The Kindly Ones полностью

I hadn’t been wrong about Bierkamp: the axe fell even faster than I thought it would. Four days after the conference, he summoned me to Voroshilovsk. Two days before, they had proclaimed the Autonomous Kabardo-Balkar District during the celebration of Kurban Bairam, in Nalchik, but I hadn’t attended the ceremony; Bräutigam, apparently, had made a long speech, and the mountain people had showered the officers with gifts, kinzhali, carpets, Korans copied by hand. As for the Stalingrad front, according to rumors, Hoth’s Panzers were struggling to advance, and had run aground in the Myshkova, sixty kilometers from the Kessel; in the meantime the Soviets, farther north up the Don, were launching a new offensive against the Italian sector of the front, routing them; and the Russian tanks were said to be within striking distance of the aerodromes from which the Luftwaffe was trying to supply the Kessel! The officers from the Abwehr still refused to give out any exact information, and it was hard to form a precise idea of the critical nature of the situation, even by tallying together the various rumors. I reported to the Gruppenstab what I managed to understand or corroborate, but I had the impression that they weren’t taking my reports very seriously: recently I had received from Korsemann’s staff a list of the SSPF and other SS officials appointed to the different districts of the Caucasus, including Groznyi, Azerbaidjan, and Georgia, and a study on the plant called kok-sagyz, which is found around Maikop, and which the Reichsführer wanted to start cultivating on a large scale to produce a substitute for rubber. I wondered if Bierkamp was thinking just as unrealistically; in any case, his summons worried me. On the way there I tried to muster all the arguments in my defense, to prepare a strategy, but since I didn’t know what he was going to say to me, I kept going in circles.

The interview was short. Bierkamp didn’t invite me to sit down and I remained standing at attention while he held out a piece of paper to me. I looked at it without really understanding: “What is it?” I asked.—“Your transfer. The officer in charge of all police structures in Stalingrad asked for an SD officer urgently. His previous one was killed two weeks ago. I informed Berlin that the Gruppenstab could bear a reduction in personnel, and they approved your transfer. Congratulations, Hauptsturmführer. It’s an opportunity for you.” I remained rigid: “Can I ask you why you suggested me, Oberführer?” Bierkamp still looked displeased but he smiled slightly: “In my staff, I want officers who understand what is expected of them without having to explain the details to them; otherwise, one might as well do the work oneself. I hope the SD work in Stalingrad will be a useful apprenticeship for you. Also, allow me to point out to you that your personal conduct has been questionable enough to give rise to unpleasant rumors within the Group. Some have even gone so far as to mention an intervention from the SS-Gericht. I refuse on principle to believe such rumors, especially about an officer as politically aware as you are, but I will not allow a scandal to tarnish the reputation of my Group. In the future, I advise you to be careful that your behavior doesn’t expose you to such gossip. Dismissed.” We exchanged a German salute and I withdrew. In the hallway, I walked by Prill’s office; the door was open, and I saw that he was looking at me with a slight smile. I stopped on the threshold and stared at him, while a radiant smile, a child’s smile, grew on my face. Little by little his smile vanished and he contemplated me with a puzzled, troubled look. I didn’t say anything, just kept smiling. I was still holding my transfer. Finally I went out.

It was still just as cold, but my fleece-lined coat protected me and I walked a bit, aimlessly. The snow, poorly swept, was frozen and slippery. On the corner of a street, near the Kavkaz Hotel, I witnessed a strange spectacle: German soldiers were coming out of a building carrying mannequins wearing Napoleonic uniforms. There were hussars in orange, pistachio, or daffodil-yellow shakos and dolmans, dragoons in green with amaranthine piping, soldiers of the Old Guard in blue coats with gold buttons, Hanoverians in shrimp red, a Croat lancer all in white with a red cravat. The soldiers were loading these mannequins, upright, into canvas-covered trucks, while others were securing them with rope. I approached the Feldwebel who was supervising the operation: “What’s going on?” He saluted me and replied: “It’s the regional museum, Herr Hauptsturmführer. We’re evacuating the collection to Germany. Orders from the OKHG.” I looked at them for a while and then returned to my car, my travel orders still in my hand. Finita la commedia.