Free The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis

die here . . . And this is how she behaves.’
    ‘Where is she now?’
    ‘They’ve slung her in Bunker 11. My first thought was – I’ve got to get her some food and water. Tonight. But now I think it’ll do her good. A couple of days in there. She’s got to learn.’
    ‘Have a drink, Boris.’
    ‘I will.’
    ‘Schnapps? What do they do to them in Bunker 11?’
    ‘Thanks. Nothing. That’s the point. Mobius puts it this way: we just let nature take its course. And you wouldn’t want to get in the way of nature, would you. Two weeks is the average if they’re young.’ He looked up. ‘You seem despondent, Golo. Did Hannah chuck?’
    ‘No no. Go on. Esther. How do we get her out?’
    And I made the necessary effort, and tried to interest myself in mere matters of life and death.

 
     
    2. DOLL: THE PROJEKT
     
    Speaking quite honestly, I’m a trifle peeved about my black eyes.
    Not that I mind the actual injury, needless to say. My record speaks for itself, I venture to assert, with regard to matters of physical resilience. On the Iraqi front in the last war (where, as a 17-year-old, and the youngest NCO in the entire Imperial Army, I was quite naturally barking out orders to men twice my age), I fought all day, all night, and, ja, again all day, with my left kneecap blown clean off and my face and scalp raked by shrapnel – and I still had the strength, come that 2nd dawn, to screw my bayonet into the guts of the English and Indian stragglers in the pillbox we finally overran.
    It was at the hospital in Wilhelma (a German settlement off the road between Jerusalem and Jaffa), whilst recovering from 3 bullet wounds sustained in the 2nd Battle of the Jordan, that I fell under the ‘magic spell’ of amatory dalliance, with a fellow patient, the willowy Waltraut. Waltraut was being treated for various psychological complaints, chiefly depression; and I like to think that our glazed meldings helped seal the rifts in her mind, as surely as they closed the great gouges in the small of my back. Today, my memories of that time are predominantly recollections of sounds . And what a contrast they make – on the one hand, the grunting and retching of hand-to-hand combat, and on the other the billing and cooing (often accompanied by actual birdsong, in some grove or orchard) of young love! I’m a romantic. For myself there has to be romance.
    No, the trouble with the black eyes is that they seriously detract from my aura of infallible authority. And I don’t just mean in the command centre or on the ramp or down at the pits. The day of the accident I hosted a brilliant dinner party for the Buna people here at my attractive villa, and for long periods I could scarcely keep countenance – I felt like a pirate or a clown in a pantomime, or a koala bear, or a raccoon. Early on I became completely mesmerised by my reflection in the soup tureen: a diagonal smear of pink with two ripe plums wobbling beneath the brow. Zulz and Uhl, I felt sure, were smirking at one another, and even Romhilde Seedig seemed to be suppressing a titter. With the commencement of general conversation, however, I revived, leading the talk with all my customary assurance (and putting Mr Angelus Thomsen squarely in his place).
    Now – if I’m like that in my own home, amongst colleagues and acquaintances and their lady wives, how would I comport myself with people who really matter? What if Gruppenfuhrer Blobel were to return? What if Oberfuhrer Benzler of the Reich Central Security Office should make a sudden tour of inspection? What if, heaven forbid, we received another visit from the Reichsfuhrer-SS? Why, I don’t think I could even hold my head up in the company of the little Fahrkartenkontrolleur, Obersturmbannfuhrer Eichmann . . .
     
    It was solely the fault of that bloody old fool of a gardener. Picture, if you will, a Sunday morning of flawless weather. I am at table in our pretty breakfast room, and in excellent fettle, after a