“You mustn’t cry, my dear,” Leivick went on, holding the girl’s hands in his own, almost as if he didn’t trust them. “We can’t change anything with tears, now can we?”
It seemed to work. Three minutes later, anyone might have supposed that nothing had happened. Esther Rosensaft, still in the long-sleeved black dress because there was nothing else for her to wear, was like a pensive little widow—the strain of the last few days was still etched into her face, but she was perfectly calm.
“Now you must have guessed, Esther—may I call you Esther?—that we didn’t go to all the trouble of arranging your escape from Mühlfeld Prison simply from impulses of Jewish solidarity. Do you understand that, Esther? Do you have any idea why you have such importance for us?”
She shook her head. She was silent, weighed down, it seemed, with a sense of futility. She stared down at Leivick’s hands, which still held her own.
“Does it have to do with Hagemann?” she asked finally, looking up, her eyes darting between Leivick and Christiansen. “That lawyer—you said he came from. . . Will he tell Hagemann where to find me?”
“He won’t tell anyone anything. He’s dead.” Christiansen shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He sounded almost bored. “But Hagemann won’t have to be told.”
“That’s quite true, my dear. After all this time, the Colonel seems quite eager to have you back, and you know even better than we do what that probably means.”
Leivick squeezed her hands and smiled rather thinly. He found it difficult to remember all this girl had been through, she seemed such a child. But, of course, she realized that to fall into Hagemann’s clutches was to die. She knew all about Colonel Egon Hagemann.
“It comes down to this, Esther. We’re not keeping you prisoner. You’re free to leave when you like and go anywhere you think best. But as long as Hagemann is alive you’ll be a hunted animal. He means to find you—we can’t even begin to guess why—and if he finds you he’ll kill you just as soon as he’s got whatever it is he wants. Do you see that?”
The girl took back her hands and hid them under the blanket that was covering her legs. Something in her thin, ravaged face seemed to harden, as if it had just occurred to her that now there was no one she could trust except herself.
“I think you know why Hagemann wants me back,” she said, her voice even, almost tranquil. “In forty-five, when the Russians came, he forgot I was even alive. I was nothing. I was not even worth the trouble of shooting. And now I am so important, and I want to know why. Please don’t tell me you don’t know.”
“Be happy in your ignorance, my dear.” Mordecai rose from the bed. He felt old and worn through to the bone. “We know what Hagemann wants, but not from you. Your place in this is, believe me, a mystery.”
With what seemed a common impulse, they both turned to look at Christiansen, who was still standing in the doorway, which was almost hidden behind his enormous shoulders.
“You can go one of two ways,” he said, his cold blue eyes fixed on the girl. “You can help us to get Hagemann, to put him out of business once and for all, or you can spend the rest of your short life wondering when he’s going to catch up with you. And Hagemann has a long reach.”
It was as if the room had turned suddenly colder. They all felt it, even Christiansen, whom Leivick was beginning to imagine must live in a universe of just that temperature. The girl even drew her arms together over her thin chest.
“I guess that’s no choice at all,” she said.
. . . . .
The key, of course, was General von Goltz.
“After the trial, he sent a note around to my hotel room saying that he wanted to talk to me,” Christiansen said. He was sitting in a comfortable-looking chair covered with gray cloth, and he was smoking a cigarette. He didn’t seem so much relaxed as discouraged. “I was all packed and ready to leave. I had had the satisfaction of seeing him sentenced, and he would hang in fifteen days. I would be back for that, but fifteen days was fifteen days, and there didn’t seem any point in waiting around in Rebdorf. I wanted to get back to looking for Hagemann.”
They were all there, in the little parlor of the suite the Mossad was renting at the rate of twelve marks a day. It was a few minutes after one in the afternoon, and the remains of the lunch they had had sent up were still visible as a pile of dishes stacked up on the writing desk. The girl was on one end of the sofa, her feet tucked up under her so that she looked a little like a nesting bird. Leivick was crouched on the divan, still nursing a last cup of coffee which he held in both hands. Even Itzhak was there, but obviously more interested in looking at the girl from the other end of the sofa than in Christiansen’s story. Christiansen, for some reason, had taken to blowing his cigarette smoke out through clenched teeth. It made an odd impression. It was like listening to a story told by a Chinese dragon.
“But it was not something I could just ignore,” he went on, the smoke curling around his face. “I had been the arresting officer, and there were other reasons. A relationship had been established. You can’t hate a man and hound him to his death without noticing that he is, in fact, a man and entitled to certain decencies.
“The condemned cells at Rebdorf are in a kind of dungeon. The prison used to be a castle, and it was a pretty grim place. Down there, below ground, the walls sweat, and each of the seven men who were awaiting execution was housed in a tiny stone room with a ceiling so low that probably all of them had to be careful about standing up straight. I felt like I was climbing into a packing crate.
“And it was cold. No one was feeling very compassionate toward these fellows—each one of them had done enough to deserve hanging a dozen times over—but those cells. . . Von Goltz and the others must not have been having themselves much of a time down there.
“The guards that morning were French—I was told it rotated every day, and that day it was the French. They’re good haters; the officer on duty came with me to the cell door, slid open the eye slit, and, with an expression of intense satisfaction on his face, invited me to look inside. There wasn’t anything to see but a middle-aged man in a black uniform sitting on an unmade bed, but he seemed to get quite a kick out of it. It wasn’t until he had actually opened the door that von Goltz even bothered to look up. He smiled when he saw me, just the way his jailer had.
“‘Come in,’ he said, motioning me toward him with his arm. I’m afraid there’s not much I can offer you in the way of entertainment, but you are very welcome.’ It was strange, but he didn’t give the impression he was making a joke.”
He glanced around at the three of them, his eyes finally coming to rest on Esther Rosensaft, as if the whole story were being told for her benefit alone. Leivick found himself wondering what was developing between those two, and if it was likely to get in the way. Finally, Christiansen ground out the cigarette in an ashtray he was balancing on his thigh and then went through the ritual of lighting another. He did it with the quiet attention that seemed to characterize all his actions.
“There was no chair, or even another piece of furniture, and it was impossible to stand, so when von Goltz moved over to make room for me on his narrow little bed I sat down beside him. It didn’t seem strange at the time, but it does now. Somehow I couldn’t feel any hostility toward him at that moment. Perhaps if we had had our meeting in one of the interrogation rooms upstairs—facing each other across a table, like opponents at bridge—it would have had a very different quality. I don’t pretend to know.
“‘You are wondering why I asked to see you,’ he said finally. He sat with his hands resting on his knees, half twisted around so he wouldn’t have to address himself to the cell door. He had lost a lot of weight since his arrest and he looked sickly—it might just have been all that time indoors. I couldn’t help thinking that that was probably how some of his prisoners at Waldenburg had looked, but there wasn’t any anger in the idea. He was already a dead man. I only hated him abstractly.
“I don’t re
member what I said—probably I didn’t say anything. I was too busy feeling the pressure of those narrow stone walls. It was like one of the tiny domed crypts you see in monasteries, where for centuries layer after layer of monks have been buried against the Second Coming. I couldn’t shake the impression that this was a visitation from beyond the grave, that I was holding conversation with a shade.
“‘I wanted you to know that I don’t hold anything against you,’ he went on. He was rubbing his hands up and down against the fabric of his trousers, probably because he was cold. ‘I don’t suppose that means very much to you now, but it may someday when this war, like all the others, has found its place in history. You understand, don’t you, that I was condemned simply because I was on the losing side?’
“He knew it wasn’t true. You could see it in his face—it was just something he would have liked to believe.
“‘What will you do now?’
“ ‘Find the rest of you,’ I said, smiling at him. I wanted him to know. I was enjoying myself. ‘With time, I’ll work my way up to your second in command. Hagemann isn’t making it as easy as you did. He isn’t waiting around the house for someone to come and arrest him. But I’ll find him.’
“‘You think so, do you?’ He was smiling too—he seemed to think I was faintly comical. ‘I wish I could be alive to see that, but I don’t think Hagemann will have the moral imagination to appreciate someone like you. Hagemann, I’m afraid, thinks in rather more practical terms.
“‘But you had better hurry, my friend. You see, there’s a time limit on the Colonel.’”
Christiansen was looking at the glowing tip of his cigarette with evident distaste. After a few seconds of motionless silence, he drew the ball of his thumb across his left eyelid in a way that suggested he was prey to unpleasant recollections.
“I didn’t know what he was talking about of course,” he went on. “And it was obviously intended as some kind of riddle, so there wouldn’t have been any point in asking for an explanation. He was to mount the gallows in fifteen days, if he wanted to be gnomic there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
“‘Someone told me you were a musician.’ Von Goltz leaned toward me so that our shoulders were almost touching. The cello, isn’t it? I play the violin, did you know? Nothing in comparison with yourself of course, but not too badly for a soldier. Hagemann always undervalued the beautiful. Perhaps someday, however, he may come to appreciate his limitations. Do you really think you can catch him? Actually, I rather hope you do. I’ll even tell you something that might help you—that’ll make two little jokes I’ve played on him since our parting.’
“And then he reached inside the breast pocket of his tunic—they had removed all the insignia of his rank from the uniform, even the brass buttons—and took out a sheet of paper. It contained the names of fifteen officers and men of the Fifth Brigade, along with their ranks and. in a few cases, cities of origin. He must have copied it out during the trial, since prisoners weren’t allowed writing instruments in their cells
“ These people were closest to Hagemann,” he said, and put the list into my hand. ‘And you are wondering why I would do such a thing to my own subordinate? It’s merely a question of evening the odds. The SS does strange things to a man’s soul—I suppose I can’t break the habit of playing God.’
“He wasn’t smiling anymore. He was perfectly serious. I looked at the list, noted that about half the names were of people either in prison already or known to be dead, and put it in my pocket.
“‘Why didn’t you run?’ I asked him. For some reason the question had never occurred to me before. ‘Why didn’t you join the others in South America, or wherever the hell they went? You must have known you were on the lists as a war criminal.’
“Do you know what his answer was?” Christiansen leaned toward Leivick as he stabbed out his cigarette and set the ashtray down on the floor. His eyes were wide and rather fierce, almost challenging.
“I wouldn’t have any idea.”
Christiansen smiled at him—if that was the word for the expression on his face. At any rate, he had the answer he wanted.
“‘I haven’t any talent for that sort of thing.’ In just those words. I suppose it was a kind of boast.”
The story was finished, but it left its residue. Everyone seemed to be waiting, even Christiansen, for General von Goltz, dead and in a grave at the Rebdorf Prison cemetery for half a year, to make his final confession.
“Yes—it is just what he would have said.”
They all looked at the girl, as if only just that moment aware of her presence. Her arms were folded across her chest. Is she cold? Leivick found himself wondering. The room was quite comfortable, but she appeared to be trembling. Her eyes were wet, and her mouth twitched under the stress of some emotion she probably couldn’t have explained even to herself.
“He was always just that way, always charming while he traded people off against each other like chess pieces. He would always insist upon having the final word.”
“He certainly seems to have had it this time.”
Leivick got up from his divan, listening to his knees crack under him. He wanted another cup of coffee badly enough to kill for it. Of course there was none. They couldn’t even make any themselves because they were out of grounds.
Then it occurred to him that this was, after all, a hotel, and that in Vienna anything could be had simply by picking up the telephone.
“They can take the dishes away while they’re at it,” Christiansen announced gently. Leivick turned around and stared at him, but the mind reader had lost interest in his trick.
“I’ve often thought that if I’d understood everything von Goltz was trying not to tell me during this interview I’d have Hagemann right where I want him.” The fingers of Christiansen’s left hand curled unconsciously into a fist. “‘Hagemann always undervalued the beautiful.’ Perhaps by now he’s seen his mistake.”
He was looking at the girl with a calm, speculative gaze. Hadn’t he said from the beginning that she would be the bait for their trap? Leivick felt himself going cold inside.
And the girl, what must she have felt? Christiansen’s eyes seemed to hold her, as if she couldn’t have looked away if she wanted to. Yes, in all probability, if Christiansen were to ask her she would risk putting herself back within Hagemann’s reach.
The poor little creature—she sat there still, in her shabby, wrinkled black dress, thin-faced and friendless. Yes, of course, even if she didn’t know it yet herself, she had fallen in love with that hard-eyed angel of vengeance, God help her.
Leivick stared at the telephone receiver which he held in his right hand, wondering what he was doing with it, and then set it back down on its cradle. His throat ached with pity and a bad conscience.
“We should get Miss Rosensaft some new clothes,” he said finally. It was an obvious enough remark, but having made it gave him a peculiar satisfaction. “Perhaps later this afternoon would not be too early. What do you think, Christiansen?
He purposely avoided glancing in Itzhak’s direction—he could feel that black look boring through the back of his head without having to confirm it.
“I suppose so. She can’t go around in that.” He shrugged his shoulders, still looking at the girl exactly as if she were a piece of furniture. The mask was firmly in place today, Leivick noted to himself. “Is there a department store or something around here? I don’t think it’s worth the risk of taking her into the International Zone. You’d better bring your pistol, Dessauer, and we’ll give her a proper bodyguard.”
The expression on Itzhak’s face showed clearly enough that Christiansen had made precisely the right move.
“But could I have a bandage or something first?” the girl asked. She did not seem as pleased as Itzhak by the prospect of the afternoon’s outing. She was grasping her right arm protectively, just below the elbow. “I don’t want the saleswomen to see my number.”
It was one of those m
oments when the sense of astonishment comes perhaps two or three seconds ahead of the idea that prompts it. It was like being startled from behind. Leivick, who was standing beside the dresser, found it necessary to wait a little, just to be sure he was sufficiently in command of himself to speak at all.
“Surely it isn’t on that arm. my dear,” he said at last, a little surprised at the evenness of his own voice. “It’s on the left, isn’t it?”
Instead of answering, the girl undid the two little buttons on her right sleeve and pushed it back. The number was there, sure enough.
“No—don’t cover it up again. Where did you get that, at Chelmno?”
“At Waldenburg,” came the answer. Clearly she wasn’t enjoying the conversation; she wouldn’t even look him full in the face.
“There were no serial numbers at Waldenburg.” Leivick felt almost as if he were passing a death sentence. “If a prisoner was brought in from another camp, one of the work camps. . . But they didn’t bother at Waldenburg—why should they? There were too few inmates, and they planned from the beginning to kill them all in one run when the project was finished. You never got that number at Waldenburg, Esther.”
The girl brushed the sleeve back into place with a single angry gesture. She looked from Leivick to Christiansen and then back again, and her little mouth had compressed into a thin, colorless line.
“You old bastard, what do you know?” she shouted suddenly. “I was there, not you—me! You think I did this to myself? General von Goltz himself, that last night. . .”
And then, all at once, she couldn’t speak at all. She seemed to be choking. She couldn’t make a sound, not even to cry. It took her a long time.
“He did this to me. He took me over to the other camp, where I could see the bodies, the dead men, piled up like logs.” She took a deep breath, as if she were breaking through to the surface from deep under water. “He burned this into my arm. and then he took me away. I hated him then! I wished he had let me die there.”
The Linz Tattoo Page 19