Pursuit

by Robert L. Fish

  At Singen the border was only three miles away, at a small village called Thayngen, but Grossman knew the border there would be loaded with guards. According to the stories he had heard at Felsdorf, they constituted half the population of the small town, and the huge dogs they had constituted most of the remaining half. No, Thayngen was not the place to cross any more than Konstanz itself was. Let Wolf and Brodsky think that was his goal; let them think what they would. Grossman knew where he was going to cross and had since he had made up his mind so quickly to make his attempt at last. It made him wonder why he had waited so long.

  They had lunch at Ehringen, dinner at Stochach—both meals paid for by the diffident corporal almost as if it were a compulsion—and then under Grossman’s direction they took a winding dirt road down to Radolfzell on the Zellersee, only twelve miles from Konstanz. Here Grossman had the Jew corporal turn south; he was giving orders now, no longer asking. They passed through Allenbach, less than four miles from Konstanz, and on the far side of the small town he had the corporal stop the truck and drop him off. He started to give perfunctory thanks and then remembered something. It never hurt to be sure of things. He got back up on the running board and leaned in the window.

  “Do you have a tool kit?”

  “A tool kit?”

  “Yes,” Grossman said impatiently. “Tools. To fix things. To change a tire if you have to.”

  “Oh. I—why, yes. Under the seat. Why?”

  “Let me see it.”

  “I really don’t think—” the corporal started to say, and then sighed. He climbed down, brought out the tool kit, and opened it. Grossman leaned over, studying the tools, and then selected the largest screwdriver in the set as being best suited to his needs. He tucked it into his belt, jumped down, and waved.

  “Thanks.” He backed into the darkness, watching the truck make a difficult turn in the narrow road and flee back toward Radolfzell as if pursued by the hounds of hell. Grossman laughed. Typical! I could have taken the truck from him, he thought; I could have told him to drive me over the border somewhere along the line, and the poor fool would undoubtedly have tried it! We were wrong to try and wipe the Jews from the earth; we should have used them for slaves. They would have made excellent slaves.

  It was a dark night, with a sliver of a moon trying halfheartedly to peer through the banks of curdled clouds. He realized this was pure luck; when he had made his impulsive decision to try for the border he had not even considered the phase of the moon. Maybe it augured well for his mission; it was time things went right for him. Still, while he had not considered the phase of the moon, the place of his crossing had occurred to him almost instantly. He had spent many a weekend with girls of various standards of morals here on the Zellersee when he had been at the university in Munich. He remembered well the small rowboats that had been rented out to lovers at the dock below Allenbach, boats one could use to row to Reichenau Island in the lake and there enjoy all the privacy a lover could desire. It was a long row, but certainly within his power to make, for he would not only have to reach the island, but would have to row around the tip to the edge facing the Swiss shore.

  He calculated it would take three hours to bring him into the proper position on Reichenau. Then possibly another hour of rowing, but after that it meant a swim, since he could not risk the noise of oarlocks near the shore. But he would still have the boat for support. An hour out of Reichenau he would strip, place his clothing in the boat, and paddle behind the boat to Switzerland. It would be a long job, but it would be the sure safe way to get there; the shore from Steckborn to Gottlieben had to be as deserted as any section of the border. Of course he could row down from Allenbach to Stomeyersdorf in the swamp area above Konstanz and cross there; that was only a few hundred yards wide—but that portion of the border would be heavily patrolled.

  No; his way was best. The water would be chilly, and his bad arm would be a problem on the long row, but it was the proper method of getting into the country. Then, once inland, over the low hills to Pfyn and on to Frauenfeld. It was an area he knew well, and he was sure he could get by. There were many out-of-the-way farms in the district, and from them he could get less identifiable clothing, and even—with his money—a ride to Zurich by some farmer pleased to be earning ten American dollars. And in Zurich, once the banks opened, everything would be resolved.

  He cautioned himself not to dwell on the future so much, but to concentrate on the immediate requirements of the plan. The small dock with the rowboats had been about a mile east of the town; he was sure they would still be there. This part of Germany and the world had been untouched by the war, people still came here for vacations. The boats might be chained, of course, which is why he had required the screwdriver, but no chain was going to stop him at this point. He hitched the screwdriver into a more comfortable position in his belt and started down the road.

  Deiter Kessler had never enjoyed the war, even in those heady days when the armies of the Third Reich were sweeping all opposition easily before them. Deiter Kessler was by nature a peaceful man, as many large powerful men are peaceful, and while he had been forced at times to kill, he had never done it with the obvious pleasure of some of his companions. And as the war continued, Deiter Kessler enjoyed it less and less. But when the war was over, he found that peace had dealt him worse blows than the war ever had. For when he returned to Konstanz, whence he had been called to arms, it was to find that his wife had gone off with another man, taking not only their children but the furniture as well. The factory where he had been employed was no longer in existence, a fire having reduced it to hot bricks and a hole in the ground while he had been away. It never occurred to Deiter Kessler to leave the area; it was his home and the only solid recognizable thing in a world rapidly shifting beneath his feet. In order to live, therefore, Kessler was reduced to taking a job guarding the small boat dock near Allenbach.

  It was not too bad a job. It required almost no labor and allowed much time for thinking, although few of Deiter Kessler’s thoughts were pleasant. It also paid very little; on his salary it was difficult to find a boardinghouse he could afford. And, of course, the distance from Konstanz made it impossible to pay for daily transportation back and forth. But there was a small boathouse on the dock where oars were normally kept at night, and here Deiter, therefore, had arranged a cot where he could sleep on cool nights. On pleasant evenings, though, he preferred to sleep in one of the boats, lost in its shadows, stretched out on the duckboards with his arm for a pillow, lulled by the pleasing motion of the water. There was an additional advantage of sleeping among the boats; it made it unnecessary to unship and store the oars each night, as well as not having to bring them out again each morning.

  The boat in which Deiter Kessler chose to sleep this particular night was chosen because it was the dryest and would remain dry throughout the night, which could not always be said of all the others. As he lay down, Deiter was looking forward to dreaming a dream he often had, of coming home from the war to find his buxom wife there to greet him, kissing him passionately with promise in the kiss, with his son and daughter there, the house all bright and shining, the odor of his wife’s excellent cooking even edging into his dream to make him hungry. It was a nice dream, a good dream, and even though when he woke it was always to feel more depressed than ever, he still looked forward to his recurring dream. For that brief period, at least, he was happy.

  This night, though, there was an inexplicable variation in the dream. When he came home from the war it was to find the door of his house locked, and to discover he had no key. He started to shake the door, using his great strength, and the lock sprang open, but there was a chain inside, holding the door closed, and he realized his wife must be home to have put up the chain. She not only was home but he could see her inside, talking to some strange man, laughing, paying no attention to her husband. It made him furious. He started to shove the door against the chain, making it rattle, but to no avail. When at last he s
tood back to consider some other means of entrance, for some unknown reason the chain continued to rattle.

  He shifted slightly on the hard duckboards of the boat and came awake, momentarily relieved it had only been a dream, and that the security of his normal fantasy had not been breached. But some of the fury was still in him. And then he became aware that he was still hearing a chain rattle, softly but insistently. He raised his head slightly, peering over the shadow of the gunwale. Someone was trying to pry the ring loose that held the chain coupling the boats; someone was trying to steal the boats! My God, hadn’t he enough trouble in his life? He couldn’t even have a decent dream without someone interrupting! Now that someone was trying to get him into more trouble by stealing the boats in his charge!

  Deiter came to his feet silently, balancing his large frame with practiced ease against the dipping of the boat. He silently unshipped an oar and raised it over his head, determined to give this one a lesson! He started to step to the dock, but the movement threw his boat against the others, making them all bump the dock, and the man turned, startled. In the little light there was, Deiter saw the glint of steel in the man’s hand, and any compunction he might have felt for merely challenging the thief disappeared. With a lunge he brought the oar down as hard as he could.

  The man did his best to avoid the blow, but the heavy oar caught him on his shoulder and threw him from the dock. The tool in his hand went flying, disappearing with a slight splash in the lake. There was an almost audible snap as his leg crashed against the edge of one of the boats, and then he was in the water, floundering.

  In an instant the anger Deiter Kessler had been feeling changed to compassion. What had he done? The man had been trying to steal the boats, it was true, but was that any reason to try to kill him? Was the crime of theft now to be punished by death? Had he become an animal? The water at the dock was shallow, little more than the draft the boats required; he stepped down into the water and raised the man in his arms.

  “Are you all right?”

  “My leg—” There was tight pain in the voice.

  “Let’s get some light.”

  Deiter carried the thin figure in his arms easily, bringing him to the shack, squelching along the dock in his sodden boots. He put the man down as gently as he could, and went inside. He brought out a kerosene lantern and lit it, studying the man on the dock with curiosity. Grossman’s eyes were shut, his breathing ragged. He opened his eyes and then shut them tightly against the glare of the lantern.

  “My leg—it’s broken …”

  It was evident he was telling the truth; the leg poked out at an odd angle, not disguised by the soaking trouser leg. Deiter tried to think what to do. He had no ability to set the leg himself, and he knew from his wartime training that the man should not be moved unless there were trained people to do it. But there was no hospital in Allenbach; there was not even a doctor, or even a nurse as far as he knew. The closest help was in Konstanz, three or four miles away, and he had no transportation. There was a barrow nearby he could borrow, but he could scarcely haul the man three or four miles in a barrow; he could be dead from shock long before they arrived. And the lone constable on duty in town only had a bicycle—

  But the constable did have a telephone!

  Grossman was shivering violently, although the evening was warm. Deiter took off his jacket and wrapped it about the injured man, wincing as the other winced, sorry he did not have any schnapps to ward off the shock that was coming. “Don’t move,” he said. “I’ll go for help,” and he started off at a gallop.

  The small sidewalk cafe on Saarland Strasse gave a view down Konstanz Strasse as well as down Kreutlingen Strasse to the fence that constituted the German-Swiss border, as well as to the two guard positions that allowed passage on the two roads between the countries to be monitored. At that hour of the night there was little traffic, and the occasional truck that came along was thoroughly searched and the driver’s papers well studied. Brodsky had come to the cafe after watching the railroad cars along the tracks on Schiller Strasse undergo a search at the gate he knew would be sufficient to prevent any passage by that route. If Grossman seriously considered crossing into Switzerland from the town of Konstanz, he was obviously wasting his time.

  As if in answer to the thought, there was a soft voice behind him.

  “Forget it. It’s impossible—”

  Max turned in surprise; it was the waiter who had served him his coffee, his only concession to his growing hunger and to the responsibility he felt for the funds he carried.

  “Were you talking to me?”

  The waiter chose to answer in another fashion. He was an old man with a stoop and with sad eyes set in a seamed face; his worn shoes had been sliced with a razor blade to give his corns room. His black uniform was shiny with age, but his paper dicky was spotless.

  “They come almost every day, lately,” the waiter said. “Before the war they came as tourists, for the lake, for the rest, to cross into Switzerland for the scenery. Now they come like you. They sit and have a coffee, or a Kuchen, or sometimes a schnapps to build up their courage or to hide their disappointment, I suppose. But mostly they just sit here awhile, staring up the street to the fence; and then they mostly go away and forget it. Like you should go away and forget it. Pardon me if I speak out of turn, but crossing into Switzerland is not easy.”

  “You say, mostly they go away,” Max said, interested. “Do some of them try to cross?”

  “Not many, but some.” The old man flicked his towel at a fly who merely circled and returned. The old man sighed; the fly seemed to represent the inevitability of his failures. “They try to swim around the end of the fence out in the lake, mostly. Sometimes they drown. Sometimes they get shot. There was one just tonight …”

  “There was one tonight?” Max sat more erect. “What happened?”

  The old man shrugged. “That one was shot …”

  “They killed him?”

  The old man looked surprised at this vehemence at a normal event.

  “I don’t know if they killed him,” he said slowly, wanting to be as accurate as possible with this huge and menacing man now on his feet and towering over him. “There were shots down by the lake; they must have seen him in the floodlights. I’m pretty sure they hit him, because they came and took him away in an ambulance. I mean, they brought him back to the Konstanz side,” he added, as if to prove that even the ploy of getting shot would not guarantee entrance into the forbidden land.

  “Where did they take him?”

  “To the Municipal Hospital, I suppose.”

  “And where is that?”

  The old man shuffled to the doorway and pointed.

  “On Leiner Strasse. Up Robert Wagner Strasse three blocks, then left. Of course they might have taken him to the Sisters across the river, but—”

  He was speaking to empty space. He sighed and picked up the small coin Max had left for the coffee, tucking it into his change purse and laboriously putting the purse into his pocket. They came and they came, and all they got for their trip was getting shot, or going to jail, or just going back where they came from, disappointed.

  The dead man was a stranger, but he was as familiar to Max Brodsky as if they had known each other all their lives. The thin body, the army clothes too large, the sucken cheeks, the hair growing back in patches, the tattoo on the arm that signified a period in Auschwitz-Birkenau on his way here to death beside the Bodensee. Max sighed in pity for the poor soul, and shook his head at the morgue attendant. The morgue attendant pulled the sheet back over the dead face and led Max back to the main corridor of the hospital.

  Well, at least it hadn’t been Ben Grossman. It seemed a cruel thought, a denigration of that man who lay in the morgue and the value of his existence, but that was the way of life. He paused to allow a wheeled litter to pass. It was carrying a pale-faced man whose leg had just been set in plaster of Paris; the leg jutted from a wrinkled trouser leg, still damp, that had be
en neatly cut with surgical scissors just above the knee. The man’s slate-blue eyes flickered open a moment, and then stared in total amazement.

  “Max! What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to take you back to Felsdorf,” Brodsky said softly, and walked along beside the litter as the attendant wheeled it toward the emergency entrance, quite as if they had met by appointment. He frowned as he walked. Had they met by appointment? His frown changed to a smile. Coincidence? He didn’t think so.

  What had Wolf said about God?

  Chapter 10

  It was early November when the cast finally came off and Benjamin Grossman could take his first tentative steps without the use of crutches. His leg had not healed perfectly; the medical staff at the hospital in Konstanz had done their best, but the long delay in reaching them, plus the several handlings he had suffered before getting to the hospital, had splintered the bone and made the doctors’ task more difficult. Benjamin Grossman would have a slight limp for the rest of his life, to add to the disfigurement of what he had once been proud to consider one of the handsome faces of the Third Reich.

  It was not a pleasant thing to think about, and his weeks of convalescence gave him ample time to think. True, it was better than being in the group assembled at Nuremberg for the Allied trials scheduled to begin quite shortly, but the truth was that far more of those sought by the authorities had escaped than had been caught. Oh, the Russians had hung quite a few of the SS they had captured, but the Americans would hold their show trials, hang some and free most, and that would be that. Hitler had been a fool to commit suicide; six months after Nuremberg, he could probably walk down the Unterderlinden and American soldiers would give him chewing gum and chocolate bars. It was the way they were.

  Ben Grossman would sit at the window of his room, staring out into the compound, and think about Switzerland. He had been so close, and then his damnable luck had deserted him once again! Would he not have been better off with the Strasbourg Group and their ODESSA plan? Here he was, crippled, scarred and with a big Jew nose, sitting in a miserable refugee camp six months after the war had ended, and almost a year after he had planned on getting his money and being on his way. And not a pfennig in his pocket. Brodsky, the cheapskate, had asked for the return of his twenty American dollars and he had no choice but to give it back. It wasn’t fair! He was no more guilty of war crimes than Bormann, or Eichmann, or Hirt, or Mittendorf, or the Mauer brothers, or Mengele, or—but he could go on all day. They had all escaped and were undoubtedly living the good life somewhere. And where was he?