Of course the girls are dying to trot around on that little wreck Meinrad, but he’s got curb now and can hardly walk. Nor, for some time, have we been able to depend on the weekly ministrations of Tierpfleger Seisser! Ach. Now we just get the odd visit from Bent Suchanek, the schludrig muleskinner loosely attached to the Equestrian Academy.
She was a rare bird, a Judin Prominent in the SS-Hygienic Institute (the SS-HI), 1 of several prisoner doctors who, under close supervision of course, did lab work on bacteriology and experimental sera. Unlike the Ka Be (an indigent hospice or holding pound) and unlike Block 10 (a free-for-all of castrations and hysterectomies), the SS-HI bore quite persuasive resemblances to an establishment devoted to medicine. I went there for the introductory chat, but for our 2nd meeting I had her over to a quiet stockroom in the MAB.
‘Please sit.’
A Polish — German, her name was Miriam Luxemburg (and her mother was said to be a niece of Rosa Luxemburg, the famous Marxist ‘intellectual’), and she’d been with us for 2 years. Now women do not on the whole age gracefully in the KL — but it’s chiefly complete lack of food that does that (and even hunger, chronic hunger, can wipe away all the feminine essences in 6 or 7 months). Dr Luxemburg looked about 50, and was probably about 30; but it wasn’t malnutrition that had reduced her hair to a kind of mould and turned her lips outside in. She had some flesh on her and, moreover, seemed tolerably clean.
‘For security reasons it’ll have to be done around midnight,’ I said. ‘You’ll bring your own gear of course. What else’ll you need?’
‘Clean towels and plenty of boiling water, sir.’
‘You’re just going to give her a preparation, aren’t you? You know, 1 of those tube pills they talk about.’
‘There are no tube pills, sir. The procedure will be dilation and curettage.’
‘Well, whatever you have to do. Oh by the way,’ I said. ‘It’s possible that the directive may be subject to change.’ I spoke, as it were, conjecturally. ‘Yes, the orders from Berlin may quite possibly undergo modification.’
My initial offer of 6 bread rations having been dismissed with some hauteur, I now passed along a paper bag containing 2 sleeves of Davidoffs, and there would be 2 more to follow: 800 cigarettes. She intended, I knew, to expend this capital on her brother, who was struggling, somewhat, in a penal Kommando in the uranium mines beyond Furstengrube.
‘Modified in what way, sir?’
‘The Chancellery may yet opt’, I explained, ‘for a slightly different outcome. Wherein the procedure does not go well. From the patient’s point of view.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning, sir.’
‘Meaning, sir?’
‘There would be a further 800 Davidoffs. Of course.’
‘Meaning, sir?’
‘Sodium evipan. Or phenol. A simple cardiac injection… Oh, stare not so, “Doktor”. You’ve selected, haven’t you. You’ve done selections. You’ve separated out.’
‘That has sometimes been asked of me, yes, sir.’
‘And you’ve disposed of live births,’ I said. ‘There’s no point in denying it. We all know it happens.’
‘That has sometimes been asked of me, yes, sir.’
‘Quite heroic in a way. Secret deliveries. You risk death.’
She didn’t reply. For she risked death every day, every hour, just by being what she was. Yes, I thought: that’ll put a few bags under your eyes and a few notches on your mouth. I gave her an interrogative stare, and she gulped and said,
‘As a student, as an intern, I had such very different things in mind. Sir.’
‘No doubt you did. Well, you’re not a student now. Come on. What’s 1 jab?’
‘But I don’t know how to do that, sir. The cardiac injection. The phenol.’
I came close to suggesting that she walk down the corridor, at the SS-HI, and put in some practice — it was called ‘Room 2’ and they did about 60 per day.
‘It’s easy, isn’t it? Perfectly straightforward, I’m told. 5th rib space. All you need’s a long syringe. It’s easy.’
‘It’s easy. All right, sir. You do it.’
For a moment I turned away in thought… My earlier dialectic, as regards Alisz Seisser, had, in the end (after much to and fro), gone as follows: why take a chance? But the alternative wasn’t free of hazard either; and there’d be the usual sullen intractability of the corpse. I said,
‘Now now. Most likely the Chancellery will adhere to its original adjudication. I’m pretty sure there’ll be no change of plan. Boiling water, eh?’
I suppose too that I wanted to bind her to me. For insurance, obviously. But now we are beginning to think about the exploration of darkness, we may say that I wanted her to come with me, out of the light.
‘When can I assess the patient, sir?’
‘What, beforehand? No, I’m afraid that’s impossible.’ This was literally true: there were guards down there, witnesses down there. ‘You’ll have to do her sight unseen.’
‘Age?’
‘29. She says. But you know how women are. Oh yes — I almost forgot. Is it painful?’
‘Without at least a topical anaesthetic? Yes, sir. Very.’
‘Mm. Oh well. We’d better have a topical anaesthetic then. You see, we can’t have her making much noise.’
Miriam said she’d need money for that. 20 US, if you please. I had only 1s; I started counting them out, employing mental arithmetic.
‘1, 2, 3. Your uh, great-aunt,’ I said with ½ a smile. ‘4, 5, 6.’
Back in Rosenheim, during my Leninist period (ever a dreamer!), I used to puzzle with my future wife over the chief Luxemburgian oeuvre, The Accumulation of Capital (and Lenin, despite her criticisms of his use of terror, did once call her ‘an eagle’). In early 1919, just after the pathetic failure of the German Revolution, Luxemburg was arrested by a Freikorps unit in Berlin, not my Rossbach boys but a pack of hooligans under the nominal command of old Walli Pabst…
‘10, 11, 12. Rosa Luxemburg. They clubbed her to the floor and shot her in the head and threw her body in the Landwehr Canal. 18, 19, 20. And how many languages did she speak?’
‘5.’ Miriam straightened her gaze. ‘This procedure, sir. The sooner the better. That’s axiomatic.’
‘Well. She’s not showing,’ I said (my mind was made up). ‘She seemed fit enough the last time I saw her.’ And it’s good, not using Parisians. I expressively crinkled my nose and said, ‘I think we’ll leave it a bit.’
Szmul was bringing his expertise to bear on 1 of the new installations, namely Crema 4: 5 3-retorters (capacity: 2,000 per 24 hours). This particular facility had proved to be a major pain right from the start. After 2 weeks the rear funnel wall collapsed; and when we got it going again it lasted a mere 8 days before Szmul pronounced it ‘burnt out’. 8 days!
‘The firebricks got loose again, sir. And fell into the duct between the oven and the chimney. There’s nowhere for the flames to go.’
‘Shoddy workmanship,’ I said.
‘Poor materials, sir. The clay’s been qualified. See the discoloured veins?’
‘Wartime economies, Sonder. I take it 2 and 3 are holding the fort?’
‘At ½ volume, sir.’
‘Good God. What do I tell Communications? That I’m refusing transports? Ach, back to the pits, I suppose. And more Crap from Air Defence. Tell me…’
The Sonderkommandofuhrer straightened up. He shut the grate with his foot and slid the lateral bolt on the oven door. Some distance apart, we stood in the grey gloom of the vault, with its low ceiling, its caged lights, its echoes.
‘Tell me, Sonder. Does it feel different? Knowing your uh — time of departure?’