by John Meaney
"My parents," I said, "didn't play as big a part as Clive's father. But they were loyal."
A part of me believed the story. You have to immerse yourself in the role. But Schtüpnagel seemed intent on Rogers.
"And this film you made, Herr Rogers, that is now finished. It is going to be broadcast?"
"In Britain, almost certainly."
He meant that in the US there was no chance. In fact the film did not exist, although he had carried out some interviews, which Schtüpnagel's people had been able to verify by phoning the interviewees: German scientists living in America and England. All part of our cover story.
"The Americans," said Schtüpnagel, "believe in Kennedy's dream. Flying to the moon, for God's sake. They forget about kidnapping scientists to get their rockets launched."
Call it kidnap, or call it living in luxury in lieu of being hanged for war crimes along with their friends in Nürnberg, entirely your choice.
"And how many," asked Rogers, "disappeared inside Russia at the war's end?"
"Precisely. You have right."
He meant Rogers was right. Truly, hundreds of thousands of captured Germans failed to make it home from Soviet territory. No one knows what happened to them.
Concentrate.
Schtüpnagel was fiddling with his mother-of-pearl fountain pen. Not so long ago, bureaucrats sat in warm offices, signing away millions of lives in the logistical exercise they called die Endlösung, the final solution.
Atop the bookcase was a photographic portrait of Heinrich Reinhard, leader of this deluded political party and, by extension of Black Path. Photos for public consumption showed him wearing a suit. The SS uniform was only in my imagination.
A soft tap sounded on the door behind us. Schtüpnagel frowned, then called: "Come in, Fraülein Schenck."
She did, and she was beautiful.
Oh, my God.
Perhaps my nerves were already shot, trembling from the suppressed knowledge of the lampshade in the office corner. What happened next was at a visceral level, and yet mundane, almost domestic. Hilde Schenck carried in a tray of coffee and gateau, then glanced at me.
Some intangible signal leaped between us.
She put down the tray, eyes widening. They were grey and flecked with black, the oddity I'd almost noticed earlier.
"Thank you," I told her. "Thank you very much."
"You're very welcome, Mr Brown."
She poured coffee for each of us. There was strength in her wrist, and in her centred posture. Schtüpnagel was beginning to pay attention to the way Hilde Schenck and I were looking at each other.
Rogers leaned forward to pick up the china jug.
"Do let me be Mother. Who's for cream?"
With a nod, Hilde Schenck put down the coffee pot, and retreated to the doorway. When she left, I exhaled without a sound. What was Schtüpnagel thinking? Was he suspicious of my intentions?
But his attention was on the chocolate cake.
"Excuse me, but" – he gestured toward the photo on the bookcase – "we never have chocolate in the building when Herr Reinhard might come."
"An allergy?" asked Rogers.
"Not exactly." Schtüpnagel put a slice of cake on his plate. "Perhaps I should not—" Then he stopped, and gave Rogers a direct look. "I have seen him sick, very sick, when he ate cake, not knowing there was chocolate cream inside."
There was a small silver fork in Schtüpnagel's hand. He used it to poke at the cake, but he was really fidgeting with a guilty thought, something he wanted to share and yet keep hidden. I moved by millimetres, angling my posture to match his body language.
Schtüpnagel sighed.
"You can not tell this story in your film, actually. But you should know about the 1930s. Unless you were here, you can not understand the, um, Entbehrung—"
"Deprivation," I said.
"—yes, after the war, the first war. Starvation was everywhere, and Jewish bankers refused to help."
Everyone has seen the newsreel footage. Ordinary Germans with wheelbarrows full of paper money, barely sufficient to buy a loaf of bread. Inflation is more than a mathematical concept. It translates into suffering.
"As Herr Reinhard was growing up, he saw that American... um, greed, yes... had changed Germany into a Sündenbock, a... sin goat?"
"Scapegoat."
"Ah, yes. Scapegoat. As if we had started the war."
Rogers was frowning, but I hoped he wouldn't speak. Schtüpnagel was on a roll. He was referring to Austro-Hungary's role in starting the Great War, and the way that Germany became involved because they had treaty obligations to fulfil, once Austro-Hungary was under threat. Afterwards, in 1918, the US government had insisted on ruinous reparations that astonished even the English and the French.
"Bleeding the Fatherland dry," said Schtüpnagel, an English phrase that he must have memorized. "And Herr Reinhard's father died in Verdun."
That was a battle that had been useless strategically, except to the extent that it tied up French forces while men on both sides died by the thousand.
"Herr Reinhard's mother... Oh, she was the daughter of a Graf." He meant a count. The Reinhards were aristocracy. "Now she fought to live as a... seamstress."
Another memorized word? Perhaps a euphemism, because the widow Reinhard would have had little of monetary value apart from the obvious; and she'd had two children to support.
"And then there was the chocolate."
This is the story that Schtüpnagel told, in his broken yet evocative English:
On this morning, as on so many others, the young Heinrich Reinhard rode his small red bicycle round and round the old stone courtyard, circling the cracked, dried-up fountain at its centre, the fountain that now contained only brittle, rust-coloured leaves. He stayed within the yard because his mother had forbidden him (and his sister) to go beyond the gate.
But this was the day the Americans arrived.
According to Schtüpnagel, the first soldier was a black man, the first that Heinrich had ever seen. After the other Americans had entered the house proper, it was the coloured soldier who unwrapped a Hershey's bar and handed it to Heinrich. (At this point I had a premonition of what might have happened to Heinrich Reinhard, but I was mistaken.) What Heinrich remembered next was the sight of a lace doily hitting a darkened window from the inside: a scrap of white lace that hit the pane and fell. And there was a glimpse of a pale hand that must have been his mother's, although his sister was also inside the house that day.
And what happened then was muffled, as the black soldier crushed Heinrich against his big chest, wrapping his arm around Heinrich's head, blanketing out the sights and sound of what his comrades – Schtüpnagel called them his white masters – were wreaking inside the Reinhard home. All that Heinrich could taste was the sickly sweet chocolate, and the vomit that rose inside him even though he did not truly understand what was happening to his mother and his sister.
"And that," concluded Schtüpnagel, his face now shiny with sweat, "is why we have no chocolate when Herr Reinhard comes to visit."
But there was something else inside Schtüpnagel's eyes, and after he had he finished his tale, he shuddered and softened. His gaze grew creamy. There was something here that felt unclean. Rogers looked sick.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"It is all right."
But Rogers was covering with politeness. He knew that we'd tapped into some nasty part of Schtüpnagel's psyche, a fascination with the disturbing trauma in Reinhard's childhood, whether true or hallucination. Could I make use of Schtüpnagel's twisted weakness? If only that lampshade hadn't been calling out to me with silent screams—
"So I'm interested in American engineering of big rockets." Schtüpnagel leaned back in his overstuffed chair. "And how they need German expertise to make it happen."
And there was the matter of what was filling the upholstered chair, knowing the Nazi penchant for human hair, and that didn't help me to focus. Meanwhile Schtüpnagel was r
ecovering from his shared intimate moment, sliding his psychic shields back in place.
I should kill you now, you bastard.
It was hard to force the rage away.
"I could arrange a viewing of a rough cut." Rogers tapped his fingers on his chair. "My assistant can ship me a reel over here, since I'm staying for a week."
"That" – Schtüpnagel licked his purplish lips – "would be nice, Mr Rogers."
"Er... It would be my pleasure."
Oh, my God.
I think Rogers and I realized in the same moment exactly why Schtüpnagel was so interested. It wasn't just the fake documentary or the promise of a sympathetic film about the FPDA. It was deeper and more personal than that. The Nazis might have shipped people like Rogers to the death camps, but some of the bastards had penchants of their own. This particular bastard had his eye on Rogers in a way I'd never seen before, not toward a man.
Had the focus of his attention been female, then most women would be revolted. Why should Rogers react any differently? This was not what he'd signed up for.
So I turned my wrist and stared at my watch. It was unsubtle, and Schtüpnagel noticed immediately. He rocked back in his chair – in that chair – and checked the wall clock. We had seven minutes remaining of our allotted time.
"So actually," he said, "we should continue this later, yes? I thank you for coming, Mr Rogers."
"I'm so very glad I did."
Time to get out of this fucking awful place.
Perhaps I was vulnerable in those few minutes. Fern was further away than ever, stationed in Washington, and I'd dreamed about her last night, and woken up feeling sad.
Hilde Schenck was waiting in reception. Her grey, black-flecked eyes were startling. We looked at each other, breathing in communication on the air, the sharing of molecules in ways that go far beyond thought, deeper than emotion.
There was a tennis racquet case in one corner. It had to be hers.
"You play tennis," I said.
"Yes. Most nights, at a sports hall."
Even her voice was compelling.
"I'm terrible at the game. But I need somewhere to exercise while I'm here."
"So" – with a curve of her lips that was more than a smile: it was an invitation – "you should go there. It's by Sendlinger Tor."
"I will."
Then Rogers was clearing his throat, and the receptionist was getting up from behind her desk to open the door for us. We left the place, all very polite.
After a hundred millennia of homo sapiens' existence, so much for culture and civilization. The most important result of our visit to the FPDA had been a primeval exchange of pheromones.
Hilde Schenck.
In a moment we were down in the courtyard, breathing crisp air.
"I need a whiskey," said Rogers.
"You deserve it."
"Absolutely right I do. What a pig of a man."
"You have no idea."
We debriefed – Rogers smiled at the term – in a café bar off Sendlingerstrasse. I told him to be careful about future meetings with Schtüpnagel.
"I'd be happy," I said, "if I can get a peek inside their organization, and leave you entirely out of things."
"I think" – Rogers took a slug of golden whiskey – "I agree."
"So... Do you want to check out this sports hall?"
"Not entirely my scene, old chap."
"Hilde's probably not there yet."
"First name terms already?" Rogers raised his glass to me. "There'll be men getting sweaty as they exercise, I suppose."
"Er..."
"Perhaps I'll come with you. Just to keep you company."
"For God's sake."
"And if the delectable Hilde turns up, I'll leave you two alone."
Twenty minutes later, we were walking around the circumference of indoor tennis courts. The sports hall echoed. There was a faint, familiar clanking of metal. I followed the sound to a set of grey double doors. Inside, a big man was lying on a bench, pressing a heavy bar toward the ceiling.
His partner shouted encouragement: "Drück, drück, du Scheisskopf!"
Another man stood with his back to us, a barbell at his feet. He bent over to deadlift the bar, hamstrings standing out like bunched cables.
Rogers murmured: "Things are looking up."
"Oh, for pity's sake."
I went back to the reception desk and signed up for short-term membership. My case was still in Left Luggage at the station, but the sports hall – unusually – sold t-shirts, shorts and tennis shoes. I bought new kit.
Tennis players were entering the indoor courts. Everything looked oddly silver beneath the magnesium lighting. No sign of Hilde.
"Definitely time I went for a drink," said Rogers.
"Take it easy. And stay in crowded places."
"Um... All right."
"I'll meet you in the Hauptbahnhof at ten p.m."
"Not planning to make a night of it?"
"Rogers..."
"See you later, old thing."
In the weights room was a leather skipping rope. I worked with it for twenty minutes. Then it was over to the thick barbells for power movements: deadlifts, squats, push-presses and bent-over rows, after making sure no one was behind me, including Rogers. Afterwards I went back out to the indoor courts, where Hilde Schenck was playing. Her style was clinical, a surgical demolition of her male opponent. She was fit, like Fern.
Fern. What are you up to now?
Probably having lunch somewhere in Washington D.C. Perhaps she was planning to seduce some high-ranking member of the Atomic Energy Authority, just as I was considering—
Oh, shut up.
Hilde's tanned limbs flowed with expertise, and her shot placement was nerveless as she hammered back a fast serve, skimming the net. Her opponent stumbled. He was bulky, with cropped grey hair. As he served, overhead light reflected from parallel scars on his face.
Hilde's return was fast. The ball thumped into the far corner, inside the line.
"You win again, Hilde. You're getting better."
"Thanks to you, Klaus."
They were speaking English for my benefit. Both of them had glanced my way during the game. She must have told Klaus who I was. But he wasn't here to meet me. With an odd salute of his racquet, Klaus walked straight off court, toward the changing rooms.
"You're an amazing player, Hilde."
"Thank you... Larry."
In this country, it was a little early to be using first names, but I was only here for a limited time. In any case, our core primeval selves had already established communication.
"It would be great to see something of the city. Have you time for that?"
"Wenn du willst." Hilde said. "If you like."
She'd used du instead of the formal Sie. We were moving fast.
"Perfect. See you outside in fifteen minutes?"
"Ja, perfekt."
I went to the changing room and stripped off my damp kit. There was no sign of Klaus. Probably in the sauna. I headed for the white-tiled shower, where two of the men checked my crotch as I hung my towel on a hook.
They weren't like Rogers. It was the reflex of men who checked for circumcision. Americans are often snipped regardless of faith, but in Europe a missing foreskin signals a Jew or Muslim. However, I was intact (so rabbinically non-Jewish), since my mother was a Boston Catholic, while my father was an English Jewish atheist.
Secular Judaism is a paradox.
Showering off heavy sweat is a particular pleasure. Afterwards, I felt energized as I dressed, concentrating on the physical motions, making a Zen ceremony of an everyday action. I have no home, but my disciplines are always with me. Welcome to my world.
Outside, Hilde Schenck was waiting. Her soft mouth opened a little as she turned to face me. Wouldn't you know it: she was beautiful.
She's a Nazi.
Those shining grey eyes, with intriguing black flecks, were mesmerizing.
She'd kill you in
an instant, if she knew.
And did I mention she was stunning?
TWENTY-ONE:
MUNICH, March 1963
It's a gingerbread town. Hilde and I walked slowly past the statue of Maximilian on the street that bears his name – Maximilianstrasse – and which becomes a bridge passing over the dark River Isar. We stood by the parapet, watching the near-black waters flow, drinking in the sense of clarity and open space you find here, on the edge of Bavarian forest.
"Look, there's a mistletoe bush." Hilde pointed. "Deadly in the wrong circumstances."
"Um, excuse me?"
"You remember the god Baldur?"
Some Nazis had a fascination with Norse mythology. The god Baldur was a Christ-like figure whose death had been prophesied, but his friends had extracted promises from the animating spirits of everything – rocks, different animals – not to harm Baldur. They thought it made him safe.
"Loki the Trickster fooled everyone," I said. "He knew that no one had bothered with mistletoe, so he made a dart with the stuff, and got that blind god to throw it."
There'd been a parade, with everyone hurling weapons that just bounced off Baldur, celebrating his invincibility... until the 'harmless' dart struck, killing him. As a parable, it warns about the same thing as Achilles and his heel.
Hilde smiled. I was passing a test.
"We have time for dinner, don't we, Larry?"
"I should hope so."
She tucked her arm in mine as we turned and began to walk back across the bridge towards the centre of town. She nodded towards the mistletoe bush.
"Like Jews, don't you think?"
"Um... Not as harmless as they look?"
"And they creep everywhere, and get you in the end, just like they killed Jesus Christ." She waved at the partly rebuilt city. "And caused the fucking bombs to drop, you know?"
"Oh," I said. "Good point."
If I could hold back from killing Schtüpnagel, then I could smile at Hilde. The trick was to discount the words as verbal garbage, a symptom of schizophrenia, while treating her identity as something different from her beliefs. Manage that, and I could appear to fall for her.