Pierre Frei - Berlin - A Novel

The guard let the flap drop into place and opened the door. 'Sorry, Frau Obersturmbannfuhrer, didn't recognize you.'

'Look, I don't want to be called Frau Commandant or Frau Obersturmbannfiihrer. I'm Marlene Neubert. Would you please repeat that?'

'Certainly, Frau Neubert.' The guard went a few steps with them.

She pointed to the low, wooden building at the end of a well-tended gravel path. 'Is that where my husband works?'

'Yes, Frau Neubert, that's the office building.'

Jana bent over the rose bed at the entrance and smelled a flower. 'Pretty roses.'

'You like roses?'

'Yes, I like them very much.'

Marlene turned a few leaves over. 'Greenfly. The bushes need spraying. Soap solution would do it.' She'd learned that from the woman next door to them at the Kleiner Wannsee house.

'I'll tell the trustee.' The guard went back to his post.

'We'll visit my husband later — let's go and find those vegetables. Come on, Jana.' The gravel crunched under their feet. Are your parents around here somewhere?'

Jana put the basket down. 'Mama over in women's camp. Papa at fence, wanted talk Mama a little, like used to. Frau Hauptsturmfiihrerin see. Call Oberscharfiihrer. Oberscharfiihrer come with big stick.'

'What, that nice Herr Schafer? He surely didn't…?'

'Did,' was the laconic answer.

'I expect he lost his temper for a moment. As far as I know the supervisory staff aren't allowed to use violence. Your father should complain.'

'Oberscharfiihrer hit Papa with big stick till Papa dead,' was the matterof-fact reply.

Marlene felt paralysed. It took her a long, long time to react. 'It must have been an accident. I'm sure Herr Schafer didn't mean to hit so hard,' she said, trying to retrieve her view of the world as it ought to be. 'What about your mother?'

'Mama seven days in cellar with rats. When she come out, three toes gone.'

'Three toes?' Marlene was horrified.

'First you not want sleep. Then you must sleep. Rats wait till you sleep.' The gypsy girl picked the basket up again. Marlene followed her — and froze. Ahead of her, a tall barbed-wire fence clawed its way up to the sky. The wooden watchtowers at its four corners seemed to have been borrowed from a chess set for giants. A guard with a dog was on duty at the gate. Huts of a dirty grey hue lay beyond it, in rows of five. Not even weeds grew on the perfectly straight clinker paths between them.

Before they arrived, Fredie had explained to her, 'Blumenau is where they put people who don't belong in our society. Jews, homosexuals, Communists, gypsies and so on. Those who really want to prove their worth can do it by working. As camp commandant I'm responsible for discipline and order.'

An eerie silence lay over this bleak wilderness. 'But of course, the people are all working.' She was relieved to have found an explanation for the deathly silence. She nodded to the guard. The dog growled as they passed him.

'You strong, you work, you eat.' Jana pointed to a row of neat dark green wooden buildings in the background, obviously the workers' quarters. She pushed open the door to one of the grey huts in front of them. A stench of excrement and urine met them. When her eyes were used to the dim light, she made out long rows of wooden bunks stacked four high. On them cowered skeletons with skin stretched over them, wearing striped rags. Heads shaved bald were raised, with difficulty. Eyes lying deep in their sockets stared expressionlessly at her. 'No work, no eat. Only get thin soup.' Jana spoke like a tourist guide, her voice devoid of emotion.

Marlene felt only a dull emptiness. In the last five minutes she had seen more horrors than in her entire life. The squalor of Riibenstrasse was a sunny memory by comparison, the repulsive desires of men who paid for sex a harmless bit of fun. 'I'll speak to my husband. I'm sure he doesn't know anything about this.'

Jana pointed ahead. 'Farm there.' The striped backs and headscarves of a hundred women weeding rose in hunched outline above the endlessly long vegetable beds. Women overseers supervised the work.

Hauptsturmfiihrerin Werner stood tall and slender between the beds, her cap pulled down over her forehead. She was wearing boots with her uniform coat, and carried a riding crop. In a terrible way she was beautiful, and well aware of it. Marlene went towards her. 'Good morning, Frau Werner.'

Jana muttered something that sounded like 'Good morning.' She was evidently frightened.

Marlene offered her hand. Frau Werner ignored it. 'I came to ask you for some vegetables. A few carrots and sugar peas, and two lettuces, if you wouldn't mind.'

Frau Werner turned to the gypsy girl. 'Have you forgotten how to address me in your new position?' she hissed.

Marlene leaped to Jana's defence. 'She did say good morning.'

'Come here. How do you address me?'

Jana took a step forward, assumed a wooden military stance, took a deep breath and shouted, her voice breaking, 'Prisoner 304476. Heil Hitler, Frau Hauptsturmfiihrerin.'

There was the ugly sound of a blow. A bloody weal crossed Jana's cheek from her left ear to her chin. Frau Werner lowered her riding crop. 'To help you remember how to speak to your superiors.'

Marlene was beside herself. 'You monster! My husband will see that you pay for this!'

Gertrud Werner looked her coldly up and down, and kicked the prisoner crouching closest to her in the ribs with the toe of her boot. A basket of carrots, sugar peas and two lettuces for the Frau Commandant. Free delivery to the big house,' she added mockingly.

'Come along, Jana. Dr Engel will see to you.' The red cross on the white background showed Marlene the way. The infirmary building was all sterile white tiles. Surgical instruments glittered in little glass-fronted cupboards. A swing door led to the next room, obviously the operating theatre, from which a smell of disinfectant wafted.

Jana screamed as the doctor dabbed alcohol on her would. When that dreadful woman hit her she didn't utter a sound, Marlene thought in surprise.

'Fancy hitting out like that — terrible!' she said to the doctor, venting her outrage.

'Very unpleasant, admittedly. Camp life gets on all our nerves. To be honest. I'd rather be at the Front. Were marching west now after our blitzkrieg on Poland.'

Dr Engel pulled down the girl's lower lids down. 'Fascinating, these black gypsy eyes.' He stuck a large plaster over her cheek. 'The wound will heal in a couple of days.'

'The people shut up in those grey huts are starving. They get nothing but thin soup.'

Engel took a test tube from its holder and held it up to the light. 'The commandant is responsible for the camp. My place is here with my scientific work.'

'We won't trouble you any longer, doctor.'

'Oh, you're not troubling me. Do visit me whenever you like.' Engel patted Jana's unharmed cheek.

A young woman prisoner was waiting for them in the kitchen with the basket of vegetables. She whispered something in Jana's ear and then ran away full tilt. 'Sema gypsy too.' Jana began shelling the peas into a pan.

A good-looking man, Dr Engel. I think he likes you.' Marlene picked up a handful of pods and helped to shell them.

'It's nine o'clock,' she told her husband when he came home late from the camp that evening.

'No end of administrative stuff. Sorry, darling, I should have let you know. Or you could have called. The field telephone in the kitchen connects directly to my office. You only have to lift the receiver. So take care cleaning — a temporary connection like that isn't very stable.'

'I'll remember that. Come and eat.' She was determined to talk to him about conditions in the camp and Hauptsturmftihrerin Werner after supper, but he nipped her story in the bud. 'By no means is everything here just as it should be. Getting the place under control is a considerable task, but I shall do it. And I want you backing me up, right?' Marlene understood. He didn't wish to be bothered with complaints.