The Night of the Generals

by Hans Hellmut Kirst

  Hartmann’s old mother was waiting for him. He held her at arm’s length for a moment, studying her face as though he had never seen it before. She was thin and grey, and her cheeks were seamed with a multitude of fine wrinkles, but her eyes were still as blue and serene as a mountain lake on a day in midsummer.

  They hugged each other without speaking, surrounded by the younger members of Aunt Grete’s family. A baby crawled under their feet, a small boy gazed at them with rapt attention, and a girl of about school-leaving age looked as though she intended to smother Hartmann with cousinly caresses. He was hard put to it to keep his feet under such a violent onslaught of affection. Oblivious to what was being said, he held his mother’s hand and revelled in the cosy warmth enclosing him as the children clustered round. At least two of them perched on his knees, and the adolescent girl hung over the back of his chair with her arms round his neck.

  “You must be hungry,” said his mother. “Children are always hungry.”

  “Yes, always!” clamoured half a dozen voices.

  Aunt Grete had baked a monster cake in his honour and laid out an array of cold meat, sausage and jellied eel. Encircled by dishes, Hartmann began to tuck in, urged on by the children, who knew that the left-overs would belong to them. Today was a red-letter day!

  “Thank you for your telegram,” said Hartmann. He stroked his mother’s arm, dividing his attention between her and the jellied eel. “What a wonderful spread! I haven’t been so spoilt since I was a boy. My God, I feel good! But you know what would be real heaven? How about frying me a couple of potato pancakes?”

  “As many as you like,” Aunt Grete replied promptly.

  A few of the children looked disappointed. They had potato pancakes at least once a week.

  “What telegram do you mean, Rainer?” asked his mother.

  Hartmann looked perplexed. “You sent me one, didn’t you?” A tempting aroma came from the heaped dishes before him, but for the moment all he wanted was an answer to his question.

  “No.”

  A brooding expression came over Hartmann’s face. He tasted everything that was set before him, stuffing himself with food he didn’t really want and temporarily yielding to the notion that he could eat his way back into the halcyon days of his boyhood, dish by dish.

  “Never mind,” he sighed between mouthfuls. “I’m happy to be here with you, that’s all that matters.”

  At length he took his leave, promising to come back very soon—if not that evening, certainly at lunch-time next day. He held his mother close, pressing his cheek against hers, while a dozen childish hands plucked at his sleeve. Aunt Grete looked on with a contented smile, satisfied that she had warded off starvation for a few hours.

  Hartmann hurried back to the bar, where Ulrike had ordered herself another beer and was still waiting patiently. She looked tired but happy. “Well, aren’t you glad you came?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Hartmann replied automatically. His face had darkened as though a thin veil had been drawn across it. “But there’s something queer going on. You know that telegram I got from my mother? She says she never sent one. I don’t know what to think.”

  “Maybe she misunderstood you.” Ulrike sensed that this was the moment Prévert had warned her about. “Perhaps she didn’t understand what you meant—or you misunderstood her.”

  “The fact remains that she says she didn’t send me a telegram.”

  “Did you discuss it with her?”

  “Of course not. I didn’t want to upset her. She was so happy to see me.”

  “Perhaps that’s the answer,” Ulrike said persuasively. “You didn’t question her thoroughly enough. The telegram needn’t necessarily have been sent by your mother—it could have been your uncle or aunt, or one of the neighbours. There are any number of explanations. I don’t see the slightest reason for you to worry.”

  “All the same, maybe I ought to leave Berlin straight away.” Hartmann sounded morose. “There’s something going on. I can feel it in my bones.”

  “Cheer up, darling!” Ulrike smiled at him fondly. “Look outside—it’s a glorious day, you’re back in Berlin, and I’m here with you. What more do you want?”

  The meeting scheduled for noon in Commissioner Karpfen’s office opened harmoniously enough. It broke up barely an hour later in an atmosphere of strident discord. Those present, apart from Karpfen, were Prévert of Paris, Liesowski of Warsaw and Liebig of Dresden.

  Karpfen was determined not to miss this exchange of views, which promised to provide a welcome break from his otherwise arid routine.

  “No formalities, please, gentlemen,” he said with heavy bonhomie. “Permit me to bid you a cordial welcome, and thank you for the prompt way in which you accepted my invitation. May our common efforts prove fruitful!”

  Commissioner Karpfen raised his glass and the other three followed suit, smiling politely. Liesowski had brought a bottle of smoky Bison Vodka with him from Warsaw. He preferred Polish vodka to Russian.

  “Right, let’s get down to business,” said Karpfen.

  The three investigators started to remove documents from their briefcases, eyeing one another covertly as they did so. Each realized that the other two were weighing him up, and this led to a certain amount of restrained amusement.

  “If we’re looking for common features,” Liesowski said, “the case to concentrate on is the one that’s still warm, so to speak. I think we should start from there.”

  “Precisely,” agreed Prévert. He regarded the detective-inspector from Warsaw with the interest which he would have lavished on a century-old brandy. “That’s it in a nutshell.”

  At a nod from Karpfen, Liebig obediently spread out his files on the table.

  “The only thing I can give you any firm details about,” he began, “is the crime itself. The motive seems clear enough and the victim has been identified, but so far we have no clues as to the murderer’s identity. There have been a number of tips and false leads, but nothing which could be called conclusive.”

  “Perhaps we shall be able to offer some suggestions on that point,” said Prévert. “But not, of course, until we’ve heard the results of your investigations.”

  Liebig launched into a summary of his findings, and the further he got the more attentive Liesowski and Prévert became. They glanced at each other fleetingly from time to time, their initial reserve giving way to something resembling tacit understanding.

  Commissioner Karpfen, who thought he was already in possession of the full facts, brooded absently in his chair. He failed to detect anything in the case which could be called particularly interesting or sensational. In his opinion the crime was the work of a complete lunatic, and such individuals existed in the best-regulated countries.

  Detective-Inspector Liebig’s report, reduced to its basic essentials, was as follows:

  During the night of 12th-13th August 1956, screams were heard issuing from No. 7 Sterngasse, Dresden. They came from a flat occupied by a certain Erika Mangier, of no fixed occupation. The local police were notified at once. On reaching the premises, they found the mutilated body of a woman, presumed to be Erika Mangier herself. Homicide was called in and immediately identified the crime as the work of a sexual maniac. Inquiries, which were instituted without delay, had elicited conflicting and, in some cases, implausible statements from a number of witnesses. Erika Mangler’s name appeared in the current list of known prostitutes.

  According to the pathologist’s report, Mangier had been stabbed thirty-three times with a sharp, pointed instrument, e.g., a stiletto-type knife, in the region of the throat, breasts and genitals. Most of the wounds were in the latter area. It could be assumed with certainty that death had intervened after the first few blows had been struck.

  “Most interesting,” declared Liesowski, when Liebig had finished. He spoke quietly and without apparent emotion. “I worked on a very similar case in Warsaw in 1942. Place, victim and method were much the same, and the patholog
ist’s findings were almost identical.”

  “The same goes for me,” said Prévert. “Rue de Londres, Paris 1944.”

  “Really?” Karpfen was slowly emerging from his lethargy. “But how can that be? I ask you—the same type of crime in three entirely different places?”

  “There’s quite a simple explanation,” Prévert said. “The murderer is a man who has moved around a lot. The last war was an indirect cause of mass migration, and historic events of that sort often have strange side-effects. In our particular case, all we’ve got to do is find someone who was in all three places at the times in question.”

  The Commissioner smiled indulgently. “How do you propose to do that? Europe was upside down in 1942 and 1944.”

  Liesowski said: “In the course of my inquiries I came across a peculiar point—so peculiar that the German authorities took the case out of my hands at once.”

  “The officer in charge was called Grau, wasn’t he?”

  Liesowski stared at Prévert in amazement. “You’re right! The salient feature of my inquiries, as far as they went, was that a witness stated that he’d seen a man in Wehrmacht uniform.”

  “A soldier near the scene of the crime?” Liebig pricked up his ears. He hurriedly thumbed through his papers until he found what he wanted. “I have a similar statement here. Someone saw a soldier sitting in a parked car just round the corner. He was there for some time. My men interviewed him, but they didn’t find anything suspicious. He was an N.C.O. named Wyzolla, an army driver. But he was a young man. That rules him out—he must have been a child at the time of the Warsaw and Paris murders.”

  “I think we’ve reached the end of the road,” said Prévert. He looked across at Liesowski. “Do you agree?”

  The policeman from Warsaw nodded. “This is the decisive factor, there’s no doubt about it.”

  “Wait!” cried Karpfen. He was wide awake now, and puffing like a grampus. “Take it easy, gentlemen, please! I feel we’re skating on thin ice.”

  “Why?” inquired Prévert. “We’re after a murderer. What’s so ticklish about that? Besides, I already know the murderer’s name, and have done for twelve years. These parallel cases were all I needed to complete my chain of evidence. Now, I’m absolutely sure of my ground.”

  “I thought I knew who the murderer was, too,” said Liesowski. “I managed to find a witness who was prepared to make a detailed statement. Major Grau, the German officer we mentioned earlier, appeared to share my suspicions, but he never succeeded in clearing the case up. It was hardly surprising, considering the unusual nature of the evidence before us. For a long time even I felt disinclined to believe it.”

  “I was in exactly the same position.” Prévert nodded understandingly at his Polish colleague. “I also felt chary of accepting it.”

  “Please be more specific!” Liebig demanded impatiently. He was all detective now, nothing else. He seemed to be blind to his superior’s warning glances and deaf to his snorts of protest. “Theories are no good to me on their own. I need positive proof.”

  Prévert made a gesture of invitation to Liesowski. He might have been lowering a poised dagger in deference to someone who had a better claim to strike the first blow.

  Liesowski said: “The man in question is a general named Tanz.”

  Commissioner Karpfen leapt to his feet, purple in the face. He appeared to be on the verge of apoplexy.

  “I declare this meeting adjourned,” he said peremptorily, “and I regard the last remark as stricken from the record. Please act accordingly, Herr Liebig. I request you to close your files and release no more information until further instructed. I regret having to make this decision, but I have no other choice.”

  “Why?” asked Prévert. “Do you want to obstruct the course of justice? I can’t think of any other way of describing your attitude.”

  Karpfen subsided into his chair. He sat back with legs splayed, fished out a handkerchief and began to mop his brow.

  “Gentlemen,” he said wearily, “you are police officers and experienced members of your profession, but I am first and foremost a civil servant. As such, I have special responsibilities. Apart from that, I serve a country which is having difficulty in gaining the recognition it deserves— for reasons which we need not go into here. But you, Herr Prévert, and you, Herr Liesowski, belong to nations which can never be expected to entertain any particular sympathy for us.”

  “What about opening a bottle of that Crimean champagne?” asked Prévert.

  “I’m all in favour,” said Liesowski. “After all, we have something to celebrate.”

  Liebig seemed to welcome the distraction. He rose with alacrity and busied himself with the bottle, presenting his broad back and equally imposing posterior to Karpfen in the process.

  The Commissioner pressed on doggedly. “I would ask you to remember that we—my comrades and the State we serve—have been compelled to rearm, even though our sole object has been to help defend the cause of peace. It has not escaped us that our action has aroused a certain sneaking distrust here and there. Moreover, gentlemen, there has always been a considerable degree of fellow-feeling between Poland and France.”

  “I second that last remark,” said Prévert, unabashed.

  “And I drink to it,” Liesowski chimed in.

  “We cannot permit you,” Karpfen said heatedly, “to jeopardize the results of all our hard work and self-denial. I say this in all seriousness, gentlemen: we shall further the ends of justice, but not at the expense of a scandal. Our generals are not clay pigeons—as far as we’re concerned, they’re a necessity of life. I implore you to show some sympathy for our position.”

  “I have remarkably little sympathy for murderers,” said Prévert, draining his glass, “but my appreciation of good food and drink is almost unlimited. All I can think of at the moment is that caviar over there.”

  General Tanz entered the Hotel am Kurfürstendamm on the stroke of one o’clock. His slim, powerful frame was clad in a suit the colour of autumn leaves. His face might have been cast in bronze and his eyes seemed to be focussed on invisible armies deployed in the far distance.

  He was met in the hotel foyer, predictably, by Wyzolla. The young man looked as though he was about to salute but controlled himself and came forward to make his report in a subdued voice. A suite had been duly reserved for Tanz and General von Seydlitz-Gabler was expecting him for lunch.

  Tanz gave a suggestion of a nod. He did not seem to have changed much in the intervening years. The tanned skin covering bone and sinew, the sharply defined, pugnacious set of the jaw, the sea-blue sailor’s eyes, the mouth like a knife-wound—all looked the same. The grooves running from his nostrils, past the corners of his mouth, to his chin were deeper, but that was all.

  Ignoring the chief receptionist, who bowed repeatedly, doubling up like a jack-knife, Tanz mounted the stairs leading to the first floor, accompanied by Wyzolla. He motioned to his escort to station himself outside the door and then entered von Seydlitz-Gabler’s suite.

  The ensuing ceremony of welcome was positively affecting in its cordiality. The two men gazed into each other’s eyes, extended their arms and shook hands warmly and at great length.

  “At last, at last!” breathed Frau Wilhelmine with well-rehearsed if slightly theatrical fervour.

  “Just like old times, eh?” said von Seydlitz-Gabler as they sat down to table.

  “The only one missing is our Ulrike.” Frau Wilhelmine never lost her grip of essentials. “The dear child will be along later. She’s a working girl, you know—extremely efficient, too, I’m told.”

  “Well, my dear chap, how have things been with you since we last met?”

  Tanz had been expecting this question and was ready for it. He regarded von Seydlitz-Gabler calmly, like a doctor meeting the gaze of an anxious patient.

  “I did my duty.”

  “It must have been very difficult for you sometimes,” hazarded Frau Wilhelmine.

  “I
ask you,” von Seydlitz-Gabler said jovially, “when was it ever easy to do one’s duty? Certainly not in times like these, I know that.”

  While the floor waiter was serving lunch they chatted amicably about things in general, but Frau Wilhelmine soon steered the conversation back to Ulrike.

  “All young girls try to kick over the traces occasionally, but she has never forgotten her duty towards us and the traditions of our family.”

  “I have often thought of you, General,” Tanz said. “You and your family have always meant a great deal to me.”

  Von Seydlitz-Gabler was touched and Frau Wilhelmine seemed equally moved. A mouth-watering aroma rose from the saddle of venison and red cabbage in front of them.

  “It has always been part of a soldier’s job to make the best of any given situation,” Tanz went on, when the floor waiter had left the room. “Fate decreed that I should end up on the other side, but I was still in Germany.”

  “Everyone appreciates that,” von Seydlitz-Gabler assured him, inserting a forkful of red cabbage into his mouth and following it up with a substantial helping of cranberries. “When you come down to it, my dear fellow, you’ve probably been going through the same sort of things we went through when the Bohemian corporal was in charge. They were difficult times but not inglorious ones. We stuck to our posts through thick and thin. Let’s face it—it was our legal duty to do so, if only to prevent something worse happening. If we’d been irresponsible enough to default, a pack of bloodthirsty and unscrupulous career-hounds would have stepped into our shoes.”

  “I’ve been in much the same position myself during the past few years,” said Tanz. “My intentions have always been of the best. Whatever I’ve done, Germany has always been uppermost in my thoughts. After all, the people I’ve been dealing with over there are Germans too.”

  “Absolutely,” agreed von Seydlitz-Gabler. “Magnificent material—you’ve only got to look at Sergeant Wyzolla to see that. Stout lad, Wyzolla. I gave him a careful once-over.”