Sophie's Choice - William Styron [137]
Höss was puzzled by this phenomenon, deeply puzzled. In a communication addressed to Himmler on that third day of October—a day Sophie remembered as having the first brisk bite of autumn in it, despite the pervasive murky smoke and stench which so blunted one’s perception of the change of season—Höss theorized that there was one of four possible reasons, or perhaps a combination of the four, which caused the Greek Jews to be dragged off the cattle cars and boxcars in such a sorry state of deterioration, indeed with so many of the prisoners already dead or near death: bad nutrition at the point of origin; the extreme length of the journey combined with the poor condition of the railroads in Yugoslavia, through which the deportees had to pass; the abrupt change from the dry, hot Mediterranean climate to the damp and swampy atmosphere around the upper Vistula (although Höss added in an aside, uncharacteristic in its informality, that even this was puzzling, since, in terms of heat, at least in the summer, Auschwitz was “hotter than two hells”); and lastly, a trait of character, Ratlosigkeit, common to people of southern climes and therefore to those of weak moral fiber, which simply caused them to fail to withstand the shock of being uprooted and the attendant journey to an unknown destination. In their slovenliness they reminded him of the Gypsies, who, however, were conditioned to travel. Dictating his thoughts deliberately and slowly to Sophie in a somewhat harsh, flat, sibilant accent which she had earlier recognized as the voice of a North German from the Baltic region, he paused only to light cigarettes (he was a chain-smoker, and she noticed that the fingers of his right hand, small and even pudgy for such a rather gaunt person, were stained the hue of chestnut) and to brood thoughtfully for many seconds with his hand pressed lightly to his brow. He glanced up to ask politely if he was speaking too fast for her. “Nein, mein Kommandant.”
The venerable German shorthand method (Gabelsberger) which she had learned at the age of sixteen in Cracow, and had employed so often in the service of her father, had come back to her with remarkable ease after several years’ disuse; her speed and skill surprised her, and she breathed a small prayer of thanks to her father, who, though in his grave at Sachsenhausen, had provided for her this measure of salvation. Part of her mind dwelled on her father—“Professor Biegański,” as she often thought of him, so formal and distant their relationship had always been—even as Höss, arrested in mid-phrase, sucked on his cigarette, coughed a phlegmy smoker’s cough, and stood gazing out over the sere October meadow, his angular, tanned, not unhandsome face wreathed in blue tobacco fumes. The wind at the moment was blowing away from the chimneys of Birkenau, the air was clear. Although the weather outside had a touch of frost in it, here in the attic of the Commandant’s house, beneath the sharply slanting roof, it was warm enough to be cozy, the rising heat trapped beneath the eaves and pleasantly augmented by still more heat pouring in from a brilliant early-afternoon sun. Several large bluebottle flies, imprisoned by the windowpanes, made soft gummy buzzings in the stillness or sailed out on tiny forays through the air, returned, buzzed fretfully, then fell still. There were also one or two vagrant, torpid wasps. The room was whitewashed with aseptic brightness, like that of a laboratory; it was dirt-free, spare, austere. It was Höss’s private study, his sanctuary and hideaway, also the place where he executed his most personal, confidential and momentous work. Even the adored children, who swarmed at will through the other three floors of the house, were not permitted here. It was the lair of a bureaucrat with priestly sensibilities.
Sparsely furnished, the room contained a plain pinewood table, a steel filing cabinet, four straight-backed chairs, a cot upon which Höss sometimes rested, seeking surcease from the migraine headaches that assailed him from time to time. There was a telephone, but it was usually cut off. On the table was some official stationery in neat stacks, an orderly collection of pens and pencils, a cumbersome black office typewriter with the emblazoned trademark of Adler. For the past week and a half Sophie had been seated for many hours daily, hammering out correspondence either on this typewriter or another, smaller one (kept when not used beneath the table) that had a Polish keyboard. Sometimes, as now, she sat on one of the other chairs and took dictation. H