by Ben Pastor
His room faced inland, and yet the pervasive odour of the sea breathed large through the open window: it rode a briny, warm breeze you could taste like salt on your tongue as you looked out. Above, the brightness of the sky was different from the shore, more tolerable, deeper at the zenith; it paled again at the southern horizon, past the glorious ridges, home to gods and heroes. Beyond the mountains, on the southern coast, lay the Libyan Sea. Between here and there, the forbidding rocky saddle of Mount Psiloritis, once called Ida, intervened with its crags, gorges, caves, plateaus, “impassable and impossible”, according to Busch. Anyone who took refuge there, or from there sought the southern mountains, was as good as vanished.
Below, Iraklion sat packed in its fortified walls, a brick belt here and there overgrown with houses like lean-tos around a sheepfold.
This is where I am now, with a task to accomplish. Between now and the day I leave I must put out of my mind all Major Busch told me about Ambassador von der Schulenburg. I must keep from giving it the smallest thought, and come as close to erasing it as possible, without forgetting it. I must be so surgical as to be able to think of Russia, of Moscow, and not think of Busch’s words.
Bora turned away from the window, as if only now the room were of any interest to him. A note typewritten in German, tacked on the inner side of the door, explained that toilet paper should not be disposed of in the bowl. Also, that although drinking from the sink was considered safe, it was best to rely on bottled water, or water-purifying tablets. There was a toilet but not a shower; another notice above the sink further informed that water must be conserved by taking a sponge bath (no sponge supplied: Bora made a mental note to secure one). A solitary, good-quality towel hung from the rack.
Enough to make one homesick for the facilities of his Moscow hotel. See, I can think of Moscow and not of the other thing. On the bed lay a pillow and a light cover, with pillowcase and sheets laundered and folded (but not ironed) at the foot of the mattress. In his orderliness, Bora made the bed tightly, army style, and sat on it to remove his boots.
When he unbuttoned and slipped off his tunic, the limp sprig of lilac fell out of his left cuff. Thousands of miles away from Russia and the branch it belonged to, still blooming in a vase in Maggie’s room, it retained the faint echo of a scent. Bora couldn’t say why he’d taken it along and kept it, other than that Maggie Bourke-White had answered his greeting the second day they’d seen each other, and young women one way or another stood in for his wife Benedikta, the only one he cared about. So the sprig of lilac represented Dikta as much as it did Maggie the American, a photographer it would be useful to have here now to help him look through the images taken at Ampelokastro. Bora picked the stem up from the floor; it found its place in his wallet, where he carried a snapshot of his wife.
For once he was sexually calm; he’d seen Dikta a month earlier for Peter’s wedding, and things between them were strong, fine. Details of the ceremony had kept her busy for weeks; social animal that she was, she’d taken over where Margaretha “Duckie” Hennin’s mother couldn’t reach, or Bora’s own mother Nina for that matter. What Dikta and Martin had shunned in their haste to marry – church, lavish feast, invitations – was organized in the smallest detail this time around. Never mind that Peter, son and half-brother of a landed aristocrat, what was then called a Schlossbaron, married into the family of a Schlotbaron, an industrialist ennobled by his business. All those who counted in Leipzig and Dresden were in attendance, plus the Hennin relatives and friends from Freiburg and Baden. Dikta, far more beautiful than the bride, made the papers in her Paris gown. Certain like everyone else that war would be over within weeks, she had planned the French honeymoon trip they hadn’t had in ’39. Bora said yes to everything, but had made no plans.
In front of the sink, he scrubbed up as best he could – to him washing meant a shower either cold or very hot: abundant, in any case. Inevitably, soapy water spilt on the floor all around.
After changing uniform, Bora opened the door of the hallway to get a cross-draught that would dry the tiles. His rinsed, well-wrung underwear he placed on the sunny windowsill, held in place by the heavy ashtray he’d found on the bedside table.
The colonial outfit was comfortable, less likely to draw attention. (He’d overheard the jeering comments – “Here comes the cavalry” and “Cavalry to the rescue!” – on his way to the depot.) Without waiting for the floor to dry completely, Bora shut and locked the door to have privacy while he looked through the photos of the crime scene. Busch had given him copies of those surrendered by Sinclair as well as of the batch Dr Unger had ordered to be taken for the Wehrmacht-Untersuchungsstelle.
Tolerance for the sight of death, built in Aragon first and amply perfected in Poland, took nothing away from a sense of melancholy bordering on guilt. The mortification Bora had experienced on the ambulance plane returned. Then, he’d felt indebted to his dead and wounded comrades, as if it were his fault that he was yet unhurt. Now he could watch these bodies, unnamed except one, all unknown to him, capable of speaking only through the merciless interruption of their lives, and feel that he should care – that he owed them something. The Japanese had a term for such obligation; he’d either read it or heard it from the eastern visitors to Leipzig two years earlier. You owe mentors, elders, all those who teach you: whatever the word was, he felt its weight. And it must mean something that in German “debt” also means “guilt”, and “care” and “worry” are one and the same.
The black and white photographs showed an execution, nothing less. Blood sprayed on walls and furniture, soaked carpets; violence reflected on daily objects seemed twice as crude and out of place. Alois Villiger lay face up, shot first or in front of the others; the woman, his housekeeper, reclined across the long step that separated the room from a dais-like space lined with bookshelves. The hired hands, little more than boys, had fallen in a tangle of arms and legs as if they’d huddled together like frightened sheep. Through an archway, in the back, another sitting room or study was discernible, but not clearly. More books, a desk, a number of white oval spots – hanging plates? – on the end wall.
Villiger’s appearance, as much as the post-mortem images suggested, was wide-chested, on the heavy side but as if deflated somehow in comparison to his passport photo. His meaty head, with sparse greying hair cut very short, seemed small for his size. He’d worn wire-rimmed round glasses – lost in the shooting but lying next to him on the floor. In his shirt and beltless trousers, both soaked in blood, he had a disturbing, aghast look of astonishment and outrage. The woman’s foot touched his head, giving the odd impression of an acrobat balancing with arms outspread on top of her partner, poised to fly. Her plump fairness and dainty heeled shoes contrasted somehow with the standard idea of a Greek domestic, and although she appeared to be on the declining end of youth, she must have been her employer’s junior by fifteen or twenty years.
Bora set down the prints in three rows across the bed. In whatever succession the individual frames had been captured, he changed their order over and again to reconstruct an actual chronological sequence, as seen by someone approaching from the outside. Paratroopers entering the garden. Outdoors and indoors shots, angle, proximity, the extension of blood pooling under the bodies – he shuffled them until he was satisfied he’d come as close as possible to creating a continuity of frames, like a still movie. On the back of every photo he pencilled a temporary number, and jotted down a few preliminary questions in his notebook. I’m not sure I can have answers, he wrote, unless I confront all those involved, from the paratroopers to Sergeant Major Powell to the War Crimes Bureau physician to Lieutenant Sinclair, who is however only a second-hand witness. There could be others. Worse luck, Sinclair may be the only one I actually get to see.
Next, he took out the Italian maps Busch had given him. “South of Iraklion, outside the Chanià Gate” were vague terms; Ampelokastro may or may not be actually marked as such, so he had to guess its location for now. The t
errain seemed rough between the town and the southern plain of Messarà; names of saints dotted the trails leading south alongside valley bottoms: St Nicholas, St Miron, Mount Jerusalem, Saint John; Bora wondered what glorious antique place names hid under those banal indications of chapels and shrines. Ampelokastro could be along any one of the seven or eight routes leading south from Iraklion.
His eyes migrated west across the narrow, horizontal body of the island as pictured on the map, to the neck of the hammer-shaped peninsula north of Chanià, where his grandparents had lived from 1905 to 1906. It was the dangerous time of the Theriso incident, resulting in the first declaration of Crete’s union with Greece. Only eight years earlier, the Turks had killed hundreds of Christian Cretans, foreign soldiers and even the British consul at Iraklion. As far as Bora knew, the family residence had in latter years become home to the Italian Archaeological School. In family albums the gracious house remained safe, locked in time with its airy porches overlooking the garden, carob trees and palmettos, happy dogs and his mother’s pony (what was its name?), in view of the sea. These days, there was an internment camp nearby.
Bora glanced at his watch. Five more minutes, and he’d go to see Panagiotis in his shop, and ask about the wine. He’d then wait for Busch’s call and the meeting with Frances Allen. There would be occasion to study the maps thoroughly and leaf through Pendlebury’s book overnight.
The prosaic task of checking on the underwear laid out in the sun drew him back to the window. There, the hour’s incandescence took him like vertigo. He had to pick shapes and distances out of the splendour, through the brackish heat, to steady himself.
No wonder, he thought. It’s like looking inland across the ages, more than I ever did in Moscow or elsewhere. Inland is remote antiquity itself: the place where Zeus was born, the sacred Ida massif. Inland are Ariadne, the labyrinth, the Minotaur, forsaken cities that faced attackers like us more than 3,000 years ago, and their ruins stand while memory of the attackers does not. Losing a battle or a war isn’t necessarily the end.
Sometimes victories – especially early ones – can lead to disaster, acting as deceptive corridors of a maze that has no exit if not through the monster’s lair. Victors may write history, but losers are remembered longer, wept over for longer. This small town of Iraklion would fit inside the Kremlin walls. And we’re going to war against all of Russia.
Pulling back into the room, by contrast with the outdoor light, was like stepping into purple darkness. Bora felt the chair, the bed by groping rather than seeing them. I wonder why it is that I can let go so easily of a set of orders to accept another: am I such an unthinking, corpse-like, devoted soldier? Perinde ac cadaver, Kadaverdisziplin? Or do I grab the opportunity to do more, risk more, for my own motives, putting only the face of zeal on it? Until yesterday I would have carried out Lavrenti Pavlovich’s request with anything but a cadaver’s pliability. Today I listen to every new obstacle that gets in the way of a hopeless task, and while raising logical objections, inwardly I’m delighted. Clearly, I live for the orders that will be given us in three weeks, but even the fattest fly in the ointment – getting my head blown off outside the city walls, in Major Busch’s words – cannot discourage me.
By and by, the hotel room became visible again, with its notices tacked to door and wall, the maps, the few things that marked his transitory presence in Crete. Bora pocketed the Ray-Ban case before leaving for Panagiotis’.
An undertow of ideas churned inside him as he climbed down the flights of stairs two steps at a time, nearly at a running pace. Small things always grow larger if you look into them. Much as I don’t want to (and I don’t want to), I’m beginning to feel an obligation to discover what happened at Ampelokastro. Why? Because, as Professor Heidegger puts it, “Moral conscience shows itself as a call to care.” Because I was brought up to care, to carry out my duty, and duty is an obligation, however minor the task appears. Because I owe justice as much as I owe my family, those before me, my teachers and commanders. I owe those I serve with, my young wife. Above all else in the world, I owe Germany. Beyond that, I owe Almighty God.
3
3 JUNE, 3.00 P.M.
The only evidence of the wrecked wall behind the canteen was a veil of brick and plaster dust everywhere. In his shop below street level, Panagiotis, dark-eyed and unflappable as if walls came down every day, spoke nothing but Greek, a detail Busch had failed to share. Bora wrote down for him the names of the wines he sought. Trusting his schoolboy knowledge of the Greek alphabet, he specified oinos after the names. To his surprise, Panagiotis crossed the word out and wrote krasì in its place: oinos was what the ancients called wine; now it was krasì. He made the German understand by gestures that he kept the bottled Mandilaria elsewhere, and Dafni must be bought from another merchant. A drumming of fingers on his chest meant he volunteered to take care of the acquisition himself.
So far, so good. Seeing a fly-spotted calendar on the whitewashed wall, Bora pointed to today’s date as the desired time of delivery. Panagiotis shook his head. Shown the day after, again he signalled he couldn’t guarantee the deal. Only after Bora indicated Friday, two days from now, and met with another shake of the head, did he recall hearing that Greeks move their heads from side to side to assent, and nod to deny. Avrio, tomorrow, they finally agreed in Greek, both kinds of wine to be delivered to the Megaron, already packed in four crates of twelve bottles each, and two six-bottle cartons.
As long as you buy and sell, language is seldom an obstacle. Panagiotis insisted on offering a complimentary taste of his Mandilaria as they parted ways. Bora accepted half a glass, but declined to chase it with a clear liquor he suspected to be ouzo or the Cretan version of it.
Back in his room, he red-pencilled on the map the trails that led inland from Iraklion. Ampelokastro was not marked; he had to circumscribe its approximate location relying on the hints Busch had given him – twelve or so miles south of the Venetian bastions, off the road that left town through the Chanià Gate. The problem was that the road out of the western gate in question forked left several times, and you could head south along any of those trails. Trails – in tall grass, along shallow rivers and through woodland – had been a boyhood passion of his, both at Borna and Trakehnen. Nothing like these winding treks up and down dry, craggy uplands: hunting and animal paths across green stretches of endlessly flat terrain; lonely, treacherous with marshy bogs. During vacations he’d wander for hours, with and without his brother, hardly ever getting lost and caring little that he might. Once or twice he’d returned after dark, finding Nina worried and his stepfather frowning but deep down satisfied that he had shown enterprise and courage. Only once had he taken the wrong turn and lost the way back. Neighbours, farmers living on the estate, those working in the stables had come looking for him in the woods bordering Lithuania. Eventually, he’d spied their torchlights dancing crosswise through the trees, heard the dogs and men calling. To resist the temptation of letting them find him, he’d stepped into the brook he was sitting by, and walking in the wet he made the dogs lose his scent. Only after the dispirited search party turned back at dawn had he followed them from a distance, because the authorities would be alerted next, and he wanted the satisfaction of arriving home before then. To this day, it was one of his favourite nights, sloshing homeward downwind, guided at first by distant flickers and faint barking sounds and then led by his instinct alone. I’ll always get home, he’d told himself then, no matter how far I go, no matter what lies between me and my parents’ doorstep. Distance, obstacles, had in one night become superable. It’ll be the same even if no one comes looking for me.
Bora still thought so. Did anyone search for Odysseus, whom the Latins called Ulysses? No. Not even his grown son, who merely banged on the doors of family friends asking after him. This afternoon, under his red pencil, trails very different from those of his childhood days ran like fissures across Crete’s long, narrow body, thin wounds showing flesh and blood through them.
The business card held up to him was faded, creased from sitting for ages in a wallet. “Epitropos Vairon Kostaridis,” the newcomer said, “chief constable of the Iraklion police. They told me you understand Italian. I thought I’d come directly.”
He was a round little man, bulgy-eyed, with the sad, pale face General Sickingen at home unfailingly identified with civilians and all others he had no time for, as “they’ve got stomach trouble written on their mugs”. Stomach trouble stood in his military eyes for a spectrum of personality flaws, from apathy to dumb zeal, passing through cowardice and small-mindedness. To this day, Bora had to force himself not to judge men’s faces, not to speak of women’s, by his stepfather’s standards. He took the pencil out of his mouth. In Italian, he only repeated, “Yes?” because this visit could have as much to do with Cretan wine as with Cretan murder. Damn it, though: he’s the spitting image of Peter Lorre as the child-killer. You’d expect a Levantine to look this way in novels and motion pictures.
“May I come in?”
“Please.”
Kostaridis crossed the threshold. At a glance he took in Bora’s discarded uniform and the high-power pistol on a chair, the wet towel, the bed covered with maps and underwear and the ashtray on the windowsill. “Il maggiore Busch” (he pronounced it Voos) “was kind enough to tell me I’d find you here, capitano, so here I am.” He used the voi form of address, an etiquette imposed by fascism but harking back in fact to Italy’s past. “How is it that you speak Italian?”