Carnival (34 page)

‘Then it is that you really do disagree with the Gauleiter?'

‘I didn't say that, Herr Obersturmführer. I merely said that I …'

‘You disagreed.' Her eyes had moistened.

‘Is Herr Wagner some sort of expert in the education of children?'

‘Would it interest you to know that we have a copy of your school notebook?'

On microfilm? ‘I … I assumed my mother's house and bookshop had been searched while I was in Munich for retraining with other teachers in the late autumn of 1940. I … I didn't know anything had been photographed.'

Like all the other students, she had been required to take that notebook with her to Munich but had felt he would be unaware of this, thereby avoiding any mention of later searches! ‘And now you do, Fräulein. Page by page.'

Steel wedges, one face flat, the other curved to fit against the wall of the drill hole, and perhaps fifteen centimetres long, were being slipped into each hole. An iron wedge was then jammed between them and each wedge hammered into the rock in succession until, with a muted cracking, a
pop
, or
bang
, the rock split.

‘It's much the same process,' said Louis, ‘as the Egyptians would have used to quarry stone for their magnificent obelisks and the rose-coloured lid of Tutankhamen's quartzite sarcophagus at Karnak.'

The boy-king's tomb had been all the rage of Paris in the last half of the '20s and early '30s. Louis, like most Parisians, had been fascinated, but unlike most he still remained wrapped up in it.

The quarries here had been opened in the summer of 1941 and inspected by Himmler, head of the SS, the securing of ‘a much-needed' source of pink granite hailed as a ‘triumph.'

Men from all of the occupied territories were at work. Several languages were being spoken, their hurried, harried shouts a biblical Tower of Babel of its own while shoulder patches gave red for the politicals and a deep, inverted equilateral triangle with the black letter
F
for French, a lighter red and a
B
for Belgian, and in between these, shades and letters denoting Czechs and Italians, while yellow was for the Hungarians, green for the Germans, and an
S
on the latter's patch denoting that the man was a ‘security risk.' And in addition to the inverted triangles, there were the large red crosses on the backs of the
N und Ns
.

As each short drill rod was hit and hit hard, it was then given a quarter turn by the man who held it. No goggles were worn, no protection whatsoever and, with each blow, there was that terrible shock to rag-wrapped hands, for the drill rod would vibrate. ‘And at subzero temperatures like this,' muttered Louis, ‘the iron is work-hardened by the constant hammering.'

‘Becoming more brittle,
mein Lieber
, it burrs and tears more easily at the top, the rod being turned to rotate the fucking tungsten-carbide bit!'

Still no one had come to question their presence. Was it that the rule of silence had been invoked, a shunning as was done in some religious sects, the smell that of what? wondered St-Cyr. Of long-unwashed clothing and bodies, of sweat, pus and old blood, but … but to these was added a sulphurous taint.

‘The mineral pyrite, Hermann. A disulphide of iron. There must be grains of it in some of Herr Himmler's rock. A variety of fool's gold, it will weather, rust and stain the monuments that are to record for all time the glories of the Third Reich unless those sections containing it are removed.'

Splinters—the ‘shrapnel' Hermann had experienced at Vieil-­Armand—were a constant hazard attested to by rag patches over an eye here and there, the expressions of the men universally gaunt and empty, even more so than at the Textilfabrikschrijen. One man paused to snatch and hastily down a handful of snow, and for a brief second there was the thought that he would be severely beaten, and then the thought that such a punishment was merely being delayed due to the presence of visitors.

Perhaps one hundred guards were on duty, perhaps a few less but under these were the
Kapos
, the block leaders, prisoners themselves and armed with pick handles. But at any moment, all of the prisoners could have rebelled were it not for the machine guns that were trained on them from the heights, and of course there were also the everlasting hunger, the extreme weather and lack of any form of suitable clothing or transport to consider.

‘The remoteness, Louis. God Himself couldn't escape from here. Kramer must be in the next quarry.'

Fortunately they hadn't attempted to bring Victoria Bödicker­ with them.

It was freezing in the communal shower bath across the road from the guesthouse. Caught, seized, dragged up and propelled from the restaurant without coat, scarf or handbag, Victoria held herself by the elbows and tried not to shake. ‘I know nothing, Herr Obersturmführer.
Nothing
!'

‘THE FRÄULEIN EKKEHARD TOLD YOU OF THE EXPERIMENTS THAT ARE BEING CONDUCTED HERE FOR THE LUFTWAFFE AND OTHERS.'

‘SHE DIDN'T!'

‘And yet she leaves a note: “I can't go on. Please forgive me”? Come, come, Fräulein, you can do better than that.'

He wasn't going to listen. ‘Why not ask Alain? Surely if everything was so secret, he'd not have boasted of it to Renée?'

She hit the wall, hit it hard, was momentarily blinded and felt herself sliding to the floor. Blood wet her hand when she wiped her broken lips. ‘Am I also to have a skiing accident?'

He smiled. He said nothing. Through the buzzing in her ears she heard him laugh. Perhaps two metres now separated them, perhaps a little more. The room was simply large and bare, but with gooseneck nozzles and taps, and a drain in the concrete floor. He had closed and locked the door. They were all alone and no one would hear her cries, not St-Cyr and not Herr Kohler.

‘ “Boasted,” Fräulein? Would it interest you to know that the Untersturmführer Schrijen brought his fiancée here during that party?'

‘But why? Whatever for?'

Punched hard, blood burst from her nose and lips. Her head hit the wall again, his fist, her left eye. There was now no hope. None at all. The pain was excruciating.

‘Experiments, Fräulein. You will tell me what that lesbian whore told you of them.'

Seized by the hair—dragged up and propelled into an adjacent room—she was thrown to her knees. ‘
OPEN IT!
' he shrieked.

The small, circular well, one of three that had recently been sunk into the floor, was lined with the green and white tiles of a
Kachelofen
, the smell revolting. ‘Please. I know nothing of this, Herr Obersturmführer.'

When he shrieked again, Victoria cringed and did as asked. The well was brimful and stank of formaldehyde, and on its surface, a mat of blonde hair had floated up and out.

Crouching, Meyer wrapped the fingers of his left hand through the hair and pulled the corpse up until the head and torso were free and staring at her, the formalin draining from the breasts, the blue eyes wide open.

Slowly it sank back down and she watched it disappear. ‘This one will soon be on her back in the cutting room at the University of Strassburg, Fräulein. Be thankful it's not yourself. Now come. We will go up to the hospital at the camp. Perhaps we can do something for you there. That eye … I don't like the look of it.'

Although the main quarries were now behind, there still hadn't been a sign of Kramer and Alain Schrijen, nor challenge from any of the guards. ‘Do they intend to kill us, Louis?' managed Kohler.

There could be no way of their knowing ahead of time. They passed among firs, the haulage road well trodden and cutting through deep snow, the sound from the quarries carrying. At a pause, Louis tried to roll a cigarette from the contents of his little tin but had to give it up. ‘The wind,' he said. ‘My fingers are too numb.'

But did he have to look at his partner in such a soulful way? ‘It's not my fault,' said Kohler. ‘You know how much I hate these bastards and damn them all to hell.'

The urge to say,
This is hell
, was there, but … ‘Paris,
mon vieux
. Paris.'

‘Giselle and Oona, Louis.'

‘Gabrielle too, and the boys and their families on my street.'

The rue Laurence-Savart and his precious Belleville, the little friends who endlessly discussed the ins and outs and private life of this Sûreté with whom they kicked a soccer ball as often as possible.

In time they came to a quarry where no men worked but where five stood out on a ledge against the rock and the snow. Dressed in rags, their camp coats, with painted crosses faceup, were neatly folded on the ground in front of them, their hands tied tightly behind their backs, their heads shaven.

On their haunches, two splendid Alsatians waited obediently, one on either side of what must be Alain Schrijen.

Josef Kramer was with him.

The surgery was overly warm and reeked of disinfectant. Left to herself while Meyer went to find a doctor—what sort of doctor?—Victoria forced herself to look into the mirror of one of the medicine cabinets. Blood had spattered the front of her pullover. Shaking, she shut her good eye and tried not to cry. They were going to kill her. She'd be submerged in formaldehyde and cut open … They would kill St-Cyr and Kohler. They couldn't let any of them live.

Everything was exactly as on that Sunday morning, 6 December last, when Alain had brought Renée here. Syringes still lay on their glass shelf behind the window doors of their cabinet. Ten cubic centimetre ampoules of Evipan were in flat, thin grey cardboard cartons. All it had taken Renée had been two steps, and three of those had gone into a pocket. Alain hadn't seen her. She'd been positive of that.

The dark brown, glass-stoppered, 250 cc bottle of phenol was here too. ‘Phenol,' wept Victoria softly. ‘Twenty cc's. The girl in that well?' she had to ask.

When dead, that girl had been stripped, her clothing taken away and donated by Alain to Sophie's
Volksopfer
.

There were bandages and rolls of gauze, tins of antiseptic powder, splints—everything needed should any of the SS guards require them, for this was not the camp hospital behind the wire. This was for its personnel and Kramer's family.

Steps sounded in the corridor. The ampoules of Evipan were not cold but warm, their glass paper-thin and smooth, and yes, it would shatter easily when in her pocket but would the cuts be deep enough, would sufficient of the drug get into her bloodstream? Would its reaction be fast enough?

The steps had ceased just outside the door, the one whispering urgently to the other, ‘But no
Vollzugszettel
has been received from the RSHA in Berlin, Obersturmführer?'

No execution order from the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the Reich Security Office.

Alain had enjoyed telling Renée about the experiments. Sometimes men were inflicted with typhus, their arms cut open to be swabbed with the disease, they to die in agony as its progress was studied, but not here, of course, in that other ‘surgery' behind the wire. In other experiments some had been forced to inhale or swallow Lost gas—mustard gas—to then die of bleeding lungs and other organs that had often burst. The Herr Doktor Professors Hirt, Bickenbach and Haagan regularly came from the University of Strassburg to conduct their research. In turn, cadavers were sent to them for autopsy. Sometimes only the heads were hermetically sealed in tin boxes of formalin for delivery. Girls too. Girls like that one she'd been shown. All selected as test specimens by that former bookseller, the Standartenführer Sievers, who would follow the professors' requests and make certain they were filled.

Renée had been drugged on the night of that party. Dizzy, in panic and confusion, she had tried to fight Alain off, but had he known beforehand that she and Sophie were lovers? Had Löwe Schrijen told him to take care of the matter but keep it within the family? Hence the invitation to that first party. The skiing, the dancing and the good times, then the threat of the experiments, the rape and Renée crying out what she should never have cried out.

From the window, the camouflaged, grey-green Citroën Herr Kohler had parked some distance from the gate still appeared unoccupied. Across from the hospital, there was the building that housed the officer's barracks and the mess hall, beyond this, the Alsatian-style villa the Schutzhaftlagerführer Kramer had had built for his family in the autumn of 1941. Kramer had been here right from the start, had served as one of the interim Kommandants. From the chimneys of the villa's gabled roof, smoke was plucked away by the wind to drift quickly over the camp, while below the railed, first-storey balcony that was still decorated with fir bows and gilded ornaments, children played.

Beyond the house, beyond the kennels, lay the camp and, right next to the outermost wire, the large square of ground over which the grey dust Renée had spoken of was again being spread. Under guard, two of the
N und Ns
used coal shovels to empty a wheelbarrow, the wind playing havoc with the distribution.

In season, that plot was the Kramer family's vegetable garden.

‘Fräulein, this is the Herr Doktor Professor Haagan.'

‘I'm really quite all right, Obersturmführer. I'll just wait here if I might for the Hauptmann Detektiv Aufsichtsbeamter Kohler and the Oberdetektiv Französisch der Sûreté Nationale Jean-Louis St-Cyr that Gestapo Boemelburg sent from Paris on orders from the Gestapo Chief, Herr Müller, in Berlin. They should be along soon. I've had a bad fall. A patch of ice that was hidden under the snow. Nothing more. Colonel Rasche, the Kommandant of the Ober-Rhein, will be certain to ask when we get back to Kolmar, and that is what I will tell him, since he and those two Detektivs are responsible for me and must report everything to the Reichsführer Himmler.'