“Yes,” Langhof said weakly.
“Good,” Kessler said happily, “then let’s begin.” He turned and called two prisoners into the room. “Quick, now,” he said to them, “I want you to place one specimen on each of the three tables here in the room. Be quick, we’ve already a late start this morning.”
The two prisoners set to work. One grabbed the hands, one the feet of a single body. Then they dragged it to one of the tables and hoisted it on top.
“Turn them face up,” Kessler said.
The prisoners struggled to turn the bodies. “Shit,” one of them blurted as one of the corpses slid to the floor.
“Come on, come on!” Kessler cried. “For Christ’s sake, watch what you’re doing.”
When they had finished, the two prisoners walked to one side of the room and stood waiting for their next orders.
Kessler glanced at Ludtz and Langhof. “Shall we begin? You each have one specimen. What we have to do is remove the fetus. As you know, this can be accomplished with a simple incision, at least in most cases. If the fetus has crowned, however — as I see yours has, Dr. Langhof — you must make the incision considerably lower.” He pointed his scalpel. “Here. Make it at this point to ensure that it will not be damaged.” He glanced at the cadaver on Ludtz’s table. “Yours will be a good deal simpler,” he said. “Yours, a bit messy, Dr. Langhof, but nothing you’re not used to.” He smiled gently. “All right, let’s begin.”
Langhof stood at his table, staring at the naked body that rested on it. He could hear Kessler’s voice like a steady drumbeat in the background. He placed the scalpel at the point Kessler had indicated, tucked it through the black, curly pubic hair, and then pressed down gently into the rubbery flesh at the apex of the mound of Venus.
PICTURE EL PRESIDENTE standing on one of the majestic turrets that rise above the palace. Picture him peering out into the night as his soul fills with that peculiar afflatus which comes when one identifies himself with the creative forces of history. If he does not look to the north — which he never does, because he cannot bear melancholy — he will see the lights twinkling in his impoverished suburbs. Out there, in the comforting distance, his subjects carry on the twin responsibilities of good citizenship: to work and to adore.
But what is the nature of the night he sees? Because he is a simpleton, he cannot be moved by its symbolism. Because he is a wastrel, he cannot see it as a time for rest. Because he is a debaucher, he does not need its darkness to inspire his loins. What is left, then, for El Presidente in regard to night? Nothing. Neither peace nor mystery, but only dread of the sleep it inevitably brings, that brief loss of consciousness which El Presidente abhors. Night ends each day with a terrible intimation of oblivion, suggesting, as it must to all great egotists, that nature is forever out of tune with their desire.
After the first day of work in the Camp, Langhof longed for sleep. For him the loss of consciousness became something wholly to be desired, a treasure beyond price. He lay on his bed, twisting, turning, his eyes clamped shut. But the little engine of his mind refused to close down. He tried to read, but the book seemed to dissolve before his eyes. He paced, tramping back and forth across the narrow room, the naked bulb swinging above his head like a pendulum.
“I heard you walking about,” Rausch said as he opened the door.
Langhof spun around. “Don’t you ever knock?”
Rausch smiled. “Don’t you need your sleep, Doctor?”
Langhof noticed that even at this late hour, Rausch remained in his immaculate black uniform. “I might ask you the same question,” he said.
Rausch walked past Langhof and stood by the window watching the distant pillar of smoke rise from the orange glow of chimneys. “What did you learn about creation today, Doctor?” he asked.
Langhof turned toward Rausch. “This attitude of yours — this —”
Rausch slowly eased himself back from the window. “What attitude is that, Doctor?”
“This scoffing,” Langhof said, “it could get you into a lot of trouble one day.”
Rausch smiled. “Trouble? Could it indeed get me into trouble, do you think?” he asked softly. Illuminated by the bulb, his face seemed almost to glow. “What kind of trouble?”
“You know what I’m talking about,” Langhof said. “What’s to keep me from reporting you?”
Rausch laughed lightly and turned back toward the window. “A lovely light, this corona that edges the chimney-tops. Almost a halo.”
Langhof sat down on the bunk. “What’s to keep me from turning you in, Rausch?”
Rausch did not turn from the window. “For what? I do my duty, as do you.” He shifted to face Langhof. “How many women did you slice up today, Doctor? Five?”
Langhof turned away from Rausch’s gaze.
“Ten? More than that? Twenty?”
Langhof stepped to the door, his back to Rausch.
Rausch allowed his eyes to drift back toward the window. “Well, the numbers are unimportant in any case,” he said. “The facts are the same. You stood at a table and sliced up a few women. Then you took their babies out of their wombs. You examined these unfortunate children. You scrutinized them under the light. You probably even jotted down a few inane and useless notes just to be on the safe side. Am I right, Doctor?”
Langhof whirled around angrily. “And what did you do, Rausch?”
Rausch’s eyes did not leave the window. “I killed perhaps a thousand people,” he said casually, “then incinerated them like so much rubbish. That smoke, the smoke here in the room, that’s them.”
Langhof shook his head. “Unbelievable that this could be happening.”
“Not in the least,” Rausch said quietly.
Langhof stepped over to him. “Why do you keep looking out that window?” he asked.
Rausch turned to face Langhof. “Do you know what happens when a star collapses, Doctor? It implodes. Everything falls into the pit of itself. That is what we are doing, imploding. This is the whole journey of civilization at the moment when it passes through its own rectum.”
“Ridiculous,” Langhof said. “This place has nothing to do with civilization.”
“We went as far as we could, and now we are racing back,” Rausch said. “This is the bottom, the suicide of culture.”
Langhof stepped back and sat down on his bunk. “This is just the Camp,” he said. “It is not the whole world.”
Rausch smiled. “Really? Do you think so? Do you think this is just some vile spot on Europe? Do you think that we are isolated in what we do here, that we are alone?”
Langhof stared evenly at Rausch. He could feel his hands clench the army blanket beneath him. “Yes, I do.”
Rausch laughed. “I’m afraid you are quite wrong, Doctor.” He paused, glanced toward the window, then back to Langhof. “The people, the vermin, how do you think they get here? Do you think they simply show up with their baggage at the Camp gate?” He shook his head. “They come by train, my dear doctor, and there are lots of little men who run the trains. They know what’s on them, but they make them run anyway. They give the proper railway signals. Then there are those who mend the tracks. And others who build the platforms.”
Langhof could feel his fingers eating into the blanket. “Perhaps, but …”
Rausch touched the collar of his uniform. “Very nice, isn’t it? Sleek. A beautiful attire. It was made by someone else who knew — at least partly — what it stood for. They may have agreed, they may not have. In the end, you see, it didn’t matter.” He walked over to the bunk and stood over Langhof. “Then there are the people who make the flags and the bugles and the boots. The people who carry the mails and make the mail pouches. The people who make rubber and steel, who censor the books and dismiss the intransigent faculty members.” He sat down slowly beside Langhof, took his cap from his head, and dropped it into his lap. His hair shimmered in the light. “All the little people who do the million tasks that allow the New Order to reproduce itself each day. They are here with us. Not soldiers. Certainly not Special Section. And yet they are out there, doing their work, drawing their pay, swilling down their beer in the rathskellers, fornicating in their tiny rooms, breeding the next generation of themselves.” Rausch looked at Langhof. A small, bitter smile played on his lips. “Civilization. No, Langhof, the Camp is not a cancer that can be surgically removed. It is the center of a spider’s web and its strands stretch everywhere,
