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I could say that Klein had given it to me. Given it to me for the reason he had said. To make the right impression. But that might get him into trouble. And myself. I had thought of Klein first. I was sure I should not treat a small tin badge with such flippancy. But if I said a year, a time, committed to it, there would be a paper somewhere to confirm. Everything, even my subsistence chits, were stamped with an eagle.
‘Oh. That would have been ’42. I think. To be honest, Captain, I am not political I must confess.’ I tried to say it the way Klein had done. ‘My wife insisted. Thought it would help with my career. They always know what is best for us.’ Now I was being more than the fool. I was playing it. I did not believe such sentiments about Etta. It is just what you say when you ride with an SS officer in his car. Your opinion his opinion.
He laughed again.
‘That is the way! That is the way! Do you have children, Ernst?’
‘No, Captain. But when we have won the war we should think of it.’
‘Exactly. Just so. I have a son. My proudest gift. I envy him the country he will inherit. What is your wife’s name?’
‘Etta.’
‘A good name. My wife’s name is Emma.’ He grimaced. ‘I think it is too English.’
‘Not at all. Where are you shopping in the Anger, Captain?’
He leaned his ear to me. ‘Hmm?’
‘The Anger. For your wife’s birthday.’
‘Oh. Yes.’ He shrugged. ‘I have not thought on it. I have a few hours to waste.’
‘We do not see many SS officers in town. You will be stared at no doubt, Captain.’
He nudged me with his elbow. Like a friend.
‘But I bet I get good service, eh? Now, where do you live for me to drop you?’
I had not thought on this. An SS car to my door. The black and silver pennants flying, the runes on the licence plate, the twitch of curtains along the street. Etta watching from the window.
‘If you drive to the Anger I can walk from there. I do not want to trouble you, Captain.’
‘Nonsense. It is no trouble. None.’ Turned his face to me, eyes off the road. ‘Where do you live, Ernst?’
*
I did not mean to slam closed the door of the apartment. Etta, alarmed, staring at me from the sink as I stood with the door braced at my back.
‘Ernst? Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine.’ I went to the window, threw my hat and coat to the chair.
‘You are home early? Was there a problem at the camp?’
‘No. No problem.’ I looked through the net curtain. The black car still there. ‘But I missed the cafeteria lunch.’
‘That is why you look so pale. I will make a sandwich. What are you looking at?’
The car sat there. No blue smoke from the back. Just sat there. Its flat roof looking up at me.
‘Frau Klein. Landlady patrol again. I had to run in. She was hovering around the door.’ This was partly true. Frau Klein had seen the captain open the car door for me from her ground-floor window. He bowed to me as I passed back his cap.
A slam of a plate, the yell of my name like my mother’s scold.
‘Ernst!’
I spun from the window, sure a rat had run out of a cupboard.
‘Why in hell … why are you wearing that pin?’
I went back to the window. My eye up the street to the Anger, down to the station corner.
The car gone.
Chapter 9 (#ulink_49004f87-5ce5-5995-accb-4af805e02948)
I rapped on Klein’s office door. The polite two-tone tap. A congenial pat-pat.
He called me in, sat behind his desk with pen and journal.
‘Good morning, Ernst. You have my notes?’
‘Yes, sir.’ I put the pad to his desk. Eight-thirty and I was already in my white-coat. I think he approved.
‘Sander will bring to your floor some plans for today. I will be chained to my desk, on administration for my labours. Prüfer is back from Auschwitz so we must all jump.’
‘It will be good to see Herr Prüfer again. If I get the chance, sir.’
‘I doubt it.’ He closed his pen. ‘He is in such a mood when he returns.’ He saw that I was waiting. ‘Is there anything else, Ernst?’
I brought out the pin.
‘I return this, sir.’ I placed it on his journal. ‘But I may have created a problem.’
The pin was gone, to his hand, to a drawer.
‘Explain.’
‘Captain Schwarz asked me when I had joined the Party. I did not want to lie … but I fear I have. I did not want to cause you any difficulty.’
‘Ah. I see. No. It is my fault. I did not think on it. A natural question. But it is fine that you concerned yourself, Ernst. About me. But do not worry. I have been a Party member since ’38. Schwarz knows this.’
‘But I thought … You said you were not a member? The pin just for impression?’
He went back into his chair.
‘No. I said I was not political. The badge is useful. Being in the Party is useful. I thought it would help you to wear it.’
‘But I have lied to him?’
‘I appreciate your concern. But do not think, Ernst, that SS captains spend their days trawling over paperwork checking up on junior members of staff of a factory. I should hope he is far too busy. As am I.’ He opened his pen.
‘I thought to let you know. He did ask. And I did lie. To an SS officer.’
‘I thank you for that. Your motives were for me and the company. Very good, Ernst. I am sorry you were inconvenienced. Please forgive me. I acted in your interest.’
‘I will not get into trouble?’ I changed my angle on that. ‘I would not wish to embarrass the company.’
‘No. You are right to tell me. If Schwarz should call I can explain.’
Call. If Schwarz should call.
‘I told him that I only joined at my wife’s insistence. That I was not active.’
‘So you are being too concerned. Get to your desk, Ernst. Do not worry. I can control my own department. Thank you for your help yesterday.’ His pen to his journal.
I bowed and left. Sweat in my palms.
*
Yesterday, explaining the badge to Etta, had not gone well. I tried to pass it off. As nothing. A small thing.
‘Herr Klein gave it to me.’ I plucked the pin from my jacket, pocketed it. ‘To make a good impression in the camp. For appearances sake. It is nothing.’ I moved away from the window.
‘It is something. You wore that in the street?’
‘No. I came from the car and straight in.’
‘Car?’
I needed a cigarette. The papers and tobacco pause enough.
‘Herr Klein gave me a lift. He was going to the Anger. For shopping.’ Only half a lie.
Etta enraged as she lit the hob for the kettle.
‘He should have taken back his badge.’
‘I’ll give it to him tomorrow.’ I switched on the light. ‘Do we have money for the meter?’
‘Don’t do that. Don’t change the subject. If you want to join the Party to get on that is up to you.’
‘What difference does it make? A party is a party.’ I lit my cigarette, resumed my position by the window. To deposit my ash. To watch the street. As usual. Trying not to look up and down the road. ‘It does not mean anything any more.’
‘It means you are old-fashioned. That you belong in lederhosen. That you are an old man shouting at the dark. I am sure your father would approve.’
I left the window. ‘Would it change your opinion of me?’
She pulled cups and tea from the cupboard. Her face away from me. ‘It is your choice. If you want.’
Not the words she wanted to say. Not in their tone.
‘I didn’t think we were political,’ I said. The same tone.
‘Our country is at war, Ernst. Everyone is political. Even this damned tea has a swastika on the box. Why should my husband wear it less? Who am I to object?’ Slammed the tea back to the cupboard. ‘Now. Do you want to tell me about the camp?’
I waited for the whistling kettle. It would be easier to talk on my day over tea.
Chapter 10 (#ulink_519b3b71-92a8-5e85-94ef-c62aae8a9bb5)
I went to my board, the last one on the right, the others smiling or ignoring me as I passed. I was the only one who did not wear glasses, the only young blond man. Everyone else with black slicked hair and thin moustaches. The old men that Klein had said he did not trust. These men had unions once.
We did not have stools, we stood all day, and that would take getting used to but no matter yet. Today was Tuesday and since Thursday last I had maybe only spent three hours at my desk. I stared at the blank white paper of my board, checked the wheel of the ISIS by moving it from corner to corner.
‘Those are yours,’ the voice of my colleague from the row beside me. He nodded to the table between us and to a grey bound folder almost the same size. ‘Herr Sander brought them. I told him you were not here yet.’ That meant he had told him I was late.
‘I was with Herr Klein,’ I said, in exactly the timbre to declare that he was not in such company.
I sat on the edge of the table, slipped off the corner ties and took out the first sheet. A note attached.
‘Furnace designs for Auschwitz – Birkenau II & III. Translate Alphabet with annotation in ink. F. Sander.’
This was a ground plan. An enormous room divided into several others. The ovens in the furthest room, complete with detailed trundles for putting the bodies in. Five triple-muffle ovens. Five in each drawing. Two crematoria. Thirty iron and fire-clay oven doors. For two crematoriums. Thirty doors. And there were still three more crematoria in this prison.
I was incredulous. Voiced it.
‘How many people die here?’
My colleague never stopped scratching his pencil.
‘Hundreds a day. The typhus is everywhere. And they execute criminals all day long. Did you see that fenced area at Buchenwald? By the crematorium?’
I did not know they were aware of my visit. Perhaps nothing to be hidden between floors. I would note that.
‘I smoked there.’
‘The execution yard. That is why the fence is so tall. The prisoners cannot see into it. Beside the morgue so you do not have to drag them too far to the chute.’
Hundreds a day, he said. How many camps the same? Thousands a day. Another front to the war. A war of disease. Did not want to think of it. Pictured the brass band instead. Every camp had a song Klein had said. Think of the better picture.
I took the paper to my board, clipped it up. I would only have to explain the dashes and breaks of line, the shaded areas and what these meant to the viewer in terms of constructing the building. The names of each room plain enough. But I decided that speaking to Paul would help me understand what I was looking at. What if I found a mistake? What if I could help improve? Make an educated difference. To get to the third floor. I would take a trip to Weimar at the weekend.
‘How have you been, Ernst?’
I jumped at the friendly voice. Kurt Prüfer at my shoulder. His smile like a shy boy’s. A chubby face behind round spectacles, grey and white hair cropped close to the bone to camouflage his baldness as men who have a roll of fat above their collar are wont to do. Grey suit to match his hair. He did not seem as moody as Klein warned.
‘Very well, sir.’
