See Under, page 41
But the Jews captured in the ghetto had nothing of interest to tell Orf, and were ordinarily put to death before the interrogation stage. Orf requested a meeting with Von Zamern and complained to him that he was “rusting away” in Warsaw, where there was no real need for him, in his opinion, but he was only reprimanded by his commander for insolence and ordered to obey without question. So Orf sat dully in the workroom, polishing his tools and reading books. No one had mounted his “ironing board” for six weeks now; not a fingernail had been removed, and the floor was clean of blood. Behind the door, on a hook, hung his shiny black-rubber treatment apron, and Orf was ashamed to look at it. A serious, responsible young man, he would have been incapable of “rusting away” even if he had been idle for ten years. He was a real professional, and proud of it. He found aesthetic pleasure in his work, in the fixed rules of interrogation, in its predictable stages and moments of tension and climax. In other words, Orf viewed his work as ART [q.v.]. He never allowed himself to enjoy the suffering of his subject. He knew perfectly well what his fellows in the army and police thought of him and his kind. He could feel their looks of revulsion and fear when he rode the train with them. Even high-ranking officers glanced suspiciously at his black uniform with the white epaulettes. And his own father always found a way to be out of town when Orf came home on leave. So be it. He was strong enough to withstand this covert antagonism. Only a strong man could handle a tough job like his, and somebody had to do it. Orf justified himself by believing he had chosen his special vocation out of a sense of idealism. As the door opened and Diogenes peered in, Orf was deep in Nietzsche’s Will to Power. In the SS interrogation course, his admired advisor had recommended Thus Spake Zarathustra, and Orf, who considered himself an intellectual, was captivated by the wild, deep power of Nietzsche’s writing. It should be mentioned that Orf was somewhat disappointed with The Will to Power, because of Nietzsche’s denial therein of “objective truth.” Orf was a firm believer in objective truth, because when you stuck electrodes into a prisoner’s sex organ and nipples, he eventually told you things that had an unqualified dimension of truth, subjective truth, perhaps, but torture made everyone alike in the end, which raised the suspicion that a single harrowing voice was screaming out the words.
The really strange thing was that Ilya Ginzburg had reached very similar conclusions. Otherwise he would not have done what he did: like old Diogenes in his day, Ilya Ginzburg braved countless dangers as he wandered with his candle in search of truth, till at last he arrived in the interrogation basement. Orf looked at the filthy Jew standing before him and was filled with revulsion at the sight and smell. He demanded roughly what he was doing there, and Ginzburg stuck his hand into his filthy shirt and pulled out three posters warning the ghetto Jews of mass transports to the “East” for “resettlement.” “Not to the East, but to Death!” screamed the posters in Polish. Orf jumped to his feet and circled Ginzburg, covering his nose with a handkerchief. “Suspect everyone!” he had learned in military school. “The innocent-looking ones are the most dangerous!” He made a quick decision. He shut the door behind Ginzburg and beckoned him into the room. Then he locked the door. He had the vague impression that the Jew had wound up here by mistake, but Orf did not want to waste the opportunity. He intended to get out the truth about the people behind the posters. When the interrogation was over, he would send the results to Von Zamern and reinstate himself. He rubbed his hands together quickly like a fly over its food, then turned and put on his black-rubber apron, smoothing it down with the accustomed movements that inspired him with confidence. Surprisingly gentle, he led Ginzburg by the shoulder and sat him down on the interrogation chair. Then he sat facing him across the table, folded his hands, and asked emphatically, “Well then, who are you?”
He was astounded to see the smile of joy and relief spreading across the face of the Jew. “Who am I! Who am I!” Ginzburg nodded in rapture. His gamble had paid off: “they,” too, were interested! And in fact, he had heard this about them: that they could uncover the truth even when a person was unwilling or unable to divulge it himself; he had long suspected that every person knows (deep down inside) who he is and why he was born, only, due to some innate flaw, he isn’t able to disclose this truth even to himself. Yes, perhaps the others had succeeded, but he, Ginzburg, had not. Perhaps he really was a little backward, as the children chanted, but he, for all his backwardness, had come up with the wonderful idea to present himself before this sympathetic and serious young man, who was obviously eager to help and had already asked him the right question!
“Who are you?” Orf repeated, this time without a smile. The Jew echoed the question with the beaming face of a tourist showing the native that with a little effort they will be able to communicate. Orf sighed and opened his notebook. Inwardly he was a little disappointed, because he was almost certain by now that Ginzburg was a madman: no one in his right mind would come in here smiling like that of his own free will. But Orf wanted to interrogate. For some reason the Jew roused up his old anger at having to rust away here in Warsaw instead of working with the real fighting forces. He was angry with himself: one must not begin an interrogation in anger. An interrogator must always be levelheaded and cool. Orf asked Ginzburg a few more routine questions, for form’s sake, and the Jew, who understood that this was only an administrative procedure, did not even bother to reply. Orf had the odd impression that the Jew was trying to make some kind of pact with him in order to get to the point more quickly. He stood up and faced the treatment table. [Here the editorial staff takes the liberty of skipping the detailed description of what occurred in the room during the ensuing hour and twenty minutes. Suffice it to say, during this period of time the following tools were used: forceps, pincers, matches, rubber hoses, spikes, a candle flame, a hook, a nail, and something they called the “vegetable peeler.”] Ginzburg looks very different now than he did when he walked into the room. But so does Orf: not just because his hands and apron are smeared with blood, or because of the perspiration staining his uniform and streaming down his forehead and blinding him: there is a remarkable expression on his face. Never before had he come across a case of this kind: when he shouted dryly, “Now who are you?!” the subject had shouted back enthusiastically, “Who am I? Who?!” And when he changed the question to “Who sent you here?” Ginzburg screamed with him, “Who sent me here?!” And when Orf became uncontrollably angry and shrieked, “What is your mission?!” the subject had repeated the question with such longing it made the experienced interrogator shudder. Ghastly tortures which had broken even the toughest men till they begged to speak the truth one last time before succumbing to insanity seemed to have no effect whatsoever on Ginzburg. Quite the contrary in fact; Orf was willing to swear that when one of his trusty instruments failed, he saw an expression not unlike disappointment on Ginzburg’s swollen face. The room reeked of the sweat, blood, and excrement that had poured out of Ginzburg. Teeth lay scattered on the slippery floor. Orf poured a bucket of water over Ginzburg and waited for him to revive. For a moment he saw himself reflected in the big mirror on the wall, and recoiled. He was tense and frightened. In his heart grew the suspicion that if there was any hidden objective truth in the world, this man was keeping it to himself. There were moments when Orf thought the Jew had come to him in order to help him discover it. And then he experienced a singular feeling of sympathy and COMPASSION [q.v.], as if the two of them had conducted a difficult new experiment in this room. Orf went to wash his face with cold water and combed his hair back with his fingers. He coldly reprimanded himself before the mirror for these soft thoughts, turned smartly on his heel, and stepped back to the table. The Jew had already come to and was muttering on the floor. Orf connected the electrodes to his earlobes, nipples, and sex organ. In the SS course they had been jokingly told that it’s less of a problem hooking up electric tongs to a Jewish sex organ. Then he tied Ginzburg to the table with two thick leather straps and asked him stiffly who and what he was. Ginzburg did not have the strength to repeat the question, but his eyes expressed the wild longing to know the answer. Orf pressed the electric switch. The magnet worked. Ginzburg was thrown up in the air, and he screamed. Orf closed his eyes and opened them much later. Then he leaned over the subject and asked who he was. Ginzburg’s lips were still. Orf put his car to the thin chest. As from a distance came the beating of the heart. It was weak and slow, and it spoke to Orf and said, “Who am I?” Orf was terrified. A strange noise broke out of him, like a groan. He freed the Jew from the leather straps and poured another bucket of water over him. Then he lit a cigarette and noticed that his fingers were trembling. “He’s crazy,” he said to himself. “He’s plain crazy. He knows nothing.” But deep inside he knew that though Ginzburg was crazy, it was untrue that he knew nothing. Orf considered what to do with the Jew. He didn’t want to turn him over to the Polish police, who might start asking questions and discover something disgraceful. He decided instead to personally escort Ginzburg out of the building through the back entrance. It was suppertime and chances were that he wouldn’t run into anyone on the way. He lifted Ginzburg up and supported him till he could stand on his feet. This took quite a while, and the touch of the Jew was almost unbearable. Ginzburg’s pain was so tangible it overflowed into Orf’s body. He felt weak and lost. When Ginzburg’s legs were steadier, Orf began leading him to the door. He had to hold him up as they walked through the corridor, and he prayed he wouldn’t run into anybody. His prayers were not answered, however: someone approached in the corridor, a short, stocky man. They met in the light of the yellow lamp with the wire netting. Praise be to God, thought Orf, the man was a Polish civilian. The corridor was too narrow for all three to pass, and the man made way, taking a good, long look at them, which was enough for him to figure out what had taken place. That is, in retrospect Orf was convinced that one look was enough for the little blue-eyed Pole to figure out what had taken place. The man hurried after them and cleared his throat politely. Orf, supporting Ginzburg’s weight, turned to him angrily. The man hurried to say, “Pardon, my name is Otto Brig, and I have a permit here to remove Jewish prisoners.” Orf didn’t miss his chance. “Take him!” he almost shrieked. “Get him out of here!” But as Orf watched Otto walk away supporting the bleeding wreck by the waist, he sensed with anguish that perhaps he hadn’t understood what had happened in the interrogation room at all, that perhaps the terrible Jew had, in some strange and unintelligible way, uttered man’s deepest truth.
HAROTIAN
Foe of the tyranny of sensory perception. A magician by trade.
Harotian was born in the small Armenian village of Faradian in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. His wonder-working power was discovered quite by chance: The Children of the Heart, who in 1885 flew to Armenia in the time machine to save the town of Faradian from the marauding Turkish Army, had hidden in a cave, surrounded by a battalion of cruel Turks. So ends Chapter 9 of the story. A week later, Wasserman delivered the sequel, Chapter 10, to Zalmanson, wherein the Children of the Heart make a last-minute escape through the back of the cave and are saved. This was Wasserman’s usual way of rescuing the band from the predicaments into which he put them. The new chapter was already on its way to the printers, and Zalmanson and Wasserman had a friendly chat in the office before departing each for his home. A short while later, at around midnight, Zalmanson came banging on Wasserman’s door, nearly waking the dead with his screams. Wasserman (in neatly pressed striped pajamas, soft slippers, his thin hair tousled, looking highly alarmed) carefully opened the door and absorbed the brunt of Zalmanson’s fury: a shocking error had been committed, it seems. At home in bed, Zalmanson had suddenly recalled that in an earlier chapter Wasserman distinctly mentions that Otto inspected the cave and found no second opening! Wasserman shuddered. Zalmanson stood in the doorway wearing a coat over his red silk pajamas, shrieking almost effeminately, “Ac-cu-racy, Wasserman, ac-cu-ra-cy!” They ran back to the editorial office together and stopped the press. Wasserman was frightened and confused. A table was cleared for him next to the machine, and the printers, whose work had stopped, stood watching. He knew he would not be able to write a single word. He needed at least a week to “ripen.” The room was full of smoke and the suffocating smell of ink. The printers looked dirty to him, hostile and violent. Zalmanson sat opposite him, drumming nervously on the table. And Wasserman understood exactly how the band felt, trapped inside the cave. He groaned in despair. His spectacles were covered with steam. He knew that only a MIRACLE [q.v.] could save him now. And so Harotian came into the series, issuing from the following sentence: “‘Hark,’ whispered Otto into the ears of his frightened companions, ‘is that the bleating of a babe, or a wee tot of the village?’” Zalmanson pointed out maliciously, though not unjustly, that if Otto could miss the child on his earlier search of the cave, there might have been a hidden tunnel, too, but this was no time for arguments. Moments later, while Turkish sabers flashed at the mouth of the cave, a flight of mysterious white eagles burst forth, bearing the small Armenian boy of magical power high over the heads of the Turks, who prostrated themselves on the ground crying “Allah! Allah!” Chapter 10 was received with such wild acclaim that Zalmanson gave Wasserman a 25 percent pay raise, though the expression on his face deprived Wasserman of any pleasure. After that, Harotian never departed from the Children of the Heart, and joined in all their adventures, performing wondrous feats of magic and trilling melodies on his little flute that “wrenched tears from the eyes of the basest villains.” When the Children of the Heart disbanded (their last adventure was written in 1925), Harotian traveled around the world and prospered. He performed with all the major circuses as a clown and magician, and appeared with Barnum & Bailey for five years running. He never learned how to read or write, but his experience with people gave him worldly wisdom. Perhaps this is why he was willing to perform only the banal side of magic, the familiar tricks of all magicians, for the public. He learned some fine magic from the famous clown Grok and from a mad Hungarian magician named Hornak. Again and again Wasserman stressed that there was no connection between Harotian’s natural wonder-working power and his skill as a circus magician. He put tremendous effort into his training, but never achieved the kind of perfection his natural abilities might have given him. He preferred legerdemain and illusion to mystery. He loved his work and devoted most of his time to it, deriving pleasure from the gaily colored scarves he pulled out of his sleeve, laughing in wonder each time the seven white doves flew out of his top hat; never tiring of the delighted cries of children and guileless adults. He loved to give them pleasure.
