The Knife-Edge Path

by Patrick T. Leahy

  “Slur all you want. You’ll never understand.”

  “Help me to understand what the S stands for after your surname, Hauser?”

  “My name is Helmut Franz!”

  “And mine is Charles de Gaulle,” Mattei said.

  The prisoner clapped his arms across his chest, glared sullenly at the table pressing his lips into a thin, tight line.

  With a sigh Mattei stood back. He called out loudly, “Corporal Dax!”

  The door flew open as if Dax had kept his hand poised on the doorknob. “Sir!”

  “Take this man away. Oh, and see to it that he gets a shower before he’s brought up here again.”

  “When would that be, sir?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll let him simmer a while.”

  Simmer a while, Geli underlined in her mind. That was his method. When might they ever get to Kurt? Or had some other officer taken him on?

  “Yes, sir,” Dax said, “What I meant was, how soon do you want him to be bathed?”

  Mattei looked at him. “What’s the point of waiting? That goes for all the others, too.”

  “Well, sir, we’re not equipped down there to do anything like that for them.”

  “What do you mean? No shower room?”

  “We do have one, sir, but that’s for us, not them.”

  Mattei stared at Dax, then flirted with a smirk. “Now look here, Dax. If you’ve got the water and all that – water is water. Plenty to go around.”

  Dax shrugged. “It hasn’t been that way for quite some time, sir. In fact, never.”

  Mattei shifted his weight and, rocking on his feet, came to a regal standstill. “Who is your superior down there?”

  “Lieutenant Giraud, until the other day, sir. Now we’ve got Lieutenant Dronne.”

  “Pass along to Dronne that the smell these prisoners bring up here is intolerable. They need to be hosed down, at least. Given something clean to wear.”

  “All of them, sir?” Dax said.

  Mattei squinted at Dax. “You don’t mop half a floor, do you, Dax? We’re talking hygiene, here, which is as much in your interest as theirs.”

  “What I’m thinking, sir, is that Lieutenant Dronne, being new to us, is somewhat wet behind the ears, you might say. He may have some trouble convincing our men to share the shower room with the mauvais.”

  The prisoner moved his head, now gazing up at the two men as if his fate was being decided in a kennel. Dax sucked in on a wincing, uneasy smile.

  With his canny, intelligent eyes, he seemed in some ways more grown-up than Mattei, Geli thought, making it harder on him to avoid, at times, taking the subordinate role.

  “Tell me, Dax,” Mattei said, “do you think Lieutenant Dronne will have any problem obeying my order?”

  “Well, sir, I’m only saying he could be somewhat at a loss, since sanitary arrangements for the prisoners have never been discussed. They’re them, you know. Some sort of serious dissension could break out.”

  “We’ll worry about dissension after you pass along my order.”

  “Of course, sir. I’m confident that Lieutenant Dronne will find a way to -”

  “There are no two ways about following an order, Dax.”

  Dax stood up straight, ramming his arms down rigidly. “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell Dronne I’ll have a word with him if you run into any trouble getting through to him.”

  Dax shook himself to proper attention, lifting his chin sharply. “I’m sure it won’t come to that, sir.”

  Mattei’s eyes softened. His face relaxed. “All right, then. Get this man out of my sight. You might keep in mind that these mauvais, as you refer to them, are not so isolated as that epithet implies. They’re carriers. You don’t want vermin jumping from them onto you like it’s a free-for-all. Does that make any sense to you, Dax?”

  “Yes, sir, perfect sense.”

  “Feel free to pass along that line of thinking to Lieutenant Dronne.”

  “Yes, sir, I will. Shall I – would you like another prisoner brought up now?”

  Mattei glanced at his watch. “No. I’ve got a staff meeting here in a few more minutes.” Exhaling stormily, he reached into his briefcase, took out a small notebook and began to riffle through it. “Tomorrow morning we’ll have 1074. Time to give him another going over.” Mattei clapped the notebook shut.

  Dax saluted, went over to the prisoner and helped him out of his chair and hustled him out.

  Geli felt their departure struggling with the looks she was wrapped up in as she braced herself to be alone with Major Mattei. Alone again with her eyes set off with too much makeup, the tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles, blond hair straying from hairpins in the hastily done-up pile. Once a stenographer still knowing in her native French the skills of shorthand well enough to be employed. Mlle Simone Miroux, experienced in operating a dictaphone, too. She’d passed the interview with flying colors with a man who not only appreciated her skills, but took a liking to her that she couldn’t help but notice had not much to do with shorthand.

  “Would you care for a cigarette, Mlle Miroux?” Major Mattei was pulling out a pack from inside his blouse.

  “Yes, thank you, Monsieur.”

  He stepped over toward her, tapping out a clutch of three cigarettes. She took one. He struck a match and she leaned toward the flame. He lit his own with the same match, waved out the flame. “My apologies for the foul odor of the German. He wasn’t quite that bad the other day.”

  “The smell rather reminds me of what they are,” she said.

  “All of them the same in your book?”

  “Their stories change, but essentially the lie doesn’t. Whatever it takes to save their own skins.”

  “Yes. Usually you can see the lie in their eyes while they’re trying to fool you. I’ve learned to read a great deal in a man’s eyes.”

  “It’s not my place to look into his eyes. And if it were, I wouldn’t. I’d hang them all and be done with it.”

  “But then you’d never have had this job, and I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of knowing you.”

  She blew smoke through a smile. “I suppose that’s true, isn’t it?”

  Major Mattei’s eyes strayed toward the top button of her blouse. “It’s difficult to set aside your emotions when you’re dealing with these people. But that’s what we have to do. Set aside emotions. Justice is tainted by the slightest trace of revenge.”

  “The Nazis spit on niceties like that for five years. Because of them, my father and one of my brothers are dead.”

  “I’m terribly sorry to hear that. So are you living alone, now?”

  “Well, no. As I believe I’ve told you, I live with my sister in the Rue de l’Odéon. A tiny place, but we manage. A Nazi officer used to come courting Maxine. He was young and very handsome, like this Hauser. He was always very polite and Maxine liked him, but I made trouble. She’s still angry with me. I told her, somebody will say we collaborated. Do you want that to follow you the rest of your life?”

  Major Mattei puffed on his cigarette while with his eyes he seemed to caress the downy slope of her nose and the fullness of her lips which, just then, she ran her tongue across. “What about you, Mlle Miroux? How many amorous Nazi hearts might you have had the opportunity to break?”

  “Not me, Monsieur. I’d break their heads first.”

  “Imagine that. Quite different from your sister, then.”

  “I’ve got more Italian blood in me than her, Monsieur.”

  “Italian! Which I suppose accounts for the spirited person you are. I wish I were five or ten years younger. I think it would be nice talking to you in some other place.”

  “What place?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Well lighted, at any event.”

  She laughed. “How old are you, Monsieur?”

  “Me? Too old to be wondering how young you are.”

  She made her eyes flash with sly appreciation, and looked at him as if the distance between them was tortu
re to him, and the nearness of her held everything she was in some ecstatic dream he dared to think of as the future. A future without the wife he almost never mentioned, Fifi.

  He’d said her name once, then stopped talking about her. Now he was standing too close, lingering too long. All at once he said recklessly, “You’ve been talking to an American officer. Anything serious?”

  “Oh, Larry?” She showed a pinch of something with her fingers, cocked her head and made saucy eyes about the possibility.

  “What does your sister think of him?” he said.

  “Oh! She thinks he’s the most beautiful thing in the world, of course! He’s going away next month, but he’s asked me to marry him. Maxine said to me, ‘If you don’t, I will.’”

  Mattei swallowed. “Imagine that. Too easily swept off her feet, like it was with the German.”

  “She’s only eighteen. The Liberation can be overwhelming to a girl that young. She’s absolutely convinced that Prince Charming hails from America. You know she’s prettier than I am.”

  “Water runs uphill, too, Mlle Miroux.”

  “No, it’s true. You ought to see her. I’ve learned it’s better not to ask Larry in when she’s home. He likes to look at her, and I don’t like being jealous.”

  “Jealous, eh?”

  “Well, not really. He’s just the American captain I sometimes hitch a ride with.”

  “I haven’t seen him lately. That is, in the jeep he used to pick you up in.”

  “Because that’s all over, sir. He got his orders to go back to the States. It’s just as well. He has a sweetheart back there waiting for him. Her name is Thelma. Isn’t that a pretty name? Anyway, I didn’t really love him. Just one of those crazy flings, you know.”

  “Ah.” He nodded, smiling at her, but she could see the blood rising into his face. He said, “Never been married, then, Mlle Miroux?”

  “I might have been at one time,” she said. “Too close for comfort.”

  He looked down with a strange smile, as if for a place on the floor to empty all the color backed up in his face.

  She felt his pulse was in her hand. With a casual air she took a slow drag on her cigarette. “Why is it, sir, that none of the prisoners ever ask about visitors?”

  He looked up, a certain pleasure in his eyes like a professor who had all the answers. “They’ve learned not to. They’re not called isolés for nothing. Nobody knows they’re here. We want to keep it that way.”

  “Interesting, sir.”

  Mattei gave her a final inquisitive glance, then began to gather up the papers on his desk. Looking up he said brusquely, “That will be all for today, Mlle Miroux. Report to Captain Chappuis for the remainder of the day. I won’t be needing you this afternoon.”

  “Won’t be needing me, Monsieur?”

  “That’s right. I’ll be tied up in a meeting.”

  “Yes, but you - you’ll want me back tomorrow.”

  “Of course. No reason not to,” he said, letting off a nervous chortle as she stared back at him dumbly.

  It wasn’t that she thought he was the only one. Kurt could be brought before any number of other lawyers, and she’d never know. It was just that this one was the only one she had. The one who’d hired her because…

  She’d made him think that she was easy. Not a tart but something of a coquette. Now as if they were in it together she looked for a place to put out the cigarette, but there were no ashtrays. No escape from having known all along his pain of being infatuated with her. I won’t be long with him, she thought. No longer than she needed Larry and Maxine and him to hope he had the ghost of a chance with her. Soon she might have to say that Maxine had moved out. We had a quarrel. I live all by myself. If you should ever run across her, she will deny she ever knew me.

  “Bright and early then, Mlle Miroux?”

  She looked at him as if her mind burned there between her fingers, too, with no place to put it out. “Yes, very good, Monsieur,” she said. “Let’s hope the next one smells better than the last.”

  “Ah, well if he doesn’t, believe you me some heads are going to roll! You can be sure of that!”

  24

  Red and yellow autumn leaves were swirling into drifts in the street when the trolley dropped her at Cherche Midi early. She climbed the stairs and opened the door to a deserted room, walked over to the window vaguely wondering who it would be this time. There’d been a young woman yesterday, accused of collaboration, who’d broke down crying. Geli couldn’t help but feel sorry for her, but was careful not to let it show. She’d only show how much she was supposed to hate the others, coming easier for what they’d done at Tulle, Maille, Ascq, Le Paradis, with their incessant pleas of acting under orders.

  She began to lift the sash to let in some of the still cool morning air when shoes slapped the floor behind her. She left the sash alone, turned and said, “Ah, there you are, Monsieur!”

  Mattei was out of breath. “I missed my trolley, had to walk. Where’s Dax?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So how are you this morning, Mlle Miroux?”

  “I’m fine, sir.” She started over toward her little school-sized desk. “Getting cool out, with autumn just around the corner.”

  “Yes,” Mattei said absently. His voice took on a sharp note. “Your desk, Mlle Miroux. Did you move it, or was that the janitor?”

  “Oh, I hadn’t noticed, sir,” she lied.

  “Really. Then you’re still able to hear our voices over here clearly enough.”

  “Quite clearly, sir. There’s no difference at all, but if you -”

  “No, no. I thought perhaps the smell of these people brought up had begun to affect you. If anything’s been getting done down there, you wouldn’t know it.”

  “No, sir, I wouldn’t try to register a complaint by moving my desk. Also I’m getting rather used to -”

  “That won’t do. I’ll have another word with Dax. War criminals or no, there’s absolutely no excuse for keeping them in squalor. And disobeying an order to do so.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right, then. Who do we have this morning?” Mattei hefted two thick folders, dropped them with a thud onto the desk. “To get us started we’ve got one I have inherited from Captain – sorry, Major Guingand, who’s been kicked upstairs for - well, I really don’t know why. At any rate -”

  Mattei had left the door wide open. In the doorway suddenly a violent coughing fit broke out and Corporal Dax was there, saying harshly to somebody behind him, “Control yourself, 1171! Let’s not have any nonsense.”

  Geli hurriedly sat snugly in her little desk. There was a final hack that brought on a retching and she thought at any moment there could be a mess. In the doorway Dax said, “Sorry, sir. I’ve got 1171 here, if you’re ready for him.”

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “Probably the air down there – not too easy on the lungs. Could be a trick, though. You know how they’ll try to get away with that.”

  “Yes. All right, then, bring him in.”

  Dax stood aside, motioning the prisoner in.

  Geli smelled him almost before she saw him, thinking here comes another one, the beaten wraith of a figure shuffling along in a filthy, striped smock, shedding bits of straw. She looked again and suddenly her breath caught in her throat and it was no good running for the cover of her pounding heart.

  Dax pulled out the rickety wooden chair, gestured toward it.

  The prisoner sat there heavily, tottering on the spindly legs.

  Geli brought her eyes up. Not 15 feet away, yet he could not have seen her. No better than a stick of furniture, the stenographer. She was afraid his face would come around and she would have to look down raising one eyebrow at the effrontery of a filthy German. She felt a thickness in her throat and said a silent prayer: Don’t look at me, my love!

  Dax moved toward the doorway.

  “Do you want me to wait, sir?”

  “Just outsid
e, Dax, if you would.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  There was the sound of the door shutting quietly.

  She stared at the side of the sunken, sallow face, remembering his diabetes. Even if he looked, he shouldn’t know her. She’d gone heavy on the mascara, as usual, the crimson lipstick, top button of her blouse undone, and she was a blonde, now, hidden behind swallowtail glasses.

  Mattei mussed back some pages on the desk.

  She was afraid he’d say her name.

  “Now then, 1171. Major Guingand has left some comments about you and your report. Quite favorable comments, I might add; however, I prefer to take things from the top. I’ve spent some time, last night, going over your defense. I’d like to take you back to -”

  The prisoner suddenly bent over, hacking into both hands.

  Mattei stared at him, then shot a glance at Geli.

  She sent back a blank look before she looked down at her pad, ready to get on with it.

  The prisoner sat up, clearing his throat. He said in a grating voice, “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “You’re all right now, 1171?”

  “Yes, I’ll be all right.”

  Mattei watched him for a moment, then placed a finger on his notes. “I’d like to take you back to 1940, when you made your decision to join the Waffen-SS. Explain to me how, as a devout member of the Confessional Church, you were able to become part of an organization that you had so vehemently opposed.”

  The prisoner took a sharp breath through his nose, throwing his head back. “The Bishop of Stuttgart -” he began. He coughed and started over. “I’d learned from the Bishop of Stuttgart that mentally sick people were being put to death at Hadamar and Grafeneck. These places on the surface were mental hospitals, but nobody admitted for treatment ever came out. One of the victims was my sister-in-law, Bertha Ebeling, singled out for being feeble-minded, which was untrue. I came to believe that, if I could get inside, I’d have a chance of learning what was going on.”

  “By inside you mean -?”

  “Yes, as it turned out - the SS.”

  “Just how were you able to pull this off?”