you know when I’m coming. Please prepare the girls for high tea in the Grand. With their Uncle Angelus.’

The tower tolled nine, tolled ten.

‘You can of course be trusted to remember your flowers.’ My legs felt even weaker, and I had the knuckles of my left hand pressed tight against my brow. ‘Will you do something for me? When we part, this Sunday afternoon, say so long softly.’

‘Mm, I remember. Yes, all right. Sure.’ She breathed out. ‘… So long.’

Now the twins were drifting back into sight, beyond the tall white bird in the round water.

‘So long,’ I answered, and turned and walked away.

I am of course greatly indebted to the loci classici of the field — the works of Yehuda Bauer, Raul Hilberg, Norman Cohn, Alan Bullock, H. R. Trevor-Roper, Hannah Arendt, Lucy S. Dawidowicz, Martin Gilbert, Ian Kershaw, Joachim C. Fest, Saul Friedländer, Richard J. Evans, Richard Overy, Gitta Sereny, Christopher R. Browning, Michael Burleigh, Mark Mazower, and Timothy Snyder, among many others. These writers have established the macrocosm. I now intend to discharge some obligations on the level of the meso and the micro .