Arnost Lustig - Lovely Green Eyes

He sniffed the air to see whether Madam Kulikowa, in her eagerness to please him, had sprayed too much perfume. He didn’t care for it, and he had warned the Madam in advance. Perfume gave him migraine. He found it repulsive, as he did mushrooms in potato soup. But what he smelled, more than perfume, was the stench of rats. Hideous creatures. The stench of rat poison and of rats — how could he forget that smell? He could not even stand the perfume they used for spraying the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, at Treblinka, Majdanek and Sobibor, so the new arrivals didn’t panic but let themselves be gassed without struggle. It was a pity to waste a single bullet. He reminded himself that he was the bearer of a Reich secret, one of the initiates.

Unconsciously he straightened his back. He wouldn’t have minded being three or four inches taller, but he had a reputation he could be proud of. Women never had him totally in their power, even if he needed them. His steps were guided not by Venus but by Mars. His military assessments noted his hardness, toughness and fighting spirit, by which he compensated for what he had lost after suffering a severe head wound. Few people knew that a grenade had struck his head like lava hurled from a volcano, turning him into a living torch, and that his comrades had saved him by dousing the flames. There were consequences, of course, both internal and external. His scalp had not escaped damage. Die Sonne bringt es an den Tag . He didn’t need to remind himself of it, the scar reminded him constantly. As for that other weakness, the army doctor had assured him that it was not life-threatening.

He was filled with a sense of superiority which would have been appropriate in someone twice his age. This did not exclude, but on the contrary confirmed, a craving for brutality without which he probably would not be in the Einsatzkommando. As for proving himself, there was no stiffer test than the Einsatzkommando. At Treblinka he had forced a professor of mathematics to thank him in advance for sending him to the next world. After terrifying him by putting a pistol against to his head he gave the man the option of running along to join his own people. For his age he ran quite well. At the last moment he joined a column destined for the gas chamber. He did not enjoy his escape for long. There had been irony and drama in it; a piece of theatre with its dénouement. That Jew was said to have been an expert on differential calculus. He spoke German, English and French fluently and could make himself understood in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. He played Bach on the piano from memory. He had been married twice. He had come with two sisters and three grandchildren. He was even able to bring his first wife with him. The impertinent Jew! To cap it all, he was called Faust and had studied in Heidelberg. Chutzpah, as the Jews say. What did a Yid know about blood, about Germandom, about pride or about soil?

Obersturmführer S arazin knew that there were many people in the Einsatzgruppen who thought the same as he did. Life was a string of pearls of varying sizes. Everybody born of a good race was entitled to reach the highest level. Apart from the prostitute Ginger and that acrobat, Long-Legs, he knew in advance that even if he left having achieved what he wanted he would be unsatisfied. Sometimes a prostitute had a good body — the Madam, say — and a lousy nature. Or she might be good at her job but be unwilling to let herself go completely. He was looking for a girl who, without being told, could read from his eyes what he wanted. He did not believe that anything should be denied him. It was he who held all the cards — well, nearly all.

He had read somewhere that everyone carried their own invisible baggage with them. He was not prepared to stop judging people by his own yardsticks.

As he walked towards the cubicles he thought he saw a rat rising to its hind legs under a dangling lightbulb at the far end of the corridor. He did not change his pace. If he drew his pistol and fired at it he would rouse the soldiers from their mattresses and frighten the girls. Why shouldn’t they have a bit of fun? He was only a few steps from Cubicle 16. He had passed Number 13 on his left. Number 16 would be on the right, as in a bad hotel. His hands and forehead were perspiring, probably because he’d come indoors to the warmth from the biting cold outside. Sometimes a thought would make him sweat, no matter whether it was a decision, or a verse, or an even target in the sight of his gun. Barrel, sight, trigger. Load, fire, a Jew. He enjoyed the idea, if only for the fraction of a second, when — thanks to him — his enemies were meeting the mother of everything on that other side of existence. That most faithful mistress of existence. A gift only he appreciated. Palm, butt, barrel, sight, a Jew. In his mind he heard the echo of nearly all the shots he had fired, had indulged in. He perceived it all as a huge detailed picture. That was how poets saw things.

Obersturmführer Sarazin had been preoccupied by numbers lately. Especially with two and three. He sought and found all kinds of connections. For the fifth day running (two plus three) he’d had a dream he’d first had at Treblinka. He had residential rights there; he had been a member and later the commanding officer of the guard detachment. The newly-raised Einsatzgruppen would be sent there to be tested, toughened up and tempered like steel.

He could have chosen between Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. That was the number three. There remained Mauthausen and Sobibor — two and three made five.

It would be silly if he had not dreamt it so often. He did not know whether it was a prophecy of the future or something that had happened to him in a previous life. It was about three Jewish women and a train with two engines. The engines uncoupled themselves and came to a halt in front of him. He tied the Jewish women to the near tender by their pigtails. Then he signalled the engineers to go full steam ahead. The two engine drivers sounded their whistles in unison. Three long blasts cut through the air, like horns playing some unknown music. Two engines, three blasts. Two engines, three women with pigtails. Then his numbers got confused.

The advantage of the dream was that he could dream about Jews even if there were none left in the area. He saw this as a personal achievement. He felt himself growing, felt the invisible magnetic force contained in killing, as if he were cutting down tall grain with a scythe, the black earth under his feet and white, wind-tattered clouds against a translucent deep blue when he raised his arm towards the sky. He had killed in many landscapes, now along the banks of the River San, where cattle would one day feed on grass fertilized by countless dead Jews, Gypsies and Poles. Every lizard would be fat with Jewish blood, fish would grow from the nutrients he had provided for them. Blood to him suggested crimson and all kinds of aniline red. He had seen a river turn red. It was to his credit that on historic maps Europe would be marked judenrein, cleansed of Jews. He knew that the Jews were his obsession. He didn’t ask himself why. Poets were guided by their unshakeable intuition, that was how it was. He had one advantage over the circumcised: he saw what they could no longer see.

He stepped into Cubicle 16. He looked about him in the dim light, then shut the door. The ceiling seemed low to him. The prostitute he had chosen and booked for the whole shift was standing by the window, facing the door. Snowflakes were swirling outside. He had no doubt that she had been waiting for him. He could tell at once, washed, with oil handy. She’d be all the more willing to do what he wanted after his self-assured entry. And, of course, because of his rank and unit. Was she taller than him? Perhaps he should will her to stoop a little. She had light, gingery hair. Good. She was better dressed than he had expected. That was probably due to the obliging nature of that cloying, ageing Madam. He noted the lit candle and the shadow that the prostitute’s head cast on the wall, like the shadow of a wounded bird whose head was drooping.