Mila 18 - Leon Uris [174]
Warsinski, the convert, whose hatred of Jews matched the viciousness of the Reinhard Corps, also feared Alexander Brandel. The flesh on the backs of his hands were always crimson from a nervous itch. At the sight of Alex entering his office, his fingernails dug into them, turning his skin to bleeding scales.
“What do you want here?” he growled.
“I should like to go into the Umschlagplatz and I want a dozen of my nurses around the selection center.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I’ll pay for the privilege.”
“Get the hell out or you’ll be taking a train ride yourself.”
That goddamned smile on Brandel’s face! That son of a bitch! What he hated more than anything was Brandel’s calm. Brandel’s refusal to argue. When he had been sub-warden at Pawiak Prison he liked to watch the prisoners cringe, broken at his feet. Then one like Brandel would show up. Unafraid. He hated unafraid bastards. Warsinski’s itch worsened and his slitty eyes watered.
This morning he had beaten a woman prisoner to death with his hands. Women pointed up his impotence, his inability to be a man even when he paraded them around naked and made them perform obscenities with male prisoners.
He dropped his hands below the desk and tore at them with his fingernails.
“What do you want?”
“To see Haupsturmführer Kutler and Sturmbannführer Stutze. There are certain people who are taken to the Umschlagplatz whom we want to buy back.”
“What are you paying with?”
“American dollars.”
“I’ll take the message to them. How much a head?”
“Six dollars.”
“Whatever deal is made, add on another dollar for the Militia.”
“Fine,” Alex said, shoving away from the desk, hiding his revulsion. What pearls of wisdom had he gathered in a lifetime of study to pierce the heart of Piotr Warsinski? Seven dollars per life. Warsinski’s cruel eyes told him that one day he would stand on a platform and watch Alex ride off to Treblinka in a cattle car.
Haupsturmführer Kutler was sloppy drunk when Warsinski reached the SS barracks. The sight of Warsinski’s bloody hands triggered a quicker guzzling. The nightmare had been particularly bad for several days as Kutler relived the massacre of Babi-Yar and woke up screaming from a dream of drowning in blood. Now his sleep was tormented by visions of little animals tearing at his flesh. Sturmbannführer Stutze tried to pull the captain to his feet. Stutze was sickened at the weak fiber of the Germans who had been Kommandos in the Action Squads. They constantly drank themselves to the DT’s and pumped their veins full of dope. Austrians such as he and Globocnik and Hitler were made of sterner stuff. When the war was won, the Austrians would dominate the weaker German species. Kutler was in no condition to talk. Stutze had him taken to his room by a pair of guards, then turned to Warsinski.
“So,” Stutze said, “he offered you six dollars a Jew head. How much did you add on for yourself?”
“Only a dollar a Jew, Herr Sturmbannführer, and much of that must be spread among my police.”
The crippled Austrian meditated. “Hummm. What is the difference? Let them buy the Jews. We’ll get them all back anyhow. Only ... Jews barter. You are a Jew, Warsinski. Barter.”
Warsinski winced at being called a Jew.
“I want ten dollars a Jew, payable at the end of every business day,” Stutze said.
“Yes, sir.”
“And, by the way, let us keep this transaction between us.”
“Yes, sir.”
At the final price of eleven dollars and fifty cents a head, Alexander Brandel and his nurses were allowed into the Umschlagplatz. In the next few days they snatched out a few writers, scientists, musicians, poets, historians, teachers, children, engineers, doctors, actors, and rabbis from among the thousands jammed into the daily train.
The ruse of taking factory workers failed because volunteers refused to take their place any more. The next cleanup was a systematic dragnet of the ghetto to