Mister Wolf

by Chris Petit

  ‘But you couldn’t have seen the body, otherwise you would have known.’

  ‘It was engulfed in the flames.’

  Bormann laughed with what sounded like relief and asked, ‘What on earth led you to believe the Führer was alone in a blazing building?’

  Schlegel said he didn’t know. He saw that wasn’t enough and hurried on. ‘There was a steel door and a secret section and the Führer was once seen in the corridor. Because of that . . .’

  He trailed off. He supposed now – watching the man play with his dog – that the falling man had been more like some monstrous sacrifice to appease the gods. He was sure that the fact of talking to Bormann about it meant the two were connected.

  Instead he said, ‘I questioned the Führer’s existence when I should not have done.’

  Bormann gave him a lecture on doubt and misunderstanding while Schlegel retained the almost certainly misguided opinion that he was seen as more of a curiosity than a threat.

  ‘Is disloyalty hereditary?’ Bormann asked. ‘Your mother and stepfather have betrayed the regime. It is time you proved yourself.’

  Schlegel ventured, ‘And my father before that?’

  Bormann made a whistling noise. ‘An upsetting subject does not need further upset. Tread with great care as you climb down from the high and dangerous ledge you are on.’ Said in a way more friendly than not, it nevertheless left Schlegel in no doubt of the man’s brute force.

  Outside, the Führer was passing under their window, glancing up at Schlegel with a look that said he might as well not exist. With that he was gone, like a vampire leaving no trace, his presence more like a visitation, representing not belonging, the messiah who sacrifices himself for his people. Schlegel found it impossible to connect the subdued, intense man playing with his dog to Rösti’s salacious tales of sexual scandal and the death of the Führer’s niece, and if she were somehow the man’s Achilles heel, where did that leave Anton Schlegel?

  Schlegel didn’t expect to find himself reminded of the bodies in the clinic, yet the connection between what he had just been shown and their deaths made complete sense in that moment. The man’s eyes, in which Schlegel had expected to see the depths of something, had revealed nothing but pointlessness. Schlegel now understood how this superior indifference, and the machine’s response to that, ended in meaningless death.

  The identity of the Führer was resolved. Whatever had gone on in the clinic could be written off and in exchange for Schlegel’s silence his mother would benefit. But it wasn’t that straightforward. If Bormann knew all the answers, Schlegel’s future was now in the man’s hands.

  ‘We understand each other?’ Bormann asked.

  Did they? Whatever had gone on, equilibrium now looked to be restored and Schlegel could be counted on to sing the authorised version.

  Unless of course it wasn’t over; or, rather, was over for him, being next in line, if his role was considered done. There was still the hurdle of Dunkelwert. They wouldn’t do anything before that.

  Schlegel’s dismissal was like shutters coming down, within the space of time it took Bormann to tell him he could go. He could see he was forgotten before he had left the room.

  There was one last unwelcome surprise in the anteroom: the odious Hermann Fegelein flirting with the secretaries. He looked up as Schlegel walked out as stiffly as an automaton. Schlegel stared, disconcerted by the sight of the man. He registered Fegelein’s flicker of recognition and the start of a sneer before he was blanked as the man brushed past him. Fegelein opened the door to the office and Schlegel heard Bormann on the telephone saying, ‘He’s all yours.’

  He departed with the uncomfortable impression it was said deliberately loud enough for him to hear and that Bormann had meant for Fegelein to be in the room when he left.

  21

  Bormann put down the receiver, thinking it was not often he was caught on the hop. The falling man was not part of the script. On reflection, it was almost funny: the fake Führer proving so hard to finish off, having survived the blast when he should not have. One botched job and so nearly a second, leaving the bloody understudy crashing about on a burning roof. Some idiot must have got the dose wrong. Still, a spectacular curtain call for an audience of one, soon to be none. Better than almost funny.

  ‘Drinkies?’ suggested Fegelein as he swanned in, wanting to know what Schlegel had been doing there.

  ‘I am curious to know whether he has the foggiest idea why he was in Budapest,’ Bormann said, thinking what a cock-up that had proved, thanks partly to the man standing before him.

  Fegelein said, ‘He’s too stupid to work anything out.’

  Bormann was still thinking about the falling man. Too close a call, but providence was on his side. Time to get loaded.

  The Führer’s timetable was scheduled to allow Bormann and Fegelein, a serious toper, to get drunk at lunchtime. The Führer siesta often meant he didn’t surface before evening. Work got done at night, as a substitute for insomnia. Bormann preferred attending to his duties with a hangover.

  Bormann poured drinks. They sat, loosened their collars and got down to the serious business of Fegelein’s moist tales of his latest conquests, his recent marriage notwithstanding. The talk was of sex and women: ones had, ones wanted, those fancied, all seen with a practiced eye. Contrast and compare, quality of flesh, line of beauty; two lovers of women testing dangerous curves and the limits of desire, with toasts to the proud knights of the flaming bush. Grubby fucking, in other words. Bormann did not delude himself, whereas Fegelein did. They were not selective. Bormann took refuge where he could, which translated as ‘pick them plain, they are ever so grateful.’ Ploughed conquest being the point.

  Fegelein’s rosebud mouth went slack after a couple of drinks. Bormann knew he could be indiscreet because Fegelein liked to drink himself to a standstill even in the middle of the day. When Bormann saw he was pie-eyed he announced, ‘We swapped the Führer.’

  Bormann wanted to know how it sounded aloud. Good, actually.

  Fegelein made saucer eyes.

  ‘Reeeally?’

  Like many cavalry men, Fegelein was mannered and drawled. He gave a big blink, an exaggerated double take, and said, ‘You what?’ as smoke poured from his nose.

  Bormann saw Fegelein already wasn’t capable of taking in much. The voice was starting to slide and the memory puddle. Bormann could say more or less anything because Fegelein when drunk was the mental equivalent of a lost luggage office: whole trunks went missing, never to be retrieved.

  ‘You did what?’ Fegelein asked again, not sure he had heard.

  Bormann ignored him and wondered aloud at what point everything had got fucked. He could have men shot for asking less, but with Fegelein any talk stayed in the room.

  ‘There’s fucked and fucked,’ said Fegelein sagely.

  Stalingrad was a big fuck, they agreed. Tiny Goebbels’ finest hour; gigantic speech at the Sportpalast. Standing ovation, unending stormy applause. Total war.

  ‘Now there’s a slogan to get your teeth into,’ slurred Fegelein.

  ‘What wouldn’t the little fellow do for such rapture now?’ asked Bormann.

  Fegelein reminisced instead about the noisy thrusting of a big-breasted actress – an extra more like, who maintained she was a supporting player; blink and you would miss her. This one, passed on by Fegelein for what they called road testing, was between a blonde and a redhead, a collector’s item that made Bormann think of strawberries. He had gone at her with the pump and vigour of a barnyard animal, pummelling her soft fruit until she was squeaking, lathered, hair stuck to forehead, arm thrown back in surrender, the sight of a wet tinge of underarm hair driving him on as she panted for him not to stop.

  He made her take him in her mouth, promising not to come.

  ‘Too frightened not to swallow,’ Fegelein sniggered, nodding off.

  Fucked, Bormann remembered thinking in the moment of release. She said she preferred the girth of Borm
ann’s prick to Fegelein’s pencil shaft. One subject he and Fegelein never discussed was the Führer’s dick.

  ‘Did you think it would work?’ Fegelein asked vaguely. He meant the swap. Bormann saw the man hadn’t a clue.

  *

  While Bormann was getting Fegelein drunk enough not to remember, an increasingly uncomfortable Schlegel was being stared at by a portrait of the Führer, looking more focused and alert than he had in the flesh.

  It was a standard interview room, with basic table and chairs, unadorned apart from the portrait on the wall facing the interrogation chair.

  The window looked inwards onto the yard.

  Schlegel supposed Dunkelwert as inquisitor was Bormann’s immediate Party representative.

  She was with an older officer Schlegel had never seen before, probably some form of obscure, higher SS security, with the hard look that was all the rage these days. Dunkelwert smoked. The sidekick smoked. There were no ashtrays and they flicked ash on the floor. The room would soon become a haze. Schlegel asked if he could open the window, forgetting the window didn’t open.

  When Dunkelwert asked when he had last seen his stepfather, her eyes glittered behind smudged glasses and she showed her teeth in anticipation. He answered by saying he had seen very little of his mother and stepfather in recent years.

  ‘For what reason?’ asked Dunkelwert.

  ‘They struck me as frivolous. They were entertainers.’

  He knew he was on dangerous ground and it took him a long time to say, ‘I came to suspect my stepfather of denouncing my mother.’

  Did he believe that? Why not? It so often turned out to be the case. The point was to divert Dunkelwert from any possible connection between himself and his stepfather and the events of 20 July. It was obvious she had her traps set.

  Schlegel ploughed on. ‘He was right to do so but I found it hard to come to terms. I even considered psychiatric help.’

  Dunkelwert chased him on that.

  Schlegel said he felt blighted by the association of his mother harbouring a Jew.

  ‘Were you angry with your stepfather for not bringing the matter to your attention?’

  ‘At least I could have tried to dissuade her from such foolishness.’

  ‘And not report it?’

  ‘She is my mother, after all. I am sure she would have seen reason.’

  Schlegel wondered what Dunkelwert’s mother was like.

  He hoped he was getting across that he was generally rather useless and not worth their bother. This seemed to be confirmed by Dunkelwert’s companion regarding him like he was shit on his shoe.

  Dunkelwert asked, ‘Where is your stepfather now?’

  ‘I have no idea. We are not in the business of keeping each other informed,’ Schlegel said primly.

  ‘He is currently a wanted man.’

  ‘Yes, so I heard.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I was told his name was on a provisional government list.’

  ‘How come?’

  Schlegel passed on the story about Nebe being seen waving such a list on the morning of the 20th.

  ‘And your reaction?’

  ‘I consider my stepfather far too timid for anything like that. He never gave any evidence of having a single conviction in his life.’

  Schlegel hoped Dunklewert took that to mean Schlegel was talking about himself as much as his stepfather. He needed to be careful of growing blasé. Keep it as tight and as personal as possible, he thought, while privately ashamed of such bartering.

  They moved on to Nebe. Schlegel was able to say he was an old friend of the family who had been asked to take care of his career.

  ‘I was ineligible for military service.’

  ‘Asthma,’ said Dunkelwert, consulting her notes, looking doubtful.

  Schlegel waved his hand to show their smoke was upsetting him.

  Schlegel wondered when the sidekick would take over but the man just stared at his crushed butts on the floor.

  Dunkelwert tried to build a case against Christoph by getting Schlegel to admit Christoph had seduced him when they were younger.

  ‘We were friends! Categorically, no.’

  ‘When did you become aware of his persuasion?’

  When he said he loved me was the correct answer.

  ‘Christoph never struck me as flamboyant. He was just a friend.’

  Five more minutes of wrangling got Dunkelwert nowhere.

  ‘Let’s move on to why you went to Budapest.’

  ‘I think everyone knows now I took papers to be signed and returned concerning acquisition of an art collection. By the SS.’

  ‘Budapest is a city of notorious international intrigue,’ Dunkelwert recited stiffly. ‘Nothing else? Given the date.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you wonder why you had been selected?’

  ‘Gruppenführer Nebe asked me to go.’

  ‘But as you no longer work for him he must have asked you privately.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You agreed, obviously. Why, if it wasn’t an order?’

  ‘I felt obligated. Gruppenführer Nebe had taken an interest in my career.’

  Dunkelwert snorted. ‘What career?’

  ‘Gruppenführer Nebe is also a friend of my stepfather.’

  ‘Why did you report sick to the office and not say what you were doing?’

  ‘Gruppenführer Nebe asked me not to.’ Schlegel leaned forward, as if confiding. ‘He thought there was a risk of the operation being compromised because of spies. He was mistrustful of the Gestapo being too open to what he called “all bidders”.’

  Dunkelwert pounced. ‘What operation? You said it was about signing documents.’

  Schlegel brushed the question aside. ‘It was. But it was a sensitive sale, with other interested parties. It was important to get in first.’

  He sat back, doing his best to appear relaxed.

  Dunkelwert looked sulky. She had thought she’d had him.

  ‘Gruppenführer Nebe and your stepfather have since been exposed as part of the conspiracy. Have you thought if your mission had any connection with that?’

  Obviously, he had. He was scared witless at the thought that he was part of several overlapping intrigues. He was just about bright enough to understand it was a time of variable and conflicting offences.

  He also saw it was necessary to persuade Dunkelwert he had known exactly what he was about.

  He said, ‘I wish to speak off the record.’

  The sidekick looked at Schlegel as though he were talking Double Dutch. He turned to Dunkelwert, who said she supposed it was all right.

  Schlegel took a deep breath and decided to improvise by dumping on Fegelein, reciting the choicest details from the man’s file.

  ‘Fegelein has a history of corruption going back years. There was a case of looted fur coats from Warsaw being sold on the domestic market ’

  Next, he told them who Morgen was. ‘An investigative prosecutor. We worked together when I was in financial crime at CID.’

  ‘When?’ asked Dunkelwert.

  ‘March last year until November. Morgen is now in Budapest, still chasing Fegelein, who has an associate there from his Warsaw days, Becher. Morgen believes the same corrupt operation is being repeated in Budapest, under Fegelein’s hand.’

  Schlegel had no idea if that were the case. He was beyond any point of truth and determined only to convince Dunkelwert with the aid of a well-placed lie that he had a plausible hidden motive.

  ‘And your real reason for being there,’ Dunkelwert said.

  ‘Money,’ Schlegel said.

  ‘Money?’

  ‘I went to Budapest to give Morgen money. He was running low on funds.’

  The truth was, he still hadn’t the faintest idea about had really been going on.

  ‘Explain about these funds,’ said Dunkelwert.

  ‘Morgen was freelancing for Nebe, who was running the operation off the books an
d underwriting it because he believed Fegelein has a case to answer.’

  Schlegel decided his version was messy enough to pass for the truth. He almost believed it himself: Müller’s golden thread. But that didn’t explain Morgen’s blunt hostility towards him in Budapest or why when Schlegel walked in the room Morgen had looked like a man caught out.

  22

  Morgen was standing at a tall window, overlooking a large semi-tropical garden, his hands clasped behind his back. He turned as they entered. Because he was silhouetted Schlegel wasn’t sure for a moment if it was actually Morgen.

  They were in a grand stucco house on a spectacular boulevard in the centre of the modern part of Budapest. A manservant had answered the door to Schlegel. The occupants were in the process of moving out. Pictures had been taken down, leaving lighter patches on silk wallpaper. A smooth, good-looking man in shirtsleeves strolled into the hall, smiled amiably, introduced himself as Becher and took Schlegel through a billiard room, where an unfinished game lay on the table, into a large library.

  Schlegel supposed he must have have stared. Morgen was the last person he expected to see.

  Becher asked, ‘You know each other?’ He appeared piqued. Schlegel supposed it was his show.

  Morgen shrugged and lit up. ‘Berlin, then near Kattowitz, last year.’

  Schlegel thought Kattowitz a very coy way of describing Auschwitz and the largest concentration camp in Europe. He wondered in passing if Morgen was in Budapest on some undercover assignment, hence his brusqueness, but he looked so at ease in such opulent surroundings that Schlegel concluded he was probably part of the shakedown now.

  ‘You look awful,’ was all Morgen said.

  He did. Schlegel still felt wretched after air turbulence on the short flight following a change of planes in Vienna. It had reduced him to vomiting in a sick bag while the rest of the passengers flew on unconcerned, flicking through their magazines, accompanied by the noise of his retching.

  Still staring at Morgen, he thought to himself: Unforewarned, unprepared and shaky.