by Philip Kerr
Zander lit us a couple of the French cigarettes he favored, and I waited patiently while he took us on a short walk down memory lane.
“Now I come to think of it,” he said finally, “there is somewhere, perhaps. Somewhere I’d hide if it was me on the run in Homburg. Of course, you’d have to be pretty desperate.”
“You mean like Johann Diesbach.”
“Er, yes. Well, underneath the castle ruins are the Schlossberg Caves. When I was a boy we used to go in there a lot. I think everyone in Homburg knows about the Schlossberg Caves. Strictly speaking, they’re not caves at all, but man-made quartz mines; the sand, you see—it was highly prized and especially useful for cleaning and grinding glass. And with at least five kilometers of passageways on at least nine levels a man could evade capture indefinitely. That’s one of the reasons I’m fond of Tom Sawyer. Because McDougal’s cave in Twain’s book always reminds me of the Schlossberg Caves, here in Homburg.” He shrugged. “Of course, it was not everyone’s cup of tea. And in truth I never liked actually going into the caves much myself. Not as much as Hartmut. Although I had to, of course, for reasons of youthful bravado. I suffer from claustrophobia, you see. I hate being in an enclosed space. Especially one that’s underground. I used to read Mark Twain’s book as a way of confronting my phobia. After being lost in McDougal’s cave for several days Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher find their way out again, you see?”
“That’s not likely to be a problem for a man like Diesbach who owns a salt mine and who’s spent half of his life underground.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“And quite a bit before that, when he was in the army, of course. I’m probably half troll myself after four years in the trenches.”
“He’d probably be quite at home in there. It’s warm and dry, and I think you’d be reasonably comfortable on the sandy floor.”
“Where are these Schlossberg Caves?”
“Farther up the same hill as the brewery.”
“Then that’s where we’re going first. And if we don’t find him in the caves, we’ll take a look in the brewery, as you suggested. Maybe they’ve got a beer barrel as big as the Heidelberg Tun and we’ll find him hiding inside it.”
“I hope you’re not expecting me to go in the caves with you,” Zander said nervously. “I told you before. I suffer from claustrophobia. Besides, it’s like a rabbit warren in there, with multiple ways in and out.”
I said nothing.
“Shouldn’t we go and fetch some of those uniformed policemen to help us?”
“I want to catch the rabbit. Not scare him away.”
“With one important difference surely,” said Zander. “This particular rabbit is by your own admission armed and extremely dangerous.”
SIXTY-ONE
April 1939
“He’s in there all right,” I said quietly.
“How can you be sure?”
I pointed to a trail of wet footprints on the dry red sand that covered the ground near the cave entrance and led into the silent darkness.
“Those could belong to anyone,” objected Zander.
“True. But smell the air.”
Zander took a tentative step farther into the cave entrance, lifted his long thin nose a little higher, and sniffed quietly, like an experienced perfumer from Treu & Nuglisch. The air inside the Schlossberg Caves was warm and dry and carried the scent of something sweet and aromatic. “What is it?” he asked.
“Pipe tobacco,” I said. “To be exact, Von Eicken pipe tobacco. Diesbach smokes it.”
I lit a cigarette; our previous talk about Hutier tactics had left me feeling on edge, as if I’d been about to go over the top of the trench on a midnight wire-cutting mission in no-man’s-land. My hand was shaking a little as I held the lighter up to my cigarette and sucked in the volatile, hot hydrocarbon gases I needed to calm my fraying nerves. I was always better at physics than philosophy.
He frowned. “Are you going in there?”
“That’s the general idea.”
“By yourself?”
“Unless you’ve changed your mind about coming with me.”
Zander shook his head. “No, this is as far as I go.”
“Sure about that?” I grinned and offered him the police flashlight I’d taken from the trunk of the car. There were two leather tabs on the back of the light to allow the bearer to attach it to his belt or tunic so the unit could be used hands free. “You can have this, if you like. Just button it on your greatcoat.”
“And make myself a nice target?” He shook his head firmly. “I might as well paint a bull’s-eye on my chest. There are a lot of things I’ll do for Martin Bormann—some of them I’m not very proud of—but I have no intention of getting myself killed for that man.”
“Spoken like a true National Socialist.”
“I’m made of different stuff than you, Gunther. I’m a bureaucrat, not a hero. A pen feels a lot more comfortable in my pocket than this stupid gun.”
“Haven’t you heard? The pen is mightier than the sword, Wilhelm. Especially since January 1933. If you only knew the damage a Pelikan can do these days. Just ask Dr. Stuckart. Besides, neither one of us is going to get killed.”
“You sound very sure of yourself, Gunther.”
“With any luck I’ll get a chance to reason with this Fritz. Talk him out of there. Tell him that I’ll make sure they go easy on his wife and son if he gives himself up. Which they certainly won’t if he doesn’t. I wouldn’t put it past Bormann to dynamite his salt mine in Rennweg and take the roof off Diesbach’s house in Kuchl. A compulsory purchase, he’d probably call it.”
“You’re right. It’s just the sort of vindictive thing he would do. Sell the house to some Party hack and make a nice fat profit.” Zander looked sheepish. “I’ve organized one or two of those compulsory purchases myself. Frankly I was quite happy to hand over those particular duties to Karl Flex. It’s not very pleasant to have to throw someone out of their house and put them on the street. Especially in a small place like Obersalzberg.” He winced. “Believe me, I know how much I’m hated there.”
“What’s this I hear? A Nazi with a conscience?”
“We all have to do things we’d perhaps rather not do, in the way of working toward the Leader. That’s what Bormann calls it. You’re a good man, Gunther, but before this year’s out you may also find yourself having to do things you regret. We all will.”
“I’m way ahead of you there, Wilhelm.”
I slipped the flashlight into my coat pocket, took out my gun, worked the slide to put a round in the breech, and eased off the hammer. “Just in case he’s not open to reason.”
“Aren’t you going to switch that flashlight on?”
“Not until I have to.”
“But it’s pitch-dark in there. How on earth will you find him?”
“Very carefully. At least he won’t hear me coming. This sand is like a living room carpet.” I grinned and flicked my cigarette out of the cave into the damp undergrowth that shrouded the entrance. From the narrow path that led to it you could see the whole of Homburg laid out below like a miniature wonderland, with the accent on miniature. “I dunno. Maybe he’ll have a torch on the wall. A fire to keep warm. Some limelight and a couple of half-naked girls from the Tingel-Tangel. Any last words of advice?”
“Sound doesn’t carry very far in there. Not much echo. The ceiling is vaulted and, in parts, much higher than you think. It’s actually rather beautiful, although you won’t be able to appreciate that much in darkness. In other places the ceiling and the ground are still joined, like a column. And here and there are some buttresses to help keep the ceiling up. But there’s not much likelihood of a collapse. I certainly never heard of one when I was a boy. There are also stairs that lead down from one level to another, so watch your step. And as far as I remember there are no
open holes. So it should be safe enough underfoot. There’s a light switch on the wall of one of the larger, more colorful chambers but I really don’t remember which one.”
I nodded. “All right. You stay here and guard the entrance.” I pointed at the dark tunnel in front of me. It looked like the entrance to Helheim.
“If everything goes all right in there I’ll call out the code words ‘Prussian blue’ when I’m about to come outside. Don’t worry. You’ll hear me. I’ll certainly say it more than once. But if you don’t hear me say it, then assume it’s him and start shooting. Got that?”
Zander took out his Walther P38 and thumbed back the hammer, almost as if he knew what he was doing.
“Prussian blue. Got that.”
SIXTY-TWO
October 1956
I stood outside the Karlsberg Brewery frowning and shaking my gray head in wonder as I stared up at the big blue company logo on the dirty stucco wall: a man in a leather apron shifting a beer barrel inside a blue star of David, dated 1878. On the face of it, nothing in Homburg had changed very much; nothing except me, and the surprising thing was I felt surprised by this. It seemed almost impossible that seventeen years had passed since I’d last been there and yet none of those years had had any effect on Homburg itself. It still looked like a small and very boring town in Germany and I hadn’t missed the place more than I’d missed a lost sock. But time lost was something else; that was gone forever. And this brought me up short, as if I’d just driven an express train straight into the buffers of my own past. For everyone, the future arrives at a thousand miles an hour but for a moment I took that personally as if this was some kind of hilarious game the Chancellor of Heaven had chosen to play with me, and only with me. Like I was nothing more than five dice in a game of Yahtzee. I’d always thought there was plenty of time to do a lot of things and yet, now I really thought about it, there had been not a moment to spare. Perhaps that was why people chose to live in a dump like Homburg in the first place: the pace of life just seems slower in a town like that, and maybe that’s the secret of a long life, to live in a place where nothing ever happens. Then something did happen; it started to rain heavily.
Of course I knew where I was going to be spending the night as soon as the police moto rider dropped me in front of the gates of the brewery. I suppose that was written on my heart in fiery letters. There was a hotel nearby and with franks in my pocket I tormented myself for a long moment by staring at it wistfully and thinking fondly about a bath, some hot food, and a bed, but I’d already decided against it. I needed to fly below the radar now, to be someone I’d never considered being before: a man without a future. The Stasi were depending on me acting as if I believed the opposite. Besides, I was hardly dressed for respectable company; any hotel manager or desk clerk seeing me would have put in a call to the local police just to be on the safe side. Playing the part of a tramp, I’d have given Charlie Chaplin a run for his money. There was a hole in my shoe to match the one in my trouser leg, my face looked like a magnet for iron filings, and the shirt on my back felt like a butter wrapper. So I trudged up the hill, to the top of Schlossberg-Höhenstrasse, admired the view for about two seconds, and made my way through thick vegetation along the same narrow hillside path I half-remembered, until I reached the entrance to the Schlossberg Caves. These were closed for the winter, and a heavy iron door that hadn’t been there before blocked the way inside. According to a sign on the wall, the caves were now a tourist attraction, although it was hard to imagine anyone coming all this way to see not very much; it wasn’t like the caves were home to some fascinating paleolithic paintings of ancient man and his favorite pastimes, or a series of spectacular geological formations; these weren’t even proper caves, just old quartz mines, worked out years ago and then abandoned. With the rain becoming heavier and now dripping down the back of my neck, abandonment felt like a familiar story in that part of the world. I tried the door. It wasn’t locked.
Inside the caves, the ground was as soft and dry under my feet as if I’d been walking along the sands at Strandbad Wannsee in early summer. With my Ronson extended in front of me like a grave robber’s lamp, I made my way to one of the larger chambers, where I found an electric light switch and flicked it on. The illumination this provided was small, meant only to be atmospheric, and that suited me fine; the last thing I wanted was to advertise my presence there. The concave vaulted ceiling was the shape of the whorl on my very dirty thumb and presented a variety of colors, mostly beige and red, but also a few blues and greens, although this might have had more to do with what the quartz did to the light, which played as many strange tricks as the immortal Chancellor himself. It was like being inside a large ant colony somewhere in the irradiated depths of New Mexico, with tunnels extending in all directions, and I half-expected a mutated giant insect to come and bite my head off. It certainly didn’t feel anything like Germany. Then again, I’d seen some really bad movies since moving to France. For a while I explored the various levels—only one or two of which had electric light—and gradually figured out how the mine workings had been constructed; in some of the tunnels you could still see traces of the old tracks that had been used to transport wagons full of sand out of the caves. Everything was quiet, like a stopped clock wrapped in several layers of cotton wool, as if time itself was finally on hold. Perhaps because I desperately wanted it to be that way.
I took off my sodden jacket and hung it on the light switch in the main cavern, hoping it might dry. I also fetched the money from my coat pocket and laid it on the sand to dry. Then I sat down with my gun by my side, leaned against the rough-hewn wall, and lit a cigarette. I might have lit a fire except that I knew there was nothing outside that looked dry enough to burn. Besides, out of the wind and the rain, it was reasonably warm in the caves—warm enough to relax a little, draw a breath, and reflect on how far I’d come since leaving Cap Ferrat.
I opened the bottle of red, drank a third of it in one gulp, and ate some of the chocolate. For a while after that I wondered if I should smoke another cigarette and decided against it; making my tobacco supplies last a while seemed like a better idea. Perhaps I would smoke one after a nap. I tried to imagine what life had been like for the hundreds of quartz miners who were now my invisible companions. But instead I set myself the easier task of remembering just what had happened in those caves before the war some seventeen years ago, with Johann Diesbach and Wilhelm Zander. To think I’d risked my life to arrest that man. And as if any of it had ever mattered. Germany’s invasion of Poland had been just five months away. Instead of working as a police commissar in a country where the law had ceased to matter very much, I should have been on the first train west, to France and safety. French Lorraine had been so very close to Homburg. As a senior policeman with plenipotentiary powers I could easily have bluffed my way across the border. Instead, I’d been playing the kind of hero that no one really wanted. What a fool I’d been.
I glanced around my new apartment and wondered what I could buy to make the place seem a little more congenial. That was how we made things better in the trenches: a few books from Amelang, some furniture from Gebrüder Bauer, a bit of expensive table linen from F. V. Grünfeld, a couple of silk rugs from Herrmann Gerson, and maybe several carefully selected paintings from Arthur Dahlheim on Potsdamerstrasse. All the comforts of home. Mostly we pinned a few photographs to the rough planks that were our walls: girlfriends, mothers, film stars. Just as often we didn’t know who the photographs were of, since the men who’d put them there were long dead, but it never felt right to take them down. I opened my damp wallet and looked for a picture of Elisabeth I’d kept but somewhere along the way I must have lost it, which grieved me a little. And after a while all I could do was sit back and screen the movie from 1939 on the wall of the cave. I watched myself—in black-and-white, of course—like Orson Welles in The Third Man, gun in hand, flashlight at the ready, moving slowly through the tunnels in search of Jo
hann Diesbach, one rat looking for another. Could rats see in the dark? As a boy I’d visited the Museum of Natural History in Berlin’s Invalidenstrasse on many occasions and I remembered being horrified at some pictures of a naked mole rat; I thought it was probably one of the most unpleasant-looking animals I’d ever seen. Which was what I felt like now. A kind of deracinated, unloved rat who’d lost all his fur. Not to mention the only photograph of my wife.
I thought I might hole up in the Schlossberg Caves for a couple of days before making for the new German border, which was only a short way east of Homburg. Once I was properly in West Germany, I could hitch a ride to Dortmund or Paderborn, and buy myself another identity the way someone else might have bought a new hat. Lots of people had done that after 1945. Including me. It wasn’t difficult to get a new name; besides, those new names were real enough, it was just some of the Germans who used them who were false.
I suppose I must have fallen asleep but I don’t know for how long. When I awoke with a start it was because I was certain I was not alone, and this was mainly because the silencer on a Russian-made PM automatic was pointed squarely at my face.
SIXTY-THREE
April 1939
I suppose everything began with darkness. And then God switched on the light. But still he felt obliged to hide himself. As if the darkness comprehended not his light; or perhaps, as I suspect, he just preferred to keep his true identity, and the remarkable nature of what he’d done, a secret. You could hardly blame him for that. Any good cabaret conjurer needs light’s delay to work his magic. Imagination is built not on clarity but on its absence. Mystery needs the dark. You know you’re being tricked, of course. But without the dark there would be no fear and where would God be without a bit of terror? Performing a good trick is one thing, inspiring dread is something else. What’s fatal to the flickering human spirit needs palpable darkness. It’s light that gives men the courage to get off their knees and tell God where to go. Without Thomas Edison we’d still be crossing ourselves in desperation and genuflecting like the most credulous nuns attending a pope’s requiem mass.
