The Kindly Ones

by Jonathan Littell

A man of a certain age, in distinguished clothes with glasses and a little moustache, approached me. He was holding a very young boy in his arms. He took off his hat and addressed me in perfect German: “Herr Offizier, can I have a few words with you?”—“You speak German very well,” I replied.—“I studied in Germany,” he said with a slightly stiff dignity. “It was once a great country.” He must have been one of the professors from Leningrad. “What do you wish to say to me?” I asked curtly. The little boy, who was holding the man by the neck, was gazing at me with large blue eyes. He was about two. “I know what you are doing here,” the man said coolly. “It is an abomination. I simply want to wish that you’ll survive this war and wake up for twenty years, every night, screaming. I hope you’ll be incapable of looking at your children without seeing ours, the ones you murdered.” He turned his back on me and went away before I could reply. The boy kept staring at me over his shoulder.