She was suspicious, he determined.
“Reinhart,” he said, immediately. The name had provided good protection for a long time, so why not utilize it again? It was a background upon which he could easily be questioned. “Klaus Reinhart.”
She frowned, searching for a memory, then nodded. An utterly lonely woman, Gerda was more aware of the events and people in her life of thirty years before than she was of the preceding day.
“I recall the name,” she admitted. Immediately, she added, “But I don’t recollect your being a friend of my husband. Rather the reverse.”
Oh God, another error. He’d forgotten telling her about Reinhart, all those years ago. Why the hell should she have remembered, anyway?
“At Buchenwald I was a doctor, nothing more,” agreed Kurnov. “It’s only been since then … forced to live for so long as we have … that we’ve come so close …”
Still she looked doubtful, he thought. To talk further would only create fresh questions. He struggled toward the edge of the chair. His body felt heavy. Every movement was a conscious effort.
“Frau Köllman …” he said, respectfully, anticipating she would respond to such an approach. “I’ve traveled for so long without sleep. Or the facilities even to wash my face. Perhaps a bath …”
She nodded, indicating the nearest door.
“I’ll get towels.”
Too quick, he judged. She wanted him out of the room, so she could contact that bloody Nazi. As she went into the bathroom, he looked toward the door leading into the hallway. Thank God. There was a key in the lock. As quickly as he could move his leaden body he went over, securing the door and putting the key into his pocket. He moved away, appearing to greet her as she returned from the bedroom. He was aware of her close attention. She was examining him minutely, looking at his hair, then his face, going over his body and even looking closely at his hands when he reached out for the towels. He grabbed them quickly, trying to avert the examination.
“I’ll only be a few minutes, Frau Köllman,” he said, moving toward the bathroom. “Perhaps it would be possible for another coffee when I’m finished?”
She nodded, head still to one side, her face blank.
Inside the bathroom he pressed against the door, listening. Her footsteps receded and he heard the muffled clatter of crockery again.
He turned on the taps and started undressing, gratefully. His smelling, stained clothes felt like another skin. They even seemed difficult to divest. He stared into the mirror, shocked by his appearance. He looked like a madman, he thought, a disheveled, glaring-eyed madman. A night’s sleep. That’s all he needed, a good night’s sleep. His body was numbed with fatigue so there was no feeling in his legs. It was like walking on cotton wool. The bath would help, he thought, groaning at the pleasure as he lowered himself into the water. The woman worried him. The suspicion was building up, he knew, like a snowball rolling down a hill. He looked around the cramped cubicle, seeking a weapon. There would be no way he could sleep without subduing her first. The idea of harming his wife came quite dispassionately, without any remorse.
There was nothing heavy enough to render her unconscious, he realized sadly.
In the kitchen, Gerda tidily stacked the plates in the drainer frame, then wiped her hands.
There was something wrong, she knew. She couldn’t isolate it, but she could not lose the feeling that the man’s account was untrue. She shuddered, suddenly frightened. Heinrich had hated Reinhart, she remembered. A bad German, he’d called him, a traitor, and he’d had to discipline the man a hundred times. She frowned, regressing along familiar paths, trying to recall. He’d even demanded Reinhart’s arrest and trial, she thought. Yes, she was quite sure of it.
Herr Muntz should know. Determinedly, she went back into the living room, but moved softly, so the man would not hear. By the bathroom, she listened, intently, hearing the sound of the water. She smiled, moving on into the bedroom to get her frayed cloth coat from the cupboard. The door creaked slightly and she looked back, hesitantly. Still just the sound of someone bathing. She put the coat on as she went across the room, walking fast, needing to quit the apartment even though she could not identify her fear.
There was a strangled, frightened sound as she tugged at the locked door. Unable to understand what had happened, she kept pulling until it rattled in the frame. Then the fear came up like a solid feeling in her throat, blocking her lungs. Finally, she backed into the room, staring at the door, disbelievingly shaking her head. Why lock it? It was pointless. Nothing made any sense. She turned to the bathroom, eyes staring, trying to pin the thoughts that butterflied through her mind. Who was he? And why had he locked her in? Who on earth, apart from Herr Muntz, knew her name? The Jews? Could it be the Jews, come to get her after all this time?
His carelessly constructed story unwound in her mind, but this time the faults glared. No one, she decided. No one at all. Well, almost no one … but not even the Jews …
She began moving slowly, head erect, hypnotically drawn toward the closed door, from behind which she could still faintly detect the sound of his movements. It couldn’t be, she thought. Again she was reminded of the similarities that had occurred to her as she had emerged from the bedroom thirty minutes before, handing him the towel. She felt faint, as if the band were being slowly tightened around her chest, like the feeling she had experienced in her meeting with Herr Muntz. It wasn’t possible. He wouldn’t have treated her so cruelly. At the door, she stopped, not knowing what to do. Feeling suddenly foolish, she stooped, trying to squint through the keyhole. In her fear, she almost giggled. He had his back to her, leisurely drying himself. His skin was old and sagging, like a lizard, she thought, but there was an odd line around his throat, almost like a collar. He turned, twisting to dry his back and she screamed, unable to stop herself. She saw him stop at the sound, but then she was falling, going backwards, helplessly, her mind locked on the distinctive scar that Heinrich had carried on his thigh since the Hamburg car crash, and which she remembered so well. The door opened and he stood there, unclothed, staring down at her. His face, the face she didn’t know, was entirely without expression.
“Heinrich …” she mumbled, bewildered. “… My darling … what …?” she stopped, listening to her own voice. My darling …? Was that so? But she didn’t know the man who stood over her … he was as strange as his face.
“… Help me …” she pleaded. “… I don’t understand …”
The thoughts rushed into her head, like water filling a hollow on the seashore. It was Heinrich. He was back. There would be a reason for the surgery. It didn’t matter. The explanation could come later. She would learn to live with that face. What did a face matter? He’d come back. That was the important thing. She wasn’t going to be alone any more. Back. At last. No mora loneliness. No more poverty. Perhaps even dresses again.
She reached out, imploringly, smiling up at him. Kurnov looked down at the old woman. How ugly, he thought. Stupid. And ugly.
He moved forward and she offered her hand, to be pulled up, but he spread the towel he held, like a cloak. She frowned, unable to comprehend, and then everything went black as he threw it over her face and she felt the weight and dampness of his body. She tried to hold him, thinking it was an embrace, and then felt the chain he had torn from the hand-basin looping around her neck and realized for the first time how the air was cut off by the towel over her head. She tried to scream, but the sound choked away. He was so heavy … so heavy … why … why was he doing it … she loved him … it didn’t matter about the new face … really it didn’t …
“… Please …” she tried, but the sound was smothered and a few seconds later she lapsed into unconsciousness.
Kurnov lay on her, utterly exhausted, long after she had ceased struggling and he knew she was dead. At last he got to his knees, then finally upright, drained by the brief fight. Her body was covered in the towel, so that only her legs showed, exposed where her skirt had rid
den up. He freed one arm and jerked her toward the bathroom. She was very heavy and it took a long time. He moved in short spurts, Everything took so much effort. He wedged her against the side of the bath, knowing he was very near complete collapse. Stumbling, unable even to see properly, he half fell from the bathroom, grabbing a chair in the living room. It didn’t stop the collapse. He couldn’t stand now, he knew. On his hands and knees he crawled into the bedroom. As he went past the wardrobe, his back hit the suit Gerda had bought but never worn. The plastic gripped at his dampened, warm skin and it fell off, on top of him. He gasped, frightened, throwing it off in a heap. He knelt for several moments by the bed, concentrating his ebbing strength, then lurched up, throwing himself over it. He was asleep before his body settled.
It had happened, just as Mavetsky had feared.
“How can he have vanished?” demanded Shepalin.
Mavetsky looked away, refusing to meet the chairman’s accusation. No one else came to help. Bastards.
“Too many things are happening that we can’t tie together,” said the minister, desperately. Responsibility was being directed against him from every side, he knew. The entire Praesidium had decided he should be the scapegoat. Suvlov had even been sent back to Berlin, not arrested and put into a camp, as Mavetsky had expected.
“Every Nazi from whom we might have got a lead has been killed,” added Mavetsky.
“I want Russia to be in a position of handing Kurnov over,” insisted Shepalin. “We’ve scored an enormous propaganda victory so far. It must continue.”
“I’ll try,” shrugged Mavetsky, hopelessly. But he couldn’t, he knew. There was nothing he could do. Nothing at all. Except hope that the agents he’d flooded into the city would stumble across something.
“You’d better,” warned Shepalin, softly.
(21)
It was an agonizing pain, reaching deep into his unconsciousness, driving through his head. He struggled, trying to escape, but he was pinned firmly down. He could feel the hands upon his arms and legs and others holding his head, preventing almost any movement. He shouted and tried to twist away, realizing his ear lobes were being squeezed, to make him awaken. He didn’t want to wake up. He wanted to sleep, forever. Go away, please let me sleep, he thought. Still the searing pain continued.
Initially his eyes fogged, refusing to see. Then the light penetrated and he heard the familiar voice and blinked, fixing his vision.
There were four around the bed, moving away from him now he was conscious. Perez was at the bottom, smiling down.
“We can’t allow sleep, can we, Heinrich?” he said, mocking. “Amazing how quickly the human body and mind can recover, after a little sleep. You established that years ago, didn’t you? There’s too many people looking for you to let you hide away here.”
Kurnov began moaning, head shaking his refusal to accept their presence.
“… Alone,” he pleaded. “Leave me alone. I’m sorry … really … very sorry … it was orders … I did everything under orders … didn’t want to do it he … made to, by the S.S. If I hadn’t, they would have killed me … had to obey orders …”
Perez and Mosbacher exchanged looks. The burly Israeli seemed disgusted, not by the man on the bed, but by what was happening in the room. There was a fifth person there, realized Kurnov, standing back against the door. There was a hand-held movie camera recording everything.
“A genuine murder, Heinrich,” went on Perez, ignoring Mosbacher’s criticism. Always that goading, jeering tone, thought Kurnov. He hunched himself away from the psychiatrist, drawing his knees in front of him and locking his arms around them, so that bis body was clenched into a fetal position.
“… No …” he said. “… Please no … just kill me … please kill me … please.”
“… You made people run under greater stress than this, Heinrich,” said Perez, remorselessly. “You know you did …”
“… How …?”
Perez laughed, confident now of his absolute control.
“We never lost you, Heinrich. There were three on the platform, not two. We followed you all the time. Not that we had to. We’ve known about Gerda for years … Saw you follow her here days ago. It was obviously the place where you’d go to ground.”
He tossed an object in his hand.
“We even had a key to the apartment,” he said.
Mosbacher moved at the side of the bed, anxious to quit the room.
“I hope you’re finally satisfied,” said Mosbacher, to Perez. “Now you’ve done exactly what that swine practiced years ago.”
Perez’s smile died and he looked up at his friend.
“Your family died in the same way,” he reminded.
Mosbacher looked at Perez, contemptuously. “This isn’t the way I want them avenged,” he said.
He moved away, toward the door. “We’d better go.”
Perez paused, uncertain whether to continue the argument, looking at his watch.
“We’ve telephoned the police, Heinrich,” he said, coming back to the man on the bed. “… like any good neighbor who had heard screams and indications of a struggle …”
They began moving from the room.
“… I’d say you’ve got about ten minutes to get out … just ten minutes to start running again …” concluded Perez.
Kurnov stared up at his tormentor, who laughed from the doorway. At that moment, Kurnov’s mind snapped. He threw back his head and let out a long, wailing scream, more animal than human.
“Satisfied now?” demanded Mosbacher, sickened. Perez didn’t reply, leading the party from the flat.
“Orderly!”
Where the hell was the man? Not the first time he’d had to be disciplined. It was incredible how everyone was reacting, just because of a minor setback on the Eastern Front and an isolated reversal in Normandy. The Führer had told them the truth … reinforcements were being drafted into the areas. By winter, all the ground would be recovered and more besides. They’d spend Christmas in Moscow … by spring, the invasion of England would be launched. Then the doubters would regret their cowardice. Names were being collected, he knew. Lists already existed. The Führer would have his revenge, just like he had after the July outrage in 1944.
“Orderly!”
He looked around the room frowning, unable to recognize it. Where was he? He saw for the first time that he was naked, and instinctively covered himself with a sheet. Everything was cheap and shabby. He giggled. A whore’s bedroom. That was it. He must be in a whore’s room. No wonder the orderly wasn’t there. Bloody schnapps. Impossible to remember anything after a few schnapps. He looked around for his clothes. Dirty bitch must have stolen them. He got off the bed, wondering why he felt so weak. Amazing. Almost impossible to walk. He lurched into the living room, holding the door-edge for support. It looked familiar, but he couldn’t recall why he should know it.
“Anyone here?”
He stared down at Gerda’s crumpled figure on the bathroom floor, stirring it with his foot. Who was she? With difficulty, he tugged the towel from around her head. Been strangled, he diagnosed, professionally, looking at the contorted, swollen face. She was very old. Surely he hadn’t gone with her? Definitely have to stop drinking so much. Played havoc with the memory. Everyone drank a lot now. Cowardly. Far too many people running and drinking. Even denying membership of the Party. But the Führer knew. He had the lists. Embarrassing to be found in a room with a dead whore, he decided. Despite everything, law and order still existed in the capital. Quite right, too. Where was his uniform? He saw clothing on the bathroom chair and picked it up, distastefully. Not his, surely? Filthy, smelly shirt and suit. And civilian, too. Not his. Couldn’t be. Have to wear something, though. He would be recognized by all the guards at the camp. They’d know better than to try to stop him. No trouble to get admitted without a uniform. He carried the clothing into the main room and started to dress. God, how it smelled! Appeared to fit, though. His face crumpled as his mind tr
ied to grasp reality, but it eluded him, like hurrying images seen through a fog. Sure he knew the room. And the woman, lying over there. Always the fog swirled when he thought he was about to remember. He looked down at himself, offended by the suit, feeling through the pockets, seeking identification. He pulled the Russian passport from his pocket and stared at it. “Vladimir Kurnov,” he read, moving to the picture. Sure he knew the man. Positive. Damn the difficulty in remembering. Definitely have to stop drinking. Wouldn’t be good to have a Russian document in his possession, he thought. Sign of a traitor. Get his name on one of the Führer’s lists that way. He tossed it on the couch. Better get out, It was very confusing. Obviously dangerous to stay. Time he got back.
He went out into the passageway, moving slowly, seeking the exit. He walked with his shoulder brushing the wall, grateful for the support. He was ill, he decided. So difficult to move. See a doctor when he got back. Working too hard. That was the problem. Too few left like himself prepared any more to work hard, to make the effort when it was necessary.
He stumbled, stiff-legged, down the stairs, stopping several times to recover his breath, careless of the noise. He felt sick, too. Probably the drink.
“Hey.”
He turned at the shout, seeing the woman gazing at him over the counter. The Madam, he decided. Wonder if he’d paid. Bound to have done. Wouldn’t have let him into the brothel otherwise.
“Where have you been?” she demanded.
Who did she think she was talking to? Didn’t know her place. No one did any more. He jerked his arm upwards, vaguely, not bothering to answer her.
“I want to know …,” began the woman, then stopped. “Oh my God …” she said, the words jumping from her. She groped backwards into the doorway of her tiny office, holding the edge as if she were about to dodge behind it. He smiled. So she’d recognized him. About time. He had intended taking the address and reporting the brothel to the local S.S. office. Wouldn’t now. No point in causing unnecessary difficulty. She’d been lucky, though. Never know how lucky she’d been. Everyone had their names on lists these days.
Man Who Wanted Tomorrow Page 22