by Robert Moss
“What happened?”
“I wasn’t supposed to be at the meeting, but I got wind of it and went along anyway. I reckoned nobody else would say much on my behalf. Emil Brandt was leading the pack. He was halfway through his spiel when I got there — and the sight of my mug fairly took the wind out of him, I can tell you. But he pulled himself together again. He called my boys adventurists, terrorists and provocateurs — and half a dozen other things I can’t remember. Claimed I was consorting with anarchists and known Trotskyites. I think they were fixing to throw me out of the party, but they didn’t dare, not with me staring them in the face. They said there’s going to be an inquiry.”
“Emil Brandt. I can’t believe it. He used to be my instructor.”
“They gave him a pretty good working-over in Moscow. Weren’t you the one who told me about it? Now he sings whatever music they’re handing out.”
“Are you saying that Emil was speaking for Moscow?”
“Oh, I used to tell myself the problem was Thälmann and all our pocket Stalins in Berlin. I didn’t understand very much in those days, Johnny. You now, you’ve become a world traveller. You must know all about it. Did you ever meet Neumann?”
Johnny remembered an arrogant, opinionated party leader, the son of a grain millionaire, who treated girl secretaries as if he had the droit du seigneur. He had instantly disliked Neumann as a man but knew that, like Heinz, he believed in fighting the Nazis with any weapon that came to hand.
“Neumann thought everything would be put right if he explained the situation to Stalin. He said it was all a problem of Stalin getting the wrong advice from Berlin. So Neumann went to Moscow. He told Stalin we have to join up with the Social Democrats — the devil if necessary — and break Hitler before he breaks us. Stalin knew better. You know what he told Neumann? He said he doesn’t believe Hitler will take power but, if he does, it won’t matter because Hitler will spend all his time fighting with Britain and France. The way I look at it, if Stalin wanted Hitler in power, he couldn’t do much more to help him get in.”
It’s not possible, Johnny told himself.
But looking out across the water, he felt momentarily dizzy. The solid row of buildings on the far side seemed to sway like a pasteboard facade. His surroundings seemed utterly insubstantial.
If Heinz is right, he thought, my whole life has been wasted.
The cynicism and corruption he had found among local party leaders from London to Berlin; the waste of lives in failed insurrections from Hamburg to Shanghai; the famine in the Ukraine; the flight of Trotsky from Russia — all of that could be explained and subsumed in a larger perspective. None of it touched the core of his revolutionary faith. But the idea that Stalin, the leader of world communism, might knowingly collaborate with Hitler...
“It’s monstrous,” he said. “It’s a lie.”
What he might have said — but was unwilling to face — was that if it were true, he had been living for a lie. And had just committed the woman he loved to the same lie.
He wrestled with his friend for a while, until Kordt squeezed his arm and said, “Don’t let’s waste all our time arguing. You and I have got serious drinking to do. You’ll come to see it my way, I’ll bet on it. We can’t trust the Russians. Whatever chance we’ve got depends on fellows like you and me, punch-drunk fighters who care about Germany and don’t give a shit about the odds. Die verlorenen Haufen. The Lost Band. If some smartass had said this to me ten years ago, even five, I would have punched him in the throat. But we’ll have to choose whether we’re German Communists or Russian Communists. And if we wait too long, the Austrian corporal will choose for us — whether we go to the headsman or the hangman.”
8
“Johnny!” Sigrid shook him again. “There’s someone at the door.”
He snapped awake, sprang from the bed and groped for his trousers and the Mauser under his pillow. He prised open the window and peered down over the fire escape. As far as he could see down into the well of shadow, that way was clear.
“Get dressed,” he told her. “If there’s any trouble, don’t hesitate. Take the fire escape.”
He went to the door.
“Who’s there?”
“Heinrich Himmler.”
He knew that voice, edged with irony, vaguely foreign but without any identifiable accent.
He opened the door, and Max Fabrikant swept into the room. He looked as if he had just come from a job, with his collar turned up and his hat rammed down over his eyes. He had a bodyguard with him, who was told to wait outside.
Max inspected the flat. He went into the bedroom and stared at Sigrid, who was buttoning her blouse. He said, “You wait outside, too.”
“For God’s sake, Max.” Johnny protested. “It’s past three in the morning.”
But Sigrid said, “I’m used to it,” and wrapped herself in her camel-hair coat.
“I’m sorry to disturb your love nest again,” Max said, when she was gone. He flung himself full length on the sofa without bothering to take off his hat or coat. He lit up a cigarette while Johnny poured whisky.
“They don’t care what time it is in Berlin,” Max went on, leaving Johnny to guess that he was referring to his controllers at the centre. “I’ve got instructions that have to be acted on immediately. They involve you.”
Johnny’s eyes moved to the door, and Max followed them. “Don’t worry,” Fabrikant said. “You can leave her out of this. It’s about our friend Heinz.”
“What about him?”
“The centre has received information that he is a police spy, a provocateur.”
“That’s a lie!” Johnny erupted. “Heinz risks his life every night, fighting the Hitler movement.”
“Also that Kordt is associating with known Trotskyites and other enemies of the party.” Max had adopted the impersonal manner of a court official reading from a charge sheet. “Also that he was responsible for the arrest of two of our most valuable agents.”
“Who’s putting out this crap? You know what it’s worth.” Max exhaled and watched the smoke circles waft toward the ceiling. “Perhaps you should ask Emil Brandt.”
“Emil? What has he got to say about it?” Johnny resolved not to say anything that would reflect his conversation with Heinz, barely a week before.
“It’s my understanding that Brandt made the denunciation.”
The snivelling bastard, Johnny swore inwardly. The irony of the fact that he had once tried to shield Emil from Max’s colleagues in Moscow chafed at him. Emil had sacrificed his beliefs and become a sideshow performer, ready with a song-and-dance routine for any occasion.
“Did you put Emil up to this?” Johnny suddenly challenged Max.
The spymaster remained unruffled. He said, “I’m sorry to disappoint you. I had nothing to do with it.”
“Then why is Emil spreading these lies?”
“Perhaps he is still trying to prove his own loyalty. I seem to recall that the most vigorous members of the Spanish Inquisition had Jewish blood in their veins.”
“It’s indecent!” Johnny exploded.
“Do you understand the nature of belief? I wonder.” Max closed his eyes, and in the long pause that followed Johnny started to wonder whether he had dropped off to sleep. The ash on his cigarette reached his fingertips, and he let the burning stub fall to the floor.
Johnny got up and stamped it out. There was a sour odour of combustion as Max went on. “The medieval inquisitors had a manual called the Malleus Maleficarum, the Hammer of Witches. Perhaps you have heard of it? No? Well, it is written there that some of the crimes attributed to witches are real and many are illusions. However, the illusions are created by the devil at the behest of the witches. So even if the witch’s crimes are illusions, the witch is guilty nonetheless.”
“Is that what chekists are taught?” Johnny asked, shocked and astonished. He remembered the rumour that Max, like Stalin, had once studied in a religious seminary.
“I warned
you once before that Heinz makes too much commotion. Emil isn’t the only one who has reported against him. Heinz insults Thälmann and Ulbricht to their faces and bitches all the time about the party line. Someone was bound to report sooner or later that he is attacking Stalin. Stalin is the party line. Furthermore, Kordt has gone on the rampage. He launches madcap forays and gets good men shot. He’s got waterfront scum, petty criminals, anarchists, even Trotsky sympathizers in his organization. He’s set himself up in Hamburg like a gangster in an American movie. Something has to be done. I stand corrected. Something is to be done.”
“Yes?”
“He’s been summoned to Moscow to account for his actions.”
“You mean, to answer the witch finders?”
Max shrugged. “Perhaps. If he can only stop playing the fool, he’ll be safe enough. He may even return stronger. He’s still got friends in Moscow. Piatnitsky’s one of them. There are some in my organization, too. I want you to go to Hamburg and give him his marching orders.”
“Why me?”
“You’re friends. He trusts you.”
“He won’t agree to leave Germany. Not in the middle of the fight.”
“Remind him about Parteibefehl. Party orders. This isn’t a matter for discussion.”
“What if he refuses?”
“You’ll report to me.”
Johnny was on the morning train.
“If I go to Moscow,” Kordt said to him that night. “I know I won’t be coming back.”
They were in a room above the Bunte Kuh, a whores’ dive in St. Pauli. Kordt was paring his nails with a long hunting knife.
“You don’t have any choice,” Johnny reminded him.
“I used this last night,” Kordt said. He held up the knife so the reflected light from the naked bulb overhead shone in Johnny’s face. “On a snitch we caught visiting the Nazis.”
“They’ll expel you from the party,” Johnny warned. “So let them.”
“Heinz, that’s only the beginning. You know people like us can’t just walk away.”
“What are you trying to tell me, Johnny?” He drew the tip of the knife lightly across his throat. “Is that what you mean?”
Johnny said nothing.
Kordt burst out laughing, rocking back and forth in his chair. “I know death too well,” he said. “He’s as close to me as you are. I can’t be scared off that way. But tell Max he’s welcome to try. This is my town. My people will protect me.”
“People like the Baron?” Johnny had seen the man they called the Baron, a notorious pimp and dope peddler, at the bar downstairs.
“Why not? At least he’s not siding with Hitler.”
“If you won’t follow orders,” Johnny said deliberately, “then get out. Get out tonight.”
“And go where? My duty is here.”
Johnny gave up trying to argue with him. “At least say you’ll sleep on it,” he suggested.
“I have better things to do at night than sleep.”
“I’ll come tomorrow.”
“Come if you like. My answer will be the same.”
He overtook Johnny on his way to the door and embraced him. “You’re still my friend,” he said. “But they always send someone you trust, don’t they?”
They were waiting for him at the safe house, a comfortable apartment on the Johanniswall kept by a not-so-old widow called Magda whose hospitality was legendary in certain circles. They were eating Magda’s pastries, washed down with kirsch, while she flustered over them like a mother hen, apparently unconcerned that one of them, a fellow with a nose like white sausage and a neck that bulged over his collar, had his feet up on the polished rosewood dining table.
“Krichbaum,” he introduced himself. He extended a hand without bothering to rearrange his feet. “This is Hirsch.”
The one called Hirsch was wiry and compact. There was an unpleasant sheen about his face and clothes.
A real river rat, Johnny thought.
Hirsch contributed nothing to the conversation. Either he had nothing to say, or he didn’t understand German. His hands tended to stray towards the middle button of his jacket.
Krichbaum produced his credentials. Osobiy Otdel, “Special Department.” These two were specialists, all right; the kind of chekists who were hired to shoot men in the back of the neck.
“From Berlin?” Johnny inquired.
Krichbaum wiped the crumbs off his cheek with his thumb. “We’ve been sent to speed things up,” he reported. “You saw Kordt?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Johnny hesitated for only a second. “He said he’d give me an answer tomorrow.”
“Why not tonight?” Krichbaum swung his feet off the table. “You know where he is, don’t you?”
“I — I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean? You were just with him.”
“He moves around a lot. He never spends two nights in the same place.”
If I can just hold them off for tonight, Johnny was thinking. For long enough to warn Heinz.
“Don’t play games with me, smart-shitter,” Krichbaum snarled at him. “You were at a whorehouse called the Bunte Kuh. You’re going to take us there now.”
“He just uses it for meetings. He’s probably left by now.”
“We’ll just have to make sure, then, won’t we? How many guards does he have?”
“I don’t know. Three or four, maybe more.”
“Well, you’ll make it simple for us. They trust you. They shit at the Bunte Kuh, don’t they?”
“I suppose so,” Johnny replied, startled.
“Where’s the john?”
He described the layout. The lavatory was on the ground floor, at the back of the stairwell.
“So we’ll play it this way,” Krichbaum said. “Hirsch and me, we’ll take a look at the meat downstairs while you speak to Kordt. Find a reason to get him into the bathroom — tell him you’ve got a message, anything you like. We’ll do the rest.”
As Johnny stared at them, the silent one pulled out a straightedged razor, opened it and tested the edge with his thumb.
“It’s a piece of cake,” Krichbaum said. “Hirsch used to be a barber.”
Johnny prayed that Kordt had left the Bunte Kuh and gone to another of his haunts. But Heinz was still there, holding court upstairs with some of the complaisant ladies of the house.
Johnny went in first. Krichbaum and Hirsch followed after a few minutes’ interval, making a reasonable impersonation of drunken patrons.
Karl Vogel was squatting on the landing, his bony legs straddling the steps. He made Johnny wait until he had checked with Kordt.
“You again?” Kordt greeted him, less friendly than before. The colour in his cheeks had come straight out of a bottle. “I told you not to waste your breath. What is it this time?”
“Not here.” He looked at the half-naked girls, one angular, the other rosy and plump, like a pile of heaped pillows. Heinz had become omnivorous.
“Tell him to fuck off,” the thin one suggested to Kordt.
But Kordt was already on his feet. “I’ll come in a minute,” he told the girls, and gave the fat one a resounding smack on the rump. “Zuversichtlichst. Most confidently.”
Johnny’s heart was thumping so hard that he felt sure Kordt must hear it. He had put off considering the choice that confronted him — to betray his friend or his superiors — in the hope that something would simply turn up. Now that the choice was unavoidable, he chose his friend — although he knew he might be inviting the same kind of retribution the OGPU had planned for Heinz.
“There are two men downstairs,” he told Kordt. “Chekists. I’ve seen their credentials.”
Kordt’s eyes narrowed. “You brought them here?”
“I had no alternative. I’m supposed to get you into the men’s room.”
Kordt gave a dry chuckle. “This isn’t that type of establishment.”
“They’re armed. One of
them likes to use a razor.”
“He does, does he?” Kordt’s face brightened. He called to Karl and gave him some whispered instructions.
“How’s your bladder?” he said to Johnny. “I feel a terrible need to water my horse.”
Afterwards, Johnny’s mind turned on what Sigrid had said: that you passed the major crossroads in life before you were aware of them.
He went downstairs with Kordt and made a little signal to Krichbaum, who was quaffing beer while a tart groped around inside his fly.
There was a man in the washroom taking a long time to rinse his hands.
“Out!” Kordt ordered.
The man blinked myopically. Johnny had the fleeting impression of a moon-round face, a watch chain stretched across a copious paunch, a pair of gold-framed spectacles glittering on the edge of the sink.
Then the door banged open.
Hirsch came through first. Kordt saw the light on the open blade and flung himself clear, leaving the stranger at the washbasin in the line of attack. The man stood frozen in bewilderment or terror. At the last instant he put up his hands to protect his face.
Hirsch was unable to arrest his forward momentum. His arm came down like a javelin. The razor slipped between the fat man’s fingers and sliced deep into the palm. He screamed as blood spurted in all directions, spotting Johnny’s shirt.
Hirsch was cursing in Russian, ducking and circling, looking for Kordt, who had slipped behind the stalls.
Krichbaum rushed in, a silencer attached to his pistol. “He squeals like a stuck pig,” he said with disgust. “Hurry up—” he addressed this to Johnny as well as Hirsch 4 “—somebody may come.”
He had his mouth open to add something, but no more words issued. His face darkened, and as he clutched at his throat, only hoarse gargling sounds came out. His eyes bulged, and his tongue swelled out between his teeth.
As Karl twisted the piano wire tighter, beads of blood erupted from Krichbaum’s coarse neck, and his weapon fell to the floor.
Hirsch saw nothing of this because, as he circled the stalls, Kordt lashed out with a short length of iron bar and broke his arm. Johnny didn’t turn away when he saw his friend pick up the cutthroat razor and begin to do the barber’s job for him. He felt unnaturally warm but also oddly detached.
