Tuesday 17 April 2012

The Girlem

This is the first thing I ever had published. I still find it quite unpleasant.


THE GIRLEM


Extracts from a journal found in the ruins of a house in East Berlin. (Note: The journal was quite badly rain damaged and some parts are missing).

May 1st 1944

Rebecca is causing me problems again. I think the Feldwebel may suspect she is more than just my maid. I wish she wouldn’t be so obvious. She is a Jew, it is not only her life that may be in danger if they know we are lovers. I may be in danger. Having a whore you force into your bed is fine but to actually fall in love with the untermensch? In their eyes I become subhuman myself. I love Rebecca though, enough to foolishly write it in my diary.

My proud Jewess.

Today we processed a trainload of new arrivals to Birkenau. Most of them were too weak and just went straight to the chambers.


May 2nd 1944

Rebecca has brought up the idea of me marrying again. She believes if I find myself a good Nazi wife then our love can be kept secret. Ha! Can you imagine what a good Nazi wife would think of having a Jewish servant? Even worse what she would do when she found out about us, and she would. When I told Rebecca this she threw plates and shouted in her ugly Hebrew language. I don’t know how they understand each others gibberish.

Eventually she calmed down enough for me to remind her of that hellish night we spent in Berlin. Trawling through the clubs full of deviants looking for a woman who was prepared to marry me to keep her lifestyle safe. A waste of time. Hitler can’t wipe out that scum quick enough for me. One of the Fuhrers better ideas.
On a lighter note I won a hundred marks today. Oberst Schmitt set four children against one of our dogs, the dog did well but the last remaining child managed to strangle it. He was quite badly hurt but smiled when I clapped his performance, then I shot him.


May 3rd 1944

Rebecca has locked herself in the bedroom. She thinks she can sort this out with magic. Maybe I shouldn’t have laughed, magic!


Editors note: At this point the pages become waterlogged and are mostly unreadable for the next eight days.


May 12th 1944

Rebecca has brought up the issue of me finding her father again. One day I will take her to the camps and show her the conditions. Her father was an old man, he will not have survived One less of them. Though I do not think Rebecca shares my opinion.

She talked about magic again tonight, she is convinced it will work. She sat and cried at the thought of losing me and told me she could save us. I held her so hard I saw bruises when she undressed. I spent hours kissing them and we made love fiercely.

Today at the camp I supervised a burial party, even with the krematoria running constantly we can never get rid of the bodies quickly enough. It was like burying bundles of sticks. Except for the smell. It stays in your clothes.


May 13th 1944

She made me read about Rabbi Leow and his Golem today. She tells me her family are old and she has saved a copy of “The Book of Splendour”. “I have access to the Zohar” She told me excitedly and started to go into detail about how this could be done.

I could not stand the chatter and beat her until she was quiet.

Today was also my birthday.


May 14th 1944

Today the feldwebel pulled me to one side. He knows about Rebecca and I. Luckily he thinks she’s just some camp whore out to get a better food ration. He thinks she is pretty and asked if he could have her when I am finished. I nearly went for my gun, though I managed to restrain myself.

I vented my frustration on one of the old men from the digging crew. I believe he died later, what does one more death matter here?


Editors note: Again the pages are damaged and unfortunately most of the next sequence of events are lost to us.



May 30th 1944

Last night she performed her ritual, all week I have had prisoners bringing mud up to the house so she can sculpt a body for her creature. I have only seen it once but she seems to have based its form on her own. I recognised the shape of the breasts through a chink in the door. She does not want me to be party to her secrets and quickly shooed me away. I fail to see how something made of mud and straw will fool the officers above me into thinking I have a good Nazi wife. She tells me she has placed a piece of paper with the name of her Hebrew god into the figures mouth and this will give it life. To remove life we remove the paper and rub out the glyph carved onto the back of the figures head.

Rebecca says her ritual worked but will not let me see her creation. I do not believe her, I think she failed and does not want me to know.

I made the prisoners who brought the mud to the house dig a mass grave, then shot them so word of my folly could not leak out. The noise of the shots echoed through the woods and startled a deer. I may hunt it later.


May 30th 1944

It worked! I cannot believe it. When Rebecca brought it out I accused her of finding some village girl and bringing her to the house. In answer Rebecca turned the creature around and pushed back the masses of blonde hair to show me the glyph on the back of its head. We have called the creature (I cannot bring myself to refer to it as her) Helga, a good German name. Rebecca has dressed it in sharply cut clothes and made sure her make up enforces the image of the strict Nazi party matron. I must admit it looks perfect, though I find the idea of a magical creature quite unsettling.

There has been an outbreak of dysentery in the camp. The smell is appalling. We have been ordered to shoot those that are too weak rather than waste medical supplies on the untermensch. Klaus said we should use knives rather than waste bullets on “shitty Jews”, and we laughed.


May 31st 1944

I had to beat the creature today. Though it may look the part its attitude is completely wrong. It is completely innocent. Though its body is that of a full grown woman its mind is strangely childlike. It finds the strangest things fascinating, always asking questions. It annoyed me and I beat it.

I must confess that this aroused me. I find this upsetting, the creature is not human.





June 1st 1944

This morning the creature was not even bruised, I should not expect it to be of course as it is not human but it continues to unsettle me. I rowed with Rebecca as well. She accused me of finding the creature attractive and would not listen when I tried to explain I could not possibly find something inhuman attractive. She said that she was subhuman and I wanted her, she did not think it a big jump.
Eventually we made up and kissed. Helga (after we made up Rebecca insisted I call it this now to give the correct image when it is ready to be taken out) stood in a corner watching us with wide eyes.

Today one of the Jews accused another of stealing. He came to me and complained. It had been a stressful morning and I could not be bothered. I set the dogs on them both.


June 2nd 1944

Again I have had to beat “Helga”, the creature kissed me! With no preamble or smalltalk she just walked up to me and planted her lips on mine! I forget that she is not human and beatings do not have the same effect on her. The beating I gave her was strenuous enough to make me sweat but the minute I had finished she just asked me why I was angry. I could not find words to explain, the creature wanted to know why Rebecca could touch me with her lips but she could not. I beat her again though it seemed to make no mark on her. Then I walked out.
I cannot deny that the kiss aroused certain “appetites” within me. This made me feel nauseous.


June 3rd 1944

I cannot stand to be in the same room as “Helga”. I tell Rebecca that this is because the creature is unnatural and she cries because she believes this is the only way we can be together. In truth it is because the creature both repulses and attracts me. There is something very arousing about her innocence. It is not right for a good German soldier to feel this way about something unnatural.
I beat a prisoner to death today for no more than glancing at me. It relieved some of my tension.


June 4th 1944

I cannot write. I am too drunk.



Editors note: The entries over the next five days are mostly written in handwriting that is completely illegible. Rather than guess at the Authors intentions I have rejoined the journal when the handwriting becomes readable again.


June 10th 1944

I went to the creatures bed. I quietly left Rebecca’s side in the night and went into Helga’s room like a thief. When I started to touch her she responded the way she does to all new things. With enthusiasm but little skill. I cannot claim much skill myself, the episode was over very quickly and I swore Helga to silence then immediately left the room and returned to Rebecca.

I am also suspended from duty. I was taking pot shots at a work party from one of my upstairs windows. This in itself would not be a problem but when they came to investigate I was drunk. I have been rather confused lately.


June 11th 1944

Again I have visited the creature in its bed. It is like a drug, the mixture of repulsion, secrecy and desire drives me to further heights of pleasure than I have ever felt. Today while Rebecca was out I took an iron bar to “Helga”. As I beat her she dragged down my trousers and I ended up taking her on the floor there. I was eaten up by desire. Afterwards I continued the beating and she sobbed and asked what was wrong with her. I explained that that she was not like us. Though she feels like any woman I have had, she is not like them. I took the time to explain how pure my blood is, how Germans are humanity in perfection and she is just a thing made of mud, she does not even bleed.

She cried, I did not feel pity as she is not human.

Even though I am still off duty I went down to the camp and joined Klaus in beating one of the Jews it eased the tension I felt.


June 12th 1944

Helga tried to pull me aside and have me take her on her own terms. Of course this is unacceptable, she is little more than a slave. I picked up the iron bar but when I swung it at her she caught it in her hand. She did not even register effort, then she told me she did not like it when I hit her. She tried to touch me but all my passion was gone, she had made me feel like I was less than a man.
When Rebecca returned from the village I broke two of her ribs in frustration. She will be confined to bed for a number of days.


June 13th 1944

I am drunk again. To get drunk was the only way I could write this down. When I returned from a morning spent assisting Klaus in the beating of prisoners who had transgressed in some way or another, Helga was waiting for me. She had obviously learnt from yesterdays actions as she stood back with a smile on her innocent , open, face. I felt lust almost straightaway and was glad that I had not been completely unmanned by her actions of the previous day. She lifted her dress to show me her stomach. It was marred by a great slash from which dark blood oozed.
“Look, now I bleed like you wanted me to.” She said. I walked past her into the bedroom. Rebecca had been gutted. Lying on the bed, her ribs spread apart and blood pooling on the floor beneath her.

I could hear Helga telling me that she knew how much I hated Rebecca’s people so she had used Rebecca to make herself perfect for me. She thought it would please me.

I kissed Helga hard, I used my tongue to find the small piece of paper in her mouth and manoeuvre it into my own. When I withdrew the kiss Helga looked at me in shock. Confusion in those deep blue eyes. I rubbed hard on the glyph behind her ear and watched in amazement as her skin turned into hard, baked, clay.
Now as I sit here drinking slivovitz, I watch the smoke belch from Birkenau’s vast Krematoria as the bodies of the untermensch burn. I feel safer in the knowledge that there are no longer any monsters here.

2 comments:

  1. Jesus* that was painful to read...and yet I couldn't stop.



    *See what I did there?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I feel like I should thank you, and apologise...

    ReplyDelete