Poor sods, thought Major Scheldt as he hurried along. There but for the grace of God, and so on . . . “Resettlement” meant, of course, extermination. He noticed a pile of dead bodies in the far comer; Koch had either felt it unnecessary to have them removed before the inspection, or he was proud of the way they’d been so neatly stacked. The Major noticed Colonel Brinkmann looking across at them, but he made no comment.

  “What’s happening over there?” Brinkmann asked the Kommandant, who turned at once to Captain Weissenbom, his Second Officer-in-Charge.

  “Those are the open latrines, Herr Standartenführer.” He led the party closer, appreciating the attention. “We had them dug a week ago to cope with the dysentery problem.”

  The group halted, staring across "at the prisoners, fifty or sixty of them, huddling in lines for their turn at the latrine trenches. Many were fouling themselves where they stood, and a few of fhem were squatting with their heads buried in their arms.

  “Get those men up!” the Kommandant shouted suddenly, and a dozen SS guards moved off at the double, dragging and beating the inmates to a standing position.

  “So you have dysentery here?” asked Colonel Brink-mann, looking away from the latrines. Major Scheldt caught the hardness of his tone and admired him for it; on the several occasions when the Major had brought senior officers of the Inspectorate here for the first time, some of them had stepped aside and thrown up when they saw these wretches being beaten. One had to be hard. One had to be above all this.

  “The dysentery’s no big problem, Herr Standartenführer,” said Koch easily. “It’s got to work itself out—” He paused to give a short bellow of laughter, which his two junior officers echoed immediately. “We’re using ton after ton of disinfectant, which is all that’s necessary.”

  “That’s the odor I’ve been noticing?”

  “Calcium chloride, yes. Very effective.”

  “And those men over there?” asked Brinkmann. He was pointing to a huddle of prisoners lolling against the barbed wire on the far side from the entrance gate. They looked to be skin and bone, their yellow faces raised like skulls to the darkening sky, their eyes closed. At this moment the main floodlights came on, but the prisoners made no movement, nor did they seem to notice. /

  “They refuse to eat,” said Kommandant Koch. “They’ve decided to give up. No character—no sense of endurance. What else can we do but shift them out there in the open? It makes more room for the others inside the barracks.”

  “Shall I have the guards get them to attention?” asked Captain Weissenborn.

  “No,” Koch told him curtly, then his bellowing laugh erupted unexpectedly. “If you stood them up, they’d only fall down again—this isn’t a skittle alley!” He glanced at Colonel Brinkmann. “You may feel we treat things too lightly here at Buchenwald, Herr Standartenführer. The fact is that we’ve had to harden ourselves to the demands of our profession.”

  “But how accurately you put it, Herr Kommandant.” The Colonel inclined his blond head to his companion. “Your profession—in point of fact, our profession—is to guard the political enemies of the Third Reich, the Jews, the religious fanatics, the no-goods, the misfits and the human trash that jeopardize the healthy life of Germany and her essential war effort.” His tone became almost gentle as he gazed at the Kommandant, his blue eyes narrowed to slits against the wind. “I hope you don’t feel that I recommend you should wrap such parasites in cotton wool, Herr Kommandant.”

  “I see that you understand our situation here completely, Herr Standartenführer. We are going to get along fine, you and I.”

  In the center of the camp he stopped beneath the enormous tree that the visitors had noticed earlier. “And this,” the Kommandant told them proudly, “is the famous Goethe Oak, named after the great poet himself. It’s known throughout the region, and of course we took pains to leave it untouched when the camp was built.”

  They stood in a group to admire the tree, the freezing wind tugging at the skirts of their greatcoats. “Another example of your sense of culture,” said Colonel Brinkmann expansively. “Music, and now a monument to poetry! Even under the pressure of your exacting duties, you manage to find time for the humanities. If I may, I’d like to mention it in my report.”

  He had made his way alone through the camp for an hour, perhaps longer, he didn’t know. It was gone midnight by his watch, but he hadn’t noted the precise time when he’d told Scheldt he was going to turn in. Scheldt had gone over to the Kommandant’s villa again —“for a nightcap,” he’d explained.

  What were they talking about, in the villa? Were they discussing him?

  He stood in the shadows between two of the long brick huts, thinking about Koch and about Scheldt, trying to remember the events of the day, of the last two days, trying to decide whether he’d done or said anything dangerous, even by a gesture or a single word.

  “You’ll be skating on thin ice,” Haslam had told him before he’d left the house in Charlottenburg. “You can become suspect at any minute, on any day. We’ve done our best, as I think you know; but when you’re tired you can make a slip, or forget something vital—or find yourself faced with a situation we didn’t anticipate, in spite of all our care. If 'anything happens, you’ve got the addresses of our people who can give you temporary refuge; but don’t go to ground unless it’s the only way you can stay alive.”

  What were they talking about, over their glasses of schnapps?

  He moved through the shadows, startling a man who was on his knees at the edge of the barbed wire. He stared up at Martin, his eyes terrified and his mouth open.

  “What are you doing?” Martin asked him. The man was blue with the cold and his hands were bleeding.

  “Nothing, Herr Standartenführer. Nothing.”

  They would all say that, because in this place there was nothing they could admit to doing, without being beaten. Martin bent down and saw something in the dim light; the man was trying to hide it.

  “What have you got there?”

  The man held it out, knowing he was caught. It was half a human jawbone, with several teeth still present. Near the man’s knees, in the frozen earth, was a hole.

  “What are you digging for?”

  The man bowed his head, forced into a direct admission.

  “For roots, Herr Standartenführer.”

  “Roots?” Martin straightened up and the man flinched, certain he was going to be struck. “Don’t be afraid,” Martin said with sudden soft anger. He’d first known this feeling as a child, creeping through the bushes and hearing the birds darting away, startled. Don’t be afraid . . . he’d called out to them; he’d wanted to touch them, and be their friend, and it had made him angry that they didn’t understand. “What roots?” he asked the man cringing in front of him.

  “They say there are roots here, for eating. There used to be grass here, and weeds.”

  “For eating ... I see.” They’d lunched on suckling pig today at the Kommandant’s villa; he and Scheldt had sent half theirs away, not having Koch’s appetite.

  “For eating,” the man repeated dully, perhaps trying to persuade the tall, greatcoated Standartenführer that such a pursuit was legitimate. Then he flinched again as the SS officer suddenly drew his dagger, its blade making a soft hiss against the scabbard’s leather. He knelt down and drove the blade into the freezing earth, prizing it upward in small clods, pushing his dagger harder and harder, grunting with the effort, until the hole was a miniature trench alongside the barbed wire.

  At last he sat back on his heels and said emptily, not looking at the man, “No roots.” The dagger hung loosely from his gloved hand. “There are no roots here.” Then he made himself face the man in the reflected wash of the floodlights. “You were misinformed, my friend.”

  “I—” But the man could find nothing suitable to say to this strange officer.

  Martin wiped his dagger on the back of his glove and straightened. “Don’t talk about me to anyone, you understand?”

  “Of course, Herr Standartenführer.”

  “If you talk about me, they won’t believe you. They’ll punish you for lying, and you don’t want that.” He turned away quickly. _

  The prisoner watched the tall figure make its way through the shadows between the huts, until it passed out of sight. Already he was beginning to wonder if the officer had been there at all.

  Rage. Rage. Rage . . .

  It burned in him as if he’d swallowed fire.

  “And these files here?” he asked in level tones.

  “They are the inmates in alphabetical order, Herr Standartenführer.”

  “I see.”

  This was the Orderly Room, staffed entirely by trustee prisoners and kapos and dealing with camp administration, the roll call roster, assignment to quarters, the rationing system and general routine. There were three of them here with him, standing rigidly to attention behind him as he slid open the big metal drawers of the cabinet.

  Rage . . .

  Against nothing in particular, against everything in particular, an accumulation of the things he had seen and the things he had heard and touched and silently cried out against, first in disbelief and then in horror and then in anguish . . . and finally in rage, rage, rage. . . .

  “You won’t find it pleasant,” Haslam had said in his quiet civilized way, placing his fingers together as he had watched Martin. “We’ve shown you the films, but they’re not reality.”

  No. The films had been bad enough; they were taken secretly by a political prisoner who had managed to smuggle them out of Mauthausen, hoping to convince the French and British and American governments that something must be done to halt the terror that was loose in Germany. They showed beatings and the shooting of children and the slow hanging of a man who had tried to escape; but they hadn’t conveyed the sickening smell of the excrement and the calcium chloride, or the rust-red stains on the wall where the bullets had spattered blood, or the echo of the Kommandant’s laughter as he had shown his visitors proudly around his domain.

  “You’ve heard what these place are like, I’m sure,” Major Scheldt had told him yesterday, meaning to put him at ease, “but don’t worry—we’re official visitors and have our report to make, so we’ll be seeing things at their best.”

  Rage . . . Rage . . .

  “What order are these entries in?” he asked the dark Czechoslovakian with the lash-mark on his face.

  “From left to right, Herr Standartenführer. The green cabinet first.”

  Martin opened the cabinet and studied the index, pulled open a drawer and ran his thumb along the row of tags, stopping at Schiendick, Max Julius, last address Diisseldorf. “These inmates are present in barracks now?”

  “Yes, Herr Standartenführer.”

  Martin pulled open the E to H drawer and thumbed the tabs. There was no Gerlach entered. He tried the W to Z file but there were no “Von” entries. He began to feel cold; Hedda had said it was confirmed that Franz was at Buchenwald.

  “What are those other files?”

  “Movement and Transfer, Herr Standartenführer. And the deceased.”

  I want you to know something, Hedda’s voice was in his mind. I'm proud of what he did. Very proud.

  He went to the Movement and Transfer files, pulling the E to H drawer and checking the tabs. Gerlach, Franz Wilhelm. KO. 11.11.39.

  “What does ‘KO’ mean, after the name?”

  “It is for Kozuchow, Herr Standartenführer. A new camp in Poland, built for the Resettlement Plan.” Martin closed his eyes momentarily. Over his shoulder he said, “You mean it’s an extermination camp?” The Czech hesitated. “A camp for unrepentant political prisoners, Herr Standartenführer.”

  “I see.” By the date, Franz had left yesterday. He slammed the metal drawer shut. “You keep your records in good order. I’ll report as much. Heil Hitler!”

  Kommandant Koch studied the diamond, turning it to reflect the morning light. “Interesting,” he mused.

  “Why not send for one of the jewelers?” Martin suggested. “We could ask his expert opinion.”

  They were standing in the Kommandant’s living room. The scent of real coffee was on the air—nothing ersatz for the Kommandant. Koch went to the door and told the guard to fetch Gronowetter, the jeweler, and at the double.

  “How did you come by the stone?” he asked.

  “By a certain arrangement. I am simply its bearer.” Koch glanced at him slyly. “I see.”

  Haslam had said, Most of them are totally corrupt, but you'll have to be very careful. Some of them prefer to get a hold over you if they can, to counteract the hold you have over them, as an inspector; they like your reports to be favorable. We don't know much about Koch, so handle him with the utmost care. He could destroy you.

  The door opened and Frau Koch stood there, a heavy woman with coarse good looks, mannish in her riding breeches. “So here you are!” A big smile for Standartenführer Brinkmann. She wished her husband would learn to turn a compliment like this young officer. “I shall join you for coffee!”

  “Not now,” Koch told her curtly. “We are discussing official business.” The gem was nowhere in sight.

  “Oh my God—it’s always official business!” She slapped her thigh with her whip. “Then later—and don’t keep me waiting too long!”

  Martin had seen her riding earlier in the arena built by the first prisoners: the walls were composed of mirrors and the overhead lighting was by chandeliers; the total cost, the Kommandant had told him with pride, was a quarter of a million marks. Thirty prisoners had died from exhaustion during its construction. “But then,” Koch had laughed indulgently, “my wife has always been impatient!”

  He turned the diamond again to catch the light. “And the ‘arrangement’ you were speaking of? Or is that not for my ears?”

  “But of course it is. We would like to make you a gift of this bauble, if you’d consider accepting it. Perhaps a ring for the charming Frau Koch.” Martin laughed gently. Another thing he’d learned about the charming Frau Koch was that every time a new batch of prisoners arrived at the camp and were ordered to strip naked for the showers, she and the wives of the other officers walked down to the barbed wire to watch the fun—and “make comparisons,” as she’d told him roguishly after an excellent dinner of caviar, wild boar and crepes suzette. Martin had been meticulously correct with the woman: as an ally, Koch could be of immeasurable value; as a jealous enemy he could become lethal.

  To be a member of the SS, Otto Tempel had warned him, is not to be invulnerable. At more than one camp there are SS men serving time as prisoners, including two lieutenants and a captain. They proved too lenient with the inmates, or they were discovered taking bribes —nothing very serious, you see, but quite fatal. You will be, as Major Haslam has said, skating on thin ice. Remember that.

  “And in return for this ‘gift,’ ” Kommandant Koch asked casually, “what should I be expected to offer?”

  Before Martin could answer they heard the tramping of boots outside, followed by a knock at the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “A guard, Herr Kommandant, with Prisoner Gronowetter!”

  “Let them, in.”

  The jeweler was out of breath and stood panting, a small hollow-chested man with rimless glasses, one lens cracked and an earpiece repaired with adhesive tape.

  “Get to attention!” the guard told him brutally. “You call that attention?” The prisoner gave a jerk and continued to struggle for breath.

  “Get out,” Koch told the guard. “I want your valuation of this stone,” he said to the Jew. “And don’t make any mistakes.”

  Martin watched the subtle change that came over the man as he gazed at the stone, turning it in his sensitive fingers: here was something he understood, something that offered him the authority of a lifetime’s experience, something he had been taught by his father and by his father’s father to know and to love. From some inner recess of his ragged uniform he produced an optical lens, and peered with it.

  “It has no flaws, Herr Kommandant. A beautiful color. Well cut, and in Antwerp, and by one of the new young artisans.” Glancing up, he continued with a faint smile that transformed his face. “They like to cut new angles, you know, with the base—”

  “I told you to value it, you fucking Jew-pig!” Koch hissed at him, and the man flinched.

  “Of course, Herr Kommandant, forgive me.” He studied the diamond again, his breath fluttering in the quiet room.

  Upward blow to the heart, Jock had said, to kill.

  Martin remembered.

  The neck, Jock had said, to kill.

  Martin remembered.

  Nose bone, he heard Jock telling him again, into the brain. To kill.

  Yes. Kommandant Koch was a big man, heavy; but his heart and his neck and his brain were as vulnerable as any other man’s.

  Rage.

  Dangerous self-indulgence, even to think about it. The brute would simply be replaced by another brute, and the Jew would die, in reprisal, and take a hundred others with him.

  Prisoner Gronowetter looked up from the diamond. “Herr Kommandant, I—I am out of touch with the market at present, you understand, but six months ago, when I ... six months ago it would have been worth, shall I say, close to a hundred thousand marks.”

  Martin saw the flicker of surprise in the Kommandant’s eyes before he said with a casual nod, “A hundred thousand, yes. About what I would have thought.” He took the diamond roughly from the prisoner’s fingers, raising his voice. “Guard!” The door was opened at once. “Take this pig back to its sty!”

  “Herr Kommandant! Come on, you filthy scum— move!” He jerked Gronowetter to the door. “Move!”

  When they were alone again Koch said slowly, “Quite a respectable little ‘bauble,’ yes. And who suggested I might consider accepting such a gift, Standartenführer Brinkmann?”