by Philip Kerr
I checked into the National Hotel in the Ismailiyah Quarter, which was less than half a mile east of the Nile and the Egyptian Museum. Fievel Polkes stayed at the Savoy, which was at the southern end of the same street. The National was not much smaller than a decent-size village, with rooms as big as bowling alleys. Some of these were used as pungent-smelling hookah dens where as many as a dozen Arabs would sit, cross-legged on the floor, smoking pipes that were the size and shape of retort stands in a laboratory. A large Reuters notice board dominated the hotel lobby and, entering the guest lounge, you might have expected to see Lord Kitchener sitting in an armchair, reading his newspaper and twisting his waxed mustaches.
I left a message for Eichmann and, later on, met up with him and Hagen in the hotel bar. They were accompanied by a third German, Dr. Franz Reichert, who worked for the German News Agency in Jerusalem, but who quickly excused himself from our company, pleading an upset stomach.
“Something he ate, perhaps,” said Hagen.
I slapped at a fly that had settled on my neck. “Just as likely it was something that ate him,” I said.
“We were at a Bavarian restaurant last night,” explained Eichmann. “Near the Central Station. I’m afraid it wasn’t very Bavarian. The beer was all right. But the Wiener schnitzel was horse, I think. Or even camel.”
Hagen groaned and held his stomach for a moment. I told them I had brought Fievel Polkes with me and that he was staying at the Savoy. “That’s where we should have stayed,” complained Hagen. And then: “I know why Polkes came to Cairo. But why did you come, Papi?”
“For one thing, I don’t think our Jewish friend quite believed you really were here,” I said. “So you can call it a sign of good faith, if you like. But for another, my business was concluded sooner than I had expected. And I decided that I might never have a better chance to see Egypt than this. So here I am.”
“Thanks,” said Eichmann. “I appreciate your bringing him down here. Otherwise we very probably wouldn’t have met him at all.”
“Gunther’s a spy,” insisted Hagen. “Why listen to him?”
“We applied for a Palestinian visa,” said Eichmann, ignoring the younger man. “And were turned down again. We’re applying again tomorrow. In the hope we can get a consular official who doesn’t dislike Germans.”
“It’s not Germans the British don’t like,” I told him. “It’s Nazis.” I paused for a moment. Then, realizing that this was a good opportunity to ingratiate myself with them, said, “But who knows? Maybe the official you got last time was a yid.”
“Actually,” said Eichmann, “I think he was Scottish.”
“Look here,” I said, affecting a tone of weary honesty. “I might as well level with you. It wasn’t your boss, Franz Six, who asked me to spy on you. It was Gerhard Flesch. From the Gestapo’s Jewish Department. He threatened to investigate my racial origins if I didn’t. Of course, it’s all a bluff. There are no kikes in my family. But you know what the Gestapo are like. They can put you through all sorts of hoops in order to prove that you’re not a yid.”
“I can’t imagine anyone who could look less Jewish than you do, Gunther,” said Eichmann.
I shrugged. “He’s after proof that your department is corrupt,” I said. “Well, of course, I could have told him that before we left Germany. I mean about my meeting with Six and Begelmann. But I didn’t.”
“So what are you going to tell him?” asked Eichmann.
“Not much. That you didn’t get your visa. That I didn’t have a proper opportunity to see much more than that you cheated on your expenses. I mean, I’ll have to tell him something.”
Eichmann nodded. “Yes, that’s good. It’s not what he’s looking for, of course. He wants something more. To take over all the functions of our department.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Thanks, Gunther. You are a real mensch, do you know that? Yes. You can tell him I bought a nice new tropical suit, on expenses. That will piss him off.”
“You did buy it on expenses,” said Hagen. “Not to mention a whole load of other stuff besides. Solar topees, mosquito nets, walking boots. He’s brought more kit than the Italian army. Except for the one thing we really need. We don’t have any pistols. We’re about to meet some of the most dangerous terrorists in the Middle East and we don’t have any means of protecting ourselves.”
Eichmann pulled a face, which wasn’t difficult. His normal expression was a sort of grimace and his mouth was usually a cynical rictus. Whenever he looked at me I thought he was going to tell me he didn’t like my tie. “I’m sorry about that,” he told Hagen. “I told you. It wasn’t my fault. But I don’t know what we can do about it now.”
“We’ve been to the German embassy and asked them for some weapons,” Hagen told me. “And they won’t give us any without proper authorization from Berlin. And if we asked for that it would make us look like a couple of amateurs.”
“Can’t you go to a gunsmith and buy one?” I asked.
“The British are so alarmed about the situation in Palestine that they’ve stopped the sale of weapons in Egypt,” said Hagen.
I had been looking for a way to insinuate myself into their meeting with Haj Amin. And I now saw how I might do it. “I can get a gun,” I said. I knew the very man who would lend me one.
“How?” asked Eichmann.
“I used to be a cop, at the Alex,” I said smoothly. “There are always ways of getting guns. Especially in a city as big as this. You just have to know where to look. Low life is the same the world over.”
I went to see Fievel Polkes in his room at the Savoy.
“I’ve found a way to get into their meeting with Haj Amin,” I explained. “They’re scared of Al-Istiqlal and the Young Men’s Muslim Brotherhood. And they’re scared of the Haganah. Somehow they managed to leave their guns back in Germany.”
“They’re right to be scared,” said Polkes. “If you hadn’t agreed to spy on them we might have tried to assassinate them. And then blame it on the Arabs. We’ve done that before. Very possibly the Grand Mufti might have a similar idea about blaming something on us. You should be careful, Bernie.”
“I’ve offered to buy a gun in Cairo’s underworld,” I said. “And offered them my services as a bodyguard.”
“Do you know where to buy a gun?”
“No. I was rather hoping I might borrow that Webley you’re carrying.”
“No problem,” said Polkes. “I can always get another.” He took off his jacket, unbuckled the shoulder holster, and handed over his rig. The Webley felt as heavy as an encyclopedia and almost as unwieldy. “It’s a top-break double-action forty-five,” he explained. “If you do have to shoot it, just remember two things. One, it’s got a kick like a mule. And two, it’s got a bit of history attached to it, if you know what I mean. So make sure you throw it in the Nile, if you can. One more thing. Be careful.”
“You already told me that.”
“I mean it. These are the bastards who murdered Lewis Andrews, the acting high commissioner of Galilee.”
“I thought that was your lot.”
Polkes grinned. “Not this time. We’re in Cairo now. Cairo is not Jaffa. The British tread more carefully here. Haj Amin won’t hesitate to kill all three of you if he thinks you might make a deal with us, so even if you don’t like what he says, pretend you do. These people are crazy. Religious fanatics.”
“So are you, aren’t you?”
“No, we’re just fanatics. There’s a difference. We don’t expect God to be pleased if we blow someone’s head off. They do. That’s what makes them crazy.”
The meeting took place in the vast suite Eichmann had reserved for himself at the National Hotel.
Shorter by a head than any man in the room, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem wore a white turban and a long black cassock. He was a man quite without humor and had an air of self-importance that was doubtless helped by the fawning way his followers behaved around him. Most curious to me was the realization of how mu
ch he looked like Eichmann. Eichmann with a graying beard, perhaps. Maybe that explained why they got on so well.
Haj Amin was accompanied by five men wearing dun-colored tropical suits and the tarboosh, which is the Egyptian version of the fez. His interpreter was a man with a gray Hitler-style mustache, a double chin, and an assassin’s eyes. He carried a thick carved walking stick, and like the other Arabs—with the exception of Haj Amin himself—he was wearing a shoulder holster.
Haj Amin, who was in his early forties, spoke only Arabic and French, but his interpreter’s German was good. The German news-paperman, Franz Reichert, who was now recovered from his earlier stomach upset, translated into Arabic for the two SD men. I sat near the door, listening to the conversation and affecting a vigilance that seemed appropriate given my self-appointed role as SD bodyguard. Most of what was said came from Haj Amin himself, and was deeply disturbing—not least because of the profound shock I experienced at the depth of his anti-Semitism. Hagen and Eichmann disliked the Jews. That was common enough in Germany. They made jokes about them and wanted to see them excluded from German public life, but, to me, Hagen’s anti-Semitism seemed naïve and Eichmann’s, little more than opportunism. Haj Amin, on the other hand, hated Jews as a dog might have hated a rat.
“The Jews,” said Haj Amin, “have changed life in Palestine in such a way that, if it goes unchecked, it must inevitably lead to the destruction of the Arabs in Palestine. We do not mind people coming to our country as visitors. But the Jew comes to Palestine as an alien invader. He comes as a Zionist and as someone equipped with all the trappings of modern European life, which are themselves an affront to the most sacred concepts of Islam. We are not accustomed to European ways. We do not want them. We wish our country to remain just as it was before the Jews started coming here in large numbers. We want no progress. We want no prosperity. Progress and prosperity are the enemies of true Islam. And there has already been enough talk. Talk with the British, with the Jews, with the French. Now we are talking with the Germans. But I tell you this, nothing but the sword will decide the fate of this country now. If it is the policy of Germany to support Zionism, then you should be aware of this. It is our policy that all Zionists and those who support Zionism will be massacred to the last man.
“But I have not come here to threaten your Führer, Herr Eichmann. Germany is not an imperialistic country like Great Britain. It has not harmed a single Arab or Muslim state in the past. It was allied to the Ottoman Empire during the war. I myself served in the Ottoman army. Germany has only ever fought our imperialistic and Zionist enemies. The French. The British. The Russians. The Americans. For which your people have our gratitude and admiration. Only, you must not send us any more Jews, Herr Eichmann.
“I have read the Führer’s great book. In translation only. However, I believe I may flatter myself that I know the Führer’s mind, gentlemen. He hates the Jews because of the defeat they brought upon Germany in 1918. He hates the Jews because it was the Jew, Chaim Weizmann, who invented the poison gas that injured him during the war, and caused him temporary blindness. For his delivery we give thanks to God. He hates the Jew because it was the Jew who brought America into the war on the side of the British Zionists, and helped to defeat Germany. I understand all of this only too well, gentlemen, since I hate the Jew, too. I hate the Jew for any number of reasons. But most of all I hate the Jew for his persecution of Jesus, who was a prophet of God. Because of that, for a Muslim to kill a Jew ensures him an immediate entry into heaven and into the august presence of Almighty God.
“And so, my message to the Führer is this. Jews are not just the most fierce enemies of Muslims, they are also an ever-corrupting element in the world. Recognizing this has been the Führer’s greatest revelation to the world. Acting upon this revelation will, I believe, be his greatest legacy to the world. Acting decisively. For it is no solution to the Jewish problem in Germany and Europe to keep exporting them to Palestine. Another solution must be found, gentlemen. A solution to end all solutions. This is the message you must give your superiors. That the best way to deal with the Jewish problem is to dry up the source in Europe. And I make the Führer this solemn pledge. I will help him to destroy the British empire if he promises to liquidate the entire Jewish population of Palestine. All Jews, everywhere, must be killed.”
Even Eichmann seemed a little shocked at the Grand Mufti’s words. Hagen, who took notes, was left openmouthed with astonishment at the cold simplicity of what the Mufti proposed. Reichert, too, was taken aback. Nevertheless, they managed to gather themselves sufficiently to promise the Mufti that they would convey his exact thoughts to their superiors in Berlin. Formal letters were exchanged. After which Eichmann concluded the meeting with an assurance for Haj Amin that now that they had met, they would surely meet again. Nothing of any real import had been agreed upon, and yet I had the sense that the Mufti’s words had made a real impression on the two SD men.
When the meeting was concluded and the Grand Mufti and his entourage had left Eichmann’s suite at the National—his Arab translator making a joke about how the British believed they still had Haj Amin cooped up somewhere within the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem (which, of course, they did not dare violate by entering to search for him)—the four of us looked at one another, lit cigarettes, and shook our heads in yet more wonder.
“I never heard such madness,” I said, hiking over to the window and watching the street below as Haj Amin and his men climbed into an anonymous-looking van with hard panel sides. “Utter madness. The fellow is a complete spinner.”
“Yes,” agreed Hagen. “And yet there was a certain cold logic to his madness, wouldn’t you say?”
“Logic?” I repeated, slightly incredulous. “How do you mean ‘logic’?”
“I agree with Gunther,” said Reichert. “It all sounded like complete madness to me. Like something from the First Crusade. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m no Jew lover, but, really, you can’t just liquidate a whole race of people.”
“Stalin liquidated a whole class of people in Russia,” said Hagen. “Two or three if you stop to think about it. He might just as easily have fixed on the Jews as on peasants, kulaks, and the bourgeoisie. And liquidated them instead. He’s spent the last five years starving the Ukrainians to death. There’s nothing to say you couldn’t starve the Jews to death in just the same way. Of course, that kind of thing presents enormous practical problems. And essentially my opinion remains unchanged. We should try to send them to Palestine. What happens when they get here is hardly our concern.”
Hagen came over to the window and lit a cigarette.
“Although I do think that the establishment of an independent Jewish state in Palestine must be resisted at all costs. That’s something I’ve realized since we got here. Such a state might actually be capable of diplomatic lobbying against the German government. Of suborning the United States into a war against Germany. That possibility ought to be resisted.”
“But surely you haven’t changed your opinion about de facto Zionism,” said Eichmann. “I mean, clearly, we’re going to have to send the bastards somewhere. Madagascar makes no sense. They’d never go there. No, it’s here, or the other—what Haj Amin was talking about. And I can’t see anyone in the SD agreeing with that solution. It’s too far-fetched. Like something out of Fritz Lang.”
Reichert picked up the Mufti’s letter. There were two words on the envelope: Adolf Hitler. “Do you suppose he’s said any of that in his letter?” he asked.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt of it,” I said. “The question is, what are you going to do with it?”
“There can be no question of not handing this letter to our superiors.” Hagen sounded shocked at the very idea of not delivering the Mufti’s letter—more shocked at my implied suggestion than anything the Grand Mufti had said. “That wouldn’t do at all. This is diplomatic correspondence.”
“It didn’t sound all that diplomatic to me,” I said.
“No, I hadn’t thought of that,” said Eichmann, whose sense of career was as developed as Hagen’s.
“Heydrich may be a bastard,” I said. “But he’s a clever bastard. Too clever to read that letter and not know the Mufti is a complete spinner.”
“Maybe,” said Eichmann. “Maybe, yes. Fortunately the letter isn’t addressed to Heydrich, is it? Fortunately the letter’s addressed to the Führer. He’ll know best how to respond to what—”
“From one madman to another,” I said. “Is that what you’re suggesting, Eichmann?”
Eichmann almost choked with horror. “Not for one moment,” he spluttered. “I wouldn’t dream—” Blushing to the roots of his hair, he glanced uncomfortably at Hagen and Reichert. “Gentlemen, please believe me. That’s not what I meant at all. I have the greatest admiration for the Führer.”
“Of course you do, Eichmann,” I said.
Finally, Eichmann looked at me. “You won’t tell Flesch about this, will you, Gunther? Please say you won’t tell the Gestapo.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. Look, forget about that. What are you going to do about Fievel Polkes? And Haganah?”
