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chief
commanding officer of the German army in the colony,
Oberbefehlshaber Dame himself,” she informs him without batting an
eyelid.
    He stares at her in silence, then looks down at the girl. “Is
that true?” In sudden rage he shakes her the way a dog tussles with
a rag.
    Katja merely whimpers.
    Von Blixen faces his hostess again. “I don’t believe you,” he
says, but his voice has lost some of its assurance.
    “I have instructions to report directly to Governor von
Lindequist,” says Frau Knesebeck calmly. “If anything happens to
this girl, who is Oberbefehlshaber Dame’s niece, you will have to
answer to him.”

∨ The Other Side of Silence ∧
Eight
    F or what must be a
full minute Colonel von Blixen stares piercingly into the eyes of
his small hostess before he abruptly turns away from the girl,
heads for the nearest woman, grabs her by the elbow and snarls,
“Come!” On his way out he snatches a full bottle of brandy from the
long table in his free hand.
    Katja blunders back to Hanna X, who puts her arms around the
shaking girl and presses her against her own body. The other
officers give them a wide berth, eddying past them like a stream
past a boulder, each claiming a woman – prey or trophy – whom he
drags off through the nearest doorway into the vast and various
spaces beyond. Without deigning to cast another look at the girl,
Frau Knesebeck turns to the members of her staff who are thronging
in the doorway to the staircase. “What are you waiting for?” she
asks. “There is all this mess to clear away.”
    Throughout the interminable hours of the afternoon the place
rings and shudders with the sounds of the men on their rampage as
they go about their business. The walls reverberate with cursing
and shouting, the screams of women, the crashing and thundering of
furniture and utensils being smashed – beds and chairs, pitchers
and ewers, pisspots, mirrors and window panes, doors, chests. In
her own sparsely furnished room Hanna sits on her narrow bed,
straight-backed and quiet, stroking the thin shoulders of the girl
who is lying beside her, half asleep, whimpering occasionally like
a dreaming puppy. From time to time the din appears to the down,
then suddenly flares up again, moving from one part of the building
to the next, up and down the stairs, spilling outside through doors
or windows, then sweeping back. But at last the worst of the rage
seems to have spent itself. From the yard come the first sounds of
horses being saddled and readied to resume the journey.
    That is when the door is violently thrown open and a man comes
staggering across the threshold of Hanna’s room. It is Colonel von
Blixen.
    “Ah!” he exclaims, steadying himself against the doorpost. “I
have been looking for you all over the place. You juicy little
bitch!”
    The girl struggles up through the confused remains of dreams.
Hanna puts a hand on her hip. She appears calm, but her body is
very tense.
    “Come here,” says the colonel. In his red face the grin appears
like a gash. There are smudges of blood on his uniform, and on his
hands.
    Katja shakes her head.
    “Come here!” he thunders.
    Hanna X draws the girl closer to her side.
    The officer is clearly blind drunk, and now apoplectic with
fury. He stumbles as he tries to approach, manages to get hold of
one of the bedposts, stands swaying for a moment, then lunges
towards the women.
    Hanna X tries to move in between him and the girl but in the
power of his rage he simply sweeps her out of the way, sending her
sprawling on the floor.
    “You heard what Frau Knesebeck said,” whispers Katja.
    “To hell with her. To hell with Oberbefehlshaber Dame.”
    Hanna comes to her feet, stroking into place the kappie with
which she habitually covers her face. She makes a sound, but he
doesn’t even turn his head.
    “Come here,” he tells the girl again. They can both smell him
now. The drunk, the soldier who has marched through the desert for
days, maybe weeks,