They hadn’t worked in a long time. How long was it since they’d been strong?
He couldn’t remember. He raised his right hand, high, made it into a fist, held it in front of his face. It shook. The paper-thin skin barely covered his bones. His knuckles protruded like broken stones. He pushed his hand out, fast, then pulled it back, striking his forehead as hard as he could. The crack of bones connecting echoed in the empty day room. He blinked, salty tears forming. His arm trembled and jerked, as he placed it down on his lap.
Then his head went back until it met the plastic of the high-backed chair. The throb in his forehead was all he could think about now. It sent snaking tendrils of pain down his neck and across his chin. But the faces were gone. The voices had faded.
The clatter of a trolley coming into the day room startled him. He turned his head, his mouth wide open.
When he saw the pale green smock of the kitchen assistant with the white emblem of hands held together above a heart, he remembered where he was, the Kreigeshof Old People’s home in the Aldstat of Nuremberg. He’d been here a long time.
He held a hand out. The girl with the trolley was new. She was pretty, too, tall, African. He smiled. Perhaps she would hold him, like the other one used to, long ago. Something stirred in his groin, as he examined the shape of her legs under her uniform. He leaned forward. This would be a good day.
His smile widened.
Then he saw what was in her hand. What was she going to use that for?
8
Sean smiled. He’d remembered how Eleni used to complain about the students in her class when he’d dated her.
“The refugee situation can’t be helping.”
“It’s not the refugees I worry about, Sean. It’s the changing attitudes of Germans. There’s a pack of students who go around shouting at anyone who doesn’t look German enough for them.”
“They shout at you?”
“Yes. Things I’ll never repeat. It makes me sick. You don’t have any jobs going at the institute, do you?”
“Sorry,” he said. “We have a freeze on hiring.” It was his ready answer to any questions about jobs. The institute had no hope of taking on all the well qualified people who wanted to work there.
They exited the passage into a circular underground hall. Its age-blackened concrete roof was fifteen feet above them.
“I believe Adolf initiated his friends here.” Eleni turned, shook her head. “That must have been a sight.”
“Unusual decorations,” said Sean. He pointed at the circle of red brick walls around them. Stylised animal shapes stood out in different shades of red and cream bricks.
“Yes.”
She went to the centre of the room and stepped onto a slightly raised brick area. She held her hands out, palms outstretched.
“Tell me if you feel anything.” She closed her eyes and recited.
“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus.” Then she turned, forty-five degrees, and repeated the phrase.
“What the hell is that supposed to do?” said Sean.
“Ssshhh,” said Eleni. She turned again, repeated the phrase, then did it all one more time.
Sean waited. “It’s getting cold,” he said. “Are we going for lunch?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Eleni stepped down from the raised area.
“Have a look at these bricks before we go.” She pointed at where she’d been standing.
“What was that you just recited?”
“An exorcism chant.”
“Appropriate.”
Sean was standing on the square of red bricks, looking down. There were faded white lines painted on it in the shape of an arrow, with a Swastika above it. He shivered, despite his leather jacket.
“It’s cold down here.”
She stood in front of him. “I wanted you to see this, after that last email of yours.”
He peered closer at the lines.
“Do you know how Herr Hitler came to power?”
“He was elected, right? Democracy in action.”
“Actually, the Nazi party needed other parties to gain total power. The Catholic Zentrum party tipped the balance at the moment he needed it in the German parliament in 1933.”
“Bad call, right.”
“It was more than that, Sean. The Vatican gave crucial support to Adolf internationally. Four months after the Nazi party took full power, the Vatican signed the first foreign treaty with Hitler’s regime, giving his dictatorship the international recognition it badly needed.”
“That’s what friends are for.”
She held his arm, her voice dropping to a whisper as she continued.
“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus,” she whispered.
“Now you’re spooking me.”
She let go of him. “Come on. I know a restaurant that makes proper pasta. You still like pasta, don’t you?”
A queue of cars was leaving the underground car park in the old city when they arrived back. None were heading in.
“Where’s everyone going?”
“There’s a demonstration in the market square this afternoon. Most people won’t want to be anywhere near it.” Eleni took the ticket out of the machine and drove slowly up the circular ramp.
“What kind of a demonstration?”
“A sick one,” she said. “It’s a march to commemorate the Allied raid on Nuremberg in 1944. Neo-Nazis up to their old tricks again.”
“I thought all the demonstrations were against Syrian refugees and the mosque building program.”
“They start as one thing, then spin into another. This demonstration is organized by the National Peace Party. They claim they want peace and freedom for all Germans.”
“We’ll get to see this demonstration?”
“I hope not.”
9
The BXH bank building in Frankfurt is within coin-tossing distance of the European Central Bank headquarters in the Kaiserplatz, the business area of the city. The glass-walled hundred-and-fifty-meter spear-shaped tower reflects the River Main, which eddies by in grey and green currents only twenty meters away.
The top of the BXH building, the head of the spear, was given over to the senior executives of BXH. One section of that floor had been fitted out in the style of a Chinese temple. Low black tables were surrounded by bamboo mats and thick cushions.
The top-floor meeting rooms were rarely used. The traditional German board room, beyond the Chinese meeting room, was the main area where business was conducted. It had a giant polished oak table with shiny aluminium and black leather chairs around it.
That Saturday afternoon, three people sat in the board room overlooking the Main River. An LCD screen, hanging from the ceiling at the end of the table by steel wires, played a feed from Nuremberg’s main square, showing lines of policemen. The sound had been turned down.
Vanessa Sheer, European CEO of BXH, was speaking. She had her hands on the table in front of her, pressing down. Her thick blond hair swayed a little as she spoke. A whiff of expensive perfume drifted around her.
“When this group was established by our predecessors, including my own grandfather, they had one objective - the rebuilding of the German nation to take its rightful place as the leader of the world. We must not lose sight of that. These demonstrators are right.”
She waved at the screen. “Fifty thousand people have come out to demand something is done about the rape and abuse of the women of Germany. It is a disgrace that our government has allowed this to continue, year after year. The mosque building program is absurd, too. Do you think they’d allow us build hundreds of Christian churches in Muslim countries?” She paused, leaned forward. “There can be no turning back.”
Monsignor Salerna, the silver-haired representative of the Vatican Bank on the BXH board, stared at the table in front of him. When Vanessa Sheer finished speaking, he straightened himself, and brushed his hair across his high forehead.
“Monsignor,” said Vanessa, turn
ing to him. “Would you like to add your thoughts?”
She smiled at him, as she withdrew her hands from the table. Vanessa Sheer was still only forty-five, and her tight-fitting suits meant she was often mistaken for a trophy wife at the parties she attended. She rarely corrected such opinions. She took them as a compliment.
The Monsignor returned her smile for a few milliseconds longer than was necessary.
“The German public health service will have no hope of coping with what you are about to throw at them.” He raised a finger, pointed at Sheer.
“I must be sure our Catholic flock will not become victims, or if they do, that the numbers will be small.”
Sheer’s expression was granite-like. “Let me state it clearly, then, Monsignor. The numbers of German Catholic victims should be zero. That is our goal. It has always been our goal. I have stated this over and over.”
“And you are sure the right group will be blamed for what will happen in Nuremberg?”
She nodded.
The third man looked from Sheer to the Monsignor. His eyes were steel gray. This wasn’t a man who agreed to anything lightly. His conglomerate of German manufacturing companies was one of the biggest in the country. He stared out the window toward the ECB tower. Then he spoke, softly.
“Gut. But let us do it quickly. There must be minimal economic impact, Vanessa, verstanden?”
Sheer nodded.
His tone softened. “We all want this refugee problem solved. We cannot have armed police at every bierkeller and bag searches at every metro station for ever.”
Vanessa stood, went around the table, shook her colleagues” hands, slowly and deliberately. “This is a day to remember, gentlemen.”
She smiled at the Monsignor. It elicited a light flush on the Monsignor’s cheeks.
She whispered in his ear. “We will have the task you set us complete soon, Monsignor. All the evidence will disappear forever, and the witnesses, too.”
The Monsignor crossed himself and nodded. Then he followed the others out of the room.
10
When Sean and Eleni arrived down at street level, after exiting the car park, it was clear something major was going on. Groups of people were heading toward the center of the old town. A watchfulness hung in the air, and people looked around nervously.
“I don’t expect we’ll see much. The police will only let them march to the square, then they’ll have to disperse. It will all be over by the time we’re finished lunch,” said Eleni, as they stood aside to let a group of people pass.
The Italian restaurant they went to was closed. Two other restaurants they tried were closed as well. There were hand-written notes on the insides of the windows.
Eleni translated one.
“They’ve all gone home.”
“We can eat at my hotel. They have to keep their restaurant open.”
“Sure, but I won’t stay long. All this disruption is too upsetting,” Eleni replied.
The hotel restaurant was open. It was busy too, packed with residents as well as non-residents who couldn’t find anywhere else to eat.
As they ate their meal they watched, along with most of the room, as the demonstration and a counter demonstration played out on an LCD TV screen high up in a far corner above a small bar. Lines of hand-holding anti-Nazi demonstrators were visible in the square. A commentator was talking fast in German.
“What’s happening?” said Sean. He pushed his plate away. His pasta had been a little hard. He didn’t feel like finishing it.
“Look,” said Eleni. She put her knife and fork down, pointed at the screen as a group of black clad demonstrators, ten abreast, came into view.
She waved her fist at them. “Bloody Nazis,” she hissed. A few people turned towards her, gave her blank looks, neither sympathetic nor condemning. Someone in the far corner made a comment in German. It did not sound like a compliment.
A murmur went up from the people in the room. On the screen a giant black man with thick dreadlocks, dressed in bright green trousers and wearing a green hoodie, had appeared. He was leading two large Alsatian dogs. A black clad policewoman was running towards him.
The man stood in front of the line of anti-immigrant demonstrators. He released his Alsatians. They reared up, leaping at two of the demonstrators, who raised their hands to protect themselves.
The policewoman reached the man and grabbed his arm. The TV commentator stopped talking. The dogs turned and ran back to their master. A scream rang out from the TV. The dogs were attacking the policewoman.
A gasp went up around them. A thick buzz of German rose in the air, as if bees had been frightened. A few people turned and stared at them. The commentator began talking again, but faster.
“I have to go,” said Eleni. She sounded flustered.
Sean followed her. He sensed she was upset at what she’d just witnessed. He offered to walk to her car with her.
“Did I miss something back there?” he said, as they walked. The streets had a deserted feel.
Eleni walked fast. “It’s the mood here, Sean. It’s changed. I’m frightened. I can feel it here, inside.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “When the people around me don’t approve of my presence.” She sounded hurt, on the verge of tears.
“Eleni, you’re being paranoid.”
“I am not being paranoid. Look at that.” She pointed at a street light they were passing.
For a few seconds Sean wasn’t sure what she meant. Then he saw the sticker with the words Dritten Mal Glück on it.
“What the hell does that mean? It looks like something to do with a rock band,”
“It’s not a rock band,” she said. “Dritten Mal Glück means third time lucky. It’s a bunch of fascists making a statement about the world wars. You know, next time we win. They have a sick website people can sign up for.”
“We get fascist stuff in London sometimes too. I wouldn’t worry about it. There’s idiots everywhere.”
“It’s different when you’re the target, Sean. I hate it. I hate it all.” There was bitterness in her voice. She glanced around, her eyes wide.
“Don’t let them get to you.”
“Come to our apartment,” she said. “You’ll see what’s going on.”
They’d reached the door to the stairs that led up to where Eleni had parked her car. They turned to each other.
“Jerome will be there. He’d love to meet you. I want you to understand why I’m like this.”
They reached her apartment at one forty-five. Later, Sean remembered this, because he checked his phone for messages and saw the clock on the screen. The apartment was in a six-storey building on a road with a tramway down the centre and electric cables running above the street like steel cobwebs.
Her building had a small book store on the ground floor. There was a park with a children’s playground and metal climbing frames across the street. The playground was empty. The street was clean, but it had a deserted feel. “Everybody’s inside, watching the demonstration. They say it will be the largest in Nuremberg in fifty years,” said Eleni, as they walked around from the car park at the back of the building.
As they came to the front door Sean saw there were two stickers with Dritten Mal Glück on them on the thick aluminium pole outside her front door. They were similar to the stickers in the centre of the city, but these were red.
Eleni scraped at them with her nails, almost frantically. Her reaction took Sean completely by surprise.
“I knew they’d be here again. I hate them. I hate them watching us.” She turned to him, her face pale. “They don’t like foreigners in their precious Nuremberg.” Her scratching had removed only part of one sticker. She went back to attacking the rest of it.
11
The old man stared at the thin steel blade. A memory rose, unbidden, of a similar knife, one he’d owned once, a long time ago. A shiver ran through him.
“What?” His High German accent still remained, but his tone was mild, plead
ing.
“Where did you hide the letters?” said the African girl. She moved the knife close to his stomach.
“Answer me, old man.”
It had been a long time since anyone had threatened him. His mind fogged. What was she asking him about? A vague memory of something important struggled to come to the surface.
He opened his mouth, summoned a breath.
A rubber-gloved hand clamped tight over his lips.
“Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve . . .” She pushed the point of the blade up to the front of his old gray shirt.
“It can take up to an hour to die, if your guts are spilled out, but I am sure you know that. There will be no way they can fix you. Answer me or die screaming.”
“Uggghh,” he struggled to speak. She took her hand away.
“Catherine’s,” he whispered. A glint of hope filled his eyes.
The hand clamped hard again. He bit, tried to swing his head from side to side, but he hadn’t much strength left, and her grip was too hard. He grunted, as she smiled at him. His hands were on her arms now, but they had no power.
A thick wet torrent fell on his knees. His eyes opened wide. She pulled something wet and warm and pressed it into his left hand.
His face twisted in pain. His insides spilled.
She was beside his ear now.
“Thank you. I will lock the door and leave you here in torment, Father Zegliwski. It is what you deserve.” She stepped back.
He spat towards her with the last of his spittle.
She reached to the trolley, took one of the kitchen knives and pressed the point of it into his stomach, causing another spasm of searing pain to run like a hot knife through his body. Then she pressed the knife into his right hand and closed his grip on the handle.
“You did the right thing, old man,” she said. Then she pushed the trolley out of the day room.
The Nuremberg Puzzle Page 3