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the scale?
     
    There persist three reasons, or excuses, for going on living: first, to bear witness, and, second, to exact mortal vengeance. I am bearing witness; but the magic looking glass does not show me a killer. Or not yet.
    Third, and most crucially, we save a life (or prolong a life) at the rate of one per transport. Sometimes none, sometimes two – an average of one. And 0.01 per cent is not 0.00. They are invariably male youths.
    It has to be effected while they’re leaving the train; by the time the lines form for the selection – it’s already too late.
     
    *
     
    Ihr seit achzen johr alt , we whisper, und ihr hott a fach .
    Sie sind achtzehn Jahre alt, und Sie haben einen Handel.
    Vous avez dix-huit ans, et vous avez un commerce.
     
    You are eighteen years old, and you have a trade.

CHAPTER II. TO BUSINESS
     
    1. THOMSEN: PROTECTORS
     
    BORIS ELTZ WAS going to tell me the story of Special Train 105, and I wanted to hear it, but first I asked him,
    ‘Who’ve you got on at the moment? Remind me.’
    ‘Uh, that cook in Bunatown and that barmaid in Katowitz. And I’m hoping to get somewhere with Alisz Seisser. The sergeant’s widow. He’s only been dead a week but she seems quite keen.’ Boris gave some background. ‘The trouble is she’s off home to Hamburg in a day or two. Golo, I’ve asked you this before. I like all kinds of women, so why do I only fancy the lower classes?’
    ‘I don’t know, brother. It’s not an unendearing trait. Now please. Sonderzug 105.’
    He folded his hands behind his nape and his lips slowly parted. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it, with the French. Don’t you find, Golo? You can’t quite rid yourself of the idea that they lead the world. In refinement, in urbanity. A nation of proven funkers and toadies – but they’re still supposed to be better than anyone else. Better than us gross Germans. Better even than the English. And a part of you consents to it. The French – even now, when they’re completely crushed and squirming, you still can’t help yourself.’
    Boris shook his head, as if in ingenuous wonderment at humanity – at humanity and its crooked timber.
    ‘These things run deep,’ I said. ‘Continue, Boris, if you would.’
    ‘Well I found I was relieved, no, happy and proud that the ramp was looking its best. All swept and hosed. Nobody very drunk – it was too early. And such a pretty sunset. Even the smell had dropped. The passenger train pulls in, all festive. It could’ve come from Cannes or Biarritz. The people disembark unassisted. No whips, no truncheons. No cattle cars awash with God knows what. The Old Boozer gives his speech, I translate, and off we go. All so very civilised. Then along comes that fucking lorry. And the jig was up.’
    ‘Why? What was in it?’
    ‘Corpses. The daily berm of corpses. On its way from the Stammlager to the Spring Meadow.’
    He said that about a dozen of them half flopped out over the tailboard; he said that it made him imagine a crew of ghosts being sick over a ship’s side.
    ‘With their arms swinging. Not just any old corpses either. Starveling corpses. Covered in shit, and filth, and rags, and gore, and wounds, and boils. Smashed-up, forty-kilo corpses.’
    ‘Mm. Untoward.’
    ‘Hardly the height of sophistication,’ said Boris.
    ‘Is that when they wailed? We heard the wail.’
    ‘It was a sight to see.’
    ‘Mm. And a lot to uh, construe.’ I meant that it was not just a spectacle but also a narrative: it told a long story. ‘A fair bit to take in.’
    ‘Drogo Uhl thinks they never did. Take it in. But I think they just blushed for us – mortally blushed for us. For our . . . cochonneries . I mean, a lorry full of starved corpses. All a bit gauche and provincial, don’t you think?’
    ‘Possibly. Arguably.’
    ‘So insortable . You can’t take us anywhere.’
    Misleadingly undersized and misleadingly slight, Boris was a senior colonel in the Waffen-SS: the armed, the fighting,