It was too warm in here, too wearisome to lie.

"They were only Jews. I keep telling you."

A man among the spectators, an official of some sort with a peaked cap, broke down, and his sobs were embarrassing; an usher led him out. It was common enough.

The good-looking girl in the black Russian hat watched him go. She never looked in my direction so that I couldn't see her expression. She stared mostly at the accused, with her pale face.

The voices droned.

"… But I was given full and legal power, absolute power to treat these prisoners as I thought right!"

"And you thought it right to mutilate the body of this ten-year-old boy with every instrument of torture known to man, for the amusement of your friends?"

"For their instruction! They were not my friends, they were my junior officers, some of them just out of training college! They had to be hardened, and I had explicit orders to harden them!"

A woman was moaning, rocking on the bench, moaning with anger, her teeth chattering, staring at the accused. She was led from the court on the judge's instruction. I had not ever seen, in six months, a woman sob. It was always the men. The women moaned or cried out in their anger.

"… It was ordered me by Standartenfuhrer Goetz!"

"He is not here to confirm that."

He was still in Argentina, where the Bonn Ministry Justice had asked for his extradition. He was also in my memory, out of the burned memorandum. Goetz, the goitre.

"… And all the time you were on these 'administrative duties', Herr Stroebling, you say you did not know of any deaths taking place among your prisoners?" A fingernail now bitten to the quick. "A few. I knew of a few."