The Zone of Interest Read Online Free Page B

violinists from Innsbruck.
    (I like numbers. They speak of logic, exactitude, and thrift. I’m a little uncertain, sometimes, about ‘one’ – about whether it denotes quantity, or is being used as a . . . ‘pronoun’? But consistency’s the thing. And I like numbers. Numbers, numerals, integers. Digits!)
    19.01 very slowly became 19.02. We felt the hums and tremors in the rails, and I too felt a rush of energy and strength. There we stood, quite still for a moment, the waiting figures on the spur, at the far end of a rising plain, steppelike in its vastness. The track stretched halfway to the horizon, where, at last, ST 105 silently materialised.
    On it came. Coolly I raised my powerful binoculars: the high-shouldered torso of the locomotive, with its single eye, its squat spout. Now the train leaned sideways as it climbed.
    ‘Passenger cars,’ I said. This was not so unusual with transports from the west. ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘3 classes ’ . . . The carriages streamed sideways, carriages of yellow and terracotta, Première , Deuxième , Troisième – JEP , NORD , La Flèche d’Or . Professor Zulz, our head doctor, said drily,
    ‘Three classes? Well, you know the French. They do everything in style.’
    ‘Too true, Professor,’ I rejoined. ‘Even the way they hoist the white flag has a certain – a certain je ne sais quoi . Not so?’
    The good doctor chuckled heartily and said, ‘Damn you, Paul. Touché, my Kommandant.’
    Oh yes, we bantered and smiled in the collegial fashion, but make no mistake: we were ready. I motioned with my right hand to Captain Eltz, as the troops – under orders to stand back – took up their positions along the length of the siding. The Golden Arrow pulled in, slowed, and halted with a fierce pneumatic sigh.
    Now they’re quite right when they say that 1,000 per train is the soundest ‘rule of thumb’ (and that up to 90% of them will be selected Left). I was already surmising, however, that the customary guidelines would be of scant help to me here.
    First to disembark were not the usual trotting shapes of uniformed servicemen or gendarmes but a scattered contingent of baffled-looking middle-aged ‘stewards’ (they wore white bands on the sleeves of their civilian suits). There came another exhausted gasp from the engine, and the scene settled into silence.
    Another carriage door swung open. And who alighted? A little boy of about 8 or 9, in a sailor suit, with extravagant bell-bottomed trousers; then an elderly gentleman in an astrakhan overcoat; and then a cronelike figure bent over the pearl handle of an ebony cane – so bent, indeed, that the stick was too high for her, and she had to reach upwards to keep her palm on its glossy knob. Now the other carriage doors opened, and the other passengers detrained.
    Well, by this time I was grinning widely and shaking my head, and quietly cursing that old lunatic Walli Pabst – as his telegram of ‘warning’ was clearly nothing more than a practical joke!
    A shipment of 1,000? Why, it comprised barely 100. As for the Selektion: all but a few were under 10 or over 60; and even the young adults among them were, so to speak, selected already.
    Look. That 30-year-old male has a broad chest, true, but he also has a club foot. That brawny maiden is in the pink of health, assuredly, and yet she is with child. Elsewhere – spinal braces, white sticks.
    ‘Well, Professor, go about your work,’ I quipped. ‘A stern call on your prognostical skills.’
    Zulz of course was looking at me with dancing eyes.
    ‘Fear not,’ he said. ‘Asclepius and Panacea wing their way to my aid. I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art . Paracelsus be my guide.’
    ‘Tell you what. Go back to the Ka Be,’ I suggested, ‘and do some selecting there. Or have an early supper. It’s poached duck.’
    ‘Oh, well,’ he said, producing his flask. ‘Now we’re about it. Care for a drop? It’s a lovely evening. I’ll keep you