She came reluctantly behind and they made a semi-circle past the body,
and stood at a small distance from him on the unshaded portion of the
terrace.
"I would like to check your records," said the German slowly, pointing
to the entrance. But at this the other's manner seemed to grow
hostile. Brunner took a step toward the high door, and then was
certain. The old man tried to cut them off, waving the arm with the
knife. A terrible conflict of doubt seemed to be taking place inside
him, as if in his ravaged mind he could not seize upon the memory he
sought. Brunner walked slowly back into the sunlight. Something had
to be done.
"Stay here," he said to the nurse. "I've got to talk to him."
"NO! Be careful."
He approached slowly, and the creature did not draw away. He drew very
close. Then for all the pain it cost him, and the torment of his soul,
Brunner put a hand on his shoulder, and looked him full in the face.
He was certain. The old man wished them no harm, but was trying
desperately to remember some last purpose he clung to.
"My friend," he said gently, cursing himself again for his weakness and
tears. "I am trying to find my wife..... I have to know if she was
here. May I please go inside and check your records?"
His words were only half understood; the greater impact was made by the
passion in his tearing eyes. A cloud seemed to lift from the old man's
mind, and in some last pool of consciousness he remembered. He was a
librarian. Guarding to the last the books and documents entrusted.....
In case anyone came. . .to search for proofs..... Of the Holocaust.
A gleam of something enduring and undefeatable came into his
half-buried eye. This man was not deformed.
He raised his head and arms above the elbow in a gesture almost of
triumph, and his throat made a sobbing sound..... As Brunner stepped
back the man made a pushing motion with the forefinger of his right
hand, then moved the head forward as if to study the place he had
fingered. He repeated the gesture, then turned to face the doors.
"What's he saying?" The nurse.
"There's a computer terminal inside." Again Brunner felt his heart
pump wildly. He took the girl's hand and started for the door, yet
again the old man cut them off.
But there was no longer fear of War in his eyes; he only had one more
thing he wished to communicate. He tapped his hip with the knife-arm,
pointed to Brunner, then shook his forearm back toward his chest.
Now it was Olaf who didn't understand. The woman pointed at the
pellet-pistol, forgotten, at his hip.
"I think. He wants you to shoot him." Again the movements of
confirmation. Though this time, if it were possible to interpret such
gestures, he moved the limbs more slowly, with great sadness.
Brunner unclasped the pistol, and with a shaking hand, pointed it at
his chest. "Is this what you want?" The same gesture.
The one unbroken eye remained in sunlight, filled with tears that could
not escape the well of tortured flesh around it. A low gurgling noise
sounded in his throat. Brunner closed his eyes and shot.
The body fell partially across the entrance, so that they were obliged
to move it. "This one at least, we bury." The words resounded with
the hollowness of hell. They pushed past the right-hand door, and went
inside.
After a time of searching for light and the terminal, Brunner at last
sat before the fingerboard and smallish screen, trying to summon forth
what was wanted, praying to the point of distraction for his wife, and
for himself. He had asked the nurse to be alone for a time and she
consented, was off looking elsewhere for any hard-copy documents that
might be useful.
The man knew enough about computers to read the instruction codes and
key out the information wanted, but the terminal kept fighting him.
Several times he had entered, OCCUPATIONAL RECORDS OF RELOCATED
PERSONNEL, sub-heading, DEMOCRATIC GERMAN, NON-MILITARY. But each time
he did so the screen would read 'Pending', then flash one line at a
time, at a reading pace, a dialogue from the Nuremburg Trials of
1945-46, and lock up at any attempt to clear it. He tried to bypass,
used different keywords, but always the result was the same: he got
the dialogues, or nothing at all. Close to frenzy he threw off the
chair and paced wildly back and forth.
"I know all about the Holocaust and the Nuremburg trials! They have
been required reading at the Academy for two hundred years!" He
gradually calmed himself, if such words may be used, realizing there
was nothing else for it. He set right the chair and keyed in the
initial combination, only wishing that he could strap himself in place,
denied all movement and all choice. The screen began again its silent
dissertation, waiting after each six lines for him to verbally
acknowledge.
Olaf Brunner read the following, trying to suppress the gasoline in his
veins, the endless ache of his affliction, and the unnatural swelling
of the diaphragm that made it difficult to remain still and digest the
excrement before him.
COL. AMEN: You speak English pretty well.
VON RIBBENTROP: I spoke it well in the past and I think I speak it
passably well today.
Col. Amen: Almost as well as you speak German?
VON RIBBENTROP: No, I would not say that, but in the past I spoke it
nearly as well as German, although I have naturally forgotten a great
deal in the course of the years and now it is more difficult for me.
COL. AMEN: Do you know what is meant by a 'yes man' in English?
VON RIBBENTROP: A 'yes man'---per se. A man who says yes even when he
himself..... It is somewhat difficult to define. In any case I do not
know what you mean by it in English. In German I should define him as
a man who obeys orders and is obedient and loyal.
COL AMEN: As a matter of fact, you were a 'yes man' for Hitler, isn't
that correct?
VON RIBBENTROP: I was always loyal to Hitler, carried through his
orders, differed frequently in opinion from him, repeatedly tendered my
resignation. But when Hitler gave an order, I always carried out his
instructions in accordance with the principles of our authoritarian
state.
At the conclusion of this there was a pause, then the following.
VON RIBBENTROP: Without ever taking any steps or doing anything myself
in the SS, yes, that is correct.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Just look. It is a document.....GB-294. The
correspondence is 744B. That is your application with all the
particulars. I just want to ask you one or two things about it. You
asked to join, did you not, the 'Totemkopf', the Death's-Head division
of the SS?
VON RIBBENTROP: No, that cannot be true.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Don't you remember getting a special
Death's-Head ring and dagger from Hitler for your services? Don't you?
VON RIBBENTROP: No, I do not remember. I never belonged to a
Death's-Head Division.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And the ring, too. Here is a letter dated the
5 November 1935, to the Personnel Office of the Reichsfurher-SS: "In
reply to your question, I have to inform you that Brigadefurher von
Ribbentrop's ring size is 17....." Do you remember getting that?
VON RIBBENTROP: .....I do not remember precisely. No doubt it is true.
And that was all. The screen then showed an old and dusting black and
white photograph, with letters in white across the bottom: