Altmann leaned back and looked into Niska’s face to get a reading of his response.
“You seem to have a golden touch, Algot. All those years of making whiskey runs into Finland have helped you hone your smuggling skills. Skills, I might add, that you could apply to smuggling human beings rather than just bank notes and diamond rings. Ever consider that?”
Niska lowered his head and riveted his eyes to the rim of his now-empty cognac glass while he contemplated Altmann’s remarks. Altmann was a savvy enough business man to recognize when he might have a willing fish on the line.
“For instance, a young man I know—he’s my wine dealer—has asked me on the sly if I knew of any way he could get the hell out of Germany and back to his native Czechoslovakia. The SS are turning the screws very tightly on him. He was a member of our youth movement. In fact, he was there in front of the Reichstag to protest with others in ’33 when Hindenburg conferred the Chancellorship upon Hitler.”
“That kind of activity does tend to catch the attention of the SS.”
“His wine shop was badly damaged by the Brownshirts on that bloody night last month. A shame—his late father was a good friend of mine. He opened the shop, and it passed down to his son when he died. Now the son has received word that the shop will undergo the process of Aryanization. He will have virtually nothing. He wants to hightail it out of here before things get worse.”
Altmann paused and stared into Niska’s face.
“I think you can help, Algot. The question is, are you willing to help him?”
Niska’s eyes were roaming about the room. To Altmann, he seemed uncomfortable—or tempted, but definitely hesitant. It was time to seal the deal, Altmann intuited.
“I will give you sufficient money to make it worth your effort. You can use what you need to bribe a border official on the way out of Germany, or whatever it is you do. Then keep the rest.”
Niska broke his silence. “I like to make a living the same as the next man. Smuggling was what the circumstances called for in the ’20s and early ’30s, so I took advantage. I don’t go out of my way to find adventure and intrigue. They always seem to have a way of finding me. Is that what’s happening now, Bruno?”
“The money is pretty good, you have to admit.”
“If I choose to do as you have requested, it would be for a different kind of reward than the money. I don’t want it on my conscience that I have profited unreasonably from another human being’s misery.”
“Then, I take it I can give the young Mr. Hudak your number?”
Niska stared out into the night through the windows again and was silent. Finally, getting up from the table, he said, almost under his breath, “I’ll think about it, Bruno. That’s all I am promising.”
Before he headed for the exit, he turned and faced Altmann one more time, and added, “But tell him that if he calls me, to use a public telephone, not the one in his residence.”
~~~
As he walked to his flat, Niska reflected on the conversation with Altmann, and the apparent upshot. Niska always had to keep his attention and alertness at peak level. Hitler punished smugglers without mercy. The tiniest offense against the Reich’s strict monetary laws resulted in harsh convictions, and new, more severe laws were being created every day. Niska knew that enormous risks hung over him because he was transporting all kinds of items, like gold, silver, and jewelry across the border. The fact that the ones retaining his services were Jews just magnified the risk. Niska had lived with risk since he was in his early twenties, even earlier, and had served a sentence in Finland for his whiskey running.
Now the stakes were being raised much higher, however. To agree to smuggle an actual human being, especially a Jew, was accepting a much graver gamble. Should he be apprehended by the Nazis, rather than merely a prison sentence for smuggling inanimate contraband, it would mean the probable loss of his life. Were Niska to agree to help the young Czech wine merchant that Altmann had told him about evade capture by the Nazis to the relative safety of his native Czechoslovakia, he would be participating in an activity that could blow up and hurtle both him and the young Jew into irreversible destruction.
True, Niska did own a boat, currently moored in Amsterdam, and had three alert helpers on board who were accustomed to risk. And if in previous times he had smuggled large barrels of liquor in quantity successfully past inspectors, why could he not likewise succeed in smuggling a less bulky item, like a human being?
But an overriding doubt tugged at him as he turned the corner and crossed the street to his hotel apartment.
I am not a Jew myself. I belong to another race, almost the same as the Germans. I will do what I know best and help them save their goods and property that the Nazis want to get their greedy paws on. That should be enough. But to do any more than that and sign my own potential death warrant? I don’t know.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Hague: February 8, 1939
After his initial treatment session with Himmler, Kersten returned to The Hague. He was glad to resume his duties with the Dutch royal family and other prominent patients. He and Irmgaard deepened their romantic relationship. He hoped that this was where he would stay, perhaps for the rest of his living days. After his hardscrabble childhood and youth with his ethnic German family in Estonia, Kersten was determined to enjoy the wealth and prestige that his highly specialized practice among the European aristocracy was affording him.
Six enjoyable weeks had passed since that first encounter with the peculiar Himmler. Kersten had wishfully banished the memory of the treatment session. He had practically forgotten his own hasty, unpremeditated offer to Himmler to be available in case he was in a crisis of pain. At the time, Kersten considered his offer as a way of throwing a bone to the dogs to ward off Himmler’s persistent barking.
One evening, as Kersten and Irmgaard were seated side-by-side on his couch looking at old photographs, the telephone seemed to explode on the other side of the sitting room with the loud, distinctive squealing of the Dutch phones, almost like an ambulance’s siren. He stood up and ran to pick up the receiver to silence the intrusive sound. For several seconds, Kersten heard only the buzzing of the telephone wires, a sure indication to him that the caller was farther away than The Hague or Amsterdam.
“Dr. Kersten, I am sorry to disturb you. This is Major Brandt, Reichsführer Himmler’s personal adjutant.”
Kersten felt himself gripping the receiver more tightly. Just the name of Himmler sent a cold jolt of animus down his spine all the way to his shoes.
“The time has come, Dr. Kersten,” Brandt continued, very businesslike. “The Reichsführer has need for you…And if I may be permitted to be so bold to add my own untrained opinion, Doctor, in my estimation, he has an acute and serious need for your treatment. The attacks are becoming more frequent and intense.”
It wasn’t until then that Kersten remembered Himmler’s promise—or was it a threat?—to call for Kersten if he had need for him. He now regretted his offer to Himmler to be only a telephone call away.
Promptly but reluctantly the next morning, he boarded a KLM flight to Berlin. Brandt arranged to have a civilian limousine and driver meet him at the airport and drive him directly to Prinz Albrecht Strasse. Brandt seemed to appreciate that Kersten didn’t want to be mistaken by passers-by on the street for a Nazi official.
When Kersten arrived inside Himmler’s office, Himmler was doubled over in pain and could barely greet him. Kersten asked his patient to strip to his waist and lie down on the divan as on the first visit. Kersten took off the coat of his suit and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He began to knead the flesh above Himmler’s stomach.
From Doctor Ko, Kersten had learned that the therapist’s first duty was to find out the exact nature of the pain, and to ascertain its source. To aid him in his diagnosis, the therapist had at his disposal the four pulse and nerve centers and networks of the human body that the Tibetans had identified centuries earlier. His only
instrument for arriving at a diagnosis was those idiosyncratic nodules of flesh on the tips of Kersten’s fingers. They had become expert in detecting the malady lurking under the patient’s skin fat, and musculature, and determining which nerve group was affected.
So now, with Himmler in a supine position on the divan in front of him, Kersten applied just the proper degree of pressure, precisely the appropriate kneading action, and made exactly the correct delicate twists and turns necessary to alleviate Himmler’s excruciating pain. Once again, when Kersten had finished the manipulation of Himmler’s flesh, Himmler bathed in an infinite ocean of relief and pure bliss. He was downright effusive with his declarations of wonder and gratitude to Kersten. “You’re an absolute magician, Doctor, a sorcerer!”
“Oh, it’s not magic, Herr Reichsführer. It’s strictly science developed by the people of the Far East before the time when Jesus walked this earth.”
“I suppose they are, after all, the people who invented gunpowder,” Himmler said with a smile.
“Actually, that was the Chinese. But you’ve got the general region of the world correct.”
Himmler requested that Kersten prolong his stay in Berlin and administer daily treatments for the time being. Himmler complained of chronic discomfort of the most acute kind, almost daily attacks. Grudgingly, Kersten agreed to a two-week stay in Berlin.
“Very good, Doctor. I knew you were a man with whom one could negotiate. I’ll have Brandt arrange a comfortable flat for you in the Hotel Kaiserhof.”
The next day, in their second session of the current series of treatments, Himmler became very talkative during the breaks in the massage session. He chatted freely about himself and his illness.
“I’ve always been deadly afraid of cancer, Doctor. My father died an ugly death to the disease.”
“There’s no need to fear that your condition is caused by cancer, Herr Reichsführer. You might say that I have a handle on your condition, if you’ll excuse the pun.” Himmler seemed physically relieved. The sense of reprieve encouraged further confession from Himmler.
“I have to admit that I am ashamed of this illness. I hide my pain fiercely, Doctor. Please don’t let anyone, except Brandt, of course, know about the inconvenient nausea, the debilitating stabbing in the stomach. Certainly not the Führer.”
“But why, Herr Reichsführer? It is no disgrace to be sick.”
“It is when you are in charge of the SS, Doctor, the elite of the German people, which is to say, the elite of the whole world.”
Kersten looked down at Himmler, making no reply.
“I choose the recruits myself, and always on the identical model: tall, athletic, blond and blue-eyed. They must be tireless, disciplined, and as hard on themselves as they are on others. You see, Doctor? How can I let those below me in rank see my bodily misery, and my surrender to it? I cannot afford to be perceived as weak.”
Kersten raised his bushy eyebrows, but didn’t respond otherwise, though he understood Himmler’s secretiveness about his illness. Kersten was beginning to notice the paradox that this man, second in power, only to Hitler himself, perhaps, one whose duty was to keep the highest and most terrible secrets of state, could be so unbelievably indiscreet with him after a treatment. After Kersten’s treatments with his expert hands, perhaps this normally morbidly suspicious man was in a kind of drunken forgetfulness in which his caution was suspended.
When a man is consciously on his guard, he will be careful to say what he wants others to hear; when he is off guard, his words reveal his real character.
Kersten had begun to establish a pattern of pausing every five minutes or so to encourage his loquacious patient to converse during these intervals.
Himmler seemed to jump inexplicably to a new subject.
“We will soon be at war, Doctor.”
Kersten’s hands, which had been lightly interlaced, locked tightly together, but he did not move. In dealing with Himmler, Kersten was learning to manipulate not only his patient’s nerves, but also, sometimes, his psychological reactions.
“War?” Kersten exclaimed. “Good heavens! Why on earth?”
Himmler raised himself slightly on his elbows and answered excitedly, like a child breathlessly explaining to his father his latest discovery.
“There will be a war, because the Führer wants one. He believes it is for the good of the German people. War makes men stronger and more virile. Surely, you’re not so naïve, Doctor that you believe that the world will ever know real peace until it has been purified by war and enlightened by National Socialist philosophy? And until it is totally Judenfrei?”
Kersten walked over to the sink which Himmler had had installed in his office to cater to his fetish for clean hands at all times and circumstances. Kersten now felt the need to wash his own hands. Was it because his hands had been massaging a patient? Or was it because of what excrement had been pouring out of his patient’s mouth?
Himmler lay back down the full length on the divan and added, a trifle condescendingly, as though he were reassuring a frightened child, “Anyway, it will be a little war: short, easy, and victorious.”
Kersten had remained silent and skeptical as Himmler spoke. Now he felt that he ought to respond somehow, however, lest Himmler misinterpret his silence as assent to the Nazi lunacy. It required something of an effort for Kersten to ask in an even, neutral tone, “Don’t you think that flirting with war would be like playing with fire?”
“The Führer knows exactly just how far to go before we get burned,” said Himmler.
Kersten marveled at the intellectual simplicity of this very complicated man, perhaps more feared by the military and the public than even the Führer himself. But lying there half-naked on the divan, Himmler seemed to shed the skin of the commander of the special troops and secret police, and take on the identity of a rather ordinary patient, giddy with relief from his pain.
“It sounds as though your Führer is not only a military genius, but an expert in human psychology as well,” Kersten said, trying his best not to exaggerate the ironic tone.
“Yes, Doctor, you speak the truth,” Himmler retorted enthusiastically. “That, he is, indeed.”
CHAPTER NINE
Berlin: February 10, 1939
Kersten felt like an animal trapped in a cage. It had been several months since he had been able to return to his home in The Hague and be with Irmgaard, and free from Nazi politics. He was concerned that the patience of the Dutch royal family with his long absences would run out, and he would be relieved of his cushy, lucrative position as their personal massage therapist.
He lamented his vulnerable position. He was ensnared in a web of dangerous circumstances from which he wished to extract himself—if only he could. The Dutch royal family could not intercede on his behalf because he was not a Dutch citizen.
Yet, it boiled down to a choice between imprisonment or limited freedom as Himmler’s masseur. Freedom, even proscribed and partial, was preferable.
He was a Finnish citizen. It was time to pay a visit to the ambassador at the Finnish legation. He suspected that as head of the SS, Himmler would have been remiss if he hadn’t assigned an agent or two—probably plainclothes—to keep track of Kersten’s movements. He had to be careful about the places he frequented and the contacts he made. No one should be surprised, however, that a Finnish citizen visited his country’s chief diplomat.
Kersten began his private audience with the ambassador, T.M. Mäki, by describing his professional relationship with Himmler.
“We weren’t aware of your relationship with Himmler,” Mäki confessed, his face looking like that of a shopkeeper who discovers that the innocent-looking little boy who had been coming into his shop every day had been pilfering chocolate bars.
“I can’t continue in what I am doing. I just can’t,” Kersten said. “Sometimes I feel Himmler thinks he owns me. I have to be on call at all times. He feels he has the right to loan me out to other prominent Nazis who are experi
encing abdominal pain. Like Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop, for instance, who is a damnably dull and distasteful fellow. A few of the others aren’t much better.”
“And now, you are appealing for our help?”
“Well, yes. With the whole SS under his command, Himmler is in a position to decide the fate of almost everyone in Germany. Now, Austria, too. Surely, he can wield power over the life and death of a defenseless expatriate such as I.”
“But from what you tell me, I gather you’re too valuable to him for him to do you any harm.”
“Well, yes, underneath the intimidating SS uniform, I grant he does possess an unexpected humanity. But when anyone of us is relieved of unyielding chronic pain, we can turn congenial in the presence of the one who alleviated it. The graciousness may be only temporary.”
“You’re saying that the Himmler’s ferocity and brutality leave the room when you are treating him?”
“Yes, it appears so.”
“But that at any moment they might return announced and uninvited?”
“Sometimes I fear that, to be quite frank.”
“Very interesting, Dr. Kersten…Here’s something for you to consider. It strikes me that you are in a very unique position. He seems to consider you his confessor for his soul and doctor for his body. You have a very privileged vantage point from which to see and hear otherwise classified tidbits of the Nazis’ strategy. That could be very valuable to your country, if not the family of nations, if we were to be kept abreast of it.”
“What I have noticed, though, Mr. Ambassador, is that my proximity to Himmler is being noticed by some of Himmler’s associates, Heydrich and Kaltenbrunner, mainly. I see the suspicion in their eyes. I don’t think Himmler is even aware of it. To be quite frank, I’m not exaggerating when I say I fear for my life in the Chancellery.”
“I can empathize, Dr. Kersten. You are in a precarious position, I agree. But since you have made me aware of it, I’m afraid I must insist that you stay right where you are—by the Reichsführer’s bedside. It’s only a matter of time when war will break out. Germany will be at the center of it. Finland is not directly affected at this juncture. When Germany turns over in bed, however, the rest of Europe shakes. The strategic information you may be able to overhear, or pump from your patient, is too important for us to remove you from your unique tactical position.”
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