The Zone of Interest Read Online Free PDF Page B

and a tribute to – the blinding radicalism of the KL. Alas, however, one can’t ‘go mad’ and throw money around as if the stuff ‘grew on trees’.
    (NB. No gasoline was used, and this must count as an economy, albeit minor. Usually those selected Right go by foot to KL1, do you see, whilst those selected Left proceed to KL2 by means of the Red Cross trucks and the ambulances. But how could I induce those Pariserinnen to board a vehicle, after seeing that damned lorry? A very slight saving, agreed, but every little helps. No?)
    ‘Enter!’ I called out.
    It was the Bible Bee. On the tasselled tray: a glass of burgundy, and a ham sandwich, if you please.
    I said, ‘But I wanted something hot.’
    ‘Sorry, sir, it’s all there is for now.’
    ‘I do work quite hard, you know . . .’
    Fussily Humilia began to clear a space on the low table in front of the chimney piece. I must confess it’s a mystery to me how a woman so tragically ugly can love her Maker. It goes without saying that what you really want with a ham sandwich is a foaming tankard of beer. We’re all awash in this French muck when what you desire is a decent flagon of Kronenbourg or Grolsch.
    ‘Did you prepare that or did Frau Doll?’
    ‘Sir, Frau Doll went to bed an hour ago.’
    ‘Did she now. Another bottle of Martell. And that’ll be all.’
    On top of everything else I foresee no end of complication and expense in the proposed construction of KL3. Where are the materials? Will Dobler release matching funds? No one is interested in difficulties, no one is interested in ‘the objective conditions’. The schedules of the transports I’m being asked to accept next month are outlandish. And, as if I didn’t have ‘enough on my plate’, who should telephone, at midnight, but Horst Blobel in Berlin. The instruction he adumbrated made my flesh go hot and cold. Did I hear him aright? I cannot possibly carry out such an order whilst Hannah remains in the KL. The dear God! This is going to be an absolute nightmare.
    *
     
    ‘You’re a good girl,’ I said to Sybil. ‘You cleaned your teeth today.’
    ‘How do you know? Is it my breath?’
    I love it when she looks so sweetly affronted and confused!
    ‘Vati knows everything, Sybil. You’ve also been trying to style your hair. I’m not cross! I’m glad someone’s taking a bit of care with their appearance. And not lounging around all day in a grubby housecoat.’
    ‘Can I go now, Vati?’
    ‘So you’re wearing pink panties this morning.’
    ‘No I’m not. They’re blue!’
    A shrewd tactic – to get something wrong every now and then.
    ‘Prove it,’ I said. ‘Ahah! Homer nods.’
     
    Now here’s a common fallacy I want to knock on the head without further ado: the notion that the Schutzstaffel, the Praetorian Guard of the Reich, is predominantly made up of men from the Proletariat and the Kleinburgertum. Granted, that might have been true of the SA, in the early years, but it has never been true of the SS – whose membership rolls read like an extract from the Almanach de Gotha . Oh, jawohl : the Archduke of Mecklenburg; the Princes Waldeck, von Hassen, and von Hohenzollern-Emden; the Counts Bassewitz-Behr, Stachwitz, and von Rodden. Why, here in the Zone of Interest, for a short time, we even had our own Baron!
    The bluebloods and also the intelligent , professors, lawyers, entrepreneurs.
    I just wanted to knock that 1 on the head without additional fuss.
     
    ‘Reveille is at 3,’ said Suitbert Seedig, ‘and Buna’s a 90-minute march. They’re exhausted before they begin. They knock off at 6 and get back at 8. Carrying their casualties. And tell me, Major. How can we get any work out of them?’
    ‘Yes, yes,’ I said. Also present, in my large and well-appointed office in the Main Administrative Building (the MAB), were Frithuric Burckl and Angelus Thomsen. ‘But who’s going to pay for it may I ask?’
    ‘Farben,’ said Burckl. ‘The Vorstand has