by Celia Rees
“Don’t open the door. We ain’t out of the woods yet.”
The water was rising. As they watched, it came lapping over the banks of the river and onto the surface of the bridge.
“You stay put. There’s a depot up the road. I’ll go and get help.”
Jack climbed out through his window. He waded to the side of the road and began to cross the bridge, the water at his ankles. Edith stayed put, wrapping a blanket around herself. Water was seeping in under the door, her fear creeping up with it. She could feel the nudge and tug of the current from the river like some monstrous animal prying at the car.
It felt like hours, but could only have been twenty minutes at most. A truck appeared, sending water up in great bow waves as it crossed the bridge to her. Squaddies jumped down.
“We’ll have you out in no time, miss.”
Under Jack’s supervision, they hitched a rope to the car’s tow bar.
With much revving and pulling the car was finally out of the ditch. Edith let out her breath in a great huff of relief.
She rode in the back of the truck, drinking hot sweet tea out of a thermos.
“I suppose that’s it,” she said as Jack helped her down. The Humber was already up on a ramp.
“Not a bit of it, ma’am. I’ll just find a new motor. And we’ll be on our way.”
“What happened?” She looked over to where mechanics were examining the car.
“Brake pipes cut.” His face grew dark and hard. “Friend Stephan, I shouldn’t wonder. You better get your mate Adams to sort them fuckers out, or I will.”
When they got to the Atlantic, Edith went straight to Harry’s room. The bar was too public. Too many people, too many eyes. Harry had a bottle of Riesling chilling in an ice bucket and two wineglasses. She apologized for being late, citing car trouble without telling him exactly what. She couldn’t risk how he might react.
“Any news on von Stavenow?” Harry asked as he took the Riesling from the bucket.
Edith shook her head. “I’ve got an idea, though. I’ve made contact with his wife. She’s in Lübeck at her cousin’s.”
“Leo’s find-the-frau theory?”
“Something along those lines.”
“What about Adams? Seen him lately?”
Edith nodded. “He’s disappointed that I haven’t made more progress. He’s getting impatient, even a bit nervous.”
He poured the wine and brought it over to her. “Did he say why they want von Stavenow?”
“Research. Seat being kept warm for him.”
“And he’ll get strung up if he can’t deliver. Adams is an idiot.” He took the chair opposite her and lit a cigarette. “The British are too slow,” he said, narrowing his eyes against the acrid smoke. “It takes too long for them to decide to do anything. Too much bureaucracy. Too many committees. I’ve got a friend, a lawyer in the Department of Justice, he’s in Nuremberg preparing for what they’re calling the Doctors’ Trial. It’s due to start later in the year.” He stood up and began pacing, gesturing with his cigarette. “These men, doctors like von Stavenow, were in charge of an enormous laboratory, using human beings instead of rats. They probed the limits of human endurance, men left for hours in freezing temperatures then thrown into boiling water for rewarming, Gypsies made to drink only seawater, women deliberately wounded and then those wounds infected, the infection aggravated by pushing in wood shavings and ground glass. The effectiveness of different poisons, how long different gases take to kill. Experiments as cruel as they were pointless. Or maybe not so pointless.” He paused to stub out his cigarette before resuming his pacing. Edith closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair as she listened, sickened, to this black muster roll of monstrous perversions conducted in the name of science. “There’re twenty on trial and not even the worst of them. Who knows how many have already been spirited away? Certain people will think this knowledge is valuable. The study of disease agents. How they are spread. Which would make the best weapons. There will always be an enemy, only the name changes. Hakenkreuz to Hammer and Sickle. War is no longer about armies, it’s about how many civilians you can kill.” He stood, arms folded, staring out at Hamburg’s ragged silhouette. “Look at this place. How many died here? 40,000, 50,000? Most of the buildings gone with them. If you could kill the people but leave the city? That would be worth knowing. Nerve gas. The Germans were well advanced in their research—far beyond the Allies or the Russians. For that, they will set anything aside. That’s why they want this man so much. Let him start again. Question is, will you?” He turned back to her. “You have to find your own way, Edith.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” She opened her eyes, the reason she was here refocusing. “Tilhas Tizig Gesheften? Up-your-arse business?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.” He looked at her, his dark eyes defiant. The choice was so obvious. Why would she even ask that? “How can we rely on any other kind of justice? Sometimes we have to deliver it ourselves.”
“Like this?”
Edith unfolded a copy of the CCG Gazette and laid it out in front of him.
The story was on the front page:
Secretary in Legal Division Involved in Tragic Accident
The article described how Miss Margaret Slater (Molly to her friends) had met with a fatal accident while riding pillion on a friend’s motorcycle. It did not go into detail about the nature of their relationship, or the friend’s nationality. The state of the roads and last Sunday’s icy conditions were the cause. The Gazette had a tendency to blame most disasters on the occupied country: the inclement weather, the topography, its inhabitants, or other foreign presences. Miss Slater was being depicted as something of a saint: “loyal friend,” “great pal,” “always there with a smile and a helping hand.” Not descriptions Edith recognized. The head of her division called her “a lovely young woman,” adding “her decorative presence will be sorely missed.” That was accurate, Edith supposed. Miss Slater wasn’t the only one to be appointed more for her looks than her typing speed. Whatever her shortcomings, Miss Slater shouldn’t have been receiving any kind of obituary, not yet anyway, not for many years.
Harry’s head moved slightly from side to side as he read the story. When he looked up at her, his face was expressionless.
“So? That’s what they would say.”
“I’m not interested in the accuracy of the story.” She sighed her impatience. He knew exactly what she was getting at. “I just want to know if you had a hand in it.”
“Not personally.” His tone was sulky, verging on truculent.
“By proxy?”
“Perhaps.”
“I hope this has nothing to do with me,” Edith added, expressing the fear that had been there ever since that visit to the morgue. It was guilt she didn’t need.
“Of course not.” He looked away. She knew he was lying. “Look here, Edith, sometimes these things are necessary.”
“Krieg ist Krieg? War is war? Isn’t that what the Germans said?”
“Kalniņš had it coming. They were never going to punish him. You know it!”
He glared at her, black brows drawn together, defying her to contradict him. She glared back. It was as though the ground between them had sundered and they were on different sides of a deep crevasse.
“That doesn’t make it right to take an innocent life!”
“Not so innocent, you told me. She should have been more careful.”
“I didn’t know that an unfortunate choice of boyfriend was a capital offense!”
“You don’t understand.” He shook his head at her sarcasm. “You cannot comprehend—”
“I know two wrongs don’t make a right, Harry,” Edith cut in. “They just make another wrong. You’ll be telling me about eggs and omelettes next. We know where that kind of thinking leads.”
“I don’t want to fight with you, Edith.” He tried to take her hand.
She understood his rage and all the reasons for it, but it was still wro
ng for someone to die when they’d done nothing.
“No you don’t!” She snatched her hand away. “It’s not as easy as that.”
“What can I do? It was a mistake.” He nodded toward the headline. “But there it is.”
“There was another girl in the morgue, Agnese. Kalniņš’ cousin. She worked in the billet. They found her in the Trave. What about her?”
There had been no obituary for her. She was just another cadaver with no one to claim or mourn her. Her absence had been a mere cause of irritation to Frau Schmidt. Auf diese Mädchen ist gar kein Verlass. These girls, not to be trusted, she’d muttered, lips pursing. Sie verschwinden ohne ein einziges Wort. They disappear without a word. She’d added a tsk of disgust and had promptly replaced her with a niece. When Edith asked Hilde and Grete about Agnese, even the mention of her name had brought troubled looks, a flicker of fear in eyes that darted to the door. None of the girls would talk about her.
He shook his head. “Nothing to do with us. Probably her own people. Thought she’d blabbed to you. They are vicious killers, Edith.”
“But she’d done nothing!”
“Hadn’t she? There are no innocents in this. Her family took our homes, our goods, when we were herded to the ghetto. They jeered and spat at us as we were led to our deaths. They only left when the Russians were coming, running like the rats they are. How do you think she came to be here?”
Edith did not reply. He was right. There were no innocents. Herself included. That poor girl probably died because of her.
“There is one thing you can do.” She broke the brooding silence that had grown between them. It wouldn’t make any of it wholly right. Nothing would make up for a life taken, but something good could still come out of this.
“What’s that?”
“You can get those two girls out. Seraphina and Anna. Get them to Palestine.”
“I’ve already thought of that.” He looked relieved, hopeful of forgiveness. “Plans are already afoot. Now can we be friends again? Please?”
Edith shook her head. “I’m going back to my room. I don’t want to stay here with you.”
“Please, Edith. Don’t. I need you!” He held his hands linked in supplication, his brown eyes pleading. “I won’t—we won’t—not if you don’t want to—but please don’t leave me alone. The only time I can sleep is with you.”
Harry fell asleep almost immediately. Edith lay by his side, wide-awake. Somewhere a church bell tolled one hour, then another. In the cold, early morning, she could not escape the thought that she had caused those two girls to die. One by talking to her, the other by talking about her. Careless talk costs lives. You don’t understand, he’d said, you cannot comprehend. And she didn’t. Couldn’t. She looked down at the man next to her. He’d laid this guilt upon her. Ordered death to be delivered with about as much thought as ordering room service. Why was she here with him?
He shifted in his sleep; his eyes began to move under the lids at the start of a dream. His teeth clenched, grinding together, his jaw rigid, lips drawn back in a snarl. The rictus spread to the rest of his body, his hands balled into fists, the muscles on his arms corded, his limbs making small jerking movements that seemed to take the most enormous effort, as in a man fighting deep paralysis. Sweat stood out on his forehead in oily globules. His skin was deathly cold to the touch, wet, clammy. Edith pulled the covers over him. He was shaking now, shivering, curling himself into a ball. He didn’t wake, he didn’t scream, or even properly cry out; the sounds he made were muffled, incoherent, beyond articulation, as if a gag, or the iron tongue of a bit, stopped his mouth, while his eyeballs moved ever more quickly under the lids, tracking unimaginable horrors. Eventually he turned with a whimpering sigh onto his side and slipped into deeper sleep. In the soft, gray light of early morning, he reached for Edith and she answered his touch, accepting his sadness, taking it with him into herself.
Edith was breakfasting alone. Harry had already left.
“Penny for them.”
Edith looked up startled, surprised, and delighted to find Dori smiling down at her, looking very elegant in the tailored uniform of a WAAF Flying Officer.
“Was that Harry Hirsch I saw checking out with a grin on his face and striding off with a swagger to his walk? There goes a satisfied man, if ever I saw one.” Dori’s smile grew wider. “You always were a dark horse.”
Edith stood up to embrace her and hide her sudden rush of color.
“What are you doing here?”
“If it wasn’t so obvious—” Dori arched an immaculately plucked brow “—I’d ask you the same thing.”
“Stop it, Dori. You know how I hate being teased.”
“That’s what makes it so irresistible. You take everything so seriously.”
“You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here?” Edith touched her napkin to her lips.
“Seeing you.”
“I mean in Germany. When did you get here?”
“A week or so ago.”
“You didn’t tell me.” Edith pushed her plate away, feeling more than a little put out.
“I’ve been busy.” Dori threw her cap on a chair. “I hate wearing uniform.”
Whether that was true or not—and Edith thought not, Dori loved dressing up and looking the part—she was very much enjoying the glances in her direction from the men in the room. A waiter rushed over to take her breakfast order, several officers stopped in midconversation or with their forks halfway to their mouths.
“Just coffee. Danke. I’m really not hungry.” Dori smiled. “Although they do a good mushroom omelette, as I recall. Thank you for the recipe.” She stirred sugar into her coffee. “The Latvian supper dish was most welcome. Didn’t work out so well for your informant. A dead end, you said?”
Edith nodded. “Literally so. The girl who gave it to me ended up in the Trave. Her cousin is dead, too, and his girlfriend, a girl from the billet. Motorcycle accident.”
“Accident?” Dori’s eyebrows rose.
“That’s what they’re saying. All hushed up.”
“Naturally. And the Prussian dish? Any news there?”
“Much more promising.”
“Very good. And her Mann?”
Edith shook her head.
“Hmm.” Dori drummed a single scarlet fingernail on the starched white tablecloth in broken, staccato rhythm. “You’ve been dining out. Barnsley Chop. Such an odd name for a cut of meat. Don’t you agree?”
Edith grimaced.
“Though not from what you said. British food can be so indigestible.” Dori lit a cigarette. “To extend the culinary theme, I’ve had a bit of a grilling myself.”
“Oh?”
“Picked up by two of Leo’s chaps. Leo waiting in the pub round the corner, wanting a little chat.”
“Really? What about?”
“About recipes.” Dori squinted through her cigarette smoke. “You don’t look surprised.”
“I had an inkling. Adams went on about food. Asked about my interest. Nothing on the surface. But that’s not their way.”
“What did you do?”
“Threw him a bone, like you said. Told him I had a lead on Elisabeth.”
“Not that you’d found her?”
“He doesn’t need to know that yet.”
“Did it work?”
“Oh, completely. He began talking about how much they want him and why.” Edith paused. “Actually, I’d just told him I wanted to pack it all in. Seeing those girls in the morgue killed my appetite for intrigue.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. He was talking about Kurt, his work, with such, such enthusiasm, excitement, almost.” She sat forward, hands linked together on the table. “Elisabeth told me this most harrowing story . . .” She paused; even recalling it took her back to Elisabeth’s desperation. “He—he was responsible for his own child’s death! Incarcerated him in this terrible place . . .” She paused again, biting her lip, holding herself to
gether enough to go on. “He lied to Elisabeth, told her the boy, Wolfgang, was perfectly fine, when he was already dead! And they want a man like that! I knew I had to go on with this.” Her hand shook slightly as she poured herself more coffee. “What about Leo?”
“I managed to fob him off.”
“Did he believe you?”
“Probably not, but it hardly matters. They need you. It’s when they don’t that you have to watch out. We need you, too. Vera and Bulldog are very pleased you’ve made contact with Elisabeth. Find the Frau, find the Mann, and all that.” Dori sighed and stubbed out her cigarette. “I’ll have to love you and leave you. I’m due in Bad Oeynhausen.” There was a sudden tiredness about her eyes, a blank bleakness of the kind Edith had seen in Harry. “We’re interviewing survivors from various camps—mainly Dachau, Ravensbrück, Belsen—and the swine who ran the places—trying to find out exactly what happened to the agents who ended up in those camps. There are some real sweethearts. Want to see?”
She took a folder from her briefcase. Photographs of men posed in immaculate uniform, the light just right, not a hair out of place. Some held the hint of a smile, gazing off as if toward the promised future; others sat with face composed, looking straight at the camera. Each one assured of his place in the master race.
“And after. This gives me some satisfaction.”
Dori set out more photographs like cards in a different game. The same men disheveled, unkempt, unshaven, dressed in ill-fitting civvies, loose collars, and no neckties, faces sallow, sunken, baggy around the eyes, like the broken men one might see on any street. Only the eyes set them apart. These were guilty men, but the eyes showed no guilt; fear was there, resignation, even sullen defiance and a general furtiveness, a refusal to meet the camera’s unforgiving stare.
“And now for the girls.”
They looked like any young women trying to make the most of themselves, smiling into the camera, hair coiffed, carefully made up, young and pretty, some of them even beautiful. Next to these, Dori placed images of the same women now wearing coarse dresses, their faces without makeup, greasy hair scraped back. They’d aged ten years easily, twenty. The contrast was shocking. Like the men, they showed no guilt. There was a chilling emptiness in eyes that knew the game was up and were already contemplating the gallows.
