An officer outside the door asked me why I had come to Dachau.
I said, “I’m trying to find out what happened to a friend.” When he asked if my friend had been an American serviceman, I replied, “One of the best.”
Later, I reflected that I’d spoken without thinking, and I’ve always had a belief that what I say spontaneously is what I truly believe.
I asked the officer, “What’s your role?”
“Back home I’m a lawyer. So I’m assisting one of the defenders here.”
The room felt damp and dark, despite the tall windows and the hot day outside, despite the spheres of lights, despite the vast and glowing American flag above the judges’ bench. Damp and dark? Maybe I was thinking of the word dank, and had confused it with the language, because all around me I heard the word danke spoken over and over; German for “thank you.” Danke: a dank room. That must be it.
“Danke,” said the prosecutor’s translator. “Danke,” said Colonel Willis Everett Jr., the appointed defense counsel. “Danke,” said a prisoner against whom the evidence didn’t stack up. “Danke,” murmured my wolf.
I looked at him again, the man I’d come to see. He looked different now from the rainy, cold morning when he terrified me, though he still had his composure. His name still puzzled me: The Germans called him “Jochen,” the Americans said “Joachim,” and sometimes not even that, because for the purposes of the trial, the number around his neck had become his name: “Forty-two.”
Did he, I challenged myself, look like a wolf? If he continued to let that beard and mustache grow he would have a trimmed oval of hair around his mouth and chin; he’d look like an Austrian doctor. I suspected that he would maintain the beard beautifully, because I could see how he kept his strong hair parted and firm, a neat man of, I could guess, significant personal discipline.
That first time I saw him, I remarked to myself on how pristine he kept his uniform despite all the mud and weather. How old was he? A year younger than I, I would learn, born 1915, aged thirty-one. Dear God! And the things he had done—or they said that he had done. No marks of torture on him, though, no matter what the chatter has been.
I must answer my own question. Did he look like a wolf? No. Would he look lupine if and when that beard grew? Maybe. He didn’t have to look like a wolf, though; I’d already seen him in action and now had my impressions vindicated by the word CRIMES on the great banner above the entrance.
124
It had taken me almost four weeks to get to Dachau, but I’d felt that it was the least I could do. The proceedings had already begun, with rows of accused men seated in such an orderly fashion that my mind began to play with the words arranged and arraigned.
Other neat ranks of chairs overflowed with members of the public. In the later weeks, they ceased to come and listen in on a matter that had happened eighteen months earlier, and many hundreds of miles north, in the Belgian countryside.
“May I make notes?” I asked my officer.
“Where are you from?” he whispered, and when I told him he said, “My mother’s from Limerick.”
He held the door open and urged me to keep edging back along the crowded passageway; he then went to his table and sat beside Willis Everett, the lawyer whose name became synonymous with an extraordinary performance of defending law. It took me long minutes to ease myself up along one side, to a point where I could look into the faces of the accused men—and, no surprise, I saw Peiper first.
When a uniformed court official called out the number forty-two, in English and German, Peiper stood up, respectful as a convent girl. Hands straight as knives by his sides, he nodded four times in response to four points being made from the bench to his interpreter. He said “Danke” each time. And then, to the bench directly, he said with impeccable pronunciation, “Thank you. I understand clearly.”
In my peripheral vision, I saw through the window the rows and rows of neat roofs in the main camp, and beyond them the barbed-wire crowns of thorns that formed the fences.
I began to make notes—and I see now that I remarked at length upon “the force of the American defending counsel” and “the focus, the intentness of Joachim Jochen Peiper Number Forty-two,” who, in a matter of shorthand minutes, became “JJPNFT” in my notebook.
After his courteous exchanges, JJPNFT was permitted to sit again. He crossed one leg over the other knee and looked around, as people do in court, searching for friends. He saw me—and after a tiny effort of recollection he recognized me, with a half-nod and a half-smile. Was there a hint of surprise too in his look? Perhaps. When he looked at me I couldn’t hold his gaze.
Later I did; indeed I looked at him without a flinch, and he with his piercing eyes, he was the one who broke the link.
When the proceedings adjourned, I waited and approached the friendly officer whose mother came from Limerick. Willis Everett had begun a deep conversation with a member of the bench.
We strolled outside, to the camp gates, and I asked, “What are you here? Are you still a soldier or are you a lawyer again?”
He laughed. “Fair question. I’m both, I guess. But you know what they say: There’s only three kinds of people in the world—good, bad, and lawyers.”
“How did you get here?” I asked him, and he told me that he had been part of a detail researching German prisoners of war east of Berlin, finding out who “qualified” (his word) to be charged with war crimes, and escorting them down here to be tried.
“Think about it,” he said. “If Hitler won, Ike and Patton and Bradley—they’d all be on trial here, or some other joint.”
He asked me why I’d come to Dachau and I told him—the entire story, in detail.
I said, “Are you still in charge of the prisoners?”
He said, with a sigh, “I will be until they’re hung.”
“What?”
He said, “That’s what the prosecution will say—that they’re criminals, that they gave up soldiers’ rights when they committed war crimes. They won’t be shot like soldiers.”
I remembered the impromptu firing squad on the streets of Saint-Omer—and didn’t know what to think.
“Could I meet one of them?” I said.
He looked at me. “Can I guess?”
I said, “Peiper.”
He smiled. “He’s the prosecution’s prize. I picked him up myself.”
“There’s a question I have to ask him.”
He said, “Let me clear it with Everett.”
I gave him some more information—Volunder and the bloodstained tunic; he told me about Peiper.
“His English is good, and he was actually one of their best commanders.”
I said, “He seemed cold.”
The officer laughed. “He’s ice on legs, but he’s smart. I got talking to him about what he did in Belgium, his campaign, the battle he fought, and he told me all about it. He damn near got through, and if he did, he’d have been on the coast of Holland before we could catch him.”
“You sound as if you like him?”
“No,” said the sergeant. “But he’s a damn interesting guy.”
“Do you think he’ll answer my question?”
125
The next day, when the bench had adjourned for the night, the officer gave me a thumbs-up from the well of the court. He then directed me to a small room off the hallway, to which he brought Peiper—who smiled, inclined his head in a not unfriendly way, and sat down.
I began, “Colonel Peiper,” but he cut in.
“Obersturmbannführer Peiper.”
I replied, “I don’t mean any offense, but I just can’t pronounce your German title.”
He began to teach me. “Ober.”
And I repeated, “Ober.”
“Shturmbann. Say ‘shturm.’ ”
I said, “Shturm.”
“Now say ‘bann.’ ”
And I said, “Bann.”
Peiper said, “Say ‘Shturmbann.’ ”
I said
, “Shturmbann.”
The young officer stepped in. “Call him Colonel.”
At the insult I saw the icicles flash in Peiper’s eyes. He sat up, rigid and aloof. A year younger than I, I thought, one year younger
“I can tell,” I said, “that you remember me.”
He inclined his head again.
“Did you personally kill Captain Charles Miller?”
Peiper shook his head.
“Did you give the order to have him killed?”
Peiper shook his head.
“But were your men responsible?”
Peiper spoke. “I was leading my men into battle. I could not see what went on behind me.”
I began to say, “But Miller—”
Peiper butted in. “You’re an intelligent man. You must know that a commander cannot see everything.”
I said, “But you set the tone, you made the rules.”
Peiper replied, “Not all soldiers obey all orders.”
I said, “Do you know what happened to Captain Miller? His wife is my dearest friend. That’s why I’m here.”
Peiper said, “I can tell you this much. We did encounter him.”
“Who’s we? Do you mean Volunder?”
He smiled. “You do not need me. You know everything.”
“Is Volunder alive? Can I reach him?”
Peiper spread his arms wide, to say, “I don’t know. And that is truth.”
I said, “That isn’t good enough.”
“Irishman,” said Peiper. “I wasn’t there. Your friend’s husband—he wasn’t tortured as I have been, he wasn’t beaten as I have been. He was a well-trained intelligence operative. That is all I know.”
I said, “Did you give orders to have him killed?”
Peiper said, “That was not my style. And he was the concern of others.”
I said, “What became of him?”
Peiper looked puzzled. “I do not understand you.”
“We’re asking you what became of an American soldier,” snapped the officer.
“We had his papers,” said Peiper. “We needed them for our decoy operation. I think they must have been destroyed in battle. So if he is found—there was no way of identifying his body.”
“Was that his tunic? With the blood?”
“Some people like taking souvenirs. But I already told you that.”
I tried again. “Did Miller come after you and fail? And did Volunder then go after Miller and succeed?”
He showed no emotion. The war had aged him—he looked like a man in his late forties, not thirty-one years of age.
“You would have to ask Volunder that.”
I realized that Peiper might have feared another war crime charge, so I changed tack.
“Please. His widow—his wife, my friend—she thinks Miller is still alive. Give me something to tell her. The war’s over.”
Peiper looked a little uncomfortable. He took his time about answering.
“He was a tough man,” he said. “Very tough. If he’d been one of mine, I’d have given him great responsibility.”
When I first met Sebastian Volunder, my skin had shrunk a little. With Peiper I felt none of that. I argued with myself as to why; I’ve bathed and shaved, I told myself. I’ve even got new clothes. I’m human again, first time in almost two years. That’s why.
And whatever his coldness, and however dreadfully he’d infringed the rules of war, Peiper felt like a soldier, and I began to make excuses for him along those lines. And then I said to myself, How tired I am from this swinging, this side-to-side movement of my allegiances; on this side for a time, then on that side; supporters of “our” armies for a time, then at least understanding “their” armies because I met “their” soldiers, and “their” ordinary, countryside people. Neutrality, or is it indecision, and worse, cowardice? I’m tired of it.
Once in a while, though not very often, and never for long, I see myself clearly, and in that particular glimpse at Dachau, I had a flash of reason and objectivity. For a second or two, I knew where I stood on everything—the war, my own loss, the woman back in New York, and her dreadful pain.
126
Now I have to tell you a horrible fact about myself. I acknowledge it as such; I will accept any epithet you launch at me, even though I am your father. If I have a defense—and perhaps I shouldn’t be allowed one—I will say that the war brutalized me.
Meeting Volunder, who was more thug than soldier, interviewing Peiper, who was more soldier than thug, associating with Killer Miller—all of that reduced my decent sensibilities, and I learned that, if given the opportunity, I could be as bad as they were. That’s all I will say in my defense.
If you want to be kind to me, add in the years of stolen and lost youth, of tender love and innocence destroyed, the savage and cynical plundering of two young people, and a vile and violent separation motivated by greed and punishment.
All of these may provide understanding of what I did when I returned from Dachau—but they do not excuse action. Yet, as I learned in war, action too often overstates motive. I know; I killed a man in the deep snow. Yes, please allow me to defend myself by saying that I was morally reduced by the war. I knew that I could cross boundaries of an unspeakable nature.
And so—have you guessed what I’m about to tell you? Have you guessed that I went back to Templebeg, to find the house with the blue door? And found Cody? Raymond Cody, the rat. The milk-faced, snotty-nosed, hand-washing rat, the accountant planted on an unknowing Venetia by her appalling grandfather, the rat who set up—or so I suspected—the plot that took Venetia away from me and, if she weren’t still alive, led to her death.
If ever you behave brutally—and I hope you never do—the emotional consequences will appall you. Observe how your ego will change as you do so. You will believe that everything around you is conspiring against you, and that therefore you have to act. In my case, I left Germany in a bate of rage—unsatisfied, unfulfilled, unsteady. Neither of the two essential loose ends in my life had been tied, and I must have needed to take it out on someone.
When I saw that Cody’s brother had painted the blue door of his house a dull white, I believed that he had done it to fool me, to make me think that the house in Templebeg had never existed or that it now belonged to others.
It worked in part. I didn’t go to the door, I didn’t knock—I observed. I watched to see whether the slobbering brother and his fool-faced wife still lived there. Parking the car several hundred yards away, I went back to my previous vantage point among the trees. I had to wait several hours—and then I struck gold. Or lead. Or sewage. Or whatever I want to call him.
You understand, don’t you, that I had no evidence to implicate Cody in Venetia’s disappearance. I had nothing to go on beyond the fact that he had disappeared at the same time and that he had been the one to tell the members of Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show the troupe was disbanded. That’s what they told me when I went to the trouble of finding each and every one of them. As the years went by, I became persuaded and then convinced of Cody’s guilt. Now at least one knot could be sealed.
Around eleven o’clock, with the sun choked by overcast, a light rain began to fall. The dull white door opened and somebody peered out. Not the brother, not the unmade bed of a wife—a different person. Moments later, clutching the collar of his raincoat to his chin, Raymond Cody emerged. Even at that distance I could tell the hooked nose, the pasty flour-and-water face. I watched—and judged that he intended to walk to the crossroads bus stop.
The rain thickened. I went to the car, turned around, drove in Cody’s footsteps, caught up with him, halted, and opened the passenger door. Remember—I know every lane in the Irish countryside. I turned my face away from the passenger side and said, “Hop in.”
“Oh thanks, thanks very much”—still the same nasal whine.
When he closed the door and again said, “Thanks very much,” I accelerated and turned my face full on to him.
&nbs
p; “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “Let me out, I can walk.”
I said, “You’re walking nowhere.”
127
Now and again on the road over the years, I’ve found myself far from a decent house at nightfall. It never felt ideal, and I knew that my own depression was causing me to damage myself in that way. It did, however, teach me where the old barns were all across the country, and ruined houses that still had portions of roof, or even old castles that could offer more than a smidgen of shelter.
In the wooded hills above Templebeg stood a derelict mansion that had once known delusions of grandeur. The roof had long fallen in, except on one tower, and I had found a way into that turret room by a staircase hidden in the ivy at the rear. Rain or no rain, I drove up the ruined old avenue, under low-hanging branches that swiped the windshield, and parked on the old terrace that had fronted the main door.
Twice en route, Cody had attempted to open the car door. The first time I reached across him and slammed it shut again. And the second time I did nothing, but said, “If you do attempt to get out, I will kill you. I will knock you unconscious and drive the car over your head multiple times.”
I took my pens, and my toolbox, which had pliers, screwdrivers, wrenches, a ball of string, and a bradawl. I pushed him up the staircase ahead of me. Nobody would ever find him in this bleak place, not for months, maybe years. Forensic science hadn’t yet advanced to a sophisticated level; even if they used dental records I’d have taken a bet that Cody had never seen a dentist in his life. He had teeth like a yellow rat, and even the front ones needed fillings.
This plan of mine had been laid over many years, and with the greatest possible care. And why not? He had conspired to destroy all that I held dear—he might even have been Venetia’s killer.
We had almost no light in that damp, ruined room. Old furniture stood there—a broken armchair, a table propped against the wall because it lacked a leg. I twisted it around, so that it leaned against the wall propped on its two good legs.
The Matchmaker of Kenmare Page 35