Sophie's Choice - William Styron [145]
“Aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach,” Sophie suggested a little hesitantly, though with less hesitation than she might have demonstrated several days before. “That’s much less positive.”
“ ‘In all probability,’ ” Höss repeated. “Yes, that’s very good. It allows the Reichsführer more leeway to form his own judgment in the matter. Put that down then, followed by... ”
Sophie felt a glow of satisfaction, almost pleasure, at this last remark. She sensed a barrier being breached, ever so slightly, between them after so many hours in which his manner had been metallically impersonal, businesslike, the dictation delivered with the gelid unconcern of an automaton. Only once so far—and that briefly the day before—had he let down that barrier. She could not be sure, but she even thought she detected a trace of warmth in his voice now as if he were suddenly speaking to her, an identifiable human being, rather than to a slave laborer, eine schmutzige Polin, plucked out of the swarm of diseased and dying ants through incredible luck (or by the grace of God, she sometimes devoutly reflected) and by virtue of the fact that she was doubtless one of the very few prisoners, if not the only one, who, bilingual in Polish and German, was also proficient on the typewriter in both languages and knew Gabelsberger shorthand. It was in shorthand now that she completed Höss’s penultimate paragraph to Himmler: “In all probability, then, a reassessment must be made of the transport problem of the Greek Jews should any further deportations from Athens be contemplated for the immediate future. The mechanism for Special Action at Birkenau having become severely taxed beyond all expectation, it is respectfully suggested that, in the specific matter of the Greek Jews, alternative destinations in the occupied territories of the East, such as KL Treblinka or KL Sobibór, be considered.”
Höss halted then, lighting a fresh cigarette from the butt of the last. He was gazing, with a slight daydream cast, through the partially open casement window. Suddenly he made a little exclamation, loud enough that she thought something might be wrong. But a quick smile spread over his face, and she heard him gasp “Aaah!” as he leaned intently forward to peer down into the field adjoining the house. "Aaah!” he said again raptly, drawing in his breath, and then half whispered to her, “Quick! Come here!” She rose and stepped to his side, approaching very close to him, so close that she could feel the touch of his uniform, and followed his gaze down into the field. “Harlekin!” he exclaimed. “Isn’t he beautiful!”
A splendid chalk-white Arabian stallion was dashing in a long, mad, rapturous oval in the field below, all muscle and speed, grazing the surrounding paddock fence with a white tail held high that flowed behind him like a plume of smoke. He tossed his noble head with arrogant, insouciant pleasure, as if totally possessed by the fluid grace which sculpted and gave motion to his galloping forelegs and hindquarters and by the furiously healthy power energizing his being. Sophie had seen the stallion before, though never in such full poetic flight. It was a Polish horse, one of the prizes of war, and belonged to Höss. “Harlekin!” she heard him exclaim again, entranced by the sight. “Such a marvel!” The stallion galloped alone; there was not a human soul in sight. A few sheep were grazing. Beyond the field, crowding up against the horizon, were the bedraggled and nondescript scrubby woods, already beginning to turn the leaden hue of the Galician autumn. Several forlorn farmhouses dotted the rim of the forest. Bleak and drab as it was, Sophie preferred this view to the one from the other side of the room, which gave onto a busy, overpopulated prospect of the railroad ramp where the selections took place and the grimy dun brick barracks beyond, a scene crowned by the arched metalwork sign which from here read in the obverse: ARBEIT MACHT FREI. Sophie felt a shiver pass through her as, simultaneously, her neck was brushed by a vagrant