by James Remmer
Ah, the atonement bit, the submissive part, the ‘since the Foreign Minister has decreed it’ slant. Warsaw can be very cold in the winter.
‘… irrespective of your unconventional role, you, like every other member of this legation, will have my full support, that is to say, as far as I can give it.’ Hands in his jacket pockets, he made back to his desk, a sombre look on his face. ‘Have I made myself clear?’
‘Perfectly, Ambassador.’
‘Good,’ he said, returning to his desk. ‘Any questions?’
‘Just one, sir… Whilst I will be in regular contact, there are certain matters which require my urgent attention. Conceivably, they will necessitate my immediate and prolonged absence from the Embassy.’
The Ambassador leaned forward, shirt collar tightening against his neck. ‘My dear von Menen,’ he said, ‘seemingly you are not entirely aware as to the extent of your own brief, so maybe I should enlighten you.’ A gleeful smile trickled into his eyes, as if he were about to rid himself of some troublesome encumbrance. ‘I have it on the very highest authority that you are to be left entirely to your own devices. Your reports will come directly to me, of course, but to put it simply, as soon as you leave this office you are on your own, the master of your own destiny!’
Furrows of doubt wrinkled across von Menen’s forehead. ‘But I do have my own office, sir?’ he queried.
‘You have your own office and your own safe,’ retorted the Ambassador. ‘In fact, you’ve got everything Berlin asked for. There’s a safe in your apartment, too, behind a hinged panel at the rear of the wardrobe.’ He reached over his desk and handed von Menen a small white envelope. ‘You’ll find the combinations and instructions in there.’ A light knock sounded on the door. ‘That’ll be Neumann, but before you go, there is one last thing. There are a lot of people here who are very curious, even suspicious, about your position at the Embassy. A lot of questions have been asked about you. In fact, someone was making enquiries only this morning. He seemed very interested in you.’
‘Interested in me? Might I ask who, sir?’
‘A non-Foreign Office member of the legation, an attaché… name of Jost, Erhardt Jost.’
The name caught von Menen’s breath, the late breakfast he’d taken at a café on Florida backing up inside him, a cold feeling hurtling up the back of his neck. ‘Is that… relevant, sir?’ he asked, stifling his alarm.
The Ambassador shook his head. ‘I’ve really no idea, but he did ask rather a lot of searching questions about you, especially about your family and your antecedents. Naturally, I told him nothing. I care rather less for his kind than I care for this new department of yours.’
Von Menen stared momentarily at the accustomed picture of Hitler hanging on the wall. His assignment scarcely begun, he sensed that Information Department Three had conceived its first prickly allergy already, an in-house allergy, so it seemed. The message was loud and clear: he was on his own, an envoy with a bogus remit, isolated, unprotected and plagued with the conjured image of a man with a shock of straw-coloured hair, a Gestapo agent with a burning hatred for anti-Nazis. Erhardt Jost was creeping up on him like an ugly virus.
The Ambassador offered his hand and bid him good day.
Von Menen walked across the room, pulled open the door and froze instantly. In the corridor, talking to Neumann, stood the student of evil himself: thirty-five, wiry frame, beak-like nose, pointed ears, close-set eyes, a complexion that resembled the flesh of a freshly-plucked turkey and straw-coloured hair cut to pudding bowl precision.
Erhardt Jost.
Jost fetched him an ice-cold look, said nothing, turned and headed along the corridor, leaving an anxious feeling tightening in von Menen’s stomach.
He knows… He knows about the Kreisau Circle.
Neumann led the way to a large, airy room, explained the procedure for resetting the safe and cabinet combination locks, then left in his usual hurried manner.
Locking the door in his wake, von Menen drew the heavy inner curtains and switched on the lights. He rearranged the shelving in the steel cabinet, reset both combination locks and heaved a huge sigh of relief. At last, he was free of the radio, the ciphers, the Walther and the money, save for a fistful of pesos and a wad of US dollar bills.
After the gloomy hours of night-time Berlin, the Argentine capital was a kaleidoscope of vibrant colours, glittering shop windows and blazing streetlamps. It seemed almost artificial in comparison. Along dazzling, cinema-filled Corrientes, where men in smart suits tripped arm-in-arm with women in chic fashionable clothes, colourful posters of Spencer Tracy, Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh and James Stewart were as familiar as they were in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City.
It seemed to von Menen that the glitzy, carefree world of the Hollywood he’d read about had rolled south to meet the haunting and evocative sound of the tango. The war in Europe was far, far away. It was just a banner headline in the international papers. Peering through the taxi window, his thoughts rolled back to what Cortes had said in Madrid: ‘It’s a tricky place… There are those who are only two steps behind Hitler and Mussolini’. In such a bright, dazzling setting, it was difficult to imagine, but Hitler’s Nazi regime had been difficult to imagine, too, and to that extent the notion that the lights in Buenos Aires might themselves go out, just as they had in Germany, was not an empty one.
The taxi headed towards Congreso, trailed by an unmarked Studebaker all the way down Avenida Corrientes and on towards the Congress Building, halting at Entre Ríos, where it did a hurried three-point turn and withdrew towards Avenida Callao. Werner’s perception had been pretty precise. The Argentine Security Services had wasted no time.
After his third week in Buenos Aires, von Menen was almost on talking terms with the Policia de la Capital, he’d become familiar with the amateurish and sloppy surveillance techniques of Müller and Schmidt, and had perfected the art of countering the more qualified methods of Jost.
Each day, he spent several hours at the National Library, usually followed by visiting a newsreel cinema. He listened avidly to news bulletins on Radio Belgrano, read enough books, periodicals and newspapers to stretch the entire length of the River Plate and often roamed the streets until late at night; including the streets of the grime-stricken meat-packing and slaughterhouse district of Avellaneda, where grandiose buildings and manicured parks were as rare as a seven-peso note.
The learning curve was steep, but the reality closed in on him fast. Beyond the bright lights of Corrientes and the haute couture shops along Florida, there was a darker side to Argentina: endemic corruption, political injustice and social deprivation.
Status was the hallmark of existence. This was no more evident than outside the Military Officers’ Club on Plaza San Martin, where braid and brass buttons added an ominous dimension – power! Von Menen reflected that Germany’s National Socialist dictatorship was led not by a revolutionary general, but by a one-time corporal born in Austria. In Argentina, the idea of a politicised former corporal stalking the corridors of the Presidential Palace would have sent shockwaves throughout the entire officer corps of the Argentine military. The thought of him being a former Brazilian would have whisked the higher echelons into an apoplectic rage!
Yet whatever their misgivings about Hitler’s credentials, Argentina’s military stood in awe of his warring, expansionist achievements, a perception not shared by the man in the street, whose message was loud and clear: no one, other than Britannia, would ever reign over the United Kingdom! Von Menen sensed he had a mountain to climb. Finding a pro-German enthusiast amongst ordinary Argentines would be difficult enough; finding a useful one, almost impossible.
Casting a frown at his makeshift “DO NOT USE” note lying by the telephone, von Menen ambled over to the window and peered into the street below. The dark blue Studebaker was back, parked overtly in Esmeralda, win
dows fogged with condensation.
Condensation means limited visibility.
He grabbed his jacket, sprinted down to the ground floor and skidded to a halt halfway through the lobby. There was no sign of Fernandez and the small wooden janitor’s cupboard affixed to the wall was open. Von Menen took one of the two keys hanging from the hook marked “tradesmen’s entrance”, exited the building through the back door and took a short taxi ride to the Hotel Plaza.
From a kiosk in the hotel foyer, he called the Faculty of Law.
‘Yes, Professor Schröder is lecturing today… He’ll be leaving at about four-thirty and he won’t be back for another week.’
Just after four o’clock, a second taxi dropped him at Avenida Las Heras. Von Menen waited on the far side of the road, mindful of the notion that two trilby hats, or a mop of straw-coloured hair, might easily show up like genies from an oil lamp.
Half an hour later, a tall fair-haired man wearing a biscuit-coloured jacket emerged from the building, a monocle hanging from his left lapel.
Schröder!
The man crossed the road and headed in the direction of Recoleta, von Menen following at a cautious distance. Beyond Recoleta Cemetery, the man made a left, side-stepped a delivery wagon and disappeared. Cursing his own ineptness, von Menen drifted aimlessly along the sidewalk, mindful that Schröder would not be back for another week.
Damn!
A moment later, he saw it: a biscuit-coloured jacket in the window of a café on the far side of the road. He crossed over the carriageway and pushed through the door. The man was sitting side to the window, face hidden by the day’s edition of La Prensa.
Von Menen ordered a coffee and sat down opposite him. ‘I’m Nils Bildt,’ he whispered in Spanish.
Silence.
Von Menen pushed back his chair and made to leave.
‘Your mother’s maiden name?’ asked the man, speaking through the newspaper.
Von Menen inched back his chair. ‘Devoto de Martinez von Schönberg,’ he said.
‘And your sister, Bettina… her date of birth?’
‘26th February 1915… but her name isn’t Bettina, it’s Katrina.’
The man lowered his newspaper, smiled and stuck out his hand. ‘Franz Schröder. I’m delighted to meet you, Nils, though I’m sure your name is anything but Nils Bildt.’
‘No, I’m Carl von Menen, newly arrived from Berlin.’
Von Menen reached into his pocket, pulled out the photograph von Bauer had given him and passed it across the table. ‘I’m at the Germany Embassy,’ he said. ‘Rudolph and I share the same sentiments.’
Schröder searched anxiously through the window, his eyes up and down the sidewalk.
‘I wasn’t followed,’ hastened von Menen.
Schröder folded his newspaper and laid it on the window ledge. ‘Good. It wouldn’t bode well for you to be seen in my company.’
‘Yes, Rudolph mentioned that you’re, well, a bit open with your sentiments. But I’m relieved that you got his letter.’
‘Five days ago. It arrived at my overseas mailbox,’ whispered Schröder, seeming convinced that he’d fooled the eavesdroppers and sensors of the entire world. ‘Anyway, now you’re here, I suppose you’d like to talk, rid yourself of the inhibitions of the Embassy for an hour or two?’
‘I would, yes.’
‘The problem is,’ murmured Schröder, glancing around the cramped little café, ‘this is hardly the place.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Are you free this evening?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good; meet me at this address.’ Schröder tore off a sliver from his newspaper and scribbled. ‘It’s a restaurant in San Telmo, owned by friends of mine. You can’t miss it; it’s like Italy revisited, all red, white and green.’
‘Il Pellicano… Franco and Gina Saccani,’ noted von Menen. ‘They’re Italian?’
‘Yes, immigrated to Argentina eighteen years ago, just after Mussolini came to power. Nice couple, fervently anti-fascist, but not communists.’
‘Trustworthy?’
‘Totally, but we must keep our conversations in Spanish. The Saccanis are very discreet and I wouldn’t want to compromise them. Every Wednesday and Friday I tutor their son, Giancarlo.’ Schröder leaned a little further across the table. ‘When you arrive,’ he said softly, ‘use the door in the alley, just around the corner. It leads to a small parlour at the back of the main restaurant.’
Tucked down a side street at the waterfront end of San Telmo, Il Pellicano was a modest, tiny place, buzzing with atmosphere.
Von Menen entered through the back door, made his way gingerly along a narrow passage and into an L-shaped anteroom, shelves creaking with dust-laden bottles of Chianti, smoked hams, salami and huge rounds of Parmesan cheese. It was pure Italian, the smell from the kitchen heavenly.
Schröder, sitting beneath a half-size portrait of Enrico Caruso, greeted him warmly. A moment later, a man the size of a small truck, with a large round face and wide smile beneath a huge bushy moustache, walked in from the kitchen carrying two large plates of pasta.
‘Ah, Franco,’ said Schröder, a hand on von Menen’s arm, ‘this is Carl, the friend I told you about.’
Von Menen rose to his feet, shook Saccani’s hand and the big man sauntered discreetly back to the kitchen.
‘As you can see,’ said Schröder, ‘there’s only the one table. We’re quite alone and we can speak freely.’ He raised an eye. ‘And since I’m anxious to know how things are in Germany…’
‘They’re difficult and very worrying,’ said von Menen.
‘For the likes of Rudolph, you mean?’
‘And many others.’
Schröder poured two glasses of wine, eased one steadily across the table and took a deep breath. ‘In my judgement, Carl,’ he said with calculated solemnity, ‘that evil little man has really over-stretched himself this time. I read in the press that the Eastern Front is just milk and honey for the German army. Perhaps it is, but Russia is a big country and as Napoleon discovered to his demise, the possession of territory alone does not guarantee victory.’ Schröder reached for the wooden pepper mill standing like a sentinel in the middle of the table, gave it a few turns and watched the tiny black specks float down to his plate. ‘Yes, the Russians are in retreat,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘but when they reach the outskirts of Moscow, Stalingrad and Leningrad, they’ll stand firm and they’ll fight like hell, because Stalin will make them fight… until they’ve spilled every last ounce of their blood. It will be very savage. Frankly, I don’t see how the German army will be able to sustain momentum, not at that distance. It’ll cost millions of lives.’
Von Menen shuddered at the thought that his father might be one of them.
‘You know,’ continued Schröder, pausing to stab at a square of ravioli, ‘war is a history of mistakes, each side hopeful that they’ll make fewer mistakes than the other. On that count, Hitler is destined to be a loser. Within a year to eighteen months, the Wehrmacht will be in full retreat, and if Stalin lives up to his name, the reprisals will be brutal and vicious. Hitler won’t last more than two, maybe three, years.’ A mischievous glint seeped into his eyes. ‘Someone might even murder him before then.’
‘I don’t think there’s much chance of that, Franz.’
‘No, I suppose not… Anyway, let’s change the subject. How are you finding Buenos Aires?’
‘Exciting, interesting, confusing and… intriguing.’
‘Intriguing?’ frowned Schröder.
‘In the political sense, yes.’
‘Carl, the political scene in Argentina is about as complex and as mystifying as the steps of the tango itself, equally mesmerising and sometimes just as entertaining. Socialists, Anti-personalista Radicals, National Democrats and… the Military. Different na
mes, but the same hidden agenda…’
‘Corruption?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes. At the moment we have a National Democratic/Anti-personalista coalition, headed by a Conservative, Ramón Castillo; the stiffening, cogent figure of General Justo watching from the wings.’
‘Which prompts me to ask: where, exactly, does the military stand in relation to Castillo?’
‘Like a lamppost to a drunk, as they say; a lamppost which someone is certain to take away – in time.’
For once, von Menen felt relaxed, his sense of isolation ebbing away, the erudite Schröder reaching into his mind like a twentieth-century Plato. He was interesting, enlightening and persuasive, a great intellect, well-mannered, amiable and self-effacing.
‘And what about this GOU organisation I keep hearing about?’
‘Ah… the GOU,’ smiled Schröder, ‘the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, a clique of pro-Axis military officers, about which we’re supposed to know nothing.’
‘Led by Colonel Juan Perón?’
‘Yes… The GOU’s aim is to reflect the political and military achievements of the Axis powers in Europe, elevate the military status of Argentina and dominate the whole of South America.’
‘With or without the support of the people?’
‘My dear Carl,’ said Schröder, his look emphatic, ‘for most Argentines, the concept of life has no relevance whatsoever to that which the GOU would have them endure. The man in the street has no taste for the politics of Hitler or Mussolini.’
‘And Argentina’s relationship with Germany?’
‘Restricted almost entirely to the military. There’s a commercial relationship, of course – banking, chemicals and the like – but the emphasis is largely on the sympathetic element within the Argentine military, mainly the younger, impressionable officers.’
‘And the man in the street?’
‘That’s the job of the Nazi propaganda machine. The fanfare usually starts at the German News Agency, Trans Ocean, on Avenida de Mayo, from where it filters through to the German language newspaper, Deutsche La Plata Zeitung, and other Nazi/Fascist-sponsored news sheets, like Momento Argentina. I imagine there’s an aspiring Goebbels at the Embassy who’s oiling the cogs.’