XPD

by Len Deighton

  The psychiatrist’s wife spread her arms wide apart and whirled around fast enough to make her long Pucci silk dress float. ‘That was a divine meal, Marie-Louise.’ She was one of the very few people, apart from Max, who called her Marie-Louise. ‘Have you ever tasted such delicious poulet au champagne, Mr Stein?’

  ‘No,’ said Stein, ‘I never have.’

  ‘You are so kind,’ said Mrs Breslow. To what extent her neighbour was trying to demonstrate her psychological skills she could not tell, but she was grateful for her help in smoothing over what could have become an embarrassing scene between Mr Stein and the young Englishman. Mrs Breslow began pouring the coffee into tiny Limoges cups. ‘Try some of the chocolates too,’ she urged Stein with that tone in which diet breakers conspire. ‘Hand-coated brandy cherries from a tiny shop in Munich. Max used to buy them for me before we were married.’

  Stein popped one into his mouth, crushed it between his teeth, tasted the sweet alcohol filling and reached for another before he swallowed.

  ‘Where do you buy them?’

  ‘Max has his business partner bring them over from Munich,’ said Mrs Breslow.

  ‘He didn’t tell me about his business partner in Munich,’ said Stein. He smiled at her. ‘But the chocolate-coated cherries are dandy, Mrs Breslow. Really dandy.’ He lifted the lid of the box high above his head so that he had to twist his neck to read the label. ‘Yes, sir.’ He helped himself to another as he replaced the box on the table.

  ‘You heard the story about them finding Hitler in Säo Paulo?’ said Stein suddenly, his mouth filled with chocolate and cherry. Everyone turned to look at him. ‘They ask him to come back and run Germany. No, he says, he won’t go. So they keep trying to persuade him. They bring in the public relations guys, and the ad agency men. They offer him money and anything he wants.’ Stein looked round to see if everyone was listening. They all were. ‘Hitler says he likes it in Säo Paulo. He’s got his mortgage almost paid, and a grown-up son and a married daughter by a second wife. He don’t want any part of going back to Germany. But finally he gives in. But before he goes back to be dictator of Germany again he insists on one thing … right!’ Stein waved a finger in the air in imitation of Hitler, and hoarsely yelled, ‘No more Mr Nice Guy!’ Stein laughed to show it was the punch line of the joke.

  Stuart had heard the joke before but still he laughed. Somehow Stein had managed to imbue this thin story with all the pathos of his Jewish soul. When he told this joke it was outrageous and funny. He laughed loudly and Stuart joined in. But no one else laughed.

  ‘I got a million stories like that,’ said Stein.

  The party broke up about eleven o’clock: the psychiatrist had an early patient and his wife had booked the tennis coach for 7.30 A.M. ‘Everybody wants him,’ she explained.

  Boyd Stuart was getting up to go when he felt the heavy hand of Charles Stein on his shoulder. ‘Stay for another cup of coffee and a glass of something more,’ said Breslow. ‘We have some business to talk over, my dear,’ he explained to his wife.

  ‘I shall only yawn or say something silly,’ she told Stuart. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go right to bed.’

  ‘Of course, Mrs Breslow. Thank you for a wonderful meal, and a truly delightful evening.’

  ‘Switch the dishwasher on before you come to bed, darling,’ she told her husband.

  Max Breslow gave his wife a perfunctory kiss before opening a door in the antique sideboard to get his best brandy. ‘Charles has something he wants to show us,’ he said over his shoulder. Stein went to the coat closet by the front door and came back straining under the weight of a rectangular carton. He undid the string with elaborate precision and drew out of the cardboard container a very old metal box. Such fire-resistant filing boxes had been used by the German army for documentation carried by regimental staffs or at battle-group level. This one was worn shiny at the corners but in the ancient green paintwork a six-figure letter-and-number combination and instructions about closing the fireproof lid could just be discerned. The traces of large letters which might have been BBO remained on the outside and there was a large shiny patch which looked as if something had been deliberately obliterated.

  ‘Can you read German, Mr Stuart?’

  ‘Well enough,’ said Stuart. Breslow nodded and exchanged a significant glance with Stein. The British would not be so foolish as to send a man who could not read German fluently.

  ‘Have you ever heard of Dr Morell?’ said Stein. ‘Dr Theodor Morell?’

  ‘Hitler’s personal physician?’

  ‘Good,’ said Stein, as a school teacher might approve the unusually bright answer of a backward pupil. He began removing from the metal box cardboard covers containing varying numbers of documents. ‘Not only Hitler’s personal physician but a man upon whom Hitler totally depended, who went everywhere with him and had even more influence on him than Martin Bormann. Hitler told everyone that Dr Morell had saved his life over and over again.’ Stein tapped the pile of papers. ‘These are Dr Morell’s medical files on his patient Adolf Hitler!’

  Boyd Stuart picked up the top folder. The papers smelt musty and stale. They were not in chronological order. This file was dated January 1943. At the top corner someone, perhaps Mr Morell himself, had scribbled in pencil, ‘The great disaster at Stalingrad’. There was a log of medical prescriptions and injections, beginning with anti-depressants and sedatives. There was a note about the first use of prostacrinum – manufactured from seminal vesicles and prostate glands – and an extra page, added at some later date, said that from this time onward the patient was given this drug every other day until the end of his life. There was a carbon copy of a long letter from Dr Morell to Hitler’s tailor, explaining that the Führer could not any longer endure bright light. Notes and a drawing, fixed to the page by means of a paperclip which had rusted and eaten deep into the paper, showed how the peaks of the Führer’s caps must henceforward be made larger.

  Stein watched Boyd Stuart’s face as he flipped quickly through the medical file. ‘You find it interesting, eh?’ Nervously Stein reached for another of the chocolate-coated, brandied cherries and popped it into his mouth.

  ‘Where does it all start?’ said Stuart, turning the heavy dossiers over on the low coffee table at which the three men sat.

  ‘Here,’ said Max Breslow. He moved coffee cups and an ashtray to make more space. ‘But Hitler only comes in at the end of it.’

  The file he had selected was a slimmer one, and quite different from the Chancellery file covers. Once red in colour, it was now faded to pink. It bore Dr Morell’s name and fashionable Berlin address on the cover in elegant script printing. The contents too were different: heavyweight stationery with engraved headings. Even the file cards were printed with Morell’s name and Kurfürstendamm address, although some of the patients were indicated only by initials. It was a precaution particularly important in a medical practice that specialized in treating venereal diseases and catered to some of Germany’s most wealthy and famous personalities. Here were Berlin’s nobility and industrialists and stars of the Berlin stage, film and theatre.

  ‘Hoffmann,’ said Stein pointing to a sheet. ‘Hitler’s personal photographer and a close friend.’ He picked up an ancient manilla envelope and took from it a desk diary. It had been used as a physician’s appointments book. It was dated 1936. ‘This is how Dr Morell first met Hitler,’ Stein said. ‘Hoffmann was sick – H.H. are Hoffmann’s initials, M.F. is Mein Führer – look at that!’

  Morell had written, ‘Met M.F. at Hoffmann’s home, Munich.’ Then a page or so later, ‘M.F. provided his personal aircraft for professional visit to H.H. in his Munich home.’

  Again Stein turned a page of the diary. ‘Now we come to Morell’s first professional opinion of Hitler,’ he said. He turned the diary so that Stuart could read it more easily. ‘Saw M.F. First impression of him shocking. Complains of headaches, stomach pains. Also ringing in the ears. Neurotic.’

  Ma
x Breslow went into the kitchen to make more coffee. Boyd Stuart turned the sheets to find Dr Morell’s first physical examination of Hitler. The report was dated 3 January 1937, and the medical took place at the Berghof, Hitler’s mountain retreat near Berchtesgaden. The doctor noted that, according to the patient, he had not submitted himself to a physical examination since he left the army in 1918. The record showed that Hitler – now referred to as ‘patient A’ – weighed 67.04 kilos and stood 175.26 cm tall. Blood group A. The examination showed no abnormalities: pupillary reflexes were normal, good co-ordination, normal sensitivity to heat and cold and to sharp and blunt touch. His hair was dark and thinning slightly, and his tonsils had been removed when he was a child. A scarred leg was the result of shrapnel during the First World War. A badly mended fracture of the left shoulder blade – resulting from a fall when the police fired upon the Nazis during the 1923 putsch – had left patient A with a stiff shoulder so that he could neither rotate nor abduct his upper arm.

  Curious, thought Stuart, that, had his right shoulder been affected instead, there could have been no Nazi salute. He turned the page.

  The patient complained of severe stomach cramps and Morell found a swelling at the place where the stomach joins the duodenum, as well as the left lobe of the liver. When he touched the region of the kidney, the patient complained of slight pain. Patient A was also suffering from severe eczema on the left leg and was having difficulty wearing high boots. ‘Necessary for parades and rallies,’ Morell had noted in fountain-pen ink which had faded to a very pale shade of blue.

  Now the file was given over to letters concerning Hitler’s diet. His other physicians – Professor Bergmann of the Charité Hospital, Berlin, and Himmler’s SS medical officer in chief, Ernst Grawitz – had cut patient A’s eating down to dry wholemeal bread and herbal tea, while treating him with lotions and ointments. Morell changed this to a more varied vegetarian regime.

  The next letter was on the headed notepaper of the Bacteriological Research Institute at Freiburg and was signed by Professor A. Nissle, its director. It reported dysbacterial flora in the specimen of excreta sent there by Morell, who had not named the patient. Nissle advised that the patient should be given ‘Mutaflor’ to replace coli bacilli. Morell adds a note about a preparation of vitamins, heart and liver for the patient. To be put into unmarked containers. ‘Vegetarian patient,’ Morell wrote on his instructions to the pharmacist. ‘Make no mention of the animal origins of this prescription.’ All Morell’s notes at this time were on notepaper of the Berghof. Clearly Morell had taken up residence there.

  ‘Can’t tear you away from it, can we?’ said Stein. He chuckled with satisfaction.

  ‘I want to know the end of the story,’ said Stuart. ‘Did the handsome young doctor cure his famous patient? I’m a sucker for the nurse romance.’

  ‘Dr Morell was fat and ugly,’ said Max Breslow. ‘Hitler said that if Morell could cure his eczema and make him better within a year, he’d be given a fine house.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Breslow said, ‘Morell pumped Hitler full of a medicine he’d invented himself. Vitamultin he called it: every kind of vitamin together with calcium, ascorbic acid and caffeine and so on … you’ll find the formula in his papers there. He marketed some of his compounds later, and made a fortune, they say.’

  ‘And Hitler got better?’

  ‘Dextrose and hormones and lots of sulphonamide drugs kept Hitler feeling very well. For years he didn’t even have a virus infection. Whenever he was going to make a speech, Morell gave him an extra dose of glucose and stuff to pep him up. Hitler was pleased. You’ll find the carbon of a letter that Morell sent to say thank you for the house on the island of Schwanenwerder. Hitler kept his promise.’

  ‘And this documentation continues right through the war?’ said Stuart. ‘It’s priceless stuff.’

  ‘Hitler seldom let Morell out of his sight. And Hitler confided in this man. From time to time the stomach cramps returned. Morell makes a note of the fact that Hitler dated his trouble from the summer of 1934. A cryptic pencil annotation, in Morell’s writing, records that this was the time when Hitler had his best friend Röhm executed. Morell gave Hitler more and more powerful medicaments, like intramuscular injections for the gastric wall, and combined these with medicine that would make some of the vegetarian stuff he ate easier to digest.’

  ‘But why is all this sort of material in the medical file?’ said Stuart. ‘Why keep a carbon of a letter about the house he got from Hitler?’

  The coffee machine in the kitchen hissed steam and switched off. Breslow fetched the fresh jug of coffee before answering. ‘Perhaps Morell had literary ambitions.’

  ‘A biography of Hitler by his private physician?’ said Stuart.

  ‘Churchill’s physician published such a book,’ said Breslow. ‘It was a bestseller, as I remember.’

  ‘And no historian has ever seen this material?’ said Stuart.

  ‘No one knows it exists,’ said Stein.*

  ‘It was taken to the Kaiseroda mine?’ said Stuart.

  ‘This is what makes it so interesting,’ said Max Breslow. ‘Our film, I mean,’ he added hurriedly.

  ‘Yes, of course, the film,’ said Stuart. ‘You mean you have access to other material like this?’

  Stein nodded and rummaged around the wrappers in the almost empty box of chocolate-coated cherries until he found one. He chewed into it and smiled as he saw Boyd Stuart’s look of consternation.

  ‘I’m afraid he’s quite right, Mr Stuart,’ said Max Breslow. ‘For better or for worse, reputations are going to be turned upside down.’

  ‘Hitler and Churchill, you mean?’ Stuart asked.

  ‘Drink your coffee and have one of those delicious chocolates,’ Max Breslow told Stuart. ‘We have done enough for one night.’

  Stuart had a feeling that there were no chocolates left, and that Max Breslow already knew that.

  * * *

  * The documents were an interesting addition to the available material. The National Archives in Washington DC have Morell’s records filed under reference NA Microcopy T 253 but there is nothing about Adolf Hitler. The Bundesarchiv at Koblenz and at Freiburg have virtually nothing.

  Chapter 12

  The Marina del Rey provides a luxurious and convenient base for yacht owners who have business in Los Angeles, says one of the brochures. It is crammed tight with magnificent boats and surrounded by modern apartment buildings, as well as restaurants and discos, and has the swanky yacht club as a centrepiece. A Marina address is all you need to attract a lot of wisecracks about the swinging bachelor life. Certainly the Marina del Rey is a place where the number of people dressed in yachting attire greatly exceeds the capacity of the yachts. But Boyd Stuart liked living on the boat. It was near Culver City, Century City and Beverly Hills and conveniently close to Highway 1 which would take him to Malibu, to Santa Barbara, and beyond.

  He swung off the San Diego Freeway at the Marina del Rey sign and tried to stop thinking about the documents he had seen that night. And yet he could not forget the smell of them and the way the brittle paper had crackled in his hands. ‘Outside of this room,’ Stein had told him, ‘it’s possible that there is no person still alive who has seen these documents.’ The short stretch of the Marina Freeway ended and Stuart began to count the apartment blocks. He still found it possible to get lost in this enormous city.

  He left his newly rented car in the open parking lot. There had been muggings in the underground garage, and two o’clock in the morning was not the best time to be blundering round down there, worrying if the elevator was still working. He switched off the ignition and sat still for a moment. There was a full moon and he could have counted a thousand stars if he had had the time or the inclination.

  Suddenly he noticed a cigarette lighter flare inside a car in one of the parking places near the yacht basin. Boyd felt a moment of panic, and cursed his foolishness in not bringing with him the pistol
he had been given. Two men got out of the car but then, at a signal from the driver, the second man got back inside again. The man had walked halfway across the parking lot before Boyd Stuart was quite certain that it was his case officer.

  ‘Have a nice evening, Stuart?’ he asked as Boyd opened the window to greet him.

  ‘Have you been waiting here for me all night?’

  ‘No,’ said the CO. He walked round the car and got in alongside Stuart. ‘We took the liberty of putting a small device into your cassette player. It tells us where you are, give or take half a mile or so.’

  ‘Am I supposed to say thank you?’ Stuart said irritably.

  ‘It could prove a benefit to you some day,’ said the case officer. ‘Tell me what you talked about. This ex-Corporal Stein was there, wasn’t he?’

  ‘You are well informed,’ said Stuart.

  ‘But not quickly enough informed,’ said the case officer.

  Boyd Stuart explained what had happened in considerable detail. The controller listened all the way through without interruptions or comment. ‘I don’t like the sound of it,’ he said finally.

  ‘You should have seen that stuff. It’s chilling to think what else those two might have tucked away.’

  ‘Are they after money?’

  ‘A film would focus attention upon the two of them. Stein and Breslow could spin this stuff out for years. The possibilities are endless: bestselling books to follow the film, radio and TV appearances, video cassettes – God knows what else they might have in mind. It’s not just the commercial possibilities … think of what world-famous personalities Stein and Breslow would become. Can you imagine them in London on BBC TV, with the Foreign Office sending a spokesman to discuss the implication?’

  ‘I’ll buy it until something better comes along. Partners then, you think?’

  ‘Stein seems to call the shots.’