Misha must have muttered something to himself, because a well-dressed Frenchwoman smoking at the next table—a diplomat’s wife, perhaps: she had the bearing for it—caught his fretful gaze as he fished for change in his jacket lining pocket. “The Germans have sent an envoy to ask for trucks, to ransom the Jews they haven’t already deported,” the woman said, quite angry, her pale eyes searching his face. “It was on the BBC last night. The British have refused the ransom. I offer my sympathies and my regrets Hitler wasn’t incinerated. It is a very shameful time,” she said softly.
Misha nodded, then laid a string of coins in the waiter’s wooden tray. “Why God doesn’t simply shut the whole thing down escapes me,” he replied, “but I expect He’s just biding His time.” The woman inclined her head; it was all very correctly done, another of the civilized moments Bern in wartime offered, oasis in a charnel house.
Misha was in the right neighborhood: Kauffmann might be in, he guessed. By the time he’d knocked at the nondescript alleyway back door, he could hear a string of baritone notes. Kauffmann met him clad in green rubber gloves and a white butcher’s apron. For a moment Misha thought: He’s cracked—he’s dismembering somebody. “Fancy meeting you here,” Kauffmann said, locking the wobbly sheet metal door as it rumbled shut, a kettledrum on hinges.
“Auditioning for the symphony, are we?” Misha asked as Kauffmann led him down the gloomy hallway and through a wooden doorway.
“Opera, sonny,” Kauffmann said, not looking back. “My uncle Herschel was a cantor back in Odessa. Close the door behind you—there’s a draft. Hear some genius almost blew Hitler up yesterday? That bastard’s got nine lives.”
“Ten to my one,” Misha agreed as they followed a stunted stone tunnel, peeling whitewash hanging off the ceiling like flayed skin. The hall to Kauffmann’s tiny darkroom smelt of drains and the vinegary chemicals in his big steel developing tank.
“God will get our beloved Führer yet,” Kauffmann said acidly, working through the darkroom ritual, finally switching on the red light and fishing around in the tank for the canisters of film, his broad back crimson in the dim glow.
“You’ve been busy,” Misha said by way of an opener. “I don’t usually think of Switzerland having a steady supply of break-and-enter experts.”
“Stick around, you might learn something,” Kauffmann muttered, bent over the sink. They’d been speaking Hebrew, Misha’s rusty but serviceable; Kauffmann had a habit of dropping American slang into his replies. “So how was Lisbon?”
Misha stroked his jaw, reflecting. “Crawling with German flight capital. I spent four days getting very inky fingers in the national registry office.”
“With Dalton?” He didn’t wait for Misha to reply. “Step back, there’s a good lad, it’s the enlarger I’ll be needing next.” Kauffmann had a palette of nuanced grunts: one erupted that Misha knew to represent thoughtfulness. “My break-and-enter guys, one of them’s a policeman, the other’s … something else. Look at these.” They pored over the photographs: a cable log, incoming and outgoing, the entries in flowing Italian copperplate. “The handwriting. It’s beautiful. Priests, their school days, I guess.”
“That’s a lot of money. For priests.” Misha was reading the line entries in another photograph; Kauffmann’s specialists had done the ledgers and bank statements too, even the courier expense files.
“How much is a lot?” Kauffmann murmured philosophically; he often asked questions without raising his voice at the end. He laid a shining fresh image on the table next to the enlarger. They were both reading now, the ticked-off list of financial documents readied for the Vatican’s diplomatic pouch, there in gleaming black-and-white.
“Will you look at this?” Misha said, eyeing the paperwork. “We could ransom a thousand Jews on what they move in a day.”
Kauffmann peeled off his rubber gloves and rubbed his chin. “Reuven doesn’t pay me to think,” he observed as he sprayed down the metal developing trough, watching the fresh water sizzle on the stainless steel.
Misha read the cable logs, looking for patterns. “What’s this word?”
“Italian for debenture,” Kauffmann said. “I looked it up at the library.”
Misha turned the page, running his finger slowly down the column of entries. “Any lawyer’s letters? Legal correspondence? Letters of instruction?”
Kauffmann cleaned up carefully, a veteran bachelor’s primness. “I wouldn’t know. I just get the film and send it off. But I have an idea.”
Misha waited, leaning against the sink.
“That librarian sent me to the federal registry,” Kauffmann continued, “the place on the Postgasse, near the Belle Époque. This fellow Hödel helped me, loves his files and ledgers and whatnot.”
“The corporations office?”
Kauffmann nodded.
“Who’s the head boy at the Vatican consulate here, on the financial side, the traveling bank officer? Ever see him?” Misha asked.
“A monsignor, an Austrian,” Kauffmann replied, offering Misha a cigarette now his chemicals were all stoppered and the sink hosed down. “I read up on this monsignor’s bank, you know, down at the registry office.” He was rinsing out his work cloth and laying it out to dry, square and flat on the steel sink top. “Here’s a good one: any idea when the Vatican bank was incorporated?”
“Dunno. The Crusades, round then?”
“Not even close.”
“After the Renaissance, then. The Medicis. Venice? All those Lombard bankers?”
Kauffmann pulled hard on his cigarette. “Nineteen forty-two.” He clipped the rubber gloves to the wall. “Let’s go for a walk. You need to know some things.”
“Odessa had a bank. The Tsar came to visit—it was his bank. He wanted to see his money, he liked seeing his money,” Kauffmann said as they walked along the stone bridge over the river, both of them needing air. “He forgot a glove at the bank. By chance, my uncle Herschel found it. He brought the glove home—Aunt Nina was ready to kill him. She was terrified it would bring the police, a pogrom, worse, maybe. Uncle Herschel, he passed the glove around—everyone examined it, admired it. We were poor Jews and this, this was the Tsar’s glove, after all. I myself held the glove, tried it on. I can still feel it, perfect lambskin, white as snow. Never seen anything so beautifully made.”
Misha waited for Kauffmann to continue as the two of them reached the middle of the bridge. “Rebbe Gershon decided better we destroy the glove than return it. Why draw attention to ourselves? We had enough problems. So that was the end of the Tsar’s glove.” Kauffmann set himself against the bridge railing; a fine spray of river water rose, misting them.
“Mostly I don’t care about them, the ones I watch,” he went on. “This one, him I like.” His elbows propped on the railing, Kauffmann made a pyramid of his fingers under his chin, tapping them together before he began. “Franz-Josef Sommer,” he recited, his eyes blank as he recalled, “monsignor, fortyish, looks younger. Austrian birth; carries both Vatican and Austrian passports. Runs the foreign exchange desk at the Vatican bank—he sees all the comings and goings. I got his business card off the table in his entranceway.” Kauffmann reached into his pocket and pulled out a fine engraved card:
MSGR FRANZ-JOSEF SOMMER
ISTITUTO PER LE OPERE DI RELIGIONE
LA CITTA DEL VATICANO
Kauffmann turned the card over. He scratched his nose and tipped his leather cap back on his big round head: the gears were working. “It’s a very long game Reuven’s playing, Resnikoff.”
“I know,” Misha replied. “We all are. Someday, after this war is over, there’ll be a reckoning about a few things. I’ll see to that. For Adela’s sake. Palestine for one. You can count on it.”
Kauffmann gave Misha a rare admiring glance and nodded.
“You hear of any legal work done in New York?” Misha let that drift off over the waters of the Aare.
Turning, Kauffmann put his back to the railing, shaking his head. “I do
n’t see it, New York. What’s it mean?”
“Stick around,” Misha said. “You might learn something.” He looked at his watch, then tapped Kauffmann on his forearm. “What it means is that the Tsar left his glove.” Misha stepped away, gave Kauffmann an outsized bow, and began to walk across the bridge, heading for Thun.
“Hey, where you going?”
“To see a rabbi,” Misha replied, not looking back.
Nearby, the St. Vincent’s cathedral bell clanged three as Misha climbed the steps to the address Allen had given Schorr. The meeting was at a mechanics’ institute, a lending library and night school on the Ensingerstrasse, just off the Thunplatz, a big high five-floored place two doors down from the Ecuadoran embassy, dedicated to furthering the lot of technically minded young men. “My brother Foster sends them money,” Allen had told Schorr. Misha thought that just might be true: the place was austere and clean as only the Swiss can clean, with a heavy whiff of the evangelical in the portraits in the main hall.
The silky Gero von Gaevernitz met Misha at the door, key in hand; they were, Gero said in his patrician voice, the only ones in the building, an exclusivity that evidently appealed to the Hungarian. At the foot of the stairs they came to a double set of windowed doors opening on a room cool and dark. The cellar library was divided by ranks of bookshelves lined with boxed books, donations, Misha gathered, of an improving nature. Allen had laid a welcoming tray of bottles and delicatessen on a grand desk, dusty from disuse; an ancient brown telephone, the chrome of its bell chipped and worn, stood guard next to the mineral water. A weak light trickled in through the street-level pebbled glass windows.
“Misha Resnikoff—haven’t seen your smiling face in far too long. Come in, come in. How long’s it been?”
Misha shook Allen’s fleshy hand and found himself suddenly irritated at the sight of Allen’s bland, avuncular face. “Not since the Christmas party you threw for us research plebs slaving away in the financial trenches. What’s the latest about Hitler?”
Allen settled himself on his elbows, his thinking man’s posture. “Hitler will have his revenge—the Gestapo’s already making arrests by the truckload. Prelude to a bloodbath, I should think. Goebbels has broadcast as much,” he added, subdued. “I expect very few of the resistance people will survive. I am acquainted with many of them. A bloodbath.”
“I know what it’s like to lose someone to the Nazis.” Misha waited thoughtfully. “You know so much so soon. Your sources are quite remarkable. Which makes me wonder.”
“Wonder about what?”
“About why I didn’t see any reports from you about the Hungarian deportations.” Misha took a wooden chair and settled in for the festivities, resisting the temptation to put his feet on the desk between him and Allen. “Everybody else had them. Hundreds of thousands of people, dozens of trains, running for weeks, and not a peep from you. Surely you know a Hungarian or two who might explain the mystery of half the Jews of Hungary vanishing into thin air.”
Gaevernitz kept slicing the rye bread, not missing a beat. Allen considered Misha, unblinking behind his spectacles. “Maybe that’s a good reason to report on something else,” he replied evenly. “Because everyone else is charging off in the opposite direction. Keep an efficient distance.”
“There’s efficiency and there’s efficiency,” Misha said. “All those German businessmen, on all those trains … and not one of them’s said a word to you—but never mind the Jews. A detail. Let’s trade some trucks for them. Heard anything about that from those SS types who keep washing up on your door?”
“Bit aggressive, isn’t he, Gero?” Allen remarked, his gaze set on Misha as Gaevernitz portioned out the food. “Let’s have the wine.”
“He’s just hungry,” Gaevernitz offered, passing Misha a plateful. Misha waited for Gero to sit down; he didn’t care for someone behind him he couldn’t see.
“So you and Dalton had a field trip to Lisbon?” Allen asked gently.
Misha didn’t stint himself and built a solid sandwich while he weighed the question. “We met for a meal and crossed paths once or twice, but we were on separate assignments.”
Allen wasn’t eating. “I hear otherwise. I hear you two were digging away in the Lisbon registry office like a couple of kids in a sandbox.”
“I’m sure,” Misha said, “it’s all in Dalton’s report. He writes a very good report. Schorr frames them and puts them up on the wall, to keep me motivated.”
Gaevernitz cracked a smile, but Allen didn’t. “Yes, he does,” Gaevernitz said. “But you see, we’ve not seen yours.”
“Ask Schorr,” Misha replied, chewing. “It’s his report to circulate.” He noticed Allen had touched neither wine nor food.
“Come, now, you know as well as I do your boss, Schorr, is none too fond of me, my industrious friend. You and I, on the other hand, we go way back. Gero, did I ever tell you how Misha here helped me out on my election campaign?”
“The soul of discretion,” Gaevernitz offered from the one comfortable chair in the whole basement, “you’ve said so many times.”
“And now as then,” Allen went on, finally unwrapping an easy grin, “Mr. Resnikoff can be counted on. Even Jim Kronthal says so. ‘Resnikoff? Best banking intelligence man I know. Knows where the skeletons are.’ That’s what Jim says.”
Misha took a sip of the thin Swiss wine, raising his glass to Allen in mock salute.
Allen’s grin cooled. “I can’t read Dalton’s report, you see. It doesn’t exist.”
“Your staffing worries are no business of mine.”
Dulles glanced over at Gaevernitz. “They are, actually,” the Hungarian said.
Allen took off his glasses and began to polish them with a serviette, considering Misha with his naked moist eyes. “Yes, they are,” he agreed. “Dalton was hit by a truck three hours ago, on his way to my flat.” Misha flinched. “He’s got three crushed ribs and a broken jaw and his knees won’t see another tennis court,” Allen went on. “And the brain swelling … it’s a coma, Misha.” He made a face. “He won’t be talking for quite some time.”
“And whoever hit him took the trouble to relieve him of his valise,” Gaevernitz added. “So you see, Mr. Resnikoff, we’re not the only ones with an interest in Dalton’s report.”
“We’ve a little time, a small head start,” Allen offered. “And rest assured, we’ll protect you. We just need to know what’s in Dalton’s report.”
There was a very long silence indeed. “It’s a shock,” Misha said finally.
“It’s a shock for all of us,” Gaevernitz agreed.
Misha shook his head slowly. “No, it’s not.”
“It’s not? Whatever do you mean?” Allen asked.
“I speak only for myself. What’s a shock,” Misha said, “is your impatience, Allen. You may be many things, Allen, but I’ve never known you to be impatient.”
“Your colleague was all but killed this afternoon,” Allen replied. “Why aren’t you impatient yourself?” Allen was packing his pipe now, weighing his next words. “If I were in your shoes, I’d be a worried man.”
Misha didn’t move. Gaevernitz had risen somewhere behind him, stacking plates.
Dulles lit his pipe, working the match over the bowl. “Russi reckons it was Communists, Misha. His people identified the truck, even if the driver’s long gone, on his way to Spain. But you’re not worried. That’s clear. And that means one of two things, logically. And I know you for a logical man, Misha. You could be working for the Russians, which might explain why you’re not upset by Dalton’s situation. Or you’re not working for the Russians. Which is really more interesting. Because that means you have somebody very trustworthy watching your back … and I doubt it’s Schorr. He’s a deskman, the least bloodthirsty man in Bern. So, Misha. Who’s watching your back?”
The sharp scrape of Misha’s chair echoed as he stood. “Thank you. It’s been most enlightening, Mr. Dulles. You too, Herr von Gaevernitz. For the record,
Dalton’s report would have said all those joint venture companies incorporated in Bern and popping up in the Lisbon registry filings, the ones with head offices in Buenos Aires and São Paulo and Lima, they’re a daisy chain of interlocking joint ventures from here to South America. That’s what he found. I wonder who did the legal work. Those SS lawyers in Davos? Or maybe the answer’s far closer to home. I don’t know—I’m not there yet.” Misha reached inside his coat and tossed an envelope on the desktop. “Have a present. Dalton’s Lisbon filing requests, for all the documents he ordered. I took the precaution of liberating the carbon copies off the registrar’s spike. So the Russians wouldn’t get them. Or the Germans. Or you, maybe, Allen. You tell me.”
Misha leant over the table, his hands on the oak. “It was all very cleverly done, you see. I think Dalton was on a wild goose chase, looking everywhere—gold, shipping companies, wolfram, diamonds, even insurance—everywhere but where you”—he turned and took in Gaevernitz—“and you, Allen, didn’t want him looking. You sent him to Lisbon, didn’t you, gave him his marching orders? Because he was getting warm, wasn’t he?” Misha didn’t pause for a reply. “There’s a saying about travel, you know.”
Allen puffed away, his face inscrutable through the coils of smoke. “And what saying is that, young Resnikoff?”
“All roads lead to Rome, Mr. Dulles. Good afternoon.”
I hope Reuven forgives me that last one, Misha thought as he climbed the stairs, but then Reuven hadn’t caught that final brief tremor of surprise on Allen Dulles’s face. Misha opened the door and took in the sweet midsummer mountain air. It felt clean and fresh after the claustrophobic cellar library and Dulles’s sudden anxieties about poor Dalton and his obsessions.
Gold, shipping companies, wolfram, diamonds, even insurance— that left oil.
The Witness Tree Page 34