Sophie's Choice - William Styron [266]
That morning the voice she heard from the anteroom outside Höss’s office in the attic was identical to that of the man in the dream. She had not entered the office immediately, as she had each morning for the past ten days, although she burned to rush through the door and smother her child in her arms. Höss’s adjutant, perhaps aware of her new status, had brusquely ordered her to stand outside and wait. She then felt sudden, unspeakable doubt. Could it really be that since Höss had promised to let her see Jan, the little boy was inside the office, listening to the strange loud colloquy between Höss and the person with the voice of the man in her dream? She stirred nervously under Scheffler’s gaze, aware from his icy manner of her loss of privilege; she was only a common prisoner again, among the lowliest of the low. She sensed his hostility, it was like a graven sneer. She fixed her eyes on the framed photograph of Goebbels adorning the wall and as she did so an odd picture leaped to mind: that of Jan standing between Höss and the other man, the child peering upward first at the Commandant and then at the stranger with the voice that was so perplexingly familiar. Suddenly, like a chord drawn forth from the bass pipes of an organ, she heard words from the past: We could go to all the great musical shrines. She gasped, sensed the adjutant’s startled response to the choked noise she made. As if she had been struck a blow in the face, she rocked backward with a recognition of the voice, whispered to herself the name of its owner—and for the swiftest instant this October day and that afternoon years ago in Cracow melted together almost indistinguishably.
“Rudi, it’s true that you are answerable to authority,” Walter Dürrfeld was saying, “and how I respect your problem! But I’m answerable too, and so there seems to be no way to resolve this issue. You have upper echelons watching you; ultimately I have stockholders. I am answerable to a corporate authority which is now simply insisting on one thing: that I be supplied with more Jews in order to maintain a predetermined rate of production. Not only at Buna but at my mines. We must have that coal! So far so good, we have not yet substantially fallen behind. But all the formulations, the statistical predictions which I have available are... are ominous, to say the least. I must have more Jews!”
Höss’s voice at first seemed muffled, but then the reply was clear: “I cannot force the Reichsführer to make up his mind about this. You know that. I can only ask for a certain guidance, also suggest things. But he seems—for whatever good reason—to be unable to come to a decision about these Jews.”
“And your personal feeling is, of course...”
“My personal feeling is that only really strong and healthy Jews should be selected for employment in a place like Buna and in the Farben mines. The sick ones simply become an expensive drain on medical facilities. But my personal feeling counts for nothing here. We must wait for a decision.”
“Can’t you worry Himmler into a decision?” There was an edge of querulousness in Dürrfeld’s voice. “As a friend of yours he might...” A pause.
“I tell you I can only make suggestions,” Höss replied. “And I think you know what my suggestions have been. I understand your point of view, Walter, and I certainly don’t take offense that you don’t see eye to eye with me. You want