The Draughtsman. Robert Lautner

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ are they controlled by the ovens?’ I spoke without thinking. Idiot. Fool. Pretended not to see Klein’s glare.

      Pister tapped his temple.

      ‘In the head, Herr Beck. You control them in the head. When you have broken ovens they know they cannot be shot. They see no smoke. Or even if only one is working they know you are not going to add to the pile of dead you already have with a couple more. So, murders and thefts increase. Every day the ovens are broken there is more crime, more disorder. And when they rob, they kill, because again that will add to the pile that they know you will not add them to. It is exasperating.’ He looked hard at Klein.

      ‘That is why I need a six-door oven. But, reluctantly, I will take the mobile units. To suffice. They have good presence. In the fields. The prisoners can see them.’

      ‘Excellent.’ Klein gave his grin, kept it going. ‘We can install three mobile units tomorrow. I will take your concerns to Herr Sander personally, Colonel. He will telephone you direct. We will measure for the six-muffle and I will inspect the others. See if they can be repaired quickly. As I said, the difference between building new or adding two more will be twenty thousand marks and two more weeks. By what you have said I understand that is unacceptable. I will advise Herr Sander that we need a better price and I will send out a repair team today. So as you may reduce your crimes.’ He smiled broader, like a ventriloquist’s dummy. ‘By reducing your criminals, eh?’

      He stood, his hand out, and I followed. ‘Thank you so much for the coffee, Colonel, and for your valuable time.’ He declined an escort and, as we stepped the stairs, handed me a surgical mask from his pocket.

      ‘Here,’ he said. ‘You will need this.’ He stopped on the last step, blocking me. ‘And I would think it better if you did not speak directly to men like the colonel again. You are new. You could make unintentional mistakes. You understand, Ernst?’

      ‘Yes, Herr Klein. I am sorry.’

      ‘No, no. No need to apologise. It is my fault for not helping you. Come now.’

      We passed the gatehouse again to reach the crematoria, the trucks being loaded with the prisoner work details behind us. Some of them for our factory, for Topf. To work to make the muffles that would find their way back here.

      *

      We smoked outside the crematoria beside a wooden fenced area taller than us. A cigarette for the work finished. The smell. The mask not helping, but I had expected it, readied for it.

      ‘It must be full,’ Klein said. ‘That stench. The morgue is below the ovens. They used to use pits.’ He waved towards the forest. ‘They still do. But the land is too marshy. The bodies rot into the water table. They discovered that early. It is the same problem at Auschwitz and Birkenau. The ground is like a swamp half the year. But good for us, eh? Less pits means more ovens, no?’

      All this a revelation to me. Perhaps bringing me here my induction.

       ‘How will he react to speaking about bodies as commodities?’

       ‘He must understand we furnish ovens for the camps. Must have the aptitude. The attitude.’

       ‘And if he doesn’t?’

       ‘Plenty of unemployed men.’

      I consoled that my friend Paul’s work was harder. In his crematoriums. He actually worked with the dead, worked the ovens. I only drew them. Someone else designed them, someone else installed them. Prisons need ovens. Cities need sewers. Unpleasant, but the way of things. Every hospital has a tall chimney somewhere along its skyline. Children will be born in the happier wards but far away from them will be a tall chimney. Make it as efficient as they could. The camps rife with disease, with sickness and the damned. A necessary service. This surely my induction to such.

      *

      I had taken down Klein’s instruction and measurements. He had taken photographs. We had finished for the day, passed lunch.

      ‘Two o’clock, Ernst. We should go. What do you say? Home early. I can develop my film at home. I have my own darkroom.’

      ‘Are we not going back to the factory? To send a repair team for tomorrow, sir?’

      ‘I organised that this morning. Before we left. I knew he would have to go for the repair. Senior-Colonel? Ha! You know he came from Himmler’s motor-pool?’

      Keep up. Keep up.

      He threw away his cigarette in an arc and I watched it fall and saw an officer in a peaked cap approaching. Klein did not wait for him. He strode toward, away from me, and I watched him put out his hand and intercept, converse out of my earshot.

      I stood on my cigarette and watched them go back and forth, happily back and forth, and Klein turned his back to me. I shifted nervously, waved when the officer looked to me as Klein spoke. He did not wave back. I flushed at the glance, bent and pretended to fumble through Klein’s briefcase. Their shadows came over me.

      ‘Ernst,’ Klein said, and I stood up clumsily in the mud. ‘This is Captain Schwarz.’ We shook hands, his in leather. He bowed and I did the same, not as naturally. ‘I want you to do me a favour, Ernst,’ Klein said. ‘My house is only a few miles from here. It seems pointless for me to travel back to town only to come out again, no? I wondered if you would mind riding back to Erfurt with the captain?’

      A gratified look from the SS captain.

      ‘I am going to Erfurt. To pick a gift for my wife, Herr Beck. At the Anger. It is her birthday. It is no trouble for me to take you home. I would welcome the companionship.’

      Klein took his briefcase from me. ‘Would you mind, Ernst? I would appreciate it.’

      ‘Of course. Yes. Of course. But, Herr Klein? I think you still have my worker’s pass?’

      The captain snapped out his gloved hand. My pass between his fingers like the reveal of a magician with my chosen card.

      ‘Here it is, Herr Beck. We will leave by the east gate.’

      ‘I’ll get your hat and coat from the car,’ Klein said.

       Chapter 8

      The Daimler-Benz was not as grand as Klein’s Opel. Klein’s car for pleasure. This was austere, quieter, more noble. The first mile in silence and then as the farmhouses became manse houses the captain’s fingers became looser on the wheel. Removed his cap to my lap.

      ‘Too warm. Hold that for me would you, Herr Beck. I do not like to put it on the floor.’

      I looked at the grinning silver skull.

      ‘Klein tells me that you have only been at Topf for a few days now?’

      ‘Yes, Captain. Since Thursday.’

      ‘What did you do before?’

      ‘I was at the university. Studying to be a draughtsman. Then СКАЧАТЬ