Wolf's Mouth

by John Smolens

  Pomeroy’s remarks were followed by another gathering of lawyers before the bench, and again I found that by closing my eyes I could push the whole thing away, making their voices faint and distant. I was very tired.

  This time the judges decided to call a recess, for which I was most thankful, although I assumed that meant that I would have to sit on the witness stand yet another day. They said that we would reconvene the next morning at ten o’clock, and we all stood—except for Vogel—as the three judges in their red robes and hats filed down from the bench and left the courtroom.

  I walked back to the table where Pomeroy and Valeria were gathering up papers. There was much murmuring and shuffling of feet as the people in the gallery left the courtroom. Valeria handed me a bottle of water, giving me a faint smile. “Bravo,” she whispered.

  At the other table, Vogel was being wheeled toward the aisle that separated our two tables, but he raised his hand and the woman pushing his chair stopped. He angled his head up until it seemed that his eyes, concealed behind his sunglasses, were directed toward me. I didn’t move; no one moved. Vogel didn’t speak. He sat this way for what seemed a very long time, though it was probably no more than half a minute; then he lowered his hand, his wheelchair was turned, and he was pushed down the aisle and out of the courtroom.

  We made our way to the lobby, where Pomeroy paused to speak with a group of journalists. Valeria suggested that I get some rest, so she and Giannopoulos accompanied me in a taxi back to the hotel. Before they left me in my room, she went to the desk and wrote on a notepad, We can’t really talk here. Room may be bugged.

  Alone, I lay on my back in the bed, staring at the walls, the light fixture in the ceiling, the framed paintings on the wall, the telephone, wondering if they concealed electronic listening devices, or perhaps even cameras, but soon my curiosity was dissolved by fatigue and the realization that an old man lying silent and still in a hotel bed doesn’t provide much for eavesdroppers or voyeurs. I slept fitfully for a couple of hours, perhaps because I didn’t feel alone.

  That evening Valeria and Giannopoulos took me to a restaurant that was known for its Wiener schnitzel à la Holstein. They had reserved a booth that had a curtain, which could be drawn to allow privacy. After the waiter took our order, I picked up the salt shaker and inspected it closely, and then did the same with my fork. “I don’t think they’re bugged,” I said, looking across the table at Giannopoulos. “Where’s Pomeroy?”

  Valeria, who was seated beside me, said, “He said he might be late.”

  “He was right about one thing.” I kept my eyes on Giannopoulos. “My health is not great and I have traveled a long way. I’ve done this against my wife’s better judgment. For what?” I waited, but Giannopoulos only stared back at me. “I came over here to let the daughter of an SS officer put me on trial. I thought they beat Sabaneyev to death. If anyone was going to survive, it would be that Russian. But I didn’t touch Otto Werner.” When Valeria tried to speak, I raised my hand and continued, without looking away from Giannopoulos. “Fraulein Bok has more balls than Pomeroy—how did your people come up with him?” When Giannopoulos still didn’t respond, I said, “She’s not just neutralized every fucking thing I’ve said, she’s made me guilty.” I slapped the table. “I’m not the war criminal here.”

  Giannopoulos leaned toward me, about to speak, but the curtain was suddenly opened and the waiter delivered our dinners, three plates of Wiener schnitzel à la Holstein, with späetzle and Brussels sprouts. After the waiter left, drawing the curtain closed, Giannopoulos tried to speak again, but I said, “Basta. We eat. No talk. Too dangerous.” I cut into my breaded veal, and though it was excellent, I was so angry I could barely taste it.

  We ate our dinner in silence; Pomeroy arrived while we were having our coffee.

  Once he was seated, I said, “The Wiener schnitzel à la Holstein is excellent, but the egg is bugged.”

  Pomeroy only nodded. I was the oldest person at the table and I was being treated like a recalcitrant child. He ordered a glass of wine, and after the waiter left, I said, “This is a German trial. Why an American lawyer?”

  He seemed to expect this question. “I’m a German citizen, born here while my father was stationed here. My mother was German and I have dual citizenship. Like you, Frank, I’ve always felt divided between two countries.”

  “Now you know how I feel?”

  “I understand why you’re upset,” he said.

  “Understand? Spoken like a true lawyer. What I don’t understand, Herr Pomeroy, is how you didn’t know Sabaneyev was still alive.”

  “He changed his name,” Pomeroy offered.

  “Since when has that been an effective means of hiding? You found me. You found Vogel, eventually.”

  “It’s unfortunate,” Pomeroy said. “Frank, we’ve reconsidered our strategy.”

  “You have one?”

  “You don’t have to testify,” he said.

  “Fine, then get me on a plane home tomorrow.”

  Pomeroy was different than he had been in the courtroom. Now he was dismissive, acting like he had someplace else to go. “There’s been a postponement. The trial will resume Monday.”

  “I came all the way over here for this? Why didn’t you ask about my being shot? They nearly killed me on Belle Isle in Detroit. There’s plenty of evidence—witnesses, a police report, hospital records.”

  “There’s nothing that places Vogel at the scene. Besides, you said his son shot you.”

  “Don’t you get it?” I said. “That’s the way Vogel works. He never does the deed. Ask Giannopoulos about the fake priest named Brosnic. Or Hitler’s former chef, Hans Krantz. Flayed alive. You want to talk about feelings? Do you understand the commitment someone has to have to take an order to skin someone alive? Vogel never does these things himself, he just gives the order, and he has such power that it’s done.” Pomeroy merely folded his arms. “Get me on a plane,” I said. “Tomorrow.”

  After Pomeroy’s wine was delivered and the waiter left us, he said, “We need you to stay for Monday’s session.” He took a sip of his wine and seemed unimpressed. “You may not have to testify, but we’d like you to be here. Just in case.”

  “Just in case of what?”

  “In case we need you.”

  I gazed across the table, from Pomeroy to Giannopoulos. “What’s going on?” When they didn’t respond, I turned to Valeria and said, “Che cosa?”

  Her eyes were contrite; she might have been my daughter and had broken some established rule, and then she looked at Pomeroy.

  He unbuttoned his suit coat and settled himself in the booth. “Frank, if at the end of Monday you still want to go home, okay, we’ll make the arrangements and you fly out Tuesday morning. Fair enough?”

  “So I spend the entire weekend here in Berlin?”

  “All the Wiener schnitzel you can eat,” Pomeroy said.

  I considered getting up, pushing back the curtain, and walking out. But it would be an empty, dramatic gesture. “Your strategy changed, how?”

  Pomeroy raised his hand to his face and with a stubby forefinger tugged at the loose skin beneath his eye. “You’re upset over today and I don’t blame you. But I also don’t think you want to leave things the way they are in that courtroom. Am I right?”

  “I’ve been following this case in the news for years,” I said. “You’ve tried to nail Vogel before and failed. What are the odds you’ll get him this time?”

  Pomeroy shrugged. “We don’t get him this time, we try again.” He placed his elbows on the table in an effort to look more optimistic. “Monday I think will be different. If not, home you go Tuesday.” He glanced at Giannopoulos. “With the gratitude of your government.”

  “My government?” I said. “My government?”

  “Absolutely.” Giannopoulos nodded. “Go home and we never bother you again.”

  I picked up the salt shaker and held it in front of my mouth. “You hear that? James, you’re
on record now.”

  26.

  Saturday afternoon Valeria was waiting outside my hotel room when I returned from the swimming pool. She carried a folded umbrella and was wearing a raincoat, jeans, and boots that went almost to her knees.

  “You look more relaxed,” I said. “I’ve always loved European women’s love of boots.”

  “You look quite relaxed yourself,” she said as I unlocked the door with my key card.

  “The bathrobe is compliments of the hotel,” I whispered. “I’m considering stealing it.”

  “Bored?”

  “Why would you say that? I’ve gone swimming twice. I’ve talked to my wife on the phone twice. I watched one football match. If you’re interested, Inter beat Lazio, two-nil.”

  “I thought you’d like to get out for a bit.”

  “Give me half a minute,” I said, stepping into the bathroom. She went into the room and sat in the chair by the window, while I left the door slightly ajar as I dressed. I was about to ask where are we were going, but then realized she wouldn’t give me a straight answer.

  Her gray Audi seemed to move silently through the streets of Berlin, while Mozart’s Requiem played from speakers all around us. “I’m surprised you’re not playing Verdi,” I said. “How did you know I love Mozart, too?” She only smiled, without taking her eyes off the road. “Your car isn’t bugged?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Just us?” Still she wouldn’t look at me. “Where are we going?”

  “You had a tough day yesterday, so I want to take you someplace I think you’ll like. Besides, I wanted you all to myself for a while.”

  “Giannopoulos will be jealous.”

  “He’ll join us later.”

  “Pomeroy?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m feeling better already.” And she laughed.

  When we were on the autobahn leaving the city, I said, “Did you know that I’m a distant relative of Giuseppe Verdi? And that when I was a boy, there was a fleeting moment when I had dreams of being the second great Verdi composer? But I proved to be a ham-fisted pianist and I had no gift for composition. In my teens I wasn’t a bad midfielder, though. That was several lives ago. Then there was a war, and I was captured, brought to America, and it has gone on and on until right now, sitting in this car.” I stared at her, but she wouldn’t take her eyes off the road. “You can’t tell me everything. I understand that.”

  She looked at me then, her eyes apologetic, even sad.

  Soon we were driving through rolling farmland. Valeria shifted expertly through the curves in the narrow road, putting the car through a healthy and necessary exercise. After an hour we entered hill country, and the road climbed to a castle overlooking a vast plain. We toured the castle, reading about battles and sieges, some of which dated back to the twelfth century. Valeria talked about her family, how they had been Austrian until after World War I, when the borders were redrawn and Alto-Adige became part of Italy. She talked about the divided sense of loyalty in her family, how her grandfather fought for the partisans, while some of his brothers fought in Mussolini’s army. The castle was magnificently eroded by time, and when we encountered steep cobblestoned paths, she would take my arm as if she was the one in need of assistance.

  In the early evening, we drove into the village below the castle. Valeria knew of a trattoria there, run by a family from Tolentino that had emigrated north generations earlier, and I realized that this was the true purpose of our road trip. Giannopoulos was waiting for us at a table in back. Dinner lasted more than three hours, ending with Varnelli mistrà, a liqueur that is difficult to find outside the Le Marche region.

  When we were finished, Valeria went to get the car, which was parked on a side street across the plaza. Giannopoulos was staring at his glass of mistrà. “It’s popular in the region I come from,” I said. “This is why Valeria brought me all the way out here, for this digestivo.” Giannopoulos continued to stare at his glass. “If you can’t take it straight,” I said, “pour it in your coffee.”

  He did so, and then sipped his coffee. “At first I thought it would be like ouzo, but . . . it’s better in the coffee. An acquired taste, eh?”

  “The taste of home, yes.” I watched him and he kept his eyes on his coffee cup, in case it might suddenly move. “You were busy earlier,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Something to do with the trial.”

  He shrugged.

  “Pomeroy’s change of strategy.”

  He took in a long breath, and then released it slowly. “We’ll see if it works. You probably won’t be needed to testify Monday and we’ll get you on a plane Tuesday.”

  “Think they’ll get Vogel this time?”

  Giannopoulos picked up his cup and took a sip, and then another. “Yes, it’s much better with the coffee,” he said.

  It was difficult leaving the restaurant, because I had to say goodbye to the entire family: the father and his son who cooked, the mother who had waited on us, and several girls who were daughters, nieces, and one who was married to the son and was pregnant with their first child. Hugs, kisses on both cheeks, all family for life now that we had dined at their table.

  Outside it was snowing. Valeria’s car was nowhere in the plaza waiting for us. “That’s strange,” Giannopoulos said.

  I pointed across the plaza toward the side street where she had parked. “How did you get here?” I asked.

  “Taxi.”

  We crossed the plaza and entered the street. There were two young men standing by Valeria’s car, and when they saw us they ran farther down the street. It was too dark to see them clearly, other than that they both wore leather jackets and had wool caps pulled down tight on their skulls.

  At first, I couldn’t see Valeria, but then I realized that the driver’s side door was open. We hurried around the back of the car and found her lying on the sidewalk. The snow was spattered with black strands of blood. Her face and clothes were covered with blood and she was breathing heavily through her mouth.

  Above us an apartment window swung open and an old man said something in German, to which Valeria replied. She began to move, to get up off the sidewalk, and we helped her until she was sitting sideways in the driver’s seat. “He called an ambulance,” she said.

  Leaning over, she vomited on the curb and her lovely boots. In the distance, we could hear the siren.

  There was a small hospital in the next village. Valeria had a broken nose and a fractured cheekbone. Though Giannopoulos got us accommodations at an inn across the street, we both stayed in her hospital room until early morning, watching her sleep. A doctor, a woman who spoke heavily accented English, told us that there were no internal injuries. She helped translate when two police officers questioned us in the hallway. We could give no reason for the attack. The doctor said it might have been an attempted rape and that it was fortunate that we arrived when we did.

  When we were alone in the hallway, I said to Giannopoulos, “It was a warning.”

  He didn’t bother to reply.

  Finally, we went across to our room at the inn, and as I lay in my bed, Giannopoulos was in the bathroom talking on his cell phone. I was certain he was talking to Pomeroy. I was just falling asleep when he came out of the bathroom.

  “They’re sending someone out from the embassy.”

  “It’s a little late.”

  “Agreed. They probably won’t go after you, because then Pomeroy could put you on the stand again, and wouldn’t that be pretty. Still, to be safe they’re sending two men to keep an eye on you, and to bring her back to Berlin when she’s ready.”

  He sat on the other bed and stared straight ahead. His expression reminded me of when we were young men, sitting in a booth at Tony’s Grill in Detroit—how he was so difficult to read at first, how he was utterly noncommittal yet driven. Still, there was something about him that I wanted to trust.

  “What?” I said.

  “When th
e guys arrive from the embassy, I need to go right back into Berlin. You stay here with her.”

  I slept for less than two hours. I don’t know if Giannopoulos even lay down on his bed. When I woke up he was sitting in the reclining chair, staring out the window. As I got out of bed, he said, “They’re here. One’s down in the lobby and the other is outside her room. I’ll drive their car to Berlin. They’ll take you and Valeria in her car. I’ll see you when you get back.”