The Wind and the Rain

by Martin O'Brien

  “Shit,” I said which summed up the situation. I irrupted the taxi and ordered the driver to drive as fast as he could, and threw a large amount of pesos at him. A picture of Juan Perón had been taped on the dashboard.

  “The Israelis are chasing me,” I said. A risky phrase to say out loud but as he was a Peronist it seemed like a good call, on balance. The driver nodded but didn’t say anything as he drastically increased his speed. I stared behind and the Israelis were attempting to stay in contact.

  The taxi driver weaved in and out of traffic, horns were blaring and traffic was still heavy for nine o’clock in the evening. The nerves I felt were as bad as the night I abandoned my position at Auschwitz. The taxi driver was driving in an excellent manner, a Fangio impersonator on the streets of Buenos Aires.

  “Left on Juncal!” I shouted to the driver, much louder than I wished for. As we approached the junction he swung the wheel round and narrowly missed a passing Correo Argentino postal van. We headed onto Juncal and then I pointed to the right. The driver heeded my instruction and turned right towards Plaza Carlos Pellegrini. I looked behind and somehow the other car was right behind us. We approached the plaza and the driver brought the car around the junction turning back on ourselves.

  The Israelis saw us spin around the junction but due to their speed they were unable to adjust and the female driver lost control. The Israelis’ car pulled off the road and crashed into the side of the statue of Pellegrini. After clipping the statue the car rotated and ended up on its roof. For what seemed like the first time since entering the taxi, I took a breath. The driver then took me back home.

  I arrived back at my apartment building. I handed over a huge tip to the driver, probably equal to a month’s salary for the man and I bade him farewell. He firmly shook my hand and I exited the car. Even though I was still in danger I felt relaxed which was concerning to me. The adrenalin had run out since the initial attack followed by the chase through the streets of Buenos Aires.

  How do you build your energies up again after that? The thought of being simply shot dead on my doorstep after escaping multiple assassins via a car chase would be rather galling. The streets were relatively busy as many of the Recoleta bars were located near my apartment. I spotted the entrance to my apartment building and it was quiet. I briskly walked to the entrance and the concierge recognised me and quickly left his desk to allow me to enter. I nodded my thanks and took a ride in the lift up to the top floor where my home was situated.

  There was no one killer waiting for me at the door so I entered and checked every room. No one was lurking under the bed or in the bath so I packed my belongings I needed in a small black suitcase. My savings were safe in a bank in Switzerland and my mission was to make it there and set plans in motion for a new start in a new country. A surge of nausea struck my belly and I ran to the bathroom and hurled into the sink.

  The pain of the heave was nothing in comparison to the anguish I was feeling about my departure. I was unable to fight the tears back and within seconds I was howling. A mixture of tears and wailing. For how long was I to be punished for my past? Fifteen years of building a new life and helping people in the city and this is my reward. To be chased around my home city by a bunch of worthless Middle Eastern vermin.

  My telephone started ringing so I cleaned my mouth up and jogged back into the living room. I picked the phone up but I refrained from speaking.

  “Albert? Albert?” a voice spoke. I recognised the voice but I was too afraid to respond, “Albert, it’s Federico,”

  “Federico,” I exhaled, it was rare for him to call me Albert and not Alfonso. A sure sign of the severity of the night’s state of affairs, “Where is Miguel?”

  “He’s dead, they killed him,”

  “I’m sorry Federico, this is all due to me,”

  “Don’t talk like that. It’s the fault of the killers and nobody else. Where are you?”

  “I’m at home, I was pursued through the city by more Jews. They ended up flipping their car over. I’m leaving tonight, Federico,”

  “Leaving where?”

  “Buenos Aires. Argentina. I cannot remain here anymore,”

  “Don’t say that Albert, we can work it out,”

  “Unfortunately, young man, we can’t fight the resources that our opponents have. My time here in Argentina is drawing to a close. Can I ask a favour Federico?”

  “Of course Albert, I owe you everything,”

  “Can you drive me to Brazil?”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes,”

  Federico hung the phone up and it took a massive effort to re-start packing. In my bedroom I had a set of clothes ready for this situation so it took little time. Above my drawers was a photograph. A picture of Sebastián and I along with Federico and Miguel at the park. We are all about to go rowing together. That was a great day, one where I had no remembrance of the past, only thoughts of the future.

  It was the only photograph I took with me. The boys were my family and now Miguel had been slain. My only hope then was that Federico would not be next. For the one and only time in my life I was ready to place my body on the line to protect somebody else. At that point I would have killed every single person in South America to keep Federico safe.

  Fifteen minutes later, I looked out of my window and saw the Carabela parked outside. I could see Federico in the driver’s seat smoking a cigarette. For a moment I can’t peel my eyes away from the young man, a man whose brother had been slain an hour before. I am sure there father did not tell them the truth about where I came from, although no doubt they would have ideas about my origins. Yet they both showed unfailing loyalty to me. I loved those boys so much. I slammed my hand down on the table by the window then composed myself.

  I was dressed in a generic workman’s overalls and cap. It wasn’t much of a disguise but it could have potentially bought me a vital minute. I smudged a small amount of shoe polish above my upper lip, only a tiny dab to give me a slightly dark hue. I departed from my home carrying a suitcase and a briefcase. A decade and a half of labour and this is all I had to show for it.

  The concierge looked at me oddly as I walked past and I took my things out into the street. Federico got out of the car and helped put my belongings in the back of the car. Federico sat back in the car while I waited for a moment savouring the nighttime ambience of Recoleta. A couple of men walked past me and made eye contact. Were they Mossad? I was ready to strike back at them but they continued walking towards my apartment building. I had no idea then or now if they were neighbours or enemies.

  I was seeing everything as a threat, a souring of the most wonderful moments of my life. My time in Buenos Aires was up. I sat in the car beside Federico and we began the long drive along the route of death past Zarate, over the Puente La Balsa and then towards Concordia. It was morning by the time we crossed the border into Brazil. After a night spent at a cheap hotel in Uruguaiana, Federico drove me to Porto Alegre where with help from friends in the German community I arranged flights back to Europe and bade farewell to South America.

  Jeitinho

  Wednesday, 7 May 1986

  “On the way to Berlin I was speaking to Gunari about Nuri,” I say, the traffic jam outside Wrocław shows no sign of abating. Four lanes of traffic edging forward at a semi-glacial rate of one metre a minute. Janko maintains an impassive forward gaze.

  “What did he tell you?” Janko finally speaks after a couple of minutes and metres.

  “He told me about how you helped her and her mum. She became your new recruit. The one I replaced,”

  Janko is keeping his eyes on the car in front of us. His eyes are watering, his cheeks reddening. Janko’s face is a picture of pure sadness.

  “Do you miss her?” I say.

  “Every day, Ana. I think about her every day,” Janko is now smiling which alleviates the uncomfortable feeling in the car. The car in front creeps forward a few more metres. Janko refrains from following and he sighs.

>   “Nuri was a formidable woman.” Janko says.

  He is looking out of the driver’s side window. Whether he is watching the passing tram or thinking about some point in the past it is hard to tell, “She was in charge pretty soon after she arrived in our group. I think she had found her raison d'être with us and she thrived.”

  “The boss of you two?” I say and giggle, “I find that hard to imagine,”

  “Oh yes. Věštec died in sixty-nine following complications from pneumonia. Towards the seventies most of the Nazis has been eliminated. We spent most of our time correcting the behaviour of small town bigots all over the place. She was tremendously organised and Gunari and I learnt a lot from her in that respect.

  “She even helped recruit members for another cell of Roma, based in Northern Europe and Britain. By the late seventies we had eleven members in three groups across Europe, the most since before Napoleon’s time.

  “It was coming up to ten years since we eliminated our last Nazi. It was a decade since Nuri had sliced Luburić’s throat open in Spain. Have you heard of Otmar von Verschuer?”

  I shake my head and even though Janko isn’t looking directly at me, he understands that I have no idea who this guy is.

  “Along with Mengele, Verschuer was the big brain behind the Nazis eugenics programme. He was descended from European nobility, he had that innate sense of superiority that defines those people. I’ve seen it a lot in my time. Arrogance and entitlement - not a good combination.

  “Josef Mengele was a student of his for a time and during the war Verschuer was firmly involved in the experiments that were going on at Auschwitz. He was a strident advocate of forced sterilisation of people with mental illnesses, epilepsy, the blind and the deaf and other so-called ‘undesirables’.

  “And after the war, do you know what happened to him?” A stiff laugh comes out of Janko’s mouth.

  “No,” I reply.

  “He was fined six-hundred old Reichsmarks for his part in the war. Verschuer attempted to destroy the records of his activities. He subsequently became a professor in West Germany specialising in the study of genetics. A much more palatable title for the distinguished scientist. He was lauded everywhere for his contributions.”

  “That’s shocking,”

  “It’s true, we knew that the Israelis had been contemplating killing him for years but the Americans had dissuaded them. Ultimately, we felt we had to take action. We had received reports on his wartime work from trusted sources. It was not pleasant to speak to people who had been maimed and scarred as part of his trials.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “He had retired as a professor in nineteen sixty-five but he was still living in Münster not far from the border with the Netherlands. In all honesty he wasn’t difficult to find and spy on. One evening in sixty-nine I believe, we headed to his house. A warm summer evening, not unlike the night when we met you, Gunari tampered with his brakes and that was all it took.

  “The morning after, Verschuer sped out of his driveway on to the main road. By the time he hit the ring road his BMW raced off. We followed at a distance which was all we could do considering the speed he was going. He had virtually disappeared out of sight when we heard an almighty smash.

  “Seconds later we saw that his car had veered straight off the road on a curved incline. The car had slammed into a tree not twenty metres from the roadside. The front was horribly compressed. I couldn’t believe it. Most likely, he died on impact, no one could have survived that crash. The speed he hit the tree at must have been phenomenal.

  “We pulled over, Nuri ran to check he was dead. He was as dead as anyone would be after ploughing in to that tree. Nuri tossed a letter in the car which stated ‘600 Marks is not justice’ and threw in six one-hundred Mark notes.

  “When the story hit the media there was no mention of the note and nor was there any mention of Verschuer’s Nazi past.” Janko turns to me and shrugs.

  “How old was he?” I ask.

  “Seventy-three I believe,” Janko replies, “There is no statute of limitations for crimes against humanity,”

  Is killing old men a worthwhile exercise? It does seem as though we are picking on an easy target, even one with a dubious background. But, if you look at his old pal Tremmick, they were both behind gruesome research. And in Tremmick’s case it is still ongoing.

  Finally the traffic starts to flow and Janko parks up on a quiet side street. We walk for a few minutes until we enter a large square. Surrounding the square are beautiful tall townhouses in different pastel shades. They remind me of the cover of a book I owned as a little girl which was filled with fairy-tales.

  We take seats at one of the many cafes outside on the square. I am ravenous so I immediately start reading the menu. Although the spelling is very different to Slovenian, the Slavic root means many of the Polish words are recognisable.

  “I’d recommend pierogi, they are filled dumplings. A real speciality here.” Janko is now the resident Polish food expert.

  I saw it on the menu but I didn’t understand what the word meant. We would call them cmoki back home. I allow Janko to order for us both.

  “So you ran out of Nazis to kill? It’s like the cowboys and the buffalos,” I say. Talking is helping my stomach from rumbling too much.

  “Yes, I suppose we did. What you might label the box office targets disappeared. Nuri maybe became bored and she started to research Dr Josef Mengele after reading an article about the discovery of him living in Argentina.

  “It’s ironic when you think about it. We were on the verge of killing Tremmick, and failing. At the same time, ten kilometres away in another part of Buenos Aires, an equally vile Nazi, the Angel of Death himself was working as a carpenter,”

  “You could have knocked off two for the price of one,” I say.

  “Wouldn’t that have been something? We could have gone public for that!”

  Our food arrives, I start shovelling it down my mouth immediately while Janko picks his fork up and then puts it down again.

  “The Mossad had been struggling to find Mengele’s location after he had been deported from Argentina and moved to Paraguay. He was the most famous fugitive in the world but no one could find his new whereabouts.

  “Nuri started investigating and realised that the best chance of finding him would be if there was still a link to Europe. She found nothing from looking in to his family. Eventually, Nuri and I spent a year in Germany systematically researching everything about his life. We looked into the background of hundreds of associates, no matter how tenuous the connection.

  “Eventually, we were looking in to an agricultural company Karl Mengele & Sons, the family business based in a town in Bavaria called Günzberg. A name cropped up that rang a distant bell in my head. A man named Hans Sedlmeier who worked for the company. I racked my brain for a while but it came up with nothing. I travelled back to the house in Savoy and literally the first notebook I pulled up, I found it.

  “Sedlmeier was part of the Odessa network, in fact I had met the man on multiple occasions. A rustic, rough-spoken man. Tough as oak, and a devout Nazi who felt betrayed by Hitler’s failings. He was one of the risk takers for Odessa. He would drive some of the escaping Nazis to various ports to depart for South America.

  “I phoned up Nuri who was in Munich and I told her where to go. One evening she broke into the factory and found his office. In an unlocked draw she found sheets of documents showing payments made to a Brazilian bank, and some codes. She noted these down and brought them back to Savoy.

  “We took them to an expert in cryptography in Paris. He was a professor, a very distinguished man and he deciphered them. He was almost certain they were a set of coordinates. Further investigation showed that they were in a location near São Paulo in Brazil. We didn’t want to become too excited but we knew this was our chance.

  “The three of us caught a plane to Brazil in the New Year of seventy-nine. Our experience of air travel was
n’t much more advanced since our ill-fated trip to Argentina nearly two decades prior. However Gunari and I were ready to handle anything and with Nuri with us we felt unstoppable.

  “We flew from Madrid. It was strange leaving the winter snow of home and arriving in the heat of the Brazilian summer. The contrasts that Gunari and I experienced in Argentina compared to old Europe in nineteen-sixty were ramped up beyond belief. São Paulo reminded me of those American TV shows like Starsky and Hutch. It was beyond glamorous. There were huge skyscrapers everywhere and wide roads filled with cars. You can’t comprehend how big Brazil is. Everything was on a scale five times as big as Europe. And the women, oh my, I fell in love more times in the first day than you could count.

  “After battling through Brazilian bureaucracy and their almost non-existent public city plans we found out that the coordinates matched a suburb called Eldorado a few miles south of the city centre. Mengele was renting a house from Hunagrian friends and using the pseudonym Wolfgang Gerhard. We located the house which seemed to be surrounded by a rainforest. It was only a small, yellow wooden house,”

  “And was he there?” I finish my last mouthful of dumpling and Janko continues:

  “No, we waited outside for two days and saw no one. After that we broke in and found a letter from a couple he was friends with, the Bosserts. They had invited him on holiday to a town called Bertioga. We pulled the map out and saw it was a couple of hours away. The Bosserts had helpfully noted the address where they would be staying.

  “We drove straight there that day. Gunari was sure that he would probably be driving back past us but Nuri told him to be quiet. We arrived in the evening and spent the night at a hotel. In the morning we found the apartment they were staying at, which was located virtually on the beach.