Finally Kuno Callsen obtained permission from the Ortskommandantur to set up the Sonderkommando in the premises of the NKVD, on Sovnarkomovskaya Street, the street of the Soviet People’s Commissariats. This large L-shaped building dates from the beginning of the century, and the main entrance is off a little side street, lined with trees stripped bare by winter; a plaque in Russian at the corner states that during the civil war, in May and June 1920, the famous Dzerzhinsky had his headquarters here. The officers kept living at the hotel; Hanika had found a stove for us; unfortunately, he had installed it in the little living room where he slept, and if I left the door open, his atrocious teeth-grinding ruined my sleep. I asked him to warm the two rooms well during the day, so that I could close the door when I went to sleep; but at dawn the cold would wake me, and I ended up sleeping with my clothes on, with a wool cap, until Hanika found me some duvets that I piled up so I could sleep naked, as I was used to. I continued vomiting almost every night or at least every other night, right away at the end of meals, once even before finishing—I had just drunk a cold beer with my pork chop and it came back up so quickly that the liquid was still cool, a hideous sensation. I always managed to vomit neatly, in a bathroom or a washbasin, without drawing too much attention, but it was exhausting: the huge retchings that preceded the upwelling of the food left me emptied, drained of all energy for a long time. At least the food returned so quickly that it wasn’t yet acid, digestion had scarcely begun, and it didn’t have any taste; I just had to rinse my mouth out to feel better.
