Rausch slowly eased himself back from the window. “What attitude is that, Doctor?”
“This scoffing,” Langhof said, “it could get you into a lot of trouble one day.”
Rausch smiled. “Trouble? Could it indeed get me into trouble, do you think?” he asked softly. Illuminated by the bulb, his face seemed almost to glow. “What kind of trouble?”
“You know what I’m talking about,” Langhof said. “What’s to keep me from reporting you?”
Rausch laughed lightly and turned back toward the window. “A lovely light, this corona that edges the chimney-tops. Almost a halo.”
Langhof sat down on the bunk. “What’s to keep me from turning you in, Rausch?”
Rausch did not turn from the window. “For what? I do my duty, as do you.” He shifted to face Langhof. “How many women did you slice up today, Doctor? Five?”
Langhof turned away from Rausch’s gaze.
“Ten? More than that? Twenty?”
Langhof stepped to the door, his back to Rausch.
Rausch allowed his eyes to drift back toward the window. “Well, the numbers are unimportant in any case,” he said. “The facts are the same. You stood at a table and sliced up a few women. Then you took their babies out of their wombs. You examined these unfortunate children. You scrutinized them under the light. You probably even jotted down a few inane and useless notes just to be on the safe side. Am I right, Doctor?”
Langhof whirled around angrily. “And what did you do, Rausch?”
Rausch’s eyes did not leave the window. “I killed perhaps a thousand people,” he said casually, “then incinerated them like so much rubbish. That smoke, the smoke here in the room, that’s them.”
Langhof shook his head. “Unbelievable that this could be happening.”
“Not in the least,” Rausch said quietly.
Langhof stepped over to him. “Why do you keep looking out that window?” he asked.
Rausch turned to face Langhof. “Do you know what happens when a star collapses, Doctor? It implodes. Everything falls into the pit of itself. That is what we are doing, imploding. This is the whole journey of civilization at the moment when it passes through its own rectum.”
“Ridiculous,” Langhof said. “This place has nothing to do with civilization.”
“We went as far as we could, and now we are racing back,” Rausch said. “This is the bottom, the suicide of culture.”
Langhof stepped back and sat down on his bunk. “This is just the Camp,” he said. “It is not the whole world.”
Rausch smiled. “Really? Do you think so? Do you think this is just some vile spot on Europe? Do you think that we are isolated in what we do here, that we are alone?”
Langhof stared evenly at Rausch. He could feel his hands clench the army blanket beneath him. “Yes, I do.”
Rausch laughed. “I’m afraid you are quite wrong, Doctor.” He paused, glanced toward the window, then back to Langhof. “The people, the vermin, how do you think they get here? Do you think they simply show up with their baggage at the Camp gate?” He shook his head. “They come by train, my dear doctor, and there are lots of little men who run the trains. They know what’s on them, but they make them run anyway. They give the proper railway signals. Then there are those who mend the tracks. And others who build the platforms.”
Langhof could feel his fingers eating into the blanket. “Perhaps, but …”
Rausch touched the collar of his uniform. “Very nice, isn’t it? Sleek. A beautiful attire. It was made by someone else who knew — at least partly — what it stood for. They may have agreed, they may not have. In the end, you see, it didn’t matter.” He walked over to the bunk and stood over Langhof. “Then there are the people who make the flags and the bugles and the boots. The people who carry the mails and make the mail pouches. The people who make rubber and steel, who censor the books and dismiss the intransigent faculty members.” He sat down slowly beside Langhof, took his cap from his head, and dropped it into his lap. His hair shimmered in the light. “All the little people who do the million tasks that allow the New Order to reproduce itself each day. They are here with us. Not soldiers. Certainly not Special Section. And yet they are out there, doing their work, drawing their pay, swilling down their beer in the rathskellers, fornicating in their tiny rooms, breeding the next generation of themselves.” Rausch looked at Langhof. A small, bitter smile played on his lips. “Civilization. No, Langhof, the Camp is not a cancer that can be surgically removed. It is the center of a spider’s web and its strands stretch everywhere, to everyone.”
Langhof stood up and walked to the window without looking out. Then he turned to face Rausch. “And what about you, Rausch?” he said. “You’re different. You’re not like the rest.”
“Different? Oh yes. Haven’t you noticed? We all are. None of us is like ‘the rest.’ But we do the same things, don’t we? You and Kessler and Ludtz. All of you did precisely the same thing today.”
Langhof lowered his head.
“We are at the bottom,” Rausch said, “and we have to see it through. We have to touch the very bottom this time, so that we will always know where the bottom is.” He paused, watching Langhof. “Do you understand?”
Langhof said nothing.
Rausch stood up and watched Langhof sternly. “Do you know how you got here?”
“I was reassigned.”
Rausch laughed. “Reassigned? All right, we’ll start there if you want. Why were you reassigned?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do.”
Langhof raised his head and faced Rausch. “Why then? Why was I reassigned?”
“Because you were noticed at the Institute. A jokester, that’s what they said, a person who could be counted on to make light of things. Just the right attitude for a place like this.”
“Ridiculous.”
“You were reassigned because you had such a wonderful sense of humor.”
Langhof’s eyes narrowed. “I’m goddamn tired of being mocked by you,” he said.
“It’s true.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Never underestimate the power of good humor, Doctor,” Rausch said coldly. He stared at Langhof for a moment, then put on his cap and carefully straightened it. “I despise you, Langhof,” he said softly. “You are nothing but a stage I passed through long ago. This self-righteousness of yours, this despicable pose of wounded humanity. It makes the air stink more than the smoke from the pits.”
“Get out of here,” Langhof said.
Rausch did not move. “We have to carry it through this time, Doctor. We have to reach the bottom. It is our mission, the great task of our age.”
“Get out,” Langhof repeated.
Rausch smiled, but his eyes remained fixed brutally on Langhof’s face. “When I was a little boy, I watched my grandfather kill a litter of puppies by swinging their heads against a wall. What effect do you suppose that had on me?”
“I could not care less,” Langhof said grimly.
“I remember the effect,” Rausch said. “My grandfather was a wizened old man. He looked like God with that white hair and beard. He swung the puppies by their tails, bashed them once, then threw them into the river.” Rausch’s eyes seemed to sparkle. “It was a thrilling sight.”
“I don’t want you ever to come in here again,” Langhof said.
“You are like the rest. You prefer sentimental tales of loyal dogs pulling drowning children from the raging current. Is that right, Doctor?”
Langhof stepped to the door and opened it. “Go,” he said.
“The real story is quite different from what you imagine, Langhof,” Rausch said.
Watching the gleaming buttons on Rausch’s uniform, Langhof felt an almost physical revulsion. “I prefer my mind to yours,” he said.