The Vengeance of Rome

Schnauben is younger than me. His grey eyes are grubby stones. His mouth is a thin line. His cheeks are bright, hard spots of red. He is convinced of his own intelligence. He is a philosopher. He is obsessed with me. I am not sure of his instructions. Is his mission to make me into one of the unhumanische? Is that why he chooses never to leave me alone?

Perhaps he simply prefers my company to that of the others he interrogates. Countless times he asks the same questions. He sits me on the chair in his little office. The atmosphere is informal. He lets me cross my legs if I want to. He does not demand I stand to attention or respond in a military manner. ‘I am not of the old school,’ he says. I am suspicious of this. Outside I can hear the camp stirring.

These boys, he says, they were brutalised in the army and even more brutalised in the trenches. Many of them never stopped fighting. Not the best of us, these boys. But maybe the second best. Yes, I fear they couldn’t stop fighting. After the War, it was the only way they knew to defend their freedom. You mustn’t blame them too much. The main problem of our KZ system now is overcrowding. I cannot tell you how many of us have complained.

He lifts an eyebrow. ‘Do you know anything about eugenics? Exterminating a few failures is easy, but how would you kill a million? Electricity? Come along now, Herr Peters. This is a problem for the scientific mind. I shall be reporting on your willingness to cooperate.’

I do my best to engage with the problem. He has called me ‘Herr’. I need his approval. ‘You would doubtless have to gas them.’

‘What kind of gas?’

I find this conversation disquieting. ‘Some sort of cyanide. Whatever gas worked best in the trenches. Whatever is most easily mass-produced. This is not my area of speciality I work for peace. I work for humanity. Why do you ask me such questions?’

‘Perhaps you would be good enough to write all this down for me. I will have some materials brought in. And then there are the bodies. How would you dispose of them? There is a hygiene problem, of course. We learned that in 1917.’

‘You would have to burn them, as already happens in our crematorium. It would be the only sensible solution. You couldn’t plough them under. It wouldn’t be decent. Or healthy. Are you discussing some sort of plague?’

‘I’ll have more paper, pen and ink brought in for you.’ He returns to another subject.

They couldn’t stop fighting. Like two dogs you try to separate. One turns and digs its teeth into the nearest flesh. That flesh as likely as not belongs to its beloved master. We raise fierce dogs to protect us from the wild. Then, one day, those dogs go mad. The British thought Hitler and Mussolini were the mad dogs who would save them from the Soviet Union. All our attempts to simplify the world result in further complications. Oy, meyn Foter, meyn Foter! Frugnecht! Do not ask me these things. I am an engineer, a visionary. Euthanasia is a mystery to me. It would be unjust to mark my papers Rückkehr nicht erwünscht. I am not useless. I am not one of those unwertes Leben, not Uneingeteilte. My cities are planets. They invest with their gravity everything that is beautiful and sane. My cities are free. Leaving all misery behind we can make a new home among the stars. For Jesus was a Greek. He offered a choice between Israel and Greece. They chose Greece. They were Jews but their neighbours called them Greeks as fortunate Palestinians are called Americans. Quand tu tiens un enfant par la main et que tu lui dis, ‘Regarde la cite!’ Leave the lands of the Philistines to those who still covet them.

Schnauben has an unhealthy interest in my penis.

‘Because everyone thought it more sanitary. All the British do it.’

‘All Britons are Jews?’

‘Of course not, Herr Sturmführer. It is an old custom in many civilised countries.’

‘This circumcision? It was forced on you in Abyssinia, was it?’

‘Perhaps. I don’t know. How could I? I have never been to Abyssinia. I am an American citizen. I am well known as a film actor. I am Max Peters. I played Winnetou. Baron Hugenberg will vouch for me.’

‘You are certainly very like Mr Peters. I have watched him myself. The Masked Buckaroo. Very clever. No doubt you found this likeness useful to you. But Baron Hugenberg claims not to know you. He is a little under suspicion himself, these days. His religion, of course, as well as his politics. We have interviewed him. He never met most of his actors, he says. You must have powerful friends in the USA, Mr Peters. Who would you like us to write to? The President, perhaps? Some great producer? An industrialist? You cannot give me one name?’

‘My disappearance was of interest to the film magazines.’

‘Not in Germany. Those films have no audience. Max Peters has vanished from our screens. He has vanished from the memories of all his friends.’ This causes him amusement.

I will not become a Mussulman. I must keep my Brotzeit.