Carbone remembered that time well. He had spent months living off the charity of a distant relative, shut up in a loft, smoking and waiting for someone to discover him and put a bullet in his chest. But that hadn’t happened.
When he heard that the Standartenführer’s body had been discovered in the woods in the Ulten Valley, he felt reborn. The secret of Carbone, the coward in the balaclava, had died with the S.S. man, while he himself had survived. Life was smiling on him.
He began to show himself in public again.
He finished school, and on a damp, rainy day enlisted in the carabinieri. He passed the officer’s exam at his first attempt. And since he spoke German, his superiors posted him to Bolzano, in South Tyrol. There, he met a girl called Isabella who knew nothing of his past as a collaborator. He grew a goatee to impress her. He worked hard at his new job and got ahead. He was transferred from Bolzano to Brixen, then to Brenner and finally to Merano. On the banks of the Passer, he proposed to Isabella, and they started making preparations for their wedding. Two days before the big occasion, Kobold knocked at his door.
Kobold knew.
It was bad luck, pure and simple. Kobold had seen him just once without a balaclava, at the Alpini barracks in Bolzano, but that was enough. Kobold had a prodigious memory, and as the skilled hunter he was he had waited until Carbone had a lot to lose before making his move. He had not said much.
“You’re my dog now.”
And he had put him on a leash.
That was the night Carbone first had the nightmare about the blanket and the wardrobe.
Being the dog of someone like Herr Wegener also had its advantages. Wegener not only knew when to tug on your collar, he also knew when to reward you.
Backhanders, complimentary tickets to events Isabella wouldn’t have missed for the world, incredible discounts from car and household appliance dealers.
In return, Wegener asked him for tip-offs, the odd confidential file concealed between the pages of a newspaper, maybe also to turn a blind eye to certain lorries travelling to Switzerland through the Passeier Valley. What he wanted most was information.
Carbone kept having the same nightmare. He had had it for decades now, at least once a week. Always the same: the wardrobe, the blanket, the people pointing at him.
The shame.
Wegener had sentenced him to a state of never forgetting. That was why Carbone hated him.
Today, though, Giacomo Carbone, now a captain, felt light. He finally knew how to rid himself of that nightmare once and for all. He was not chain-smoking because he was nervous, but because he could not wait to tug at his leash one last time.
The crows flew away. The snow continued to fall.
Carbone had almost finished the packet of MS when Herr Wegener arrived.
His eyes were bloodshot. He looked like someone who has had a sleepless night. There were no hellos. Carbone motioned Wegener to follow him. He led him into a shed. There, removing a canvas cover, he showed him a grey Fiat 130.
“Is this it?”
No answer. Wegener’s expression said it all.
Carbone smiled. “Didn’t you know women are bitches? You have to keep them on a leash.”
He had prepared that line while waiting.
Herr Wegener did not react. So much the better. Carbone had no desire to get into a fight. He would be all too tempted to take out his gun and shoot the son of a bitch. Why risk losing everything so close to the finishing line?
Freedom.
He loved the sound of that word.
“It wasn’t hard to find. The model, the colour, the licence number. The description of your wife was useful but not really necessary.”
“Who?”
“The guy who owns this place.”
“He . . .”
Carbone shook his head. “The poor devil shat his pants as soon as he heard who the car belonged to.”
“And . . . ?”
“He came of his own accord. I didn’t even have to call him in.”
Clutching his hat in his hands, the owner of the scrapyard had also handed over a wad of banknotes. It was the money Signora Wegener had paid for the changeover, he had said. The Fiat 130 for a Mercedes. The money was safe in one of Carbone’s drawers, and he had no intention of returning it to its rightful owner. Let’s call it a tip.
“How?”
“How what?”
“How did Marlene know where to find him?”
“You can’t be married to a pastry cook and not know who in the neighbourhood has a sweet tooth.”
Herr Wegener took a step towards him. “I don’t like your tone.”
Carbone ignored the threat. “A Mercedes W114. An excellent car. Solid. Cream finish. The number plate is on this piece of paper. I’ve already issued a description to my people. It has a very good engine, you can drive it quite a distance.”
“Did she say where she was headed?”
Carbone looked into his eyes, enjoying every ounce of embarrassment, terror and anger he saw in them, and allowed himself one final dig. “You think you married a stupid woman?”
Wegener turned and left.
Carbone lit an MS and smoked it all, down to the filter, really savouring it.
He came out of the scrapyard and got into the car waiting for him at the corner of the street with its engine running. He ordered the driver to return to the carabinieri station.
He smiled. He had one last thing to do before he was a free man again. Make a telephone call.
10
It was a short call, lasting under three minutes. Carbone knew how to keep things brief. It was a job requirement. He left out all interpretation, anything personal, giving nothing but the facts.
When the call was over, Carbone gathered his subordinates and bought them a round of Fernets. It was only mid-morning and they were all on duty, but an exception to the rule could do no harm.
His men did not need to be asked twice. They did not often see Captain Carbone in a good mood. Besides, with all this snow, there was not a lot for them to do except twiddle their thumbs and catch up with paperwork. And nobody liked paperwork.
Far better to have a glass of Fernet.
“To the Consortium!” Carbone said, raising his glass, fully aware of the men’s puzzled looks. None of them had the slightest idea what the Consortium was.
Carbone could not blame them. Not many people knew about the Consortium, and the few who did had the good sense to keep their mouths shut. Even fewer were stupid enough to consider doing business with the Consortium. As stupid as Herr Wegener.
Poor, poor Kobold.
He refilled the glasses.
“To letting dogs loose!”
This time, they understood – or thought they did. Carbone did not care much either way.
“To freedom!”
Glasses clinked. The men laughed with him.
11
Room 12.
Herr Wegener could not get it out of his mind. He had thought about it while he was questioning Georg, Moritz and Helene for the second time (no unusual behaviour on Marlene’s part, no meetings with anyone, nothing at all outside her normal routine) and also while he was on the telephone, giving orders to his subordinates and all those who were in his debt one way or another.
Room 12.
Room 12 of the corps.
He had thought about it while he was in the Lancia H.F., being driven by Georg to the scrapyard to speak to Carbone. He had done nothing but think about Room 12 even after talking to Carbone (he hadn’t liked the captain’s tone) and had thought about it again while issuing new orders and circulating new information on the telephone, taking note of those who’d been unable to conceal their pleasure. The big boss screwed by his wife. Brilliant.
Go ahead. Laugh.
Even now, it was the only thing Wegener could think about, as he walked up to the door of a boutique on one of the ritziest streets in Merano. Old Mother Frost, it was called. He owned it. Or rather, it had been Weg
ener’s wedding present to Marlene. Old Mother Frost, just like in the Grimm fairy tale.
She had picked the name.
Herr Wegener did not think it was appropriate for a shop specialising in evening and wedding gowns, but Marlene liked it (that damned book of hers again), and since it was a gift, Wegener had not insisted.
In any case, the name had not put off the customers. Quite the contrary. The place was as busy as an assembly line. Despite the financial crisis, which pushed up the price of petrol every day and made even Sunday a day when people walked everywhere, and despite the growing hordes of the unemployed, you still needed to join a long waiting list and spend a fortune if you wanted to buy a wedding dress from Old Mother Frost. The first time Herr Wegener looked at the account books, he had been astonished.
Actually, the purpose of the gift, at least at first, had been to provide his wife with a career, an aim, and stop her turning into one of those harpies that powerful men ferried from one party to another, increasingly embittered and increasingly at risk of being seduced by the first stud who came their way.
But although buying the shop had turned out to be an astute business move, Herr Wegener never liked setting foot inside Old Mother Frost. Because he would see Gabriel there. He hated him. Gabriel Kerschbaumer, the dress designer, was worse than a migraine. With his affected manner and snobbish expression, Gabriel could make him feel worse than a piece of shit on the sole of one of those leather moccasins of his, the kind only a queer would wear. And he probably was a queer, even though Herr Wegener had noticed the power of his charm on female customers, in spite of the fact that he was bald – or perhaps because of it. They said he looked like an ageing, more refined Yul Brynner.
Still, he thought, at least a queer wouldn’t flirt with his wife.
Marlene was beautiful, truly beautiful, with those deep blue eyes and that raven hair of hers. Herr Wegener was aware of all the heads she turned at parties and even when they were simply taking a walk along the Passer Promenade.
He had ambivalent feelings about the looks she received. On the one hand, he was pleased. Being envied made you strong. Marlene was like a jewel, the living proof of his greatness. Beautiful women were drawn to rich, powerful men. Their beauty was like a slap in the face to the poor and the wretched.
And the idiots.
On the other hand, when it came down to it Herr Wegener was a man, and like all men he was prone to that petty feeling called jealousy.
All the same, until today, Wegener had never considered the possibility of Marlene being attracted to another man. Not only because he was certain she really loved him, but because he was not just any man, he was Herr Wegener. No one in his right mind would make a pass at his wife.
And yet . . .
There was the Fiat 130 swapped for a Mercedes, the opened safe, the missing sapphires, the book of Grimm fairy tales, the carefully laid plan of someone who knew she could never turn back and had therefore taken with her whatever was necessary to start over again from scratch.
And there was only one reason a woman would want to start over again, wasn’t there?
Concentrate. You need evidence. What you’re thinking is just fantasy. Imagination. Or, worse still, fear. And fear is pointless. Think about Room 12. Think about hatred. Think about Gabriel. The filthy queer. You hate him, don’t you? Hating helps.
Use it.
He opened the door.
There he was. Gabriel. Upright as a pole, shirtsleeves rolled up, a needle between his lips, glasses pushed down to the tip of his nose.
Wegener had considered firing him more than once, but at almost seventy, Gabriel Kerschbaumer was probably the best dress designer in South Tyrol. In fact, if it hadn’t been for his lack of ambition (Gabriel considered himself an artist, and artists do not need such vulgar stuff as money), he could have held his own with the best Paris couturiers and made a fortune. That was another reason Wegener kept him at arm’s length. But not today. Today, he needed him.
When Gabriel saw Herr Wegener walk in, he went up to greet him. Herr Wegener grabbed him by the elbow and led him to the back room: a rough gesture that startled the five little seamstresses busy embroidering pearls on a veil as diaphanous as a spider’s web – although infinitely more expensive – and sent them running off as fast as their legs could carry them.
“We have to talk.”
“At your service, Herr Wegener.”
“Where’s Marlene?”
“She didn’t come in today. Has she got the flu?”
Wegener shook his head. “I’m asking the questions.”
“I beg your pardon?”
That nasal voice! That pretentious way of speaking!
Wegener massaged his temples.
“Have you noticed her behaving strangely?”
“Marlene?”
Wegener yanked him by the collar of his shirt. “Don’t play games, Gabriel. Not with me. Not today.”
Gabriel looked him up and down. Wegener did not relax his grip.
“Marlene’s an artist. Artists always have their heads in the clouds.”
That spiel again!
When Herr Wegener had given Marlene the boutique, he had thought of her as a “hostess,” definitely not as a dressmaker. He had pictured her entertaining well-to-do women, offering them coffee or sparkling wine, gossiping about who was sleeping with whom (and incidentally, who was Marlene sleeping with?), then arranging to meet up for a dull evening at the theatre.
He certainly had not bought the shop to see his wife turn into one of those seamstresses who fled when he was around. And yet that was precisely what had happened.
Marlene had started to sew.
When he protested, she had replied that she enjoyed the work, that she was happy sitting in the back room, tacking bodices and trains, and had no intention of stopping. That had been the end of the discussion. Wegener suspected, though, that it had been Gabriel who had put ideas of being an artist into his wife’s head. Probably to get the better of him.
When he had mentioned this to Gabriel, the queer had replied that Marlene had talent. It was a gift, he had said. He’d even shown him some of his wife’s creations, which cost practically their weight in gold.
She was the person most in demand at Old Mother Frost. After Gabriel, naturally.
Hatred.
Hatred is the last resource, and Wegener clung to it.
“Do artists bleed like everyone else?”
“If you ask me specific questions, Herr Wegener, I’ll do my best to answer accordingly.”
“Did Marlene mention that she was going away? A holiday perhaps?”
“No.”
“Has she been . . .” Herr Wegener paused and looked straight into Gabriel’s impassive eyes. “Shall we say, more artistic than usual?”
“Perhaps she’s been a little absent-minded. You see that dress? She had to redo the lace hem twice. Strange for someone as skilled as Marlene.”
Herr Wegener pointed to the dummy on which the dress was displayed. “Is that artistic?”
“You’d call it merchandise, Herr Wegener. I call it art.”
Herr Wegener grabbed a pair of scissors and cut the dress to shreds. “Now I also think it’s art.”
“That dress has to be ready in three days’ time. It’s traditional for the bride to arrive late at the ceremony, but the dress must be delivered on time. And that’s not a tradition, it’s a rule of the market.”
He was quite unfazed, the son of a bitch!
Herr Wegener put the scissors to his throat. “I’m asking you one last time. Did you notice anything unusual about Marlene? Was she . . . seeing someone? Had she altered her habits in any way, or—”
“Why are you asking me?” Gabriel snapped, upset more by the tone of his voice than the proximity of the scissors to his Adam’s apple. “Weren’t you having her followed?”
Taken aback, Herr Wegener lowered the scissors.
“How did you know?”
“
Everybody knew. Marlene told us. One day, Clara, one of the staff, saw a man following your wife. She didn’t like the look of him, so she told me and I immediately mentioned it to Marlene. She told me not to worry, that the man was one of your . . . associates. Her exact words were” – Gabriel clicked his tongue – “‘My husband is concerned about me. End of story.’”
End of story.
He had never heard her use that expression. Who had she learned it from?
End of story.
Furious, Herr Wegener had again thought about Room 12.
12
Room 12 was simple. You went in alive and came out dead.
That’s if you were a bandit or criminal of any kind. Or even if you were just suspected of being one. If, however, you were Kobold, you went in frightened and came out stronger. Because Kobold was a fast learner. The Standartenführer always said so. The skinny little boy with a quick mind and nerves of steel.
A pure Aryan.
Once, the Standartenführer had even gone so far as to express regret that it wasn’t Kobold who bore his surname rather than his own son, an incompetent young man who, far from being covered in the glory of war, was stuck behind a desk in Frankfurt. Kobold had felt happy. Flattered, even.
Encouraged by Kobold’s talents, the Standartenführer had started teaching him between missions. What Kobold hated was lessons in theory. Reading out loud from Mein Kampf and other books that went on about esoteric orders of knighthood and rambled on about superior and inferior races. Kobold would memorise everything, then, standing rigidly to attention, recite it all like a good little parrot and receive praise with a fake smile.
As far as Kobold was concerned, all those words were rubbish. It was not about Jews and Aryans. The world was divided into two categories.
Those who owned shoes and those who walked around barefoot.
Of course, he could never express these opinions openly, or the Standartenführer would carry on hammering nonsense into his head instead of moving on to the lessons he enjoyed most. Or maybe even have him shot.
Sanctuary Page 4