Sophie's Choice - William Styron [311]
“After a moment Wanda said, ‘I haven’t wanted to offend you, Feldshon. You’re a brave man, that’s plain. You’ve risked your life getting here tonight. I know what your ordeal is. I’ve known ever since last summer when I saw the first photographs smuggled out of Treblinka. I was one of the first to see them, and like everyone else, I didn’t believe them at first. I believe them now. Your ordeal can’t be surpassed in horror. Every time I go near the ghetto I am reminded of rats in a barrel being shot at by a madman with a machine gun. That’s how I see your helplessness. But we Poles are helpless in our own way. We have more freedom than you Jews have—much more, more freedom of movement, more freedom from immediate danger—but we’re still under daily siege. Instead of being like rats in a barrel, we’re like rats in a burning building. We can move away from the flame, find cool spots, get down in the basement where it’s safe. A tiny few can even escape from the building. Every day many of us are burned alive, but it’s a big building and we are also saved by our very numbers. The fire can’t get us all, and then someday—maybe—the fire is going to burn out. If it does, there’ll be plenty of survivors. But the barrel—almost none of the rats in the barrel will live.’ Wanda took a deep breath and looked directly at Feldshon. ‘But let me ask you, Feldshon. How much concern can you expect the terrified rats in the building to have for the rats outside in the barrel—the rats whom they’ve never felt any kinship with, anyway?’
“Feldshon just looked at Wanda. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her in minutes. He didn’t say anything.
“Wanda looked at her watch then. ‘In exactly four minutes we’ll hear a whistle. That means the two of you get out of here and downstairs. The parcels will be waiting at the door.’ Then, after saying that, she went on, ‘Three days ago I was negotiating in the ghetto with one of your compatriots. I won’t mention his name, no need for that. I’ll just say that he’s a leader of one of those factions which violently opposes you and your own group. I think he’s a poet or a novelist. I liked him, all right, but I couldn’t stand a certain thing he said. It sounded so pretentious, this way he was speaking of Jews. He used the phrase “our precious heritage of suffering.” ’
“At this point Feldshon broke in and said something that made us all laugh a little. Even Wanda smiled. He said, ‘That could only be Lewental. Moses Lewental. Such Schmalz.’
“But then Wanda said, ’I despise the idea of suffering being precious. In this war everyone suffers—Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Russians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, all the others. Everyone’s a victim. The Jews are also the victims of victims, that’s the main difference. But none of the suffering is precious and all die shitty deaths. Before you go I want to show you some photographs. I was carrying them in my pocket when I was speaking to Lewental. I had just gotten hold of them. I wanted to show them to him, but for some reason I didn’t. I’ll show them to you.’
“Just then the light went out, the little bulb simply flickered out. I felt this stab of fear in the middle of my heart. Sometimes it was just the electricity failing. Other times I knew that when the Germans laid an ambush they would stop the power to a building so they could trap people in their searchlights. We all stayed still for a moment. There