‘It’s nothing. I know what a real wound is, I think. You should’ve seen the state of me on the Iraqi front in 1918. I was in bits. And don’t worry about them, either.’
He meant his daughters. Paulette and Sybil were sitting at the top of the stairs in their nightdresses, holding hands and patiently weeping. Doll said,
‘Dear oh dear. They’ve got their knickers in a twist about something or other. Now where’s my lady wife?’
I had resolved not to stare. So Hannah — huge and goddessy and freshly sunburnt in an evening dress of amber silk — was almost at once consigned to the wastes of my peripheral vision… I knew that a long and tortuous evening was stretching out before me; and yet I still hoped to make some modest headway. My plan was to introduce and emphasise a certain theme, and thus exploit a certain rule of attraction. It was a regrettable rule of attraction, perhaps; but it nearly always worked.
Tall, slender Seedig and portly little Burckl were in business suits; all the other men loomed in dress uniform. Doll, bemedalled (Iron Cross, Silver Wand Badge, SS Honour Ring), stood with his rear to the log fire and with his legs absurdly far apart, rocking on his heels and, yes, occasionally raising a hand and letting it tremble over the gruesome whelks beneath his brows. Alisz Seisser was in mourning clothes, but Norberte Uhl, Romhilde Seedig, Amalasand Burckl, and Trudel Zulz were ablaze in velvet and taffeta, like playing cards — queens of diamonds, queens of clubs. Doll said,
‘Thomsen, help yourself. Go on, get stuck in.’
On the sideboard there were many platters of canapés (smoked salmon, salami, pickled herring), plus a full bar and four or five half-empty bottles of champagne. I shuffled along with the Uhls — Drogo, a middle-aged captain, who was built like a docker, and had a split chin grey-blue with stubble, and Norberte, a frizzy, fussy presence wearing skittle-sized earrings and a gilt diadem. Not many words were exchanged, yet I made two mildly surprising discoveries: Norberte and Drogo strongly disliked each other, and they were both already drunk.
I got hold of Frithuric Burckl and talked shop for twenty minutes; then Humilia came through the double doors, gave a shy curtsey, and announced that dinner would presently be served.
Hannah said, ‘How are the girls? Any better?’
‘Still very bad, ma’am. I can’t do a thing with them. They won’t be consoled.’
Humilia stepped aside as Hannah walked quickly past, and with a grin of vexation the Commandant watched her go.
‘Now you’re here. Now you’re there.’
Boris had solemnly warned me that the women would be seated en bloc, or else they would eat separately in the kitchen (perhaps with the children at an earlier sitting). But no — we dined in the standard coeducational style. There were twelve of us at the circular table; and if I was at six o’clock, then Doll was at eleven, and Hannah was at two (the intertwining of our calves was technically possible — but if I attempted it only the back of my head would remain on my chair). I had Norberte Uhl on one side and Alisz Seisser on the other. With white handkerchiefs noosed round their heads, the maid Bronislawa and another auxiliary, Albinka, lit the candelabrum using the long yuletide matches. I said,
‘Good evening, ladies. Good evening, Mrs Uhl. Good evening, Mrs Seisser.’
‘Thank you, sir, I’m sure, sir,’ said Alisz.
The convention hereabouts was that you talked to the women during the soup course; after that, once general conversation started up, their voices were not really expected to be heard (and they became like padding; they became shock absorbers). Norberte Uhl had her ruddy, disappointed face slumped low over the tablecloth, and was chuckling hoarsely to herself. So without glancing at two o’clock I turned from seven o’clock to five o’clock and settled down to apply myself to the widow.
‘I was very saddened, Mrs Seisser,’ I began, ‘to hear of your bereavement.’
‘Yes, sir, thank you, sir.’
She was in her late twenties, interestingly sallow with many beauty spots (giving you a sense of continuity when, as she sat, she raised her knotty black veil). Boris was a vocal admirer of her rounded low-slung figure (and tonight it looked fluid and buoyant, despite her sepulchral tread). He also told me, in scornful detail, about the last hours of the sergeant major.
‘Such a waste,’ said Alisz.
‘But it’s a time of great sacrifices and…’
‘That’s true, sir. Thank you, sir.’
Alisz Seisser wasn’t here as a friend or a colleague but as the honoured relict of a humble NCO; and she was obviously and painfully ill at ease. I wished in general to give her comfort. And for a while I searched for a redeeming feature, a saving grace — yes, a silver lining in the black thunderhead of Orbart’s ruin. It occurred to me to begin by saying that the Sturmscharfuhrer, at the time of his misadventure, was at least under the influence of a potent analgesic — a large, if entirely recreational, dose of morphine.
‘He wasn’t feeling well on the day,’ she said, revealing her feline teeth (paper-white, paper-thin). ‘Not feeling well at all.’
‘Mm. It is very demanding work.’
‘He told me, you know, I’m not at my best, old girl. I’m not the thing.’
Before going to the Krankenbau to get his medication, Sergeant Seisser went to Kalifornia to steal enough money to pay for it. With all this accomplished, he returned to his post on the southern edge of the Women’s Camp. As he neared the Potato Store (perhaps hoping for some refreshment from its still), two prisoners broke ranks and made a run for the perimeter (a form of suicide, and astonishingly rare); Seisser raised his machine gun and boldly opened fire.
‘A melancholy combination of circumstances,’ I said.
Because Orbart, surprised by the repercussive force of the weapon (and no doubt also surprised by the force of the drug), staggered backwards six or seven feet and, still spraying bullets, collapsed against the electrified fence.
‘A tragedy,’ said Alisz.
‘One can only hope, Mrs Seisser, that the work of time…’
‘Well. Time heals all wounds, sir. Or so it’s said.’
At last the soup bowls were cleared away and we took delivery of the main course — a thick and vinous beef stew.
Hannah had just come back to the table, and Doll was in mid anecdote, telling of the visit, seven weeks earlier (in mid July), of the Reichsfuhrer-SS, Heinrich Himmler.
‘I took our distinguished guest to the Rabbit Breeding Station in Dwory. I urge you to look in there, Frau Seedig. Gorgeous angora rabbits, as white and fluffy as they come. We farm them, you know, by the hundred. For their fur, nicht? To keep our aircrews warm on their missions! And there was one particular customer called Snowball,’ said Doll, his face gradually breaking into a leer. ‘An absolute beauty. And the prisoner doctor, what am I saying, the prisoner vet, he’d taught it all kinds of “tricks”.’ Doll frowned (and winced, and smiled with pain). ‘Well, there was just this one trick. The main trick. Snowball would sit up on his hind legs, with his forepaws, you know, like this — and beg, they’d taught Snowball to beg!’
‘And was our distinguished guest duly charmed?’ asked Professor Zulz (Zulz, an honorary SS colonel, had the sinister agelessness peculiar to certain medical men). ‘Was he tickled?’
‘Oh, the Reichsfuhrer was tickled pink. Why, he fairly beamed — he clapped his hands! And his entire entourage, you know, they, they clapped their hands. All for this Snowball. Who looked rather alarmed but just sat there begging!’
Of course with the ladies present the gentlemen were trying not to talk about the war effort (and also trying not to talk about its local component — the progress of the Buna-Werke). During this time I never met Hannah’s eye exactly, but our roundabout glances occasionally swished past one another in the candlelight… Elaborating on the arts of natural husbandry, the talk moved on — herbal remedies, the crossbreeding of vegetables, Mendelism, the controversial teachings of the Soviet agronomist Trofim Lysenko.