Willi got up.
‘Pick up that chair.’ Willi did as he was told. ‘I could kill you now, Geismeier, and the kapos would come in and throw your miserable body in a ditch, and no one would ever know what had become of you.’
Willi did not speak. The left side of his face throbbed. He could feel it swelling. He tasted blood. But he was convinced that Reinhard Pabst would not kill him, could not kill him, at least not until he felt he had won their argument, whatever that argument turned out to be. Willi also thought, as foolish, even mad, as it might seem, that he, Willi, was from this moment forward in control of their argument, and that only he knew where it was going.
‘Sit down, Geismeier. I’m not finished with you yet.’
Willi sat down.
‘The last time you were interrogated, Geismeier’ – Reinhard’s voice was calm; it was as though the violent moment had not happened – ‘you spoke of someone named Friedrich Grosz as a murderer of women. Do you persist in that accusation?’
‘I know it to be true,’ said Willi.
‘And how do you know it to be true?’
‘Because,’ said Willi, ‘I interviewed his one surviving victim. I visited the scenes of his crimes, I interviewed the doctor and the nurse who stitched up his wound and the pharmacy where he got the drugs to dampen his fear and uncertainty.’
Reinhard tried to smile again, but his mouth couldn’t quite manage it. ‘Why are you so interested in these whores who were killed, Geismeier? What are they to you?’
‘They were not …’
Reinhard was becoming agitated. ‘Did you know them, any of them? Was one of them your sister or your lover or your mother?’ He laughed at his joke.
‘They interest me because they were human beings, and were the victims of a criminal assault by a psychopath, a human being devoid of humanity.’
‘A psychopath?’ said Reinhard. ‘And you know about his psychopathy how, Geismeier, pray tell?’
‘Because you can see his suffering in the crime itself, the slashing with the knife over and over and over, first one hand and then the other. He picks women because they are weak. And yet he is afraid of them. He is weaker than they are. He thinks they have some power over him. He is the one who is weak.’
‘Not so,’ said Reinhard. ‘He picks the women … I believe he picks the women because they are whores. All women are whores, Geismeier. Don’t you know that yet? Your girlfriend Lola in her green dress’ – Reinhard made an hourglass movement with both hands down the length of his own body – ‘isn’t that what got you into the situation in which you find yourself? If you weren’t mixed up with her, you might have paid better attention and not gotten caught. The world was made by men for men, and it has been corrupted and eroded by women. If someone eliminates a few of these whore-demons, then what is that to you?’
‘I was once a detective,’ said Willi. ‘I investigated crimes. It is a hard habit to break.’
Reinhard laughed. ‘It is a habit you have had no choice but to break, Geismeier. Look around you. Look at where you are.’
‘These women were human beings. To me their killer is evil. Even in my current circumstances it remains my business to pursue evil.’
‘What colossal grandiosity! Look at yourself! What makes a worm like you the arbiter of good and evil? How do you know this murderer, as you call him, isn’t someone simply doing the world a service?’
Willi looked at Reinhard, at the water pitcher, at the room, before he spoke again. He reached for the water pitcher and poured himself another glass of water.
‘Have you ever dared to kill a man, Herr Grosz? Or do you only kill women? You are a coward, a psychopath, Friedrich Grosz. Peel off that uniform and you are a scared little boy. You are pathetic and ridiculous and inadequate. I think at some level you know that to be true.’ Willi had spoken in a calm, almost indifferent tone, like he was saying, ‘The sun is setting,’ or ‘Look at that dog.’
Reinhard sat motionless, his mouth half open in astonishment. He began breathing heavily through his mouth, sending rapid puffs of steam into the frigid air. He pressed his hand to his chest, revealing the scar again.
‘You are unmasked, Herr Grosz,’ said Willi. ‘A killer and a fraud. You have no power. None. I’m not the only one who knows of your crime, either. There are police officers who know. The Gestapo knows. And I think you understand that even this evil regime won’t tolerate someone like you. Why, look how your Führer reveres women, wants them to have lots of babies for the Reich. Can you imagine—?’
Willi was astonished that Reinhard had allowed him to go on this long. But now, finally, Reinhard leapt from his chair and came for Willi. Before he could even reach his pistol, Willi had smashed the crystal pitcher against his head and pulled the pistol from its holster. Reinhard fell across the table. His jaw was broken; he was bleeding from cuts up and down his face.
Willi cocked the pistol and held it against Reinhard’s temple. ‘Take off your clothes,’ said Willi. Willi had expected he might die in Dachau, might even die today in this room. But now he was imagining another possibility. He was alone with an SS colonel. The colonel’s car was right outside the door, seconds from Dachau’s entry gate.
‘Take off your clothes,’ Willi said again.
‘Are you crazy?’ Suddenly Reinhard couldn’t remember Willi’s name. ‘What are you doing? What are you going to do? You can’t … Geismeier.’ There was the name; finding it seemed very important. Reinhard had not known helplessness for a very long time. He was out of practice, but it all came rushing back and now he saw helplessness all around him. He was drowning in it.
‘If
