They had gotten used to the sound of the wind and rain and immediately were alerted to a different sound: footsteps coming up the hall toward Sally’s office. Instantly, Christian was across the room to the door, where he turned the key and waited, gun raised.
Men’s voices. Doug and Sergeant Sanchez were talking about her, wondering where she was, why she hadn’t met Doug downstairs. She wanted to cry out.
As though he anticipated her impulse, Christian gestured her to the floor. She went down, instantly, afraid of the gun. She still could call to Doug and the Sergeant, but if she did, and they forced their way into the office, Christian would shoot them. So she kept silent, watching his still shadow by the door.
Someone knocked on the door. She forced herself not to cry out, not to make a single noise. She couldn’t keep herself from shaking.
“Doesn’t look like she’s here,” Doug said.
“Light’s off. She must have gotten past me.” This from the sergeant.
The door rattled. “Locked. She must have gone. Come on, Sergeant, let’s go check downstairs again.” And their footsteps receded into silence. Christian waited several minutes before he moved, and she waited, too, hunched down uncomfortably across the room from him. The rain ceased and everything became absolutely still.
He moved. Her head came up.
“Now,” he said, squatting down before her, the gun hanging loose in his hand. “Where are the pictures?” When she did not answer, he put his hand under her chin, cupping it. “You must do this.”
“Yes,” she said, hating the silence and the darkness, the feel of his hard hand on her face. If only he would turn the light on. Was Sergeant Dolan still in this office? She hoped not.
“Where are they? They are not in this office.”
“How do you know? How did you get in here?” Maybe she could get him to talk and Doug and the sergeant would come back.
He slapped her. Once. He slapped her hard, knocking her sideways so that she hit the floor. Shocked and stunned by his brutality, she lay breathless, her face stinging, hating her helplessness.
“You see?” Christian said in a reasonable voice, not whispering anymore. He touched her arm. “Come along, get up. You will show me the pictures. I will look at them. And then I will go away and you will be safe forever. I promise that.”
SHE COULD SEE the light from Sergeant Dolan’s office under the door. He was still there, still working on her orders. She stopped, her arms wrapped around her middle.
“Who is it?” Christian whispered.
“The colonel’s clerk. We have to go through his office. He’s still here. You won’t hurt him?”
Mayr’s only response was to push her forward, but she wouldn’t move, gun or no gun. He shoved the gun against her and she twisted away from it. Or tried to. He grabbed her shoulder, tightly.
“Sally,” he said in a warning voice.
“Don’t hurt him.”
“Go,” he said, squeezing her shoulder painfully.
“Don’t—”
“Now, you be calm. No one will be hurt if you stay calm.” He let go of her.
Not believing him, but having no choice, Sally let the gun push her forward. She stood before the door, her arms at her side until the gun prodded her and she opened the door to the office. Dolan’s head came up from the work he was doing, a look of surprise on his face.
“Lieutenant Jackson!”
“I’m sorry, Sergeant.”
“No, ma’am. I just didn’t think anyone . . .” He trailed off as Sally was propelled into the room. Christian closed the door behind them, and with as little fuss as he would expend on any mundane chore, he turned, and shot the sergeant twice.
The first shot hit the sergeant’s head in an explosion of blood, bone, and brain, and the second opened his chest into bright-red sunbursts, the force of the bullets driving him back against the wall, knocking over his chair.
Sally stood transfixed, unable to move or cry out. Black and white. She’d seen it all in black and white but never in color, never in such terrible colors.
Still absolutely self-possessed, Christian walked around the desk and shot the sergeant again. Sally could not see the sergeant anymore, hidden as he was by the desk, and she began to moan, like a wounded animal, raising her hands to her face.
Christian, finally hearing her, turned and raised the gun and, without aiming, pulled the trigger again. The bullet went into the wall above the file cabinets, clearing Sally easily. She screamed and backed straight into the wall.
“Shut up,” he yelled. “Shut up. I told you to shut up. You see what you made me do? You shut up or I’ll kill you too. Do you understand? I’ll kill you too. I don’t care!” He screamed the last words, the veins in his neck standing out against his red skin, the hand holding the gun visibly shaking.
Through her own panic, Sally recognized his and saw it was much more dangerous, and understood that she was very close to death. She lowered her trembling hands and held them out, palms toward him, placating.
“Yes, yes. Shhh, I’m quiet. Shhh, I’ll do as you say,” she murmured until he lowered the gun. He paid no attention to the body in its grotesque position between the blood-spattered desk and wall and went to the conference-room door.
He opened it, saw it was dark and motioned for Sally to enter. “Is this it? Turn the lights on.” She hurried in front of him and did as he asked. “Hurry up,” he yelled, hitting the door with the gun as she waved her hand in the air under the hanging lamp, searching for the cord. “What the hell are you doing? Turn the fucking lights on. Now.” He roared the last as her hand came in contact with the cord. She pulled it and the light came on.
He slammed and locked the door. “Where are they? Answer me!” he demanded.
“They’re there. There, on the wall,” she said, pointing, and quickly turned on the lights above the corkboard, illuminating the rows of photographs. As he went to them, he put the gun in a pocket of the gray overcoat he wore.
“Where am I?” he asked impatiently.
“The four at the end.”
“Which four? Where?” She heard the hysteria build again in his voice and she hurried around the table to show him. “That’s me?” He sounded incredulous and this so astonished her that she snapped back at him without thinking.
“You were there. You were the commander. Look. Look, Christian. Look, goddamn you.” She jabbed her finger at the sequence of pictures she knew so well. The child, the officer, the child’s body limp and obscene on the ground as the officer wipes his brow. “This is you. This is you.” She pointed at the blowup.
“That’s not me,” he said, stepping back from the wall. “You think that’s me?” He studied the photograph, then shook his head. “No. But I know who that is.”
“Who?”
“Doesn’t matter. He’s dead now.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Look at him. It’s you.”
And again he leaned forward to study the blowup of the officer. He shook his head. “What year was this?”
“1942. After Heydrich’s death.”
“A happy day for all,” he muttered. “A long time ago.”
“You can recognize yourself, surely.”
“It was a long time ago.” But still he stared at the pictures. “What a mess. What a mess.” He was silent for several moments, then seemed to rouse himself. “Well, is that it?”
“I don’t believe you. I can’t believe that you can deny that you did that, you murdered that child, as surely as you murdered Sergeant Dolan out there.”
“As I might murder you if you don’t shut up.” His voice tightened. “I should kill you, Sally. It was stupid of me to shoot him, and now I’ll probably have to kill you. I don’t want to, but . . .” He took a step toward her, and she backed away, her eyes on his face—on his blue eyes that had become empty and dead. “You’ll come after me, won’t you? All of you, with your shiny new guns and your well-pressed uniforms over your well-fed American stom
achs. You’ll hang me like you did the others. Except for Fat Hermann. Ha! He had the right idea. Fooled you all too with that cyanide capsule.”
Sally turned toward the door, forgetting that he had locked it. He came up to her slowly, standing behind her, his fingers circling her throat, pulling her gently back against him.
“I should kill you,” he whispered. “I should. Though, I’m so sick of it all.” His fingers pressed into her larynx. She gasped. “But you leave me little choice.” His hand fell to her breast, covering it.
“Don’t,” Sally said, suddenly more angry than frightened, and with a quick gesture, knocked his arm loose, broke away from him. She rounded on him and shoved him as hard as she could, sending him stumbling against the locked door. But there was no place to go. She turned to face him. He had the gun out again.
“Don’t. No more,” she said, her voice sounding too loud and strident to her ears. “Please, Christian, it’s over.”
“You will accuse me. They’ll believe you.”
“Go. I won’t stop you. I promise. Go, now.”
“You will come after me, hunt me down.”
“No.”
“To kill me. To hang me like some stupid little Russian.”
She stared at him, stunned at his words, at the image they conjured up to her. “A Russian, Christian? Did you hang Russians after Czechoslovakia? I’ve seen photographs of the Russians the SS hanged. Did you do that too?”
“Shut up.” He waved the gun at her. She didn’t care.
“And the child, the child hiding in the tree? Christian? The child hiding in the tree?” she repeated. He slowly lowered the gun. She took a step toward him, the table still between them. “It is you, isn’t it?” But still he did not speak, turning instead to sink into a chair, his back to her. “I recognized you, the line of your jaw under that damn hat. I recognized you. I loved you once and I recognized you. How could you do that? A child, Christian, a child.”
“It’s not me.” His voice was weary, exhausted, his hands moved but she could not see what they did.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” she cried, and sank into the nearest chair. Had they been in this room for hours already? Days? He moved again and she turned to watch. He brought the gun up, pointing the barrel toward his face, as though he were studying it. “Christian?”
At the sound of her voice, he stood and shoved the gun into his pocket. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Stop asking me questions.” He went to the door and unlocked it. She jumped up and ran to him, grabbing his arm.
“No. You can’t leave.”
“Leave me, Sally,” he said, pushing her away. “I’ve been here too long already.”
“No.” She grabbed him again, pulling him around to face her. He tried to grab her hands, push her away, but she wouldn’t let him.
“Sally, stop it.” He hit her. Not as hard as he had hit her in her office, but hard enough to bring tears to her eyes.
“I hate you so much,” she said, leaning against the wall.
“I know. Doesn’t matter. It’s too late.”
“No,” she said, insisting, taking his arm again. “You’re here. I want to know things. You have to answer questions.”
“Sally, don’t.”
“No. I have to know. So many things. For instance, have you been following me? Have you?” she repeated. He gestured with his hand, which she took as an admission. “Well, good. That means I wasn’t losing my mind.”
“Calm down.” He shook her hand loose and turned away. She quickly got between him and the door.
“No. You must tell me. You owe it to me. You know you do. Tell me about us. Not Czechoslovakia. I want to know what happened between us. Please. I can’t stand it.” She started to cry. “Do you know what you did to me? How you destroyed my life? Did he tell you to? Do you know what you did to me? He nearly killed me. Why? Christian, why?”
“Stop crying.” He tried to push her aside again but she wouldn’t let him, slapping at his hands. He caught her wrists. “Stop, Sally. Stop. I will not have this. I will not.” His hands were vises on her as she tried to twist away. He shook her hard. “Stop. You stop. Don’t make me—”
“You’re revolting. I hate you!” she yelled at him, struggling against his hands, trying to kick him, hurt him. “I hate you.”
He slammed her against the wall, holding one of her hands in each of his, pressing her wrists to the wall, his body against hers, his knee between her legs, making her nearly immobile. He put his face against hers, not kissing her, just holding his cheek against hers. Then, when she stopped struggling he began to speak, his voice low and tense, the words coming fast from him, tumbling out of him as he held her pinned between his body and the wall.
“We were pawns to him. Everyone was. I was his favorite. The perfect knight, he called me and, yes, he fucked me. Not that he was a fairy. He just fucked anything and everyone, because he could. To prove that he could. He was such a shit, spreading his shit around until it covered everyone. And you, that family shit. You were so naive. Playing music with him, thinking your father’s position could save you from the corruption, not knowing it was your father’s position that attracted him. You were so innocent, so stupidly naive and trusting. God, you were trusting. You trusted everyone. Him. Me.
“And me, I wanted—you know what I wanted? To save you. I wanted to save you from him, from me. You trusted me.” He stopped and stepped back from her, releasing her hands. Tenderly, he put his hands on either side of her face and studied it. She found it difficult to look into his eyes, they were so cold, so many fathoms cold. She held very still as he looked at her.
“I loved you,” he said. “I loved you all my life and I let him ruin us, hurt you.”
“Why?” she asked, her need to know stronger than her fear of what he would tell her.
“I thought I could make a deal with him. That I could outwit him. It really is amazingly funny, when you think of it.” And he started to laugh, moving away, his laughter loud and horrible in the room lined with Mala’s photographs. “There I was, a twenty-year-old boy, thinking because he’d made me an Obersturmfuhrer . . . and you know why he did that? It wasn’t for my industry and National Socialist ideals, believe me. But I thought I could manipulate him, and what’s really amusing about it is he let me think I did.” He slammed his fist into the corkboard, breaking a hole in it.
“‘Marry the girl, Mayr,’ he told me. ‘Best of luck. Just one little thing, Mayr, one little thing, one fucking little thing.’” Christian kicked a chair, knocking it to the ground. “‘Don’t forget to come to the office on Tuesday afternoons, and, oh, Mayr, by the way, your little wife, how is she? Tell me about it. Does she do this and this?’ But telling him wasn’t enough to keep him away from you, so, my dearest, darling little Sally, you know what happened?” He paused and smiled with such bitterness, with hate, yes, hatred, that Sally backed a few steps away from him. He grabbed her arm, pulling her toward him.
“I hated you,” he whispered, “because I loved you. I felt it was your fault. Isn’t that crazy? It was so simple—all you had to do was sleep with him and he’d leave me alone. But you wouldn’t, keeping your precious innocence to yourself, hoarding it, while the rest of us sank into the shit. Of course, if you had slept with him, I would have had to kill you. The idea of his hands on you made me crazy. So he had me either way.”
“Why did he arrest you?”
“Ah, well, that’s easy. I wouldn’t do what he wanted. I was so fucking noble. For about five minutes, until he sent his boys in to take care of me. I gave in. And after all of that, after getting you out there and drugged . . . he liked the idea of the drug. He wanted you nice and soft. After all of that, all I went through, you fell asleep.” He started laughing again. “I mean, you have to appreciate the man for not taking you anyway. He could have. I’ve seen him beat the shit out of whores and fuck them anyway. But he wanted you awake while he took that innocence from you.”
> He ran his hands over her face, covering and uncovering her eyes, her nose. She stood stiff and unyielding in his arm. His hand cupped her face again.
“Oh, Sally, he wanted to see your eyes as he corrupted you, to see you enjoy it. Which you would have. All of us did.”
“Christian, why did you let him?”
Christian dropped his hands from her. There was a strange smile on his face. “That’s right, you don’t know. Now, this is the best secret of all.”
“What? What, Christian?”
“I killed my father.”
“Your father committed suicide.”
“No. I killed him. Shot him. The first time I visited him after I received my commission. Shot him with my brand-new officer’s sidearm.”
“Why? Christian, your father—”
“Was an honorable, old-fashioned democrat, of all the bloody, stupid things. He believed in the Republic. He hated the National Socialists. He hated me.”
“No, he couldn’t. He was a good man.”
“Absolutely. Too good to live. He raised his walking stick to me, so I shot him. Then I did the worst thing of all, I told Heydrich. He covered it up. Took care of me. That’s when it all started.”
“Christian?”
“Christ, can’t you stop?” He began pacing, making wild gestures, and then he stopped, standing at the end of the table. And again he took out the gun. He held it in both hands and studied it.
“You know, what I really wanted to do there in that canopied bed? After we made love? I wanted to kill us both. To end it all right there. To keep you safe forever. I should have. Death is the only safe place left. Believe me, I know.”
Sally watched him study the gun. He didn’t look like a monster. He looked like a tired thin man in a shabby, ill-fitting suit. His cheekbones were very pronounced, as were the lines from his nose to his chin. His nose had been broken, adding to his worn appearance. He was still handsome, but there was a hardness about him now, and that deadness in his blue eyes.
His head came up. He heard the noise outside before she did. Someone calling her name. Men’s voices coming along the hall. A door opening and slamming shut.
The Last Innocent Hour Page 60