Fatherland by Robert Harris Page A

must have been a hundred beds, laid out in four rows. Jost had guessed correctly: it was deserted. His bed was two thirds of the way down, in the center. March sat on the coarse brown blanket and offered Jost a cigarette.
    "It's not allowed in here."
    March waved the packet at him. "Go ahead. Say I ordered you."
    Jost took it gratefully. He knelt, opened the metal locker beside the bed and began searching for something to use as an ashtray. As the door hung open, March could see inside: a pile of paperbacks, magazines, a framed photograph.
    "May I?"
    Jost shrugged. "Sure."
    March picked up the photograph. A family group, it reminded him of the picture of the Weisses. Father in an SS uniform. Shy-looking mother in a hat. Daughter: a pretty girl with blond plaits; fourteen, maybe. And Jost himself: fat cheeked and smiling, barely recognizable as the harrowed, cropped figure now kneeling on the stone barracks floor.
    Jost said, "Changed, haven't I?"
    March was shocked and tried to hide it. "Your sister?" he asked.
    "She's still at school."
    "And your father?"
    "He runs an engineering business in Dresden now. He was one of the first into Russia in '41. Hence the uniform."
    March peered closely at the stern figure. "Isn't he wearing the Knight's Cross?" It was the highest decoration for bravery.
    "Oh, yes," said Jost. "An authentic war hero." He took the photograph and replaced it in the locker. "What about your father?"
    "He was in the Imperial Navy," said March. "He was wounded in the First War. Never properly recovered."
    "How old were you when he died?"
    "Seven."
    "Do you still think about him?"
    "Every day."
    "Did you go into the navy?"
    "I was in the U-boat service."
    Jost shook his head slowly. His pale face had flushed pink. "We all follow our fathers, don't we?"
    "Most of us, maybe. Not all."
    They smoked in silence for a while. Outside, March could hear the physical training session still in progress. "One, two, three . . . One, two, three . . ."
    "These people," said Jost, and shook his head again.
    "There's a poem by Erich Kastner—'Marschliedchen.' " He closed his eyes and recited:

"You love hatred and want to measure the world against it.

You throw food to the beast in man,

That it may grow, the beast deep within you!

Let the beast in man devour man."
    The young man's sudden passion made March uncomfortable. "When was that written?"
    "1932."
    "I don't know it."
    "You wouldn't. It's banned."
    There was a silence, then March said, "We now know the identity of the body you discovered. Doctor Josef Buhler. An official of the General Government. An SS-Brigadeführer."
    "Oh, God." Jost rested his head in his hands.
    "It has become a more serious matter, you see. Before coming to you, I checked with the sentries' office at the main gate. They have a record that you left the barracks at five-thirty yesterday morning, as usual. So the times in your statement make no sense."
    Jost kept his face covered. The cigarette was burning down between his fingers. March leaned forward, took it and stubbed it out. He stood.
    "Watch," he said. Jost looked up and March began jogging on the spot.
    "This is you yesterday, right?" March made a show of exhaustion, puffing out his cheeks, wiping his brow with his forearms. Despite himself, Jost smiled, "Good," said March. He continued jogging. "Now, you're thinking about some book, or how awful your life is, when you come through the woods and onto the path by the lake. It's pissing with rain and the light's not good, but off to your left you see something . . ."
    March turned his head. Jost was watching him intently.
    "Whatever it is, it's not the body . . ."
    "But—"
    March stopped and pointed at Jost. "Don't dig yourself any deeper into the shit, is my advice. Two hours ago I went back and checked the place where the corpse was found— there's no way you could have seen it from the road."
    He resumed jogging. "So: you see something, but you don't stop. You run past. But being a