Warsaw (8 page)

Although he had accused Thomas of a similar conceit - and
mocked him for it - Duritz couldn't help but be attracted to the shining idea
of protecting and saving Jessica and her family. It had dawned upon him one
evening, akin to a religious revelation. Atonement. Adam told himself that the
cause was borne not from romantic love but rather from a need for redemption
and worth. Selfish altruism. He was willingly kept awake at night by the idea.
His heart warmed, swelled and brightened at the prospect of somehow liberating
his would-be friends and surrogate family. They would escape from the ghetto,
either by cunning or his heroism or sacrifice - and make their way through the
countryside. Adam fancied that he would join an imaginary band of partisans. A
resistance. Surely they must be in the hills, biding their time? Or they would
make it all the way to Jerusalem.

Jessica Rubenstein's position and mood also underwent a
transformation over the course of when we were last with her. Her cheeks were
now sallow, her eyes as red and black as the policeman's once were.
Increasingly fearful of the rate of evacuations she decided to take up the
offer of Josef, an administrator at the hospital and suitor, to work in the
dilapidated clinic. It must be said though that her decision was also reached
from her need to keep busy, to forget the memorable. At first however, due to
the sheer futility and fatalism which infected the hospital, Jessica nearly
abandoned her position as a nurse's assistant a few days after starting. On the
first morning she had been briefed by a senior nurse. She had been so
overwhelmed and distracted by what was said - and the gruelling sights around
her - that Jessica barely remembered any details of the speech by the end of
it,

"You will need to learn, as quickly as possible, the
symptoms and treatments for the following - all of which are common: typhus and
stomach typhus, tuberculosis, dysentery, diarrhoea."

Jessica nodded meekly at the severe-looking nurse as if to
say she understood and could learn such things - but the unimpressed shrewish
woman continued,

"Influenza, osteomalacia - which is weakening of the
bones - necrosis - which means tissue loss - various intestinal disorders which
I will go over with you at a future time, scarlet fever, goitre, diphtheria,
pneumonia and oedema."

The pungent stench of gangrene made her nauseous. Jessica
feared contracting typhus or tuberculosis and then passing it on to her family.
Conditions were atrocious, inhumane. The diffident girl felt helpless. They
were in the jaws of a terrible monster - and at any moment he would close his
mouth and all would be swallowed up in darkness. Jessica came home on her third
day crying from being present at a birth where, at the consent of its mother,
the baby had been put to sleep so as to end its suffering before it began. If
not for her mother's encouragement and strength (and Thomas' words, "Just
because you might be fighting a losing battle - that does not mean that you
should give up.") Jessica would not have got through her first week. Yet,
although believing the doctors and nurses to be blind and stupid at first,
Jessica grew to admire their fortitude and virtues. She craved for a sense of
worth and meaning to her life also. As tiny and ultimately fruitless as it was,
was she not making a difference? Goodness felt good. By the end of her first
two weeks Jessica no longer toiled over why she should stay or leave, such was
the habit of her going to work and being too busy to debate her decision. She
also needed the work card.

Although spending a considerable amount of her time at the
hospital Jessica made few friends there. At home too she seemed to withdraw
into herself and be haunted by a sorrowful, almost shameful, expression. When her
mother would ask what was wrong Jessica would reply "Nothing", or
"I'm just tired". Mainly for the benefit of her family she would
still occasionally see, when the time and her energies colluded, the two or
three suitors who came knocking upon her door, offering her luxuries and, in
the case of Andrzej Nelkin, providing Kolya with work in one of the armament
factories outside of town. Yet a cynicism as well as sadness furrowed her brow
and Jessica grew cold and distant towards her suitors who, in her eyes now,
were only after one thing. Out of her growing resentment at their advances
Jessica wouldn't even let them neck or kiss her as she once permitted - out of
payment for their favours and for her own sensual desires.

But yet a dream still punctuated the nightmares. Both
Jessica and Thomas held out little hope of the other turning up to their
pre-arranged meeting the day after they originally met. One can easily imagine
and share in their small happiness then when they both arrived early at the
designated quiet street in a corner of the ghetto. There was a strangeness to
their meeting in that, considering the relationship between the Jewish girl and
German soldier, there was an absence of awkwardness and forced behaviour that
one might have conceived to be shunted into their encounter. For the most part,
Thomas talked about his wife and family and how he missed home (at first
Jessica admired him the more for the devotion he bore his wife and child, but
after their second meeting she grew a little frustrated about hearing about
"Maria"). Initially Jessica just listened. Thomas was engaging enough
just through his looks and speech. When she did talk it was mostly about her
life before the occupation, her aspirations then.

One time however, after a pregnant pause between the German
and Jewess, the young woman broached one of the subjects that they had perhaps
previously, consciously, skirted around. Jessica asked the German what it was
to be Aryan, partly ashamed of her ignorance of the foreign ideology - but also
intrigued by the concept which had spawned so much suffering and conflict. At
first Thomas frowned slightly, upset that the war had inevitably penetrated
their little world. It highlighted the gulf between them. But then, all of a
sudden, an ironic smile enlivened the German's brooding features.

"I remember reading an article once, written by Samuel
Beckett, an Irish playwright who visited Germany around a decade ago. He
defined being an Aryan as the following, ‘He must be blond like Hitler, thin
like Goring, handsome like Goebbels, virile like Rohm - and be called
Rosenberg."

As much as Thomas tried to lighten the atmosphere with his
satirical comment though it was his former frown, rather than his charming
smile, which infected Jessica's demeanour and soul.

 
The pair continued
to have their clandestine meetings when possible, which proved difficult but
rewarding, given their respective schedules and the Corporal's visits to a sick
friend in the ghetto. Yet whereas perhaps the soldier spent time in the girl's
company out of a sense of compassion and companionship - something other than
platonic friendship began to bloom in Jessica’s crimpled heart.

7.

The atmosphere was heavy, stodgy with damp - but still the
rain refused to fall. Dark purple cumulus clouds hung in the air as if stapled
to the cloth of the sky. A stale, wheezing wind did not even attempt to shoo
away the thick, sulphurous humidity. The muggy heat and glazed, intense
expression on his face all shrunk into the background however as Adam Duritz,
in his now familiar position, stood transfixed, staring across the street at
the entrance to the building where the Rubenstein’s lived. A couple of scrawny
children scrambling for a finger-sized piece of bread, that appeared to have
fallen from the sky from a passing pigeon, stole his attention away for a
moment or two but he swiftly returned to his sentry-like pose.

The young Jew had carried out his programme of
pseudo-reconnaissance for a week now. He had gleaned, more or less, the outline
of Jessica's routine. Like some guardian angel he had followed her to and from
work. Possessed, again. He was not altogether happy unless she was in his
sight, yet his heart violently trembled and his thoughts raced when Jessica was
so. During the first few days, not knowing her finishing time at the hospital,
Adam had diligently stood outside her workplace for the entire shift - his mind
occupied with his future duties and the rich imaginary scenes, conversations
that would be hopefully played out between them. The tears, forgiveness,
friendship, declarations of love, deliverance. If God could forgive him, then
Adam could forgive himself. Conversely, if he could forgive himself, then maybe
God could too. As if to convince himself that it was the family and not just
Jessica he was intending to nobly protect and save, Adam also spent a lively
day trying to keep up with the rascally Kolya. Duritz couldn't but help but
admire the enterprising boy who braved the sewers and risk of being shot in acting
as a mule for one of the ghetto's many clans of black market smugglers. As
pleased as Adam was at seeing how temporarily safe Jessica and her brother
seemed - owning a roof over the heads, work cards and regular food in their
bellies - he feared for the mother and father. Again he was shocked and
saddened upon seeing Mrs Rubenstein when she came out of the building the other
day. She shielded her eyes from the scorching sun; her face appeared flabby yet
starved of life and vitality. Skin like mouldy plasticine. Her ankles were
painfully swollen and her hands appeared craggy with arthritis, which was all
the more disturbing when Adam witnessed her going around trying to sell or
barter some woollen scarves that she had knitted. There was nothing left of the
elegant society hostess who Adam once esteemed for being the mother of such
perfection. Her language and bourgeois voice had even changed since living in
the tenement building Duritz reflected. Which came first, the change in her
language or character? - the ex-philosophy student briefly posed. If Mister
Rubenstein was no better than he was when Duritz had last observed him then he
was already lost; Solomon Rubenstein was powerless to restore himself, never
mind his family. If, or rather when, the SS raided the building the unessential
elderly couple would be evacuated.

Again Adam momentarily dwelt upon the morsel of hope that
the British or Russians could arrive before the Rubenstein’s were taken away,
murdered. Again he reasoned how the Allies must've known by now from their
intelligence about the camps and the killings. Indignation fired his thoughts
and features that they were doing nothing. In truth Duritz may have had cause
to feel even more indignant as not only did the Allies know about the camps and
evacuations but it was "de-prioritised" as an objective due to the
strain of thought that the Nazi's strategy towards the Jews directed valuable
resources away from Germany's War effort. Churchill was almost a lone voice
among Allied Command who desired to address and prioritise the issue, wishing
to bomb the gas chambers and camps as soon as possible. He called the killing
"probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole
history of the world". Others did not, nor do not.

Adam's reverie was interrupted however as Jessica, wearing a
fetching flower-print dress and pretty wide-brimmed bonnet, descended the steps
from her building. To Adam she looked as achingly alluring as to when he had
first glimpsed her figure upon that fateful afternoon. He wiped the gathering
sweat away from his forehead and eyes to view her more clearly. Was she not
even more fascinating, beautiful now - for suffering lined her features and
compassion swayed Adam's heart? Yet as quietly enraptured as Duritz was at the
sight of a dressed-up Jessica a vicious melancholy suddenly assailed his chest.
Jessica was with Andrzej and she was smiling coquettishly, falsely. Andrzej
Nelkin was in some of Adam's classes at college, before he dropped out to be a
professional sponger off his senior Civil Servant father. He was the first
student at the school to drive his own automobile. He preened himself and
puffed out his chest as if he were an alpha male in those days. Fatuous.
Privileged. He used to amuse and disgust Duritz in equal measure. But now this
anti-thesis of Adam, as he himself once called Andrzej, was fawning over and
winning her. Dispossessed.

Christian Kleist had just finished his lunch - a steak
cutlet, rare to the point of being bloody, with a side order of various fresh
seasonal vegetables. He sat alone at his desk in his opulent apartment. Upon
the desk, under a large portrait of the Fuhrer, sat two busts. One of
Charlemagne, the other of Caesar. The classically educated officer was
something of a student of imperial Rome and Caesar. Drunk, he would sometimes
call his men "legionaries", or of course the SS were Hitler's
"Praetorian Guards". So too Christian was not beyond quoting the
brilliant General - he once stepped out into the Umschlagplatz on a warm
summer’s day and satisfyingly exclaimed to himself, surveying the smooth
operation of his troops in the evacuations, "Veni, vidi, vici". To
those who did not share his enthusiasm - or needed convincing - of Caesar's
greatness Christian would also repeat what Napoleon had once remarked to
Goethe,

"You should write about the death of Caesar in a fully
worthy manner, grander than Voltaire's. It could be the greatest task of your
life. The world should be shown how happy Caesar would have made it, how
different everything would have been, had he been given time to bring his lofty
designs into fruition."

The idealistic Lieutenant would close his argument by
asserting that the spirit and sense of Caesar's greatness had been reincarnated
in the Fuhrer (the afore immunising his Roman hero against criticism) and that,
equally, the Reich was similarly Rome re-born. Was that not partly why he was
here? Like Caesar, Christian was doing his military service before he took his
place within the Senate.

The fascistic officer smoked another cigarette, fastidiously
picking any crumbs or flecks of dirt from his daily pressed uniform. He noticed
an old, faded gravy or claret stain on the cream tablecloth. He would change
both his laundry woman and the tablecloth. Despite the heat and stuffiness of
the room the officer refused to remove his jacket. He took another large swig
of his comforting cognac and, as was the Lieutenant's custom at this time of
the day, he went over his morning's activities and drafted the reports and diary
entry he would complete later that evening.

"Oversaw another canning process for some sardines this
morning (Christian was here referring to the "sardine method" of
disposing of Jews. The victims would first dig a long trench and then lay down
in it. Soldiers would then fire down upon them and the next layer, heads lying
upon feet, would be similarly murdered. Up to six layers of bodies would be so
formed and the mass grave would then be filled in). The sun has baked the
ground somewhat over the past few months, causing small time delays in the
construction of the trenches, but I believe it is still an effective method for
the evacuation of the Jews. Moreover, apart from the odd teething problem with
cases of nausea and shock from some troops employed in the operation, my teams
are now sufficiently battle-hardened so to speak - and the wheat has been
separated from the chaff - to bring them to the standards of efficiency I
require. Not only did the out of town inspection grant me the opportunity to
assess the progress and validity of this now old method of evacuation but so
too, more importantly perhaps, it furnished me with the experiment of seeing
how well my team at the station could manage the operation without me. Despite
the apparent odd hiccup the men performed admirably by all accounts. As I have
trained my men in the same philosophy and techniques as I was trained, or
rather self-trained, I have as much confidence in them as I do in myself."

After finishing his notes for later insertion into his
official reports and personal journal Christian turned to his schedule for that
evening. Nervousness fluttered in his heart but still a pleasurable feeling
came over him as he thought of his plan to promote the Private to his adjutant.
Christian was taken back by his innocence and attractiveness again after
witnessing the youth on parade. Dietmar was almost the double of Christian's
first male lover, Johann Koller, in his days at University. He had the same
round, boyish expression, blue eyes and downy skin - but yet most hauntingly
and attractive for Christian was the similar way in which Dietmar seemed to
admire and serve the Lieutenant as Johann had once loyally done. In his diary
at University Christian had richly called the younger adolescent his ‘John Edelston’"
to his Lord Byron.

The industrialist's son and playboy had owned numerous
lover's since Johann, from dazzling socialites to male prostitutes - but it was
his young idoliser and clandestine affair at University that Christian had
always looked back fondest on. Perhaps it was because Christian had never had
time to grow bored with his young friend, or that Johann near worshipped his
older, generous room-mate. There was something noble in their companionship.
Although Christian couldn't sometimes help himself - every Saturday night he
instructed one of his Corporals to select a suitable Polish girl for him to
relieve himself with, bugger - he had become increasingly misogynistic over the
years. Indeed one of the reasons why he raped the women and girls in such a way
was because he couldn't stand to look them in the face, or have them look at
him. Women were for him nothing but whores and liars. They were insubstantial,
dumb, or sly; he could see the gold-diggers coming from a mile off and found
their base behaviour disgusting. Self-loathing sometimes pervaded Christian's
thoughts after he had once again felt himself being used, or anything but
commanding in his transactions with women. The true virtues of
"toughness" (to quote Himmler), duty, intelligence, fidelity, were
embodied in Man. The highest form of love and friendship was between two men -
hadn't Plato ("The Republic" was one of Christian's favourite books)
proved that?

The Lieutenant gently smiled to himself thinking upon the
androgynous, Germanically handsome face of Dietmar again. Yes it would be sweet
to seduce such unaffected innocence, but it was certainly not just lust that
attracted Christian to the Private. He wanted to also mould the youth.
Christian also just craved some intelligent, masculine companionship - someone
to share his day and thoughts with. The demands of his rank and Christian's
philosophy regarding how an officer should relate to his men bred a degree of
isolation. He wanted to be loved, not just feared. The officer had tried to
employ a secretary before but the candidate proved unsuitable. He grew awkward
at his advances and, once Christian began to feel the pangs of his discomfort
and rejection, the Lieutenant hastily posted the youth to the Eastern Front to
avoid any further anxiety or indiscretions.

But Dietmar was different. Sensitive. Christian welcomely
saw the way in which the recruit had looked, looked-up, at his superior
officer. Already Kleist sensed that Dietmar wanted to please him. Christian
prided himself on having an eye for talent and Dietmar was SS, not Wehrmacht,
material he judged. The Private passed the test of the hunt - he suitably felt
privileged to be invited and didn't show any weakness in its execution. Kleist
smiled to himself again as he recalled the glance he fancied the youth gave him
whilst in the outdoor showers. The Lieutenant often visited the washrooms.
Cleanliness was of paramount importance to a soldier, especially when he was in
such close proximity to the pestilence of the Jew. Furthermore Christian told
himself that the men's shower areas were the best place to assess their morale;
he enjoyed their banter. It was where he first saw, appreciated, Dietmar - and
in turn Dietmar appeared to notice the Lieutenant. Soldierly living had yet to
besmirch his semblance and figure; there was enthusiasm and honour in the
youth's aspect; his slim physique was still lithe and defined, glistening and
hairless like the marble statues of the nubile Olympian heroes he had seen in
the museums that his father had taken him to as a child.

Even from that moment the Lieutenant wanted to possess the
youth. Christian had checked his files. His schooling was more than sufficient
for the post. No one would raise an eyebrow if, when, he transferred Dietmar
onto his staff. Yet still he wanted to talk to someone in his platoon about the
recruit; his appetite was whetted but he wanted to know more about the boy
before he took him on. Dietmar was a convenient pretext to meet and finally
talk with the Wehrmacht Corporal the officer concluded. Christian had heard of
Thomas Abendroth first through the University that both men had attended,
albeit the Corporal had attended the celebrated institution years before the
Lieutenant Abendroth, the son of some Bavarian village blacksmith, was able to
attend the school through attaining a scholarship. His nickname at the
University had been "young Goethe", for the student was known to be
proficient in the sciences as well as arts (as well as being the school's
fencing champion two years running). The University also funded and published
an edition of his poetry during his years at the school. Christian had a copy
of the anthology somewhere back home as it was unofficial required reading at
the institution. Kleist read the book after hearing an older student who he was
attracted to talk about the volume. The narrative poems, composed whilst Thomas
was still a teenager, were particularly rich in interpretation and verve
Christian recalled. One never knew if the poet was being romantic or ironic -
and the verse always rhymed. As much as Thomas Abendroth seemed to be the
darling of the faculty - the student was being groomed to one day be a teacher
at the institution - the golden boy eventually left the college under a cloud.
Poems and a novella circulated after his dismissal from the University - caused
by an alleged assault on his fencing master - describing a life of alcoholism
and debauchery. Whether or not the cult writings were authentic, in terms of
Thomas being the author of them, was never proved - but it was apparent at the
time from his circle of friends that the drinking and visits to brothels were
genuine.