Start again.
I write:
Steiner hid the gold.
Strehling has the gold.
Gold. Everyone steals. In the camps, at the mass graves, everyone steals from everyone else. Gold, cash, jewellery. In principle the penalty is death, and yet it is tolerated, as long as the scale is acceptable, and the further up the ladder you are, the greater the tolerance. The peacocks, the senior functionaries, with their ingots and their Rembrandts. Steiner was an Obergruppenführer, he could do anything. He gave Manfred that groteque SS ring with the Runic insignia and the diamonds, and Manfred threw it in the river in penance.
(a.) The gold exists.
(b.) Strehling has it. But who is Strehling?
I go on.
Goga said:
Kill me … Have mercy …
Goga begged. He would have said anything whatsoever in order to die. Is that what he did on Manfred’s steel bed? Did he tempt Manfred with gold? Manfred was not buying it, he sent him out into the arena.
I smirk and pour myself some more cognac.
Is that what Steiner did too? The great orator, the SS general, the doctor, his blood and soil, did he beg for his life in the barn at Belize when his own blood splashed onto the soil of Belorussia? When Goga stood with the Schächtmesser and began to cut, did he try to buy himself a pardon? And Etke, who heard it all from the hayloft. Was it Strehling she heard, rather than shibboleth? Was that just a clever idea of mine after a bit of Bible reading? Or was it Goga’s revenge, his own private River Jordan? Or what? I toss my head back and laugh.
Did Steiner think Goga was after his gold when he said shibboleth, and blurted out Strehling? Was it all just some sordid accident, a misunderstanding on the brink of death? Did Steiner think it would save him?
I write:
Strehling = Shibboleth. Passed on in exchange for a merciful death?
I write:
Does Manfred know I know?
_ _ _
I burn my notes in the fireplace and sit down in the armchair, my dress uniform in front of me on the rocking chair, the PPK in my lap and the almost empty bottle in my hand. I become an ear, turned towards the whistling wind of night.
Am I too to be laid out on Manfred’s steel?
Is he speculating now in his white hospital, as I sit here and wait, the glowing end of my cigarette pricking at the darkness?
Who will blink first?
ELINE
Correspondence
Lida, 4 July 1943
Letter 7
Honey, dearest!
Thank you for the par
Nothing has changed since I left the office two weeks ago.
Only my adjutant is new, a tall, fair-haired boy from Vienna with pomaded hair and a lisp. His lips lingered too long around his tongue for him to control his airflow when he introduced himself. Freszl. Does Wäspli now lie shot in a ditch? Blown to pieces by a bouncing mine? Dumped in the rubbish container in Manfred’s basement?
I pick up my pen and complete the word:
cel
I throw the letter away, tidy my papers. Stare at the honey jar, untouched by this raging war.
Nothing happened in the night.
Masja roused me at five o’clock. The empty bottle rolled across the floor.
I walked here on stiff legs, criss-crossing the cool streets, slipping through a gateway, into a garden, down a path with mildewed roses, out onto the boulevard again.
No shadow. Not a soul.
If Manfred was out to get me he would have collected me last night.
Conclusion: Be yourself, a coward. Tidy your papers and smile.
Let Manfred have his Jew gold.
The last case is still on my desk. The killing of Feigl the Jew. I can hardly remember it.
Two SS men get into a drunken brawl, the Hauptsturmführer Breker and Kindler, Breker shoots Kindler’s pet Jew, Feigl, to get back at him. Breker’s version is still in the case folder, an accident, but Breker died with Steiner. I remove the portrait of the Führer from the wall, turn the combination and take out Kindler’s report, which happens to be the truth, Case number LZ 512–A, – GHETTO LIDA/A. Feigl, in conclusion. I read the closing lines again:
It is therefore to be concluded that the shots that killed the Jew Jozef Feigl were fired by SS-Hauptsturmführer Heinz Breker, attached to SS-Dienststelle Lida. Pursuant to regulations re. impunity within the administrative boundaries of the Reichskommissariat Ostland, the case is deemed not to be encompassed by sections 211 or 212 of the German Penal Code. Charges will not be brought.
Case closed.
H.H. Oberleutnant d.P., Lida District.
I place the report uppermost in the case folder with the other documents pertaining to the case, witness statements and photographs, and close the folder with an elastic band.
‘Frezl!’
‘Herr Oberleutnant,’ he says, standing to attention in front of me.
I hand him the Feigl report in its green folder.
‘One for the archive and one for Sturmbannführer Kindler. Have a dispatch come and collect it,’ I tell him.
Then, when his eyes remain blank:
‘SS-Dienststelle Lida, 3rd Office.’
‘Yes, Herr Oberleutnant.’
‘That’s all,’ I say, and he turns and leaves.
I lean back in the chair. That’s all. At once, I am content with myself and ravenous for food. I dip a finger into the honey, savour the taste, then succumb to greed and scoop into the jar, let the dollop begin to dissolve in my mouth, crush the crisp wax against my palate, slurping the substance inside me, the darting tingle of sugar dispersing about my organism. I empty the jar and lick my fingers, one by one, then lean back into the chair again.
Happy, witless.
It is over.
_ _ _
Lida, 24 July 1943
Letter 7
Dear E
It has been some time since I last wrote, but these last weeks have been – well, hectic. I trust you have not forgotten your little Tulle? I have not forgotten you. In fact, and it is rather a paradox, I suppose – I have never thought about you as much as I do
