Alphabet House by Jussi Adler-Olsen

embarrassment and snatched a blanket, not caring whether it lay at the top of the heap or the bottom.
    The rest of the men stayed where they were. Dazed. Their minds clouded over.
     
     
    Bryan lay there for several hours. The monotonous rhythm of chattering teeth grew louder as the men grew colder. The nurses sat nodding, stealing some sleep on the stools at the far end of the room.
    In the feeble light Bryan could scarcely tell James’ huddled body from all the others. Then he saw a corner of Jill’s scarf sticking out from under the mattress.
For God’s sake, leave it there!
he begged silently. Suddenly, James shot up in bed and rushed towards the pails. For a few seconds one of them resounded hollowly.
    The act itself lasted only a moment, but the reverberations of his upset stomach and chills kept James frozen in his awkward position for some time. Then he snorted in exasperation and fumbled around the buckets without finding paper to dry himself.
    Without any further hygienic considerations James rushed over to the trolley, seized a blanket and ran nimbly back to his mattress.
Why didn’t you bring me a blanket, idiot?
Bryan thought. Glancing over at the dozing, uniformed women beside the end wall, he considered following suit.
    But he didn’t.
     
     
    Later that night the outside door opened with a crash, immediately followed by a blinding light as the ceiling lights wereswitched on. Bryan lay motionless. Without hesitation the SS soldiers went straight over to two men who lay huddled in their blankets. They bent over them, found their case notes and tore off a corner of the front page.
    One of the men thus branded lay beside James. The bundle of rags lying on top of him was James’ blanket. Bryan doubted whether he himself could have been so cunning.
    James had deliberately fished only one blanket out of the pile.

Chapter 7
     
     
    The night inspection had woken the whole room. Even though by then most of them had been dressed in nightshirts and the blankets had at long last been distributed, the moaning increased hour by hour. The effect of the medicine was wearing off.
    More and more of them tried to shut out their surroundings with rocking movements, awkward contortions and blank expressions. Bryan had never seen anything like it. For his own part, he lay quite still.
    Some men he hadn’t seen before switched on the lights and cursorily inspected the crowd of bodies on the floor. One of them was wearing a black, ankle-length coat, buttoned to the neck. When he stamped on the floor everyone looked up. He rapped out an order and a couple of the patients reluctantly got up and tugged at their neighbours’ nightshirts until they, too, rose to their feet. Finally only six or seven men remained lying down.
    Accompanied by a couple of orderlies, the man in the coat asked one of the recumbent patients a question and didn’t receive a reply. He signalled to his assistants to take hold of the patient under the arms and force him into a standing position. When they let go of him again, he collapsed like a rag doll and struck his neck on the floor between the mattresses with an impotent smack that made Bryan gasp. The nurses glanced up at the officer as they knelt down to help the unconscious man back onto his bed, but he was already striding straight over to Bryan.
    When Bryan stared into the pale face that was inspecting him, he chose to get to his feet.
    The swaying movements and slight trembling at the knees were genuine enough, since he hadn’t stood up for several days. The blood rushed from his brain and made him dizzy. When they let go of him, however, he remained standing. James was the only one of the seven to follow his example.
    During the smarting, painful delousing that followed, Bryan tried to move closer to James, but the women continually slapped their rubber gloves against their rubber aprons, making sure the patients were in constant movement.
    James stood in a queue alongside a grubby tiled