The Magus, A Revised Version (75 page)

‘
We were marched downstairs and out in front of the school to the wing where I believe you masters live now
–
the western. Wimmel was standing at the entrance there with one of his lieutenants.

‘
On the side of the steps behind them the collaborationist interpreter was sitting, with his head in his hands. He looked white, in a state of shock. Some twenty yards away, by the wall, I saw two dead
female bodies. Soldiers rolled them on to stretchers as we approached.
The lieutenant stepped forward and signalled to the butcher to follow him.

‘
Wimmel turned and went into the building. I saw his back going down the dark stone corridor and then I was pushed forward after him. He stood outside a door at the far end and waited for me. Light poured from it. When I got there he gestured for me to go in.

‘
I think anyone but a doctor wo
uld have fainted. I should have
liked to have fainted. The room was bare. In the middle was a table. Roped to the table was a young man. The cousin. He was naked except for a bloodstained singlet, and he had been badly burnt about the mouth and eyes. But I could see only one thing. Where his genitals should have been, there was nothing but a black-red hole. They had cut
off
his penis and scrotal sac. With a pair of wire-cutting shears.

‘
In one of the far corners another naked man lay on the floor. His face was to the ground and I could not see what they had done to him. He too was apparently unconscious. I shall never forget the stillness of that room. There were three or four soldiers
–
soldiers! of course torturers, psychopathic sadists
–
in the room. One of them held a long iron stake. An electric fire was burning, lying on its back. Three of the men wore leather aprons like blacksmith
’
s aprons, to keep their uniforms clean. There was a disgusting smell of excrement and urine.

‘
And there was one other man, bound to a chair in the corner. He had been gagged. A great bull of a man. Badly bruised and wounded in one arm, but evidently not tortured yet. Wimmel had started first on the ones most likely to break.

‘
I have seen films
–
like Rossellini
’
s
–
of the good human
’
s reactions to such scenes. How he turns on the Fascist monsters and delivers himself of some terse yet magnificent condemnation. How he speaks for history and humanity and for ever puts them in their place. I confess my own feelings were of immediate and intense personal fear. You see, Nicholas, I thought, and Wimmel left a long silence to let me think, that I was now going to be tortured as well. I did not know why. But there was no reason left in the world. When human beings could do such things to one another …

‘
I turned round and looked at Wimmel. The extraordinary thing was that he seemed the most human other person in the room. He looked tired and angry. Even a little disgusted. Ashamed at the mess his men had created.

‘
He said in English,
“
These men do this for pleasure. I do not.
I
wish, before they start on that murderer there, that you will speak to mm.

‘
I said,
“
What must I say?
”

‘
“
I want the names of his friends.
I want the names of the people
who help him. I want the positions ofhiding-places and arms places. If he gives me these I give him my word he will be executed in a correct military manner.
”

‘
I said,
“
Did
they
not tell you enough?
”

‘
Wimmel said,
“
All they knew. But he knows more. He is
a
man I have long wished to meet. His friends could not make him speak. I do not think we shall make him speak. Perhaps you can. You will say this. The truth. You do not like us Germans.
You
are an educated man. You wish only to stop these … procedures.
You
will advise him to speak what he knows. It is no guilt now that he is caught to speak. You understand? Come with me.
”

‘
We went into another bare room next door. A few moments later the wounded man was dragged in, still tied to his chair, and set in the centre of the room. I was given a chair facing him. The colonel sat in the background and waved the torturers outside. I began to
talk.

‘
I did exactly as the colonel had ordered. That is, I begged the man to give all the information he could. You will say it was dishonourable of me, because you are thinking of the families and other men he could have betrayed. But that night I lived in those two rooms. They were the only reality. The outside world did not exist. I felt passionately that it was my duty to stop any more of this atrocious degradation of human intelligence. And that the Cretan
’
s obsessive obstinacy seemed to contribute so directly to the degradation that it in part constituted it.

‘
I told him I was not a collaborationist, that I was a doctor, that my enemy was human suffering. That I spoke for Greece when I said that God would forgive him if he spoke now
–
his friends had suffered enough. There was a point beyond which no man could be expected to suffer … and so on. Every argument I could think of.

‘
But his expression was one of unchanging hostility to me. Hatred of me. I doubt if he even listened to what I was saying. He must have assumed that I was a collaborationist, that all the things I told him were lies.

‘
In the end I fell silent and looked back at the colonel. I could not hide the fact that I thought I had failed. He must have signalled to the guards outside, because one of them came in, went behind the Cretan and unfastened the gag. At once the ma
n roared, all the chords in his
throat standing out, that same word, that one word:
eleutheria.
There was nothing noble in it. It was pure savagery, as if he was throwing a can of lighted petrol over us. The guard brutally twisted the gag back over his mouth and retied it.

‘
Of course the word was not for him a concept or an ideal. It was
simply his last weapon, and he used it as a weapon.

‘
The colonel said,
“
Take him back and await my orders.
”
The man was dragged away again into that sinister room. The colonel walked to the shuttered window, opened it on to darkness and stood there for a minute, then turned to me. He said,
“
Now you see why I must speak the language that I do.
”

‘
I said,
“
I see nothing
any more
.
”
Wimmel replied:
“
Perhaps I should make you watch the dialogue between my men and that animal.
”
I said,
“
I beg you not to.
”
He asked me if I thought he enjoyed such scenes. I did not answer. Then he said,
“
I should be very happy to sit at my headquarters. To have nothing to do but sign papers and enjoy the beautiful classical monuments. You do not believe me. You think I am a sadist. I am not. I am a realist.
”

‘
Still I sat in silence. He planted himself in front of me, and said,
“
You will be placed under guard in a separate room. I will give orders that you have something to eat and drink. As one civilized man to another, I regret the incidents of today and the incidents in the next room. You will not, of course, be one of the hostages.
”

‘
I looked up at him, I suppose with a shocked gratitude.

‘
He said,
“
You will please remember that like every other
off
icer I have only one supreme purpose in my life, the German historical purpose
–
to bring order into the chaos of Europe. When that is done -then is the time for lieder-singing.
”

‘
I cannot tell you how, but I knew he was lying. One of the great fallacies of our time is that the Nazis rose to power because they imposed order on chaos. Precisely the opposite is true
–
they were successful because they imposed chaos on order. They tore up the commandments, they denied the super-ego, what you will. They said,
“
You may persecute the minority, you may kill, you may torture, you may couple and breed without love.
”
They
off
ered humanity all its great temptations. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

‘
I believe that unlike most Germans, Wimmel knew, had always known, this. What he was. What he was doing. And that he was playing with me. It did not seem so at first. He gave me one last look and then went out, and I heard him speak to one of the guards who had brought me. I was taken to a room on another floor and given something to eat and a bottle of German beer. I had many feelings, but the dominant one was that I was going to survive. I was still going to see the sun shining. To breathe, to eat bread, to touch a keyboard.

‘
The night passed. I was brought c
off
ee in the morning, allowed to wash. Then at half past ten I was made to go out. I found all the other hostages waiting. They had not been given anything to drink or eat and I was forbidden to speak to them. There was no sign of Wimmel or of Anton.

‘
We were marched to the harbour. The entire village was there, some four or five hundred people, black and grey and faded blue, crammed on to the quays with a line of
die Ra
b
en
watching them. The village priests, the women, even little boys and girls. They screamed as we came into sight. Like some amorphous protoplasm. Trying to break bounds, but unable to.

‘
We went on marching. There is a large house with huge Attic acroteria facing the harbour
–
you know it?
–
in those days there was a taverna on the ground-floor. On the balcony above I saw Wimmel and behind him Anton, flanked by men with machine-guns.
I
was taken from the column and made to stand against the wall under the balcony, among the chairs and tables. The hostages went marching on. Up a street and out of sight.

‘
It was very hot. A perfect blue day. The villagers were driven from the quay to the terrace with the old cannons in front of the taverna. They stood crowded there. Brown faces upturned in the sunlight, black kerchiefs of the women fluttering in the breeze. I could not see the balcony, but the colonel waited above, impressing his silence on them, his presence. And gradually they fell absolutely quiet, a wall of expectant faces. Up in the sky I saw swallows and martins. Like children playing in a house where some tragedy is taking place among the adults. Strange, to see so many Greeks … and not a sound. Only the tranquil cries of little birds.

‘
Wimmel began to speak. The collaborationist interpreted.
“
You will now see what happens to those … those who are the enemies of Germany … and t
o those who help the enemies of
Germany … by order of a court martial of the German High Command held last night … three have been executed … two more will now be executed…
”

‘
All the brown hands darted up, made the four taps of the Cross. Wimmel paused. German is to death what Latin is to ritual religion
–
entirely appropriate.

‘
“
Following that … the eighty hostages … taken under Occupation law … in retaliation for the brutal murder … of four innocent members of the German Armed Forces …
”
and yet again he paused …
“
will be executed.
”

‘
When the interpreter interpreted the last phrase, there was an ex
h
aled groan, as if they had all been struck in the stomach. Many of the women, some of the men, fell to their knees, imploring the balcony. Humanity groping for the non-existent pity of a
deus vindicans.
Wimmel must have withdrawn, because the beseechings turned to lamentations.

‘
Now I was forced out from the wall and marched after the hostages. Soldiers, the Austrians, stood at every entrance to the harbour and forced the villagers back. It horrified me that they could help
die Raben,
could obey Wimmel, could stand there with impassive faces and roughly force back people that I knew, only a day or two before, they did not hate.