JК
The English Assassin :: Silva Daniel
Страница: 172 из 209What had they done to him? Eighteen hours, powerful drugs…
Peterson fell sideways and his cheek struck the cold terra-cotta floor. He retched. Nothing came up, but his nausea was intense. He was sickened by his own weakness. He felt suddenly like a rich man who gets into trouble in a poor neighborhood. All his money, all his culture and superiority-his Swissness -meant nothing now. He was beyond the protective walls of his Alpine Redoubt. He was in the hands of people who played the game by very different rules.
He heard footsteps on the staircase. A man entered, small and dark, with a quickness that suggested hidden strength. He seemed annoyed that Peterson had regained consciousness. In his hand was a silver pail. He lifted it with both hands and showered Peterson with ice-cold water.
The pain was intense, and Peterson screamed in spite of himself. The little man knelt beside him and rammed a hypodermic needle into Peterson’s thigh, so deep it seemed to strike bone, and once more Peterson slid benevolently below the surface of his lake.
WHEN Gerhardt Peterson was a boy, he had heard a story about some Jews who had come to his family’s village during the war. Now, in his drug-induced coma, he dreamed of the Jews again. According to the story, a family of Jews, two adults and three children, had crossed into Switzerland from unoccupied France. A farmer took pity on them and gave them shelter in a tiny outbuilding on his property. An officer from the cantonal police learned there were Jews hiding in the village but agreed to keep their presence a secret. But someone in the village contacted the federal police, who descended on the farm the next day and took the Jews into custody. It was the policy of the government to expel illegal immigrants back into the country from which they had made their unlawful border crossing. These Jews had crossed into Switzerland from the unoccupied south of France, but they were taken to the border of occupied France and driven into the waiting arms of a German patrol. The Jews were arrested, placed on a train to Auschwitz, and gassed.
At first, Gerhardt Peterson had refused to believe the story. In school he had been taught that Switzerland, a neutral country during the war, had opened its borders to refugees and to wounded soldiers-that it been Europe ’s Sister of Mercy, a motherly bosom in the heart of a continent in turmoil. He went to his father and asked him whether the story about the Jews was true. At first his father refused to discuss it. But when young Gerhardt persisted, his father relented. Yes, he said, the story was true.
Peterson fell sideways and his cheek struck the cold terra-cotta floor. He retched. Nothing came up, but his nausea was intense. He was sickened by his own weakness. He felt suddenly like a rich man who gets into trouble in a poor neighborhood. All his money, all his culture and superiority-his Swissness -meant nothing now. He was beyond the protective walls of his Alpine Redoubt. He was in the hands of people who played the game by very different rules.
He heard footsteps on the staircase. A man entered, small and dark, with a quickness that suggested hidden strength. He seemed annoyed that Peterson had regained consciousness. In his hand was a silver pail. He lifted it with both hands and showered Peterson with ice-cold water.
The pain was intense, and Peterson screamed in spite of himself. The little man knelt beside him and rammed a hypodermic needle into Peterson’s thigh, so deep it seemed to strike bone, and once more Peterson slid benevolently below the surface of his lake.
WHEN Gerhardt Peterson was a boy, he had heard a story about some Jews who had come to his family’s village during the war. Now, in his drug-induced coma, he dreamed of the Jews again. According to the story, a family of Jews, two adults and three children, had crossed into Switzerland from unoccupied France. A farmer took pity on them and gave them shelter in a tiny outbuilding on his property. An officer from the cantonal police learned there were Jews hiding in the village but agreed to keep their presence a secret. But someone in the village contacted the federal police, who descended on the farm the next day and took the Jews into custody. It was the policy of the government to expel illegal immigrants back into the country from which they had made their unlawful border crossing. These Jews had crossed into Switzerland from the unoccupied south of France, but they were taken to the border of occupied France and driven into the waiting arms of a German patrol. The Jews were arrested, placed on a train to Auschwitz, and gassed.
At first, Gerhardt Peterson had refused to believe the story. In school he had been taught that Switzerland, a neutral country during the war, had opened its borders to refugees and to wounded soldiers-that it been Europe ’s Sister of Mercy, a motherly bosom in the heart of a continent in turmoil. He went to his father and asked him whether the story about the Jews was true. At first his father refused to discuss it. But when young Gerhardt persisted, his father relented. Yes, he said, the story was true.