Sophie's Choice - William Styron [141]
Then, speaking directly to her, he said, “Of course you are Roman Catholic, aren’t you?"
She felt no sarcasm in this, but for a long space was unable to reply. When she did, answering in the affirmative, she was embarrassed at finding herself adding a totally spontaneous “Are you?” The blood rushed to her face and she realized the extreme idiocy of the words.
But to her surprise and relief, he remained expressionless and his voice was quite impassively matter-of-fact as he said, “I was a Catholic but now I am a Gottgläubiger. I believe there is a deity—somewhere. I used to have faith in Christ.” He paused. “But I have broken with Christianity.”
And that was all. He said it as indifferently as if he were speaking of having disposed of a used piece of clothing. He spoke not another word to her informally, becoming all business again as he instructed her to write out a memorandum to SS Sturmbannführer Fritz Hartjenstein, commanding officer of the SS garrison, directing that a search be made for the candlesticks in the enlisted barracks and that every effort be exerted to apprehend the culprits, who would then be placed in custody of the camp provost marshal for discipline. And so it went—memorandum in quintuplicate, with a copy to be forwarded to SS Oberscharführer Kurt Knittel, manager of Section VI (Kulturabteilung) and supervisor of schooling and political education of the garrison; also to SS Sturmbannführer Konrad Morgen, head of the SS special commission for investigating corrupt practices in concentration camps. He then returned to the agony of the parish father, dictating a letter in German which he ordered Sophie to render into the priest’s language and which now, this following day, she was transcribing on her machine, rather gratified to feel that she was able to turn the dross of Höss’s German prose into finely articulated filaments of golden Polish: Dear Father Chybiński, we are shocked and distressed to hear of the vandalism of your church. Nothing is more grievous to us than the idea of desecration of holy objects and we shall endeavor to take every means at our command to ensure the return of your precious candelabra. While the enlisted men of this garrison have been inculcated with the highest principles of discipline demanded of every SS member—indeed of every German serving in the occupied territories—it is inevitable that lapses will occur, and we can only earnestly hope that you will understand... Sophie’s typewriter went clickety-clack in the stillness of the attic while Höss brooded over his cesspool diagrams and the flies droned and twitched, and the movement of distant boxcars kept up a blurred incessant rumble like summer thunder.
At the instant she was finished (again tacking on the routine Heil Hitler!) her heart once more gave a tumultuous lurch, for he had spoken, and she looked up to see that he was gazing straight into her eyes. Although the clatter of the machine had masked his words, she was almost certain that he had said, “That’s a very pretty kerchief.” With fluttering fingertips her hand rose automatically, though with a final coquettish flourish, to touch the kerchief at the crown of her head. The scarf, of checkered green and made of cheap prison-stitched muslin, concealed her skull and its ludicrous frizzy locks, growing back in unsightly clumps after having been shorn to the roots exactly six months before. It was also a rare privilege, the kerchief; only those prisoners fortunate enough to work at Haus Höss were ever permitted thus to secrete the degrading baldness which to one degree or another every inmate, male and female, presented to this hermetically sealed world behind the electrified fences. The minuscule degree of dignity it conferred upon Sophie was something for which she felt a meager but real gratitude.
“Danke, mein Kommandant!” She heard her voice falter. The idea of conversing with Höss, on any level above or removed from her capacity as a part-time amanuensis, soaked her with apprehension, an almost intestinal nervousness. And her nervousness was heightened by the fact that conversation with H