See Under by David Grossman (famous ebook reader TXT) 📕

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 whenone 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.