A Small Death in lisbon by Robert Wilson

hands up over his head, confused by the sudden noise. At the edge of the enormous flat expanse of snow-covered ground a figure stood at ease. Felsen nosed forward, eyes creased shut. The figure, grey and indiscernible, didn't move. Felsen flinched at a noise behind him, the sound of sharp metal slicing through snow. He whipped round. There were three men in black SS greatcoats and helmets. The hems of their coats rested on the surface of the snow. One carried a wooden club, the next a spade which he swung in an arc, the blade singing against the crystalline snow. The third held a metre length of steel cable, frayed at the end. Felsen looked back to the figure, as if he might help. The figure had gone. He got to his feet. The men were eyeless beneath their helmets. Felsen's legs were shaking.
    'Sachsengruss
,' said the guard with the club.
    Felsen put his hands on his head and began doing knee-bends. The Saxon Greeting. They kept him at it for an hour. Then they told him to stand to attention for an hour, until his body was shaking with cold and his ears full of the swish from the cable, the slicing of the spade, the tamping of the wooden club. The guards trod a circle around him.
    They removed his handcuffs. The spade flew through the air at him. He caught it in fingers which he expected to shatter like porcelain.
    'Dig a path to the building.'
    They walked behind him over the vast area as he dug hundreds of metres of paths. Tears streamed down his face, the snot ran in freezing rivulets from his nose, the steam poured off him thick as bull's breath. It began to snow. They told him to reclear the paths he'd already made.
    They worked him for six hours until it was completely dark, no light coming from the blacked-out buildings. They faced him out into the darkness and gave him another hour's
Sachsengruss
while they told him how he was going to have to clear it all again tomorrow. In the last ten minutes he dropped to the floor twice and they kicked him back up on to his feet. He was glad to be kicked. He knew something from the kicking. He knew they weren't going to beat him to death with the club, cable and spade.
    They stood him to attention after that until a thin reed of music came floating through the pitch black. They told him to march into the building. He fell over. They dragged him backwards inside. His feet trailed damp lines over the polished floors.
    The warmth of the building seemed to unfreeze his mind and tears poured out of his head, water leaked out of his nose and ears. The music grew louder. He knew it. Mozart. It had to be. All those notes. Voices and laughter came over the music. A familiar smell. The guards' boots rolled over the polished floors. Felsen's feet came back to a life of pain but he was grinning. He was grinning because he knew now what he'd suspected before out in the snow—he wasn't in Sachsenhausen.
    They arrived in a room with chairs and carpets, newspapers and ashtrays—unimaginable civilization after Prinz Albrechtstrasse. They stopped. The guards got him standing. One of them knocked and they took him backwards into the room. A girl giggled. The talking subsided, only the music remained.
    'Does the prisoner like this music?' asked a voice.
    Felsen swallowed hard. His legs trembled. His humiliation stiffened his neck.
    'I don't know whether I should like it, sir.'
    'You have no opinion?'
    'No, sir.'
    'This is Mozart.
Don Giovanni.
This has been banned by the Party. Do you know why?'
    'No, sir.'
    'The libretto was written by a Jew.'
    The music was cut.
    'Now what did you think of the music?'
    'I didn't like it, sir.'
    'Why are you here?'
    'I've been sent back to school, sir.'
    Felsen's feet throbbed in his ruined shoes, the blood thumping through them.
    'Why are you here?' asked a different voice.
    He thought for a long minute.
    'Because I'm lucky at cards, sir,' he said, which screwed the tension down in the room so that the girl tittered. 'Sorry sir, because I
cheat
at cards,