The Orchids (25 page)

Langhof felt a cold wave of embarrassment pass over him. “I don't like to hear you talk about that,” he said quickly.

“It's a bad sign, Langhof,” Ginzburg said darkly.

“I should think you would be pleased about Kessler's dwindling appetite,” Langhof said stoutly.

“It's the only commodity I have,” Ginzburg said, “the only thing I had to offer him. Now even that is gone.”

“Enough of this,” Langhof said, waving his hand. He took a deep breath and tried to smile as he changed the subject. “You know, my friend, when the war is over, there'll be plenty of need for comedians. You'll have all kinds of offers.”

“I'll play the big houses, you think?” Ginzburg asked dryly.

“I'm sure you will,” Langhof said enthusiastically.

Ginzburg glanced back at the soldiers in the distance. “Do you still have your little book?”

“No.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I burned it,” Langhof said. “You were right. There was no need for it. They were so proud of what they were doing here, they probably took thousands of pictures.”

“I would like to put them all in a big theater,” Ginzburg said, “and show them all the pictures, and then ask them one by one: Why did you do this?”

Langhof's face darkened. “I would be in that theater, you know,” he said.

Ginzburg nodded. “Yes, you would. It's too late ever to change that.”

Langhof suddenly felt a terrible chill pass over him, as if his life had been snatched from him by invisible hands. “I still don't know what happened to me,” he said.

Ginzburg did not seem to care one way or the other. He turned toward the rotting door of the crematorium. “Do you know what I like about show business?” he asked. “I like the stage door. There is something wonderful about a stage door. When you are going through it, you feel like a special person. Everyone else is huddled outside. Maybe it's snowing or raining, but they're still out there, trying to get a glimpse of somebody famous. And you think, That's me someday. I'll be the person everybody is trying to get a look at.”

“Rather vain, don't you think?” Langhof said lightly.

“Comes with the profession, I'm afraid,” Ginzburg said. He wiped his nose with his sleeve, then glared at the sleeve disgustedly. “You see, that's what I've come to, wiping my nose with my sleeve. There was a time when I would never have done such a thing.” Then suddenly, to Langhof's panic and amazement, Ginzburg lowered his head and began to weep.

Langhof glanced quickly at the guards, then stepped around to shield Ginzburg from their view. “Stop it,” he said fiercely.

“They're all dead,” Ginzburg said. “All gone up in smoke.”

Langhof shook Ginzburg lightly. “Stop it,” he repeated. “Don't draw attention to yourself.”

Ginzburg straightened his shoulders. “Yes, right,” he said. “I can't let go, not yet.”

“It'll be over soon, believe me,” Langhof said desperately, “Look at the way the guards are. There's nothing left of them. They don't care what happens now. When the Allies get here, they'll turn their guns over without a fight.”

Ginzburg wiped his eyes. “It's so strange,” he said. “While the Camp was functioning, I had a reason to stay alive. But now it's over and there's nothing left.”

“That's ridiculous,” Langhof said vehemently. “Now you can begin to live again.”

Ginzburg shook his head slowly. “No. Now I'm ready for the gas.”

“Don't say that,” Langhof pleaded.

“It's so strange,” Ginzburg said. “It's a feeling of … I don't know … of having absolutely nothing to hold onto.”

The ground began to tremble as another group of planes approached.

“They're going to liberate you soon,” Langhof said. “You've got to remember that.”

Ginzburg straightened the small, worn cap that barely covered his head. “I'm tired,” he said. “just very tired.”

“Think of something nice,” Langhof said, trying to joke. “Think of blowing Kessler's head off.”

“Do you think that would do me good?”

“It might.”

A low wail came from inside the barracks, and Ginzburg seemed to shudder. “It's already too late for a lot of them, you know,” he said. “They'll be dead before the Allies get here.”

“I know.”

“Nothing can be done for them,'' Ginzburg said. “Kessler has cut off most of my supplies.”

“He doesn't have any supplies,” Langhof said. “They've stopped sending them.”

A few meters away a rat peeped out from the insides of a frozen body, peered about, then retreated inside once again.

Ginzburg brushed at the frayed shoulders of his striped suit. “I'd better be getting back to the compound.”

“Why? There's nothing to do.”

“Just the same,” Ginzburg said, “I'd better be getting back.”

“Remember what I told you,” Langhof said. He secretly placed Ginzburg's hand in his. “It's all going to be over very soon.”

Ginzburg smiled weakly and began to walk away. Langhof turned to watch him. “Remember what I said,” he repeated to Ginzburg's back.

Ginzburg did not turn around. He made his way toward the compound, walking steadily, his back straight. Then, as he reached the group of soldiers, he stopped. Langhof felt something cold harden in his stomach. Helpless, he watched as Ginzburg continued to stare rigidly at the guards. For a moment the guards did not notice him. Then one of them did, and indicated Ginzburg's presence to the others. Slowly they turned to face him. When he had their full attention, Ginzburg brought his feet together, removed his cap, and made a slow stage bow. The guards stared at him for a moment, utterly confused. Then Ginzburg straightened himself, pulling an imaginary tie up to his throat, and passed on by.

T
OWARD EVENING
it is my custom to take a short stroll beside the river. Walking along it, I can imagine the life that teems above and below it. In the depths the crocodiles wave their heavy tails, propelling themselves forward, their slit eyes searching through the murky waters for some morsel to devour. Above the green waters, enormous jungle spiders weave their webs between the sagging branches and sit upon their spindly legs to await the first incautious butterfly.

Here in the Republic it is easy to be seduced by death. But in the final weeks of the Camp, death took on an unnatural aspect, an anthropomorphic quality that allowed it to be imagined as a living thing that had grown weary of itself. Gout-ridden now, bloated and surfeited, it seemed to sink down into the mud and slime, and Langhof, our hero, lying on his bunk waiting for the Camp to fall, believed that perhaps he had found that limit for which earlier he had so desperately searched. It seemed to him that perhaps this limit resided in the simple, irreducible exhaustion that finally overwhelms all the works of man, no matter how exalted or debased. He walked out of the compound and stood staring at the smokeless chimney of the crematorium. It seemed to partake both of something new, in its moronic vanity, and of something very old, in its inevitable defeat. Standing facing the chimneys, enjoying his revery, his boots ankle deep in mud, he heard the crunch of footsteps from behind. He turned. It was Rausch.

“Gloating, are you, Langhof?” Rausch asked.

Langhof did not answer. He returned his eyes to the chimney, which stood towering silently above him.

Rausch stepped up beside him, fixing his eyes on the crematorium, his vision clinging to it, almost sucking at it, like sea leeches on a shark's belly. “Do you feel safe now?” he asked.

“From what?” Langhof asked quietly.

Rausch did not answer. He turned toward Langhof. “All the work is not finished,” he said. “You should be aware ofthat.”

“It's quite finished, Rausch,” Langhof replied. “And
you
should be aware of that.”

“The final orders for the Camp have not arrived as yet,” Rausch said, “but it doesn't matter what they are.”

Langhof turned toward Rausch and smiled rebukingly. “Really? I'm surprised at you. Do you mean to say that you are no longer obeying orders?”

“Yes,” Rausch said.

“That does surprise me,” Langhof said tauntingly.

Rausch gripped the handle of his pistol. “Much of what I am would surprise you,” he said.

Langhof turned away and began to walk back toward the medical compound.

“How is it with you and that Ginzburg character,” Rausch called loudly after him.

Langhof whirled around. “What are you talking about?”

“You've become quite close, you two,” Rausch said with a menacing smile. “Are you bedfellows also, Doctor?”

“Why would that possibly concern you?” Langhof asked with a sneer. “I should think that you would have more important questions on your mind, given the faltering state of the New Order.”

Rausch's face seemed to soften. “We could have been friends, you and I.”

“No, we couldn't,” Langhof said. “Not in the slightest.” He stepped toward Rausch. “I despise you.”

Rausch's body seemed to tighten. “All this time, and you still believe that you are above this. Let me tell you something, Langhof, you have wallowed in this place, and becoming chums with some rotten little vermin jokester won't change that.”

“I don't expect it to.”

“Don't you?”

“No.”

Rausch chuckled coldly. “You are the real slime, Langhof,” he said. “Shall I tell you why?”

Langhof started to walk away, but Rausch grasped his arm. “Listen to me,” Rausch said hotly. “You are the real slime because you have crawled through this pit for three years and never once followed a courageous impulse!” He released Langhof's arm and stepped back slightly. “A man either does what his thought commands, or he does not. That makes all the difference.”

Langhof nodded toward the crematorium. “And you have obeyed your thoughts, am I right, Rausch?”

“Yes,” Rausch said firmly. “And I will continue to do so until the end.”

Langhof could feel the heat of his rage enveloping him. “Do you know what Ginzburg is, Rausch?” he asked. “He is a reason to live. And you, my pathetic countryman, are a reason to die.”

Rausch stared at Langhof rigidly. “At this point in my life, do you really believe I can be wounded by an insult?”

Langhof shook his head despairingly. “I don't care, Rausch,” he said. “That's what you've never understood. I don't care about you or your cause or anything connected with you. You are nothing to me. Absolutely nothing. You should be a circus performer, playing your sophomoric philosophical games.” He smiled bitterly. “You are a clown of the New Order.”

“And I will act my part, Langhof,” Rausch said coldly, “to the very end.”

Langhof grinned mockingly into Rausch's face. “You bore me, Rausch,” he said. Then he turned on his heels and walked away. He could feel the mud sucking at the bottoms of his boots as if tiny hands were pulling him into its depths. He stopped and turned back, but Rausch was no longer facing him. Instead he had turned toward the crematorium. It seemed to Langhof that the proud rigidity of Rausch's body had given way to a kind of slumped and drooping stature, the head nodding slightly forward with the torpor of a wilting rose.

Now, beside the river, it is easy to remember the superiority Langhof felt as he marched back to his room in the medical compound. In the terrible vividness of my memory, I can see our hero's schoolboy pride at having finally bested an ancient adversary. In the puerility of Langhof's superiority, in the consuming lunacy of his vaunted self-esteem, the catastrophic I took yet another bow. Obliviously, Langhof strutted down the hall to his room, spread himself out on his bunk, and allowed himself to feel a kind of victory over Rausch. In his vanity he saw himself as an actual participant in the collapse of the Camp and as one of the authors of Rausch's imagined desolation. If it were that easy to play the hero's part, then we would all be saddled on the wind.

F
ROM THE VERANDAH
it is easy to envision what would happen should the forces currently embattled in the northern provinces gain dominion and close in around the capital of El Presidente. The small, tidy airport at the edge of city would fill with mink-coated and bejeweled refugees. They would raise their tents under the cupola of the terminal and drink wine while waiting for news of the enemy's advance. Over the backgammon boards, and through the mist of pink champagne, they would converse on the former splendors of the Republic and mourn the death of petty empire.

In the Leader's capital city, that blessed locale which he had destined to be the Eldorado of the world, the high officials of the New Order gathered together in the dank squalor of their underground abode. There they drank tea and ate custard while listening to the Leader's glittering tales of what might have been, if all men were as mighty as himself. Overhead the city turned to rubble, filling the sewers with the homeless and dismayed.

But as the advancing armies moved closer to the Camp, all became chaos and terror, with both guards and surviving prisoners sensing some final drama of absolute destruction. For Langhof, there became only one duty, to warn Ginzburg.

Glancing over his shoulder, Langhof made his way down the hall to Ginzburg's room. He knocked on the door.

“Yes?” he heard Ginzburg say.

Langhof opened the door. “I've just heard news,” he said. “The Camp will fall in a matter of days.”

Ginzburg rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “So?”

“So? What do you mean?”

Ginzburg shrugged. “So, the Camp will fall. What am I to do about it?”

“You must save yourself, Ginzburg. You must do it now. No one can say what might happen to the prisoners who remain here.”