Sophie's Choice - William Styron [258]
“And then, of course, I thought about Lebensborn, and what Wanda had said I must try to do—the thing I should have mentioned to Höss the day before but was somehow unable to. And so I made myself calm and stopped crying and finally I looked up at him and said, ‘You can do this for me.’ I used the word ‘Lebensborn’ and I knew right away from the look in his eyes that he had a knowledge of what I was speaking about. I said something like this, I said, ‘You could have my child moved away from the Children’s Camp and into the program of Lebensborn which the SS has and which you know about. You could have him sent to the Reich, where he would become a good German. Already he is blond and looks German and speaks perfect German like I do. There are not many Polish children like that. Don’t you see how my little boy Jan would be excellent for Lebensborn?’ For a long time I remember Höss didn’t say anything, just stood there lightly touching the place on his cheek where I had cut him. Then he said something like this: ‘I think that what you say might be a possible solution. I will look into the matter.’ But that was not enough for me. I knew I was groping for straws, desperate, he could have simply shut me up right there—but I had to say it, had to say, ‘No, you’ve got to give me a more definite answer than that, I cannot bear it living with any more uncertainty.’ After a moment he said, ‘All right, I will see that he is removed from the camp.’ But even this was not good enough for me. I said, ‘How will I know? How will I know for certain that he has been taken away from here? Also, you must promise me this,’ I went on, ‘you must promise to let me know where he has been taken in Germany so that someday when the war is over I will be able to see him again.’
“This last thing, Stingo, I could hardly believe I was saying, making these demands on such a man. But in truth, you see, I was relying on his feeling for me, depending on that emotion he had shown for me the day before, you know, when he had embraced me, when he had said, ‘Do you think I am some kind of monster?’ I was depending on some small remaining piece of humanity in him to help me. So after I said this he kept quiet again for a time and then he answered me by saying, ‘All right, I promise. I promise that the child will be removed from the camp and you will hear of his whereabouts from time to time.’ Then I said—I knew I was maybe risking his anger, but I couldn’t help it, ‘How can I be sure of this? My little girl is already dead, and without Jan I will have nothing. You said to me yesterday that you would let me see Jan today, but you didn’t. You went back on your word.’ This must have—well, hit him in some way, because he said then, ‘You can be sure. You will have a message from me from time to time. You have my assurance and word as a German officer, my word of honor.’ ”
Sophie paused and gazed into the murky evening light of the Maple Court, invaded by a fluttering crowd of vagrant moths, the place deserted now except for ourselves and the bartender, a weary Irishman making a muffled clacking sound at the cash register. Then she said, “But this man did not keep his word, Stingo. And I never saw my little boy any more. Why should I think this SS man might have a thing called honor? Maybe it was because of my father, who was always talking about the German army, and officers and their high sense of honor and principles and such. I don’t know. But Höss did not keep his word, and so I don’t know what happened. Höss left Auschwitz for Berlin soon after this and I went back to the barracks, where I was an ordinary stenographer. I never got any kind of message from Höss, ever. Even when he came back the next year he did not contact me. For a long time I figure, well, Jan has been taken out of the camp and sent to Germany and soon I will get a message saying where he is and how his health is, and so on. But I never heard nothing at all. Then sometime later I got this terrible message on a piece of paper from Wanda, which said this