Warsaw (14 page)

Protest was made illegal under the Decree against Malicious
Acts. Criticism of either the state or the Fuhrer, which were increasingly
becoming one and the same, became an actual crime...We were simultaneously
manipulated by the media. Goebbels himself argued that the aim of the media was
to make the people "think uniformly, react uniformly, and place themselves
body and soul at the disposal of the government." We were happy in our new
Reich, because we were too intimidated to be anything else... And denounce thy neighbour
became the new commandment...

And so we moved into Saarland and Memel, claiming rightful
ownership. For hadn't the territories been stolen from us in the legalised
theft that was Versailles? Austria welcomed us with open arms, not owning the
strength to push us away. And then the Sudeten lands were returned to Germany.
The debate about whether they were given or taken could not be heard over the
sounds of our triumphalism. And then we invaded Poland. But could we not argue
that this was pre-emptive self-defence? Were we not doing the world a favour by
occupying Poland before the Russians did?...

Maria advised me to sign up before I was conscripted. My
father-in-law had a friend who arranged for me to be posted in Poland, rather
than Russia. The grass sometimes seems greener even on that side."

Thomas attempted to smile, but ultimately couldn't. His
confession had been imbued with fury, sorrow and despair. The soldier clasped
his heavy head in his hands, partly covering his face - in a pose which
suggested he wanted to remember everything or bury it all.
      

12.

Should Christian Kleist not have drawn the curtains in his
apartment he might have deemed the velvety black night, bedecked in the
jewellery of the stars and brooch of a platinum moon, a romantic sight. Instead
an ornate - overly so - candelabra provided the light for his dinner table and
young guest.

The Lieutenant lit another cigarette and smiled. His uniform
was freshly pressed for the evening. He wore a florid scent that he hadn't used
for a while. His hands were manicured and spotless. There was a twinkling,
charming look in his usually intimidating aspect. From across the mahogany
dining table his Aryan eyes paused for a revealing moment or two on the
slightly feminine attractive countenance of Dietmar Klos. This was their second
meal together; the first was carried out in the name of an informal interview a
few days ago. Christian, to test the youth's suitability, had been deliberate
and authoritative in his speech during their principle interview,

"I believe you to possess both the intelligence and
superior morality Dietmar for me to deal with you plainly - treat you like a
man. You know of our project here. We are not making an omelette. I will put it
to you as Heydrich once put it to me. We will wipe out the disease through the
environment and work we will create for them. Those who prove to be so
resilient to survive such conditions will be murdered, because, not in spite,
of their resilience. You were fortunate in a way Dietmar not to know the
dishonour the Republic suffered after the war. The French, British and
Americans raped us. It was the Jew who whispered in their ears. Not only did
they cost us the war with their cowardice and machinations but so too they were
the ones who stole from and crippled Germany at Versailles. But of course you
know all this."

"Yes sir. My father told me. For all of his stories
about the war - he was an artillery officer on the Eastern Front - not once did
I hear him speak well of the Jew. So too I am aware of the Jewish conspiracy
against us," the starry-eyed Private dutifully replied, being unable
however to expand upon the shadowy, insidious conspiracy any further. At times
Dietmar spoke as if he were reciting his catechism to a testing, all-knowing
Priest.

The persuasive Lieutenant had gone on that night to paint
the Jew as both Bolshevik and capitalist, without a hint of being
contradictory. He also tossed into his argument, as if throwing ingredients
into a mixing bowl to make a cake, "Christ killers",
"parasites" and “isolationists". However, Christian was
conscious of giving the floor to his guest as well. Dietmar spoke of his love
of the Fuhrer and his belief in the causes of the war. His conversation was not
original Christian concluded, but he was sincere and articulate - correct.
Dietmar was also understandably nervous, but Christian found that endearing.

The angel-faced Private rightly spoke of how it would be an
honour to serve on the Lieutenant's staff. Before the interview the Private had
rehearsed his lines. In that Dietmar was cynical and an opportunist, you may
deem him intelligent. He was wise enough to know that the Russian Front was
tantamount to a death sentence. He was worldly enough to realise that the
Lieutenant could be his meal ticket for the rest of the war and - although he
was suitable for the job in terms of his qualifications and aptitude - Dietmar
was under no illusion as to why the officer had picked him out of the ranks to
serve as his adjutant.

Dietmar's first homosexual experience had been in the Hitler
Youth. He had been fifteen. A troop leader - popular, attractive, a
magistrate's son - had taken the impressionable teenager under his wing from
the very beginning of their week's camping. Dietmar felt flattered that Rudolf
should pay so much attention to him. They shared a tent. They shared similar
backgrounds, intimacies and eventually, on the last night of their week
together, the same sleeping bag. Dietmar never saw Rudolf again after that
weekend, although he felt a twinge of envy and resentment towards his former
partner recently when he heard that he had qualified as a lawyer and was
working on Adolf Eichmann's personal staff. Yet Dietmar sufficiently enjoyed
the experience to attract and not spurn the advances of a succession of
Rudolfs. He grew to know what these older influential men wanted and provided a
service, sexual or otherwise. Dietmar found it arousing and amusing that these
wealthy and powerful businessmen and officers - who were sophisticated,
repressed, generous with their gifts and pearls of wisdom - thought and acted
as though they were seducing him. Whilst all the time it was him and his act
that was seducing them. Nowadays we might deem Dietmar bisexual however as he
also occasionally enjoyed women. It was interesting if not strange though that
whereas he was content to be the object of a man's affections - the feminine or
receptor in the relationship - he could be nothing but callous (sometimes
violent) in his affairs with women. It was equally so, with men or women, that
the Catholic Dietmar would feel a little guilty, disgusted, after sex with his
partners (what with the ideas of cleanliness and conformity that had been
propagated in his young head). But such thoughts would pass for the conceits
which they were.

Christian squeezed the attentive Private's shoulder from
behind. The Lieutenant was pleased to sense that his new adjutant wasn't tense.

"Did you enjoy the food?"

"Yes Sir. It has been a while since I've had such a
meal."

"Would you like a cigarette?"

"Thank you, but I do not smoke," Dietmar replied,
calling his host by yet another, flattering honorific afterwards.

"I'm glad; it is not the most pleasant of habits.
You're a good soldier Dietmar."

The fraternal scrunch of his shoulder now transformed itself
into an affectionate rub of his soft neck. The Lieutenant felt compelled also
to stroke the silky blond hair upon the back of the adolescent's head.

"I will be discreet Sir - in regards to my work for
you."

Christian smiled as he blew the silver smoke from his mouth.
Did a glint form in his eyes as he did so? Yes the boy would be discreet. Both
men, soon to become lovers, believed themselves to be the dominant partner in
the relationship, albeit for different reasons. Christian was the youth's
superior, the one who initiated the relationship and who could call it off at
any time. He would provide for Dietmar. Dietmar however, such was his
confidence in his performance, was sure that he could make himself
indispensable to his employer. Christian would be possessed in possessing him.
So too as much as the adjutant could be discreet, it was implicit that he could
always eventually be indiscreet. The Gestapo were rewarding in terms of their
informers, as they were ruthless also in dealing with those who were informed
upon.

Duritz lay awake. It had been perhaps the first evening in
many that he hadn't heard shots ring out or trucks growl from what, he
supposed, was another one of Kleist's sickening hunts. Yet it was perhaps the
first evening also where Duritz had to wear his clothes in bed. Summer was
over. As beautiful as the star-filled nights might be, they would no longer be
warm. He idly thought to himself how much the phrase "I love you"
sounded the same in Yiddish ("Ikh hob dikh lib") as it did in German
("Iche liebe dich"). As if to exercise his faculties, the student
then recited the phrase to himself in all the other languages that he knew it
in: Polish, "Kocham cie"; Latin, "Te amo"; English, "I
love you"; Hebrew, "Ani ohev otach"; Ancient Greek, "Se
erotao".

His thoughts catching up with him, it dawned upon Duritz
that he had played the same game one night when day-dreaming about Jessica
Rubenstein, all those years ago. As her name reverberated in his mind he tried
to coldly analyse, as if he were re-reading or re-appraising a poem, what he
now thought of Jessica. No romantic fancies came to mind of them meeting by
chance with dramatic scenes ensuing; he did not put words into her mouth as if
she were a character from Flaubert or Turgenev; he still thought her beautiful,
the Jessica of yesteryear, but then many women were similarly attractive,
including Anna. He felt terrible and uncomfortable remembering their last
encounter, but then made an act of volition to think of something else in
relation to her. He felt regret in regards to the time and energy he wasted
being delusional about gratifying his love for her, but were not most youths
guilty of such venial sins at some time during their adolescence? Besides, he
was thankful of his old conceit - that he loved her to the point of religious
devotion - for the feelings had inspired him to write and better himself. Good
had come from that. Wasn't that what she was, a phase? She was the Past, Duritz
determinedly and philosophically thought to himself. She was "a stage on
life's way", as Kierkegaard might have described it, Adam concluded.

Anna was his present and hopefully future. Although they had
but briefly seen each other this evening, with Anna being exhausted from her
day's work, she had again pressed him for a decision on when they should
arrange to leave the ghetto and go into hiding. Adam himself had been busy also
that day, meeting with a couple of his old black-market and criminal contacts -
and the price for getting out was almost doubling by the month. The money and
valuables that Anna had saved up could only buy passage and sanctuary for one
he calculated. If Adam had his way he would not have her choose to go into
hiding. The Poles could not be trusted and, if discovered (which would be
likely sooner or later), Anna would be killed almost immediately. He wanted to
encourage her to try and become a servant to one her influential lovers who she
trusted. But how could he then say that he loved her when he wanted her leave
him and be with another man?

Anna had pressed him for they both knew that his time was
nearly up. Duritz would soon have to either re-join the Jewish Police, or be
eligible for selection. Anna had naturally thought to herself at first that
there was no choice to make; he would have to become a policeman as the
alternative meant no alternative. But yet with only a couple of weeks remaining
he still hadn't indicated that he would return to his former position, nor did
Adam express a desire to attain a work card through a different channel.

And so a new species of anxiety sometimes crept into
Duritz's moods of late - but not as much as you might have thought - that he
would soon have to make a choice to decide his fate. In the same way that he
knew that he didn't have it in him to return to the ghetto police, the happy
ending of Anna and himself escaping and seeing out the war would similarly fail
to transpire. The thought of trying to bribe a corrupt official to obtain a
work card also formed a bitter taste in his mouth. No longer also was a work
card a life card - you would either be worked to death or eventually be
selected. Even now there were parts of the ghetto that resembled a ghost town;
such was the speed at which the Germans were emptying it. Duritz had overheard
the black humour of a cobbler the other day who called this time last year -
with its beard pulling, verbal abuse, the old epidemics, random sadistic
beatings, bureaucratic corruption - the "golden age" of the ghetto.

Despite the fateful choice that Duritz would soon have to
make he was, often, indifferent to his fate. He had grown so attuned to living
day to day that he had become naturally adjusted to not invest too much hope or
pessimism in the future; more so he thought of Anna, Thomas, his brother
(wherever he now was), Jessica and the Rubenstein’s - and their futures.
Happiness was knowing that other people would eventually survive and flourish.
It was a comforting thought that Duritz was willing to put to the test- that he
would rather commit suicide than bow down and be executed. Even before the
occupation the Hamlet-obsessed student possessed a philosophical attitude
towards death. Suicide was attractive, romantic; she was a femme fatale with a
figure to die for so to speak, silk black dress, sexy, glossy black hair, movie
siren looks, dark seductive elegance, tapering stroking fingers, powerful,
sensuous, hypnotic eyes, womanly, a pouting mouth moist with ruby-red lipstick
which, even if you knew were being poisoned, you'd still wish to kiss. As an
insomniac, death alone could furnish him with the sleep he needed to catch up
on Adam joked. So too death alone would provide him with the answer to the
eternal question of whether there was God or not, the source of the
intellectual youth's despair.

It may be argued also that the reason why Duritz abstained
from making a decision to settle his fate was that he was content with his
current existence. He was in relatively good health, he owned companionship in
the shape of Thomas and Anna (who took care, provided for and stimulated him in
their own ways) and to some extent Adam lived a life of leisure. He didn't have
to get up in the morning for anything and, when he did, he could read, write or
paint. Or just sleep. If one ignores the Sword Of Damocles which hangs over our
heads, one has a chance to be happy.