The Eye of the Abyss

by Marshall Browne

  The taxi driver half-turned as Schmidt gave a strange laugh. The auditor was startled to discover that the incident had left him with an erection. It all seemed like another dose of comic opera. He wished he could wash his mouth out.

  31

  WAGNER FELT TENSION crawling up his back. He waited on the platform as the immigration and customs queue crept forward. He was tense, but in command of himself. Each time he went abroad the Reich officials were more painstaking, though he’d never even had a suitcase opened. His official business, the letter of recommendation he carried from the Reichsbank, had always got him through. Tonight they must be searching many. He held his passport ready, felt the subtle drag in the low inside pockets of his heavy overcoat; not hidden pockets, although, unusually positioned. He stamped his feet, trying to work up some warmth, and breathed deeply.

  The slim, elegant woman in front of him wore a silver fox fur around her shoulders. He took in her perfume with the frosty air. Her face turned to Wagner, but the brown eyes in the beautiful face didn’t see him. Over her shoulder, the fox’s amber-coloured glass eyes gleamed in the electric light, seemed to see into his soul. Pointed towards Switzerland in a cloud of steam, the engine hissed at the night. The two Gestapo men on the train had not reappeared. Shuflling forward, a faint hope aroused, he entered the station building.

  They stood alone against a white wall. Their eyes were only for him. Christ! He kept his own gaze on the move. In front of him, the elegant woman was having her problems with a seated official; a terse exchange was in progress. Reluctantly, she opened her handbag, placed pieces of jewellery on the table one by one, as though saying farewell to each. A policeman took her by the arm to a room at the side, and a female official followed them in, pulling on a rubber glove.

  Having dealt with Jewish wealth and beauty, the seated official now scrutinised Wagner’s face, his passport photograph. Taking his time, he read the passport from cover to cover. He referred to a list.

  ‘What is your business in Zurich, mein herr?’

  ‘Banking business. I’m the deputy foreign manager for my bank. I’m visiting our correspondent banks.’

  Wagner held out the letter of recommendation from the Reichsbank. The official took it, read it. Wagner waited, hatless, his fair hair gleaming in the blaze of electric light, his face blank, his attitude formal and patient. He needed a haircut badly. He wished he’d spruced himself up. Enhanced his respectability. The official laid the letter aside.

  ‘I see. Step over to that table, please, and open your suitcase — and your attaché case.’

  Wagner moved aside from the queue. His heart had begun to thump in his chest. Well, Franz, here we are. On the edge of the abyss. But Wagner! You have never been searched! You are not a person who will be searched!

  A woman’s scream came from the room where his elegant predecessor had been taken. ‘You are hurting me!’ Not an elegant sound. The voice quivering with pain and outrage had sundered the sniffling, boot-scraping sounds in the hall. The long queue of regulated faces jerked in that direction as though yanked on strings, then anxiously resumed their fixed gazes. An incident of the Third Reich. And here’s another in the making, Wagner thought, as he thumped his bags carelessly on the table; a dull fatalism was being released into his system.

  The uniformed official’s fingers went through the change of clothing, then read Wagner’s routine banking papers with a studied thoroughness, as though awaiting a confessional outburst. The two Gestapo men had shifted along the wall, and stood behind the official. All quiet now from the other room. At the bottom of the case the official found the buff envelope. He held it up, looked at it, at Wagner. He picked up a dagger, weighed it in his hand, looked again at the banker. Slit it open.

  The music for Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 was shaken out on to the table. The official stared at it, turned the pages in a mildly puzzled way. Was this banker going to Zurich to play the violin? – his expression said.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘I’m an amateur musician. I’m taking the music to friends in Zurich. There may be a little time to play.’

  The official pursed his lips, as though considering how a man on official business, in the service of his bank, the Third Reich, would have time to play the violin.

  Wagner waited. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the Gestapo agents still in position, watching and waiting. As he was …

  The official still brooded on Wagner’s face: his mind stuck on an image of the banker playing the violin at the Swiss banks. Abruptly, he turned over a page — and stopped. He stared at the first loose-leaf manuscript sheet for a long moment. He lifted his eyes to Wagner’s.

  ‘And what, mein herr, is this?’ Accusation and shock vibrated in his voice.

  Wagner stared at him, mesmerised. Had he run into a musicologist? The expression on the official’s face suggested he understood what he held in his hands. Wagner said tensely, ‘My friend, I think you know very well what it is.’

  The official, seeming hardly to take this in, sat down behind the table. He extracted Bach’s manuscript sheet by sheet from behind the violin concerto sheets, scrutinising each as he did. The queue behind Wagner fidgeted down its length.

  ‘Don’t call me “my friend”, mein herr. I’m not your friend – and please answer my question.’

  Had the man expected to find something else — was he thrown off balance by what he had found? The thought raced through Wagner’s mind.

  ‘I did not mean to be familiar, mein herr. It’s an unpublished manuscript which has been in my family for many generations … I inherited it from my parents.’

  ‘Presuming this is true, why are you taking it to Zurich?’

  ‘For years I’ve promised to bring it to show friends who are music-lovers.’

  Wagner saw that the official was regarding him with total disbelief.

  ‘This is part of our German heritage. The export of such works of art is a criminal offence.’

  ‘With respect, mein herr, it’s not an export. When I return in two days, I intend to bring the manuscript back with me. After all, it’s a family heirloom …’ His throat had almost dried up. Yet, his Calvinistic convictions were resurfacing: it was all predestined.

  ‘I will carry out a body-search,’ the official said, his pale eyes now assessing Wagner’s person. ‘Please step this way.’ Wagner hesitated. The immigration official said, sharply: ’Mein herr! This way.’

  Wagner thought: Well, Franz, what is the answer? Suddenly he felt much duller. A kind of shutdown. He became aware of a black-uniformed SS officer stalking across the hall. Coming this way …

  Wagner felt a prickling on his back. The SS man was still coming — for him? The immigration official had not seen him yet, he was glowering at Wagner. ‘Mein herr!’

  The SS man was tapping the immigration official on the shoulder, surprising him out of his anger, taking him aside, speaking in his ear, ignoring Wagner. Something made Wagner look back along the SS man’s route. His heart stopped. A short, hugely broad man in a homburg and an astrakhancollared overcoat stood in a doorway, smoking a large cigar held in a black, leather-gloved hand. Herr von Streck of the beerhall! Wagner blinked in his amazement; in that instant the Nazi vanished.

  The official was remonstrating with the officer, gesturing at the banker. The SS man leaned forward, stared into the man’s eyes, and snarled words. The official stiffened to attention, like a person whose world was about to collapse. Wagner could go. Just waved out. With a thrill of deliverance, he saw that the Gestapo had vanished. The rear wall was as white and blank as an empty page. He carried his bags along the platform to rejoin the train.

  Thirty minutes later, gazing into the Swiss night, indistinguishable from the German, he addressed this latest puzzle. His hands were shaking. Delayed shock. He could hardly light a cigarette. God, he was dying for a beer.Von Streck – inexplicably present — an angel of mercy in an astrakhan coat, smoking a cigar? A mystery. What
ever its implications, it’d allowed him to continue with the next stage of Franz’s plan. And another’s? This von Strech? That was something fresh to wonder at but suddenly he felt enlivened — able to order his thoughts to the task ahead.

  One thing was indisputable. Bach’s manuscript had saved him. Another minute or two and they would’ve had the contents of those two inside pockets out on the table. No man could’ve saved him then.

  Senior Detective Dressler drove the small black car into the forest of tower blocks. As his great hands turned the steering wheel, the chrome bird on the bonnet curved a seeming flight-path against a backdrop of brilliantly white façades.

  He parked the car, and extricated himself from it with extreme difficulty; his head came within centimetres of its roof, and jammed behind the steering wheel, his knees were hard against its dashboard; he had to lever himself in and out with his arms, and did so now accompanied by stentorian breathing. He accepted this hardship stoically: Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  When the door buzzer sounded, Dietrich, with a leaping heart, thought Franz had changed his mind. He sprinted to the door and flung it open. He was startled, then nonplussed, to find a solemn giant of a man standing there.

  ‘Yes?’ he said, frowning.

  ‘Herr Dietrich?’

  ‘Yes. Who are you?’

  ‘I think I should come in to explain that.’ Dressler placed a hand as big as a dinner plate flat on the Nazi’s white shirt front, and without effort or show, pushed him back into the room. It was many years since anyone had laid a hand on Dietrich. Amazed, his face sagging, he went back without resistance. In the centre of his living room, the irresistible pressure on his chest was removed. His mouth agape, the Nazi stared up at the intruder’s serious face, the luxuriant moustache. Somehow the man had managed to swing the door shut as he’d advanced through it. What did he have here, a thief — a madman?

  As if a switch had been pulled, his face flooded with colour. In the absence of further aggression from the giant, who appeared to be methodically inspecting his every facial pore, anger flared in the Nazi. Good God! He wouldn’t put up with this!

  ‘Mein herr! If you know what’s good for you, you will leave this instant. Do you understand? You fool! I’m a captain in the SS!’

  ‘Be quiet,’ Dressler said, ‘or I’ll kill you now.’With surprising speed his hand shot out again, this time to shove the Nazi backwards into the lounge.

  A deadly chill invaded Dietrich. He struggled to sit up. He was strong, athletic, but utterly powerless against this human mountain. His brain, slightly dulled by the champagne and wine, was swiftly shaking off its torpor. It came to him that anger and threats were inappropriate responses: that he was in deadly danger. Only his wits could save him. His Luger was in the top drawer of his desk four metres away. He took a breath and smelled menthol.

  ‘Mein herr, I’m sure this is a mistake — but, how do you think I can help you?’

  ‘You can’t help me,’ Dressler said dolorously. ‘But you will answer my questions.’

  The Nazi grimaced, nervously. ‘Of course – if I can. I must have a cigarette.’ He reached into his pocket and drew forth the packet, matches, and lit up. ‘Now, I’m ready.’

  ‘My name is Dressler. Senior Detective Klaus Dressler of the Municipal Police. Father of Fräulein Lilli Dressler, recently deceased, formerly secretary to General-Director Herr Wertheim, of Bankhaus Wertheim & Co.’ He recited this with a deadly quiet formality, as though giving evidence to the court on an aggravated burglary charge — the most serious offence he usually dealt with. ‘Doubtless, you remember her.’

  Dietrich’s face had changed again, drastically; the skin seemed to have shrunk against his cheekbones. But the puzzle was solved. He stared at the detective, his mind churning, grasping for a way out.

  ‘Yes …’ Dressler said, nodding his head, confirming the Nazi’s reaction. ‘I wish to follow the workings of your mind – in the matter of my daughter. I know the criminal mind. But the petty category. It hasn’t been my lot to come up against the more advanced type. Let alone a monster. So talk. And when you’ve satisfied me, I’ll put a bullet through your brain. Grant you an easy death.’

  In an afterthought, he reached inside his overcoat, and brought out his pistol. He worked the action, then dropped his arm to hang loosely by his side; the blue-metalled weapon had vanished into his fist as if by sleight of hand.

  Dietrich’s stomach had turned to water, moisture had pricked out on his brow, was running down his ribs from his armpits. This infernal central heating! For the second time that night, he sought to steady his voice. There was a key to every situation. To this deranged man’s mind. The pragmatic lawyer in him was surfacing, the professionalism on which he’d built his life.

  Into the silence, he said, ‘I regret your daughter’s death. A tragic outcome … that wasn’t my intention or wish. Surely, mein herr, you understand the situation? You’re familiar with the laws of the Reich. Since 1934 it has been a criminal offence for her to be working at the bank. It couldn’t be permitted to continue. Even if I’d not done my duty, in a short time others would have. You’re a policeman – an upholder of our laws – an enforcer of them, I’m sure, without fear or favour. They are the laws and our duty as responsible, patriotic officials is quite clear. At this moment I look into my conscience, can’t see any other way to act than I did. At your police station, you get your instructions, you do your job. We in the Party are no different. I did my duty – for the Fuehrer, for the nation. I regret the consequences, I could not foresee them.’ He stopped abruptly, gasping for breath.

  ‘The consequences? My daughter’s death.’

  Dressler’s eyes had drooped as he’d listened to the speech, as if it both wearied and disgusted him. The steel splinter in his brain was angry tonight. The pain came in reddish waves, and the glaring light in this white hell of an apartment had joined forces with that sliver. The damned agony of it! He shook his head. What did he have here? The reasonable, yet unmerciful man? The ambitious man? The fanatic? But a deliberate, premeditating killer?

  Sadly, Dressler, looking at the Nazi’s tense face, knew what he believed in his heart. This type had broken out like an epidemic. Too many, for bullets to be a vaccine.

  Dietrich, watching the detective, was calculating feverishly. ‘If you kill me, you’ll be murdering an official who did his duty, who’d only a tenuous responsibility for your daughter’s death. Also, you’ll be signing your own death warrant.’ Drops of sweat from his face fell on his knees. As he uttered it, he realised the threat might be a mistake.

  I’ve done that, anyway, the detective thought. This man was only slightly more brainwashed than the German masses. So many in the same boat. Possibly, he actually believed all the propaganda garbage. Felt himself a loyal German. Loved the Fuehrer. Should a man like himself who’d fought in the Great War, really given all that he had to give for the nation, bring himself down to the level of such a fool? Criminal, or not?

  He said, soberly, ‘You’re a lucky man, for the moment. I don’t trust you, or believe you. The lie is there hidden away. But you just might be a big enough fool to believe it.’

  He brought the pistol up slowly, and holstered it. Then he turned and walked heavily but silently from the apartment. As he came out to the night air the whistling began in his throat, his nose, deep down in his lungs.

  Dietrich sat absolutely still. For a long time he did not, could not, move a muscle. In 1934 he’d run a marathon in Munich, and had been as helpless as a baby after it. He was that way now. Eventually, he got to his feet and went to the phone, on legs that could hardly be trusted.

  Later, still drained, he stood at the window facing the other apartment blocks. In this light-blasted enclave night seemed to be perennially held at bay. Behind him the dirty dishes and glasses of the dinner party remained from the evening’s first act; the smell of menthol, of his own fear, from the second. A deeply unsatisfactory evening; not at all wha
t he’d planned. Yet, there was something to be salvaged. And by God, he’d see that it was!

  32

  AFTER MIDNIGHT DRESSLER arrived at his block of flats and climbed the three exhausting flights of brass— rodded stairs, with their threadbare carpet. Halfway up, he gasped, ‘Dressler! … last time … up the killer stairs.’

  He’d made it home. Turning on the light he felt pleased that he had, pleased to be back in his small bastion. A few matters remained to be attended to. But what an effort! Shoulders leaning against the door, he gasped in air, whistled it out. Murderous stairs. Each time he returned from duty at evening or dawn, he thought his lungs were finished — though he’d been thinking it for eighteen years.

  The flat seemed as frigid as the street and he kept his overcoat on, but took his hat off. The tiny kitchen which he entered, like his car, and his cubbyhole at the police station, fitted him as tightly. He, a giant, lived his life in a midget’s environment; it’d never occurred to him.

  He measured out and heated coffee on the gas burner, and watched it percolate. He carried a cup to his desk in the living room, smelt it, drank some, and felt warmth spread in his stomach. Two photographed faces in cheap frames watched him. He studied them for several minutes as though memorising every detail, then his giant fingers fumbled the pictures from the frames. Reverently, he placed them in the wastepaper basket, lit a match and set them alight. From a cold inner place, he watched them brown, curl, become ashes.

  He opened a drawer, found his bank passbook and a withdrawal slip, took up his fountain pen, laboriously completed the slip for 4,000 marks — almost the balance — signed it, tucked it in the book and put it in his pocket. Hopefully, time for a trip upstairs. He looked at his watch: 12.32 am. From another drawer, he lifted a small official-looking box and tipped into the palm of his hand the Iron Cross First Class. In his hand, it looked like a miniature of the medal but was not. He rose from his chair, went to the window, opened it wide, phlegmatically accepting the icy blast, and threw the medal in a casual underhand throw across the rooftops. He heard it clank on tiles, listened to it slide until the sound ended. He closed the window. One day, some roof-climbing plumber would get a surprise.