Berlin Noir, page 84
‘Do you know anything about making wine?’ he asked, walking round the vat. ‘The crushing, as the word suggests, is the process whereby the grape is squeezed, bursting its skin and releasing the juice. As you will no doubt be aware it was once done by treading the grapes in huge casks. But most modern presses are pneumatic or electrically operated machines. The crushing is repeated several times, and thus is an indication of the quality of the wine, with the first press being the best of all. Once every bit of juice has been squeezed out, the residue – I believe Nebe calls it “the cake” – is supplied to a distillery; or, as is the case on this small estate, it is turned into fertilizer.’ Müller looked across at Arthur Nebe. ‘There, Arthur, did I get that right?’
Nebe smiled indulgently. ‘Perfectly right, Herr General.’
‘I hate to mislead anyone,’ Müller said with good humour. ‘Even a man who is going to die.’ He paused and looked down into the vat. ‘Of course at this precise moment it is not your life which is the most pressing issue, if I may be permitted that one tasteless little joke.’
The big Latvian guffawed in my ear, and my head was suddenly enveloped with the stink of his garlicky breath.
‘So I advise you to make your answers quickly and accurately, Herr Gunther. Fräulein Zartl’s life depends on it.’ He nodded at the man by the control panel who pressed a button which initiated a mechanical noise, gradually increasing in pitch.
‘Don’t think too harshly of us,’ said Müller. ‘These are hard times. There are shortages of everything. If we had any sodium pentathol we should give it to you. We should even look to buy it on the black market. But I think you’ll agree that this method is every bit as effective as any truth drug.’
‘Ask your damned questions.’
‘Ah, you’re in a hurry to answer. That’s good. Tell me then: who is this American policeman? The one who helped you dispose of Heim’s body.’
‘His name is John Belinsky. He works for Crowcass.’
‘How did you meet him?’
‘He knew that I was working to prove Becker’s innocence. He approached me with an offer to work in tandem. Initially he said that he wanted to find out why Captain Linden had been murdered, but then after a while he told me that he really wanted to find out about you. If you had anything to do with Linden’s death.’
‘So the Americans aren’t happy that they have the right man?’
‘No. Yes. The military police are. But the Crowcass people aren’t. The gun used to kill Linden was one which they traced back to a killing in Berlin. A corpse which was supposed to be you, Müller. And the gun checked back to SS records at the Berlin Documents Centre. Crowcass didn’t inform the military police for fear that they might spook you out of Vienna.’
‘And you were encouraged to infiltrate the Org on their behalf?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are they so certain that I’m here?’
‘Yes.’
‘But until this morning you had never seen me before. Explain how they know, please.’
‘The information that I supplied on the MVD was designed to draw you out. They know you like to consider yourself an expert in these matters. The thinking was that with information of such quality, you yourself would take charge of the debrief. If I saw you at this morning’s meeting I was to signal to Belinsky from the toilet window. I had to pull down the blind three times. He would be watching the window through binoculars.’
‘And then what?’
‘He was supposed to have brought agents to surround the house. He was meant to have arrested you. The deal was that if they were successful in arresting you, then they would let Becker go free.’
Nebe glanced over at one of his men, and jerked his head at the door. ‘Get some men to check the grounds. Just in case.’
Müller shrugged. ‘So you’re saying that the only reason they know I’m here in Vienna is because you made some signal to them from a lavatory window. Is that it?’ I nodded. ‘But then why didn’t this Belinsky have his men move in and arrest me, as you had planned?’
‘Believe me, I’ve been asking myself the same question.’
‘Come now, Herr Gunther. This is inconsistent, is it not? I ask you to be fair. How am I supposed to believe this?’
‘Would I have gone looking for the girl if I didn’t think there were going to be agents arriving?’
‘What time were you supposed to make your signal?’ asked Nebe.
‘Twenty minutes into the meeting I was supposed to excuse myself.’
‘At 10.20 then. But you were looking for Fraulein Zartl before seven o’clock this morning.’
‘I decided that she might not be able to wait until the Americans showed up.’
‘You’re asking us to believe that you would have risked a whole operation for one — ’ Müller’s nose wrinkled with disgust ‘ – for one little chocolady?’ He shook his head. ‘I find that very hard to believe.’ He nodded at the man controlling the wine press. This man pushed a second button and the machine’s hydraulics cranked into gear. ‘Come now, Herr Gunther. If what you say is true, why didn’t the Americans come when you signalled to them?’
‘I don’t know,’ I shouted.
‘Then speculate,’ said Nebe.
‘They never meant to arrest you,’ I said, putting into words my own suspicions. ‘All they wanted to know was that you were alive and working for the Org. They used me, and after they found out what they wanted, they dumped me.’
I tried to wrestle free of the Latvian as the press began its slow descent. Veronika lay unconscious, her chest swelling gently as she continued breathing, oblivious to the descending plate. I shook my head. ‘Look, I honestly don’t know why they didn’t turn up.’
‘So,’ said Müller, ‘let’s get this clear. The only evidence that they have of my continued existence, apart from this rather tenuous piece of ballistic evidence you mentioned, is your own signal.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘One more question. Do you — do the Amis — know why Captain Linden was killed?’
‘No,’ I said, and then reasoning that negative answers were not what was wanted, added: ‘We figured that he was being supplied with information about war-criminals in the Org. That he came to Vienna to investigate you. At first we thought that König was supplying him with the information.’ I shook my head, trying to recall some of the theories I had come up with to explain Linden’s death. ‘Then we thought that he might somehow have been supplying the Org with information in order to help you to recruit new members. Switch that machine off, for God’s sake.’
Veronika disappeared from sight as the press closed over the edge of the vat. There were only two or three metres of life left to her.
‘We didn’t know why, damn you.’
Müller’s voice was slow and calm, like a surgeon’s. ‘We must be sure, Herr Gunther. Let me repeat the question — ’
‘I don’t know — ’
‘Why was it necessary for us to kill Linden?’
I shook my head desperately.
‘Just tell me the truth. What do you know? You’re not being fair to this young woman. Tell us what you found out.’
The shrill whine of the machine grew louder. It reminded me of the sound of the elevator in my old offices in Berlin. Where I should have stayed.
‘Herr Gunther,’ Müller’s voice contained a gramme of urgency, ‘for the sake of this poor girl, I beg you.’
‘For God’s sake . . .’
He glanced over at the thug by the control panel and shook his squarely-cropped head.
‘I can’t tell you anything,’ I shouted.
The press shuddered as it encountered its living obstacle. The mechanical whine briefly rose a couple of octaves as the resistance to the hydraulic force was dealt with, and then returned to its old pitch before finally the press came to the end of its cruel journey. The noise died away at another nod from Müller.
‘Can’t, or won’t, Herr Gunther?’
‘You bastard,’ I said, suddenly weak with disgust, ‘you vicious, cruel bastard.’
‘I don’t think she’ll have felt much,’ he said with studied indifference. ‘She was drugged. Which is more than you will be when we repeat this little exercise in say — ’ he glanced at his wristwatch ‘ — twelve hours. You have until then to think it over.’ He looked over the edge of the vat. ‘I can’t promise to kill you outright, of course. Not like this girl. I might want to squeeze you two or three times before we spread you on the fields. Just like the grapes.
‘On the other hand, if you tell me what I wish to know, I can promise you a rather less painful death. A pill would be so much less distressing for you, don’t you think?’
I felt my lip curl. Muller winced fastidiously as I started to swear, and then shook his head.
‘Rainis,’ he said, ‘you may hit Herr Gunther just once before returning him to his quarters.’
36
Back in my cell I massaged the floating rib above my liver which Nebe’s Latvian had selected for one stunningly painful punch. At the same time I tried to douse the lights on the memory of what had just happened to Veronika, but without success.
I had met men who had been tortured by the Russians during the war. I remembered them describing how the most awful part of it was the uncertainty – whether you would die, whether you could withstand the pain. That part was certainly true. One of them had described a way of reducing the pain. Breathing deeply and gulping could induce a light-headedness that was partly anaesthetic. The only trouble was that it had also left my friend prone to bouts of chronic hyperventilation which eventually caused him to suffer a fatal heart-attack.
I cursed myself for my selfishness. An innocent girl, already a victim of the Nazis, had been killed because of her association with me. Somewhere inside of me a voice replied that it was she who had asked for my help, and that they might well have tortured and killed her irrespective of my own involvement. But I was in no mood to go easy on myself. Wasn’t there anything else I could have told Muller about Linden’s death that might have satisfied him? And what would I tell him when it came to my own turn? Selfish again. But there was no avoiding my egotism’s snake’s eyes. I didn’t want to die. More importantly, I didn’t want to die on my knees begging for mercy like an Italian war-hero.
They say impending pain offers the mind the purest aid to concentration. Doubtless Muller would have known that. Thinking about the lethal pill he had promised me if I told him whatever it was he wanted to hear helped me to remember something vital. Twisting round my handcuffs, I reached down into my trouser pocket, and tugged out the lining with my little finger, allowing the two pills I had taken from Heim’s surgery to roll into my palm.
I wasn’t even sure why I had taken them at all. Curiosity perhaps. Or maybe it was some subconscious prompt which had told me I might have need of a painless exit myself. For a long time I just stared at the tiny cyanide capsules with a mixture of relief and horrific fascination. After a while I hid one pill in my trouser-turnup, which left the one I had decided I would keep in my mouth – the one that would in all probability kill me. With an appreciation of irony that was much exaggerated by my situation, I reflected that I had Arthur Nebe to thank for diverting these lethal pills from the secret agents for whom they had been created to the top brass in the S S, and from them to me. Perhaps the pill in my hand had been Nebe’s own. It is of such speculations, however improbable, that a man’s philosophy consists during his last remaining hours.
I slipped the pill into my mouth and held it gingerly between my back molars. When the time came, would I even have the guts to chew the thing? My tongue pushed the pill over the edge of my tooth and into the corner of my cheek. I rubbed my fingers over my face and could feel it through the flesh. Would anyone see it? The only light in the cell came from a bare bulb fixed to one of the wooden rafters seemingly with nothing but cobwebs. All the same I couldn’t help thinking that the outline of the pill in my mouth was very much visible.
When a key scraped in the mortice, I realized that I would soon find out.
The Latvian came through the door holding his big Colt in one hand and a small tray in the other.
‘Get away from the door,’ he said thickly.
‘What’s this?’ I said, sliding backwards on my backside. ‘A meal? Perhaps you could tell the management that what I’d like most is a cigarette.’
‘Lucky to get anything at all,’ he growled. Carefully he squatted down and laid the tray on the dusty floor. There was a jug of coffee and a large slice of strudel. ‘The coffee’s fresh. The strudel is homemade.’
For a brief, stupid second I considered rushing him, before reminding myself that a man in my weakened condition could rush about as quickly as a frozen waterfall. And I would have had no more chance of overpowering the huge Latvian than I had of engaging him in Socratic dialogue. He seemed to sense some flicker of hope on my face however, even though the pill resting on my gum remained undetected. ‘Go ahead,’ he said, ‘try something. I wish you would; I’d like to blow your kneecap off.’ Laughing like a retarded grizzly bear he backed out of my cell and closed the door with a loud bang.
From the size of him, I judged Rainis to be the kind who enjoyed his food. When he wasn’t killing or hurting people it was probably his only real pleasure. Perhaps he was even something of a glutton. It occurred to me that if I were to leave the strudel untouched, Rainis might be unable to resist eating it himself. That if I were to put one of my cyanide capsules inside the filling then later on, perhaps long after I myself was dead, the dumb Latvian would eat my cake and die. It might, I reflected, be a comforting thought as I left the world, that he would be swiftly following me.
I decided to drink the coffee while I thought about it. Was a lethal pill hot-water-soluble? I didn’t know. So I popped the capsule out of my mouth, and thinking that it might as well be that pill which I used to put my pathetic plan into action, I pushed it into the fruit filling with my forefinger.
I could happily have eaten it myself, pill and all, I was so hungry. My watch told me that over fifteen hours had passed since my Viennese breakfast, and the coffee tasted good. I decided that it could only have been Arthur Nebe who had instructed the Latvian to bring me supper.
Another hour passed. There were eight to go before they would come to take me back upstairs. I would wait until there was no hope, no possibility of reprieve before I took my own life. I tried to sleep, but without much success. I was beginning to understand what Becker must have felt like, facing the gallows. At least I was better off than he was: I still had my lethal pill.
It was almost midnight when I heard the key in the lock again. Quickly I transferred my second pill from my trouser-turnup to my cheek in case they decided to search my clothes. But it was not Rainis who came to fetch my tray but Arthur Nebe. He held an automatic in his hand.
‘Don’t force me to use this, Bernie,’ he said. ‘You know I won’t hesitate to shoot you if I have to. You’d best get back against that far wall.’
‘What’s this? A social call?’ I dragged myself back from the door. He tossed a packet of cigarettes and some matches after me.
‘You might say that.’
‘I hope you’re not here to talk about old times, Arthur. I’m not feeling very sentimental right now.’ I looked at the cigarettes. Winston. ‘Does Müller know you’re smoking American nails, Arthur? Be careful. You might get into trouble: he’s got some strange ideas about the Amis.’ I lit one and inhaled with slow satisfaction. ‘Still, bless you for this.’
Nebe drew a chair round the door and sat down. ‘Müller has his own ideas of where the Org is going,’ he said. ‘But there’s no doubting his patriotism or his determination. He’s quite ruthless.’
‘I can’t say I’d noticed.’
‘He has an unfortunate tendency to judge other people by his own insensitive standards, however. Which means that he really does believe you are capable of keeping your mouth shut and allowing that girl to die.’ He smiled. ‘I, of course, know you rather better than that. Gunther is a sentimental sort of man, I told him. Even a little bit of a fool. It would be just like him to risk his neck for someone he hardly knew. Even a chocolady. It was the same in Minsk, I said. He was perfectly prepared to go to the front line rather than kill innocent people. People to whom he owed nothing.’
‘That doesn’t make me a hero, Arthur. Just a human being.’
‘It makes you someone Müller is used to dealing with: a man with a principle. Müller knows what men will take and still stay silent. He’s seen lots of people sacrifice their friends and then themselves in order to keep silent. He’s a fanatic. Fanaticism is the only thing he understands. And as a result he thinks you’re a fanatic. He’s convinced there’s a possibility that you might be holding out on him. As I said, I know you rather better than that. If you had known why Linden was killed I think you would have said so.’
‘Well, it’s nice to know somebody believes me. It’ll make being turned into this year’s vintage all the more bearable. Look, Arthur, why are you telling me this? So I can tell you that you’re a better judge of character than Müller?’
‘I was thinking: if you were to tell Müller exactly what he wants to hear, then it might save you a lot of pain. I’d hate to see an old friend suffer. And believe me, he’ll make you suffer.’
‘I don’t doubt it. It’s not this coffee that’s helped to keep me awake, I can tell you. Come on, what is this? The old friend and foe routine? Like I said, I don’t know why Linden was canned.’
‘No, but I could tell you.’
I winced as the cigarette smoke stung my eyes. ‘Let me get this straight,’ I said uncertainly. ‘You’re going to tell me what happened to Linden, in order that I can spill it to Müller, and thereby save myself from a fate worse than death, right?’
‘That’s about the size of it.’
I shrugged, painfully. ‘I don’t see that I’ve got anything to lose.’ I grinned. ‘Of course, you could just let me escape, Arthur. For old times’ sake.’
Nebe smiled indulgently. ‘Perfectly right, Herr General.’
‘I hate to mislead anyone,’ Müller said with good humour. ‘Even a man who is going to die.’ He paused and looked down into the vat. ‘Of course at this precise moment it is not your life which is the most pressing issue, if I may be permitted that one tasteless little joke.’
The big Latvian guffawed in my ear, and my head was suddenly enveloped with the stink of his garlicky breath.
‘So I advise you to make your answers quickly and accurately, Herr Gunther. Fräulein Zartl’s life depends on it.’ He nodded at the man by the control panel who pressed a button which initiated a mechanical noise, gradually increasing in pitch.
‘Don’t think too harshly of us,’ said Müller. ‘These are hard times. There are shortages of everything. If we had any sodium pentathol we should give it to you. We should even look to buy it on the black market. But I think you’ll agree that this method is every bit as effective as any truth drug.’
‘Ask your damned questions.’
‘Ah, you’re in a hurry to answer. That’s good. Tell me then: who is this American policeman? The one who helped you dispose of Heim’s body.’
‘His name is John Belinsky. He works for Crowcass.’
‘How did you meet him?’
‘He knew that I was working to prove Becker’s innocence. He approached me with an offer to work in tandem. Initially he said that he wanted to find out why Captain Linden had been murdered, but then after a while he told me that he really wanted to find out about you. If you had anything to do with Linden’s death.’
‘So the Americans aren’t happy that they have the right man?’
‘No. Yes. The military police are. But the Crowcass people aren’t. The gun used to kill Linden was one which they traced back to a killing in Berlin. A corpse which was supposed to be you, Müller. And the gun checked back to SS records at the Berlin Documents Centre. Crowcass didn’t inform the military police for fear that they might spook you out of Vienna.’
‘And you were encouraged to infiltrate the Org on their behalf?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are they so certain that I’m here?’
‘Yes.’
‘But until this morning you had never seen me before. Explain how they know, please.’
‘The information that I supplied on the MVD was designed to draw you out. They know you like to consider yourself an expert in these matters. The thinking was that with information of such quality, you yourself would take charge of the debrief. If I saw you at this morning’s meeting I was to signal to Belinsky from the toilet window. I had to pull down the blind three times. He would be watching the window through binoculars.’
‘And then what?’
‘He was supposed to have brought agents to surround the house. He was meant to have arrested you. The deal was that if they were successful in arresting you, then they would let Becker go free.’
Nebe glanced over at one of his men, and jerked his head at the door. ‘Get some men to check the grounds. Just in case.’
Müller shrugged. ‘So you’re saying that the only reason they know I’m here in Vienna is because you made some signal to them from a lavatory window. Is that it?’ I nodded. ‘But then why didn’t this Belinsky have his men move in and arrest me, as you had planned?’
‘Believe me, I’ve been asking myself the same question.’
‘Come now, Herr Gunther. This is inconsistent, is it not? I ask you to be fair. How am I supposed to believe this?’
‘Would I have gone looking for the girl if I didn’t think there were going to be agents arriving?’
‘What time were you supposed to make your signal?’ asked Nebe.
‘Twenty minutes into the meeting I was supposed to excuse myself.’
‘At 10.20 then. But you were looking for Fraulein Zartl before seven o’clock this morning.’
‘I decided that she might not be able to wait until the Americans showed up.’
‘You’re asking us to believe that you would have risked a whole operation for one — ’ Müller’s nose wrinkled with disgust ‘ – for one little chocolady?’ He shook his head. ‘I find that very hard to believe.’ He nodded at the man controlling the wine press. This man pushed a second button and the machine’s hydraulics cranked into gear. ‘Come now, Herr Gunther. If what you say is true, why didn’t the Americans come when you signalled to them?’
‘I don’t know,’ I shouted.
‘Then speculate,’ said Nebe.
‘They never meant to arrest you,’ I said, putting into words my own suspicions. ‘All they wanted to know was that you were alive and working for the Org. They used me, and after they found out what they wanted, they dumped me.’
I tried to wrestle free of the Latvian as the press began its slow descent. Veronika lay unconscious, her chest swelling gently as she continued breathing, oblivious to the descending plate. I shook my head. ‘Look, I honestly don’t know why they didn’t turn up.’
‘So,’ said Müller, ‘let’s get this clear. The only evidence that they have of my continued existence, apart from this rather tenuous piece of ballistic evidence you mentioned, is your own signal.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘One more question. Do you — do the Amis — know why Captain Linden was killed?’
‘No,’ I said, and then reasoning that negative answers were not what was wanted, added: ‘We figured that he was being supplied with information about war-criminals in the Org. That he came to Vienna to investigate you. At first we thought that König was supplying him with the information.’ I shook my head, trying to recall some of the theories I had come up with to explain Linden’s death. ‘Then we thought that he might somehow have been supplying the Org with information in order to help you to recruit new members. Switch that machine off, for God’s sake.’
Veronika disappeared from sight as the press closed over the edge of the vat. There were only two or three metres of life left to her.
‘We didn’t know why, damn you.’
Müller’s voice was slow and calm, like a surgeon’s. ‘We must be sure, Herr Gunther. Let me repeat the question — ’
‘I don’t know — ’
‘Why was it necessary for us to kill Linden?’
I shook my head desperately.
‘Just tell me the truth. What do you know? You’re not being fair to this young woman. Tell us what you found out.’
The shrill whine of the machine grew louder. It reminded me of the sound of the elevator in my old offices in Berlin. Where I should have stayed.
‘Herr Gunther,’ Müller’s voice contained a gramme of urgency, ‘for the sake of this poor girl, I beg you.’
‘For God’s sake . . .’
He glanced over at the thug by the control panel and shook his squarely-cropped head.
‘I can’t tell you anything,’ I shouted.
The press shuddered as it encountered its living obstacle. The mechanical whine briefly rose a couple of octaves as the resistance to the hydraulic force was dealt with, and then returned to its old pitch before finally the press came to the end of its cruel journey. The noise died away at another nod from Müller.
‘Can’t, or won’t, Herr Gunther?’
‘You bastard,’ I said, suddenly weak with disgust, ‘you vicious, cruel bastard.’
‘I don’t think she’ll have felt much,’ he said with studied indifference. ‘She was drugged. Which is more than you will be when we repeat this little exercise in say — ’ he glanced at his wristwatch ‘ — twelve hours. You have until then to think it over.’ He looked over the edge of the vat. ‘I can’t promise to kill you outright, of course. Not like this girl. I might want to squeeze you two or three times before we spread you on the fields. Just like the grapes.
‘On the other hand, if you tell me what I wish to know, I can promise you a rather less painful death. A pill would be so much less distressing for you, don’t you think?’
I felt my lip curl. Muller winced fastidiously as I started to swear, and then shook his head.
‘Rainis,’ he said, ‘you may hit Herr Gunther just once before returning him to his quarters.’
36
Back in my cell I massaged the floating rib above my liver which Nebe’s Latvian had selected for one stunningly painful punch. At the same time I tried to douse the lights on the memory of what had just happened to Veronika, but without success.
I had met men who had been tortured by the Russians during the war. I remembered them describing how the most awful part of it was the uncertainty – whether you would die, whether you could withstand the pain. That part was certainly true. One of them had described a way of reducing the pain. Breathing deeply and gulping could induce a light-headedness that was partly anaesthetic. The only trouble was that it had also left my friend prone to bouts of chronic hyperventilation which eventually caused him to suffer a fatal heart-attack.
I cursed myself for my selfishness. An innocent girl, already a victim of the Nazis, had been killed because of her association with me. Somewhere inside of me a voice replied that it was she who had asked for my help, and that they might well have tortured and killed her irrespective of my own involvement. But I was in no mood to go easy on myself. Wasn’t there anything else I could have told Muller about Linden’s death that might have satisfied him? And what would I tell him when it came to my own turn? Selfish again. But there was no avoiding my egotism’s snake’s eyes. I didn’t want to die. More importantly, I didn’t want to die on my knees begging for mercy like an Italian war-hero.
They say impending pain offers the mind the purest aid to concentration. Doubtless Muller would have known that. Thinking about the lethal pill he had promised me if I told him whatever it was he wanted to hear helped me to remember something vital. Twisting round my handcuffs, I reached down into my trouser pocket, and tugged out the lining with my little finger, allowing the two pills I had taken from Heim’s surgery to roll into my palm.
I wasn’t even sure why I had taken them at all. Curiosity perhaps. Or maybe it was some subconscious prompt which had told me I might have need of a painless exit myself. For a long time I just stared at the tiny cyanide capsules with a mixture of relief and horrific fascination. After a while I hid one pill in my trouser-turnup, which left the one I had decided I would keep in my mouth – the one that would in all probability kill me. With an appreciation of irony that was much exaggerated by my situation, I reflected that I had Arthur Nebe to thank for diverting these lethal pills from the secret agents for whom they had been created to the top brass in the S S, and from them to me. Perhaps the pill in my hand had been Nebe’s own. It is of such speculations, however improbable, that a man’s philosophy consists during his last remaining hours.
I slipped the pill into my mouth and held it gingerly between my back molars. When the time came, would I even have the guts to chew the thing? My tongue pushed the pill over the edge of my tooth and into the corner of my cheek. I rubbed my fingers over my face and could feel it through the flesh. Would anyone see it? The only light in the cell came from a bare bulb fixed to one of the wooden rafters seemingly with nothing but cobwebs. All the same I couldn’t help thinking that the outline of the pill in my mouth was very much visible.
When a key scraped in the mortice, I realized that I would soon find out.
The Latvian came through the door holding his big Colt in one hand and a small tray in the other.
‘Get away from the door,’ he said thickly.
‘What’s this?’ I said, sliding backwards on my backside. ‘A meal? Perhaps you could tell the management that what I’d like most is a cigarette.’
‘Lucky to get anything at all,’ he growled. Carefully he squatted down and laid the tray on the dusty floor. There was a jug of coffee and a large slice of strudel. ‘The coffee’s fresh. The strudel is homemade.’
For a brief, stupid second I considered rushing him, before reminding myself that a man in my weakened condition could rush about as quickly as a frozen waterfall. And I would have had no more chance of overpowering the huge Latvian than I had of engaging him in Socratic dialogue. He seemed to sense some flicker of hope on my face however, even though the pill resting on my gum remained undetected. ‘Go ahead,’ he said, ‘try something. I wish you would; I’d like to blow your kneecap off.’ Laughing like a retarded grizzly bear he backed out of my cell and closed the door with a loud bang.
From the size of him, I judged Rainis to be the kind who enjoyed his food. When he wasn’t killing or hurting people it was probably his only real pleasure. Perhaps he was even something of a glutton. It occurred to me that if I were to leave the strudel untouched, Rainis might be unable to resist eating it himself. That if I were to put one of my cyanide capsules inside the filling then later on, perhaps long after I myself was dead, the dumb Latvian would eat my cake and die. It might, I reflected, be a comforting thought as I left the world, that he would be swiftly following me.
I decided to drink the coffee while I thought about it. Was a lethal pill hot-water-soluble? I didn’t know. So I popped the capsule out of my mouth, and thinking that it might as well be that pill which I used to put my pathetic plan into action, I pushed it into the fruit filling with my forefinger.
I could happily have eaten it myself, pill and all, I was so hungry. My watch told me that over fifteen hours had passed since my Viennese breakfast, and the coffee tasted good. I decided that it could only have been Arthur Nebe who had instructed the Latvian to bring me supper.
Another hour passed. There were eight to go before they would come to take me back upstairs. I would wait until there was no hope, no possibility of reprieve before I took my own life. I tried to sleep, but without much success. I was beginning to understand what Becker must have felt like, facing the gallows. At least I was better off than he was: I still had my lethal pill.
It was almost midnight when I heard the key in the lock again. Quickly I transferred my second pill from my trouser-turnup to my cheek in case they decided to search my clothes. But it was not Rainis who came to fetch my tray but Arthur Nebe. He held an automatic in his hand.
‘Don’t force me to use this, Bernie,’ he said. ‘You know I won’t hesitate to shoot you if I have to. You’d best get back against that far wall.’
‘What’s this? A social call?’ I dragged myself back from the door. He tossed a packet of cigarettes and some matches after me.
‘You might say that.’
‘I hope you’re not here to talk about old times, Arthur. I’m not feeling very sentimental right now.’ I looked at the cigarettes. Winston. ‘Does Müller know you’re smoking American nails, Arthur? Be careful. You might get into trouble: he’s got some strange ideas about the Amis.’ I lit one and inhaled with slow satisfaction. ‘Still, bless you for this.’
Nebe drew a chair round the door and sat down. ‘Müller has his own ideas of where the Org is going,’ he said. ‘But there’s no doubting his patriotism or his determination. He’s quite ruthless.’
‘I can’t say I’d noticed.’
‘He has an unfortunate tendency to judge other people by his own insensitive standards, however. Which means that he really does believe you are capable of keeping your mouth shut and allowing that girl to die.’ He smiled. ‘I, of course, know you rather better than that. Gunther is a sentimental sort of man, I told him. Even a little bit of a fool. It would be just like him to risk his neck for someone he hardly knew. Even a chocolady. It was the same in Minsk, I said. He was perfectly prepared to go to the front line rather than kill innocent people. People to whom he owed nothing.’
‘That doesn’t make me a hero, Arthur. Just a human being.’
‘It makes you someone Müller is used to dealing with: a man with a principle. Müller knows what men will take and still stay silent. He’s seen lots of people sacrifice their friends and then themselves in order to keep silent. He’s a fanatic. Fanaticism is the only thing he understands. And as a result he thinks you’re a fanatic. He’s convinced there’s a possibility that you might be holding out on him. As I said, I know you rather better than that. If you had known why Linden was killed I think you would have said so.’
‘Well, it’s nice to know somebody believes me. It’ll make being turned into this year’s vintage all the more bearable. Look, Arthur, why are you telling me this? So I can tell you that you’re a better judge of character than Müller?’
‘I was thinking: if you were to tell Müller exactly what he wants to hear, then it might save you a lot of pain. I’d hate to see an old friend suffer. And believe me, he’ll make you suffer.’
‘I don’t doubt it. It’s not this coffee that’s helped to keep me awake, I can tell you. Come on, what is this? The old friend and foe routine? Like I said, I don’t know why Linden was canned.’
‘No, but I could tell you.’
I winced as the cigarette smoke stung my eyes. ‘Let me get this straight,’ I said uncertainly. ‘You’re going to tell me what happened to Linden, in order that I can spill it to Müller, and thereby save myself from a fate worse than death, right?’
‘That’s about the size of it.’
I shrugged, painfully. ‘I don’t see that I’ve got anything to lose.’ I grinned. ‘Of course, you could just let me escape, Arthur. For old times’ sake.’
