The Second Winter, page 9
At the next corner, a German lieutenant in a green uniform was standing in the shelter of a doorway. The sky was low. At four o’clock, the day was already darkening into night. If the driver hadn’t been expecting to find him there, he wouldn’t have seen the lieutenant at all. Cautiously, scanning the sidewalk, he slowed the car. The idle was uneven, and the engine threatened to quit. The brakes squealed. He brought the car to a stop, kept the engine running by riding the throttle. The lieutenant darted from the safety of the doorway, circled the car to the passenger side. When he grabbed the handle, the latch wouldn’t budge, and he rattled the door, knocked on the glass. The driver leaned across the seat to let him in. “Hurry up,” he said to the lieutenant. He started pulling forward again even before the German had climbed inside.
The lieutenant yanked the door closed behind him, brushed the rain off his shoulders. Water pooled on the seat beneath his wet uniform. “It rains too much in Denmark,” he said. He pulled off his spectacles to wipe them dry.
“In Norway,” the driver said, “this rain will be snow.”
The lieutenant shrugged. If this man thought that Germany’s battles belonged to him, there was little he could say to defend himself.
“Anyway,” the driver said, “it provides us with some cover. And that’s what we want right now.” He scanned the empty sidewalk again. He was every bit as afraid of being seen with this Nazi as the German was of being caught with him.
The lieutenant replaced his spectacles on the bridge of his nose, turned slightly so that he could examine the man behind the wheel. At first glance, Ludvig Gregersen did not appear to be a particularly powerful man. His hair was thinning, and the skin on his nose was pocked. He was somewhat overweight, and his posture was poor. But the hands on the steering wheel belonged to a giant. He sat folded in the seat with his arms and knees bent, as if this automobile was too small for him. And his eyes glistened with their own intelligence. He was not, the lieutenant decided, someone to underestimate. “Where are you taking me?” he asked the Dane.
Ludvig pursed his thick, red lips, but made no pretense of trying to answer. He stared out the windshield, gauged the accelerator under the heavy sole of his shoe. Except for the unsteady growl of the engine, the car remained silent. Five minutes later, when he finally responded to the question, the German had already forgotten that he had posed it. “You will see soon enough,” Ludvig said, and it took a beat for the lieutenant to figure out what he meant.
On the southern outskirts of Copenhagen, the Mercedes-Benz rolled over two sets of railroad tracks and pulled to a stop in front of a large gray warehouse. The lot beside the building was empty, save for a couple of trucks parked at odd angles and a few stacks of wooden pallets. A single window was lit on the far side of the building. Otherwise, the structure looked abandoned. The rain struck the corrugated roof with a steady roar. From inside the car, the sound was the roll of a drum. The German looked up and down the wide street. He made a mental note of a tall grain silo a few hundred feet farther down the tracks — this was a landmark that he would be able to remember. Next to him, the Dane read his thoughts.
“This warehouse belongs to the Gregersens,” he said. “So it was a convenient place for us to stash some of our belongings after your army invaded. But we are not foolish enough to leave our most valuable possessions here for any length of time. The paintings that I show you will not be here tonight after we leave.”
The lieutenant’s uniform rustled against the wet leather as he turned to face Ludvig. “This is a business for me,” he said. “Not a heist.”
“Your pistol, Herr Schmidt,” Ludvig said.
Hermann Schmidt didn’t resist. He unfastened the snap on the holster at his side, lifted out his Luger, handed it butt-first to the larger man.
“We will leave this here,” the Dane said. He shoved the weapon under the driver’s seat before unlatching the door. The hinges screeched. Outside, tilting his head back like a child might, he let his eyes travel up the quilt of interlocking planes formed by the slanting rain as he waited for Hermann to follow him.
The two men entered the warehouse with their jackets glistening. When Hermann stamped his boots on the floor, the smack of wet leather against concrete echoed through the cavernous hall. A single bank of windows, glowing almost violet in the late-afternoon light, provided the only illumination, and the rain streaming over the glass threw flickering shadows into the hazy air. Ludvig found a switch, and a series of bulbs lit the space. Except for a few random piles of clutter, the warehouse was empty.
Ludvig raised his hands palms up. “Most of what we had here was already seized.”
“Was it a factory?” the German asked.
“I come from a family of traders,” Ludvig said. “We used to be buyers. Now, unfortunately, we have no choice but to be sellers.” He started across the warehouse. His shadow slid behind him on the concrete floor, then leaped ahead of him when he reached the first overhead lamp. Hermann hesitated. Somehow, he realized that they weren’t alone. He hadn’t heard or seen anything. He simply felt it — he was being watched. He suppressed a shiver, rubbed his hands together, followed the Dane. Ludvig led him into a dark corner. At first, all Hermann saw was an empty crate, shoved against the wall. Then he noticed a small stack of frames next to it, covered with a clean white sheet. Ludvig snatched the drape off the frames, carefully picked the first one up. When he swiveled it around in his palms, he revealed what appeared to be an important work, a Madonna and child, in the Baroque style. The paint was obviously a few hundred years old, and the saturated colors and sensual shapes were familiar.
Hermann reached for the canvas, but Ludvig pulled it back. “Is it a Rubens?” Hermann asked. “It couldn’t be —”
Ludvig smiled. “You are very close. Anthony van Dyck, an apprentice of his —”
“I know who Van Dyck is,” Hermann said, interrupting him. He reached again for the canvas. “May I?”
Ludvig didn’t object, and, holding the painting by the frame, Hermann carried it into better light. The paint was cracked, but its condition was relatively good. The back of the canvas was smudged with glazed resin. As he evaluated the artwork, the incandescence from the bulb above his head surrounded him in a fuzzy, taupe cone. Stray rays of light carved shafts into the shadows.
“If you keep a masterpiece like this here in the cold and damp, you will destroy it.”
Ludvig acknowledged the point with a tilt of his head.
Hermann couldn’t hide his excitement. The white of the Madonna’s skin was beginning to yellow and the varnish was losing its gloss, but there was no mistaking the painting’s beauty. Or its value. In Germany, the market for it would be at least five thousand reichsmarks, maybe double that. “You take a risk bringing me here,” he said.
“You take a risk coming here,” Ludvig countered.
“How do you know I won’t simply notify the authorities and have this confiscated?”
Ludvig shrugged. “A family friend tells me you can be trusted. And if you do betray me to the authorities, as you say, we both lose, don’t we?”
At last, Hermann raised his eyes from the painting. “And the other two?” he asked, nodding toward the other frames still stacked against the crate.
Ludvig’s expression didn’t alter. He was watching the lieutenant without blinking. “Tell me about this one first,” he said. “How much will you pay us for it? And how quickly?”
There was so much smoke inside the cramped bar that, behind his spectacles, Hermann’s eyes were burning. The man in front of him, wearing a captain’s uniform, was chewing on the butt of a thin cigar. When the captain exhaled, he made no effort to direct the smoke away from Hermann. On the other side of the counter, a lanky, empty-eyed bartender reached for a bottle, then turned it upside down over the captain’s glass. A thin stream of clear liquid trickled from a chrome spout. In the far corner of the room, a scuffle erupted. Twisting on his barstool, Hermann looked. The captain didn’t. A soldier crashed against a table, and a few glasses shattered on the floor. Another man yanked the soldier to his feet, then hustled him out the door. A welcome gust of fresh air rushed inside. Then the door closed again and the sounds subsided back into the usual cacophony of voices. Hermann couldn’t breathe. The captain was squeezing his shoulder for more than a few seconds before he became aware of the pressure. He reached for his drink. He hadn’t touched it yet, and already this was the captain’s third.
“How long have we known each other now, Hermann?” the captain asked him. “Hey?”
Hermann shook his head. His eyes were drawn to a few wisps of tobacco smoke escaping through the captain’s teeth.
“The irony is, my father worked for your father for twenty-five years. You went to the university — what did you study — it was art, wasn’t it?” The captain made no attempt to mask his scorn — or the pleasure he took in his next thought. “Like my father, I became a mechanic. Now look where the two of us are sitting.”
“I will pay you back, Fritz,” Hermann said.
The captain swallowed half his drink. “I have no doubt.”
“With interest,” Hermann said. “The three thousand back into your pocket, plus twenty-five percent. This is a business proposition. I’m not asking for any favors.”
The captain ran his tongue over his teeth, took another swallow of his vodka. “But you won’t tell me what the money is for.”
Hermann avoided the captain’s intense stare. He knew Fritz better than he wanted to — well enough to know that, if he divulged the details of the deal he was working on, his old friend would no longer be happy with a profit of twenty-five percent. He would demand a share of Hermann’s take from his buyer in Germany. He wished that he had somewhere else to turn for capital. If only he hadn’t stretched himself so thin — But the Gregersens’ paintings were as good as gold. Prospects like this didn’t materialize every day.
“Three thousand marks,” the captain repeated. His eyes roved the small, crowded bar in a squint, then settled again on Hermann’s face. “Three thousand, and in cash. What does a photographer need with three thousand marks? Hey?”
“By Thursday,” Hermann said. “I need it by Thursday — Friday at the latest.”
The captain gave Hermann’s shoulder a gentle punch. “And quickly. Hey?” When Hermann didn’t respond with so much as a shrug, the captain thought of something else. “You never have told me, my friend, what a photographer is doing here in Denmark in a German uniform in the first place —”
“Does that matter?”
I’m curious —”
“I’m as much a part of the Wehrmacht as you are, Fritz.”
The captain gave Hermann’s shoulder another gentle punch. “With your tiny camera, you mean?”
Hermann ignored the captain’s derision. “Tomorrow I’m to use that tiny camera to take a photograph of King Christian riding his horse in the street, in front of the palace.”
The captain smirked. “Are you hoping to impress me with that?” He spread his arms. “Do you really think anyone cares what happens in this pathetic little country? Every fool knows who that horse belongs to now anyway. The palace, too.”
Despite his own lack of interest in the subject, Hermann’s pride asserted itself. “The Ministry of Propaganda wants evidence — pictures, motion pictures even — to show the world what a German protectorate can look like. Reich Minister Goebbels himself issued the order for this photograph to be taken.”
“Herr Goebbels himself, hey?”
Hermann assessed the captain’s contemptuous smile. He had to resist the impulse to stand up and walk away. “About the money —” Behind him, a drunk bumped into his back, and he jerked forward. He glanced at the goon over his shoulder, then quietly lifted his glass to his mouth, took a swallow. The alcohol burned his lips, carved a path across his tongue, down his throat. “I need an answer from you. This opportunity — it won’t wait.”
The captain took his time, pursed his lips. He was still sneering. “You know, that much money, it will cost me something to get it.” He picked up his glass, realized that it was empty, tapped the counter a few times with a stiff finger. Despite how busy he was, the bartender took a quick step over, grabbed the bottle, poured another refill. “Twenty-five percent sounds like a lot. But it depends, doesn’t it?”
“It depends on what?”
“How long will you need it?”
Once again, the drunk soldier behind Hermann banged into him, this time causing him to spill his drink. When Hermann didn’t react, the captain’s brow creased. His eyes flashed, and he reached across his friend and gave the soldier a rough shove. The soldier twisted around. His eyes were bleary, his face was contorted. The moment he saw the captain, though, his expression changed. His jaw relaxed, and he licked his lips. His eyes darkened with confusion.
“Why don’t you watch yourself, hey?”
“I —” The soldier fumbled for words, and this only seemed to infuriate the captain more. “It was an accident —”
“Hey?” The captain half stood from his stool, gave the soldier another shove. This one sent him reeling into the counter. The soldier caught himself, pulled himself back to his feet.
“I’m sorry,” he sputtered.
The captain’s face was livid. Hermann reached for his shoulder, but the captain shook his hand off him. “It’s okay,” Hermann told him. “The bar is crowded —”
“Sure,” the captain said. The flush on his cheeks dissipated into a patchwork of purple stains and white splotches. “Sure.” He sat back down, took a drag on his cigar. “Prost!” He raised his glass, waited for Hermann to do the same.
“Prost,” Hermann echoed.
“You’re a lucky man,” the captain said to the drunk soldier, not yet ready to let him go. “You hear me? Consider this your lucky night.”
“Forget about it, Fritz,” Hermann said.
The captain took another swig from his glass, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Answer the question, then. How long?”
Behind the captain, across the smoky bar, a door that led to a back room swung open, and a black-haired woman emerged. Hermann tracked her entrance over his friend’s shoulder. She wasn’t really a woman. She was just a girl — she couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Hermann recognized instantly that she was a prostitute. This was clear from her makeup and the way she carried herself, the clothes she wore — a short skirt and fishnet stockings, a white jacket pulled tight over a red shirt. The jet-black hair was a wig. And then, a step behind her, the two girls holding hands as they entered the raucous bar, she was followed out of the back room by a second prostitute, younger still. This one was fair and thin, but taller. Her hair was her own, tied in a loose bun. Even from this distance, even through the thick air, through the shadows, Hermann was struck by how pale her eyes were. She was dressed like the other prostitute in a revealing skirt and stockings, but she carried herself differently. Hermann couldn’t define his reaction to her. He simply felt a twinge in his heart. He fully intended to answer the captain’s question. He hadn’t forgotten Ludvig Gregersen or his paintings. He knew how much he stood to profit. He would double the money for himself, probably even triple it. But he couldn’t pull his eyes from the girl.
“Hey?” The captain mistook his friend’s hesitation for reluctance. He hadn’t yet seen the prostitutes. “How long will you need the money? You have to acknowledge the point, Hermann — twenty-five percent for a week is a different proposition from twenty-five percent for a month.”
“I —” Hermann began, but then lost his train of thought. “A few days maybe.” An unshaven man with long, greasy hair emerged from the back room as well. He grabbed the slender girl by the elbow, then started with her toward the front of the bar. The black-haired prostitute followed. Hermann struggled to return his attention to the captain. “No more than a week —”
When someone whistled at the girls, at last the captain twisted on his stool to get a look behind him. He shifted forward again abruptly, fastened his friend with a scowl. “One would almost think, Hermann,” he said, unimpressed, “that you have never seen a whore before.”
“So what will it be, then?” Hermann demanded, still distracted. He was wondering what these two prostitutes and their pimp had been doing in the back room. He had heard of such things — The same door opened again, and now an officer in a German uniform stumbled out, tucking his shirt into his trousers. Picturing this animal with the prostitutes, Hermann felt suddenly flustered. He wanted to hurry the captain, to finish this discussion. “Will you lend me the money or won’t you?”
“Three thousand marks for one week,” the captain said. “Is that what you are asking?”
“One week,” Hermann confirmed. “No more than that.” The pimp shoved the front door open, and a fresh gust of wind reached Hermann through a crowd of anxious, hungry men who, like him, had fixed upon these women who could be had by any of them for a pocketful of coins. The rain was coming down in a torrent now. Splattered by the shrapnel of a few stray drops, the pimp paused long enough to flip up the collar of his coat. The heavy nylon tresses of the prostitute’s black wig hardly rustled. Wisps of the other girl’s hair caught the wind, and she had to swipe a few glistening, golden strands from her mouth. Even then, her focus never once wavered from an imaginary point in front of her face. Her expression remained somber, and she never returned any of the men’s stares. Hermann had the impression that the night had spilled inside through the open door, stealing the light from her complexion. “At the end of the week, I return the three thousand to you, plus seven hundred and fifty for your trouble.” The pimp pushed the black-haired prostitute outside first, then the other girl. And then, swallowed into the ink, they were gone. As the door slammed shut behind them, Hermann felt himself overcome with a sense of loss that he wouldn’t have been able to explain.
