by Anton Gill
What he needed most, though, was time, and nothing could buy him that.
34
Hoffmann reached Althof at six in the evening. It'd been slow going for the last hour. A long column of prisoners in an assortment of old clothes, guarded by weary, teenaged SS-men, were marching west, five abreast, perhaps two thousand of them. They had all but blocked the road before turning north at last. Some were dressed in striped-pyjama concentration camp issue, most in anything from the remains of Russian army uniforms to battered suits and even cocktail dresses. Some of the women wore makeup. What bizarre order had permitted that? An attempt to make it look as if they'd been treated like human beings?
He hunched over the wheel, and tried to meet no eyes as the prisoners were beaten off the road to let the car squeeze past. Some fell, and did not rise; but the ranks, unbidden, machine-like, reformed: five abreast.
His own eyes ached. He would have to stop. He could see, as he passed the town's name on a metal plate nailed to a post by the side of the road, one hundred metres before the scruffy outskirts began, another sign, battered, hanging awry, and half obliterated by filth and rain: Juden Unerwünscht - Jews, Keep Out. The worst horror committed by the Party seemed like a distant memory, though it was still going on, more fiercely than ever, even now all was lost. The wrecked sign was like a ghost of itself. People had other things to think about these days.
The officials at the road-block here all but waved him through. Galen had been right after all: the trilby and the leather coat were a good combination, though he could have done without them in July.
There was enough cloud on the horizon to guarantee a glorious sunset, but nothing could lend much charm to Althof. It was a new town. Built thirty years earlier on the back of a now-obliterated farming village to house workers, it had spread since then and now sprawled beyond the low hill at its centre, where the great grey factory squatted like a grotesque cathedral over the surrounding, unlovely countryside.
The straggling wind blew up dust and last year's leaves. The place smelled of hot oil. The oldest buildings, shed-like, were made of wood; later constructions were of glossy brick - dark red and black. Even at the end of a perfect day they seemed to be hunched against rain, their slate roofs slick, sloping steeply. The most recent edifices were concrete rectangles, punctuated evenly by square windows, placed in ranks divided by unmade roads caked with dried mud. Here and there a spindly silver birch or a dusty, obstinate buddleia, dead-and-alive, stuck out of a gutter or clung to a crack in a building. Dry ivy scattered across walls without disguising or adorning them. It was hard to distinguish the blocks of workers' flats from the factory - smaller than it, they looked like its spawn. They manufactured ball bearings and tank tracks there. Before the war, the product had been tinned sausage.
Until recently, when the money had run out, Althof had been busy enough to lose oneself in, and there was still enough activity to suit Hoffmann's purposes. He could see the black hulk of a church on a small rise some way off, and wove a way through the streets towards it. Soon, he reached the main street, where a handful of shops still had goods in them, mainly canned and bottled food from the north, herring and sauerkraut. From one window a cracked mannequin in a pinstripe suit leered at him. Another offered a sparse selection of wooden and metal toys: battleships and tanks.
He checked the fuel gauge. With the extra petrol he'd loaded, he could get to Leipzig. He thought of the Swedish passport but shook off the temptation. He had promises to keep before he could look after himself. So pressing were those promises that he was amazed that he could even for a moment have allowed himself to be tempted. He eased his hands on the steering wheel.
He needed one good night's sleep. He could be across the river Elbe by midday tomorrow. Or he could dump the car and risk a train. He thought about Emma. Had Kessler managed to get her away? Would she have the sense to bury herself deeper - he knew the Gestapo would discover the Nikolassee address, however well it was buried. At least Emma was grown up and had a protector. Maybe she and Paul Kessler would get away together? Brandau might even help from Switzerland. And now there were also American and English agents in Munich and Konstanz.
His heart raced.
A policeman's whistle, warning, not aggressive, thank God, brought him back to the present. He braked hard as a woman in a beige headscarf with an old pram full of kindling crossed the road in front of him. Her head was bowed, her body bent as if under rain. He himself didn't look at anyone, didn't look for the cop; looked straight ahead, easing his hands on the wheel again. They ached. His shirt stuck to his armpits.
He drove along the main street, which was long and straight, like the main street in a Western - some of the frontages even had verandas. As he passed them, he looked down the side roads. He needed a medium-sized hotel or pension, the kind commercial travellers used. Though they had served him well so far, and he could trade on the impression they made in the prevailing confusion, the trilby and the coat would soon have to go; it wouldn't be long before he met some real policemen and he didn't want to stand out too much, quite apart from needing to be a chameleon in order to stay ahead of the game. How he'd achieve that was another question, but it didn't worry him too much. He knew how to handle himself. Again the thought came to him that if only he had no-one else to worry about...
There was a certain amount of traffic even at this time of day - ox and horse-drawn carts, a few small lorries, some running on coal, and the occasional car. The dusty VW wouldn't draw undue attention.
He noticed an inn sign - Zum Alten Wirt - not far down a street to the right. He turned and glanced at the street's name-plate. A new name hammered lopsidedly over the old told him that this was now Göringstraße, but you could easily see that formerly it had been Goethestraße. He drove past the hotel slowly. There was a sign in the door - Vacancies. It looked about right, probably twenty rooms, maybe not that big. Halfway between a hotel and a pension, really. Well, he'd risk it. He couldn't sleep rough, couldn't afford to look too battered yet. Later it would be less important; later, it might even be an advantage; but not yet.
Twenty metres past the inn there was another right turn, which opened almost immediately into a square where several cars were, including a big, official-looking Maybach, and an equally impressive Horch. This seemed a good place to leave the VW. He'd be moving on at dawn in any case. He parked away from the two big cars and switched off. Immediately the indeterminate noises of the town replaced the VW's buzz. As he climbed out, stretching his limbs, a gust of wind caught his coat, and trouser bottoms, and blew grit into his eyes.
He looked around carefully, determining first that, coming back to the car in the morning, he could see it and anyone watching it, before he approached. The buildings surrounding the square had ten windows between them, half of which were smallish, and glazed with frosted glass. A light shone from one of the larger windows - it was still too early for the blackout - and none of them had curtains that he could see, not even the ubiquitous net curtains of his country - or shutters. Offices, then. The shadows on the rear wall, which were visible, were cast by angular furniture. There were no plants in evidence. As Hoffmann watched, a man in a suit moved into view, but he passed the window without looking out, and soon afterwards the light was extinguished.
Hoffmann stood for a minute, then opened the boot and from it took a leather bag, into which he swiftly stacked all the money and papers concealed in the VW's back seat. He took out his suitcase, locked the car, and paused again. He was alone. He made his way to the inn.
35
The room wasn't bad. He'd eaten in the restaurant, Bratwurst and fried potatoes, Bauernbrot and some decent cold beer, all miraculous in these hard times, though he'd scarcely tasted anything.
He hadn't expected to fall asleep easily, but in fact he'd faded into unconsciousness within minutes of getting into bed. But, as so often, there was little refuge in sleep:
He was in a field, on a parade-ground of some kind. I
t wasn't long before he recognised it. He knew where he was. It was close to dawn. He could feel the frozen air. He was in uniform, muffled up, but still the cold had penetrated his bones.
He could see the moon, very bright, and beneath it, to the east, a silver horizon. The grey earth of the compound gave its grey light back to the sky. The compound looked like the surface of a craterless moon. Sandy soil, where nothing moved, nothing lived, nothing was real; and the utilitarian buildings that edged it seemed to belong to a forgotten city.
Or - no more than this - to a light-industrial plant. Something prosaic, transformed by the moonlight into a stage set.
And now there was activity.
A vast copper star with six points hung in the sky and streamed blood. Under it, people flowed into a building, which was like the others, but set apart. There was a sign on the building which Hoffmann could not read, though he knew he'd seen it before. The something Foundation. The roar of an engine, coughing, trying to ignite, failing, trying again. Catching. Then, thirty-four minutes. He knew that they had timed it exactly.
Then silence.
The star caught fire and the light blinded him.
Then darkness.
But there was not a moment's peace. The darkness gave way to light: a summer's day in woodland; pale yellow sunshine dappled the leaves.
He could see now that the darkness was that of a pit, a big one, four metres deep. He had flown out of the pit into the light and now hovered unseen in the air above it. Around its sides stood the diggers, their shovels already returned to the others, the ones in uniform. The diggers' heads bowed. The diggers in rags, here and there the trace of a ruined city suit. Out here in the countryside. Standing now round the edges of the pit, facing it. Beneath them, more than the depth of a grave. A grave deep enough for many. Hoffmann tried to turn his head away but something clamped it to the view.
The cackling sound of machine guns.
Falling.
A different scene:
Why had he no power over what he saw? Naked women running through woodland. Ordinary women, buttocks grainy like in film, old buttocks, breasts up and down, labouring; young buttocks, young breasts, some of the women not women at all but kids, young girls, no breasts at all. Harsh light and deep shade. Running, running.
The trees - uncompromising columns, out of a forest painted by Klimt. Hiding one woman for an instant, revealing another the next. No-one protected for more than a moment.
Birch trees. Straight, cool, silver birches. Dark, healthy soil beneath them. Last autumn's leaves still there. Nice surface to run on, but slow, and the all-but ordered ranks of trees quizzing the sight as the trunks shattered the light before the eyes of the women.
What time of day? The women were running towards the light. Dawn or dusk. Sun low in the sky anyway.
Hard light though. Dawn then.
And then the insistent sound, duller than you'd expect. Gunfire.
He flew into the sky, as if a titan had picked him up by the shoulders, and saw a mottled field beneath him; mottled with women's clothes at the edge of a wood.
What time of year? The trees were in leaf, and the leaves were thick; and each leaf was a hand, and each hand was stabbed, and bled; and the blood was like rain. There was so much rain you might as well be in the tropics.
But it was cold. Every drop an icicle.
And the women who hadn't been cut down still ran, naked back and muscle exposed to the light.
All the sound dull, and no smell at all.
But the sight - would he ever forget the sight?
Or who had ordered this?
Words, unconnected, unconnected letters even, on a page. But a report, to judge from its grey card binding and blue ribbon. A list? On a large orderly desk in an office overlooking an avenue of lime trees. Now, it was early in the year. Buds on branches, but nothing else.
Then the trees were gone. Uprooted, dead. Nothing but processions after that, the whole width of the boulevard.
Birches. Limes.
Then something heavy and brutal was bearing down on him, pushing hard on his chest. It was fleshy and formless, but strong. Its skin was rough. So much of it pushed against his face, like a fat woman, that he couldn't breathe or see.
A choking sense of hatred and disgust brought him out of the dark. But even as he opened his eyes, released from one fear, he was delivered immediately to another. And, rescued from the dream though he was, he could still smell the cordite and the blood.
The hotel room was unfamiliar and threatening. For a moment it was still part of the dream.
But it became real with the dingy light that insinuated itself through the thin green gingham curtains. There was no way of guessing the time from it. Wiping grime from his eyes, Hoffmann lifted his wrist and peered at his watch. He could not see the dial.
He lay back and breathed quietly for several seconds before he could summon the energy to pull himself up and swing into a sitting position on the bed. He looked again. Four o'clock.
He remembered an old man, a communist he'd interrogated a few years ago. He'd said, 'Once I was afraid when I fell asleep. Now I'm afraid when I wake. The nightmare has changed places.'
He pulled himself together. This, he told himself, was nothing that a cold shower and a change of clothes couldn't cure. And a cup of real coffee. But there was no shower and there was only one change of clothes which he couldn't afford to use yet, as there was no laundry here. As for coffee ...
He stood. The room, dowdy in the half light, menaced him. He walked around it, listening to the creaking floorboards. He tried to tread lightly. The whole thing, his life, was like a ghastly dream.
Time to think. Get away with using the car at least one more day. Maybe get to Leipzig in it. Don't panic.
Too early to go down the corridor to the bathroom to see if there was a chance that the water was running. He wanted to be on his way. On the road he'd be free again. How much time had he got? Two days? It depended on whom they'd put on his tracks. He'd trained the best; they'd think like him.
He shook his head to clear it. He reached for the cocaine packets in his jacket pocket but then resisted. Later perhaps, when he left.
He reached for the tumbler of water by the bed and drank.
He looked at his suit on the chair. It'd be fine for a few more days, though already it was creased from the cramped car.
He sensed the beginning of autumn in the air. September and October. The best months of the year, for him.
Long before those months came, he'd be dead, or his business would be done. Perhaps both. Perhaps this was a room he'd relinquished the right to leave. He took out the Swedish passport and looked at it hard.
36
Paul Kessler put his arm around her. He was shy and clumsy about it but she nestled to him. The bus was nearly empty and they felt private and even - briefly - secure in their seats near the back as the bus rolled down an endless country road south-west out of Potsdam, in the direction of Magdeburg. Kessler wanted the journey to go on forever, for the bus to travel past the town, and go on through Germany to Belgium and France, and so on to the coast, where he and Emma would find a boat waiting for them to take them further away still, to the ends of the earth, to some island, quiet and peaceful, untouched by this war and by this regime. But the closest he could get to safety for her was his parents' old summer house in the country. He used it from time to time, and he knew most of the villagers. With luck, Emma's presence wouldn't raise too much comment. The address was probably on file somewhere, but his father was dead and his mother had left for America soon afterwards, so Emma might be safe here for a time. Until he could arrange something better. He steadied the bag of food between his feet.
None of the handful of other passengers paid any attention to the pale, donnish-looking young man wearing thick glasses, or the dark, slight girl next to him. The day had been overcast, but now, in the late afternoon, the sun had emerged to bathe the landscape in a rather melancho
ly light.
Kessler had a lot to think about. He knew he could tell Emma very little, which wasn't easy as she was curious and bright - would he have been so much in love with her if it had been otherwise? He'd have to count on her realising that the less she knew, the better. He wished he knew more himself, but appreciated why Hoffmann hadn't taken him into his confidence more than was necessary. He was hurt in a way, he would have liked to go with his boss, but he knew where he'd be most useful, and where his duty was. These were dark times. He would have enough to do, making sure he and Emma got through this. That was his first and overriding priority. He had spent a long time since his last meeting with Hoffmann trying to assess what the next few days would bring him, and how he would react to whatever next crossed his path. For the moment, though, he needed to concentrate on this job.
He looked at Emma, nuzzled her head, smelling her hair, luxuriating in it, in being in love with her, but part of his mind stayed detached, professional. The only chance of escape lay in being careful. He took his arm away as the bus turned right at a crossroad.
'Nearly there.'
'Yes.'
'I'll have to get back fast today, you know. You'll have to look after yourself. Don't stay here long if I don't return soon. They'll find out where you are, given time. The only question is when.' He couldn't bear to leave her alone like this, but what else could he do? Run away with her? No. The best chance of keeping her safe was to stay where he was, close to the centre of things, and keep his ear to the ground.
'Yes.' She smiled.
'I'll help you, of course.'
She looked at him. 'I have 3000 Marks, my violin, my mother's wedding ring, and a bundle of food vouchers. How far do you think I can go on them?'
Kessler said, 'I'll give you money, but it'll take a little time to get it.'