ARLETTE LIFTED HER EYES from the cabinet. The file had been in the right drawer, but out of place and tilted up at one end. The name tag had been broken off. Ah! What had happened?
She had come to steal a last look at Richard’s photograph, to read again the lines that said so much about him. “Mbuji-Mayi, Tshikapa in the Congo … the River Gbobara in Sierra Leone … Tanganyika … South-West Africa and the Coast of Namaqualand … Minas Gerais, the Mato Grosso in Brazil …” Where hadn’t he been?
“An expert in trace indicator minerals.”
De Heer Wunsch might have had the file out, but he wouldn’t have been so careless. No, this had been done in haste. Someone else had wanted to look at Richard’s file.
“Cause of accident: unknown but believed the result of illegal prospecting.
“Health: excellent except for infrequently recurring bouts of malaria.”
There was only she, de Heer Wunsch, Lev and the other men in the cutting shop. All the rest of the work—the sintering of the diamonds into grinding wheels, or mounting of them into cutting tools—was done at the fabricating shop down by the docks.
“Has ambitions of forming his own mining and prospecting company. Has made excellent connections to this end but still must overcome the stigma of his father …”
This morning the door to de Heer Wunsch’s office hadn’t been properly closed.
Had someone broken in?
“Enjoys the company of beautiful and intelligent women.” Nightclub owners like Cecile Verheyden! Women of experience.
What was she to do? Tell de Heer Wunsch that she had disobeyed all the rules and had gone into his desk for the key to the filing cabinet? Had done so time and again?
To see the photograph of the man she must leave.
Lev was sitting in the shade at the top of the fire escape. Timidly Arlette asked to speak with him.
“Me?” he said. “I should be so lucky. Here, please, sit down. Do you like herring? On toast? It is good, yes, but better if you—hey, listen and I’ll tell you what to do. You take a slice of rye bread—”
“Lev, I’m not getting married. I must talk to you, please?”
“So, I can see you’re not hungry. Is it Richard? Has a cable come through from him already?” Had Richard run into trouble?
She shook her head but still couldn’t bring herself to tell him.
“Is it because you have decided to leave us? For … what was it now?”
“Another job. In … in the Browning Works at Liege, assembling …”
“Guns.”
“Yes, pistols and … and revolvers.”
She wrung her hands. Everyone was so upset with her and now … why now she must tell them all she was not as good as they had thought.
Lev unfolded the newspaper and held it before her. On the front page was a stark photograph, a grim reminder of the Spanish town of Guernica.
The buildings were in ruins, the streets filled with rubble.
“That child. Do you see that child?” he asked. “Dazed and frightened out of her wits. Terrified.”
She knew what he was implying. “Please, I cannot stay here. It would not be good for Richard. I must leave, Lev. You know I must.”
“Bombed by German fighter planes, Arlette. Seven thousand people lived in that town. There were also three thousand refugees. And when did the German Condor Legion choose to attack? At four-thirty in the afternoon on market day, no less. For sure it was on April 27, and only now has the Reich Ministry of Propaganda chosen to release this photograph so that our humble press can make us better aware of the atrocity. Annihilated, they say. Wantonly destroyed. All those people …”
“Lev, someone has been into the personnel files. I think they may have photographed Richard’s file.”
Bernard Wunsch was gray, with thinning, slicked-down hair, a heavy mustache and dark brown eyes. He had a rather rotund face, a comfortable paunch, bags under his sad, grave eyes and the pallor of too much dedication to his work.
Lighting yet another cigarette, he irritably puffed on it, letting the acrid smoke billow around him as he waved the match to extinguish it.
“How many times have you looked at that file?”
Arlette bowed her head in shame. “Ten … twelve—twenty! I’m not sure. Please, I … I meant no harm. I knew I shouldn’t do a thing like that. I knew the personnel files were not … not for my eyes.”
“And your decision to leave us is because you are infatuated with de Heer Hagen?”
Infatuated! “Yes. He … he does not feel this way toward me. I am sure of this. At least I … I do not think he does.”
“But in any case you’ve decided it’s best for you to leave us?”
“Yes.”
Wunsch glanced at Lev. It had taken courage for the girl to have come forward. Worry, too, over Richard.
Blast it! Had Hagen been messing around with the girl? “You’re not pregnant, are you?”
“No! I …” Hurt more than if he had simply struck her, she bowed her head and wept.
“Bernard, go easy, eh? Arlette’s been an excellent receptionist. It’s just this … this sort of thing. It’s made her nervous.”
Lev laid the newspaper on the desk. Wunsch nodded grimly but went right back to the matter at hand. “He must have had keys to the front door and the offices.”
The diamond cutter nodded and reached to take the newspaper back, only to leave it. Sometimes Bernard needed to be reminded of things.
Wunsch telephoned Richard’s landlady, and when he got through, asked if she’d mind checking the apartment. “We need another set of keys, Madame Rogier. Richard usually leaves his in the bureau when he’s away on business. Yes, they should be in the top drawer.”
He covered the mouthpiece. “She will go and see if he has taken them with him to Germany. If so, then the Gestapo have stolen them and the rest is a foregone conclusion, unless he himself was into the file for some reason.”
Arlette flung up her tear-filled eyes. If ever there was a girl in love it was she.
“Richard has not done this. Please, the file, I … I looked at it yesterday. It … it was all right then.”
The girl was attractive. Richard might find her quite suitable. An anchor. Not the avant-garde, the demimonde, the artists and nightclub owners.
“Hello? Yes … Yes, Madame Rogier. I see. The keys are there. Good. I will be around later to pick them up. No, there has been no trouble.”
An uncomfortable silence settled over the office. Arlette hurriedly wiped her eyes but didn’t look up. It had been like the Inquisition. Pregnant … was she pregnant with Richard’s child? She, a girl who had never … “I wish I was, but I’m not! Now may I go, please?” She got up quickly.
Startled by her statement, by the obvious anger of it, both of them watched her leave the office. Not until the door had closed, did Wunsch speak. “Lev, you will notify the others in the building. See that all the double locks are changed and the alarm systems are checked—at our expense. I want no trouble with this. I will go to Madame Rogier’s and find out if perhaps someone hasn’t been in and borrowed Richard’s keys only to return them to allay suspicion. Have only three sets of keys cut for us. One for yourself, one for me and the other for Richard. From now on we must keep a better watch on things. The time for innocence has passed.”
“And the girl?”
“Try to persuade her to stay on with us. It’s understandable she is upset, but if it doesn’t affect her work, we could perhaps find the heart to make allowances.”
“Then you’d better tell her that yourself. I’m only a diamond cutter.” Muttering, “Guernica … just some pisspot little town,” Lev went to see about the locks.
Wunsch looked sadly at the front page of the newspaper. What manner of men could have done such a thing?
The scratches kept showing up during the fifth stage of grinding. The surfaces would be perfect until this stage, then suddenly one stray particle of coarser grit would tear across the metal and ruin the whole thing.
Hagen held the flat, plate-sized ring under the tap and watched as the water beaded on the metal. The surface, some two inches across and very hard, had an almost mirror polish except for the scratch. Taking a clean chamois, he began to carefully dry the surface.
Outside the window the land was flat, but in the distance, along the shore of the Baltic Sea, there were moundlike dunes of light brown sand.
The laboratory was on the second floor, off in a separate wing from the rest of the giant Heinkel factory. For several days now they’d kept him busy among the production lines where rows and rows of Heinkel He-111 bombers were being assembled.
As yet they hadn’t told him what the part was for, only that the tolerance of the surface had to be better than one in ten thousand.
It had to be a bearing surface of some kind—for a new kind of bombsight perhaps. The main part of the instrument would rest on bearings that would, in turn, move over the ring in its housing.
“Walter, this isn’t happening all the time. Only once in a while. How’s the air-cleaning system?”
The assistant foreman, a taciturn Rhinelander of forty-five, was terse as always. “Excellent. Three times a shift we change the filters. All my men wear the special suits, just as we are doing now. It has to be in the grit.”
“But you didn’t buy it from us, did you?”
Rows of grinding and polishing machines endlessly worked on similar rings under the watchful eyes of several technicians. “It’s Herr Klausener, my supervisor, Herr Hagen. He has insisted we try making our own grades of powders.”
Hagen couldn’t quite hide his surprise. “By crushing and grinding boart?”
The foreman shook his head. “No. By buying the cheaper ungraded powder in bulk and making our own oil separations.”
The next step would be for them to import the boart and crush and grind it themselves.
Indicating the trouble they were having, he said, “You’re not saving any money, are you?”
Walter Fritsch gave a shrug. “Me, I only do what I’m told. I haven’t the wisdom of a director of engineering and guidance systems.”
Rockets perhaps? “Let me see the times of settling, Walter. For some reason every now and then a tiny bit of that number-four is getting over into the number-five.”
Precision grinding was done in stages, beginning with the coarsest grit, then progressing stage by stage through to the finer and finer grits, and finally to the polishing stages. The diamond powders were sized to very fine tolerances by settling in olive oil. After a thorough mixing, the ground diamond dust was then allowed to stand for ten minutes, after which the mixture above what had settled was decanted. All the finer sizes thus passed over into the next settling container and the remaining powder, after washing and drying, was classed as number-one.
Number-two took thirty minutes; number-three, one hour; number-four, two hours; number-five, ten hours; and number-six, until the oil above was absolutely clear.
By the use of the simple law of gravity the particles could be accurately sized.
Fritsch led him downstairs to a windowless, airless bunker where special rubber mats had been installed to prevent damaging vibrations. A lone technician, startled and blinking at the intrusion, cautioned silence as he decanted number one, then two, then four, timing these to a production schedule that had been chalked on a board.
“Martin, this is Herr Hagen, the diamond expert. He has suspicions that tiny bits of number-four are getting into the number-five.”
Hagen shook his head to put the technician at ease. “Not suspicions, Martin, just a thought. Why don’t you run through things for me? Walter, suppose I meet you back in the lab in about twenty minutes?”
Fritsch got the message and grumpily left the room. Everything appeared to be in order. Left alone with the technician, Hagen became his easygoing self. “They ever let you near that beach out there, Martin?”
“Sometimes. After work on Wednesdays and on Sundays. My wife and I take our little boy. He likes to play in the sand. It’s nice. No people. Not like the Workers’ Clubs.”
The “Strength through Joy” holidays. “I sure could use a bit of sun myself. What time do you get off on Wednesdays? The usual?”
“At six, yes, but I keep my bicycle right outside the building. In twenty minutes I’m home and we’re on our way.”
“Boy, I envy you. It seems like I haven’t had a holiday in years. Must be rough, though, waiting for these powders to hurry up and settle.”
The technician smiled hard. Hagen felt sorry for him. “Look, don’t worry. Why not get here fifteen minutes earlier on Wednesdays? Then the timing would be okay and you wouldn’t be decanting stray number-fours into the number-fives.”
“You won’t tell Herr Fritsch, will you? My wife … she didn’t think it would matter so much if I hurried one batch a week.”
“Relax. I’ll tell Walter the problem lay in the mixing. Just see that it doesn’t happen again.”
Hagen went to leave, only to hesitate. “Say, maybe you can tell me, Martin. What are you guys using the amber for? There must have been a fortune’s worth in those bins I saw them off-loading this morning. I wouldn’t mind getting a piece for my girlfriend.”
The technician smiled with relief. “It’s from East Prussia, from ancient mines that are now under the Baltic. There are flies in some of the pieces. Flies, can you imagine that? I’m going to make my wife a necklace for her birthday.”
“It’s a perk then—scrap for the boys and their wives?”
“Ah, no. It’s for the insulation on the electrical wires. Apparently it’s the only thing that works at altitudes above eight thousand meters. Amber dust, can you imagine that? They grind it up and melt it to make the insulation. It seems such a waste.”
“You couldn’t let me have a piece, could you? Mum’s the word. Just so that I can show my girl what it looks like.”
They found one with an embedded fly among the cluster of pieces in Martin’s lunch pail. Hagen got rid of it in the first dustbin he passed.
The Baltic was ice-blue in the early-morning light. As the Stuka climbed to its service ceiling of eight thousand meters, it appeared as an angular black dot in an all but infinite sky.
The sound of the engine faded—came now and then, broken by the extreme altitude and the rushing of the onshore breeze.
Then it died away altogether.
Hagen waited at the edge of the landing field. As he looked straight up, Dieter Karl Hunter gripped him by the elbow. The airplane hung motionless for the longest time, then the pilot tipped it over and started down.
Falling like a stone, gathering momentum with the increasing whine of its engine, the Stuka plummeted straight at them. Dieter released his grip. “Now notice what happens, Richard. Listen.”
“Dieter, what’re we standing here for? That guy may not be as good as you think!”
“He’s one of the best. You’ll see.”
Hagen’s mind flashed back to Africa, to the two of them standing alone on the veld as a white bull rhino had charged. Dieter hadn’t budged then; now Hagen knew he couldn’t do so either. On and on the plane came, plummeting at them until to the scream of its engine was added the piercing wail of a siren.
Unable to stop himself, he flung his hands over his ears. The sound of the siren was excruciating. Tears ran from his eyes. He began to yell inwardly, Got to keep on looking at it. Got to try …
With a bang, the Stuka bottomed out at four hundred meters in a rush of air that made him shut his eyes. Through the webs of pain he heard Dieter’s laughter.
“I told him you wouldn’t run. There, you see, the same old Richard.”
Hagen knew he was visibly shaken. “That was the Krupp, wasn’t it?”
Again there was laughter, the laughing wink of gunmetal eyes. “So, he asked, and I said, ‘My friend will not run.’”
“How much did you bet him?”
“Mmm, a little. Ten thousand marks. Come now, Richard, don’t be tiresome. I know how you feel about taking unnecessary risks, but it was all just a joke.”
The Stuka landed at the far end of the field and began to taxi toward them. When it drew near, Alfried Krupp cut the engine, and with a final swing of its propeller the plane came to a stop.
Dieter spoke quietly as the canopy was slid open. “We are having breakfast at the Flying Club, and then you are to come to Munich with us for a little holiday. Your work is finished here, Richard. Be sure to compliment him on his dive.”
The Daimler sped through the night. Since breakfast they’d been on the road. All talk had long since ceased. The Krupp von Bohlen was again at the wheel and, though he drove very fast, he did so exceedingly well, but all his concentration was required.
Hagen, having the whole of the back seat to himself since they’d last changed drivers, now had time to reflect. Alfried had listened politely to Dieter and him. It was as if the shy and future cannon king had wanted to share some of the freedom they’d once had.
Twice during the trip the Krupp had asked about Africa. Hagen had let Dieter tell his version, wishing not to contradict him but also to show, by additions here and there, that he was supportive.
Not once had work been mentioned, nothing of the sweeping changes that were all around them or of the hierarchy that had come so firmly into power. Only too obviously Dieter and the Krupp had agreed on this beforehand.
Instead, the talk had been of hunting, fishing, racing cars, women and good times. A whole day of it and some. Right across the country from the Baltic Coast near Warnemünde to Munich. A country of great beauty and much misery still. A country in turmoil, searching for its soul and fast forgetting that it had one.
Only the lights from the dashboard glowed. There were no other cars on the road at this time of night, just an occasional glimmer from a tiny village nestled in the wooded hills or by some forgotten stream.
At twenty-nine years of age Dieter Karl was the youngest son of a wealthy Munich industrialist. Having three older brothers and two sisters, one of whom was just a year older than he, Dieter had enjoyed being the baby in the family but had let none of it affect him in the slightest.
He was tall, though not as tall as the Krupp von Bohlen, with whom he had attended classes in engineering at Aachen and taken in the ski resorts of southern France and the gambling tables of Monte Carlo. The jet-black hair was short and parted in the middle, the forehead strong, the dark blue eyes fascinating to women, the nose ramrod straight. No dueling scars. No visible scars of any kind. Just the bluish shadow of a beard that never seemed to go away even with the closest shaving.
There were touches of arrogance, but these were infrequent and directed only at those who deserved the cutting edge of his tongue.
Hagen liked him immensely. Though completely different, he was almost the equal of Duncan McPherson, with whom boyhood days in Scotland had been shared. But Dieter would soon be on the other side unless things changed for the better.
“You are quiet, Richard. Thinking of some woman?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I was. The receptionist in our office.”
“Pretty?”
He gave a snort of laughter but was surprised to find that he wanted Arlette kept as a private matter. “I suppose so. I hadn’t really thought of her that way. No, I was just thinking I’d better send a cable to let the office know there’s been a change in the itinerary. They’ll expect me to be in Berlin on Monday, not sunbathing on the shores of the Tegelsee with Irmgard and Dee Dee. They’ll be at the house, won’t they?”
It was Dieter Karl’s turn to laugh. “Why else have we come all this way to rescue you?”
The Villa Hunter overlooked the gardens of the Castle Nymphenburg, the legendary summer residence of the princes of Bavaria.
As Hagen started down the staircase, laughter filtered through the house and he knew the girls must be having breakfast on the sun porch.
It would be good to forget things, good to see them again. Yet the presence of the Krupp continued to trouble him. It seemed an inordinate amount of time for the head of Hitler’s latest four-year plan to examine the character of a diamond salesman.
There were two entrances to the sun porch, which was built in the shape of an L. Only Dee Dee was in sight, her left side to him. The wavy, jet-black hair was pulled tightly back off the smooth, high brow to fall in curls about her slender neck.
As always, Irmgard’s best friend and Dieter’s current lover made him take a second look. The milk-white skin, high color on the cheeks, the finely chiseled face with slightly jutting chin were matched by lovely red lips, a broad smile and an animated manner of talking that was, in itself, a study in motion.
Flashing dark, dusky eyes betrayed a nervous intensity.
An actress, and a good one, a Bohemian not just of the avant-garde but whose ancestors had come from that region, Dee Dee Schroeder at thirty years of age was a stunning woman both on and off the stage. Her skirt was navy blue, pleated below the knees, the thinly red-white-and-blue striped jerkin falling around her hips to emphasize the leggy look of what was beneath.
The white silk blouse was ruffled on the sleeves and at the cuffs, the collar broad, floppy and open to expose the base of her throat. A nest of silver chains Dieter had brought from Cairo led to a single pendant. From time to time as she spoke or gestured, Dee Dee would suddenly retreat to the pendant, grasping it tightly as if to steady herself.
After he had watched her do this several times, Hagen realized something was troubling her.
Irmgard would be seated opposite her, the two girls having been friends since childhood and always carrying on like this when they got together, but was there someone else?
And where were Dieter and Alfried?
Hagen searched the grounds but couldn’t see them anywhere. A timid hand reached for the cream and he heard Dee Dee say, “Oh, sorry, Liza,” and saw her turn the pitcher so that the fingers could close about its handle.
He gave a chuckle, as much by way of letting them know he was there, as of laughing at himself. Of course, Liza Berle was the woman the Krupp was rumored to be madly in love with. Dieter had arranged the whole thing and had typically said nothing. A quiet weekend unknown to the Krupp family, who didn’t approve of the liaison. Dee Dee would probably be nervous for Irmgard’s sake.
“Richard!” The broad, square shoulders, the rangy, easygoing look of him, that grin … Dee Dee pushed herself away from the table and flung herself into his arms, hugging him too tightly. “Oh, Richard, Richard, how good it is to see you.”
She kissed him on the cheek, kissed him again and again, and all the time he held her, he felt the trembling.
Gently he chucked her under the chin and trailed a hand reassuringly down her arm. “What is it? What’s wrong?” he said quietly.
She gave her head just the tiniest of shakes and touched his lips. Moving in on him again, she said, “We need you, that is all. Now come, don’t be so serious. Come. We’ve someone for you to meet.”
Irmgard Hunter was the same age as Dee Dee. Her lank, light brown hair was worn back off her ears in rebellion at fashion and family. Her face was strongly boned and Nordic but reminiscent, too, of the Hun. The lovely hazel eyes were sometimes gay and mischievous as now, sometimes sad, far-seeking and shadowed by despair.
She had the blush of youth and the outdoors in her cheeks, the ghost of a summer’s tan, no lipstick. “Richard, so it is you at last. And how long have you been studying a certain woman?” Namely Dee Dee.
Liza Berle was blond, shy, somewhat matronly and feeling decidedly out of place. Giving her a sympathetic look, he took her hand and lightly kissed the back of it. “Fräulein, you mustn’t pay any attention to these buffle-heads. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Ignoring the rush of “Dee Dee, isn’t he gallant?” “A fop, Irmgard. An absolute fop,” he said:
“They’re always like schoolgirls when they get together. They need a good, long hike in the mountains to straighten them out.”
Her voice was mellow and quiet. “You are the Richard my Alfried has spoken of. The American.”
“In good terms, I hope?”
“Yes, of course. Alfried and the Baron Dieter Karl von Hunter are having a stroll on the grounds. They will join us shortly.”
Irmgard nudged Dee Dee under the table and gave Hagen a dark look. “What about me, Richard? You have not bothered to even kiss my hand.”
He took her by the shoulders, intending to give her a brotherly kiss on the forehead, but she pulled him down, locked her eyes fiercely on him and hungrily kissed him on the lips.
The breath eased out of her. Still she clung to him, swallowing with difficulty. “There, now maybe you will understand how much I’ve missed you.”
The moment passed. They all laughed, lightly at first and then with gathering gaiety, for it had all been done in fun.
Or had it?
Hagen drew a chair toward himself and sat down at the head of the table. Irmgard called one of the maids over, and in her best authoritarian style ordered, “Sausages, Gerda. Two eggs, scrambled, please—and juice, pancake flakes, brown rolls, jam—make it black currant this time—oh, and coffee. A big cup, too. A full pot for he is almost a Belgian, this one, though he eats like an Englishman.”
“You know me well.”
Her eyes grew sad and distant. “I should. You are like a messenger from the outside world, Richard, and I …”
“Irmgard, please.”
“Dee Dee, shut up! I need to know of the outside world, Herr Hagen. What is happening there, please?”
He would have to try to pass it off. Glancing at Dee Dee and Liza, he winked. “Nothing much. If you ask me, this is where things are happening. New roads—everywhere people building them, whole crews of teenage boys.”
“The Arbeitsdienst—after their stay in the Hitler Youth they are drafted into work gangs for the glory of the fatherland. There are shortages, Richard. Breadlines … Not everyone is so healthy-looking as those teenagers.”
Dee Dee gave her a rueful look and turned to talk to Liza. Hagen knew he had to say something. “There are shortages everywhere, Irmgard. Ranks of the unemployed. When I was in England last, I heard Welsh coal miners singing in the streets of London. They had walked, if you can believe it, all the way from their villages and towns. Never have I heard men’s souls lift themselves like that. It was as if they had to use the beauty of their voices to object to their poverty.”
“It will all end soon. Soon there will be work for everyone.”
What was the matter with her? “Including Dieter?” he asked, leaning back to let the maid set the start of his breakfast before him.
“Including Dieter. Father is adamant that my younger brother should not go into the armed forces. All the rest of the family have important jobs in our factories. They make uniforms for the Reich, Richard, silver braids for the arms, flashes for the tunics and badges for the caps. But something equally important must be found to keep Dieter out of things. This, of course, he does not believe.”
“Maybe he’d enjoy the army.” Richard was being cautious.
“He’d only get killed.”
Again he found himself wondering what had happened to set her off like this, particularly in front of company she didn’t know.
Dieter and she were so very close.
His tone was apologetic. “Yes, of course, he might get killed. I hadn’t thought of that. But there won’t be a war in any case, will there?”
Liza Berle watched them with bated breath. Dee Dee seemed to sense the danger for she said quite brightly, “No, of course there won’t. Why should there be? Germany’s only doing what is right. Everyone knows this.”
“So, we must find something for our boy to do just to keep him out of mischief and away from the pretty girls,” he said, waving his fork at them.
The meal was good, the sausages excellent. He worked at eating, hoping that the impasse was now over. Irmgard studied Dee Dee; Liza picked at the tablecloth as if pecking at indecision, then shyly offered hope.
“I think this may be why my Alfried has wished to meet privately with your brother, Irmgard. Alfried is very worried about the shortages of materials, yes? He needs someone who is free of other responsibilities to be a sort of troubleshooter …” Her voice trailed off in embarrassment. She felt foolish for having spoken out.
So Dieter would be working for the Krupp …
Dee Dee entertained them with the tale of a complicated love affair that involved a Polish cleaning woman, a cluttered closet that could not be locked and a fat Jewish stage manager whose wife was suspicious.
Alfried and Dieter finally joined them, the Krupp announcing that it was a distinct pleasure to share the weekend with them.
Now, however, everything became very formal, the laughter subdued. Cigarettes were produced, and Dee Dee took to clutching the pendant all the more.
When Hagen finally caught her eye, her fingers fled from it immediately. Over and around them the talk politely flowed, he adding bits and pieces as required until, on impulse, he reached out and took the pendant in hand.
The silver work was exquisite, a two-headed Celtic symbol like the Roman Janus, with the heads back to back, one looking outward, the other inward. Both with the bleakest of expressions.
“That’s from the La Tène period. The sculptor’s seen it in a museum and copied it.”
Irmgard didn’t smile, but watched the two of them. The Krupp and Dieter talked quietly. Liza was forgotten for the moment.
Was it an age of symbols? he wondered. The crooked cross of the swastika, the double zigzag and death’s-head of the SS? The banners and flags that were everywhere?
Irmgard had commissioned a friend to make the pendant, of this he was certain. But why give it to Dee Dee when it was far more her sort of thing?
The runic symbol for self, a sort of capital letter M, was incised in the space between the heads, but on turning the pendant over, he found the symbol for joy.
“Only through knowing the self is there joy and true peace of mind.”
“You’re too deep for me, Irmgard. I’m just a salesman.”
“Oh? For your sake, Richard, I hope you are.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That questions are being asked of everyone, you in particular.”
The alpine meadow was far above the lake but not nearly as high as the stunted fir-clad slopes and felsenmeer that rose steeply behind them.
After breakfast they’d taken the car and had driven south to the very edge of the Bavarian Alps. The scenery, as always, was magnificent. Sheep bells tinkled in the distance, and from somewhere far below them came the lonely sound of an ax.
Hagen was glad the two of them were alone. “What sort of questions?” he asked cautiously.
Irmgard looked away. Sitting cross-legged in the middle of a slab of gray, lichen-encrusted rock, she reminded him of a Norse goddess, a Valkyrie.
A questioner.
He followed her gaze. Far in the distance, down across the tree-clad slopes and avalanche trails, the heavily timbered tower of an old gristmill rose through the forest.
“Why can’t you answer me?” he asked gently. “I’ve nothing to hide.”
“I love my brother, Richard.”
“So do I. We’re the best of friends. You know that.”
“Dieter has asked me not to tell you.”
“That I’ve been followed this time? That the Gestapo stopped me at the border? That Franz Epp, the Krupp’s head of internal security, has probably done a job on me? So what? I’m clean. I only sell diamonds, Irmgard. Nothing else.”
“There was a cable for you this morning. Dieter has asked me not to give it to you until you are about to leave us. I’m to have forgotten, to have said I purposely forgot because I wanted you to stay. Which I do. Dear God, I hope you know I do.”
To give himself time to think, he began to pack up the lunch. They had left the Krupp and Liza to themselves in the cabin at the hunting lodge Dieter had rented. He ought to appear angry, not wary …
Suddenly sick of the continual need for caution, he said rather harshly, “Can’t I even trust my friends enough to let me relax and enjoy their company as I always have in the past?”
That had hurt, and he could see this in the way Irmgard clutched her knees.
Richard waited, hoping she’d tell him. She wished he’d fall in love with her, wished he’d take her to bed.
From the breast pocket of her shirt Irmgard pulled the cable. “Dieter just wanted you to do that, Richard. To relax and be with us. To remember all of this—” she swept an arm around “—and know in your heart of hearts that we are still your friends.”
TO HAGEN RICHARD C/O VILLA HUNTER MUNICH FROM WUNSCH BERNARD DILLINGHAM AND COMPANY ANTWERP
REQUEST YOU BYPASS BERLIN THIS TRIP RETURN OFFICE IMMEDIATE CONSULTATIONS STOP DO YOU SUPPOSE THEY COULD GET IT CLEAR?
She watched him closely as he read the cable, then turned away more quickly this time, to search the distance for the truth and hold his soul cupped in her outstretched hand.
She couldn’t possibly know.
“You’re hiding something from us, Richard. I have seen it in your eyes. I was afraid of this.”
She seemed so sad this trip. He’d have to put her at ease, would have to laugh it off. “Afraid of what, for heaven’s sake? Irmgard, this is a police state. You know that as well as I. What you haven’t realized is that it’s made you suspicious of even your closest friends. This is a straight business cable in response to one that I sent Herr Wunsch at the request, I might add, of the Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach.”
“The new cannon king. The profiteer of arms, the maker, Richard, of wars. Without us, the industrialists, the Nazis would be nothing.”
“Yes. Now what gives? What sort of questions are being asked about me?”
She tossed her head and breathed in deeply. “The last line. Neither Dieter nor the Krupp can make sense of it. They fear perhaps it is some kind of code.”
He shook his head. Folding the cable, he tucked it away and gave her an honest shrug. “It means just what it says. Can the Krupp get clearance for the deal.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Even I have puzzled. I’m sorry I doubted you, Richard. It wouldn’t have surprised me in the least to have discovered that you were some sort of spy.”
Her grin faded. Steadily they looked at each other, and he saw the fear come back into her eyes and wondered at it.
“Dieter would be so upset if that were true, Richard. So, too, would the Krupp, of this I am very sure.”
“You’re very serious this visit. That two-headed Janus was really meant for you, wasn’t it?”
“You know the shit the Nazis say! They’re bastards, Richard. Pigs! They’ve got us working for them and we’re scared.”
“Is Dee Dee upset about something?”
“Didn’t you see the way she laughed when she told us that story? Can you imagine how it must have hurt her to lie like that? She’s one-quarter Jewish and terrified everyone will find out, poor thing. Already there are whispers about her. No longer do the good parts come her way. It’s stupid, Richard. Criminal!”
He held her close, and she buried her face in his shirt. Dee Dee and Dieter waved and then began to call and run toward them. Caught on that slope he felt so very alone.
“Richard, Dieter is going to Brazil for the Krupp. Get her out of Germany. Make my brother take her with him.”
The light was fading rapidly, the rain coming soon. All over the city people would be running to take shelter from the storm.
As the first and distant rumbles of thunder came, Bernard Wunsch turned away from the window. “Lev, I really wish you’d sit down, just this once.”
“Then please tell an old man what has happened?”
“Must you always use age to get the better of me? You’re hardly much older than myself.”
“Bernard, we’ve known each other a long time. Long enough for me to know you must talk to someone you trust.”
Irritated, Wunsch ran a hand over his thinning hair, then used a knuckle to straighten the ends of his mustache—clear signs that he was worried.
“I’m almost certain Richard’s flat was searched—no, do not look so alarmed. I have—” he touched his forehead “—a certain feeling for this sort of thing. Nothing was forced. Neither the door nor the windows, but the skylight that lets out onto the roof was slightly ajar. Madame Rogier has told me Richard sometimes leaves it open for the cat, but me, I’m not so sure.”
Lev hardly breathed. “So you took a look around his place?”
“Yes, but I’ve not had the courage to tell you this. Instead, I’ve worried over it for days and days, watching always his progress in my mind. When the cable came in from Essen to say that he was sending me something in the mails, and then one from Munich to say there’d been a change in his itinerary, I decided I’d have to answer him.
“Lev, listen to me. Richard doesn’t have many things. A couple of photographs of him and his father out prospecting. A group shot of the two of them in the bush with his mother. One of his friend, the Baron Dieter Karl Hunter, another of that boyhood friend of his, that tutor in archeology at Oxford, Duncan McPherson. Then his books—you know how much he likes to read. Well, let me tell you, Lev, he has hardly any books.”
The man before him seemed to shrink, to whisper now. “Please … what are you getting at, Bernard?”
Wunsch reached for a pair of slim little volumes, something a child might read. They were bound in red leather and embossed with gold letters on the spines and the signet of a chesspiece on the front covers. “Isn’t it a bit unusual for a man like Richard to have copies of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass on his desk at home?”
Lev held his nose, pinching it as always when struck by a thought. “So?” The sad blue eyes looked across the desk. “Don’t keep an old man in suspense, Bernard. I might have a heart attack and then what would you do? Call the police or an ambulance?”
Smoke curled from the forgotten cigarette. The thunder came.
“Codes are funny things, Ascher. Sometimes a word, sometimes a seemingly innocuous sentence slipped into an otherwise straightforward message. During the war I had experience with such things. But, to be frank, I do not want to believe such a thing of Richard, but then, God help us, I do, though I would, of course, have to dismiss him immediately.”
Lev swallowed with difficulty. Richard a spy … “What’ve you done, Bernard?”
“Sent him a cable. Included a couple of lines from a poem he had marked in this.” Wunsch lifted one of the little books. “From Through the Looking Glass. It is an appropriate title, is it not? The looking glass …”
“What lines?” croaked Lev.
“From ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter,’ a delightful poem. I must confess it made me smile, but I had great difficulty in choosing an appropriate passage. To fit such words into a cable is not so easy as one might assume.”
Bernard had been a cipher clerk during the war, not an intelligence officer! “Bernard, you read too many novels. This is nonsense.”
Wunsch held up a hand for silence and opened the book to read him the lines in English. “They are on the beach. Just the two of them, the Walrus and the Carpenter in great discussion, and they are looking at the sand and wondering how on earth one could ever clean the place up.
“‘If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year,
‘Do you suppose,’ the Walrus said,
That they could get it clear?’”
“You’d best explain things, Bernard. At the end of the day I don’t think too clearly. It’s my eyes. They seem to be going on me.”
Wunsch set the book aside. “It was just a gamble, you understand. But because of the break-ins, I’ve had to try to warn him. If he is gathering information and using this poem as some sort of code, he’ll realize he’s in great danger.”
A gamble. Two lines chosen with difficulty from a poem that had been marked. “What is it you want from me, Bernard? Praise for doing the right thing when you ought, really, to have warned him right away? Or sympathy, knowing you may well have blown his cover? If he is a spy. If. I’m not so sure of this. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I very much doubt it. Richard’s not the type. He’s far too kind and generous, far too conscious of others. Besides, he holds no loyalty to the British, not after what they did to his father.”
“He holds none to the Germans, either, not after what they did to his father.”
A weary sadness crept in on them. Wunsch stubbed out the cigarette and cleared his throat. “Lev, I’ve asked you in here to tell you that because of what has happened I’ve had to tell Richard not—I repeat not—to go to Berlin this time.
“Ascher, I’m sorry. Believe me, I know how much Rachel means to you and Anna, but Richard’s life may well be in danger. He may be far too important for us to let our personal lives interfere.”
So there was something else, and Richard would be only too aware of it.
Lev couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. Self-protection knew no bounds. “Will they let you traders take the Antwerp diamond stocks to England?”
Wunsch was aghast. “How is it that you know of this?”
“Do you think I’m blind? Me? Ascher Levinski who spends three-quarters of his time shaping tool diamonds so that Richard can sell them to the Nazis?”
“Please, you mustn’t say anything of this. Besides, it hasn’t been decided.”
“So it’s true. You will try to ship the stocks to London but not the cutters and polishers.”
Wunsch heaved a sigh. “It’s the other members of the Exchange, Lev. This has been a collective decision. For myself, I’ve tried to make them include all the skilled workmen that are so desperately needed, but—” he spread his hands in defeat “—the British are being stubborn. In all probability they won’t take any of us, and they may not even agree to take the diamonds. Only time will tell, and there may not be much of that.”
Lev indicated the little books. “Have you told Arlette of this business?”
“No, of course not. The girl suspects nothing more than that someone has been into the files. When Richard returns she’ll be gone from us in any case. This has been her decision, Lev. I couldn’t stop her. She still feels it would be best for him if she left our employ.”
Tongues of misty rain swept down from the mountainside, making the forest slopes dark and brooding. Out over the lake the early-morning light was gray and cold.
Hagen gave his rod a flick, sending the fly some thirty feet toward the shore. There were just the two of them, all alone on the lake. Dieter sat in the stern; he stood in the bow to stretch his legs. The rowboat drifted with the wind.
Somehow he had to get another message off to England. Something must have happened at the office. Bernard knew nothing of the code.
The rain came stronger now. A gust rocked the boat. He braced himself and pulled up his collar. Then he flicked the rod again.
“Richard, the Krupp is nervous, yes, about having gone over everyone’s heads and offered you the deal of a lifetime. It’s only natural he should have wished to read your cable. You must admit that last sentence doesn’t quite flow with the rest of the message.”
“Bernard simply tacked it on as an afterthought. Dieter, how many times must I tell you that Herr Wunsch simply expressed his consternation at the size of the order? Personally, I can’t blame him. Initially the Krupp requested I supply Der Firma with a year’s supply of diamond products, but when I got to the office he had something else in mind. To supply the whole of the Reich with a year’s supply won’t be easy. Not only are some of the stones exceedingly difficult to get and shape, but the very size of such an order, if known, would create panic buying or worse still, hoarding by the dealers.”
Dieter gathered in his line. “So you have a code. You communicated the order to Herr Wunsch in secret. Therefore he had to reply in code as well.”
“You’re being worse than Otto Krantz, a singularly unpleasant fellow I met at the border, at Aachen.”
“My response to Herr Krantz’s call was what released you.”
“And I’m grateful, but that’s what friends are for.”
“Richard, listen to me. I’ve told the Krupp nothing could be farther from your mind than to engage in some sort of petty information gathering, yet I have to warn you that a certain hesitation still remains.”
“In spite of our standing under his Stuka?”
“Perhaps because of it. Now, please, tell me how, if not in code, you communicated an order of that size to your director knowing that secrecy was of the utmost importance?”
So that was it! Given the logic of the thing, the German mentality demanded he use a code. They would assume the last sentence of Bernard’s cable was in code and they’d now be satisfied with that explanation even if he didn’t tell them what it meant!
Hagen was tempted to go along with things, to create a fabrication just to ease their minds.
“Dieter, what is it with you people? Do you honestly think the members of the Diamond Exchange would stoop to tapping each other’s cables and telephones? That business works on absolute trust. I simply cabled Herr Wunsch from Essen and told him I was sending something in the mails for him to consider. I then sent him the estimates the Krupp had given me, and I asked Bernard to begin putting out feelers so that when I returned to the office I could take over in his absence. Not even an order of that magnitude would stop him from taking his vacation. That’s another reason he’s anxious for me to return.”
“Then there is no code?”
He seemed so disappointed. Hagen shook his head. “But I’m going to have to send him a reply. It wasn’t right of you to ask Irmgard to withhold that cable.”
Richard had access to so much. Every factory, every works. “I’ll take the answer into town for you. Irmgard must do some shopping. We can send it off while the Krupp and Liza are still sleeping.”
“Am I not allowed to send it myself?”
Dieter moved to take up the oars. “Look, I know you have clearance, Richard, but it would be better for me if you didn’t this time.”
“Then can I ask a favor?”
“Of course. You know that.”
“I must send a cable to my mother. She’s expecting me to visit them early in August, but with the Krupp’s request to attend to, I’m going to have to put her off.”
“What about Berlin? Will you be joining us there, or will you be returning to Antwerp as requested?”
“Berlin’s essential. Not only do I have customers who are waiting on me, but you know as well as I, the Krupp will want me to meet with his bankers just to reassure them everything will be all right if the deal should go through. The guarantees will have to be staged. They’re really a formality, but Herr Wunsch will understand my hesitation to proceed without them. So, too, will he understand why I must go to Berlin.”
“Irmgard will be pleased. She and Dee Dee both seem to have acquired an urgent need for you, Richard. I feel quite left out.”
The time had come. “Dee Dee’s in trouble, Dieter. No—don’t stop rowing. Just take us out a little more and I’ll try another cast.”
The oars dipped, the rain made its gentle patter on the lake. Richard took up his rod, and they began to fish again.
Finally Dieter asked, “Well, what is it? What’s the trouble?”
Hagen told him, and Dieter noticed that when he did so, he faced the opposite shore. A man consumed with his fishing, a salesman who knew enough to know that someone could well be watching them.
“She’s afraid, Dieter. Why not get her out of the country?”
Dee Dee one-quarter Jewish … who would have thought it possible? “I don’t know. It isn’t necessary.”
“You know as well as I that it could be. Dee Dee’s one of us, Dieter. We need to do this for her. You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?”
“I’m not sure. I … I don’t know anymore. I thought so. I still do. Let me think on it, Richard. These things are not so easy. There’s also the matter of her parents. Knowing Dee Dee, I doubt if she would leave without them.”
“Aren’t you going to Brazil?”
“Irmgard’s not very adept at keeping things to herself. She’s the one who ought to go to Brazil. Yes, it is correct that I’m going there for the Krupp. We must have rubber. The synthetic stuff is still not good enough.”
Rubber and diamonds … “Will you see what you can do? She hasn’t asked for this, Dieter. She doesn’t know anything of it.” TO WUNSCH BERNARD DILLINGHAM AND COMPANY ANTWERP FROM HAGEN RICHARD OBERAMMERGAU STATION BAVARIA BERLIN IMPERATIVE STOP RETURNING NIGHT TRAIN FRIDAY STOP HOLD INQUIRIES UNTIL THEN STOP SCENERY BEAUTIFUL STOP FISHING NOT TOO BAD STOP FOOD EXCELLENT AS ALWAYS
“The company—he has not mentioned the company, Dieter?”
“He’s enjoying it too much. Now come on, Irmgard, don’t sulk. Richard has an interest in you, of this I’m certain.”
Laying the other cable on the counter, she read it once again, then handed her brother the copy she’d made.
TO WINFIELD MRS LOIS ANNE INVERLIN COTTAGE BLACK DOWN HEATH PORTESHAM ROAD DORCHESTER ENGLAND
HAVING A PLEASANT RUN THIS TIME BUT VERY BUSY STOP GREATLY FEAR I’M UNABLE TO COME AS ARRANGED STOP WILL DO EVERYTHING I CAN TO PUSH FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS MID TO LATE AUGUST STOP WISH I COULD BE MORE DEFINITE BUT THAT’S THE WAY OF THINGS STOP TELL FRANK TO KEEP THE CORKSCREW HANDY STOP AFFECTIONS TO YOU BOTH.
“I didn’t know he felt so warmly toward his mother, Dieter?”
“He doesn’t, but why tell Frank to keep a corkscrew handy? Surely his stepfather would do so?”
“You’re being too German, too cautious. Richard is only teasing his mother. You know very well he keeps his stepfather at arm’s length.”
“And his mother.”
Unknown to them, the message read:
TROUBLE ANTWERP OFFICE / QUESTIONS BEING ASKED / REICH NOW ORDERS YEAR’S SUPPLY
“Bitte, Dieter. Please. It’s so good to be alone with you.”
The rain fell steadily now, and from the bedroom window in the loft, a gray light filtered in to them.
Hunter held Dee Dee from himself, locking his thumbs into her armpits so that her weight rested on him and her arms were wrapped around his own. “Kiss me again. Please,” she said with that desperate urgency only she could give.
“In a minute. I want to look at you, Dee Dee. Sit back. I want to remember this moment.”
“You sound as if it will be our last! I wish you wouldn’t. It’s bad enough you’re going away.”
His eyes lingered on her body. Dee Dee nervously wet her lips. As she watched him, she clamped her knees more tightly against him. “Is there something wrong with me?” she asked. Irmgard must have told him, or Richard … Yes, Richard had been the one to let him know about her grandmother. It was so unfair. Jewish … part Jewish!
The duvet slipped from her shoulders. Goose pimples began to rise on the milk-white skin, exciting him.
She straightened up and arched her back. Eyes on her breasts, he smiled, thought wicked thoughts perhaps, or thought he must leave her.
In a whisper she said, “Touch them. Wet your fingers.”
Did he really love her? Sometimes Dieter simply took her for the taking. Sometimes they made love with a passion that could only be lasting.
When he touched a nipple, she caught his hand and held it to her breast. Leaning back, she stirred his erection.
He brushed his hands over her flanks. Cupping each breast, he caught the nipples and made them hard—strained to sit up, and hungrily found her lips.
She drank him in. His hands slid down over the firm soft contours of her seat, gripping her now. She found her voice. “I want to come, Dieter. I need it.”
“Then come. Let me watch.”
“Please …”
Hunter lay back and grinned up at her. Flattening a hand against the smoothness of her stomach, Dee Dee spread her fingers and pushed them down into the jet-black curls of her mons—wouldn’t take her eyes from his.
Parting the lips, she found herself and began slowly to bring herself to orgasm. Several times it failed, several times she touched her nipples or held the base of her throat.
His cock was big and hard between her legs. She could feel it riding up against her.
Dieter gave a chuckle. She heard it as laughter. Harsh and bitter—mocking her and so distant.
Dee Dee bit her lower lip and shut her eyes. It was horrible of him to watch her masturbating, horrible of her to do it in front of him.
Reaching back, she found his cock and squeezed it. He said, “That’s not allowed.”
She said, “Damn you!”
Smoke crept into her dark eyes, misting them. She held her seat—flattened a hand over a buttock, kept on until the blood pounded in her head and she gave the first of several earthy cries, didn’t care anymore, had to do it. Had to!
She flung herself off him and onto her hands and knees. Waited tensely, said, “Damn you, Dieter. Do it to me!”
Hunter pushed her down over the edge of the bed. Kneeling between her legs, he flattened his hands on the cheeks of her rump, spread them, molded them, then slid the hands right up the length of her and drove himself into her.
The blood rushing into her head, Dee Dee pushed herself up against him—strained to do so and gave a stifled scream, a broken cry of ecstasy.
Again and again he slid himself into her. Moaning, tossing her head from side to side, she tightened her muscles and wept as he came inside her. Wept for all the good times they’d had, for all the promises.
Afterward, lying cradled in his arm, he smoking a cigarette, she heard him ask, “How do you find our Richard this time?”
She traced an uncertain finger through the curls on his chest. “Distracted. Worried. Why do you ask?”
“No reason. Only curious. Did Richard say anything about that mining company he’s always dreaming of? We could help him, Dee Dee. I’d like to do that for him.”
She laid her head on his chest, listened to the beating of his heart. “He’s quiet this time. Me, I don’t think he’s interested anymore. Resigned to working for his firm perhaps. Yes, resigned to that and preoccupied.”
“Tired?”
“Yes, tired and run-down. Irmgard is worried about his malaria. Perhaps that is what’s bothering him.”
“Isn’t he taking mepacrine? It’ll help. It always does when he goes into the tropics. He takes it for several weeks beforehand. Quinine and sulfa are only good when he has an attack.”
Had someone stolen the mepacrine from Richard’s suitcase? she wondered. Nothing was sacred anymore. Nothing. It would be just like the Gestapo or the Sicherheitsdienst, the Secret Service of the SS, to have done such a thing if Richard was gathering information. But then, of course, that could not be.
Hunter drew on his cigarette and held in the smoke a long time before brushing a hand over her hair. “Doesn’t Irmgard suit him? What’s she said?”
Dee Dee turned suddenly to look at him. “That they will probably play chess while we fuck like dogs and that she will let him win or he will let her.”
“She didn’t say dogs. She said make love. Irmgard’s a romantic.”
“And so is Richard.”
“Then we must see that the two of them come together.”
The rally was in the Tiergarten, in Berlin’s sprawling central park. There were masses of troops, crowds of cheering people. Lines of torches lit the sky while on a platform, under a golden eagle, the hierarchy of the Third Reich sat in silence as their leader ranted on and on about peace.
The crowd remained spellbound. Not a soul moved, not a horse among the mounted guard.
Imperceptibly, Hagen moved closer to Irmgard. Dieter was running his eyes over the stage. Dee Dee was leaning back against him.
Flanked by Goering, Himmler, Heydrich and Rosenberg, the Führer paused, his clenched fist uplifted. Hess stood some distance away, with Bormann and Goebbels.
And not a sound, other than the flapping of the banners and now, from somewhere distant, the lonely, wounded howling of a dog.
Then, as if to shut out the canine insult, the Führer nodded and the place erupted with “Peace! Peace! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! One Führer, one Germany!”
Hitler beamed. Goebbels began to applaud. The band struck up the ancestral “Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles.” All up and down the broad avenues the people linked arms and swayed from side to side. Mad with joy, most of them would go home believing their Führer had honestly meant peace.
Hagen scanned the faces around him. Since he’d come to Berlin there hadn’t been a chance to get away for even an hour or two. If only the girls weren’t with them. If only there weren’t blank faces in the crowd …
Goons. Thugs. He picked them out, surprised to find so many clustered near.
Weighing the options, he put his arms about Irmgard and kissed her ear. “I promised to call on the daughter of one of our employees. Let me lose myself in the crowd. I’ll meet you all back at the Kakadu. We’ll have a drink and then go on to the Kranzler for a bite to eat.”
“Richard, don’t! Please …” She couldn’t take her eyes from the stage. “Something’s wrong. I feel it. We’re being watched.”
“She’s Jewish, Irmgard. Her father’s afraid for her.”
“Then go. Do what you can. The crowd’s breaking up.”
The Tiergarten was huge, wild in parts, tame in others. Riding trails crisscrossed and circled the lowlands or went up into the woods. Down in the hollows, near the ponds, the sounds of the crowd and traffic fell away, and he could hear the gentle trickle of water as it flowed over one of the little dams.
The ponds were in series. Those toward the Unter den Linden were a shade higher than those toward the zoological gardens. Hagen followed the sound of the water. When a shadow moved, he froze. When another appeared among the trees off to his left, he knew they’d stuck close to him.
Steadily he walked out of the woods, found a cindered path and began to make his way along it toward the Potzdamer Platz.
They fell in behind him, the two of them.
Under one of the lights he was asked for the time. Then the two of them walked on ahead and left him standing there.
About thirty or thirty-five. Tough. Hands in the pockets of their coats. Collars up. No cigarettes …
Hagen turned, and when they looked again, he was gone.
Number 87 Motzstrasse was just off the Nottendorfplatz, not far from the cathedral. As Lev had said, the place was on the fifth floor. What he hadn’t said was that the tenement was run-down, that the street was dark, and that the stairs, seen from the porch, rose precipitously to the first of several landings.
Satisfied that the lone car parked down the street was empty and had been so for hours, he struck a match, found the bell and rang the flat.
Nothing happened. Again he tried the bell, this time pressing it a little longer.
Still there was no answer. He thought of trying one of the other flats, thought of leaving.
Time … he’d have to take the time.
Cursing the place, he tried the outer door and found it open. The lock had been broken ages ago, so, too, the buzzers.
When he reached the fifth floor, there was only a small landing. Three doors led off this. The name was scratched in the dark brown paint. He knocked.
They didn’t answer. It was now nearly midnight and he’d been away too long.
Looking back down the staircase, he caught a breath. It was a hell of a drop.
He knocked again, this time a little louder, a little more sharply. Still there was no answer. Only on the third attempt did a woman’s voice timidly ask who it was.
“Rachel, I’ve come from your father.”
The door opened in a hurry, the woman tearing at the locks. With tears in her eyes, Frau Tannenbaum blurted, “We thought it was the police. Come in. Please. I’m sorry, so sorry. Papa … Papa, how is he?”
Once started, she couldn’t stop talking, though he tried to impress upon her the need for haste. She was tall like her father, with the same sensitive blue eyes, but with the long, dark auburn hair of her mother, braided into a rope that was clutched in embarrassment. “My nightgown. I’m sorry. We were asleep. Moses—” she turned to her husband “—Moses, ask Herr Hagen into the sitting room.”
Behind her, lost in the hallway, Moses Tannenbaum clutched his skullcap as if still not sure of what to do with it. He wore the beard and look of a rabbinical scholar, had the wounded brown eyes of a haunted man.
Hagen dispensed with formality. “Apply for visas. Emigrate. Get in wherever you can. That’s the message your father asked me to give you.”
“And did he tell you the doors were closed?”
This had come from the husband. Hagen paused to reassess the situation. The bookseller slipped his yarmulke on. “The Nazis want to kick us out, Herr Hagen, but the countries of the world are reluctant to take us in.”
“Will you leave if I can manage to sponsor you?”
“Of course.”
“Even if it means leaving the shop?” This had come from the wife.
“You know that, Rachel.”
“Look, I can’t promise anything, but I’m going to England soon. I’ll try to see what I can do.”
Tannenbaum shook his head. “Save your breath. The British don’t want us.”
“What about Belgium?” Again the head was shaken. “Brazil—there might be a possibility there.”
“We’d need money.” Moses shrugged to indicate the flat. “As you can see, we have none.”
“There’ll be money waiting for you. Consider it a loan.” It would complicate things, but given the circumstances, what else could he do?
Irmgard and Dee Dee had got to him.
“Say nothing of this, please. Even to your very best friends. Just keep it to yourselves.”
They thanked him warmly. Rachel asked him to wait a moment more. After she disappeared into the kitchen, he heard her cutting something and then wrapping it.
“There … for my father. Please. You take it with you. It’s only a bit of honey cake, but it’ll tell him more than words or my letters that we’re well and now so full of hope.”
The street was empty. The car had left. From the direction of the Nottendorfplatz came the sounds of traffic. Otherwise the night was still, the wind gone.
A cat, a stray, wandered from an alleyway only to dart across the street and disappear into the darkness. Not liking the look of things, Hagen walked briskly away from the tenement. When he passed a boarded-up building, he knew he had his man. Short, squat and wearing a fedora. Standing by a door, cupping a lighted cigarette in one hand. As still as the night yet letting himself be seen.
Otto Krantz—he was certain of it. The Berliner would be chuckling at his discomfort.
The steps began when he was some distance away, and until he reached the bright lights, Hagen knew he was being followed.
Dieter and the girls weren’t at the Kakadu. He ran his eyes over the huge semicircular bar and the crowded tables. Pretty blond and brunette waitresses were everywhere—they never hired anything else in this place. There were men on the make, women too. Business was booming as usual.
“Do you wish a table?”
“Yes. Please. For four. No, make it for five.”
A number. Any number …
He let the waitress lead him to a table. He tipped her well, then took off his coat. Leaving the honey cake on the table and the coat over the back of a chair, he headed for the washrooms, pausing only to order a round of drinks for the friends who hadn’t shown up.
In the back, he shoved open the door of the men’s room, then made for the kitchens at a run. Once out on the street again, he managed to find another taxi. Krantz wasn’t far behind him. As the taxi turned a corner, Hagen had a last sight of him standing at the curbside enjoying life, a man on holiday, a Berliner …
At the Kranzler Restaurant there was no sign of Dieter and the girls. Something had gone wrong. He should never have left them, never have asked Irmgard to distract her brother.
Dee Dee lived in Charlottenburg overlooking the Lietzensee. When in Berlin, Irmgard often stayed with her. As he paid off the taxi, Hagen could see that the lights were out in the second-floor apartment.
The hall light was out, the door to the flat slightly ajar. He warned himself not to go in, to leave while he could. The doors should have been locked.
Dee Dee was lying facedown across the bed. Her arms were outstretched, her head turned away from him, the hair spilling forward in a tangle over the edge of the bed.
Blood had trickled from a cut behind her ear.
“Dee Dee …”
He couldn’t bring himself to move.
“Richard … oh, Richard. Dieter …”
The front of her dress had been ripped open to the waist. “Dieter went after you. Irmgard tried to stop him, but they … they came at me. One had a knife. They said they were going to teach me a lesson. They took me into the trees and they …”
A policeman had finally heard her screams and had blown his whistle. She had run from them and had somehow managed to get home.
She hadn’t been raped. “Lie back and try to rest. Let me get you a drink. It’s over, Dee Dee. Nothing more’s going to happen to you.”
Grimly he went through to the living room and switched on the lights. Still in his tuxedo, Dieter Karl was sitting in a chair. For a moment neither of them spoke, then Dieter said, “Where were you?”
“I went to see the daughter of one of our employees. She’s Jewish, Dieter. I didn’t want to cause you any embarrassment.”
“Then don’t. From now on be honest with me, Richard. If you need such help, you’ve only to ask.”
“Where’s Irmgard?”
“Gone home to Munich for her own good.” Daylight came at last, and with it a burst of sunlight that lit the living room and all the lovely things Dee Dee had gathered around her.
Hagen sat alone in a chair. Above the mantelpiece there was a still life by Cezanne, a magnificent thing, so simple though. A blue pot, some apples, a kitchen table. The warmth … a mother’s voice. Children somewhere … Why couldn’t life be like that?
The mantelpiece was of white, draped alabaster, with fluted panels at the sides and Greco-Roman carvings along the top. A tall, beautifully shaped porcelain vase from China complemented the painting.
There were small, gorgeous pieces of sculpture, other paintings, one by Degas, another by El Greco, a Dürer …
If she had to, Dee Dee must be made to leave it all behind.
Dieter brought them coffee and said that she was still sleeping. At a knock, Hagen went to answer the door.
It was another cable.
TO HAGEN RICHARD C/O REICH MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY BERLIN
FROM WUNSCH BERNARD DILLINGHAM AND COMPANY ANTWERP
DUTCH PROBLEM HAS RETURNED STOP INSIST YOU VISIT AMSTERDAM STOP REPORT CIRCUMSTANCES TO COMMITTEE ON RETURN STOP URGENT REPEAT URGENT STOP THIS MUST BE SETTLED
“What does it mean?”
He gave a noncommittal shrug. “Just an unhappy client. We get them now and then. This one’s fussier than most.”
“And the Committee?”
He didn’t avoid Dieter’s gaze. “Someone’s complained about me to the governing body of the Exchange. It’s nothing, Dieter. It’s just another problem. I get them all the time.”