by John Altman
But those who resisted were fighting a losing battle. By the time she’d turned eight, Elisabeth could see that clearly. One Sunday, a contingent of Hitlerjugend brazenly disrupted church services by standing in the graveyard outside the basilica and playing trumpets. Later that month, a squad of Hitler Youth – one hundred boys wearing full regalia – appeared at the door of her science class to insist that the teacher begin the day with the proper greeting. She saw the fear in Herr Hofmann’s eyes. And from then on, days began by heiling Hitler, after all.
Yet still Elisabeth tried to follow her parents’ directives. Mother had drilled into her head that she was weak, fragile, and dependent, and so going against their wishes had seemed inconceivable. All through her ninth year, as the tide roiling the Fatherland had spilled over borders into Czechoslovakia and Poland, she strove to be faithful and obedient, and kept to herself. But then had come a fateful week that changed everything: starting with a confrontation with Inge in the school yard, and ending, at Elisabeth’s first youth rally, with the revelatory Karl Schnibbe, the boy who had shown her the way to a better life, a better self.
Inge, like many schoolchildren, had been emboldened by the change in the wind. Never before had the youth felt so free to flaunt the orders of the elders. And so the mannish girl dared bring her abuse to the next level, lying in wait after class and then ambushing the strange, stalking figure of Elisabeth. As girls gathered around, chanting encouragement, Inge tackled the smaller child as she tried to walk home, bringing her down onto hard cobblestones.
Elisabeth would never forget the feeling of Inge’s rock-solid body plowing into her: like running into a brick wall. Then she was down on cold cobbles, disoriented. Unyielding ground scraped at her back and Inge’s heavy fists pounded into her face, and she felt pain, distress, fear, and, worst of all, hot shame at her own weakness.
When the beating was finished, the girls withdrew, laughing and pointing, and Elisabeth stumbled home in tears. There her mother received her not with sympathy, but with anger. Elisabeth, insisted Mother, should have known better than to wrestle with girls like Inge. She should have kept her distance, protecting herself. She was fragile, and Mother could not always be there to hold her hand.
With disgrace boiling inside her, Elisabeth was sent to bed without supper. Waking in the middle of the night, she found her pillow soaked with blood from a shattered eardrum. But she did not report the blood to Mother, who would simply have reprimanded her all over again. Instead she turned her pillow to the cool, dry side and then lay awake: seething, plotting revenge.
Two days later, against her parents’ express orders, she attended her first Hitlerjugend rally.
The young man leading the event was nothing less than mesmerizing. Sixteen or seventeen, he possessed a beautiful face, with ice-blue eyes and cheekbones like razors, and an astounding physique, sculpted from endless military drills and athletic tournaments, and displayed to fine advantage by his fitted brown uniform. Intellectually, he was no less impressive, putting the most important tenets of Nazism into terms she could easily understand. Campfires and parades and storytelling and uniforms and flags and badges, he explained, his baritone ringing powerfully out across a crowd of hundreds without artificial amplification, were only the beginning. The Hitler Youth stood for much more. Only the most select German children could become members of the Jungvolk, and only after procuring an Ahnenpass, a stamped and sealed official document proving their racial heritage. Then, after taking the oath of the Blood Banner, the cream of German youth would succeed where the elder generation had failed. They would cast aside the ancient poxes vexing the Fatherland and run out any cowards who adhered to the old order. To these privileged members of the Herrenrasse, the master race, belonged the future.
After the oration was done, she screwed up her courage and approached him, planning only to ask for information about the next meeting of the Jungmädel, the Young Maidens. But turning his dark eyes onto her pale face, Karl Schnibbe saw something – even beneath the bruises and the layers upon layers of clothing and the strange Frankenstein gait, he saw something. Later, she would wonder what exactly he had recognized in her. It had been something that at the time she had not even recognized in herself. Perhaps in her flecked turquoise eyes he had seen a smoldering ember of hatred. Or perhaps he had sensed a beauty, in her high pallid cheekbones, and a potential in her untapped body. Whatever the case, he acted on his instincts immediately, with all the grace and ease one would expect of a natural leader. He took her hand and kissed it. Two hours later, he led her into a musty stable halfway between the rally and her home, where, surrounded by chaff and stamping horses, he made her into a woman. She had been two days from her tenth birthday.
Of course, she had not appreciated the subtleties of the experience; she had been altogether too young. But she had felt the pressure of his hard body against hers, and the intensity of his gaze locking onto her face, and the sudden sharp pain and attendant promise of a whole new world unfolding. In his view she was not a porcelain doll who stalked clumsily from place to place, a young girl inviting abuse and cowering from harm. She was a strong and beautiful and proud German woman. When abuse was to be dealt, it would come from the Herrenrasse toward the untermenschen, and not the other way around. Some basic equation about life had changed; something always unbalanced had come at last into symmetry.
Upon Elisabeth’s arrival home, Mother chastised her for staying out too long. They argued, and then Elisabeth – with years of frustration and anger suddenly spilling out, and strengthened by her new-found inner symmetry – spat in Mother’s face. There followed a shocked, disbelieving moment of stop-time. Then Mother ordered her daughter out into the cold. No such disrespectful offspring of hers would sleep under this roof. Father objected, but Elisabeth paid no attention. Instead she went to Karl, who gladly took her in.
Lying now in the second-story room of the herdsman’s home, listening to Josette’s radio and the distant rattle of radiators, Elisabeth felt all over again the thrills of discovery which had followed in rapid succession. During the ensuing weeks she had become a sophisticated adult, a National Socialist, and a fully-realized proud member of the master race, all at once.
Night after night, she had received private lessons from Karl, not only on the mechanics of love – although there had been plenty of that – or on the philosophy of National Socialism and the need to move beyond weakness and passivity – although there had been plenty of that too – but on her own potential. He helped her recognize that she was not weak, but strong. At first, having absorbed her mother’s lessons all too well, she protested. Telling Karl about Inge, she gave voice to fears that fighting back might result in an even worse beating, and irrevocable damage. But Karl laughed. He had a beautiful laugh, ringing and confident and rich. Liebchen, he said – having appropriated her father’s term of endearment as effortlessly as he’d appropriated everything else – I promise you: stand up to the bully, and everything will be all right. For too long we have let ourselves be pushed around – by the architects of Versailles, by the scheming Jews, by the frightened elders. Now it is our time. Weakness and pity and fear are for children, not for us.
And he had been right; he had been right about everything. She discovered this on a pleasant autumn afternoon in 1940 when she turned the tables on Inge, waiting in ambush for the bigger girl at the end of the school day. Elisabeth used a horseshoe to crown the cow, knocking her down and then smashing her face to bloody pulp without bruising so much as a knuckle. Inge had never again caused a whit of trouble. Moreover, she had refused to identify her assailant to the Schuldirektor, and so Elisabeth had tasted for the first time the power which came with instilling fear.
By then she had become, under Karl’s guidance, a different Elisabeth: confident and graceful and lovely, with an easy smile on the surface but a hard core underneath. After two months in the Young Maidens, where she studied femininity, dancing, hygiene, and charm, Karl announced that,
with her special talents, she was destined for more. He extended her training through fox hunting and into rifle sniping, hand-to-hand combat, and rudimentary trade-craft. Then he graduated her, declaring that the student had surpassed the teacher, and gave her over to the Sicherheitsdienst, the intelligence division of the SS, to complete her education under the guidance of the legendary Herr Hagen himself. Beneath Hagen she learned the finer points of espionage: languages, accents, codes, lip-reading, lock-picking, surveillance, and more.
And then she went off to war, albeit in a special capacity, along with the rest of the patriots in Germany: missing the caresses of Karl and Hagen, but eager to make the sacrifice for a future without compromise. Installed in Great Britain, sending back regular reports with her suitcase wireless, she threw herself into her work. For her parents, she spared nary a second thought. Her father had taught her but one valuable lesson, after all, in all the time she had known him, and she had taken it to heart.
She would have liked for her memories of Karl Schnibbe to end there. But a tragic postscript had come four years later – and that, too, swam back into her mind now, in the luxurious comfort of post-war America. It had been in Berlin, during the final days of the conflict. The promise of National Socialism had gone appallingly unfulfilled; a dark destiny had closed in, along with the advancing Red Army, to claim all those who had given themselves to the cause.
Risking everything to return to Germany from England, Elisabeth had discovered upon arriving that there was nothing worth returning to. Berlin was all ruins and dust, burning automobiles and dazed refugees, trophy hunters darting between patches of shadow, and rotting corpses littering the streets – human, horse, and dog. The once-glorious Unter den Linden had been reduced to mounds of concrete and shattered glass. Bodies hung motionless from lamp-posts – deserters from the eastern front, made into an example by roving Werewolf bands or their own SS troops. Yellowish, chemical-smelling smoke lurked in dense clouds. Elisabeth moved warily through the streets, seeking a prearranged rendezvous with a group of elite operatives who would find sanctuary in Argentina. And there amidst the dregs of National Socialism – between a group of well-dressed women standing amongst suitcases arguing over a car, and a squad of adolescent boys, recruited by Hitler in desperation, goose-stepping through the devastation – she stumbled onto a familiar face.
Karl Schnibbe was a pathetic shadow of his former self. Face streaked with blood, uniform torn down the entire length of his torso, he recognized her and flung himself forward with unbecoming desperation. Elisabeth, he pleaded, grasping her shoulders. They are almost upon us. You have a way out? Take me with you, please; take me with you, bring me along—
A single gunshot to the temple sent him sprawling away. She felt not the slightest flicker of remorse. This was not the real Karl, after all, but a hollow shell of a once-great man. The real Karl would have wanted her to end it this way. He would have thanked her for her mercy.
A burst of static from next door, like a punctuation mark; then Josette’s radio switched off. Even the radiators fell silent. Night settled, heavy and empty.
Decisively, Elisabeth shut off her mind as well. Despite one’s best efforts, the past was bound to come creeping back up from time to time. But those memories belonged to a different life, a different world. Then she had been Elisabeth Hübener, of Wittlich – and for a time in England, Elizabeth Morgan of Shropshire. Now she was Elisabeth Grant, of Maryland. And she had enough concerns to fill her plate without reminiscences. She must claim her weapon; she must finish her job; she must secure her future.
But the sharp scent of fir lingered in her nostrils, and the memories tried to poke up again. Coldly, she pressed them away. After a few minutes, she drifted away from the overheated little room and into a pleasant dream. High in the silo, she took aim; and, on the sun porch below, Dwight Eisenhower fell to his knees, a bullet through his brain, a fine pink mist fogging the air behind his head. Never look back.
TWELVE
WALTER REED ARMY MEDICAL CENTER, WASHINGTON DC: NOVEMBER 19
Spooner produced a folded newspaper from a hip pocket. ‘Second column, halfway down.’
The paper was yesterday’s Denver Post. Halfway down the second column, Isherwood found an article headlined ‘POLICE ID VICTIM IN BODY PARTS CASE’.
NOVEMBER 18, 1955. – BY STAFF REPORTER
JEROME WINSTON
Police have identified the man whose head, body, and hands have been found in various locations across the Denver area over the past two weeks.
Authorities have named Arthur Glashow, 24, employed as an underchef in the kitchen of the Cherry Hills Country Club, in Cherry Hills Village, Denver. On Tuesday night a detective said that there have been no arrests and there are no ‘persons of interest’ in the case.
Detectives were seen at Glashow’s second-floor apartment at Villa Park for several hours on Tuesday afternoon, and witnesses reported them taking items from the home, where Glashow lived with his wife, Deborah Glashow, 22. Denver County coroner’s officials declined to provide additional details because police have placed a security hold on the case, which prohibits them from releasing information.
It was not clear whether the man was first identified through a tip. Coroner’s officials said on Monday that they were unable to obtain fingerprints, but a knowledgeable source reports that a distinctive birthmark was recognized.
The bizarre case began unfolding just over two weeks ago, when a man walking near South Platte River on 4 November discovered a disembodied human hand …
Isherwood twice reread the critical line – underchef in the kitchen of the Cherry Hills Country Club – and then tossed the paper aside. Putting his legs over the side of the bed, he turned to the dresser where the nurse had put his civvies.
‘Whoa,’ said the Chief. ‘Slow down.’ He indicated Isherwood’s pepper-shot neck and chest, blistered skin and gauze wrapping, and blood-spotted bandages.
‘I’m fine.’ Lips skinning back from teeth, Isherwood slipped a leg into his slacks. ‘Had a whole night to rest. Bullet passed through, they doped me up with painkillers … and you need me out there.’
‘If you think you’re up to it, Ish, nothing would please me more. But it’s not quite that simple. There’s the little matter of the DA. Five men died inside your house yesterday.’ Spooner shrugged, taking out his cigarettes. ‘I think we can finesse some breathing room – self-defense, after all, and Arnie’s a reasonable man. But he’ll want a deposition, at least.’
‘And then everything becomes a matter of public record. You ready for that?’
‘Of course not. But I can only stonewall him so long, and it’s easier to claim you’re indisposed when you’re in the hospital. Still …’ Spooner exhaled a rafter of smoke toward the ceiling. ‘I’ll swing something. Meanwhile, there’s more. Last night the cops – same fellows who responded to the report of gunshots from your neighbors – picked up a local tough, down by the waterfront. Hands cut all to hell on broken glass. After a little encouragement, he fessed up. He was part of the team that hit your place. And he gave a description of the man who hired him: very tall, mid-thirties, dark hair. Beat up, using crutches, as if he’d recently taken a bad spill. Ring any bells?’
Trying to work his other leg into the pants, Isherwood paused. ‘Richard Hart.’
‘Bastard’s gunning for you, all right. But now we’ve got every cop in the forty-eight states looking for him. They’ve got a name, photograph, fingerprints. And a vehicle – sighted outside your place in Anacostia. Parked there all night, but gone as soon as the fireworks started.’
With a grimace, Isherwood finished climbing into his pants.
‘Long as we’ve got the boys in blue working on our behalf,’ Spooner went on, ‘I’m doubling down. If these guys cover their tracks by cutting up corpses, it makes them slippery – but it also qualifies as a modus operandi. We can use that against them. Any other body parts float, we’ll hear about it.’
�
�What about Max?’
‘Keeping mum. But I’m heading over there myself from here, see if I can knock some sense into him. If you’re really good to go, Ish, I could use you back at Treasury, covering for me.’ He tapped ash into a drinking glass on the nightstand. ‘Say, where’s your better half? Thought I’d see her here.’
A pause, filled with beeping monitors and the faint sound of a woman crying from down the hall.
‘She’s in Florida,’ said Ish at last. ‘Since September.’
‘Well, hell.’ Spooner cleared his throat. ‘I’m damned sorry to hear that.’
‘Life goes on.’
‘Sure.’ Spooner seemed on the verge of adding something else, and then smoked again instead.
Another moment passed. The crying down the hall faded away to snuffles. Isherwood reached for his shirt.
GETTYSBURG
Staring into the mirror, Josette hollowed her cheeks, turned her face right and then left to inspect her chignon, and smiled brightly at her own reflection. ‘How do I look?’
‘Perfect.’
‘But I must look pluperfect. I must make James realize beyond a doubt that he’s made the biggest mistake of his life.’
‘One look at you, and he’ll be desperate to win you back.’
In fact, Josette had indeed made a commendable recovery from the previous day’s waterworks. Wearing a black crêpe de chine which flattered some curves and concealed others, with make-up too heavy only in the aquamarine mascara edging her lashes, she presented an attractive figure. Only the fixedly forced smile detracted from her allure.
Josette turned left, then right, then left again. ‘I look fat,’ she decided.
Sitting on the bed, Elisabeth fidgeted with a fold of her pale gown – borrowed from Josette, it hung off her slender frame like a mainsail. ‘You look beautiful.’