The Fugitive

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  With the breaching of the coast, and the recapture of Paris, the war was forever lost for Germany. The most fanatical could no longer dream of the invasion as being only an enlarged Commando landing force which might possibly be pushed back into the sea. Each day saw a greater number of Allied troops landed on the beaches and rushed to the ever-widening front. Everywhere the forces of the Reich were being pushed back, leaving behind valuable stores and further diminishing the dwindling stocks of ammunition, arms, and foodstuffs needed for successful defense. In the East, the fury of the Russian bear was being unleashed. The ring was slowly closing about the heart of the Reich.

  There were, in those curtain-dropping days, many responsible Nazi officials and Wehrmacht officers of high rank who felt that an immediate petition for peace was necessary; surrender on any terms in order to at least salvage a possible base for future growth. Their requests were denied; the suicidal intent of the Führer permitted no deviation. Those who persisted in arguing died a few months before their time. Their coadjutors maintained intelligent silence. Those who fell back toward Berlin were resigned to die for their beliefs, or were merely postponing the inevitable, for the talk of War Crimes trials had already been heard in both London and Washington.

  Erick von Roesler belonged to neither camp. After the shocking experience of the Hamburg holocaust, he had withdrawn into himself, living alone with his hate, which had widened to include both the betrayers and the betrayed. When Paris fell, he coldly accepted the fact of defeat and put into practice a plan that had been maturing since the latter days of 1943. The passports and identity cards were not merely correct in every detail; they were authentic. He had obtained them in Paris on leave in February of 1944. On August 26, 1944, he requisitioned a car from the motor pool at Weimar, stationed his own taciturn chauffeur at the wheel, and left Buchenwald for the last time. His sister Monica, laden with the other accounterment necessary for the plan, was met by arrangement in Frankfort, and they sped westward across Germany. Her presence was due less to family loyalty than to the feeling that she might be useful both to his escape and to his future plans.

  The highways were crowded with troop carriers and trucks, but despite this they made fair time. The presence of a woman in an official car seemed to excite no undue notice. There were many official cars on the roads those nights, traveling in both directions, and no one was of a mood to question or pay particular attention to their occupants.

  They crossed the border at Mulhouse and drove south through Besançon toward Creuzot. Monica had provided sandwiches and wine, and they ate as they drove, throwing their litter carelessly out of the window, as being almost symbolic of their nonreturn. At Montceaules-Mines they stopped to fill the tank with gasoline from cans they had carried in the luggage compartment, and immediately resumed their journey. Just beyond the outskirts of the little town they left the main highway and bumped over a winding road that twisted through the low hills leading toward the Loire. They had been driving eighteen hours when they finally pulled up at their destination.

  The ramshackle farmhouse was where he remembered it, abandoned and umninded as per his cabled instructions. Even in those terrifying and confused days the instructions of the SD were properly attended to. They changed clothes in the car and with the help of the driver dragged their stores of potatoes and turnips into the shallow vegetable cellar. When the car had turned about and sped away for the border, they cut small holes in some of the potatoes, secreted their small stock of cut diamonds inside, and replugged the holes. These potatoes they scratched for identification, and buried them at the bottom of the ragged jute sacks. After that they had only to wait for the front to pass them, which was much simpler than attempting to pass the front.

  December saw them settled in a refugee camp outside of Paris: M. Jules Richereau and his wife Jeanne. There they stayed for over six months, waiting for papers permitting them to emigrate to Portugal. Erick read in the papers, in black headlines, that Buchenwald had been liberated, and some of the inmates had been transferred to hospitals and camps in the Paris area, but fortunately these were not assigned to the same camps that held rehabilitated French. Monica stayed close to camp; Erick went into the city on very rare occasions, and then only to check on their exit request. The other inmates of their camp considered the couple morose; the aura of hatred that surrounded Erick was visible for all to note. However, since everyone felt the hatred to be directed against the Germans, the strange couple were sympathetically left in peace by their neighbors.

  In July of 1945 they were finally notified that their papers were ready, and directed to appear at an office which had been established by the Portuguese Embassy to handle such requests. The office was located in the center of the city, and they made their way there as quickly as possible. The papers were ready; they had only to sign them, get their copies, and leave. On their return to the camp, they passed a long line of ragged people standing forlornly before the Refugee Committee Headquarters; the same long line that had stood there in desperate hope every day for wearisome weeks. The sudden glimpse of a blue-eyed corpse staring blindly in their general direction sent von Roesler stumbling in sudden terrified fright around the corner, dragging Monica with him, expecting every moment to hear a scream of denunciation and the terrible threat of pounding feet. Of all the inmates of Buchenwald, the blueeyed one was probably the only one that von Roesler could remember or recognize, possibly because of that startling contrast between the so-Aryan face perched precariously on top of that Jew-concentration-camp skeleton body. One of the survivors of the Hamburg trip, von Roesler also remembered as he hurried away, suddenly seeing again the flame-scarred wreckage of Hamburg and the tattered, blue-eyed prisoner lining up each morning to go out with the Decontamination Squad. How had that one ever survived? He pulled Monica along roughly, his terror communicating itself to her through the urgency of his sweating hands; the thought of falling into the claws of that mob filled him with nausea. But there was no outcry behind him; they returned to camp, frightened but safe.

  They spent almost seven years in Portugal, at a small town called Trafaria, across the Tejo from Lisbon. It was a place where the presence of strangers was not so unusual as to excite constant surveillance. Still, it was safely away from the standard trail of refugees who constantly beat their bewildered way across the world through the portals of Lisbon. His trips to the capital were rare, and then mainly to exchange one of his dwindling stock of cut diamonds for money, an operation that caused neither surprise nor suspicion in that city of international barter.

  In Trafaria, he read of the Nuremberg trials, and noted with calm indifference that Eichmann and Bormann had also managed to escape. The details of the depositions and sentences of the others did not interest him; whatever they got, they deserved; they had betrayed the Third Reich. He folded the paper to the sports section and sipped his aperitif as he read of the prowess of Real of Madrid. In February of 1952, they finally became citizens of Portugal, and in March of the same year they emigrated again, this time legally and safely, to Brazil.

  The second time that Erick von Roesler saw Brazil was in April of 1952, from the second-class deck of a second-class steamer of the Companhia Su! Americana de Navigaçao. Monica was below in the stuffy cabin, tying their belongings into shabby bundles; he was alone on deck, peering ahead through the early dawn. They crept into Rio de Janeiro through a low fog, as on his first visit; the faint outlines of the tug pulling them appeared ghostly at the ship’s side. Brazil was always my destiny, he thought, his fist tightening against the smooth, damp railing. Here the betrayals shall be punished; here we shall build anew with no mistakes, for we shall base our building on the honest and sweet fact of hatred.

  He stared ahead at the city he could faintly hear but not see. Brazil was the same; it had not changed, but Erick von Roesler was older, more bitter, the lines of his face etched in the acid of his thoughts, his hair sprinkled with streaks of white, his tall figure beginning to stoop. I sha
ll never leave Brazil, he thought. Here I shall stay. Brazil has not changed, nor has my hatred on which I live, and on which I shall grow….

  Preludio Sostenuto and Andante Carioca

  Chapter 1

  The small, dumpy man woke sharply, the ever-present trembling slowly subsiding, the deep throb of the plane’s huge motors returning through the frightening dreams to his consciousness. The tiny pillow had slipped from his shoulders, his head had fallen against the window frame; the briefcase chained to his wrist had twisted and the latch was cutting into the back of his hand. He pulled it back into a comfortable position and yawned deeply. Sunlight slotted the pulsing cabin, creeping in through the half-closed curtains, but the other passengers still slept soundly. A dead planet in orbit, high in the thin air; a satellite morgue, he thought, and glanced at his watch. Five a.m.; four hours to Rio de Janeiro.

  Below, the jungle had disappeared during the night. The mottled stained green carpet that had shamed their noisy passage with mysterious silence was gone with his fleeting memory of it. Now there were splotched-brown oddly shaped hills, sewn to the endless plain with blue threads of winding watercourses. The reflection of the sun winked from one to the other; from twenty-five thousand feet up it was impossible to tell if they were small creeks or large rivers, or if the higher dull mounds were respectable hills or low hummocks.

  Relativity, he thought, amazed as always at the odd fare his mind served up for inspection. Einstein always explained things horizontally; he should have explained them vertically. At least airplane passengers would have understood. His eye, searching the earth for diversion, caught and followed a beaten road twisting below, leading in the distance to a lonely house—a tiny block, a toy, lost in the vast isolation. And why, he began to wonder, would anyone live out here; and then suddenly smiled wryly. Let us assume a fugitive, he thought; one with either a flair for stupidity or a wonderful sense of humor, hiding in plain sight, safe from all dangers except the all-watching eye of passing planes, or the more punishing desolation of his endless solitude. A shadow crossed his mind; let us think of something else, he thought. There are many things I shall have to learn about fugitives and their ways, but all in good time.

  The stewardess, noting his activity, was hovering over him, the usual professional smile for a fellow nonsleeper oddly missing from her pretty, vacuous face. It would never occur to her to wonder why some stubborn farmer might choose to sweat out his years on barren soil somewhere in the vast unknown beneath the steady wings. To her, the flight would be a familiar tunnel filled with night and small coffee cups, with Kleenex and whiskey-sodas, with Dramamine and unfolded blankets, which you entered quite normally at Port-of-Spain in Trinidad, and from which you routinely emerged at Galeao in Rio de Janeiro. The romances of her life, he thought, would draw their substance from the occasional presence aboard of a famous movie star, a flirtation with a handsome pilot or influential passenger, or the controlled, shared fear of a stuttering motor over the dark emptiness below, bringing from the subconscious that momentary doubt of eternity that always came with the unexpected.

  “Are you all right, sir?”

  “Quite all right, thank you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He looked up at her sharply; this was not routine.

  “Quite sure,” he said, uneasiness beginning to stir his stomach.

  “Could I bring you some coffee?” It was an obvious retreat; the uneasiness grew.

  “Please.”

  He noted her eyes fixed upon the briefcase as she straightened up, as if it were slightly obscene and therefore exciting. Her breath caught unintentionally as she forced her glance away. A sudden terror gripped him. Ach, so? he thought; so soon? But it could not be; it was too early! No one should have known until tomorrow; it was to be held until he had passed customs and was safe in the hotel! What could have happened? The two-hour delay in Trinidad? But even so, it was only two hours, and they knew planes could be late. The difference in time? But they must have known there was a difference in time. Somebody slipped, somebody was precipitous, it was that simple; somebody moved too quickly!

  To quell the rising panic, he forced a note of humor into his thoughts, disciplining them, thinking of the stewardess. Have I added one more small romance to your limited repertoire, my dear? Where do I stand in relation to Fred MacMurray, or Linda Christian, or even a sudden lurch in a tropical storm? He stared rigidly out of the window, attempting to lure his thoughts from the disaster they sensed in the involuntary gasp of the stewardess; in her eye fixed upon the briefcase, in her oversolicitousness; but it was all in vain. The panic remained.

  In his imagination he could picture the startled looks on the faces of the crew bunched in the eerily lit nose as the message came clattering over the air; the discreetly flashing light calling the stewardess forward, her nonchalant air as she picked her way down the aisle, tucking in a blanket here, adjusting a pillow there, until she could disappear beyond the softly closing door leading to the pilot’s compartment without arousing suspicion. And just how had they told her? Did they say: “Hey, cutie, what’s the man in 6B like? Is he big? Hard? Gangster type?” In spite of his panic, he was forced to smile at this. Or did they say: “Take a good look at 6B, he has two million dollars in cold cash in that innocent-looking briefcase, stole it and left for Brazil one step ahead of the police”? Or possibly they may have said: “Look, honey, see that 6B gets all the service his little heart desires; he’s a famous man, we may have to borrow money some day and it never hurts to have friends”? The smile faded; how they had told her wasn’t too important. What was important was that both he and his briefcase were now well known to the plane’s crew, who meant nothing. But just as well known, without a doubt, to the Brazilian authorities in Rio de Janeiro four hours away. That was quite important.

  In sudden resolve he slipped from his seat and walked hurriedly down the aisle to the rest room, the briefcase bumping against his legs in the confined space. He could feel the eyes of the stewardess upon him as he edged through the narrow door and slid the latch shut. In nervous haste he stripped off his jacket and shirt, removed his undershirt and stuffed it into the briefcase over the stacked blocks that lay within. After a moment’s thought he added his socks, putting his shoes back on over his bare feet. A paperback mystery from his jacket pocket went on top, and then, in desperation, his pocket handkerchief. He searched himself for other detritus to add to the cache; there was nothing. He considered and rejected the idea of stuffing towels from the lavatory into the offending emptiness.

  That’s all I need, his sardonic humor whispered—to be caught for stealing!

  He washed his face fiercely, and was in the process of scrubbing it dry when the pain struck. As always it gave little notice, welling up within him in a sudden wave. The towel fell from his stricken hand; his fingers gripped the edge of the small sink grindingly, as if in an attempt to transfer the shards of agony into the vibrating airplane. When the first spasm had passed, he took a small pill from his pocket and slipped it beneath his tongue. Always the pain and always the dreams, he thought. I will not die now! I must not die now. It has never killed me before, and it will not kill me now. He waited several more minutes until the pill took effect and the pain settled, the torture slowly easing. Then, unlocking the door with trembling fingers, he returned unsteadily to his seat.

  The coffee arrived. He could feel the stewardess waiting silently at his elbow as he sipped it, but he continued to stare out of the window until she reluctantly left and padded quietly back to the galley. He finished the hot drink, placed the empty cup on the floor near the aisle, and hunched back into a sleeping position. There was nothing to be done until their arrival; the grim finality of this thought strangely calmed him. The briefcase nestled under his arm as he closed his eyes and attempted to doze for a few more hours.

  Well, he thought bitterly, it didn’t start in New York. The nervousness there was wasted. Nor did it start in Rio de Janeiro, where it w
as supposed to start. Just for the record, should anyone ask you, or should you ever be in a position to answer, it started somewhere twenty-five thousand feet over northern Brazil, on a brilliant sunlit morning, high over a tiny toy house lost in the immensity of rolling brown hills and shiny twisting streams, when a radio message reached out and brought surprise to a tired DC-7 crew bored with flying. And brought romance to a dull stewardess with greedy eyes. That is where it started.

  I only wish I knew where it ended, he thought; and slept.

  Chapter 2

  The airport buildings at Galeao glared blinding white, their black shadows empty caverns in the shimmering tarmac. He shaded his eyes against the painful reflection and followed the silent file of tired passengers into the long low building, the sweat beginning to rise under his tight collar and run down inside his shirt. His ears still buzzed faintly from the hours of motor noise, and the briefcase suddenly seemed unbearably heavy to his wrist. In dismay he noted that he had forgotten to undo the chain; in haste he fished the key from his watch pocket and unlatched the tiny lock; no one seemed to notice.

  They were halted by a rope slung across the corridor; beyond they could see the open window of the Health Office and Immigration, with uniformed figures inside shuffling papers endlessly and staring blankly at the incoming passengers. There is something fascinating about the similarity of customs procedures and officials in every country, he thought. True, the original instincts of self-preservation in all basic groupings probably have common roots, but it still seems rather startling that, stemming from different mores and habit patterns, following completely diverse paths of development, they all seemed to have arrived together at the same paper-shuffling, blank-faced bureaucracy, reflecting their mutual fear of strangers in identical rituals of pointless documents and illegible rubber stamps. They must have hidden antennae for secret communication, like ants, he thought. Or more terrifying, radio and television, like humans.