Free The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis Page A

strenuous albeit inconclusive ‘session’ with my better half. I ate the breakfast fondly prepared by Humilia (who was out at some blighted tabernacle in the Old Town). And after polishing off my 5 sausages (and draining as many mugs of capital coffee), I got up and headed for the French windows, fancying a thoughtful smoke in the garden.
    Bohdan, with his back to me and a shovel over his shoulder, was on the path, stupidly staring at the tortoise as it gnawed on a cob of lettuce. And when I stepped from grass to gravel, he turned with a kind of spastic suddenness; the shovel’s thick blade described a swift half-circle in the air and struck me full on the bridge of my nose.
    Hannah, when she eventually came downstairs, herself bathed the site of the contusion in cold water, and gently held the slab of raw meat to my brow with her warm Fingerspitzen . . .
    And now, a whole week having passed, my eyes are the colour of a sick frog – a lurid yellowy green.
     
    ‘Impossible,’ said Prufer (very typically).
    I sighed and said, ‘The order comes from Gruppenfuhrer Blobel, which means it comes from the Reichsfuhrer-SS. Understand, Haupsturmfuhrer?’
    ‘It’s impossible, Sturmbannfuhrer. It can’t be done.’
    Prufer, preposterously, is my Lagerfuhrer, and thus my number 2. Wolfram Prufer, young (barely 30), vapidly handsome (with a round, toneless face), quite bereft of initiative, and, in general, a desperate sluggard. Some people claim that the Zone of Interest is a dumping ground for 2nd-rate blunderers. And I would agree (if it didn’t tend to reflect badly on myself). I said,
    ‘Excuse me, but I fail to recognise the word impossible , Prufer. It’s not in the SS lexicon. We rise above the objective conditions.’
    ‘But what’s the point, mein Kommandant?’
    ‘What’s the point? It’s politics, Prufer. We’re covering our tracks. We’ve even got to grind the ashes. In bone mills, nicht?’
    ‘Sorry, sir, but I ask again. What’s the point? It’ll only matter if we lose, which we won’t. When we win, which we will, it won’t matter at all.’
    I must admit that the same thought had occurred to myself. ‘It’ll still matter a bit when we win,’ I reasoned. ‘You have to take the long view, Prufer. Awkward customers asking questions and poking about.’
    ‘The point still escapes me, Kommandant. I mean, when we win, we’re supposed to be doing a lot more of this kind of thing, aren’t we? The Gypsies and the Slavs and so on.’
    ‘Mm. That’s what I thought.’
    ‘Then why’re we getting all namby-pamby about it now?’ Prufer scratched his head. ‘How many pieces are there, Kommandant? Do we even have a vague idea?’
    ‘No. But there’s lots.’ I stood up and started pacing the floor. ‘You know, Blobel’s responsible for cleaning up the whole territory. Ach, he keeps nagging me for Sonders. And the rate he gets through them. I said, Why d’you have to dispose of all your Sonders after every Aktion? Spin them out a bit, can’t you? They’re not going anywhere. And does he listen?’ I regained my chair. ‘All right, Hauptsturmfuhrer. Taste this.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘What’s it look like? Water. Do you drink the water here?’
    ‘No fear, Sturmbannfuhrer. I drink the bottled stuff.’
    ‘So do I. Taste it. I had to. Go on, taste it . . . That’s a direct order, Hauptsturmfuhrer. Go on. No need to swallow.’
    Prufer took a sip and let it dribble out through his lower teeth. I said,
    ‘Like carrion, ne? Take a deep breath.’ I offered him my flask. ‘Have a jolt of that. There . . . Yesterday, Prufer, I was cordially invited to the civic centre in the Old Town. To face a delegation of local worthies. They said it’s undrinkable no matter how many times you boil it. The pieces have started to ferment, Hauptsturmfuhrer. The water table’s breached. There’s no alternative. The smell is going to be unbelievable.’
    ‘The smell is going to be unbelievable, my