by Joseph Kanon
“That’s what Max said. That’s why he faked—”
“And then Max sees him. Ha, a resurrection. It’s a great story.” He turned off the main road. “If he shows.”
The elaborate gates of Friedhof Ohlsdorf opened onto a gravel courtyard and a formal Wilhelmine mansion.
“I’ll find out where the service is,” Fritz said, opening his door.
Aaron watched him scurry up the broad steps. Could they really have built this just for the cemetery, or had it been some prince’s house, the park behind once filled with deer. No rows of crosses, but wide swatches of green, the graves discreetly clustered behind hills, landscaped, statues and monuments and old trees, a place for people to walk on Sundays. Fritz came back carrying a map.
“It’s this one,” he said, pointing to a chapel symbol on the map. “Keep it open. It’s easy to get lost.” He put the car in gear again. “You know, before, when you said, do we grab him? You have to keep in mind that he’s not going to allow that. Are you—can you handle something like this?”
“We can’t just let him go. They have security guards here?”
“I’ll talk to the undertaker. Of course, if he doesn’t come, then I’m a fool. And no story either.”
“See who else comes. Maybe a story there too.”
Fritz shook his head. “Doctors. From the nursing home. Well, the Klapsmühle—what’s the English? Loony bin. That’s where she’s been.”
Aaron looked at him. “The things you know.”
“Gretchen, my secretary.”
They followed the winding road to the northern edge of the grounds and parked near a few other cars down from the chapel.
“You go in,” Fritz said. “Somewhere in the back, yes? Dressed like this.” He smoothed his jacket. “I’ll go see the undertaker. Find out where the grave is.”
Inside, a string trio was playing Bach. The chapel was simple and nondenominational, rows of chairs facing a lectern and the customary German sprays of flowers, large wreaths with satin ribbons, even one of the tall horseshoe arrangements you saw in old movies, this one marked Schwester. Aaron took a program from the attendant and found a seat near the back, away from the small group of mourners but still part of the assembly. No one turned, curious. Behind him he could see Fritz huddling with the funeral director, both looking over the room, like headwaiters counting the house.
There weren’t many. A half row of people Aaron took to be staff, nurses and aides, dressed for a formal occasion, admiring the flowers. A blonde woman down front, Dresden doll pale, shuffling notepaper, maybe the eulogy, a younger woman next to her, late twenties and also blonde, possibly her daughter. A few scattered others, so random they might have been people who wandered in off the street. No Schramm. No one standing in the back or in the side shadows. No one strolling outside. No one in tears either, except for an old woman in a heavy coat, sobbing quietly, a maid or maybe the old nanny.
The trio changed to Mendelssohn. And just then, for a second, the younger woman turned, not far enough to look back at him, but enough to make half her face visible so that Aaron suddenly took her in. A dark, tailored suit, expensive, hair pulled up off her neck in a bun, every strand perfectly in place, the brooch, the pearls, the makeup, everything put together, shoulders back as if she were being held in place by a coat of armor. Except her neck, catching the light in a white flash, thin, a girl’s neck, the one part of her that seemed exposed. There was something of Claire in the way she lifted her head. He leaned forward to see her better, then stopped, embarrassed. The old cliché, the second wife who looked like the first, men attracted to the same woman, over and over.
But why so tense? When she turned, the skin on her neck tightened, all her movements alert, the way a bird’s head responds to every sound, aware. She turned to the front again as the older blonde patted her hand, but sat stiffly, uncomfortable, a woman who didn’t really want to be here.
Fritz slid into the seat next to Aaron and followed his gaze. “American,” he whispered. “A Mrs. Crane.”
Aaron raised his eyebrows, miming, Who?
Fritz shrugged. “That’s how she signed the book.” He pointed to the map. “The grave,” he whispered. “They buried her this morning. No graveside service, just this. By request.” He tipped his head toward the funeral director. “He says nobody’s been around. Either place.”
The music stopped.
“He could be there right now,” Aaron whispered. “While we’re all here.”
Fritz shook his head. “There’s another funeral. Nearby. He wouldn’t risk it. A crowd. So, later. Unless he comes here.” He glanced around the room again.
“One of us should go,” Aaron said. “Just in case.”
Fritz looked at him, then gave up and nodded. “I’ll take the camera. Max said he’d go to the grave.” Talking himself into it.
Without the music, the room had gone silent, expectant. Aaron looked down at the program. Beate Lessing. Finally the older blonde woman stood and went to the lectern. The younger woman was facing straight ahead, getting through it.
“Good morning. We are here to honor the life of Dorothee Maria Lessing. Most of you knew her only these last years. When you cared for her. Made her comfortable. Made her life possible. But I want to talk to you about Doro, the girl she was before—before she wasn’t herself. Before all the bad things happened, before the war. What a happy person she was.”
The old woman who had been sobbing nodded her head at this.
Aaron shifted in his seat. And why shouldn’t she have been happy? He could see the life Beate was now describing. The big house in Munich, with its heavy Sunday dinners, a sideboard gleaming with silver. Maids to polish it. Parties. Trips to the mountains in the summer. The lake house. More parties, showing off her new dress.
Around the room, the others had begun to nod too, the prewar dream they’d agreed on, not the smashed shopwindows and roundups.
Meanwhile, in Munich, Doro was in love with life, always ready to laugh. And one night she must have met Otto. Still a medical student or now in his SS uniform? The straight military jaw, the easy manner. How had they actually met? Aaron wondered. One of her parties? But of course they didn’t meet, not in Beate’s memory. No Otto, no marriage, just her sister as she was before the bad things happened.
How much had she known? Enough to drive her mad? Had he told her about the experiments? Or just anecdotes about colleagues in the East, war stories, like everybody else. And then climb into bed, a husband, not a monster. But she’d divorced him. Because she knew? Or some simpler, more ordinary unhappiness?
“Sometimes I think,” Beate was saying, “that she was another victim of the war. Not in the air raids. Those she survived. But the rest—it changed her. Her spirit was too fragile, maybe too fine to survive all the bad things.”
There they were again, the bad things. If Otto hadn’t told her, she would have heard the stories after. Not just rumors, but in newspapers, on the radio, the reports of the trials, the testimony. Had she believed them? Or was Otto still the man she’d met at a Munich party, Poland some grim war duty no one talked about. But she’d divorced him.
“When she moved to Hamburg, to start a new life, it was already too late. The sickness was in her. War damage. Still, you remember, always a kind word for everybody. Even at the end. Still Doro.”
She stopped, upset, then gripped the lectern more tightly and went on. Doro’s gentle nature. Her love of animals. Aaron looked at the program again. No other speakers. Just a benediction from Pastor Muller. Behind him, a door opened. He swiveled, a reflex. Not Schramm, a white collar, glasses, probably the pastor, holding the door to close it quietly. Then, having managed the door without a sound, he tripped on a chair leg, dragging it, a loud scraping noise and a clatter that startled the room. Beate stopped, people turned to look. And Aaron saw her face. A sudden prickling sensation in his scalp. The same high cheekbones, softer, not as chiseled, but the same. The high forehead. The face in the
SS photo. There had been a child. Aaron looked away, as if not meeting her eyes would make him invisible, another piece of furniture, and when he looked back, it seemed to have worked. She was already facing Beate again, the hapless pastor now working his way down the aisle. The same cheekbones. He felt short of breath, taken by surprise. Not Beate’s daughter. Doro’s. Otto’s. A Mrs. Crane. Who didn’t want to be here.
The benediction was general and impersonal—Muller clearly had never known her—and Aaron left before it was over, hunching down as he crept out, careful with the door. In a crowd this small you’d be expected to pay Beate your respects and explain your presence and what would he say? He turned right outside the chapel, heading to the spot Fritz had pointed out on the map. Did she know? Or was he dead to her too? Not even mentioned in the eulogy, erased. And not here.
Fritz was standing with a group of mourners at an open grave not far from Doro’s. The coffin had already been lowered and the crowd was breaking up, drifting down the slope toward the road. Aaron stopped by a tall plinth with a limestone angel hovering over it, an elaborate monument in a field of simple markers. He looked around, a quick survey. Two of the mourners getting into cars. Cemetery workers busy at another grave. An old couple with a dog, out for a walk. The hill was banked with shrubbery but otherwise open. Impossible to visit her grave and not be seen. Fritz came over, fiddling with the camera case.
“So what do we do?” Aaron said. “Walk around? He won’t show himself if he thinks we’re—”
“Just sit for a while,” he said, dropping down on a bench. “People use it as a park. Anything happen inside?”
Aaron shook his head. Why not tell him about the daughter? But not yet.
Fritz lit a cigarette, eyes fixed on the grave downslope. Some rhododendrons behind them, a tree to one side, a clear vantage point.
“You know, this could be a great thing for Max. A big one like Schramm.” Fritz patted the camera case. “Then there’s only Mengele.”
And all the others, Aaron thought. Thousands. How many had it taken, all working together? Enjoying a smoke break.
Some new mourners had begun to arrive, leaving their cars and following a casket up to its grave. Another delay, the slope filling with people again. Why hadn’t she spoken at the service? Her own mother. But she was here as Mrs. Crane. American. And maybe she was. Everyone in the family had become someone else. Otto and Doro, now her. They had become other people. Not like Herschel, becoming Henry Wiley to fit in. They’d become other people to escape.
“Not so many for this one,” Fritz said, looking toward the new funeral.
A woman in a veil, leaning on someone’s arm, men standing by the grave, holding hats, the scene from before, repeated, this time a minister in a surplice, heads bowed. Except at the back of the group, where two men were stepping away, hats still on. What was the etiquette here? The others had removed theirs. Aaron watched them back away and head slowly down the slope, not together, one following the other, the man in front making his way carefully, an old man’s walk. And then, as the hill flattened out, he picked up the pace, arm beginning to swing, out for a stroll. Aaron sat up. The walk unmistakable, just as Max had said, as good as a photograph.
“It’s him,” he said quietly, as if Otto could overhear them.
Now Fritz sat up too. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” Aaron said, suddenly Max. “It’s him.”
The two men had stopped at Doro’s grave, one standing a few steps behind the other, both of them now taking off their hats. Otto. He lowered his head slightly, a formal paying of respects, and stared at the grave. Thinking what? How long since he’d seen her? Locked away for years. As Lessing, not Schramm, even his name no longer part of her life.
Fritz began to get up. “Slowly,” he said. “We don’t want to spook him.” He eased the camera bag over his shoulder. “Head for the funeral.”
Down the hill Otto was still standing at the grave, the other man looking to his side, keeping watch.
“Who’s that, the bodyguard?”
They were walking toward the service, not too fast, moving figures in the landscape.
“Remember, we just want to get a picture. Something to go to the police with. No heroics.”
They had reached the funeral service now, and Fritz took out his camera, snapping a picture. The minister looked up, annoyed. Down the slope, the guard turned his head at the click. Fritz took another picture.
“So they won’t think anything of it,” Fritz mumbled to Aaron. “A guy with a camera.”
They began to move down, Fritz fiddling with the camera, absorbed, as if he hadn’t noticed Otto and his friend.
“The light’s good, but we’ll have to get it fast. We need his face and he’s not going to stick around and pose. They’ll run for the cars. If we get a plate number— Here we go. Watch the other guy.” Barely whispering, close enough now to be heard. They were almost at Doro’s grave, heading toward the parked cars, the logical route down from the funeral.
The other man looked up as they were about to pass, but Otto stayed fixed, staring at the grave, his back to them. Impossible to stop and wait for him to turn. The element of surprise. Now.
“Otto,” Fritz said, raising the camera.
Schramm whirled around in place, startled, then heard the click. Another. Eyes frozen in surprise, but only for a second, then he ducked, away from the camera, and started running. Another click, then a shout from the bodyguard, leaping on Fritz, fast as a snapshot, everything a blur, then a crunching sound, Fritz groaning as he went down, the bodyguard grabbing the camera and smashing it against the headstone, ripping out film.
“Hey!” An involuntary yelp, Aaron still trying to catch up, everything too fast.
The bodyguard reared back, as if he hadn’t known Aaron was there, then shot a fist forward, catching him in the nose. A stunned throbbing pain, blood spurting. Aaron looked up in disbelief. The surprise of it, the panic of not knowing what to do. He put his hand to his face. Was his nose broken? No time. The guard had turned back to Fritz, his real victim, and was kicking him, so hard that you could actually hear the crunch of bones breaking, Fritz screaming. Violence that had its own momentum, past the point now of protecting Otto or destroying the film, vicious, taking pleasure in it, the way SA thugs had kicked people in the street, not just to hurt them but to feel their own wild power. Aaron watched, stunned. People had started running down the hill from the funeral. Shouts. A few of them just standing, trying to take it in. Something they’d seen years ago, the old nightmare. Still here, not wished away at some trial.
“Stop it!” Aaron yelled, lunging for the guard and then suddenly flung to the ground, not even aware of being thrown, hitting face-first, his nose throbbing again.
The guard picked up the broken camera and threw it at Fritz, a flash of contempt, and then started running, ahead of the crowd coming down the hill. Fritz made a gasping sound.
“The plate. The license plate.”
Aaron managed to get on one knee, then pushed the rest of his body up, swaying for a minute as he got his balance, pain shooting across his face. He staggered, another step, then found his footing, a colt, and started to run after the guard. Another pain on his side, where he’d fallen. He heard voices behind him, the startled funeral party. Ahead the bodyguard was moving fast, catching up to Otto, both of them too far now, getting into a car. Even part of a plate number would help. But they were gone. Aaron saw the car pull out and then disappear down the winding road. He stopped, shaking, the sight of Fritz being kicked still in his head. And now Otto was still dead, out of reach, and Max had nothing, not even a piece of film. Except Aaron knew. Not just the walk, but the way his head had snapped around when Gruber said “Otto,” the look on his face. Someone knew.
4
NATHAN WAS RIGHT ON time, coming up to Aaron just as clerks and secretaries were spilling out of Chilehaus. In the early dark the redbrick building looked like something out of an Expressioni
st film, all angles and shadows and a high ship prow corner. The only light in the street came from the office windows, so at first Aaron couldn’t see his face, just the shine of his head, the hair cut so closely that he might as well have been bald. Not tall but broad-shouldered, fit. An able-bodied seaman look, even a dark peacoat.
“We can walk this way,” he said, steering them away from the crowd and down toward the old warehouse docks, looking over his shoulder as they crossed the street, as if they were being followed, maybe the way he always walked. “What’s wrong with Max? He didn’t say.”
“His heart.”
“It’s serious?”
Aaron nodded.
“And that’s why you’re here? Compassionate leave.” A knowing inflection, making a point. “I didn’t think you had such things at the Agency.”
Aaron looked over at him.
“I like to know who I’m dealing with.”
“And?”
“A desk man. Agency training but no field experience. Excellent performance reviews. Not a troublemaker.”
“What else? Am I a dossier yet or just a phone call?”
“I like to know, that’s all.” They were at the Zollkanal, a brick warehouse looming opposite, dark. No ships in the canal, gone now to the deep water on the other side of the Elbe. “When you deal with the Agency—”
“You’re not dealing with the Agency. I’m here for Max.”
“All right,” Nathan said, letting it go. “So what’s so important he couldn’t tell me on the phone?”