by James Remmer
Back at the cottage, he signalled Germany.
ARRIVING LISBON ON CABO ESPARTEL EARLY OCTOBER.
HAVE URGENT INFORMATION. NEED PASSPORT AND FUNDS.
AKROBAT
There was no time to wait for a reply; it might easily take three days and von Menen needed to be back in Buenos Aires inside forty-eight hours. He wrapped the radio and the rest of the paraphernalia in the canvas sheet, secured it with the rope and pushed it way back beneath the floorboards, making sure to leave enough rope showing to enable him to drag the radio out, if and when he ever returned.
The next day he drove back to the quay, intent on “mothballing” Margarita, but the helpful Rivera had been there before him. The wheelhouse had been covered with an old canvas sail, the deck equipment and disconnected engine battery transferred to the hut. All von Menen had to do was carefully store his radio battery and lock the hut.
He returned to the cottage and counted out the money – eight thousand pesos for Señor Cueto and enough personal currency to lend substance to the reason for his prolonged visit to Spain. He wrapped four thousand pesos in a dark blue neck scarf and stuffed another four thousand into a brown paper bag. Everything was in order.
‘Keep up with the studying, Jorge,’ said von Menen, as he boarded the train to Buenos Aires on Friday afternoon. ‘I want to see a marked improvement when I get back.’
After an uneventful journey, von Menen checked in at the Hotel Phoenix on San Martin. He dined late and slept well.
The following morning, a deluge of rain swept across Buenos Aires, the sky almost black. Von Menen found a taxi and eventually made the Confiteria Ideal just after eleven-thirty. Cueto had arrived ahead of him, looking like a well-trodden bath mat.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ apologised von Menen, peeling off his raincoat as he sat at the table, ‘but the weather…’
‘I know,’ replied Cueto, ‘I’ve only ju—’ Cueto paused, dipped hurriedly into his pocket and pulled out a blue polka-dot handkerchief, catching his sneeze in the nick of time. ‘Damn this weather! As I was about to say, I’ve only just got here myself.’
‘You have the ticket?’ von Menen asked anxiously.
‘Right here,’ said Cueto, reaching inside his jacket and pulling out a sodden brown envelope. ‘Sorry, but the rain went straight through my coat.’
‘Just as long as the ticket’s okay.’
‘The ticket’s fine, I assure you. The ship is on schedule and is due to arrive tomorrow. I’ll speak to the captain personally and inform him that you’ll be boarding at Montevideo. On her return voyage, she’ll be calling briefly at Las Palmas, but you should still be in Lisbon within about thirty days.’ Cueto opened the envelope and laid the documents out on the table. ‘It’s all in there,’ he said, indicating with an open hand. ‘Ticket, itinerary, everything.’ Slipping the documents back into the envelope, he stuffed it back in his jacket pocket.
Von Menen reached for his briefcase and rose to his feet. ‘If you’ll excuse me for a moment,’ he said, ‘I need to visit the cloakroom.’
Minutes later, he returned, and pushed a dark blue neck scarf across the table. ‘My payment for the ticket,’ he whispered. ‘Four thousand pesos… and you can keep the scarf.’
Cueto stared nervously at the folded scarf, his hand wavering as he reached to pick it up. Stuffing it into his pocket, he glanced furtively around the room. ‘I need to, er… visit the cloakroom myself,’ he said in a strained voice. ‘If you’ll excuse me a minute…’
Von Menen knew that counting four thousand pesos would take rather longer than “a minute” – in fact, when he next looked at his watch, it had already taken seven – but he wasn’t concerned. He had checked the cloakroom. There was only one way in and one way out and he was sitting next to it.
Cueto emerged almost ten minutes later. ‘My apologies, Señor Menendez, but I had to be sure. Company money, you know.’ He retrieved the envelope from his jacket pocket and passed it across the table. ‘And our little arrangement?’
Von Menen fished in his suitcase, then passed the brown paper bag discreetly around the side of the table. Cueto leaned cautiously to one side and dipped his hand inside the bag, feathering the thick wad of notes.
‘It’s all there,’ said von Menen; ‘four thousand pesos, as promised.’
The picture of weariness was gone, emotion reaching into the old man’s eyes, his bottom lip quivering slightly. ‘I’ve worked for that company for fifty-six years,’ he said, nodding aimlessly in the direction of the street, his voice faltering, ‘ever since I was fourteen… sweeping floors, making tea and now, doing the ledgers. In all that time I’ve been scrupulously honest. I’ve never done anything like this in my entire life, not once.’
Von Menen reached across the table and touched his saviour’s arm. ‘Your secret is safe with me,’ he said. ‘As for the money, well, spend it wisely.’
Von Menen spent the next thirty hours in self-imposed exile at the Hotel Phoenix, brooding about Maria, thinking about the worsening situation in Germany and worrying about the last obstacle that remained between him and the gateway to Uruguay – the Argentine frontier control.
At eight o’clock on Sunday evening, he paid his bill and took a taxi the short distance to the ferry terminal. The steamer, City of Buenos Aires, casting a thick plume of smoke into the damp night air, was making ready for her return trip across the wide, murky expanse of the River Plate. The queue was long and slow, the control a mere twenty metres away, taunting him to take the last tantalising step.
Yet something held him back: a man in black, whose mean, dark eyes roamed up and down the snaking queue with the frightening solemnity of an executioner. He wore the uniform of the Federal Police and he was carrying a Moschetto Beretta sub-machine gun.
Von Menen calculated, his eyes on the one immigration officer for whom the sight of a passport seemed nothing more than a troublesome interlude.
‘We thrashed you fair and square,’ the officer was saying with a laugh, teasing the man sitting next to him. ‘One–nil!’ El Superclásico, the one-day soccer war, had spilled into the late shift of the Argentine Immigration Service.
Cautiously, von Menen approached the desk. ‘Marvellous game. Did you catch it on the radio?’
‘Catch it on the radio! I was there… Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’
‘Lucky you. Varela scored a great goal, I hear.’
‘Fan-tas-tic,’ replied the man, who had as much appeal for von Menen’s passport as he did for his much-loved Boca Juniors’ adversary, River Plate. He picked up the document, flicked through the pages and, without even a cursory glance, banged it with his stamp.
Von Menen scooped up the document, nodded politely and moved towards the exit.
‘A moment, please, señor!’ The voice was low and harsh.
Von Menen froze and turned slowly to face the source of the bidding – the man in black, Moschetto Beretta sub-machine gun and all. A muffled drum was beating inside von Menen’s head.
‘Yours, I believe,’ said the officer. ‘Very nice, too,’ he winked, as he handed von Menen the small portrait photograph of Maria. ‘It fell out of your passport.’
Von Menen breathed a sigh of remission, thanked the officer and hurried away.
Monday 4th September 1944
City of Buenos Aires arrived at Montevideo at eight o’clock in the morning. Von Menen took a taxi to Calle Ituzaingó and checked in at the Pyramide Hotel.
He drifted aimlessly around Montevideo, dragging the burden of anxiety and misgivings with him. Is my ticket genuine? Will I ever reach Lisbon? During lunch at the Café Oro del Rhin, his uneasiness stepped up a gear. The kitchen door was open, grim news spewing from the radio inside.
‘Among the more recent executions in Berlin,’ said the announcer, ‘are those of General Carl-H
einrich von Stülpnagel, until recently the Military Governor of France, Adam von Trott zu Solz, a senior Foreign Office official, and Major Rudolph von Bauer.’
Von Menen’s body fell limp, his face draining to a pallid grey, an icy chill rushing up his spine. Full of trepidation, he waited nervously for the name of his friend, Gustav Helldorf, but it never came. Nevertheless, his doubts had multiplied. The odds that he would be picked up by the Gestapo on his return to Germany had shortened dramatically.
During the next twenty-four hours, von Menen’s nerves refused to settle. On Tuesday he kept his eyes glued to the sea-bound approaches to Montevideo. It was late afternoon when he spotted the stack of smoke, about six miles out, the outline of the vessel growing steadily larger, the white intertwined monogram of Ybarra & Company unmistakable.
Back at the Hotel Pyramide, he telephoned the Port Captain’s office.
‘Yes, it’s Cabo Espartel. Due to berth later today… sails for Europe at seven o’clock tomorrow evening.’
At five o’clock on Wednesday evening, von Menen boarded Cabo Espartel, smoke kicking from her smudged, black funnel. An hour later, the deep, rich voice of the Master boomed out from the bridge:
‘Bo’s’n, we’re ready to leave. Inform the Port Captain’s office that we require a tug.’
After three years and two months, Carl Franz von Menen was returning to the Fatherland.
13
Friday 6th October 1944
Lisbon
Von Menen watched anxiously as the Portuguese immigration officer scrutinised his passport.
‘Are you staying in Portugal, Señor Menendez?’
‘No, I’m going directly to Spain.’
‘Your purpose?’
‘My grandfather… he’s seriously ill.’ Von Menen offered him the spurious telegram. ‘My apologies, but I do not have a copy in Portuguese,’ he explained.
The officer, whose linguistic skills went slightly further than Portuguese, read the telegram, nodded sympathetically and wished him well.
Von Menen’s plan was to reach Madrid as soon as possible, fall on the help of his friend Juan Cortes, and take the first available flight to Berlin.
The questions that had tormented him in Buenos Aires followed him all the way along the quay at Lisbon’s Alcântara Dock. Has Information Post Three survived? Has Werner acceded to my request? Will there be a new identity document waiting for me?
From a bar by the waterfront, von Menen called the Wagons-Lits office at Rua do Carmo, inquiring about flights to Madrid and Germany. The news was cruel: a plane, en-route to Germany, had left for Madrid the previous day.
‘I’ve no idea when the next service will be,’ explained the agent. ‘These days it’s hit and miss. Some Deutsche Lufthansa flights don’t even come to Lisbon; they terminate at Madrid.’
Disheartened, von Menen set off for Rossio Station.
The realisation struck him the moment he stepped from the tram at Rua do Arsenal – the man in a smart grey suit, newspaper tucked under his arm, had been following his route for quite some time. He stayed close, too close. Has he been sent by Werner, or Schellenberg?
Beyond Rua da Betesga, von Menen ducked into a café. The room was hot and airless. A stout old lady with a good start on a moustache and thighs so fat that they hung over the seat of her chair was sitting at the next table, a large sticky cake on her plate. Two waitresses, giggling uncontrollably, watched her from the far side of the confectionery cabinet.
Von Menen might have laughed, too, but the image of Salazar that adorned the kitchen door reminded him of the irony of his circumstances: he’d left one dictatorship behind him and, in his striving to reach another, he had to pass through two more – Portugal and Spain!
A moment later, the same man in the same smart suit stepped through the door, intent on sharing von Menen’s table. He sat down, placed his folded newspaper next to the sugar bowl, ordered and paid for a coffee, drank it without another word and departed, leaving the day’s edition of Diário de Notícias staring von Menen gloriously in the face.
Palming the newspaper into his bag, von Menen picked up his suitcase and left.
The cubicle in the men’s toilets at Rossio Station was no place for a traveller and his luggage, yet somehow, much to the amusement of the lavatory attendant, von Menen wormed his way in, suitcase, handgrip and all.
Hidden inside the newspaper, the passport very nearly commended itself to the gaping wide pan of Shanks porcelain, but von Menen managed to snatch it clear.
His own photograph stared back at him. Kurt Lindemann; Swiss; occupation: banker; arrived in Spain from Germany on 2nd October, or so the passport indicated. Folded inside its pages, he found a well-thumbed letter of introduction from Dresdner Bank, an “open” Deutsche Lufthansa ticket for the Madrid/Berlin service, Portuguese, Spanish and Reichsmark bank notes and a typewritten note in Spanish.
Use only this passport. Destroy all other means of identification and destroy this note.
Take the first flight from Spain to Berlin.
Good Luck. W.
Is the message genuine? As he despatched the note to the sewers of Lisbon, von Menen prayed that it was.
Monday 9th October 1944
Madrid
Smartly dressed and oozing importance, Juan Cortes was sitting at his desk dictating a letter to his secretary when, slowly, the door pushed open.
‘Yes, Emilio, what is it?’ asked Cortes.
Emilio Gazala, general factotum, maker of coffee, fetcher of this, that and the other, and licker of stamps and all else, stood bewildered at the threshold, wringing his chubby hands and humbling himself to the point of extreme.
‘Begging your pardon, Señor Cortes, but there’s a man downstairs. He insists on seeing you personally, says it’s very urgent. He, er… claims to be a friend, sir…’ The word friend hung on Gazala’s lips like a septic sore. ‘Said to give you this, señor.’ He walked the length of the office and placed a tiny object on the lawyer’s desk.
Cortes stared at the small pink stone, leapt to his feet and spoke hurriedly to his secretary. ‘That’s all, Isabella. I’ll call you if I need you.’
Collecting her pencil and pad, Isabella glided out of the office.
Cortes hurried from behind his desk, took hold of Gazala’s arm and almost frog-marched him to the door. ‘Show the gentleman in, at once! And see to it that you bring some coffee.’
Von Menen looked clean, tidy and well-groomed, but he did not reflect the image of the sparkling young diplomat who had passed through Madrid in 1941. Cortes’s greeting was warm, lavish and unending.
‘My God, Carl, it’s good to see you. Where have you been? I was beginning to think you were…’
‘Dead?’
‘Well, not exactly dead, but I did expect to see you back in Europe some time ago.’
As they sat down, there was a feeble knock on the door. Von Menen gestured with a finger to his lips. Gazala walked in, placed a pot of coffee and two cups on the table and left.
‘Where’ve you come from?’ whispered Cortes.
‘Lisbon, this morning.’
‘Lisbon?’
‘Yes, I arrived in Portugal yesterday.’
‘From…?’
‘Buenos Aires, of course.’
‘But I thought… well, you know, last January… I assumed you would have come straight back to Europe. I’ve been waiting for you to phone me for months!’
‘Sorry, Juan, it’s a long story. I had to stay behind. The situation dictated it. What’s important now, vitally important, is that I get back to Germany as soon as possible. I’m hoping to get a flight, but I’m told the service is very unreliable. I might have to wait as much as a week.’
‘Well, you can’t be wandering all over Madrid for a week. Best you come and
stay at my place. It’s only a short ride away and there’ll be no awkward questions. My folks are with the rest of the family at the villa in Granada. Do you have money?’
‘Plenty, thanks.’
Cortes checked his watch. ‘Look, I have a meeting with a client in Colmenar Viejo at three o’clock this afternoon. But I’ll be back around six-thirty. Take a cab, try and get some sleep. You look exhausted.’
‘It’s me, Carl. I’m back,’ shouted Cortes, walking through the door.
‘I’m in the bedroom, changing,’ shouted back von Menen. ‘Won’t be a second… I gather from this obvious independent lifestyle you lead that you’re still unmarried. Right?’
‘Yes, but only for a year. I’ve just got engaged. Getting married next October, the twenty-seventh.’
Von Menen hurried into the drawing room and heartily shook his hand. ‘Congratulations! Who’s the lucky girl?’
‘Her name’s Fabia, Fabia Figuera. She’s a teacher. Say, how’d you like to be my best man?’
‘Sorry, Juan. I’d love to, but my future right now is a little uncertain. What’s in store for me when I get back to Germany is anyone’s guess.’
Cortes noticed the worn expression on von Menen’s face, the listless tone in his voice. ‘Is there something wrong?’ he asked.
‘I’m just a little tired, I suppose.’
‘I know you as well as anyone, Carl. There’s something on your mind. You’re in some kind of trouble?’
Von Menen wandered over to the window and stared out across the bright lights of Madrid. Somehow, it reminded him of Buenos Aires. Then everything came racing back – Maria, Vidal, von Ribbentrop, the Kreisau Circle, the Gestapo and that sinister building on Prinz Albrecht Strasse. ‘The truth is, Juan,’ he said, speaking with his face pressed against the glass, ‘I’m in a mess, a gigantic mess.’