by Richard Wake
I kept thinking about his hypothetical partner as I droned on from memory. The microfilm was in a small envelope. It was stuck amid about 200 pages of contracts and delivery schedules in the one briefcase. I started the trip with about 500 pages in each but was down to about 200 in each. Maybe I should put all 400 in one case and leave the other one empty. I always balanced them off for, well, balance when I walked with them, but maybe combining made sense. I didn't know.
I was about done with the five minutes. Almost everybody I had ever subjected to this long explanation had thought up an excuse to leave before I got to the part about the difference between light burnt and dead burnt, and which works best in a furnace, but Vogl was still hanging in. I didn't have much left. So I went where I always went -- getting the other guy to talk about himself. But, really, how many people make conversation with a Gestapo agent by asking, "So, are you from here? Married? Children?" Well, I did.
Vogl was from Koblenz, as it turned out. He had a wife and a 5-year-old daughter. He liked chess. As he talked, though, he suddenly became distracted again. I looked over his shoulder, toward the elevator, and saw the door closing and someone with a dark trench coach walking toward the hotel exit. The partner? Could be. But Vogl's back was to the elevator when the guy got off, so whatever was distracting him wasn't that. Then, for whatever reason, Vogl stood and made his excuses and left.
I was pretty sure I was physically slumping in my chair as I watched Vogl leave through the hotel's front door. I looked over my shoulder to see what might have distracted Vogl. There was nothing there, except for the enormous mirror that gave him a view of the entire lobby, including the elevator doors.
19
Up the elevator and down the hall, I kept telling myself that they would have grabbed me on the spot if somebody had searched my room and found the microfilm. I couldn't assume they had found anything. I couldn't assume they even searched the room. What did a black trench coat even mean? I mean, come on -- I owned a black trench coat.
I opened the door and took a small step inside, almost on tiptoe. The light was on. Did I leave the light on? I couldn't remember. I did turn on the desk lamp when I was typing, but the overhead light? I just didn't remember.
I closed the door and scanned the room, still hesitant to take a step. My typing was in a pile on top of the typewriter, where I left it. Looking into the bathroom -- no light on in there -- my shaving kit was packed up and on the sink where I left it. My suitcase was open on the rack at the foot of the bed, re-packed. The two briefcases were on the bed, both unlocked and unlatched, both open. Check.
The briefcases were all I was worried about, specifically the one with the small bit of green ribbon on the handle. That was for the last client on the trip, the other one for the first, or first and second clients. I riffled through the papers, looking for the small envelope containing the microfilm. I didn't see it. I took out the stack of paper, riffled again, and the envelope fell out on the bed. It was still sealed.
I put it all back into the briefcase and exhaled for the first time. My Czech contact, whose name I still didn't know, had warned me, "There's a fine line, just a filament, between awareness and paranoia -- try not to cross it. Be aware. Don't be paranoid." It was good advice. Of course, it was easy for him to say. I was the one who just received a hearty hidey-ho from the Gestapo.
The fact that I couldn't find the envelope when I was specifically looking for it told me that I had nothing to worry about. At the same time, though, I had whined enough before I left that my contact gave me a way to hide it even better.
When I got to the station it was after midnight, but the place was far from sleepy -- not bustling, not precisely, but the cafe was open, and the newsagent, and the wine store. That was my stop, after dropping my bags with the porter and hanging on to the one briefcase with the green ribbon. I had practiced the line, over and over, and delivered it flawlessly, if I do say so myself. I walked into the empty shop, and the man behind the counter acknowledged me with a nod, and I said, "I'm looking for a nice German wine for my Slovak father."
I felt like winking, to make sure he got it. I settled for earnest eye contact. But there was not a hint of acknowledgment on his part, just a quick search of the shelves behind the counter, the grabbing of a bottle that he then presented to me.
"You must try this Reisling from Rudesheim. It is one of our best."
That was the recognition code. Hot damn. I really was a spy.
The Orient Express arrived exactly on time, naturally. About a dozen people boarded with me. It always gave me a thrill, that train, and it did that night, too. The feeling was more of elegance than opulence, of old money and hushed conversations to which I would never be privy, but which I could pretend to be understanding as I caught small snippets as I passed by. There were plenty of people on the train like me -- businessmen with healthy expense accounts -- and the truth was, those were the people I tended to end up talking to. We all seemed to gravitate to each other as if the practice of commerce provided us with a magnetic sheen that drew us together. But it was the rest of them -- the old couple that had the look of faded royalty, silently eating a late snack; the two swarthy 30-year-olds in ill-fitting suits, maybe Italians, maybe Turks -- that stuck in the imagination.
When I got to the compartment, I fished into the briefcase for the envelope and then, taking the wine bottle, fiddled with the cork until the secret compartment revealed itself. I took the tiny strips of film -- two of them -- out of the envelope, doing my best not to smudge them with fingerprints, and inserted them into the void, then replaced the loose bit of cork and jammed it back in with my thumb. Even if it fell out, there really wasn't anything to see. Then I burned the envelope in the little metal sink in the compartment, as instructed, put the bottle in the other briefcase, and went for a drink in the dining car to calm myself down.
I didn't feel like talking to anyone, and I didn't. Sleep came easier than I thought it would. Breakfast was breakfast, although even the coffee on the Orient Express tastes better. The border crossing into Austria was at Passau. We would get there around 11 am. For years, the train would stop and the German border agents -- there were always two of them -- would knock on the door of the compartment, check the passport, ask if there was luggage. I would point to it, they would nod, the passport would be stamped, and that would be it. They would get finished, the train would run for about 5 minutes, and Austrian border agents would get on and repeat the process.
But for at least the last two years, everybody and their luggage had to get off at Passau, walk up to two German border guards sitting at a table, and go through the same process. The inspections were just as cursory, performed by inspectors who looked just as bored, and the stamps in the passports looked just the same. Other than taking three times as long and being a boon to the waiting porters on the platform, who worked for tips, it seemed like a complete waste of time. Of course, this would be the first time I ever came across the border armed with a wine bottle fortified with what I presumed were German military secrets, so there was that.
It was, as always: a line of passengers, and luggage, and porters, shuffling up to the table. Greeting, what was the purpose of your visit, anything to declare, glance at the bags, nod, stamp, next.
"Guten tag. What was the purpose of your visit?"
"Business appointments in Nuremberg, Frankfurt, and Cologne."
The truth was, this guy had not been listening to anyone in the line ahead of me, but he suddenly really wasn't listening to me. He was on his feet, walking away from the table, back over near the platform. He had my passport in his hand, open to my picture. He consulted with another guy who was holding a clipboard. The guy looked at the passport then down at his list of names. He nodded.
My guy returned and handed me the passport. "Herr Kovacs, to my colleagues, please. It is just routine -- and have the porter bring your luggage."
He pointed over to his right, about 100 feet away. A doorway to a ro
om, a man standing at attention, armed with a machine pistol. The black uniform was unmistakable. He did not look bored. I did my best to affect a shrug and a smile as I began to walk over. Glancing over my shoulder to make sure he was following, the porter suddenly looked worried, probably about his tip.
20
The Aryan specimen opened the door as I approached, standing at attention again just inside. "Come in, with the luggage," he said.
I was first, holding the briefcase with the wine bottle. The porter was next, with my suitcase and the other briefcase, the one with the papers and the green ribbon around the handle. The muscle signaled with a flick of his head that the porter could leave. He did not dawdle.
"Wait here." Then the door was closed, and I was alone.
It was a makeshift kind of space, with a bit of a cave quality to it -- you didn't have to stoop over, but the ceiling was just a little bit low, and the back wall was cement. Maybe it was once used for storage. The only light was from a single bulb overhead. A small wooden table and two chairs were the only furniture. I sat, waiting.
I had played this out in my head a hundred times over the last few weeks. I just kept telling myself to act the way I had acted the other time they had looked through my bag. It was last year, coming back from Leipzig. The same kind of setup, pretty much, except there wasn't a guy with a clipboard and the second table was also out on the platform, not in a separate room. That one seemed more random. I tried to remember how I acted with that Gestapo agent -- I think he was a second lieutenant. It was just, well, normal, I guess -- not angry at the delay, not guilty because there was nothing to be guilty about, kind of friendly, not overly friendly, just answer the questions.
The door opened. I stood up. "Herr Kovacs, I am Sturmhauptfuhrer Rabel. Please be seated."
Sturmhauptfuhrer. Another captain. Shit.
He held out his hand. I gave him the passport. He pulled a notebook from his pocket and began to write. "I understand you were here on business. Can you please explain in some detail where you were and who you met with."
I began, explaining the magnesite sales business, and all of my clients, and taking him on this trip from Nuremberg to Frankfurt to Cologne. I left out the part about how I pretty much had to carry Herr Feldmann of the Nuremberg Steel Works and drop him into a taxi to take him home, and the club in Frankfurt where I had to pay off the maitre d' to keep him from calling the cops on handsy Herr Lindemann. I also left out the part about collecting the small envelope taped to the underside of the porcelain sink in Cologne.
"This magnesite -- it seems an important material for manufacturing, and perhaps national security. Do you have many contacts with the military?"
"I have some, yes. The steel mills who are our clients are all private business concerns, but many of them have military contracts. Probably most of them. As a result, when I meet with my clients, I sometimes come into contact with military personnel. They can sometimes explain better than the client what is needed in the manufacturing process."
I stopped talking. Rabel continued to write. Then he looked up. "And any military contacts on this trip?"
I thought I had danced around it, but no. Any military contacts on this trip? The only one was the guy who passed me the microfilm.
"Let me think back, just to be sure," I said, buying a few seconds.
In the half-assed training I was given by my Czech contact, one thing I remembered him saying was, "Don't lie if you don't have to." He talked about how life is full of coincidences, and odd little events that defy rational explanation, and not to get caught up lying about meaningless things just because you think they look bad.
"The lies are the hardest thing to keep track of," he said. "Only lie when it matters."
So where did the major in the club fit in? I could tell the truth -- that I was in the club with Herr Scherer, and that the major was a friend of Scherer's who we ran into, and that I left them soon after as they continued their evening. It was all true and as innocent as it sounded -- except for, well, you know.
But the sturmhauptfuhrer was sitting there, writing. He probably had dozens of those notebooks, stored in his office, organized by date, the information cataloged for easy retrieval. He probably went to his office every day and reviewed the latest entries in order to take the appropriate actions. To put Scherer's name in that notebook, however innocent the story, was to put him in the Gestapo's sights. Then again, maybe he was already in the Gestapo's sights -- in which case, my bringing up his name would attach more suspicion to my name. Then again, lying about an innocent contact could also hurt me if they ever found out about it. For all I knew, they already had found out about it. I mean, why did Vogl come to the hotel? Why was my name on that clipboard?
In the end, I went with my gut, making a show of searching my memory.
"Nuremberg...no. Frankfurt...no. Cologne...no. No, no military this trip."
Rabel wrote some more. His face betrayed nothing. He might actually be the one guy on the planet who could successfully lie to his wife. I sat there, trying to keep my breathing even. He got up, pulled on a pair of black leather gloves, opened my suitcase, and began to paw my dirty underwear. His heart wasn't into the task -- it was all pretty cursory. You would have thought he had an underling for such work.
Gloves off, briefcase next. He looked in at the stack of paper, a couple of hundred pages, and riffled through it without attempting to read even one of the pages. He now seemed as bored as the border guard outside.
"Two briefcases?" he said, his hands outstretched. I handed it over.
"On a trip to three clients, I start with more paperwork than can fit in one. I unload some at each stop and am left with this -- contracts, orders, delivery schedules. The second briefcase is usually empty on my return. Except for this time..."
"I see," he said. He was actually smiling.
"It's for my father. He lives in Brno. He loves German Riesling."
Rabel held the bottle up to the light bulb. He read the label. He looked at the cork. He turned it again, squinting, studying.
"I wonder," he said. "You leave the important papers with the porter. Yet you carry in the wine bottle yourself. That seems backward to me."
Easy, now. Steady. As evenly and matter-of-factly as I could, I started to speak, hoping my voice didn't crack like a 12-year-old's.
"You're right, it is kind of backward. I did it the other way in Cologne -- I carried the paperwork. But the way the porter was tossing the bags around, I really thought the bottle might break. I didn't want to ruin the bag, so I carried the wine when we got here."
Rabel continued to study the bottle.
"The bottle didn't break," he said, "but the cork did."
He picked at it, just a bit, and the pre-broken piece popped into his hand. He looked again at the bottle. The single light bulb left the secret hiding place in a bit of a shadow. Even then, the microfilm was further secreted into a sliver of space that had been cut into the cork, probably with a razor blade. He would be very fortunate, and I would be very unfortunate if he found it.
He looked at the void in the cork one more time, intently. He probed into the hole with his pinky. Nothing. "Ah, look, I've made it worse," he said, and then took the broken piece and shoved it back into place, admiring his handiwork. "Good as new. I'm sure your father will enjoy it."
He handed me the bottle and the briefcase. "You may rejoin the train. Have a pleasant remainder of your journey."
I thanked him because that's what you do. As I wrestled the three bags out the door, looking for the porter, he was writing something else in the notebook.
21
Leon with Hildy, who can properly be described as one of the women in his regular rotation. Henry with Liesl, a new girl, a librarian, of all things. Me with Johanna. The bottle of Riesling back in my apartment, in the small wine rack.
Drinks at the Grand Bar. Then the movies, to see "The Hour of Temptation," which was fine enough for a crap mystery, except f
or the Strength Through Joy newsreel that they're tending to show more and more, apparently to appease the German government that is convinced that there are too many Jews in the Austrian film industry. Then something to eat and a few more drinks at Cafe Imperial.
I had been home for several days, and nobody had contacted me about the microfilm. It was on my mind constantly the first day back, then hourly the next couple of days, then less. I went through the whole movie without thinking about it once -- well, not once after the newsreel, which featured about a hundred men, stripped to the waist, about to go for a swim in one of the Fatherland's massive new indoor natatoriums, giving the Hitler salute. Heil Backstroke!
The conversation at dinner was fun, light, perfect. Hildy had nothing much to say, which was typical. A couple of months ago, when Henry had brought up this fact, Leon had assured us, "I promise, her mouth works fine." Which apparently is why she has remained in the rotation. Her entire contribution to the evening's conversation came after an impromptu riff that Henry made about the quality of Stalin's mustache, followed by a general admiration for the facial hair of many Russian politicians. At which point, Hildy offered, "I hate borscht."
Liesl was more interesting. She spoke four languages -- German, French, Italian and Russian -- and was clearly smarter than most of the women Henry had dated. In fact, she was clearly the most intelligent person at the table, and it wasn't close. But the most interesting thing she said had nothing to do with the Austrian National Library, where she worked inside the Hofburg, or with the Turgenev, which she was currently reading in the original Russian for fun. It was when the conversation had somehow turned to the idiosyncrasies of our parents, and Leon was telling the story of how his father always went for the same walk, down the same streets, every night after dinner, never varying no matter how much Leon made fun of him. "One day, you will understand the comfort of routine," his father told him.