Читать книгу The Draughtsman - Robert Lautner, Robert Lautner - Страница 11

Raining the second day. Not the best walk. Raincoat and umbrella at least and Topf had a cloakroom where they might dry by the end of the day, as long as the day were longer than yesterday; not much more than a tour of the floors, the factory and barrack buildings where the workers from the camps ate a meal before the transport back to Buchenwald.

I had thought of Herr Sander all night. He the chief signatory of the design departments. Outside of the ownership of the company – the Topf brothers – the man in charge. I wondered what he might be like. A good boss or a hard one. I was sure all men only rise if they were the latter. My father would come home from Moor’s pharmacy every night and be quiet for the first half-hour. Some wine and a sandwich before dinner and he would begin to talk and smile again. Sundays he would spend sighing and devouring the newspaper. I do not think he enjoyed his work. The pharmacy had to sell up in ’35 to German buyers, the Jewish owners no longer permitted to be part of the community. I remember before then going as a boy with my mother to take my father his lunch one Saturday. We came out and a young man handed us both a leaflet. My mother paled as she read and the young man tipped his hat at us, went along with a whistle. The leaflet Gothic in script and tone.

‘You have just been photographed while you have been buying Jewish. You are going to be shamed in public.’

We had not bought anything. We were bringing my father his meal but the man did not know. My mother whisked me away in the opposite direction. Spat her words.

‘These bastards.’ She was pulling me along now. ‘Never trust a man in a suit, Ernst. He only wishes to lend you money or take it from you.’

I recall that my father was just as unhappy with his new employers as the old ones.

Prüfer I perceived to be a good man. He smiled, made jokes, he asked after my university. He was an engineer, had started at the bottom with Topf and determined his way to become a head man. He was pleased I had no children.

‘They interfere with a man’s career,’ he said. ‘Wait until you are a director! Children are a vice to a man’s promise when he is young.’

Fritz Sander did not offer a handshake. He nodded when Herr Klein introduced me in his office and I returned the nod as proficiently as his own. I had my white-coat now, my blond hair smoothed back with Etta’s pomade. It felt like I was at work. That I almost belonged.

‘Has Herr Klein detailed your work here?’ His answer already known.

‘Yes, sir. The Special Ovens Department.’ They were both standing, hands behind their back and I put mine the same.

‘It is important work, Topf has secured the contracts for all ovens for the prisons.’ I saw his skin was raw around his moustache and neck. A shaving rash like all of us except for Klein’s talcum smoothness. Even the wealthy had trouble getting good blades I supposed. But Sander’s grey hair was closely cut, precision sharp around his ears. He did not get his cut by his wife in a kitchenette with sewing scissors. A waft of Bay Rum as he moved.

‘The regular muffle ovens have become inadequate. They break. Operated by inexperienced men. And they are overworked. We are able to supply mobile counterparts and engineers to repair but new ones must be built. I have hired you to help me prepare the drafts.’

I opened my mouth to speak but he anticipated.

‘You need not know anything about crematoria. I just need you to replicate the drafts from the designs. For SS approval. Any aspect you do not understand can be put to Herr Klein or Herr Keller on the third floor for annotation. The designs are to be as clear as possible for a layman.’

I had prepared questions as I slept, in my dreams. Questions that an ambitious man might ask.

‘These new designs will improve the process, sir?’

His eyes now smaller through his glasses.

‘How do you mean?’

‘That Topf is superior throughout the world for crematoria. I’m sure we are improving all the while. I am honoured to be a part of such endeavour.’

Sander half-turned, hands opening and closing at his back.

‘These contracts were won on price not quality.’ He turned back to me sharply. ‘You know our closest competitor?’

‘Kori of Berlin, sir.’

‘Quite so. We beat a Berlin company because of our price and location.’

Klein lifted his hand for my attention. Spoke proudly.

‘And that when the call came we installed mobile systems into Mauthausen within a day. That is service,’ he said.

‘Mobile systems, sir?’ I had heard this word previously, jumped on it now.

‘Stock items,’ Klein said. ‘For farmers, small abattoirs and such, who do not need their own scale furnace. Petrol fired. The incinerators had broken and they needed an emergency replacement. We fulfilled where Berlin could not.’

Sander raised a finger to me and then to Klein. ‘That reminds. Herr Klein is going to Buchenwald. A site visit. Monday. It would be useful for you to attend.’

I inhaled, stalled.

‘To the prison?’

‘We are measuring for new muffles,’ Sander said as reply. ‘It would be useful for you to see our work first hand. It is important for an architect to see the fulfilment of his task. You will learn much.’

I would like to say that I feigned enthusiasm. But I was curious in that pedestrian way people stare at accidents or listen to a neighbour’s fight or as a child you try to peek a look into the butcher’s back room as he emerges when his bell rings, wiping his hands and beaming at your mother.

And this my work after all.

‘That would be most interesting, sir.’

‘Good,’ Sander nodded again. ‘Be sure to bring your identification.’