“Come on, you scummy bastards, stop dawdling!”

  The file of prisoners began moving, but it took the last of the strength of some of them and they began toppling over and dropping their belongings, and Corporal Trot yelled at the others to drag them clear, and the whole process started again.

  Two thousand prisoners, in the last two weeks alone, had been marched from the railway station in Weimar to the camp, and it was filling up satisfactorily.

  Franz von Gerlach was marching with his eyes shut. Over the last nine days he had learned several ways of keeping his sanity and staying alive, and this was one of them: to shut your eyes whenever there was a chance, so that the world going on outside was less real—you could only hear it and feel it and smell it. That was bad enough, of course, but you still had a slight advantage. You couldn’t shut your eyes whenever you liked, naturally; he had shut them when the prisoners had been lined up alongside the train at Aschersleben, about halfway from Berlin, and a guard had seen him and dragged him out of the line for being “asleep on his feet,” throwing him down the embankment and kicking him back every time he crawled to the top again, seventeen times until the guard got bored with it.

  Franz hadn’t known how bad things were, when he’d been in Berlin as a student, an ordinary citizen. Stories had been passing around, about the concentration camps, but no one believed them. If he and his friends had known about this they would have announced it in the leaflets; but no one would have believed them either. Somebody, one day, would have to start believing what was happening to the German nation. Otherwise there’d be no hope.

  They reached the camp in the evening, when the long day’s sun was going down behind the hills, and swallows dipped and circled across the tall watchtowers and the barbed wire, hunting for insects on the wing.

  They spent the night in cells, though not lying down. The SS guards bludgeoned them into the narrow cement confines until they were packed body to body with no room to fall down; then the doors were forced shut against them and the ventilators were closed and the heating system was turned on at full temperature. For a while they could hear the guards laughing outside, like schoolboys enjoying a prank. Before morning, several hundred of the prisoners had fainted, still on their feet and jammed upright among the rest. The death roll, duly recorded in the files, was seventy-three.

  After morning roll call the survivors were herded into the SS Political Division for classifying. Among others, Franz was given a red triangle to wear, as a political detainee. He was then asked for his personal data.

  “What’s the name of the drunken bastard that sired you?”

  Franz couldn’t hear very well. The building was crammed with new arrivals and there were twenty or so SS clerks clattering at their typewriters.

  “Come on, answer!”

  “I didn’t understand the question.”

  A fist swung and he was pitched across the wooden table. The clerk pushed him back with a curse. “Father’s name, you stupid swine!”

  Franz shook himself, feeling consciousness slipping. He had been one of those who had fainted during the night.

  “General Constantin von Gerlach.”

  “Ha! Bloody aristocrat, is he?” The clerk began typing. “And what diseased bitch shat you into this unsuspecting world?”

  Franz swayed slightly, vaguely aware of what he was being asked. Someone had told him—the man with the beard, who had fallen along the road—that psychological intimidation would be part of the process at the camp.

  “Come on, will you!” The guard kicked him in the knees and then, as he doubled over, knocked him upright again. Franz grabbed for support. “Keep to attention, you sloppy bastard!”

  Consciousness slipped again, and he had to force himself back into reality. The question, yes. His mother’s name.

  “I will tell you my mother’s name. She is Frau Gisela von Gerlach.”

  “Frau, is it? Airs and bloody graces! You’re going to learn a few things here, Franz von fuckin’ Gerlach. In this place men are men, and gentlemen get shoved head down in the latrine by way of a christening.” The typewriter clattered again. “Other relatives? Brothers, sisters? Come on!”

  The clerk at the typewriter was moving backward and forward as Franz watched him. His mind kept losing focus, and he began to discover truths about all this, as inner consciousness took over. These people were not, in fact, people at all. They were wild animals, and once you realized this it was more understandable, more acceptable. It was only when you persisted in thinking they were human beings that you felt the stress, the bewilderment. Let them say what they like, let them do what they like, but don’t let them make you feel that you are of the same creature-hood. In this way, you can remain whole, and uncontaminated.

  ". . . Will you!,f

  He reeled against the table as the club struck him; the clerk stood up and shoved him upright.

  “Stand to attention, you lazy sod!"

  From somewhere, from some region of remaining consciousness, he brought the thought forward into words. His voice, he heard, was quite loud this time. “I have a sister. Her name is Fräulein Hedda von Gerlach.”

  “Fräulein? That’s quite a fancy title for a syphilitic whore!” His typewriter began tapping again.

  It took half an hour. At one stage Franz found himself on the stone floor with his hands clasped around his head as the guard’s boot came thudding at him. At another, he regained consciousness with his body slumped across the typewriter, before they dragged him upright and slapped his face till his eyes opened. At intervals he heard the Jewish prisoners being whipped, just outside the door; he had learned enough by this time to know that when you were asked why you were here, and didn’t know, you were given a thrashing at once, for not acknowledging your crime. But if you were Jewish you would be thrashed in any case.

  At the evening roll call fourteen men were lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head. Twelve of them had failed to answer their names loudly enough, one had buckled to his knees from exhaustion, and one had dropped his cap.

  After roll call certain prisoners were called to the gatehouse over the loudspeakers, and among them was Franz. SS Corporal Trot called his name again and ordered him to stand forward. “Get that badge off!” But Franz wasn’t quick enough to obey, and the Corporal wrenched the red triangle from his uniform shirt and threw it on to the ground, thrusting a different one at him, a blue disk stamped with a capital B.

  “Pin it on, come on!” He stood face to face with Franz, his small eyes flickering. Franz could smell drink on his breath. “Know what it’s for, do you?”

  “No.” Franz fumbled with the badge, his fingers numb from blows he’d received on his arms during the day.

  “No, Corporal!” Trot thrust his face at him. “No, Corporal! No, Corporal! No, Corporal! No, Corporal! No, Corporal! No,Corporal!”

  “No, Corporal,” Franz said. In the glare of the floodlights his eyes were swimming, and Corporal Trot was only a blur.

  “Not interested? Eh?”

  “Yes, Corporal.”

  “Then why don’t you ask me what it’s for?”

  His blurred shaped rocked backward and forward.

  “What is it for, Corporal?”

  “Don’t ask bloody stupid questions!” said Corporal Trot, and threw his head back, laughing in a high shrill cackle. “Get back to your quarters, go on, before I—” He lifted his hand and Franz waited, not trying to dodge, because today he had learned another thing: if you stood still and took the blow, they often left it at that; but if you tried to dodge it you’d get two or three, or maybe a dozen. But the Corporal let his hand drop to his hip. “Go on, then, get back to your bloody pigsty. Go on—at the double!”

  Franz returned to his quarters in “B” Block, and at some time during the night decided that he must somehow try to escape, since there was clearly no alternative.

  BERLIN, 27 AUGUST 1939

  Hedda was just finishing her bath when the telephone rang, and now she was perched on the stool with the towel around her, holding the receiver with one hand and trying to rub herself dry with the other.

  It was Lottie, at the hospital.

  “It’s in the report,” Hedda told her, trying not to sound impatient. “You have to do exactly as it says in the report, under ‘Postoperative Instructions.’ ” Whenever the phone rang, these days, it always seemed to be Lottie; she could never get anything right.

  “It says hypocalcemia,” Lottie said in a puzzled tone.

  “Of course it says hypocalcemia. It was a massive transfusion of citrated blood. What’s the prescription?”

  “One gram of calcium gluconate.”

  “After how many milliliters of blood?” A trickle of bathwater was running down her leg and she mopped at it with the towel.

  “Two thousand.”

  “Well then, you—”

  Someone was knocking at the door. “You have to do exactly as prescribed, Lottie!” Why were they knocking, when there was a bell?

  “I was afraid of making a mistake,” Lottie’s plaintive tones came over the line.

  The knocking was repeated. “Lottie, is Dr. Vorst in the building?”

  “Yes. He’s—”

  “Then, check with him. I’ve got to answer the door, Lottie. Check with Dr. Vorst, you understand?”

  “All right.” Lottie didn’t sound at all certain; but then she never was.

  Hedda said goodbye and rang off, and went quickly to the door as the knocking began again.

  “Who is it?”

  “Gestapo.”

  She caught her breath and felt the familiar pain around her heart, crouching over it for a moment and shutting her eyes. When she could manage it she called through the door, “Give me a few seconds—I’m just out of the bath.” She dried under her arms and between her thighs and threw the towel on top of the linen basket and took down her dressing gown, wrapping it around her. She couldn’t find her mules but there wasn’t time to look. Mirror, fingers through her hair, shaking it back, my God I look so frightened. . . .

  “I’m coming!”

  More questions. They were here to ask more questions. Please God, let me say everything right.

  She opened the door.

  There were three of them, all in uniform. The one in the middle was an officer; the other two stood rigidly a pace behind him.

  “Fräulein von Gerlach?”

  “Yes. Yes.” He was looking down, and she pulled the dressing gown closer and retied the cord, and remembered her feet were bare.

  “Superintendent Vogel, of Gestapo Headquarters.” His heels came together. “May I come in for a few minutes?”

  “Of course.” She stood back for him. The two guards remained outside, turning their backs and standing at ease as she closed the door. “I—I was in my bath.”

  He moved with small measured steps into the middle of the room, a slight man, but strong-looking, compact and muscular in his black uniform; his eyes were dark in an almost dead-white face. “Who is here with you, Fräulein?”

  “No one.”

  He turned to survey her. “I heard you talking.”

  “Oh, yes—I was on the telephone.”

  “Not, then, in your bath?” His gaze remained on her face.

  “The—the phone rang when I was drying myself.” It sounded intimate, she thought, as if she were revealing something to her doctor. It was because of his stare.

  “How inconvenient.” He spoke softly, in precise accents. The irises of his eyes were so dark, she noticed, that they were almost black, making it look as if his pupils were unnaturally large. She refused to glance away, even though his intimate stare unnerved her.

  “Would you—give me a few moments to get dressed?” she asked him.

  His gaze swept her body, down to her bare feet. “That isn’t necessary, Fräulein.”

  She felt her face reddening with anger, and prayed he wouldn’t notice. Anger against these people could hurt her brother. She had to be mature, and accept these insulting innuendoes as a compliment to her womanhood.

  He took off his cap, looking around uncertainly until she decided to take it from him and put it on the marquetry pier table beside the door.

  “Thank you,” he said simply, brushing back his thin hair with his fingers.

  “Please sit down, Superintendent—excuse me, I missed your exact—”

  “Vogel. Superintendent Karl Vogel.” His polished black boots creaked slightly as he crossed to the armchair and sat down. He had hardly taken his gaze from her since he’d come into the room, and she felt disturbingly exposed.

  “How can I help you, Superintendent?” She perched on the little Italian brocade stool near the bathroom door, feeling its loose joints give slightly. The flat had been furnished out of an antique shop, and most of the pieces, even the worst of them, were her landlady’s joy.

  “I imagine you have a question for me, Fräulein,” the Superintendent said softly. He waited.

  Even the silence was intimate, with this man here. The house was in the quietest part of Grünewald, at the edge of the forest.

  “Yes,” she said, tensing. “I would like to know where my brother is.”

  He gave a measured nod. “Of course you would. You must have telephoned a dozen times in the past few days.” He lifted his pale, dry hands to inspect his nails, and she was aware of immediate relief as his eyes left her face. “I was at Headquarters, Fräulein, when you were interrogated. I passed through the office, and stayed for a moment. Do you remember?” His eyes snapped up to watch her.

  “Yes,” she said quickly. It was a lie, of course; they all looked the same in their beastly uniform. But he’d be offended if she said no. “Yes, of course.”

  He nodded again. “I stayed for a moment,” he told her softly, “because I noticed how beautiful you were.”

  She shrank into herself, as if he’d touched her. “Thank you,” she said, and tried to smile.

  “Unusually beautiful, Fräulein von Gerlach. However, to answer your question: your brother is at present in protective custody, in a camp at Buchenwald, near Weimar.”

  She tried to calm her breathing. She’d heard Franz was there, but not officially. Now it was official. Buchenwald was one of the major KZs, though ordinary citizens weren’t meant to know of its existence.

  “I—I see. How—how long will he be there for?”

  “You can write him letters, you know. You should do that. They would bring him comfort. Life for him is rather different now from what he was used to. A foolish young man, of course. Extremely foolish.”

  “Yes, I—know that.”

  “It’s a pity you couldn’t advise him, Fräulein, not to make his objections to National Socialism so evident. He hasn’t made things easy for himself. However, you may be pleased to hear that I have used my influence with the camp kommandant. I explained that your brother is too young to appreciate what National Socialism means to the Fatherland, and he has been placed in the Besonder category as a special prisoner.”

  Hedda drew a deep breath. “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “It means that the guards are not permitted to treat him harshly.”

  She almost got up and went over to him in a rush of gratitude, but instinct stopped her. “Thank you, Superintendent Vogel. That means a great deal to me.”

  She should, of course, feel angry at the very idea of her brother being treated “harshly”; she should be demanding his immediate release. But she’d been through all that earlier in the week, when she’d heard Franz had been arrested. She had almost shouted at the Gestapo men who’d interrogated her—her brother was young, he was still a student, he felt sincerely that personal liberty was being curtailed in Germany by the new leaders, and all they should do was give him political instruction so that he could understand the necessity of discipline, and so on and so on. At one point they had actually laughed at her, and if the desk hadn’t been between them she would have slapped their faces. Then it had dawned on her that the more she protested, the worse it would be for Franz. There was no justice anymore: he hadn’t even had a trial. The Gestapo was the organ of the state, and the state was the law. If you wanted to complain about something the Gestapo had done, you could only complain to the Gestapo.

  “I thought you would be pleased, Fräulein. No one likes to think of such a young person being given . . . the kind of treatment that is routine in such a place. You see, the SS guards can hardly be expected to show much kindness to prisoners who have proved themselves dangerous to Germany. At the moment there are more than three hundred thousand such despicable elements under protective custody, and the task of controlling them is not easy; it calls for rough methods.” He got to his feet and moved slowly between the open doorway of the bathroom and the window, his black boots creaking. “Even though your brother has been placed in a special category, he will continue to suffer conditions that you and I would consider unbearable; I’ve no wish to deceive you on that score, Fräulein. It might be possible for me to have him removed to the special compound reserved for important personages, where the daily life is almost comfortable. The son of a general in the Wehrmacht, a holder of the Knight’s Cross, might conceivably qualify. I would have to make quite an effort, however, to accomplish such a thing.” He interrupted his pacing to move closer to her, until he was standing over her with his eyes moving deliberately from her face to her body. “Perhaps you can think of a good reason why I should make that effort, Fräulein von Gerlach.”