‘Tell me.’
‘It’s despicable, that’s what. Mixing of the races. It’s … He even taught her to sing a few snatches of ‘Tannenbaum’, and her new name, Sophie … quite pretty, isn’t it? And our Dr Elswanger in Minsk bought it. She’d be on her way to Germany if it hadn’t been for … this lady here.’
Manfred turns to the woman seated by the window, who has been silent ever since we entered the room. She must be about forty, dark grizzled hair pulled back tight in a bun – one of the bony sisters of Lebensborn. She nods appreciatively.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘There was nothing wrong with her papers, but as soon as I was on my own with her it was obvious the story didn’t stand up.’
‘So what do you say?’ Manfred says, looking at me.
‘I don’t believe it!’
‘Very well,’ he replies after a moment. Then to the woman, who gets to her feet:
‘Would you, Ingeborg?’
Ingeborg leaves the room. We stand there for a second. I step towards Wäspli.
‘Don’t you say a word to him!’ Michael yells in my face.
_ _ _
Ingeborg comes back in with Etke. The girl is wearing a red and white checked dress, white socks and black patent shoes. Who plaited her hair? Who pinned the plaits up above her ears? Have they got Masja as well?
‘Dr Elswanger may perhaps be forgiven …’ says Manfred.
He steps up to Etke, smiles at her, draws an index finger across her throat and chin, pats her cheek. He produces a bar of chocolate from the jacket of his uniform and proceeds to open it. The wrapper rustles. All the time he looks at me. He breaks off a square.
‘Well, now that we’re all here,’ he says, ‘what would you suggest we do about the situation?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘No.’
‘And you’re a policeman …’
‘Yes.’
‘Not even if we’re dealing with, what do you people call it, aggravating circumstances? Forgery, insubordination, miscegenation.’
I say nothing. Manfred gestures towards Wäspli.
‘Should we let your friend off lightly? A penal unit, a spot of minesweeping, perhaps? Or should we put him through a court martial, cause problems for his family? What do you say? Lenience or punishment?’
Silence.
‘I wonder who made those pretty plaits,’ Manfred says. He smoothes his hand over Etke’s little head.
‘Lenience,’ I say, rather too hastily. ‘What do we do so he can be let off?’
Manfred steps up to me, cups his hand around my ear and whispers. At first I don’t understand what he is saying, but then the blood drains from my head.
‘I can’t,’ I say.
He leans forward and whispers again:
‘Must your little Masja die too? Must she? Must they all die?’
_ _ _
It is raining now.
The beam of the headlights illuminates the grave.
Wäspli is standing at its edge, in mud-spattered boots, face pale.
Michael is behind him, holding his head tightly. He says:
‘Close your eyes and I’ll cut off your eyelids!’
Wäspli trembles in the morning chill.
Manfred approaches with Etke, his hand on her shoulder. She sees the grave and will go no further. He takes her by the arm and flings her forward along the path. She cries out, stumbles. Her dress is covered in mud.
Manfred hauls her to her feet, shoves her on to the edge of the grave.
She is crying.
The pit is full of lime. The corpses, though, are visible among the green-white chunks.
Manfred removes his PPK from its holster, racks the slide and releases, checks to make sure a cartridge is now seated in the chamber.
He hands the firearm to me.
‘Now,’ he says. ‘Do it.’
She whimpers.
I put the muzzle to her neck. I can feel her trembling through the barrel.
I look away as I fire. The pistol recoils in my hand.
A thud as she lands in the grave.
_ _ _
Afterwards.
Manfred puts his hand around my neck, his face up close.
‘Was it your first time? It was, wasn’t it? Your first time …’
I have never seen such tenderness in his eyes. He gives my shoulders a squeeze and walks away down the path.
I see him toss something away. I follow him and pick it up.
It is a crumpled piece of paper, already moist with rain.
I see my signature on the document Wäspli gave me before I left for Minsk.
He tried to copy my hand. Destination: Lebensborn.
When I retun to the cars I see Masja waiting. She shivers in the cold.
Manfred must have had her with him. I take her by the hand and lead her away.
She will not look at me.
Truth is consistent.
GOGA
Questions
The administrative offices of the Judenrat, Sjtjutjyn ghetto.
The last of the Zaludok Jews ended up here after the massacre in ’42. We are looking for anyone who knows Tulabajev’s friend. A homosexual deported to the Gulag between ’39 and ’41. A Jew from Zaludok. Aka: Goga.
We need a real name, a photograph, a description. If anyone knows, they are here.
The man in front of us looks down at the floor: he holds his hands clasped before him, the cap with the coloured ribbon between his fingers, the armband on his right arm, Jewish panto police, a traitor to his own kind, a bastard, a slave himself.
There is a hole in his shoe.
We are: Manfred (smoking), Michael and Hans, the Schwabenland brothers, me, Semjon and some Hiwis (clustered together in a corner, rolling shoulders, loosening muscles, chatting). Manfred has just yelled at the guy, now he smokes a cigarette and has calmed down, he takes a handkerchief from his breast pocket, dabs his brow and the corners of his mouth.
‘I don’t know …’ says the Jew. ‘I don’t know, Herr Hauptsturmführer …’
Manfred gives Michael a nod, Michael steps
