The Glass Room (36 page)

He smiled, that smile that had captivated her, captivated dozens of women. It was so open, so honest. ‘Do you expect to? No one really understands another. I don’t understand you, either. You and Hana, for example.’

She looked up, startled, blood coming to her cheeks. ‘What about Hana and me?’

He bent and kissed her on the forehead. ‘That’s exactly the question, isn’t it? What about you and Hana?’ He dropped the envelope of tickets on the desk in front of her. ‘Here, put these somewhere safe.’

There is panic in the Glass Room. The Reichsprotektor will be visiting Mĕsto. Not old von Neurath, the dear old fellow whom everyone loves, but the new man, the martinet, Obergruppenführer Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich. Telegrams and telephone calls speed here and there. Plans are made and just as soon abandoned. Rumours trample over speculation. The Reichsprotektor will be visiting the Biometric Centre; he will not be visiting. He will come in the morning; he will come in the afternoon. He will want to meet with all the staff; he will wish to see the place when no one is around. Eventually, of course, the full itinerary comes, stamped with the seal of the Reichsprotektor’s office in Prague Castle, and there is no longer any question or argument: the Biometric Centre will be available for his inspection at eleven o’clock in the morning, with all the staff on parade.

The visitor’s convoy arrives exactly on time. There is the distant rumble of motorcycles and then a sudden proximal roar and the vehicles come into view from the direction of the children’s hospital. Motor bikes are followed by a closed car containing officials, and then a dark green Mercedes convertible with the
Hakenkreuz
flying from the front mudguard and SS—3 on the number plate. It takes little to understand where this man stands in the hierarchy of the state. The Führer is SS—1; Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler is SS—2; this man is SS—3. The father, the son and the holy ghost. A trinity. The hood of the car is down so that the people may see him sitting in splendour in the back and indeed he looks like something ghostly, pale and solemn, rising to his feet as the car draws to a halt. Medals and badges glint in the sunshine: the eagle on his left arm, his pilot’s wings on his left breast, the golden badge of the Party, the ribbon of the Knight’s Cross. His face is long and immobile, with pale eyes and a proud prow of a nose, reminiscent of an Aztec mask that Stahl recalls seeing at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. What, he wonders, does it say about the man’s genealogy? His ears are lobed, his hair is blond, his mouth is full and sensual and pulled for the moment into a bleak smile. He has wide, almost feminine hips.

Standing there with all the staff, Stahl raises his right arm and pronounces the clarion call ‘
Heil
Hitler!’ The Reichsprotektor steps down on to the pavement and gives a jaunty acknowledgement of the salute, a mere wave, as though he has privileged knowledge of the man who is being invoked and therefore may treat the matter with some familiarity. ‘Stahl,’ he says holding out his hand. ‘I have heard about you and your work.’

For a moment Stahl is overcome. ‘Herr Obergruppenführer Heydrich, you are …’ What is he? Welcome? Feared? Impressive? ‘… most gracious to favour our small outpost of scientific endeavour with your presence. As humble warriors in the battle for truth and understanding we—’

The Reichsprotektor cuts him short. ‘I’m sure everything you say is quite laudable but I’m afraid I don’t have time for that kind of thing. I wish to see what you people do, not hear what you may or may not think about my visit.’

‘Of course, Herr Reichsprotektor.’ Stahl turns to where the scientific staff are waiting. ‘May I introduce you to my fellow researchers—’

The Reichsprotektor nods at the line of scientists. ‘That’s fine. I am sure they do their work well. Please show me the way.’

And so they move on, ten minutes ahead of schedule, with people scattering before them. ‘What kind of building was this?’ Heydrich asks as they descend towards the Glass Room.

‘A private house.’

‘How could people live in such a place? Were they Jews?’

‘I believe so.’

Heydrich pauses on the stairs. The hooded eyes are an ambush. ‘This work you do here. Does it mean that you can identify Jews?’

‘We are making inroads into the problem. For example, hair colour—’

‘I have heard that there are Jew diseases.’

‘They are a degenerate race and like all such races they may carry certain genetic diseases, what one expert has called “inborn errors of metabolism”. Sachs’s infantile amaurotic idiocy, for example; and the so-called spongy degeneration of the brain that Canavan identified. Then there is Gaucher’s disease, and one or two others. They all appear to be inherited in the Mendelian fashion.’

There is a moment of stillness in the narrow space. ‘Is this what we have been looking for?’

‘It’s not that simple, Herr Reichsprotektor. Not all Jews have the diseases, and conversely, not all people with those diseases are Jews.’ Stahl pushes open the door and stands aside for Heydrich to go through. ‘Here we have adopted a different approach. In this laboratory we are trying to measure the most minute variations of phenotype, and then we search to see whether particular
combinations
of characteristics can lead to a racial diagnosis. That is what the Hollerith machines are for, to sort out all the data that we collect. Herr Reichsprotektor will see them later.’

In the Glass Room the staff wait nervously. The visitor looks round, at the semicircle of expectant scientists, at the onyx wall and the open space, at the glass plates of the windows and the view across the city. ‘And this is where these Jew owners
lived
? It looks more like a fencing salle than a living room.’

‘They were very modern people, Herr Reichsprotektor.’

‘What happened to them?’

‘They emigrated.’

‘Excellent.’ He nods at the scientists, as though the emigration of the Landauer family were their merit. And then he notices the piano. ‘What is
that
doing here?’

‘It was left behind by the owners. We have chosen not to remove it.’

‘Why? Why have you kept it? Do you play?’

Is there some Party ordinance that forbids such things? ‘I play a bit, Herr Reichsprotektor. I thought, some German culture might not be amiss.’

‘So it is in tune?’

‘Yes.’

There is a pause. People stand watching, uniformed men from the Reichsprotektor’s party, the scientific staff in their white coats, all wondering what will happen. Heydrich lifts the lid of the instrument and moves his fingers fluidly across the keys. A few notes spill out in the silence, the opening bars of one of Mendelssohn’s
Songs Without Words
. ‘Spring’. The Reichsprotektor’s mouth moves in what might be considered a smile. ‘
You
don’t play Mendelssohn, I hope?’

‘Liszt. Beethoven,’ Stahl says. ‘Not Mendelssohn. Mendels sohn was a Jew.’

‘Does his being a Jew make his music any worse? It’s a shame I don’t have my violin with me. We could have played together, perhaps some Mendelssohn just to put him to the test. Now show me the measuring.’

The wave of relief that overcomes Stahl is almost orgasmic. ‘Perhaps the Obergruppenführer would consent to be measured? It will give him a clear idea of our methods.’

The Reichsprotektor hesitates. Hesitation is something he rarely discovers in himself; often in other people. It seems like a weakness, the first symptom of a degenerative disease, like those the Jews suffer from. Surely you can will weakness away? ‘Why not?’ he agrees finally. ‘I am sure we have a few minutes. Why not?’ He hands his cap to a minion and consents to be led into the mensuration area. Blushing Elfriede Lange indicates where he should stand, where he should sit, where he should lie down. The man’s body is long and languid on the couch. His boots gleam in the lights. His medals shine. He smiles up at Elfriede and she blushes more deeply. ‘You are of fine, Nordic stock,’ he tells her.

‘Thank you, Herr Reichsprotektor.’

‘You shouldn’t thank me, you should thank your parents.’

She calls out the measurements and Stahl himself writes them down on a blank form.

‘So you say you have no single character to distinguish a Jew from someone of Nordic stock?’ Heydrich asks.

‘No single character,’ Stahl agrees.

‘But a combination?’

‘It is a possibility, Herr Obergruppenführer. That is what we are working on.’

‘And the Slavs? We are also interested in the Slavs. It is a question of whether they may be racially assimilated into the German stock or not. You understand?’

‘We are working on both problems, Herr Obergruppenführer.’

‘Then I suggest you hurry up. The work is vital.’

Elfriede moves to the final measurements, the crucial ones of the cranium. As she adjusts the callipers, Heydrich grabs hold of her wrist with all the speed and precision of a fencer. The woman stands quite still, like a white rabbit caught in a snare. ‘When you have finished I will take my file with me,’ he tells her. ‘As a souvenir.’

‘Of course, Herr Obergruppenführer.’

‘And you will keep no record of my measurements.’

‘Of course not, Herr Obergruppenführer.’

Wide-eyed with fear she completes her task. The Reichsprotektor stands up, smoothing down his jacket and adjusting his tie. ‘Fascinating,’ he says to Stahl. ‘But it is a shame that you have not found a Jew character that is beyond argument. You should work on it. It seems to me a matter of priority. And the same with the Slavs. Some of the Slavs are no less degenerate than Jews.’

‘Of course, Herr Obergruppenführer.’

And so the visit continues, brisk and businesslike, people scut-tering around, Heydrich looking this way and that, probing, smiling, frowning. His smile is worse than his frown. It is the smile on the face of a corpse.

The staff members are going round putting things in order. ‘How did it go?’ they ask one another anxiously as they work. Stahl stands by the windows looking out on the afternoon view, the sun descending towards the horizon, preparing to pierce the onyx wall with that lance of fire. They’ll all be gone when it happens. Only he will witness the marvel.

He thinks of things that happen in the Glass Room: the precisions of science, the wild variance of lust, the catharsis of confession and the fear of failure.

‘Did I do everything right?’ Elfriede asks. Her smooth brow is creased with anxiety.

‘Of course you did.’

‘And did he like our work?’

‘Who can tell?’ She reminds him of Hedda, that is the problem. Hana Hanáková is so different as to seem an altogether separate species, but Elfriede Lange is from similar stock as Hedda. ‘Tell the others they can go. I will close up.’

‘Are you sure?’ She has that look of concern, as though she is responsible for his well-being. The same expression that Hedda wore.

‘Of course I’m sure. It’s an order. Do as I tell you.’

And when they have all gone he stands in front of the windows and looks out on the city and wonders about Hana Hanáková. Looking out of the windows his gaze encompasses the whole city. She is somewhere there, waiting. He thinks about her, what she knows and what she thinks. She seems a danger to him, a threat to his very existence. He wants the oblivion that she offers, but at the same time he would be happy never to see her again. Perhaps this is like addiction to a drug. He has known people like this with morphine, craving it and loathing it at one and the same time.

This is not love, it is the very antithesis of love: it is hatred made manifest.

Dearest Hana
, Liesel wrote,
I received your number eighteen just before we left the house in Zurich. So there’s only number fifteen that seems to have gone missing. Who can wonder these days? Please note the new address, for the moment at least. Where we will be a week from now, I cannot imagine. I have given them instructions to forward anything that comes in the meantime but I will let you know as soon as I am able
.

So after the stasis of Zurich they were finally on the move westward, the children fretful at leaving new friends behind, the adults hopeful. This time there was to be no permanence: a hotel not a house, a grand hotel in the Biedermeier style, Le Grand Hôtel Vevey, with striped awnings that flapped in the breeze and an expansive terrace where Swiss families congregated for lunch and congratulated themselves on being neither German nor French, neither conquerors nor conquered. Again Liesel had a lake view from her window, but it was a different lake now, a bigger, darker lake with another country on the far side. The mountains of the French shore were black with forest; above them you could see the snow on the high peaks hanging over the haze like clouds. The shore might be only a few miles as the crow flies, but of course they wouldn’t be going by boat when the time came. It would be a train, from Geneva all the way across France to Bilbao. That was where the transatlantic liners left from. Further and further away from what she knew.

There are always delays with the bureaucrats and it’s uncertain exactly when we will travel. We go by train, via Lyon, in five days’ time. I can actually see France from my room. The place feels so French after Zurich — you know, old men wearing berets and drinking red wine at breakfast and that kind of thing! Viktor says it is better to be here. He wants, he says, to shake off the past, all that Germanic nonsense.

So our strange life together continues, a kind of dance in which the steps are instinctive more than learned — one of those Moravian folk dances we used to laugh at! In some way Kata and I can share things that we cannot even talk about. Should I feel anger towards her? Well I don’t. Affection, in fact. Perhaps we are both victims of a kind. The children are flourishing, of course, although they miss their friends. Poor Martin is bossed around by the girls. Anyway, they send their Auntie Hana big kisses and Ottilie tells you to be good. She doesn’t quite know what she means by that, but I do! I laughed when I pictured you entrapping your brave scientist, and then felt shocked, and then jealous. How is O? You mentioned him only in passing — I hope he is well.