No One Sleeps in Alexandria

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I would like to thank the following friends and colleagues for help with various aspects of the translation: Evelyn Anoya, Heather Felton, and Emily Teeter (University of Chicago); John Eisele (College of William and Mary); Gregg Reynolds (Datalogics, Inc.); Neil Hewison (The American University in Cairo Press), and Zora O’Neill.

Hitler is pacing around the chancellery in Berlin, stooped slightly forward and hands clasped behind his back, in a state of deep reflection. His lips are pursed, which makes his mustache appear a little askew. His eyes are open wide with vexation, which makes them twinkle all the more. But in fact, his chest and head are about to explode. He is totally oblivious to the Chancellery guards standing at their posts and to his own bodyguards following behind him. He is wishing he could wring the Polish president’s neck.

Today is August 25, a clear day in Berlin. Hitler is thinking of old-time wars, which began as hand-to-hand combat between two commanders and ended in the defeat of one of them, whereupon he and his army surrendered to the victor. But he cannot risk that; he knows very well how small his body is — even though it is he to whom Austria simply offered herself last year like a practiced whore, even though it is he who did not hesitate to invade a well-armed Czechoslovakia and met no resistance. Only the Poles are obstinate; they don’t want to return to the Reich what the Treaty of Versailles has unjustly given them. He will not accept anything less than what Germany had lost. This is exactly the right time: twenty years have passed since his time in the hospital after almost losing his eyesight in the war, which had ended catastrophically for the German nation.

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