_ _ _
I leave him to ponder on his lapse, and press the bottle into his open hand. His mouth is open too, but he stays put as I go through the gate to Dirlewanger.
Once on the property, I am struck by uncertainty.
The neatly raked driveway up the house, the gravel, the roses.
It seems so empty.
At once I feel scared. Drunk-scared.
I walk past the house, following a new path, and come to an eight-sided gazebo. A man is standing there in striped prison uniform as I come round the side, a Mütze on his head. He is quite as startled as I am, stares, then realises his mistake.
I bark at him:
‘Mütze ab!’
He stumbles and falls, is chained like a dog to a ring in the ground. He gets to his feet again, picks up the cap, stands with it clasped in his hands.
‘Do you speak German?’ I ask.
‘Ja, Herr …’
He looks down at his feet.
‘I’m looking for the Oberführer,’ I say.
‘The zoo … Perhaps he is in the zoo,’ he says, in whatever accent it is – Yiddish, Dutch – are there Dutch Jews here too? He points to the other side of some greenhouses in the extensive gardens.
_ _ _
I follow the path, entering a system of pens and small sheds. There are goats, cats, bales of straw. At first I fail to realise that what I see is a woman seated on a stool in a small pen, in front of a red playhouse. Her head is shaven, a shadow of red hair about the scalp, ashen skin, her nails bitten down. She is bottle-feeding a fox, a scrawny animal with wretched skin, it too red. It has scratched itself to the bone, down the length of the spine to its hairless brush. The bottle is deep inside its mouth, milk seeping from behind its black gums – it is mad with hunger, and she herself has all but wasted away in her striped jacket. Now she lifts her head, I can see her skull beneath her skin, her small brown teeth, and yet she smiles, a slight blush that departs immediately from her face, but remains on her lips, a glow as though of consumption. At this moment they are as one: the scabby beast and her emaciated, angular frame. The fox turns its long head towards me, looks at me for a second with black, malicious eyes. They are no longer afraid of us, I think, and it twists free of the young woman’s grasp to slink away, its paws hardly touching the ground. She looks right through me.
Am I invisible now?
_ _ _
And then we are interrupted.
He has come running from the sheds at the bottom of this pitiable menagerie – furious, a red-blistered SS-Schütze. In his hand is a whip, Dirlewanger’s insignia on his collar patches, the crossed rifles with the stick grenade. He grabs her by the scruff of the neck, lifts her up in a single movement and flings her to the ground, lashes her shoulder with the knout. I watch as he works himself into a lather: she face down, hands at her head, he screaming and yelling. Presently he ceases, turns his ruddy face towards me, his mouth foaming. He drags the sleeve of his uniform across his brow and pants for breath.
‘Was she bothering you?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Bloody Jewish whores. They …’
‘Oberleutnant der Polizei Hoffmann,’ I say, cutting him off. ‘I’m looking for Oberführer Dirlewanger.’
‘What?’
‘Yes, Oscar Dirlewanger …’
It is as if he only wakes up now. What is the matter with him? I ask why they have a zoo here, what the idea is. I look into his eyes as I speak. Why the performance? Then it clicks: he is protecting her, he allowed her to lie on her stomach, to lessen the injuries, his punishment was half-hearted, more bluster than beating. He is involved with her, Rassenschande, and so has to be at her all the time, ranting and railing, keeping her on a short leash, making sure no one gets close.
So no one kills her.
Does he love her? Is she pregnant with his child?
‘It’s satisfying,’ he says.
‘What is?’
‘To see a young fledgling with only one leg grow strong, when you’ve seen it fallen out of the nest. Dirlewanger’s right about that. There’s something soothing about it. Watching something grow …’
Should I report him? Investigate? He has done me no wrong, he is in love. A little, amorous heart. Am I to break it?
‘Where do you find them, these animals?’
‘On the hare hunts … it’s like when you throw dynamite in a stream … they’re all just lying there, the birds, unconscious from the blasts, you can go and pick them up …’
Should I? Yes or no? Strictly speaking it would be misconduct not to investigate the matter, not to report it. Dirlewanger himself has had charges brought against him by the SS Court for some mess or other in Poland, a Jewish girl. Was it Kraków?
‘What did you say your name was?’ I ask him.
‘Klaus. Klaus Maier.’
‘Hello, Klaus Maier.’
_ _ _
I walk down a path that leads me between two small henhouses, a cat leaps across in front of me, there are goats in the darkness of one of the structures, hens clucking, pecking at a pile of grain. I look for children, but there are none. Instead I see another Schütze scooping grain into a trough a little further on.
‘Where’s Dirlewanger?’
‘Who wants to know?’ he says, looking me up and down.
This one too is well-fed; he looks after his own, Dirlewanger.
I tell him who I am. Apologies, apologies … He drops his scoop. Follow me.
We walk on past some garages, following a white wall, the ground falling away, an orchard full of apple trees.
‘Over there,’ he says, pointing.
Manfred is facing away further down the slope. Dirlewanger stands with Bronstejns’s head under his arm, looking up at him.
