A Small Death in lisbon by Robert Wilson Read Free Book Online Page A

cleaning his glasses for an absurdly long time. Felsen waited. The man told him to sit.
    'Do you know why you're here?'
    'No.'
    The man fitted his face into the glasses and opened a file which he tilted away from Felsen, who stared at the precision of the man's parting.
    'Communism.'
    'You're joking.'
    The man looked up but didn't comment.
    'You are pro-Jewish.'
    'Don't be ridiculous.'
    'You also knew a woman called Michelle Duchamp.'
    'That
is true.'
    'My colleagues have been talking to her for a week in Lyons. She's been remembering things about the time she spent in Berlin back in the thirties.'
    'Before the war ... when I knew her, you mean.'
    'But not before politics. As you know, she's been working for the French Resistance movement for over a year.'
    'I'm not political and no, I didn't know that.'
    'We are all political. Party member number 479,381,
Förderndes Mitglied
to SS unit...'
    'You know as well as I do that there is no life outside the Party.'
    'Is that why you joined, Herr Felsen? To grow your business? Improve your prospects? Just hitching a ride on us are you, while the going's good?'
    Felsen sat back from the desk and looked out of the window at the bleak Berlin sky, realizing that this could happen to anybody and did ... every day.
    'That's a nice jacket,' said the man. 'Made by your tailor...'
    'Isaac Weinstock,' said Felsen. 'That's a Jewish name in case...'
    'You know it's forbidden for Jews to buy yarn.'
    'I bought the cloth for him.'
    It was snowing again. He could just make out the grey flakes against the grey sky through the grey glass over the grey filing cabinet.
    'Olga Kasarov,' said the man.
    'What about her?'
    'You know her.'
    'I went to bed with an Olga ... once.'
    'She's a Bolshevik.'
    'She's a Russian, I do know that,' said Felsen, 'and anyway, I didn't know you could catch communism from fucking.'
    That seemed to snap something inside the man who stood up and tucked the file under his arm.
    'I don't think you understand your situation very well, Herr Felsen.'
    'You're right, I don't. Perhaps you would be good enough...'
    'Some rehabilitation is, perhaps, in order.'
    Felsen suddenly felt the runaway vehicle he was on lurch down a steeper slope.
    'Your investigation...' he started, but the man was moving towards the door. 'Herr ... Herr ... wait.'
    The man opened the door. Two soldiers came in and heaved Felsen to his feet and took him out.
    'We're sending you back to school, Herr Felsen,' said the dark-suited man.
    They took him back down to his cell where they kept him for three days. Nobody spoke to him. They gave him a bowl of soup once a day. His bucket wasn't emptied. He sat on his pallet surrounded by his piss and faeces. Screams would occasionally penetrate his darkness, sometimes faint, other times horrifically close and loud. Terrible beatings took place in the corridor outside his cell. More than one man called for his mother under the crack of his door.
    He spent the hours and days preparing himself. He tutored his brain into a state of excessive politeness and his demeanour into one of submissive timidity. On the fourth day they came for him again. He was stinking and feeble with fear. They didn't take him to the horror room and they didn't take him upstairs for another meeting with the man in the dark suit. They handcuffed him and took him straight out into the courtyard, the snow falling in soft large flakes but packed hard underfoot by boots and tyres. They loaded him into an empty van with a large and still tacky stain on the floor. The doors shut.
    'Where's this going?' he asked the darkness.
    'Sachsenhausen,' said the guard outside.
    'What about the law?' said Felsen. 'What about the process of law?' The guard hammered on the side of the van. The driver slammed it into gear and sent Felsen cannoning against the doors.

    Eva Brücke sat in her office in
Die Rote Katze
smoking cigarette after cigarette and trickling more brandy into her coffee cup until it was all brandy, no