Into Darkness

by Anton Gill

  Soldiers patrolled in front of the trains, but no-one paid any attention to Hoffmann as he re-read the paper he'd bought earlier that morning, sipped the coffee - far too hot to allow any flavour, good or bad, to register - and began to think about continuing his journey by rail - one of the trains was going to Munich - if it ever left - another, to Nuremberg. The second would be ideal. If he could get a ticket. He still had travel warrants, but the problem was time. Long delays had been posted on the announcement boards in front of each platform. The raid hadn't done much damage to the station, but further up the tracks, rails had been ripped up on several lines.

  He made enquiries, and was told that although a warrant would guarantee him a ticket, there was little chance of the Munich train leaving before midnight, and possibly not until the next day.

  He was mulling over this news when he saw Adamov again, standing at one of the tall tables by the coffee stand, in conversation with a middle-aged blonde woman whose mouth was a splash of bright-red lipstick. He watched them. After five minutes, they parted, the woman walking towards the exit, Adamov towards a train, joining a large number of other people, who, by some unseen and unheard signal, were heading towards it to board.

  But Adamov stopped short, and turned left, making for the next platform, which was empty. Hoffmann made his way towards him. Adamov turned at his approach. 'What the hell are you doing here?' he asked.

  'The car's gone.'

  'Good. Heini must have arrived just in time. What a raid, huh? I thought they might have got you.'

  'Is that why you're leaving? When I got back to the hotel, the Gestapo were waiting for me.'

  'Oh, Jesus.'

  'It was that girl, wasn't it?'

  'She doesn't speak German.'

  'So you say.'

  'She's at the flat. And the phone lines are down. Christ, if you knew the trouble I've been to - '

  'Are you leaving?'

  'I was here to meet someone. She's organising the bike.'

  'And what are you doing now?'

  'Wait.'

  A porter, pushing a mountain of baggage on a large trolley, was coming towards them. Reaching them, he stopped, let go of the handles, and, with a brief glance at Adamov, turned his back, lighting a cigarette. In one movement, Adamov swung a small suitcase off the trolley, and started to walk away. Hoffmann followed, still unused to not being in control.

  'What's that?'

  'Your wardrobe. Trust me, Maxie, I'm a criminal.'

  63

  They returned to Adamov's flat. Ilena was there, asleep in the bedroom. 'Good,' said Adamov, gently closing the door on her. 'She was rather overwrought about you, so I gave her some gin with a little something in it to calm her down. Seems to have worked.' He put the suitcase down and, kneeling, opened it. In it was a sponge-bag containing several luxuries - a bar of soap, toothpaste and a brush, and a shaving kit. There were three shirts, two ties, three sets of underwear, and a brand-new lightweight suit.

  'No water to wash here until this evening - too late for you, I'm afraid - but at least you can get changed when you want,' said Adamov. He looked at his friend. 'If I were you I'd put the suit on now. Sorry we couldn't run to a fresh pair of shoes.' He paused. 'But you can leave that leather coat and your black hat here. I've got you some better stuff. No extra charge.'

  'I must owe you something.'

  Adamov raised a hand. 'Nothing for now. Well, a couple of hundred, if you insist.'

  Hoffmann handed the money over. 'And the bike - if it comes?'

  'They're getting a bargain with the car.' He paused. 'Anything else you need? I've got a Colt automatic here, big bugger, and a whole pile of extremely imaginative magazines - I'm an editor now, you know, as well as a film director, though I prefer to see myself more as a writer.'

  'I've seen your films. There's nothing original there at all. They're all based on stories from Grimm.'

  'The Grimms were much more risqué than I am, and how dare you say I'm not original. Folk tales, fairy stories, they make brilliant material for sex movies, and they have a genuinely Teutonic quality which appeals to my clientèle. Did you see my Robber Bridegroom?'

  'We should have closed you.'

  'What, and put all those poor dear people out of work?' Adamov looked bitter. 'Not that I'm not proud of some of my babies. In time I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't become classics.' He paused. 'Actually, neither of us has anything to be proud of.'

  They stood in silence. Hoffmann thought how old Adamov suddenly looked, and wondered if Adamov was thinking the same thing of him. He certainly felt it. 'You did nothing,' said Hoffmann. 'By comparison, nothing. I am a murderer.'

  'No-one judges you.' Adamov paused, then looked at his watch. 'Look, to hell with this, there isn't time for it. There's some food. Like some lunch? And perhaps a little wine? Got that too. It's been a busy morning, and the fucking RAF didn't help. But we can't leave until three. They'll deliver the bike near the Rosentalhügel at four, as we hoped. That'll give you time to get out of town and settled somewhere before nightfall.'

  Hoffmann was lost in thought. 'Do you think it's been worth it?'

  'What?'

  'What we've done? Has it been worth the sacrifice?'

  'Of what? Of our morality? We have to believe that it has, haven't we?'

  'I've done far worse things than you.'

  'You had to. Otherwise, how could you have done any good?'

  'But what has that amounted to? We've failed.'

  'That doesn't matter. The fight mattered. But now it's over.'

  No it isn't, Hoffmann thought. He said, 'You only made some movies.'

  'Yes, and I played ball with men who are the scum of the earth, men who pushed papers about their desks and sent hundreds of thousands of their fellow-beings to their deaths. They won't last long now, and I wish I could say that I helped bring about their downfall. I tried to. I listened to their drunken indiscretions, I passed information on, I am at least indirectly responsible for a few successful bits of sabotage - oil dumps, armaments factories, supply trains . You too, you've fudged investigations so cleverly that no-one ever knew. You stymied their administration. You've saved innocent lives. It isn't our fault that we failed.'

  'How do you know all this? How do you know what I've done?'

  Adamov smiled sadly. 'Our paths may not have crossed, but sometimes we served the same masters. Nothing's watertight. The odd crumb fell from the table and I had the advantage of knowing you personally, before all this shit started. You knew about me. But your work didn't cover politics, hard politics: you were a Kripo man, not RSHA. Internal Intelligence was after us - people like Heinrich Müller. Department IV. There was communist resistance all along. Not big, but it never lost its teeth.'

  Hoffmann wondered how much else Adamov knew. Hoffmann had sat down with the same men, he had worked with them, helped them plan, carried out their orders. Did Adamov know the truth about the concentration camps? He hadn't been involved in the serious films - the films that showed the model camp, Theresienstadt, as a haven for the Jews - Christ, they'd even managed to pull the wool over the eyes of the Red Cross! And the other films, the secret ones. Hoffmann had been to the other camps, the ones Jews were taken to from Theresienstadt to be killed. He'd been to Sobibor, he'd been to Auschwitz, he'd seen how it was done, he'd sat down with the men who did the job.

  The geese at Sobibor extermination camp - the geese, brought in because their cries drowned the cries of the inmates. He knew that the images burned into his mind would never leave him, that not a day would pass in this life when they would not be before his eyes, and that not a night would come when he would not fear sleep, because of the dreams.

  Did Hagen dream? Hagen, who had become rich in the service of the machine? Once the administration had discovered how effective the poison gas Zyklon-B was in the annihilation process, Hagen had been quick to see the commercial opportunities and had made himself indispensable as a middleman between the manufactur
ers and the users.

  Hoffmann remembered how Hagen used to joke about the chemist who'd developed Zyklon-B as an insecticide. Fritz Haber - winner of the 1918 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, presumably not because of his pioneering work in the field of poison gas, which in turn had led to his wife's suicide - was a Jew who'd left Germany in 1933.

  'One good thing the Jews did for us, anyway,' Hagen used to say of his commodity.

  Tens of thousands of cans of the stuff, conveniently supplied in a solid form which vaporised when exposed to the air, had been shipped by train to Auschwitz and Majdanek. Quicker than exhaust fumes. Infinitely cheaper than bullets. The process got so fast that the crematoria couldn't cope with the bodies. 'A reliable and cost-effective means of processing the product,' Adolf Eichmann had reported smilingly in his clipped, clerical voice.

  And there was this deal going on now to ship thousands more cans to Auschwitz to kill off the Hungarian Jews, a deal Hagen would want to manage, to squeeze the last pfennig out of the system to finance his escape. The only predictable thing about Hagen was his greed.

  Had Hagen ever watched children being herded into the so-called shower-halls. It was impossible to fool children. They always knew. They didn't know better than to think the worst of things. Death hung in the air. Working with the Party to work against it, Hoffmann's moral compromise had sucked him dry, and for nothing. He was a shell.

  Let me save what's left of my family; and let me settle one debt. Then I will welcome death.

  It was a tall order.

  'I've killed more people than I've saved,' he said.

  'Do I have to remind you that for over ten years we've been living in a country that has turned into Tartaros? The smallest criticism, a chance remark, can kill you,' said Adamov. He poured himself a Bols, but Hoffmann refused the bottle. 'Believe me, my friend, we have at least been brave. Anyone with all their integrity intact is either dead, in the camps, or in exile. We wouldn't be here if we hadn't pawned our souls. We'll get them back when we come out the other side.'

  'Do you think it's so simple?'

  'I can't afford not to. You want me to shoot myself? Sorry, I'm not built like that. I'll bite a cyanide pill rather than have them torture me to death, but that's it.' Adamov drew breath. 'If you're not drinking gin, and I have to say you're making a sensible decision, I'll get the wine. I'm not going to get you drunk, you still have a long day in front of you. But I am going to drink hard. I only wish it had any effect any more.'

  Adamov stood up, stoppered the Bols, and took it to the kitchen. Moments later he was back, nursing a bottle of hock, and two glasses. 'I know you have done terrible things, Max. I have heard. But you must not let them get in the way of why you did them. Whether the result is failure or not, it doesn't matter. It really doesn't, Max. You can't afford to think like that. You fought on the right side.'

  'I did too much for the wrong side.'

  Adamov laughed, but didn't really know how to counter the remark, or give any comfort. Instead he said, 'I know the feeling. But we can still turn the fucking tables.'

  They looked at their watches. Adamov went back to the kitchen. Returning, he brought a tray with plates, knives, bread, cheese and sausage. 'We must eat. There's more. We'll pack some for you to take. Those Monbijou guys may not have enough cash to get out, but meanwhile they've certainly got themselves organised. Look at this: Real Knackwürste. Real Emmenthal.'

  'Don't you get stuff from them regularly?'

  'Mostly, we keep ourselves to ourselves. Safer that way. In any case, I haven't been here long enought to reforge any of the old Berlin relationships.'

  Adamov laid the food out on the low table between them.

  'Do you ever think about Kara?' Hoffmann asked.

  'Of course I do. Less than you, I imagine.'

  'That wouldn't be hard.'

  'You ought to let her go, too.'

  Hoffmann looked at him.

  'What are you going to do?' said Adamov.

  Hoffmann smiled, shook his head.

  'How is Stefan?'

  Hoffmann tensed. 'Well, I hope.'

  'Is he safe?'

  'I hope so.'

  'You'll see him?'

  'I must.'

  'Then you will.' Adamov paused. 'Can you get him out?'

  'God willing.'

  'He must be – how old? Ten?'

  'Yes.'

  There was a pause. Neither touched the meal in front of them. 'I could come with you,' said Adamov.

  'No. Only I can handle this.'

  Adamov nodded. He seemed to be making up his mind to say more. Hoffmann, realising this, waited.

  'Hagen has been here. In Leipzig,' said Adamov at last, watching his friend.

  Anxiety flooded Hoffmann's mind. 'I'd heard he was heading south. But that was days ago. When was he here?'

  'He was here for about a week. He had some business to wind up. Got some money stashed here with someone, I heard.' Adamov hesitated again. 'He left yesterday.'

  'D'you know where he's gone?'

  Adamov shook his head.

  'Oh shit.'

  'You don't think he's going after Stefan?'

  'He can't possibly know where he is.'

  'Could he guess?'

  'I've destroyed everything I had that linked me with Stefan. There was one photograph of him. I kept it in a book in the flat in Berlin. I burnt it before I left.'

  'Hard.'

  'Yes.' Hoffmann wondered if Adamov could begin to imagine how hard. But that was unfair. For all he knew, Adamov might have wanted children himself. He stood up, paced the room like an animal in a cage, unable to stretch, unable to bear the confinement. 'What time is it?'

  'We can leave early. It'll be best to walk. It's forty minutes from here on foot.'

  'I've got to get going.'

  'Patience.' Adamov spread his hands. 'Look. What would he want with Stefan, after all? The only thing he can be interested in is saving his own skin.'

  'He's got time. He'd be on a boat to Buenos Aires by now otherwise. The war's not over yet, you know.'

  'As good as,' Adamov said.

  'Not this year. It'll be months yet, at least, maybe another year. Look at the damage they could do in that time.'

  'We have to leave it to our friends the Ammis and the Tommies to stop them now. In the meantime, Hagen's not on the run. Loyal servant of the Reich.'

  'Loyal servant of himself,' said Hoffmann. 'He's gone to ground and he feels safe. But he's not just interested in the money he can still make. He'll have got that organised anyway; and as long as he thinks no-one's after his skin, he'll indulge himself.' He looked at Adamov. 'He was in love with Kara. Desperately in love with her.'

  'He just wanted to own her, Max. He used to come to me, later on. Wanted me to find girls who looked just like her, with the help of a little make-up and a change of hairstyle. Dress them up and film them for him.'

  'And did you?'

  'No-one got hurt.'

  Hoffmann bit his lip. 'Why didn't you kill him then?'

  'He was too well protected. You know that as well as I do. He was never without at least a couple of sidekicks.' Adamov paused, 'In any case, the girls never satisfied him. Look like her they might, but they couldn't mimic her mind, her soul.'

  'Were you in love with her?'

  'With women I've really cared about, I've always preferred the safety of friendship. Why didn't you kill him?'

  Hoffmann laughed shortly. 'Same reasons. It would have put my work in jeopardy. Hagen was too important to them. And later I could never get close enough either.'

  'You could have got somebody else to do the job.'

  'You know better than that. Whom could I trust?'

  'He'll never go after Stefan.'

  'I can't be sure.'

  'But why?'

  'Do you really need to ask that question?'

  Adamov was silent.

  'You said he'd indulge himself as long as he thinks no-one's after his skin.'
/>
  'Don't take any chances,' said Adamov. 'The RAF saved your neck today. But do you think that Gestapo shit was the only one to know about you?'

  'Big coup if he was. Big thing for him to bring me in. He was bloody sure of himself. He might have kept it to himself. As long as Hagen thinks I'm dead...'

  'Do you think he's that stupid?'

  'He's not stupid. But he is arrogant. And this is the endgame.'

  Adamov shrugged. 'Just concentrate on getting Stefan out.' he shoved a plate towards Hoffmann. 'And eat something, for fuck's sake!'

  64

  The walk calmed him, and by the time they reached the burnt-out remains of the tower on the Rosentalhügel his mind was quiet. Adamov had timed the walk so that they would arrive shortly before they were due. Moments after they'd reached the rendezvous he had arranged, the woman from the station came up to them, climbing the slope with some effort. She was carrying a parcel, which she handed to Adamov.

  'All set?' he asked her.

  'It's in the Heuweg. Just head north out of the park and you'll get there. It's being watched, but they'll know who you are. You won't see them at all. It's just security. This is a good bike. Hard to replace.' She glanced at Hoffmann, but neither made to shake hands, nor smile.

  'Good.'

  'Here are the keys.'

  The woman looked at Hoffmann again. Her face relaxed fractionally.

  'Good luck,' she said, and immediately turned and made her way back down the hill, out of sight. Adamov handed the parcel to Hoffmann.

  'Open it.'

  It contained a half-length leather coat, and a pair of goggles. Hoffmann looked at him.

  'You can put the coat on now.'

  They walked out of the park. The Heuweg was a quiet street just beyond it. It seemed deserted. Towards one end there was a cluster of large dustbins. Behind them was a BMW motorbike – an XX750.

  Adamov handed him the keys. He looked at Hoffmann wryly. 'What were you expecting - a bicycle?' And then, as an afterthought, 'You do know how to ride one of these things, don't you?'