Belshazzar's Daughter

by Barbara Nadel

“Well, sir, as far as we know, this man has no connection with Smits, although I accept that he must have found out or been told some things about him. I mean we now know that it is true that he did dismiss Jewish workers—”

  “Yes.” Ardiç face darkened once again. “And I told you to act on that some time ago!”

  Ikmen looked down at the floor. “Yes. Well. However, we are going to have to treat anything in here with extreme caution. This stuff about Meyer and Smits having a dispute over a woman is possible, but it’s new and…”

  “Yes?”

  “Look, sir,” Ikmen continued, “we’ve been looking for more concrete connections other than employer/employee between Smits and Meyer for some time now and for this to come along at this time and rather neatly…”

  Ardiç, not uncharacteristically, grumbled dangerously under his breath. “If I were you, Ikmen, I’d just be grateful that this has turned up when it has and to hell with who might be doing what for whatever reason.”

  “Yes, but…”

  Suddenly and explosively Ardiç’s patience snapped. “I don’t give a fuck about any of this! I want Smits in here and I want him in here today—do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir. Suleyman was just actually going—”

  “In here, Ikmen, today! Do I make myself clear!”

  “Yes, sir, perfectly.”

  Ardiç flung the note down on to Ikmen’s desk. “And this Englishman too!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And”—once again he stabbed his cigar in the air, this time right in Ikmen’s face—“and next time do not attempt to hide evidence from me! You can work on any silly little theories you no doubt have about all this in your own time. But when you are here, you are mine, do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.”

  He then turned, very quickly for such a large man, on his heel and stomped off back down the corridor. When the floor had finally finished shaking, Ikmen turned to Suleyman. “The only reason I can think of for Cornelius writing that letter is to protect himself.”

  Suleyman looked puzzled for a moment: Ikmen appeared to be ignoring the fact that Ardiç had ever been in the room. “Eh?”

  “Although where he got hold of these details, if they are true, and who indeed would have furnished him with them…”

  “Unless it was the girl, Natalia Gulcu. After all, her family does know Smits.”

  “True. And it is certainly a fact that Maria Gulcu was very keen for us to get on to Smits’s case. And yet to do it via Cornelius in this strange and mawkish manner … I mean, why an associate of Smits would basically ‘give’ him to us like this I cannot imagine. All I can think is that Cornelius must have been out of his mind on drugs or something when he wrote this.” He sighed a little, slightly defeated sigh. “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose you’d better go and bring old Smits in.”

  “Yes.” Suleyman moved back round to his own desk once again. “What about Cornelius?”

  Ikmen lit a cigarette and then slowly slumped his chin into his hands. “I’m going to have him watched—for now. Ardiç can fuck off if he thinks I’m going to pull him in before I’ve really got him in a state. Let him wonder what’s been happening with his letter for a little while and, in the state of mind he’s in, he could just tell us what we need to know anyway.”

  “You think so?”

  “He must be biting his fingernails down to the bone by this time. I know I would be. Now”—he stood up and rifled in his pocket for his car keys—“you go off and invite Smits out for a few hours while I go to the university library.”

  “Oh, you are still going then? I…”

  Ikmen visibly slumped under this, to him, obvious lack of understanding on Suleyman’s part. “I only ever do fifty percent of what Ardiç wants, Suleyman. You know that! I can arrange for a man to watch Cornelius from this desk and then I’m out of here—which is what you’d better be if you don’t want to get in trouble too.”

  * * *

  Robert walked into the staff room just in time to catch the start of the celebrations. At first he was utterly confused. Bottles of wine and glasses instead of coffee cups, red and gold streamers hanging from the ceiling, laughter, actual real, honest-to-goodness laughter. What the hell was going on? And why? Whatever was happening, no one had bothered to tell him about it.

  Rosemary teetered over to him carrying a bottle of cheap white plonk and a glass. She was wearing a pale floral-print dress with a full skirt. It was very pretty, but even through the fog of his depression Robert realized that it was at least twenty years too young for her.

  “Wet the baby’s head, Bob?”

  “What?”

  She looked confused. “Dieter and Hande. They’ve got a little boy, Bürgüz.”

  “Eh?”

  “Born at the German Hospital, eight o’clock last night.” She looked deep into his eyes and inclined her head to one side. “You’re not with us, are you, Bob?”

  He pointed in the general direction of the corridor. “I’ve been taking a conversation class, I…”

  “Do you want a glass of plonk, or don’t you?” His vagueness was irritating her. The world with its babies, its celebrations and its sorrows was going forward, but he wasn’t. Somewhere he’d got caught like a fish in a keep net, neither free nor really caged.

  Rosemary suddenly lost all patience with that blank face of his and moved on to the next new arrival. Yusuf, tall, dark, twenty-five and Turkish. When they came together, Robert heard Rosemary giggle girlishly. Yusuf was just her type.

  Robert crept away into the corner of the room by the television and lit a cigarette. The rank smoke made his mouth taste dry and foul. He knew his breath stank. He needed to eat something, anything. If only his stomach didn’t feel like an old walnut! Natalia had been pleased when he’d told her what he’d done. With that anxiety out of the way, surely this tightness, this sick feeling should lift!

  But he knew that it wouldn’t. There were others involved besides Natalia. He tried very hard to remember whether or not he had touched the paper with his fingers at any point, but he couldn’t. He reached into his pocket for the security of that handkerchief. He’d left it at home. Not surprising really. Saturday’s sleepless night had been followed by a fitful, uncomfortable slumber on Sunday. A doze punctuated and studded with images of tiny, filthy prison cells, dirt floors. His feet tied tightly together and hauled high up above his head; a young man in police uniform, his torso bare, wielding a heavy bastinado. “Helping the police with their inquiries.”

  But he wasn’t! Robert looked down at his feet and tried not to feel ashamed. Anyone in his situation would have done what he did! That was love, it was just like that!

  He looked at the smiling faces around him. Normal, reasonably happy people. People who made the best of their jobs, allowed themselves to enjoy the good times without worrying about the future. People who got drunk in company, not alone.

  Dieter, of course, was getting absolutely shit-faced. Well, his wife had just had his baby, he was entitled. Robert remembered Dieter’s Turkish wife, Hande. She was nice, a gentle girl, she and Dieter got on without undue complications. Perhaps the fault lay in him, in Robert. Perhaps it was his Britishness that was the root of their difficulties? Maybe it was Natalia who was being reasonable?

  Rosemary came over with that sickly-sweet Yusuf, that supposed administration assistant. That full-time gigolo!

  “Perhaps you can get him to loosen up and have a little drink,” she said, nodding her head in Robert’s direction. “I think he should, don’t you?”

  Yusuf smiled, exposing enough teeth for a regiment. Robert cringed. “Bob! Why you don’t celebrate?”

  Robert shrugged, smiling slightly. “Bit of a dodgy stomach, actually.”

  “Oh!” Yusuf’s smile disappeared. Robert felt this was a shame. He had been hoping that the young man’s head might fall in half at the mouth.

  “Oh, but Robert, Turkish wine is very good fo
r the stomach!”

  Rosemary wound her hands around one of the young man’s hairy arms. “Turkish things in general are, I find, good for the body.”

  They both exchanged a knowing look. Robert’s disgust suddenly bubbled over.

  Rosemary was old enough to be Yusuf’s mother, for Christ’s sake! And the young man was just a tart anyway!

  “Oh please!” he found himself saying. “Please!”

  Rosemary’s face dropped into a frown. “What’s the matter? What is it?”

  It was like working to a script. He didn’t want to make a scene, but he knew that he had to. The words were already waiting in his head.

  “For Christ’s sake, Rosemary, you’re old enough to be his mother! God, what are you doing, woman?”

  “What?” Her voice was calm and low; it was obvious that she didn’t want to shout. But her tone was dangerous and her eyes were fierce.

  “Rosemary, it’s almost prostitution! You feed him, take him out a bit, wash his smelly socks for a few months and he gives you the odd screw! He’s probably got some Danish eighteen-year-old stashed at home! I’m sorry, but—”

  “What he say, Rosemary?”

  “I said—”

  “I think you’ve said enough!” Now she had raised her voice. She didn’t care who heard anymore. Her face blazed with crimson blood. “Just because your own love life is an utter shambles! You’re probably a dismal failure at it too! How dare you! How dare you criticize me and the way I live my life!”

  She didn’t see, nor was she going to see.

  “But, Rosemary, you’ll get hurt again, you know you will!” He’d started shouting too, he could hear it.

  Heads were starting to turn. Some people had ceased replenishing glasses in mid-pour. They were bored language teachers, of course they enjoyed a good row.

  “I don’t believe you!” Rosemary shook her head, her blonde curls bounced against Yusuf’s shoulder. “I don’t know what’s got into you recently, you’re like a, a…”

  “Rosemary, I…” He touched his own face with stained and trembling hands. He’d started feeling bad. It had been a terrible, cruel thing to say.

  “Just look at you! You’re falling to bits!” She pulled a disgusted face and backed away. “You’ve always been weird, but—You don’t talk, you look like you don’t sleep, the other day you didn’t shave. God knows I’ve tried to help you, but quite honestly, I think you’re beyond it!”

  He looked into Rosemary’s hurt middle-aged face and wondered: Why? Why had he said it? He hadn’t had to! Like all that stuff with the confounded letter had been, it was optional. It occurred to Robert that perhaps in both these cases he’d done the wrong thing, In trying to do the best for someone, perhaps, just sometimes …

  “I’ll do what I want and when I want!” She shook her head angrily. “Don’t you dare tell me how to live, Robert Cornelius! And don’t you dare come to my flat again, whining about your marriage fantasies! It’s pathetic! You’re pathetic!”

  She turned and went back into the center of the room. She pulled a confused Yusuf after her.

  A few awkward seconds later the party started to come to life once more and Robert found himself alone. OK, so he’d done it, now what? Voices around him got louder again and he felt almost impossibly isolated. It hurt. He’d made a fool of himself. They’d all be thinking that he was jealous of Rosemary now, but was that a bad thing? His words had been there for a purpose surely? They had been! His life was changing and there was no going back. He smiled, but not out of happiness. Of course! Rosemary had to be hurt. It was essential she was kept at a distance. It had to be that way with people he cared about. His mind briefly touched against a vision of Natalia. He frowned.

  * * *

  Reinhold Smits surveyed his new surroundings with ill-disguised revulsion. And, in truth, there was little to admire in the hot, dingy little room in which he now found himself. Painted in the muddy shades of green and brown that seemed to characterise so many public buildings, police interview room number five was hardly a place of peace and repose. And, ever fastidious, Smits noticed the little things usually disregarded by the customary occupants of this place, like the fact that the old tin that served as an ashtray had not been emptied since the last “suspect” left; like the fact that the young constable guarding the door had very bad acne.

  After fiddling briefly with the tiny, almost useless fan on top of the table, the young Sergeant Suleyman sat down in front of him and smiled. Then, pressing a button on the large and antiquated tape recorder beside him, he spoke a few unintelligible words into the machine before addressing him.

  “Could you please, sir, for the benefit of the tape, state your full name, age and occupation.”

  Smits nodded first and then proceeded, his face taut and obviously strained. “My name is Reinhold Smits, I am ninety years old and I own several major companies trading in textiles, coal and white goods.”

  Suleyman nodded his acknowledgment. “Thank you, sir. Now, before I ask you any further questions, I must inform you that we are now in possession of information which confirms both your past allegiance to Nazi principles and your actions based upon these which include the dismissal of several Jewish workers from your employ in the early 1940s. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  He might have guessed. Indeed, subconsciously, he had probably already known that this would all come tumbling out at some stage. It was why he exhibited absolutely no surprise when it did come. “Yes,” he replied simply, “I understand.”

  “Good.” Suleyman paused for a moment, probably—so Smits mused, collecting his thoughts—because the lack of shock and horror had quite thrown him. “In view of what I have just told you, Mr. Smits, why did you then plead ignorance of these facts during the course of our first interview with you?”

  “Because you were asking me to recall a time in my life I would rather forget. Because if I owned up to such behavior, you could make quite erroneous connections between myself and current events.”

  “And yet, sir, I think I would be correct in saying that you did know and dismiss from your employ one Leonid Meyer?”

  Smits drew in a deep breath and, during the pause between drawing it in and exhaling, he came to a decision that he hoped was the right one. “Yes, Sergeant, I did.”

  The young man’s eyes, although slightly averted, showed a little triumph. Smits suddenly started to feel sick. “May I have a glass of water?” he said, holding on to the scraggy thinness that was his throat.

  The sergeant nodded briefly at the constable who responded by walking out to the water fountain in the corridor and returning with a cracked cup full of oily gray liquid. Smits nodded in thanks.

  The sergeant described what had just happened for the benefit of the tape before proceeding, which he did only when he felt that Smits was ready to start again.

  “So,” he continued, “what was the nature of your relationship with Leonid Meyer?”

  “He was an employee of mine,” Smits replied.

  “Was that all?”

  “Yes.”

  “You had no involvement with Meyer outside of work then?”

  “No.”

  It may possibly have ended there and later Smits would chastise himself for not leaving it at that point. But his own now-growing anxiety compelled him to ask: “Why?”

  “Well, sir,” the young man replied, “because it has been suggested to us that Meyer and yourself may have been involved in a dispute over a woman.”

  So that was it, was it? That was the game the old witch had decided to play with him! Smits felt his face blanch with anger, a reaction not lost upon his interrogator.

  “I get the impression, sir,” the policeman said, “that this information is not new to you.”

  “No, you are right, it is not.”

  “And so…?” The young man shrugged as if urging Smits onward.

  Well, if the old woman was going to play dirty then so was he! Smits cleared his thro
at before answering, the better to enunciate with perfect clarity. “My dealings, Sergeant, with this woman never actually progressed beyond the acquaintance stage. I would suggest that if you want to know more about the machinations between her and Mr. Meyer then you should ask the lady herself.”

  “Who is she, sir?”

  Smits sighed. “Maria Gulcu,” he said, “or rather Maria Demidova, as she was then.”

  He fancied he saw something register in the young man’s eyes.

  “I met Leonid in 1919 when he came to work for my father and through him I met Maria.”

  “I see.” Once again Suleyman paused, marshalling his thoughts for the next question. “And did you, Mr. Smits, ever vie with Leonid Meyer for the attentions of Maria?”

  “Yes. Although not in the way you might think.”

  “Oh? And what is that?”

  “I found her interesting, as opposed to sexually attractive and…”

  “And so you didn’t dismiss Meyer from your employ because of her?”

  Smits put his head down and murmured almost inaudibly, “No.”

  “So why did you dismiss Leonid Meyer then, Mr. Smits?”

  Smits continued looking at the floor. It was better to look truly contrite now. “Things changed a lot in the Germany of the 1930s. With the rise of Adolf Hitler a new confidence gripped everybody—including those of us who resided abroad. There was no longer any place for those of inferior pedigree within our sphere of influence.”

  “So you dismissed a man who had been your friend because he was a Jew?”

  “Yes. But what you have to understand is that those were very different times. We—”

  “And these are views that you still retain?”

  Smits looked up and found himself confronted by a pair of eyes that were utterly without either mercy or pity.

  “No.” Although smarting from the onslaught, he now attempted, if belatedly, to recapture some dignity. “No, I came to my senses many years ago now, Sergeant. And if I could have made it up to Leonid, I would have, but…”

  “You lost contact with Mr. Meyer after his dismissal?”

  To tell the truth was probably not that wise but then flying in the face of the evidence in Leonid’s address book probably wasn’t that wise either. “I still used to see Leonid from time to time,” he said. “I was sorry for what he became in later years.”