The Ambassador

by Yehuda Avner

  Brückner caught his hands together behind his back and paced the floor. The German’s breath slowed with each step. When he had control of himself, he returned to stand before Dan. “My apologies, Herr Ambassador. I hope you will ascribe my outburst to the pressures of wartime, not to any personal animus on my part.” He held out his hand.

  Dan shook it, but he hadn’t yet regained control as Brückner had. “The pressures of wartime? I would ascribe it to the pressures of life under a dictatorship which treats all but a small segment of Europe’s population as subhuman.”

  Brückner sucked his lips tight. “You must not assume that I am like that, Herr Ambassador.”

  “You are Hitler’s adjutant. What should I assume?”

  “That I do my duty to the German army.”

  “What of these reports from Poland and further east? Reports that Jews and Poles and Soviet prisoners of war are being executed by German soldiers. Are those executioners doing their duty?”

  Brückner went slowly toward a portrait of Otto von Bismarck on the wall. He touched his hand to it. “I am a Prussian officer. I am concerned with my own conduct and the conduct of my family and of the soldiers I command. Perhaps you would say I am a conformist. But my code does not allow me to be one who draws political conclusions and strives to force them upon others.”

  “So you serve evil men?”

  “I do not concern myself with their evil or their goodness.” He shrugged. “I don’t like the Nazis. They are vulgar boors. But that only makes it more important that I do my duty as a military man and look no further than military affairs.”

  “But in the case of your aunt?”

  Brückner turned away from the portrait. “What of your duty, Herr Ambassador? Perhaps you will understand my position somewhat if I put it this way. Do you like to deal with Sturmbannführer Eichmann at the Reich’s Security Head Office? My behavior toward the Führer is a parallel to your conduct toward the SS.”

  “There’s no comparison at all.”

  “Isn’t there? Perhaps it’s all determined by the context. Someone else may see things very differently. For example, what will other Israelis say to you when you go back home? Will they not ask you why you didn’t simply take out a pistol and shoot Eichmann dead? Why you did not assassinate Hitler at your presentation of credentials? You will be asked these questions when you return, I am sure of it.”

  Dan was momentarily ashamed. He hadn’t even considered killing Hitler when he met him. He had focused only on the many tasks involved in setting up an embassy, and the prospect of working with the Nazis to transport as many Jews as possible to Israel. He knew how his explanations sounded to a man of action like Shmulik. The Mossad agent didn’t seem to care that Dan was following the instructions of their prime minister. How would they sound to political opponents when he returned to Jerusalem one day? “I object entirely to the Nazi worldview, but I deal with them because I have to save the lives of Jews.”

  “And I too object. I deal with the Nazis because I have to save the German army. The Jews are your people. My people? The army.”

  A door opened upstairs. Gottfried spoke a few low words and the Countess laughed. In fact, Dan would’ve said she giggled, like a girl. Their footsteps and light chatter descended the staircase.

  “And my aunt. She too is of my people.” Brückner headed for the door just as the Countess entered on Gottfried’s arm.

  The Countess smiled with delight at the captain. “Hasso, I’m so glad you’re still here. I was afraid you would run away while you waited.”

  Brückner took her hand and kissed it. “I am sorry to say that I must leave.”

  “It’s so late. Surely you can—”

  “There is much to do at the Reich’s Chancellery, Tante. There will surely be a number of messages I must transmit to the front.”

  “Messages from that man.”

  He let go her hand. “Yes, from that man.” He snapped his heels, pivoted, and bowed to Dan without meeting his eye.

  Gottfried reached out to the young officer. “Hasso, come, let’s get to know each other.”

  Brückner moved stiffly around Gottfried as though they were engaged in some ancient formal dance step. He went down the stairs. Gottfried looked after him. The Countess touched his arm gently.

  “So happy you could come, Herr Ambassador.” The Countess let Dan take her hand for a kiss. There was sweat on her upper lip. Gottfried’s shirt was missing a button over his belly as though it had been ripped away in a passion.

  Dan listened to the slam of the front door and the crisp, speedy contact of Brückner’s boots on the sidewalk outside.

  The Countess led Gottfried to the sofa. Dan sat in a wing chair of some vintage. He wondered if the Countess’s grandfather, Chancellor Bismarck, had settled into it to formulate political ideas a thousand times more subtle and intelligent than anything circulating in today’s Berlin.

  “Your nephew is somewhat agitated, shall we say, by the blossoming relationship between you, my dear Countess, and my first secretary,” he said.

  Gottfried breathed in sharply. The Countess stilled him with a touch of her hand to his knee.

  “Hasso is under a great deal of pressure because of his work at the Reich’s Chancellery,” she said. “Imagine being in contact with such people every day. These Nazis rub him entirely the wrong way, but he has the disease of duty. It’s bred into any Prussian.”

  “How then do you come to be so different?”

  “My duty compels me to honor all humanity, not just my family.”

  “There are risks in such a perspective. Are there not?”

  The butler brought in a tray of hot chocolate. Dan watched in silence as the old man in the starched wing collar handed out the steaming cups.

  “You may speak freely even in front of Otto,” the Countess said. “He detests the Nazis. Don’t you, Otto?”

  “They are the shit on my shoe, my Lady.” The butler bowed and left the room with the Countess shrieking in delight.

  “Have you come to tell me that Wili and I are a danger to the mission of the Israeli Embassy?” The Countess took Gottfried’s hand.

  “On the contrary, I should like to invite a friend to your musical soiree this week,” Dan said.

  “Any friend of yours is welcome here, Herr Ambassador.”

  “Clearly you don’t know the circles I move in.” Dan smiled. “Wili, did you tell her you’re going to play for Adolf Eichmann?”

  Chapter 27

  The Countess was not eager to allow a senior SS officer into her house, but Gottfried’s enthusiasm, his desire to rub Eichmann’s Nazi nose in Jewish musical genius, overcame her reservations. Still she would have to visit her anti-Nazi friends in a hurry, to let them know the identity of her surprise guest and to insist that they avoid any kind of scene. It was after midnight by the time Dan had convinced her of the importance of the event.

  Back at the embassy, the gunfire from the basement range was sustained. Dan took off his coat. Richter, Shmulik’s Mossad underling, sat behind the reception desk in the hall, the Schmeisser machine pistol resting before him.

  “Sounds like Shmulik’s up against an entire platoon in the basement,” Dan said.

  “I’d put my money on him.” Richter’s tone suggested to Dan that he wouldn’t wager a pfennig on his ambassador.

  Dan went down to the shooting range. Shmulik sneered at him and emptied his MP38 into the target.

  “Don’t you think it’s time you called it a night?” Dan said. “The Polkes couple needs to be getting to bed, after all.” He gestured at the rolled mattress and pitiful stack of belongings arranged around the suitcases in the corner.

  “Bertha won’t get any sleep tonight,” Shmulik said. “Not unless I put a bullet through her.”

  He shoved a new magazine into his machine pistol and turned to fire.

  Dan grabbed his arm. “What do you mean? What’s wrong with Bertha?”

  “You sent Arvid Polk
es to your pal Eichmann this afternoon.”

  “To get a special pass for a second emigration. He was denied before.”

  “I’m glad you have such good connections in the Security Service. They’re really working out well for us all.” Shmulik shrugged his arm away from Dan.

  “What happened to Arvid?” Dan spoke softly.

  “He didn’t come back.”

  “Maybe he went out somewhere.”

  “To celebrate? In Berlin? They don’t let Jews do that nowadays. Even if there were a Jew crazy enough to think there’s something to celebrate.” Shmulik hammered his machine pistol onto the table. His spare magazines jumped. “They’ve taken him, Dan. Damn you, the poor bastard was safe here. You didn’t have to give him false hope and send him into the mouth of the beast.”

  Dan checked his watch. It was almost 1 a.m. “I’ll go first thing to Eichmann. There must be some mistake.”

  “Sure. You’re the one who made it.”

  “I’m only—”

  “Following orders? You make me sick. Those orders are sent to you by the Old Man. But he doesn’t know what’s going on here. People are just numbers to him. You send him a few thousand Jews, and he sends them to the kibbutzim or to the army. He’s happy with that.”

  “He has a new country to run.”

  “You’re not in Jerusalem, Dan. You’re here. These people have faces. They aren’t numbers. Arvid’s married to a cousin of your own wife.”

  “Shmulik, you’re the one who informed me of the Einsatzgruppen in the east. You told me they’re dragging Jews out to be shot. They’re herding Jews into synagogues and burning them down around them. Every Jew I save from that fate is a number. That’s right. A living number who can build our new country and keep our people alive.”

  “One day, Dan, you’re going to see a list of the dead. I wonder if you’ll think this was worth it then.”

  “What do you want from me?” Dan yelled so loudly he wondered if his words would break through the soundproofing to reach Richter in the lobby or Draxler’s Gestapo thugs in the street. “Should I go head to head with the entire Nazi regime? How do you think that’d work out for us? Do you think anyone would help us? Would the British invade Europe to keep the Germans decent? Would the Russians throw another two million soldiers into their defense to push the Wehrmacht out of their territory and rush to our aid?”

  Shmulik squared up to him. Dan thought he was about to attack, such was the throbbing energy in his muscles, in the thick neck and heavy shoulders. Instead he growled, “Come with me.”

  He pushed past Dan and led him out of the shooting gallery into the Mossad bureau. He opened a safe in the back wall. The file he took out was stamped with the Reichsadler, the spread-winged eagle and laurel-enclosed Swastika of the Nazi state. Shmulik opened the file and took out a piece of paper.

  “From Globocnik, the SS chief in Lublin,” he said. “To Eichmann’s boss, Heydrich.”

  Dan took the letter. “Where did you get this?”

  “I have a man inside Globocnik’s office, an ethnic German from Poland who pretends to be an enthusiastic Nazi. SS-Brigadeführer Globocnik was here in Berlin recently. He had a long private meeting with Hitler. From the letter, it seems Hitler told him to be in touch with Heydrich.”

  “About what?” Dan read over the text. “What’s Zyklon B?”

  “It’s a pesticide, for delousing ships and warehouses. Mostly it’s made up of hydrogen cyanide. It’s completely lethal if you inhale it.”

  “Why do you say that? Why would anyone inhale it? I don’t understand.” Confused, Dan continued reading from the page in his hand. “‘Further to my discussion with the Führer, I suggest the use of a more sustainable method of disposal in which special treatment shall be given in the form of Zyklon B, followed by incineration. This project could be carried out on a major scale within a matter of months.’ What are they incinerating? What does special treatment mean?”

  “It means they’re going to have to change the name of your friend Eichmann’s—”

  “Stop calling him ‘my friend.’”

  “—department to the Central Office for Jewish Extermination. Surely you see now that this is their plan?”

  Dan wanted to be quiet, to be still and take in this news. But Shmulik’s aggression and, perhaps, his own shock, forced his mouth to run on. “If it is extermination that only makes our work more urgent. We have to get as many of our people out as we can. The letter says it could take months for this to start.”

  Shmulik laughed. At first Dan thought it was mockery, but soon the Mossad man was wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.

  “How is this funny?” Dan said.

  “It’s you, Dan. I have to laugh my ass off. If I didn’t, I’d blow my head off. You still think they’re just bureaucrats. You think Eichmann’s a banal little paper-pusher who’s following orders. When will you understand that he’s driven by ideology, by murderous hatred of Jews?”

  “It’s not relevant. I have a job to do. If I can use him in my interests, I’ll do so until the day he ceases to be of assistance to me.”

  Shmulik dropped into a chair. All energy and color had leeched from his heavy frame, like a bear in hibernation. “That’s how the world is, isn’t it, Dan? You’re used until you’re no longer of assistance.”

  Shmulik’s tone was menacing. Dan suspected that it would be the Mossad man who might decide when he had outlived his usefulness, not the Nazis. He held the letter out to Shmulik.

  “I don’t need it anymore.” Shmulik gestured toward the file on the desk.

  Dan slipped the sheet back into the manila folder. “Aren’t you going to send it back to Jerusalem?”

  “I already did.”

  Dan understood now. Shmulik had cut him out. A decision had been made without him. “And? What did the Old Man say?”

  “Ben-Gurion orders you to keep on getting as many people out as you can. Until—”

  “Until what?”

  Shmulik gazed at the shooting gallery down the corridor. “Until I kill Hitler.”

  Chapter 28

  Oberleutnant Schulze caught Dan’s arm as he mounted the stairs to the Countess’s salon for the concert. The Luftwaffe officer drew him aside, smiling nervously to the other guests as they passed. “Are you sure you want to be here?”

  “I’d rather be at home with my wife, but she’s out treating sick children. In any case, it was I who suggested this.” Dan was eager to see Eichmann at the soiree. He had gone twice that day to the office on Kurfürstenstrasse to inquire about Arvid Polkes, but each time found Eichmann absent.

  He looked past the German’s shoulder. The salon was quieter than he’d expected. He heard one man, in quiet conversation with the Countess. It seemed almost that the remaining guests were struck dumb. Perhaps the anti-Nazi bent typical of Countess von Bredow’s guests led them to be shocked into silence by Eichmann’s presence. “Is he here?”

  “Yes, he is. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I believe this is a dreadful risk for your Gottfried. For my beloved Countess, it’s pure madness.”

  Dan smiled. “Come now, Herr Oberleutnant. He’s not so bad.”

  Schulze’s ruddy boyish cheeks blanched. “How can you say that? He’s the purest monster.”

  “Eichmann’s an anti-Semite, of course, but I don’t quite see that he’s—”

  The Luftwaffe officer didn’t let Dan finish his sentence. He turned up the stairs, shaking his head. As Dan followed, Kritzinger, the deputy chief of the Chancellery bureaucracy, hustled past him, pale and shocked. Evidently the man was disturbed that Eichmann would see him here.

  At the top of the stairs, the Countess’s nephew, Brückner, hovered on the landing. He shook his head and turned away from Dan, no less angry than he had been at their last meeting and seeming, somehow, even more on edge.

  Eichmann stood among the other uniformed men in the salon, a glass of champagne in his hand. His posture was upright and attent
ive, his face alert to the next witticism from the man who was speaking to the Countess. In his curious falsetto, Reinhard Heydrich was expounding on Gottfried’s virtuosity, his style, and the delicacy of his phrasing.

  Dan realized that this was the man to whom Schulze had been referring, not Eichmann. This was the purest monster.

  The disquiet of the Countess at the presence of such a senior, fearsome Nazi was evident. The blood had drained from her face, a contrast only sharpened by her vivid scarlet dress and long red gloves. Gottfried stood near her, motionless and detached, seeming to gather himself for his performance.

  Heydrich noticed Dan’s arrival. His eyes lingered on the Israeli ambassador a moment. His expressionless features seemed to conceal a range of calculations, like the secret bidder at an auction house.

  Eichmann came beaming across the room. “Herr Ambassador, good evening.”

  Dan had hoped that putting on a concert for the violin connoisseur would make a grateful Eichmann more favorably disposed to the cases he brought before his department for approval. The presence of Heydrich, chief of all the Reich’s dreadful security apparatuses, disturbed him.

  “Why is Heydrich here?” he murmured.

  The Countess went to the piano and seated herself. She removed her red gloves.

  “The Obergruppenführer is also a considerable virtuoso on violin,” Eichmann said. “He could hardly be expected to pass up the opportunity to hear Gottfried. But just you wait, after the performance I think you’ll be still more pleased by what I’ve cooked up.”

  “I want to talk to you about Arvid Polkes.”

  “I keep telling you to be less German. You’re too much concerned with business.” Eichmann jabbed Dan’s arm playfully and turned to face the piano. The Countess laid her hands across the keys, as if she hoped it would stop her fingers shaking.

  In his white tie and tailcoat, Gottfried settled his Stradivarius against his jaw and gave the Countess a faint smile. At once they went into the delicate, joyous opening movement of Mozart’s Violin Sonata in G Major.

  This was not the tempestuous or emotional Gottfried Dan had grown accustomed to hearing when he brought the bow to his violin. This was a more buoyant music. Gottfried’s instrument seemed to be in delighted conversation with the piano. Dan wondered if the choice of music carried a message for the two Nazis in the room. Did Gottfried want them to believe that he wasn’t anguished, that he had found the order and liveliness of Mozart’s music within himself, in spite of everything their regime did? And found it, no less, in partnership with a symbol of the ancient German order, the Countess von Bredow.