The Eye of the Abyss

by Marshall Browne

  He became aware of the Wertheim grade three clock, his grade at the bank, ticking away. He glanced at it: 5.33 pm.

  After returning from the beerhall, in the grip of a slow burn of excitement and fear, he’d concentrated on that glimmer of an idea; the lifeline he’d spoken of to Wagner. He’d moved it around in his mind. How to cover up the theft; to save their lives. He’d had the weird notion that von Streck might’ve been sitting in the corner, a sardonic smile on his lips.

  He was still turning it over in his mind.

  This morning several envelopes imprinted with the Nazi insignia had arrived. He’d placed them in the confidential pouch for the G-D, wondering about their tidings. He stroked his lips with his fingers. More crucial to the moment, how was Wagner bearing up?

  Five forty: time to begin, but he allowed himself a minute. Not a faltering of will; more like a parachutist pausing to check the quick release lock on his harness before the jump. Go! He flexed his shoulders, took out an unopened packet of quartosized paper, inserted it in a large expandable envelope used for safe-custody items, and sealed the adhesive flap. Carefully he wrote the words certifying to a face value of ten million, to match the envelope in the vault.

  What he did next he’d spent some time practising. From a drawer he took out tracing paper, and from two pieces of memoranda in his in-tray traced the signatures of Dietrich and Herr Otto on the envelope beneath the certificate. Quickly, confidently, he wrote over them in ink. He studied the result. Satisfactory. From his safe he took the bank’s official metal seal, then from his desk drawer, sealing-wax and a piece of string. He lit a match, coaxed the string alight, and held it to the shiny red bar, which began to drip into a pool on the envelope’s flap. When the quantity was sufficient, he pressed the seal into the wax. He locked the seal away, and placed the envelope in his attaché case. Then he destroyed the tracings.

  A fading clue to the clandestine act lingered: the acrid smell of the liquefied wax.

  At three minutes to six, carrying the case, he went into the corridor. As expected, he saw no-one. Otto Wertheim’s office was on the same floor but on the far side; the light-shaft, black as a coal-pit, lay between. On each floor corridors formed a square upon which opened the doors of rooms and departments.

  Quietly Schmidt traversed the deserted building. The light was burning in Otto’s anteroom. The auditor walked in, excuses prepared, in case … a glance told him that the director’s secretary, a fiftyish, Wertheim veteran, hand-picked for the job by the elder Wertheim, had left for the night.

  He knocked on the connecting door, and went in. Otto’s office was messy; presumably he was still around. Schmidt crossed to the handsome carved oak desk inherited from the director’s paternal grandfather, slid open a drawer, and sighed, with both relief and regret. The latter emotion pertained to Otto’s unforgivable transgression. A mere employee would have been dismissed on the spot. The three numbers, 4, 14, 44, were on the scrap of paper stuck to the side of the drawer. Schmidt committed them to memory, quietly closed the drawer, and listened.

  The aroma of brandy was all that he picked up. He glanced at the cupboard door behind which Otto’s liquor bottles were concealed.

  Dietrich strode vigorously along the corridor to the chief auditor’s office and burst in – on the empty room. He pulled up, his ready-made grin fading. Schmidt’s hat and coat hung on the peg. The Nazi meditated on them for a moment, sniffed the air at a slight odour, and glanced at the clock: 5.59 pm. He stroked his chin, changed his mind and went out. He stood thoughtfully in the corridor rocking on the balls of his feet.

  This was annoying: he’d a particular reason for wanting to see the auditor tonight. He would drop in on Otto, return here later. Ha! Herr Otto! Dietrich bared his yellowish teeth in a private grin. As though he’d taken off one coat and put on another, he prowled away to his left.

  Schmidt didn’t retrace his steps but, following pre-planned moves, went left when he came out of Otto’s anteroom, and reached the corner at its west end, seconds before Dietrich arrived at the east end. He didn’t return to his room but went to the lift which was situated on the north side. With its customary clunk and whirring, it began its descent.

  Wagner was waiting in the basement’s foyer, a sardonic expression on his face. He wore his overcoat against the bone-numbing chill.

  ‘All set,’ Schmidt said as he entered.

  The deputy foreign manager nodded tersely.

  Schmidt gave his colleague a measuring look, and unlocked the grille door. They entered the vault and walked through one room into another. The Party’s safe with its three combination tumblers faced them. Wagner stepped forward, brushed his hair from his eyes, twirled the centre one to the start-point, and removed his combination. Schmidt removed his own. Then, pausing for an instant to bring the numbers into his mind, he addressed the top tumbler, Herr Otto’s. Precisely, he revolved it onto each mark. On the last, he paused for a second, then turned it back. Like a train hitting a buffer it stopped dead. The safe was open.

  They glanced at each other. Schmidt swung open the door, took the sealed envelope from his attaché case, exchanged it with the similar sealed envelope in the safe, and put the latter in his case. He closed the door, and spun each tumbler to reset the combinations.

  Each had been listening and now they gave the silence their undivided attention. The bank was as deeply quiet as a mausoleum. Wagner, as ever, seemed careless of the occasion. But his face was gaunt.

  The auditor said quietly, ‘Thank you, my friend. Could you come to my apartment tomorrow night – say at seven? The next step … ’

  The deputy foreign manager nodded.

  ‘Good. Let’s leave quickly, you by the lift, me, the stairs.’ He looked up — as though his single vision could pierce the floors above, and reveal where enemies might lurk. He perceived danger pulsing in the air.

  Dietrich paused as he heard the abomination of a lift start up on the northern corridor, from where he’d just come. Now that was strange. He slanted his head, and pursed his lips; the floor had seemed deserted. Descending. The sound faded away, the pervading Wertheim after-hours’ silence moved back in. He went on. He entered Otto’s anteroom, then the inner room. He studied the desk, smelt the brandy. A toast to absent friends – or enemies? The thought was more irritated than incisive. Tonight undercurrents of mysteriousness seemed to be flowing through these empty corridors and rooms. Frowning, he returned to the corridor, and abruptly increased his pace.

  ‘What is it Otto, at this time of day?’

  On the first floor, Herr Wertheim regarded his nephew with polite scepticism. The young director had an unsettled air, though plainly he’d spruced himself up. The general-director scanned the sagging jowls, the Party badge, the staring blue eyes, caught the faint aroma of brandy, and once more wondered whether he’d imposed sufficient checks and balances on his kinsman. Indubitably, he’d dived head first into the Nazi pool.

  Breathlessly, Otto said, ‘I’ve been speaking to Herr Schloss about the NSDAP account. About a more productive investment strategy. Seventeen million marks are sitting there earning a mere 3 per cent or less. And daily the money flows in.’ He blinked rapidly, nervously, at his uncle. ‘He agreed I should mention it to you.’

  The elder Wertheim doubted it and gazed down the room to the painting. He fully understood any reservations Herr Schloss might have in dealing with Otto.

  ‘Yes? What have you in mind?’

  In the hard-back chair his uncle had directed him to, Otto shifted forward the large posterior which, two hours before, had been imprisoned by Fräulein Blum’s muscular legs.

  He said, ‘A good portion to be reinvested in foreign currencies and Aryanisation opportunities. I thought the Ruhr people were most informative.’

  Wertheim interlaced his fingers and, put them to rest on the desk. A family trait: the elderly male Wertheims had fingers that looked as fragile as sticks of chalk. On them the gold bands glinted.

  Wha
t a fascinating picture! He felt it had X-ray powers, was seeing deep into his brain. He must meet the artist. One day. He withdrew his gaze, and reappraised Otto. His nephew’s intellectual qualities were mediocre, but he did possess a native cunning which, occasionally, enabled him to hit the mark. He must have received something from their ancestors’ genes. On the other hand, Schloss’s character and intellect were admirable, though a lifetime of private banking had rendered him ultraconservative.

  ‘My dear Otto, you might have something. But foreign currencies – no. Political dynamite, I would think. The Reich’s gold and currency reserves are practically exhausted. The other – yes, possibly.’

  He’d been considering what to do about the Ruhr industrialist’s loan application with its special purpose. Despite the sea change in him, the general-director still understood banking as well as he ever had. The banks were being prostituted in respect of the Aryanisation business. Doubtless other customers were going to require such loans. Why not the Nazis? Did he really have a choice in the matter?

  Otto said earnestly, ‘The Party’s above politics. What it wishes to do, it can do.’

  ‘Perhaps I meant, public relations.’ Face-to-face, Herr Wertheim had been surprised by the Field-Marshal’s extravagant uniform and persona. A mixture of egocentricity and circus showmanship. He’d been amazed to see something of his own self in the man.

  His nephew shrugged, and blinked again, nervously. He’d waited until that bitch had gone home to come to his uncle’s office. His stunned confusion following their encounter had settled into a bruised anxiety, was changing into a brooding anger. Tonight he’d seek solace at an establishment as removed from his uncle’s world as Mars.

  ‘I’ll speak to Herr Schloss.’

  Otto nodded respectfully, hauled himself up and withdrew from his uncle’s presence, with gratification, and the usual relief.

  Ablaze with electric light – unlike the dim corridors with their low-power bulbs – Schmidt’s office seemed to await his next move. One could compare it to a chessboard at a tournament left overnight, the pieces in place, the next moves in a sealed envelope. This kind of thinking smoothed his nerves.

  He paused, and continued to listen. Quietly he pushed the door almost shut, sat down at his desk, took a rubber thumb-stall, slipped it on, removed the sealed envelope from his attaché case, slit it, lifted the bonds out, squared them adroitly, and began to count them off.

  Working fast, he inserted five certificates each for 100,000 Reichmarks into a fresh envelope and placed it in his attaché case; he was allowing plenty of margin. The remainder – for 9,500,000 marks – he returned to the original envelope and carried it to the safe. He revolved the tumbler to lock it, straightened up, and turned around.

  He was looking straight into Dietrich’s cold blue eyes. The Nazi stood in the doorway watching with an acute, inquiring expression. Schmidt’s heart froze; he’d not heard the door move – not heard a thing.

  The Nazi smiled. ‘What is this? Working late, Herr Auditor?’

  Schmidt nodded; a desperate reflex action. How long had he been in the doorway?

  ‘I’ve been looking for you – came in earlier, but you were not here.’

  ‘I’ve been out, Herr Director,’ Schmidt said. ‘Calm down,’ he intoned to himself. He walked back to his desk, reassembling his composure with each step – each breath.

  ‘Ah … out!’ Dietrich tilted his head, as though weighing the possibilities of‘out’, his gaze unwavering. ‘But now in.’ He lifted his scrutiny smoothly from Schmidt’s face, then to the photograph of the Wertheim building. ‘The building’s deserted yet I feel people are around – lying low. Isn’t that strange? Never mind.’ He pointed to the safe. ‘I’m curious. How does the system work? If you’re unable to attend the bank, say in the case of a personal disaster, how do they open the safe?’

  Schmidt felt he was wearing his calm with the ineffectiveness of a threadbare coat, veteran of too many winters. ‘As with everyone, Herr Director, my combination is in a sealed envelope at our clearing bankers – available on the signature of two directors.’

  ‘I see. How interesting. Is everything going well? No problems?’

  ‘Everything is proceeding as normal.’

  ‘Good. I’ve told you, even in the rosiest apple there’s sometimes a vile worm. Be vigilant, my friend.’

  Schmidt nodded. His concealed breathlessness was abating.

  Dietrich grinned. ‘Naturally, one hopes nothing will happen to you my dear Schmidt.’

  He came and sat on the desk-edge, brought out his cigarettes. Schmidt sat down too, and they both lit up. Swinging his leg back and forth, the Nazi smoked away companionably, while Schmidt measured out the moments.

  ‘Nothing to go home to, my friend?’

  ‘On the contrary, I was about to leave. My dinner will be waiting.’ Deliberately, Schmidt kept his eye from the attaché case which lay beside the Nazi’s splayed left hand. It was strange to think of that old case, his father’s, as a potential death warrant.

  ‘No medieval history tonight at the Municipal Library?’

  ‘No, mein herr.’To Schmidt’s hyperactive nerves, it was another loaded question. Then came yet another:

  ‘Your family’s returned suddenly and unexpectedly to Dresden. My dear Franz, I hope no problems?’

  Schmidt couldn’t conceal his surprise. Dietrich’s face was intent now – as though straining for a confirmation. And — My Dear Franz?

  The auditor said, ‘Normal family movements.’

  So they were watching his family. The contents of his stomach turned over – audibly. Beyond the Nazi’s head the clock showed 6.15 pm. A different current of pressure came. How long could Dressler wait?

  The Nazi exhaled blue smoke, and smiled indulgently. ‘The Gestapo are still interested in you following the Dressler affair. Twice now you’ve featured in the Party’s files. They’re like hounds on the scent, hard to whip off it. It cost me a lot to get you off that. But don’t worry. They’re not short of other work. And you’re not going to make any more mistakes, are you?’

  ‘No. I owe you my thanks for that, Herr Dietrich.’

  The Nazi beamed, almost embarrassed, opening up a crack in his controlled personality. Schmidt smoked, watched and waited.

  ‘I’ve a high regard for you. For your work, for you personally. I considered it a worthwhile investment. Why don’t you join me one night soon for an intimate little dinner, a little champagne. We’ll get to know each other better. Off-duty, you will find me a very pleasant fellow.’

  Schmidt’s heart and mind had moved into a synchronisation with the ticking of the clock. A subtle kind of gearshift. This last proposal came as a jolt. The Nazi was in the grip of some strong emotion. The yellowish teeth flashed, but nervously. Instinctively, Schmidt felt that they’d arrived at the crux of this episode.

  ‘I would be honoured, Herr Director.’Would he ever leave?

  Dietrich relaxed visibly. ‘I mustn’t detain you, my dear Franz. Shall we say – soon?’

  The auditor glanced at his hat, his coat, and the Nazi’s gaze alighted on the attaché case. He frowned. Schmidt’s heartbeats bounded. Abruptly, Dietrich left his perch. Back in command, he grinned. ‘Goodnight, Herr Auditor.’ From the door he gave Schmidt a look as if to say that the auditor’s thoughts were a road-map he could see clearly.

  Schmidt sat rigid, the cigarette burning to a column of ash in his fingers, the taste of metal in his mouth. By God! What was tonight?

  Outside the door Dietrich paused, also analysing the interview.

  25

  THE INVESTIGATORS FROM the Gestapo central office drove out to the Dresden suburb as night fell. Catching up on the run, the man in the passenger seat, with the aid of the car’s interior light, read a teletype aloud. When they arrived at the turn-of-the-century house in its acre of wooded garden, they were fully briefed.

  ‘Come on,’ the senior said as they climbed out, ‘we can be back
in town to eat – with or without this woman, as the case may be.’

  Helga opened the door: on the porch two faces floated in the dark like dabs of cream. Behind them in the trees an owl called. She heard it as a warning, but thought: What small men for policemen. And: Oh, Franz!

  She was surprised how calm she felt as she peered at the official card. With a slight gesture, she bade them step into the hall. Her mother was upstairs in bed, Trudi was with her, colouring-in a book. The childish voice sounded, a thin plaint in the stairwell. She could hear her sister preparing the meal in the kitchen. The simple sounds of domestic life. And here in the dark-panelled hall nuances of Franz, his mysterious world, the steely cadences of the State.

  Can I cope with this?

  ‘What is it you want?’ she said politely, her head tilted, arms clasped under her breasts. She kept the men standing, drawing the line of intrusion.

  ‘We have questions about your husband, Frau Schmidt,’ the senior said. ‘A few questions, soon answered, I would hope.’ He considered the light and warmth of the living room beyond glass doors. ‘However, I warn you to think carefully before answering.’

  ‘Yes? Please go on.’

  ‘Has your husband ever been a member of a political party?’

  ‘Never.’ The answer was automatic, accurate.

  ‘Who are his chief friends and associates?’

  This was harder. Franz’s interests were circumscribed by the bank, his family, and his solitary esoteric hobby. She frowned, exhibiting her concentration, fighting to hold back this nightmare.

  ‘My husband is devoted to the bank. His colleagues there make up his friends and associates.’ She spoke quietly, again with accuracy.

  ‘Including Herr Wagner?’