The Zone of Interest Read Online Free PDF

from the window of his cab. Violently it braked and skidded, jolting to a halt as it crossed the rails, its wheels whining for purchase. Now it slumped sickeningly to the left, the near sideflap billowed skyward, and there – for 2 or 3 stark seconds – its cargo stood revealed.
    It was a sight no less familiar to me than spring rain or autumn leaves: nothing more than the day’s natural wastage from KL1, on its way to KL2. But of course our Parisians let out a great whimpering howl – Zulz reflexively raised his forearms as though to fend it off, and even Captain Eltz jerked his head round at me. The utter breakdown of the transport was but a breath away . . .
    Now you don’t go far in the Protective Custody business if you can’t think on your feet and show a bit of presence of mind. Many another Kommandant, I dare say, would have let the situation at once degenerate into something decidedly unpleasant. Paul Doll, however, happens to be of a rather different stamp. With 1 wordless motion I gave the order. Not to my men-at-arms, no: to my musicians!
    The brief transitional interlude was very hard indeed, I admit, as the first strains of the violins could do no more than duplicate and reinforce that helpless, quavering cry. But then the melody took hold; the filthy truck with its flapping tarps lurched free of the crossing and bowled off down the crescent road (and was soon lost to sight); and on we strolled.
    It was just as I had instinctively sensed: our guests were utterly incapable of absorbing what they had seen . I later learned that they were the inmates of 2 luxurious institutions, a retirement home and an orphanage (both of which were underwritten by the most outrageous swindlers of them all, the Rothschilds). Our Parisians – what knew they of ghetto, of pogrom, of razzia? What knew they of the noble fury of the folk?
    We all of us walked as if on tiptoe – yes, we tiptoed through the birch wood, past trunks of hoary grey . . .
    The peeling birchbark, the Little Brown Bower with its picket fence and potted geraniums and marigolds, the undressing room, the chamber. I turned on my heel with a flourish the instant Prufer gave his signal and I knew the doors were all screwed shut.
     
    Now that’s better. The 2nd aspirin (650 mg; 22.43), is going about its work, its labour of solace, of ablution. It really is the proverbial ‘wonder drug’ – and I’m told that no patented preparation has ever been cheaper. God bless IG Farben! (Reminder: order in some rather good champagne for Sunday the 6th, to tickle Frauen Burckl and Seedig – and Frauen Uhl and Zulz, not to mention poor little Alisz Seisser. And I suppose we’ll have to ask Angelus Thomsen, considering who he is.) I also find that Martell brandy, when taken in liberal but not injudicious quantities, has a salutary effect. Moreover, the stringent liquor helps soothe my insanely itching gums.
    Whilst I can take a joke as well as the next man, it’s clear that I’ll have to have a few very serious words with Walther Pabst. In financial terms, ST 105 was something of a disaster. How do I justify the mobilisation of a full Storm (with flamethrowers)? How do I vindicate my costly use of the Little Brown Bower – when normally, in handling so light a load, you would look to the method employed by Senior Supervisor Grese on the little lady with the ebony cane? Old Walli, doubtlessly, will claim ‘an eye for an eye’: he’s still brooding about that prank at the barracks in Erfurt with the meat pie and the chamber pot.
    Of course it’s an almighty pain, having to watch the pennies as closely as we do. Take the trains. If money were no object, all the transportees, so far as I’m concerned, could come here in couchettes . It would facilitate our subterfuge, or our ruse de guerre , if you prefer (as it is a war, and no error). Fascinating that our friends from France saw something that they were quite unable to assimilate: this is a reminder of –