Spark of Life (42 page)

He got up again and walked through the apartment. In the bedroom he opened the wardrobe doors. Before opening them he still had some hope, but at sight of the empty shelves it vanished. Selma had taken her furs and all her valuables. He swept the linen aside; the jewelry box was not there. Slowly he closed the doors and stood for a while in front of the dressing table. Absent-mindedly he picked up the bottles of Bohemian glass, took out the stoppers and sniffed at them without smelling anything. They were presents obtained during those glorious days in Czechoslovakia—she hadn’t taken them along. Probably too fragile.

Suddenly he took a few quick steps toward a cupboard, tore it open and began searching for a key. He didn’t have to search long. The safe was open and empty. She had gone off with all the security bonds. Even with his gold cigarette case with the swastika in diamonds—a gift from the industry while he was still technical adviser. He should have stayed there and gone on milking those brothers. The idea of the camp had turned out to be a mistake after all. At first, to be sure, one had been able to use it as a convenient means of putting on pressure; but now, as a result, one was saddled with it. All the same, he was one of the most humane Commandants. This was well known. Mellern was no Dachau, no Oranienburg, no Buchenwald—not to mention the extermination camps.

He pricked up his ears. One of the windows stood open and a muslin curtain fluttered like a ghost in the wind. This infernal rumbling from the horizon! It made one nervous. He closed the window. In his haste a curtain got jammed in it. He opened the
window again and pulled the curtain in. It got caught on one corner and tore. He cursed and banged the window to. Then he went into the kitchen. The maid was sitting at the table and when he came in she jumped up. Of course she knew everything, that bitch! He helped himself to a bottle of beer from the icebox. He also found half a bottle of Steinhaeger and took both bottles with him into the living room. Then he returned; he had forgotten a glass. The maid was standing by the window, listening. She whipped round as though caught doing some forbidden thing. “Shall I prepare something to eat?”

“No.”

He stamped out again. The schnapps was strong and aromatic; the beer cold. Run away, he thought. Like Jews. Worse! Jews didn’t do that. They stuck together. He had often noticed that. Cheated! Left in the lurch! That’s what one got out of it! He could have gotten more out of life if only he hadn’t been such a faithful family man. Faithful—well, as good as faithful, one could say. Really faithful if you considered what he could have had. Those few times! The widow—that hardly counted. A few years ago there’d been a red-haired woman who had come to rescue her husband from the camp—the things she had done in her distress! Actually, the husband had died long before. Naturally, she didn’t know that. It had been a gay evening. Later, of course, when she received the cigar box with the ashes, she had behaved like an idiot. All her own fault she’d gotten locked up. An
Obersturmbannführer
couldn’t allow himself to be spat at.

He poured himself a second large Steinhaeger. What had made him think of that? Oh yes, Selma. Just imagine the things he could have had! Yes, he had missed many an opportunity. When you thought of all the things others had done! That clubfooted Binding of the Gestapo, for instance! Every day a new one!

He pushed the bottle away. The house seemed as empty as if
Selma had gone off with the furniture as well. She had dragged Freya along. Why hadn’t he had a son? Not his fault, certainly not! Oh, to hell with it all! He gazed about him. What was he to do now? Try to find her? In that little village? She’d still be on her way. Could take a long time before she got there.

He stared at his shining boots. The shining honor—smeared now by treason. Clumsily he got up and walked out through the empty house.

The Mercedes stood outside. “To the camp, Alfred.”

The car crawled slowly through the town. “Stop!” said Neubauer suddenly. “To the bank, Alfred.”

He walked out as steadily as he could. People mustn’t notice anything! Imagine! Making a fool of him, too! During these last months she had drawn out half the money. When he had asked at the bank why he hadn’t been informed they had shrugged their shoulders and talked of a joint account. They were even convinced they’d been doing him a favor. The drawing out of large sums was officially looked upon askance.

“To the garden, Alfred.”

It took them a long time to get through. But on arriving at last, there lay the garden, so peaceful in the morning light. Here and there some fruit trees were already in bloom, the narcissus were out, and violets and crocuses in many colors. They lay in the bright green of the leaves like multicolored Easter eggs. No infidelity from them—they arrived on time and were on the spot as was expected of them. Nature was reliable—there was no running away.

He walked into the shed. The rabbits were nibbling behind the wire. There were no thoughts of bank accounts in their clear red eyes. Neubauer stuck a finger through the wire and gently scratched
the soft fur of the white Angoras. He had meant to have a shawl made from the fur for Selma. He, the kindhearted fool whom everyone betrayed!

He leaned against the wire and stared through the open door. Surrounded by the peace of the happily nibbling animals, his feeling of outrage turned into a deep self-pity. The radiant sky, a blossoming branch swaying up and down before the door, the gentle animal faces in the shade—everything contributed to it.

Suddenly he heard the rumbling again; it was less regular but louder than before. Irresistibly it broke into his private grief, a hollow subterranean knocking. It knocked and knocked and with it fear returned once more. But now it was a different kind of fear. It was deeper. Now he was alone and could no longer deceive himself by trying to convince others and thereby himself. Now it came over him without any restraint, it gushed into his throat from his stomach and from the throat back to his stomach and into the intestines. I have done no wrong, he thought, without conviction. Only my duty. I have witnesses. Any number. Blank is my witness; just recently I gave him a cigar instead of having him locked up. Anyone else would have confiscated his firm without paying a cent. Blank himself admitted it, he’ll testify to that; I’ve been decent, he’ll swear to it. He won’t swear to it, a cold other self thought in him, and he turned around as though a voice had spoken behind him. There stood the rakes, the spades, the hoes, painted green, with reliable wooden shafts—if only one were a peasant now, a gardener, an innkeeper, a nobody! That damned branch blossoming there, it had an easy life, it just went on blossoming and had no responsibility. But where should an
Obersturmbannführer
go? From one side came the Russians, from the other the British and Americans, where could one go? It was easy for Selma to talk. Running away from the Americans meant running nearer to the Russians,
and what they would do was easy to imagine. They hadn’t passed through their devastated country, from Moscow and Stalingrad, for nothing!

Neubauer wiped the sweat out of his eyes. He took several steps. His knees wobbled. One had to do some clear thinking. He groped his way out of the shed. The air outside was fresh. He breathed deeply; but it seemed that with the air he was also breathing in the irregular rumbling from the horizon. It vibrated in his lungs and made him weak. Easily and without retching, he vomited against a tree amongst the narcissus. “The beer?” he said. “Beer and Steinhaeger don’t mix.” He glanced toward the entrance to the garden. Alfred couldn’t see him. He remained standing for a while. Then he felt his sweat drying in the wind. Slowly he walked back to the car. “To the whorehouse, Alfred.”

“Where, Herr
Obersturmbannführer?
”

“To the whorehouse!” Neubauer suddenly yelled angrily. “Don’t you understand your own language any more?”

“The brothel has been closed. It is now an emergency lazaret.”

“Drive to the camp, then.”

He got in. To the camp—where else could he go? …

“What d’you think of the situation, Weber?”

Weber looked at him unperturbed. “Excellent!”

“Excellent? Really?” Neubauer began searching for cigars; then he remembered Weber didn’t smoke them. “Unfortunately I have no cigarettes here. Had a box; they disappeared. Heaven knows where I put them.”

He stared disgruntled at the window boarded up with planks. It had been broken by the bombing, and there was no new glass to be had. He didn’t know that during the confusion his cigarettes had been stolen and via the red-haired clerk and Lewinsky had provided
the Veterans of Barrack 22 with bread for two days. Fortunately his secret notes—all his humanitarian instructions which later had been misinterpreted by Weber and others—had not disappeared. He watched Weber out of the corner of his eye. The camp leader seemed perfectly calm, although he undoubtedly had all kinds of things on his conscience. There had been those recent hangings, for instance—

Suddenly Neubauer grew hot again. He was covered, even doubly so. Nevertheless—“What would you do, Weber,” he said amiably, “if for a short period of—of waiting, let us say, the enemy should occupy the country—which,” he added hastily, “doesn’t necessarily have to mean defeat, as history has frequently proven?”

Weber had listened to him with a hint of a smile. “For someone like me there’s always something to do,” he answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “We’ll come up again—though possibly under other names. As Communists, for instance. For several years there won’t be any National Socialists. Everyone will be a democrat. That doesn’t matter. At some time or other I’ll probably be attached to the police force. Maybe with false papers. Then the work can continue.”

Neubauer smiled to himself. Weber’s confidence helped him to recover his own. “Not a bad idea. And I? What d’you think I’ll be?”

“That I don’t know. You have a family, Herr
Obersturmbannführer
. In that case it’s not so easy to change and go underground.”

“Of course not.” Neubauer’s good mood disappeared again. “You know, Weber, I’d like to make a round of the camp. Haven’t done that for a long time.”

When he arrived in the disinfecting ward, the Small camp already knew what was about to happen. Most of the weapons had already been smuggled back into the labor camp by Werner and Lewinsky. Only 509 had held on to his revolver. He had insisted on it and kept it hidden under his bunk.

A quarter of an hour later, from the hospital by way of the latrine, came the astonishing news that the inspection was not to be a penal affair; that the barracks were not to be thoroughly searched; that on the contrary Neubauer was actually being downright benevolent.

The new block senior was nervous. He shouted at everyone and gave orders. “Don’t shout so much,” said Berger. “It won’t get you anywhere.”

“What?”

“Just that.”

“I’ll shout if I want to. Barrack 22, step out! Line up!” The men who could still walk came out and fell in. The block senior ran down the line. “These are not all! There are more!”

“Are the dead to line up, too?”

“Shut up! Bring out the sick!”

“Listen. Nothing is known about an inspection. None has been ordered. You don’t have to make the barrack line up in advance.”

The block senior was sweating. “I’ll do as I like. I’m the block senior. Where’s the one who’s always sitting about with you here? With you and you.” He pointed at Berger and Bucher.

The block senior opened the barrack door to make sure. This was just what Berger had wanted to prevent. 509 was hiding; he had to keep out of Weber’s way. “He’s not here.” Berger stepped into the doorway.

“What? Get out of my way!”

“He’s not here,” said Berger without moving. “That’s that.”

The block senior stared at him. Bucher and Sulzbacher stepped in beside Berger. “What does all this mean?” asked the block senior.

“He’s not here,” said Bucher. “Do you want to know how Handke died?”

“Are you crazy?”

Rosen and Ahasver had joined the others. “Do you realize I can break the bones of the whole bunch of you?” asked the block senior.

“Listen,” said Ahasver, and pointed his knobby forefinger in the direction of the horizon. “Still coming nearer.”

“He wasn’t killed in the bombing,” said Bucher.

“It wasn’t us who broke Handke’s neck. Not us,” said Sulzbacher. “Haven’t you ever heard of the camp
Vehme?
”

The block senior took one step back. He had heard what happened to traitors and informers. “Do you here belong to it?” he asked, incredulous.

“Be sensible,” said Berger calmly. “And don’t drive yourself and us crazy. Who’d want at this moment to get on the list of those we’re going to get even with?”

“Who has ever mentioned such a thing?” The block senior began to gesticulate. “If nobody tells me anything, how am I supposed to know what’s going on? What’s it all about? Everybody’s been able to depend on me until now.”

“Then everything’s fine.”

“Bolte’s coming,” said Bucher.

“All right, all right.” The block senior hitched up his pants. “I’ll watch out. You can depend on me. I’m one of you.”

Damn it, thought Neubauer, why couldn’t the bombs have fallen here? That would have solved the whole problem! Everything was always going wrong.

“This is the Mercy Division,” he said.

“The Mercy Division,” repeated Weber.

“Oh, well.” Neubauer shrugged his shoulders. “After all—we don’t make them work here.”

“No.” Weber was amused. The idea of making these ghosts work was absurd.

“The blockade,” said Neubauer. “Not our fault—the enemy—” He turned to Weber. “It stinks here like a monkey house. Can’t something be done about it?”

“Dysentery,” answered Weber. “After all, this is a recreation place for the sick.”

“The sick, of course!” Neubauer promptly picked up the thread. “Sick, dysentery, that’s why it stinks, of course. Would be the same in the hospital, too.” He looked about him, undecided. “Couldn’t the people be given a bath?”

“The danger of contagion is too great. We have kept this part of the camp rather shut off from the rest. The bathing installations are on the other side.”