by Peter Watson
“I’m sorry, dear boy, but immediately after I spoke to you something else came up, something that simply had to take priority. But don’t worry, we’ll start on it today, I promise.”
“I know you’ll think me pushy, Maurice, but can you please get people—as many as you can spare—down to the Wachau region today, ready to start the search tomorrow.” I explained what Frieda Breker had told me, how it confirmed my hunch.
“Brilliant, dear boy. But if you are that certain, why aren’t you coming over here yourself?”
“You can do it just as well as me, Maurice. And besides, I have one other lead to check here, or at least in Berchtesgaden. I don’t want to come all the way to Vienna, then have to come back here.”
“And what about the bank, dear boy? What was it—the South Bavarian Bank? Have you thought of that?”
“Yes, but you know what banks are. Masters of delay. It could take me three days to get the information out of them if they want to be awkward. And if Frieda Breker is feeling guilty enough this morning, she just might try to warn von Zell. I can’t risk the delay—that’s why it’s important you dispatch someone to the area as soon as possible. You do see that, don’t you, Maurice?”
“Of course. It shall be done. You have my word—now don’t be tiresome.”
It is 150 kilometers from Munich to Berchtesgaden, and in those days it took the best part of three hours, even if you went direct. But there was also a slower, and more luscious, road, which followed the meanderings and the oxbows of the River Inn, slack and sluggish, below Mühldorf, Jettenbach and Wasserburg. I saw plenty of hitchhikers but I still hadn’t shaken off my crabby mood, so I kept very much to myself.
I arrived at about 4:30 in the afternoon. Though the day had been sunny, it had never been really warm, and by now the air had a distinct chill to it. Berchtesgaden I found to be a leafy town built on a slope, with the Watzmann and the Hochkönig providing, in the middle distance, a peaceful, white and blue panorama. Lights were beginning to flicker on all over the landscape as the sun went down.
Inzellstrasse, when I found it, was a long, quiet street, stretching up the mountainside toward the majestic Hagen Gebirge, now nearly lost in the dusk. There were no streetlamps and the mature trees that lined the roadway—cherries, I think—restricted what daylight there was left, making my search for number 37—or 47—that much harder.
In fact, I needn’t have worried. The road was a dead end, petering out as the slope of the mountain became too severe. And there was no problem over the number: 47 didn’t exist. Number 37, a large red chalet-type house with a black roof, was the last building on the street. It was typically alpine, with small windows and large, heavy shutters, and a deep basement where boots, skis, crates of beer, sleds and garden tools lay scattered around. The main door was slightly raised, on a ledge or balcony, also made of wood. It was a house that spent half its year under snow.
I turned my car around before getting out, while I could still see. Then I walked along the short path and knocked on the door. Curiously, the first thing I remember noticing about the woman who opened it was that she wore no rings. She was, I judged, about twenty-five or twenty-six, probably not a war widow but rather one of those who had her man taken from her by the war—otherwise, she would have been married and a mother long ago.
“Yes?” she said. Then, looking over my shoulder and without waiting for me to reply, “What a lovely car you have.”
I smiled. The woman spoke with an Austrian accent and was very pretty. She was what I call a butter-and-banana blond: some strands were pale, others a deeper, creamier strain of ivory. She had English skin, pale with patches of red, and a twill of fine blond hair across her face which glinted in parts as it was caught by the last rays of the sun. She had on a blue smock which accentuated, rather than hid, her figure.
“Fräulein …?” I said, saluting. Saluting, I had found, was more useful in peacetime than in war. Civilians were far more impressed by it than other soldiers.
“Stempel,” she answered in a friendly, open way. “Alessandra Stempel.”
Introducing myself, I took off my hat and gloves and explained why I had come. We shook hands. “I need to trace Dr. Rudolf von Zell, who, I believe, once stayed here. When the war ended he disappeared with a large collection of rare and very valuable gold coins; they were unique, and worth millions of dollars.” I paused before adding, “They were stolen from monasteries in your country.”
She flashed me a sharp glower. “You guessed … I … am an Austrian? You have an American uniform, Lieutenant, but a German accent. Are you really a Yank?”
I explained my background, which appeared to reassure her, for she invited me to sit on a bench on the balcony of the house, where we could look south and west to the Hagen Gebirge and catch the very last of the day’s light. I kept my coat firmly buttoned and even put my gloves back on, I found it so cold; but she seemed not to notice.
“Von Zell did live here, then?”
“Oh yes, for more than a year. We liked him—he was nice—for a German.”
“When did he leave?”
She thought for a moment. “It must have been at the time Hitler died. That day or soon after.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“Nnnnno—I don’t think so.”
“Did he leave anything behind?”
“Not really. A pair of shoes, maybe, some music books. And some wine. But I am afraid we drank that.”
Wine again. I looked at my watch. It was almost six. Surely Maurice would have had a man in the Wachau by now.
“Fräulein Stempel, this may sound odd, but do you know … how Dr. von Zell came by that wine? Did he buy it here in Berchtesgaden?”
“No—at least I’m pretty sure that he didn’t. I have the impression that he brought it home from the office. There were no labels on the bottles, nothing on the box, so I can’t be sure.”
“I don’t suppose you know what wine it was that you drank?”
“Is that important?”
“It might be.”
“Let me think.” She tugged at a tuft of her blond hair and placed the ends in her mouth, probably a habit she had developed as a young girl. “He did say something about the wine when he first brought it home. What was it?” She frowned, puckering her face like a pixy, her bottom lip flexed over the upper one. “What was it …?” She sucked on her hair again. “Well, I remember one thing,” she said, straightening up. “I remember him saying, when he first brought it home, and we had a bottle to celebrate, that we should be proud of it—yes, that’s the word he used. He said we should be proud of it because, like us, it was Austrian.” She pouted again. “But there was something else he said—what was it?”
The sun had gone now and the dusk was gathering around us fast. The color had vanished from the trees and more and more lights glowed in the distance. She shivered.
“It was … something … something about religion … I remember thinking it was an odd thing to say. I’m sorry,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t think I can remember, after all.”
It didn’t matter. She had given me an idea, something I should have thought of before. “Fräulein Stempel,” I said. “May I use your phone?”
“But of course. Let’s go in anyway. It’s cold now.”
Inside, the house was built more like a Viking or a Scandinavian barn than an alpine chalet. The ground floor was occupied by an enormous room that was kitchen, living room, library and dining room all in one. The kitchen and dining area, however, were divided off from the rest, and from a log hearth, by a staircase that came halfway across the room, opposite the main door. The stairs led to a gallery—bedrooms and bathrooms—and a farther, smaller staircase led into the eaves, high, high up. Shadows, deep red from the fire, poked like long cleats into the peaks of the roof.
The phone was in the kitchen area. I fished out my piece of paper with the magic numbers on it and put a call through to Vienna. Fräulein Stempel p
erched herself on a tall stool and took two apples from a bowl, handing one to me.
“Dear boy,” said Maurice, just a touch exasperated that here I was on the line again so soon. “Do trust me. I have a man on his way to the Wachau right now, even as we speak. We shall have some news for you tomorrow, I hope.”
“I do trust you, Maurice, of course I do. It’s just that I think I have some more information. Tell him to concentrate on vineyards run by Catholics—von Zell is a Catholic himself. And, since he must start somewhere, tell him to find out in which vineyard the Benedictine monks from the abbey at Kremsmünster, who were expelled during the war, worked. Von Zell is the man who arranged for the monks to work in the region so he knows the owners of that—or those—vineyards very well.”
“Splendid, dear boy. It shall be done. Keep up the good work. Incidentally, I think I am about to rival you in the newspaper headlines. I’ve been given a tip about those Italian old masters that were stolen from the Kunsthistorisches here in ’43. Fourteen of them. Would you be jealous if they turned up?”
“As a jackdaw,” I said, smiling into the phone.
“Good lad,” he said. “I’m glad you know your place. Now call me tomorrow, will you? About this time. With luck we shall have some news for you.” And we hung up.
I bit on my apple.
“If I were you, I know where I’d look,” said the girl, munching her apple.
“Oh yes?”
She nodded, chewing. “Rudi was a good skier. Very good.”
I noticed that, unlike the secretaries, she used von Zell’s first name.
She flicked her head toward the far end of the house and toward the mountains. “Twice, on weekends, he went up there—and stayed away for two days. There is a whole network of alpine huts up there—six that I know of. It’s flat on top, you know; you don’t need ski lifts or anything like that. A good skier could last out indefinitely, moving from one to the other, so as not to attract too much attention.”
“What would he do for food?”
“Easy, if he had a few friends. They could go skiing on weekends and leave it for him. They have fires in the huts, there’s plenty of wood and kindling. Easy enough to melt the snow to make coffee.”
“Did von Zell have any friends?”
She shrugged, throwing her apple core into the hearth. “He must have had Nazi friends, in his position. And people who sympathized with the Party. There would be no problem.”
What she said made me uncomfortable. You know how it is when you have a nicely worked out theory. The last thing you want is a new one. So far, I had allowed myself to be persuaded that my hunch about von Zell and the vineyards was correct. I was convinced inside that he had done just as I suspected. But I knew, too, that one of the reasons I was convinced by the vineyard theory was because I was pleased with my cleverness at working it out: I wanted my theory to be correct. But this Stempel girl’s idea made sense too. I remembered what Frieda Breker had said: that, from Berchtesgaden, von Zell had gone to Arthurhaus, which, I now recalled, was on the other side of the same mountain, the Hagen Gebirge. So if, in the months preceding the end of the war, he had made arrangements to live in hiding high in the mountains, what better cover than to leave, or appear to leave, Berchtesgaden and then to return, in a manner of speaking. No one would think of looking in the very area he appeared to have run away from. I also remembered that, in the file back at the office, I had read that the von Zells had stayed in a mountain hut just prior to the German collapse in 1945. Another thought struck me. The conduit, ferrying fugitive Nazis to Spain or Portugal, might easily use the mountain routes. Skiing was faster than walking or bicycling and there were no roadblocks in the mountains.
Reluctantly, I told myself that, maybe, I was being irresponsible in not giving this possibility more credence.
“How long would it take to investigate the huts in the mountains?”
“Three days. Two nights away.”
I thought. “Can you ski, Fräulein Stempel?”
She didn’t reply in words but gave me a look that was enough. A look which told me that, as an Austrian, she had been skiing for very nearly as long as she could walk.
“Sorry.” I smiled sheepishly. “Do you know your way about up there? Would you be my guide?”
I can remember the look she gave me then as if this all happened yesterday. No actress could ever simulate it—it said a hundred and one different things at the same time. There was surprise in it, that I should be so forward as to suggest such a thing. There was pity, I think, since I was so obviously desperate to catch my man and so lacking in ideas as to where he was. There was hostility, that I should not have more tact in raising the subject. And there was an affronted air to it, that I should presume she had nothing else to do with her time except help me. But she was excited, too, there was a sparkle in her eyes, and—yes—more, perhaps. She was tough but she was a sport. And maybe life had been just a little bit boring recently.
“Perhaps,” she said, teasing. “But can you ski?”
“A bit. Nowhere near as well as you, I expect.”
She liked the flattery, I could tell. A glow spread across her face. Yes, I thought, life has been on the dull side lately. I offer adventure.
I played up to it. “I don’t think it will be dangerous—I wouldn’t suggest it if I did. But it could be exciting if we do find him. It will be in all the papers. And we are old friends, you and I, compared with the guides I would find in the village.”
She liked that—the “old friends” quip, I mean. And she made up her mind: I was all right. She gave me a wide smile and said, “When would you like to start, General?”
“Tomorrow, as soon as you are free. But I need skis and ski clothes.”
“You can rent them in town. No problem.” A thought struck her. “Why don’t you stay here tonight? It’s a big house and the hotels in Berchtesgaden are expensive. You may have Rudolf’s room.”
That was how it was settled. She never actually said, “Yes, I’ll come.” Just invited me to stay the night.
The idea of sleeping in von Zell’s bed struck me as a bit bizarre, though I didn’t know why, and could think of no objection. I asked, “Will your father agree to having me here?”
She got down from her stool and put another log on the fire. “Oh yes. Since Rudi left, we have led a quiet life, and father likes company. He’s bathing now, and will be down soon. We’ll have a drink then.”
I got down from my stool, too, and sat near her in front of the fire. “Your Austrian accent is still strong. You have not lived in Berchtesgaden long?”
She thought back. “Nearly five years now. After Mama died, Father was restless. He is a sausage-maker and you know how the Germans are about sausage. Rudi loved papa’s sausages.”
There was movement above and the man in question appeared. Tall, but stooped, about sixty or a little more, he swung down the stairs, a coil of energy in his every step. He was thin but had huge hands and eyebrows, which, I remember, didn’t go across his face but sloped diagonally out and down, giving a permanent lugubrious cast to his expression.
His hand, though huge, was very gentle when we were introduced, but his eye didn’t meet mine. Instead, he fixed on a point slightly to one side and below, my own gaze. For a moment I put this down to chronic shyness, what the psychiatrists, these days, call “gaze avoidance.” But then I noticed his daughter smiling and looking at the same spot and I realized I had a packet of American pipe tobacco in my breast pocket.
Immediately, I took it from my tunic and offered some to the old man. To my dismay, and his daughter’s amusement, he turned and slowly took down from the wall over the hearth an enormous alpine pipe which he proceeded to fill. His daughter explained my presence while he was doing this and outlined our plan to explore the mountains. Without waiting for her to ask his permission, he, too, extended an invitation for me to spend the night there. No doubt he had his eye on more tobacco.
The girl, who
now insisted I call her Allie, showed me to my room. It was comfortable, not large but with a radio, a double bed and a window looking out to the Hagen Gebirge. I imagined von Zell spending quiet nights in this room, listening to music on the radio, while his wife also listened, over the mountains in Austria. I bathed, changed my shirt and went back downstairs, taking a pair of nylons with me, for Allie.
Herr Stempel offered me a beer and we chatted in a relaxed, unforced way while Allie clattered around in the kitchen. We sat down, twenty minutes later, to a dinner that consisted of three kinds of sausage, cabbage, potatoes in their skins, beer that had been left outside to chill, black bread and, afterward, Swiss cheese.
As we ate the sausages, accompanied by a local mustard, Allie did most of the talking. She had been engaged to an Austrian boy who was named Walter, also, when Hitler had invaded their country in 1938. The boy, for he was little more than that, had eventually been conscripted to fight on the Russian front where he had been killed seven months later. She still grieved in her own way, she said, but she was practical and now the war was over she intended to move to a big city, Munich, Vienna or Frankfurt maybe. She would take her father with her and get work in the fashion business. The clothes industry would boom, now that the war had ended, and her Walter had been a tailor. She felt it was right.
Allie’s father relit his pipe when she had finished her story—there was still plenty left in it to smoke. He then disappeared for a moment, presumably to some secret prewar horde, for he returned with a bottle of Armagnac. Jealously, he poured me a finger of the pale foxy-colored liquid. It wasn’t much but it was generous of him all the same; people like the Stempels had little enough in the way of luxuries at that time.
We sat by the hearth and I told them about my war, stretching the Armagnac, lingering over each sip as it slithered down my throat. I explained how I had not become a naturalized American until 1941 and so could not enlist until then. How I had been married for nearly a year when I left for my military training. How my wife and I had never learned to know each other in those first months. I didn’t say it had been simply a sexual attraction; one didn’t talk as freely in those days as now. I described London, which had been my first posting, and how the normality of life in 1942 had surprised me.