Legacy of Sorrows

by Roberto Buonaccorsi

  Gertrude felt her throat dry up, and could only nod her head at him.

  ‘May we come in please?’ Said the younger policeman.

  Gertrude held the door open for them and led the way into her small but tidy lounge. ‘Take a seat please,’ she heard herself say in a calm, low voice.

  When they were seated, the older officer said to her, ‘Frau Kuller, I am Officer Palframan and this is my colleague, officer Schroeder. We are herewith some grave news, I’m afraid.’

  Gertrude stiffened in her seat and gave a little gasp. ‘Please tell me what’s happened.’

  Palframan shifted uneasily in his seat before continuing. ‘We have received notification from the Austrian police that your husband, Hans Kuller was found last night dead in his hotel room in Vienna.’ He paused, as if uncertain what to say next. ‘First reports indicate that he appears to have committed suicide, although we will have to wait on the autopsy results to be certain.’

  Gertrude stared at the officer without saying anything. When she eventually broke the silence, she said, ‘Are you sure he’s dead? Could there not be a mistake?’

  Palframan shook his head, ‘He was identified by his army comrades, so there is no chance there’s been a mistake.’

  Gertrude was aware that the officers were looking at her for some reaction, but she just didn’t feel anything. She felt completely normal, as if she was having a coffee and a chat with them about the weather. Slowly it dawned on her that she was now a free woman. Free to take up her life again and free to regain control of the bakery. She restrained a smile from appearing on her face. ‘I am free from that bullying monster forever,’ she thought. ‘I’m also free to encourage that nice butcher, Peter, who likes to flirt with me.’

  She shook herself out of her day-dreaming and said to the officers. ‘Thank you for coming and telling me. I suppose you’ll let me know what arrangements I’ll have to make.’

  The funeral had attracted quite a large turnout; however, Gertrude didn’t really care if no one had turned up. She was dressed from head to toe in black as any self-respecting widow should, but she couldn’t wait until the funeral was over so she could go away on holiday to Spain with her close friend.

  She stood at the graveside and gave out the appearance of a grieving widow to everyone there, crocodile tears included. She looked round the assembled mourners and her eye rested on Peter. Peter caught her look and winked. She smiled to herself behind her hand. She couldn’t wait to meet him at the airport later on. A little shiver of anticipation ran through her as she thought ‘I am starting a new life with a new man, and I will never make the same mistakes again. The bakery stays in my name, no matter how good he is in bed.’

  Chapter 12

  We sat on the train beside each other sharing a cheese and salami panino and feeling the stress of the moment. I looked at my watch and said, ‘Italo it’s 8.30 pm. If the grenades have exploded they will have done so by now.’ Italo pulled out a hip flask of grappa, took a long drink and passed it to me saying, ‘Bruno, there’s nothing we can do about it, so let’s just try to relax and go home to whatever awaits us there.’

  The journey seemed to go on forever. The train clacked and swayed its way home as if it parodied our obvious gloomy mood. When we eventually arrived at Bologna in the early hours of the morning, we said our goodbyes, and with heavy hearts made our separate ways home.

  The house was dark and I fumbled for my key. Perhaps too much grappa or too much stress, I couldn’t tell. Much to my surprise, Maria opened the door and greeted me with a big hug. ‘Welcome home amore, did you have a good trip?’

  The following morning when I got up, the first thing I did was to switch on the radio and tuned into the news station. I didn’t know what to expect with the planted grenades. Did they detonate or not? If so, were there many fatalities and injuries? To my amazement, there was no mention of any incident involving explosions in the Hotel Bristol.

  Over breakfast I decided to phone Italo to arrange a meeting.

  ‘What’s wrong Bruno? You’re very quiet this morning.’ said a sleepy Maria, as she sat down beside me at the breakfast table.

  I looked up and smiled at her. ‘I’m still thinking about Kuller. It’s difficult to let it go knowing he’s so close by,’ I lied to her.

  ‘Well, you don’t have to worry about him anymore,’ she replied, as she casually threw down her newspaper on the table.

  I picked up the paper and read from the open page she had pointed to. The headline read, “SS colleague of Major Walter Reder, Hans Kuller, commits suicide at SS reunion party in Vienna.”

  I read the headline with unbelieving eyes. So it hadn’t all been a dream. I acted surprised as I read the article. There was no mention of explosives being found in the hotel.

  Maria looked at me with suspicion written all over her face. ‘Do you know anything about this, Bruno?’ She asked, as she gave me an inquisitive look.

  ‘Why should I know anything about his suicide, Maria? Do you think I sat there and watched him shoot himself? This is the first I’ve heard about it or even read about it.’

  Maria reached for my hand and looked me in the eye, ‘Tell me you didn’t kill him, and swear it on your mother’s grave and I’ll never doubt you again.’ I reached out for her other hand so that I was holding both of them, before I said to her, ‘Maria, I wanted to kill him with every fibre of my body, and I had even thought about trying to, but I swear to you on the graves of all my dead family that I never laid a hand on him and I certainly never killed him or forced him to shoot himself.’

  Maria looked at me steadily in the eye before she smiled and gently said, ‘Do you want more coffee, Bruno?’

  After making a hurried phone call to Italo, I showered in our little bathroom, and I found myself scrubbing my body repeatedly with the sponge as if the events of the previous day had left some indelible marks on me that perhaps other people could clearly see that I had killed in cold blood.

  When I met Italo later on that day in the Café Romano on Via Mazzini, I could tell by looking at the dark bags under his eyes that he had enjoyed as much sleep as I had. After ordering a coffee at the bar I sat down beside him. I looked at Italo with an inquisitive look, ‘Well then, Italo, we got away with this one, or so the papers report, but what do we do with Graziano and his homicidal ideas?’

  Italo gave a mock growl, ‘Why should we bother about some SS murderers being bumped off? We just killed one ourselves, for God’s sake, so let’s not get too moral about him.’

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Italo was condoning mass murder.

  ‘We just can’t sit back and allow Graziano to kill on a mass scale. Innocent people would get killed as well, we have to stop him and disarm those grenades.’

  Italo was silent for a moment before saying, ‘Bruno, I agreed with you about Kuller and that we had to take him out, but I can’t agree with you about your view about Graziano. I don’t care if he kills every Nazi under the sun. If there is collateral damage and some innocents die, then that is just war. I’m sorry, my old friend, but I just can’t help you in whatever you’re planning. Besides, the grenades are probably very old and there is no guarantee that they will even detonate.’

  I could understand Italo’s position but I could not accept it. Graziano would not stop until he had killed as many of these Nazis as he could and he had to be stopped.

  After small talk with Italo, I left him and walked the short distance to the local library. It was quiet in there and I needed some time to think this through without distractions. I remembered that Graziano had told me he lived in an apartment on Via Venezia and I thought it might be a good idea to visit him there and try to dissuade him from any further attempts at killing, and to persuade him to disarm the grenades before innocent people died.

  I felt better in myself at coming to that decision and decided to give Graziano a visit the next day.

  When I got back home Maria wasn’t in, so I made an espresso with sam
buca and sat down in front the television to watch the afternoon news bulletin. Reports were coming in of an explosion in an Austrian hotel that had killed, on first counts, some thirty people, with many more reported as injured. Video footage flashed across the screen showing a raging fire engulfing the building, with many fire engines and crews in attendance fighting the blaze. An onsite reporter was saying that massive explosions had originated in the area used for conferences around two-thirty that afternoon and had ripped through the hotel Bristol in Vienna with devastating effect.

  I sat stunned and watched the unfolding scenes with incomprehension and horror. All these innocent people dead and many more injured because of some old man’s vendetta against some SS killers who still remained alive and unhurt.

  I turned my attention back to the screen. The reporter was interviewing a senior police officer about the incident. I turned the sound up to listen.

  The reporter asked, ‘Do you think this was a deliberate act of violence or was it, perhaps, a gas explosion or some such similar accident?’

  The police officer, looking suitably sombre, replied, ‘First reports would indicate that there were a series, maybe up to four, individual explosions closely following each other, and emanating from an area not associated with a gas mains. Also the type of detonations and the damage caused would be more indicative of explosives, like grenades, than a large one-off gas explosion.’

  ‘In your opinion, if this is indeed a terrorist incident, who do you think could be responsible for such an act?’

  The police officer thought for a moment before answering. ‘Once we have time to investigate more fully all the possibilities we will be in a better position to answer that question; however, if it is a terrorist group that’s responsible for this then it could probably be Badder Mienhoff or an affiliated group.’

  I stretched over to switch off the set and sat there too stunned and shocked to even think clearly. After a while I was startled out of my blank state of mind by the ringing of the phone. It was Italo.

  ‘Bruno, you were right, have you seen the news?’

  ‘I’ve just been watching it.’

  ‘What do you think we should do now?’

  ‘The first thing Italo is not to talk on the phone about specifics. We can meet for a drink later on tonight, or we can even meet in the park over on Via San Martino for a walk and talk.’

  ‘I’m working until 8pm tonight, but I can meet you about eight-thirty in the park. See you then.’ With a click the phone went dead. I sat and stared at the receiver in my hand for some time before I lowered it onto the cradle. We had now become involved in mass murder and I was feeling very afraid.

  Chapter 13

  Walter Brenst was sitting in his small conservatory looking over his notes, trying to make sense of the jumble of information he had unearthed since the death of Hans Kuller. He had always felt that something was very wrong with the whole affair. Ever since Kuller’s death he had been concerned at the sudden change of mood that Kuller apparently went through that night. From defiance at the new order of things in Germany, as demonstrated by their last conversation together, to despair, as his state of mind showed by his suicide and the note he left behind.

  ‘All this took place in a one hour time-frame. I just don’t buy it,’ he thought.

  His mind wandered back to his notes and he read them through again. ‘What am I missing here? There must be something I’m not seeing,’ he thought as he scanned the sheets of paper in front of him.

  He picked up another sheet with a list of the hotel’s guests for the night of the Association dinner. As he looked through the list of names, he stopped at three that stood out from the rest of the guests. Arcari, Verdi, and Sambucci. ‘These Italian names stand out from the other German ones,’ he thought. He looked at their addresses and noticed with mild excitement that all three names came from the same city in Italy, Bologna. He also noticed that two of the names, Arcari and Verdi, had booked in for an overnight stay, but had cancelled their reservation and had left the hotel shortly after Kuller was found dead. They had not stayed overnight, why? They travelled from Italy to Vienna to a hotel, and then didn’t stay the night. Where would they leave at seven-thirty in the evening looking elsewhere for a room for the night? It didn’t make any sense. He looked at the third name; Sambucci. Mr and Mrs Sambucci had the room next to Kuller’s and had left the hotel the following morning. They had only booked in for one night, which wasn’t unusual in itself, but when looked at as part of the overall picture it formed a pattern.

  Brenst remembered Bologna from his days with the 16th Waffen SS. He knew it to be the area where his unit had massacred many Italians and had been the main cause of Walter Reder’s conviction and imprisonment.

  ‘Could this be the answer to the riddle?’ he thought with growing anticipation. ‘Is it just a coincidence that Italians from that area were guests at a hotel where Reder was being feted? And where Kuller, who was instrumental in the massacre, was staying?’ He focused his mind on this new line of thought. ‘If this is the answer then why didn’t they go after Reder as well? He was the overall planner and leader of the rastrallemento, so why wasn’t he targeted as well?’

  He sat bolt upright in his chair as the answer came to him in a flash. ‘They tried to kill us all by bombing us. The bombs were supposed to go off when we were all there together at the dinner but for some reason they didn’t detonate until the day after. They were avenging the deaths of loved ones who were killed by us on Monte Sole.’

  He felt his hands tighten on his notes. ‘I’m lucky to be alive. They tried to kill us all.’ He took control of himself. He was a man who had faced death in battle many times before and he could face this the same way now.

  ‘Why did they target and murder Kuller separately from the rest of us?’

  As he asked himself the question, he immediately knew the answer.

  Kuller was one of the leaders in the field and was known for his merciless brutality. He had never been charged with war crimes, but Brenst knew that, in many people’s eyes, he deserved to be.

  He went over the notes again in case he had missed something else. When he had finished reading, he was convinced that he now knew enough about the operation against them to bring it to the attention of the police. He had thought about going after them himself but he knew that was just bravado. Those days are past now. He pondered whether or not to tell the Association, or even Reder himself, but he decided against it. Perhaps some hotheads may decide to take the law into their own hands and try to take out the Italians. After all, they weren’t boy scouts, and they wouldn’t take this lightly. No, he decided to inform the police and there was no time like the present. He put on his coat, shoved his notes into his pocket and left the house.

  The desk sergeant looked up as Brenst approached him

  ‘Yes sir, may I help you?’

  ‘Yes sergeant, my name is Herr Brenst; I would like to speak to a senior officer please. I have some information on the bombing of the Hotel Bristol that may help you in your enquires.’

  The desk sergeant looked at Brenst with fresh interest, ‘Could you give me some more details, sir?’

  Brenst took in the sergeant’s appearance with mild disgust. He saw an officer who was due for retirement and who had let his appearance somewhat go. He was fat, his uniform was too tight for him, and his manner was slovenly. ‘Thank god we had no one like him in the SS,’ he thought, ‘no style and certainly no substance.’

  ‘Sergeant, the information I have is very sensitive and is live. With no disrespect to you, I think that it may be above your rank to be privy to it.’

  The sergeant thought for a moment then said, ‘Take a seat sir, I’ll see what I can do.’

  After a few more minutes a tall grey-haired officer appeared from a side door. ‘Herr Brenst? Come this way, please.’

  Brenst followed the officer into a small office with a window overlooking the city of Vienna.

  ‘I am Ins
pector Michael Muller, senior officer at this station. Please sit down, Herr Brenst.’ He pointed to a seat in front of his desk.

  ‘I understand, Herr Brenst, that you may have information relating to the bombing of the Hotel Bristol. May I ask how you got this information?’

  Brenst sat down and slowly crossed his legs. ‘Inspector Muller, I was in the 16th Waffen SS and during the war part of our area of operations was in Italy, near the city of Bologna.’

  ‘Please carry on, Herr Brenst,’ said an interested Inspector Muller.

  Werner Brenst told his story from the rastrallemento on Monte Sole to the bombing of the hotel Bristol, and when he had finished speaking, Inspector Muller sat behind his desk in silence, as he took it all in.

  ‘It would certainly explain the hotel bombing. Our forensics people have found the fragments of what appears to be World War II Italian grenades in the hotel debris, so your story fits that. As for Hans Kuller, there have been unsupported suspicions about how he died, but being unsupported they remain only suspicions. This gives us a little more meat on the bone. I will speak to my superiors about this as soon as possible, Herr Brenst. In the meantime I would ask you to make an official statement relating all the facts you have told me about, and to sign it before witnesses. You understand that until I have that in my possession I cannot officially speak to my superiors or take this any further.’ Brenst nodded his head in assent to this request. Muller pressed his intercom button and spoke into it; ‘Please send a secretary in, prepared to take a statement.

  Chapter 14

  At eight-thirty that evening we met at a bench in the park, far away from anyone who could hear what we had to say.

  I arrived first and sat quietly waiting for Italo. When he eventually arrived thirty minutes late, he appeared very agitated.

  ‘What’s wrong Italo? You look nervous.’

  ‘Sorry I’m late; I’ve just had the police in to see me at the hotel asking a lot of questions about Kuller and various other things.’