Instruments of Night

by Thomas H. Cook

  In the second photograph, several doctors could be seen standing at what appeared to be a metal hospital bed. A tall man, his back to the camera, peered to the right, as if awaiting the arrival of the young girl destined next to he upon the bed. A second, considerably shorter doctor stood to the left, his body draped in a white medical coat. He looked to be in his early forties, with a receding hairline and a sloping belly. He was laughing, and Graves sensed that he’d just told a joke which the other doctors had been in the process of enjoying at the instant the picture had been taken. A third doctor, a fair-haired woman, seemed no less amused. Her lips were parted in a wide smile, but as Graves looked closer, he saw that the levity did not extend to her eyes. Beneath the photograph, he read: Nazi physician Karl Clauberg (at left) who performed medical experiments on prisoners in Block 10, Auschwitz (1941–44). Others pictured are Drs. Rudolph Ernst and Hanna Klein.

  Eleanor leveled her gaze on the woman in the white coat, studying the face closely, noting the wide mouth, the broad nose, the strangely mirthless smile. “Amazing how much they looked alike,” she said softly. “Greta and her mother.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Greta Klein did not seem surprised to see them again. Graves wondered if she’d been waiting expectantly through the years as he had, waiting for the knock at the door, the pointed finger, the accusing voice, saying the same words Kessler had said when Graves had refused to give his name, You can keep your name, boy, but I know who you are.

  “Hello, Miss Klein,” Eleanor said.

  Greta was seated by the window. She said nothing, but Graves detected a subtle dread rising in her, the sense that the fatal hour had come at last.

  Eleanor walked over to Greta and presented her with a copy of the photograph she’d discovered minutes before. “Your mother,” she said quietly.

  Greta drew the paper from Eleanor’s hand, stared at it mutely, then lowered it to her lap. “She is ashes now,” she said quietly, “like the others.”

  “No. Not like the others,” Eleanor said. “Hanna Klein worked with the German doctors at Auschwitz.” She waited for Greta to respond. When she didn’t, she added, “On sterilization experiments.”

  Greta closed her eyes, as if against a scene too dreadful to witness again.

  “On young girls,” Eleanor continued. “About your age at the time.”

  The eyes opened again. A terrible grief was fixed within them. “My mother was a doctor, a scientist. She had done research in this … area. Sterilization. Before the war. As a scientist, you see. The doctors knew of her work. Her mind. They valued it. They used her.” She drew herself up, growing bold in defense of her mother. “She had no choice. They would have killed her if she had refused to help them. They would have killed me too. My mother knew this. She did it so that we could survive. But they killed her anyway. Marched her with the others. Into a barn. And burned it.”

  “How did you escape?”

  At Eleanor’s question, Greta looked like a child returned to a nightmare. “The Russians were near. They were coming to the camp. It was chaos. The soldiers were running about, gathering people, marching them to the west. Away from the Russians. I hid in a locker. A metal locker. Until the Russians came. They took me to another camp outside Krakow. We lived in tents. That’s where Mr. Davies found me. Skin and bones. He had papers for me, papers to America. That is how I knew he was my father.” She lifted her head, as if to regain a birthright she had never really possessed. “Mr. Davies would not have come so far to save me. All the way to Krakow. For a little girl. A nobody. The daughter of someone who was no more than an … associate.”

  “What exactly was your mother’s association with Mr. Davies?” Graves asked. “Beyond the personal, I mean.”

  “They had similar interests,” Greta answered matter-of-factly. “In medicine. Science.”

  “Were they also associated with Andre Grossman in some way?”

  Greta did not seem in the least alarmed by the sudden mention of Grossman’s name. “Grossman knew my mother. That is all.”

  “How did he know her?”

  “They were in the camp together. Grossman also worked for the doctors there. I often saw him coming out of the building they worked in.”

  “Block Ten,” Eleanor said.

  Greta’s face stiffened. “Block Ten, yes,” she said. The name appeared to fill her mind with dreadful images. “In the morning Grossman would come there. To get names from the head doctor. Names of the girls he wanted. Then Grossman would go to the roll call and pull these girls from the lines. ‘Come with me,’ he would say to them. ‘You are going to be saved.’ Then he would take them to Block Ten. He was like that goat. The one that leads the others to the slaughterhouse. Saves itself in that way.”

  Graves recalled himself as a boy, moving toward the darkened house, leading Kessler to his sister. “The Judas goat,” he said.

  “That is what Grossman was,” Greta said. “I thought he was dead. Killed with my mother and the rest. I never expected to see him again. Then, he was here. Suddenly. At Riverwood. Standing at the door when I opened it. He could not believe it was me. That I, too, was alive. In America. Both of us. At Riverwood.”

  Graves saw the door of the main house open, Greta’s eyes meet Grossman’s astonished gaze.

  “He said nothing,” Greta continued. “Then—later—he came to me. Secret. At night. To my room. He asked, ‘How did you get here?’ In German. Always he spoke to me in German. So he would not be understood by them. He did not want anyone to know who he was, what he was. What he had done. To the girls. Leading them away. This was his terror. That someone would discover what he’d done in the camp.” Her eyes shifted to the window. “He said to me, ‘To be silent is the only way to survive.’” She continued to stare out the window, the dark grounds beyond them. “He was right.”

  Graves could tell that Greta had reached the end of what she wanted to tell them. He urged her forward with a question.

  “Was Grossman a thief?”

  “No.”

  “A blackmailer?”

  She turned to him. “Why do you ask such a question?”

  “Miss Davies believes that Grossman intended to steal something from Mr. Davies. An enameled box he kept in his office.”

  Something appeared to give slightly in Greta’s determined self-control, the ever-weakening restraint that had kept her tongue in check down through the years. “Grossman was not a thief.” Her tone took on a quality of defense. “He would never have stolen anything from Riverwood.

  “Then why was he interested in the box?”

  Greta hesitated briefly. “Grossman was an artist. He had worked for a museum. Mrs. Davies believed he might be interested in the little box her husband kept in his office. The one you mentioned. A rare thing. That is what Mrs. Davies told him the box was. A work of art.”

  “The Kaminsky box,” Graves said.

  “Yes,” Greta said. She stopped abruptly, as if a red light had illuminated in her mind. Then she began again, speaking more cautiously now, measuring her words, like one making her way through a treacherous wood. “Grossman had seen the box before. The head doctor, the one in charge of Block Ten, had this portrait of himself. It hung in his office in Block Ten. The doctor had brought the painting from Berlin. To make himself important. Show how rich he was. In the portrait he is holding the box.” Her lips twisted into a bitter sneer. “He thought he was a god. This fat little man.”

  “Karl Clauberg?” Graves asked.

  At the mention of Clauberg’s name, Greta’s eyes caught fire. “He wanted always to be the big shot. Always boasting to my mother and the other doctors about what a great scientist he was. How one day his ‘secret formula’ would be used to sterilize millions of people at a time. Now it had to be injected, but soon it could be given in a way that no one would detect. This new way was already being tested, Clauberg claimed. When the test was over, he would be more famous than Copernicus or Galileo.”

  “Did
Grossman hear all this?”

  “Everyone heard it,” Greta answered. “Everyone in Block Ten. Clauberg was always talking in this way.” She scoffed at his pretentions. “One day he noticed Grossman looking at the portrait he brought from Berlin. He pointed at the box. ‘That is a Kaminsky box,’ he said. ‘Very rare. Very valuable.’ Clauberg told Grossman that he had given the box away on behalf of the Führer. It was very valuable, but he had given it away nonetheless. Out of his love for the Fatherland. To a great friend of German science. This is the way Clauberg talked. Always to make himself big.”

  “Who did Clauberg say he gave the box to?” Eleanor asked.

  “He never said a name,” Greta answered. “But after Mrs. Davies showed the box to Grossman, he believed it might be Mr. Davies who was the ‘friend of German science’ Clauberg spoke of.” The words that followed seemed to draw her into a world of ever-deepening pain. “And he was right. Grossman was right. He showed me papers to prove that it was Clauberg who’d given the box to Mr. Davies.” She looked like a woman who’d reached the edge of a precipice, had no choice now but to make the fatal leap. “That is when the question came to him. To Grossman. ‘Why? Why would Clauberg make such a gift to Mr. Davies?’ Grossman believed I knew, but he was wrong. I knew nothing. So he looked everywhere. For the answer. Always looking. I warned him to stop. That he would be discovered. But he would not stop. He looked in drawers. Everywhere. Always snooping. In Mr. Davies’ office. In the basement. That is where he found them. The records.”

  “Records of what?” Eleanor asked.

  “Of Faye,” Greta replied. “Everything about Faye. Charts. Measurements. From the time she was a little girl. Her whole life. That’s when Grossman thought he knew why Clauberg had given the box to Mr. Davies. Because Mr. Davies was testing Clauberg’s formula. Giving small doses. Over many years. Putting it in food so that it could be eaten ‘als Zucker.’ That’s what Grossman told me. In German. Eaten ‘like sugar.’”

  Graves saw Warren Davies as he made his way back toward the main house, a blond child at his side, her hand trustingly in his, being led by the great man to his upstairs room.

  “It was Faye,” Greta blurted out in a sudden, fierce whisper. “It was Faye who’d been given Clauberg’s formula.”

  The pair stood in Warren Davies’ office now, Faye in the chair before his desk, staring at the bowl that rested near her, chocolates wrapped in brightly colored foil. Graves heard Mr. Davies’ voice, Look, Faye, would you like a piece of …

  “Candy,” Graves said.

  “Grossman was certain that it was all true,” Greta said. “But he wanted proof. Always more proof. Who could have this proof he needed? Only Faye? No one else.”

  “So he told her,” Eleanor said quietly.

  “Yes,” Greta answered. “Everything. What Clauberg had said. The box he’d given Mr. Davies. Grossman told Faye all of this. But Faye did not believe him.”

  Graves saw Faye’s eyes as she studied Grossman, listening, still trying not to believe that any of it could be true, his impassioned words circling in her mind as she lay on her bed in the evening or walked along the edge of the pond, It is being done to you the same as to the girls in the camp. It is slower. But it is the same.

  “Faye would not believe that Mr. Davies could do such a thing,” Greta told them. “So Grossman said to her, ‘I know what the formula is. The basic formula. What Mr. Davies gave you. From Clauberg.’ He meant the chemical. It was Formalin, he told her. Like formaldehyde, he said. Both had the same smell. This he told to Faye. That the girls in the camp smelled of this chemical when they … in their blood … each month. That is when Grossman saw it in Faye’s eyes. That she knew what he spoke of. Something he could not have known. So intimate. They were by the pond when he said this. She turned away from him, he said. So that he could not see her weeping.”

  Greta’s voice grew tense as she reached the darkest part of her story. “That is when Grossman told her the rest. About the girls. How they died. All of them. He had seen it. He knew how they screamed. How it burned inside them. ‘You must go to a doctor,’ he told Faye. ‘You must speak of what was done to you.’ But Faye would not do it. ‘In the end, you will have no choice,’ he told her. ‘Even if you do not speak, your body will speak of what was done to you.’ But Faye would do nothing. She was afraid, as I was afraid. Of the truth. But Grossman would not stop. So much pain, he said, the girls burning up inside. How they screamed and tore at themselves. ‘It may be the same with you,’ he said to her. ‘Go to a doctor. Go now. Perhaps something can be done about the pain.’ But she would not go. He told her, ‘It does no good to say nothing. If you live, it will be revealed.’” She stopped, glanced toward the window, as if trying to steel herself against the final chapter of the tale, then turned back to them. “Then she was dead. Faye. Suddenly. In the woods. Murdered. So there could never be proof. Nothing Grossman could do.”

  “But there was proof,” Eleanor insisted. “Faye’s medical records. And the Kaminsky box, proof of Warren Davies’ connection to Clauberg. Grossman sent all of it to Portman.”

  “It was not Grossman who sent those things to the old detective.” Greta’s voice filled with a distant shame. She pointed to the small desk on the opposite side of the room. “He had left them there. In my desk. For me to read. Everything he had found. Faye’s records. The proof of Clauberg’s gift. All of it. I had all of it. After Faye’s death, Grossman came to get these things, these papers. I told him they were gone. That I had destroyed them. Because I was afraid. Of what might happen to me. Where would I go? Without Riverwood, what would I do?” Her voice broke slightly, then grew firm again. “Grossman knew my fear. He had felt such fear himself. In the camp. He did not accuse me. He left. That is all. He left Riverwood. Without the proof he wanted, the papers. Thinking I had destroyed them. But I had not destroyed them. I had no way to destroy them. I was afraid someone would see if I tried to burn them. Someone would see if I threw them in the river. And how could I take them back to Mr. Davies’ room, back to the place where Grossman had found them? I could not do that. Because of Edward. What if he found me in the room again?” She smiled mirthlessly at the irony of what she’d finally done. “I had heard that the detective worked for Mr. Davies. Portman. The one who had spoken to me. About Faye. Grossman was terrified of Portman. He said Mr. Davies used him to find out bad things about people. Mrs. Davies had told Grossman this. She had warned him to be careful and Grossman had passed this warning on to me. So after Grossman left Riverwood, I thought, ‘I will send all the records to the fat old detective. He will not know what the papers mean. But even if he should discover it, he will never use it against Mr. Davies. I wanted only to be rid of the records. That is all. Rid of them forever. So that I could never be accused of anything.” Her eyes glistened. “I wanted only to survive, you see.” She appeared to return to those grim days, hear the bark of the dogs again, smell the smoke of the ovens, a little girl standing in the snow, before the looming visage of Block Ten. “In the camp I heard of an experiment. There was a room with a table. A mother and daughter faced each other. Strapped in chairs, electric wires attached to them. The daughter with one free hand. Near a switch. When the order is given, the daughter must pull the switch. This sends electricity to her mother. If the daughter refuses, she is given the pain instead. This is the experiment. To see what fear of pain can make a daughter do to her own mother.” Her eyes shot over to Graves. “I can tell you what it did. It made the daughter torture her mother. And, finally, kill her mother. It was the same with sons and fathers. In such a place, with so much fear, even Faye would have done the same.” Her voice grew tender. “Everybody loved Faye. They said that she was good. But it is easy to be good when there is no terror.” She paused, then added a final, stark conclusion. “At Auschwitz I saw God. I saw that He walked outside the wire. Carried a short black whip. He wore high boots and waved in the trains, this God I saw. It was He who ran the camp.”

 
CHAPTER 31

  As Graves and Eleanor left the main house, the darkness seemed to thicken around them, as dense and impenetrable as the still-unsolved mystery of Faye Harrison’s murder.

  “Do you believe Greta?” Eleanor asked at last.

  “Yes, I do,” Graves said without hesitation. “All of it. About Davies. About Grossman and herself. Her mother. Everything.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  Graves knew precisely why. For it was a truth his own experience had taught him. “Because confession is harder than anything.” He saw Sheriff Sloane’s car pull away for the last time, the old man at last convinced the boy would never speak. “Silence is so much easier.”

  “So who killed Faye?” Eleanor asked.

  In his mind Graves saw Gwen step out of the woods, onto the dusty little road that led to their home, saw the dark car approaching from behind, freckled hands on its black wheel. “A stranger,” he said. “I’ll have to tell Miss Davies that that’s all I’ve come up with.”

  “Except that her father was a criminal,” Eleanor said. “That Riverwood was never innocent. That it was more like Malverna. Are you going to tell Miss Davies any of that?”

  “What good would it do? Warren Davies is dead.”

  “So is Faye,” Eleanor said pointedly. “Someone killed her before she could tell anyone anything.”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t Warren Davies who killed her. When Faye died, he was exactly where he said he was. In Britanny Falls. First with Brinker. Then with Portman.”

  “But he might have hired someone to do it,” Eleanor insisted. “An outsider.”

  “Except that he had no reason to kill Faye,” Graves said. “Because Davies never knew that Grossman had told her anything. And even if Faye had confronted him when they sat together in the gazebo that morning, Davies wouldn’t have had time to arrange for her murder only a few hours later.”