Dr. Groedl loathed such considerations. What was “spiritual,” what was “moral,” what was “ethical”? These values could not be calculated numerically. It took a certain sensitivity to the greater ethos, which he admitted, if only to Helga, that he somewhat lacked.
“I hate it,” he had said. “It is nothing. You can’t quantify it, you can’t shape it, you can’t weigh it. What is it? Why do we care so much about such things?”
“I’m sure you’ll work it out, my dear,” said Helga, stroking Mitzi’s smooth head on her lap. “You always do, my genius.”
So now he struggled with the issue before him, yearning for guidance, and yet he understood that seeking advice would be interpreted as weakness, and even at this point, the Reichskommissariat was a cesspool of politics, with strivers and whores of ambition, politicals, plotters, cabalists, all of them waiting, just waiting, for him to make a mistake so they could whisper nasty things about him in the right ears, and ease the skids under him while assisting in their own rise. He had so many enemies! If Heinrich only knew, or The Leader himself, what mischief was perpetrated by the human folly of ambition! He was simply too pure for a political world. He lived only for duty, not foolish medals and empty titles or promotions!
“Dr. Groedel?”
“Yes, yes, Bertha, I simply want to be certain.”
“It is difficult, sir, I understand.”
“But we must forge ahead,” he said. He winced, pinched the bridge of his nose, wished he had a cup of tea, and then proceeded. “Where was I?”
“ ‘ . . . to accelerate certain goals.’ ”
“Yes, yes. Continue, ‘Thus priorities are henceforth determined. Train 56, under the auspices of Department IV-B4, will be given the coal authority and the track clearance to proceed at once to its destination. All entities are hereby directed to offer maximum support to this transport and further memos will follow adjudicating logistical responsibilities. Train 118, under the auspices of the Wehrmacht medical service, will wait at least twenty-four hours, dependent on the resupply of coal to the yards at Stanislav, which, when it again reaches a level of nine percent surplus under normal operating procedures, it will be allowed to depart.’ Sign it Groedel, and you know the rest, Bertha, get it out to our people as quickly as possible.”
“You realize the Colonel-Doctor Haufstrau will go to Wehrmacht command to protest your decision, Dr. Groedl?”
“I do. It can’t be helped. Whatever I do, I make enemies. Berlin will back me, I believe. Reichsführer Himmler has his own considerable clout. If it reaches The Leader, he will back me. I have always counted on my special relationship with The Leader. There will be grumbling, but one must do the right thing.”
“You are truly an idealist, sir. You are my hero.”
He smiled modestly, then immediately pulled his face back into its mode of blurred diffidence, humphing with some embarrassment, as direct compliments and expressions of affection made him quite uncomfortable.
“I shall mark IV-B4 Train 56,” she said, “as cleared green and full speed ahead to Auschwitz-Birkenau.”
Moscow
“Groedl, Hans,” said Krulov, after unleashing a cirrocumulus of cigarette smoke to curl and lap in the high corners of the Kremlin office. “One of their nastier beasts. Like so many of the truly vile ones, he’s overintelligent and overeducated. Prefers to be known as Dr. Groedl as opposed to Obergruppenführer-SS Groedl.”
It was odd. Targets didn’t have faces, usually. They were anonymous men in feldgrau or camouflage, if SS, who scurried this way and that until a moment came when they went still in the embrace of the PU telescopic reticle, and it was her finger who shot them. It seemed not to involve great pain, of which, she would admit to herself and nobody else, she was glad. Usually they would stiffen or step back. She tried never to take a head shot. This was by doctrinal assertion: the head was a far more difficult target from the technical point of view, smaller, more active, unpredictable. But there was a psychological reason as well: a head shot could be alarming if it shattered and emptied skull, broke the face plate into halves or thirds, removed a jaw, all amid a copious outflow of crimson. Sometimes there was an extravagant splatter pattern, and in the snow, the red galaxies of blasted blood could be disconcerting. No, a torso shot was best.
But here, now: a face. Dumpy, undistinguished save by the looseness of jowls, the sadness of demeanor, the lightlessness of expression. He looked so insignificant, like a janitor or an elderly factory worker. Still, a face. He was not a figure, he was a human being.