by Jana Petken
Paul scanned the lists. Most of the names on them belonged to patients with typical Jewish surnames ending in berg, shon, blat, or blum, making it difficult for him to picture the people in his mind. When he reached the bottom of the second page, however, he found titles before the names: doctor, nurse, sister, and after them, other staff: orderlies, ambulance men, cleaners. He was losing two Jewish doctors, one being the indolent hospital administrator, Doctor Lewandowski, who’d always maintained that he was indispensable to the Germans and not at all like all the other Jews in the ghetto. Tragic, but also ironic, that he was going to his death with the people he’d consistently failed to care for or about.
Paul’s gut twisted. Sick with disgust, he saw Sister Zusanna Wiśniewski’s name right at the bottom, scribbled in as though she’d been an afterthought. Had she got out in time, or was she on one of the trucks? He hadn’t seen her since her goodbye to him hours earlier.
Above Zusanna’s name was Tomaz’s, the ambulance orderly whom Paul had guided through the mortuary exit hours before the culling began. That might be one victory he could claim.
Amelia, whose husband he’d smothered an hour earlier, was not on the list. Inadvertently, he sighed with relief. He’d go back for her and then escort her to her tenement as soon as he could.
“They’re not dead yet,” Paul said with a strangely casual tone. “I won’t sign a certificate stating a patient has died if they haven’t. That goes against my Hippocratic Oath and everything I believe in as a doctor. I refuse to do as you ask.”
As his eyes continued to glide over the names, Paul recalled a Jew he’d secretly treated days earlier. The man’s name was Isaac. He’d snuck out of the ghetto to steal cement with which to build a bunker to hide his family and neighbours. The plan, he’d explained openly to a nurse, was to put the bunkers under the ghetto’s stinking septic system to throw off the bloodhounds the Germans used to hunt Jews. He was shot in the leg by a German patrol while sneaking back into the ghetto carrying a forty-five-kilo bag of cement. After being hit, he’d left a bloody trail, but he’d somehow managed to evade the Schupo, to get to the hospital.
Paul hadn’t had any surgical instruments left, but he’d sterilised a coat hanger as best he could and using that, along with a knife, dug out the bullet from Isaac’s leg. With his leg bound tightly to stop the bleeding, Isaac had made it back in time for morning rollcall, but Paul had heard via another orderly that Isaac had been shot later that day by a member of the German patrol who’d been searching for him. The man who told him about Isaac’s death was also on today’s deportation list.
Paul waved the lists in Krüger’s face, his rage making him breathless. “No. I won’t do as you ask.” Then he almost stomach punched Krüger as he thrust the papers at him. “It’s all been a waste of time, hasn’t it? Everything we have achieved … the people we have saved … the heroic attempts of my staff to help dying patients or those in agony when they had no medicine to give them. It’s all been for nothing. You’re going to kill my patients, Kriminalinspektor, but I won’t sign their death certificates until it is confirmed that they are dead, so you can take these lists and give them to a doctor in Chelmno, or you can stick them up your bumptious arse hole. Am I clear?”
Knowing he was in the right, Paul marched out of the ward without a backwards glance. As he reached the stairs, however, his bravado shrank. Shaking, he clung to the bannister and made his way downstairs to the pharmacy. He had never felt so alone, bereft, or scared in his life.
Chapter Eleven
Anubis el Masri
Alexandria
3 September 1942
Anubis el Masri set the ten-minute timer on the explosives that were hidden in a dustbin behind a Cairo police station. As he was leaving, his eyes swept the area, taking in the building’s windows as well as those of nearby houses. A dog was barking behind a gated property, disturbing a roosting cockerel that then crowed from the rooftop, but he didn’t hear a single human voice; as anticipated, everyone was at evening prayers.
He walked towards a café a block away. When the bomb went off, the damage would be minimal: probably cause a fire, shatter window glass, and scatter terrified people in the area. It shouldn’t hurt anyone, at least he hoped not. Murder was not part of the plan.
When Anubis reached the café, he took a seat outside with a view of the street and ordered mint tea. As he waited, he counted down the minutes, then seconds, until the blast disintegrated all thought and he ran through the streets, along with everyone else in the vicinity. He’d done it. He had achieved his objective and gained the trust of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Secret Apparatus members. More than that. I have reached the top of the ladder without having to climb the bottom rungs.
Anubis managed to say late prayers in the Al-Hussein Mosque before heading to the Hookah store to buy tobacco. People had calmed down. No one was scrambling to get away or yelling about terrible carnage, and he hadn’t seen any British military police nor Egyptian policemen in the streets marshalling the population to safety. He stopped a man and woman who were walking from the direction of the blast, and asked, “What was that loud bang? Was anyone hurt?”
“No. Al-ḥamdu lil-lāh – thank God!” the man replied. “The police said it was a fire in a dustbin. It must have ignited something highly inflammable to make that noise – scared the life out of my poor wife.”
“It sounded like a bomb to me. I thought the Germans were coming. Allahu akbar – Allah be praised,” his wife said.
Anubis strolled at a leisurely pace towards the café where he was to meet his Sudanese friend and two members of the Brotherhood. He was fifteen minutes early; the men were coming from prayers at a mosque some distance away, and he didn’t want to be the first to arrive.
He found benches with wrought-iron arms lining one side of a street. He sat and began to roll a cigarette with the tobacco he’d purchased whilst observing the busy thoroughfare crammed with people who appeared to have forgotten they’d been running for their lives less than an hour earlier.
Rolf Fischer’s mission was going well, Anubis admitted. He didn’t like the Englishman’s character; the way he hid behind his false name and secrets and wielded God-like power over him. But Fischer had a steady hand. He knew exactly what he wanted, and more importantly, how to achieve his aims. Never in his life had he, Anubis the thief, the trickster, followed another man’s orders without making personal financial gain his priority. This was a first for him and his skin crawled with resentment.
A little boy giggled as he kicked a loose stone on the pavement. Anubis, observing the child, missed his wife, his children, and his freedom, but he’d continue to toe the line with Fischer, do as he was told, put his life in danger. The mess he was in would be tidied when the operation was deemed successful, and he was pardoned and allowed to go home. When that day came, he’d tell Ya Ibn el Sharmouta – the son of a bitch – exactly what he thought of him and his countrymen.
Since being in the Muslim Brotherhood, Anubis had attended numerous meetings and taken part in violent acts that went against the wishes of the Society’s Supreme Guide, Hasan al Banna. The leader had been imprisoned twice, albeit released within weeks. He advocated for peaceful political reform and had, after the Egyptian government suppressed the Brotherhood’s journals, banned its meetings, and forbidden all reference to the group in newspapers, adopted a low profile.
Anubis learnt that the main arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, known as the Society, was organised into small groups called battalions. They rarely met in the same place twice, and it was uncommon to learn other members’ names since the title Brother was generally used.
He found out at his inaugural meeting that some of the most active cadres had left the Society to form a rival organisation called Muhammad’s Youth. As a result of this conflict, the Brotherhood created their own military wing called the Secret Apparatus, the group Herr Fischer was so determined to subvert. When Anubis infiltrated it, he had expected to fi
nd fanatical fools dreaming well beyond realistic expectations, but instead, he had come to support the Society’s principal goal of an independent Egypt and a cleansing of Western debauchery.
Down but not beaten, the Brotherhood was managing to maintain and expand its base and extend its social welfare programmes, which included humanitarian assistance to the victims of Axis bombings of Egyptian cities. The Brotherhood’s leadership was determined to avoid confrontations that could give the government a pretext to suppress the Society altogether, but not all members agreed with the cautious approach. Anubis had already learnt that the members of the Secret Apparatus were intent on actively undermining the government, but they had achieved very little; tonight’s display had been their first attack in weeks, and it was being called an accidental fire by the police. It certainly wasn’t worth raising the Brotherhood’s victory flag for a brief pop and bang in the street.
Apart from weapons training, Anubis found the meetings boring and long. Consisting of sanctimonious rhetoric, rigorous Koranic studies, and physical exercises, they usually ended with a call to violence. A sane man might say that calling for violence after preaching the religion of peace was a somewhat hypocritical way to end the gatherings, but Anubis was under no illusion; defeating the British, and even ousting King Farouk’s government, was high on the agenda for members.
Anubis looked at his watch, a shoddy timepiece that had once belonged to his much older, now-dead sibling, Abdullah. Of Anubis’ six brothers, Abdullah had been the wealthiest and most law-abiding. He’d rented a shell of a building and had learnt how to repair motorcars. He’d found out where to buy the parts needed to keep a vehicle running and had taught other men as well as himself how to be good, reliable mechanics. Abdullah had been clever, guiding his business away from old motorbikes and Volkswagens and towards the bigger, better class of cars driven by British diplomats and high-ranking military men. He’d given Anubis his watch on his deathbed, telling him it would be the most expensive thing he would ever own – he’d been wrong.
Cobblestones dug into the soles of Anubis’ lattice sandals as he strolled to the meeting place; a café called Naguib Mahfouz, situated on a narrow street not far from the mosque. He entered, pausing at the door for a moment to scan the sea of men in their long white thawbs within the semi-darkened room, already blue with misty clouds of smoke from hubbly bubbly pipes. Breathing in a mixture of tobacco, fruits, jasmine, and strong Turkish coffee, he listened to the booming Arabic voices resonating in the cramped space until his ears caught the Sudanese man, Abu Hanifa’s squeaky tone.
Abu sat with two men at a round copper table on a wooden quadripod stand in the centre of the room. He waved, his young, animated face beaming when he saw Anubis.
Anubis raised his arm in greeting then joined the three men. Clutching his fat, amber misbaha prayer beads in his fingers, he sat on the remaining stool before greeting Abu’s companions.
This would be no ordinary meeting, Anubis thought, nerves turning his stomach to mush. For the first time, he was going to wet his feet in the mysterious world of espionage and plunge himself and his family into even greater danger. He didn’t like the way the two strangers were staring at him, but it wasn’t uncommon to meet suspicion every time he attended a gathering and met someone new. Members were distrustful by nature.
“Salām ‘alaykum. Fursa sa’ida – hello, pleased to meet you,” Anubis finally said, shaking each man’s hand.
The elder of the two strangers eyeballed Anubis without a hint of welcome in his black eyes, barely visible under hooded lids framed with long lashes. “Ahlan wa sahlan – welcome, pleased to meet you,” he said, dropping his unfriendly gaze.
“Allahu akbar – God is great,” the other stranger said, more curious than wary. “We are pleased with you. You did well, Brother. Your request deserves to be heard.”
“You saw the explosion?” Anubis puffed his chest out with pride. “I told Abu I would go through with it when I volunteered. I want a return to a pure Islamic society, free of corrupt Western influences. I will commit any sabotage the Secret Apparatus orders if it furthers our cause.”
Anubis sounded believable even to his own ears, so he relaxed, as much as one could on the hard, unyielding wooden stool that left part of his left buttock hanging over the edge.
“Do you swear to this, Brother Anubis?” the elderly man asked.
“Allahu akbar, I do swear. I want to contribute in a meaningful way.”
Abu poured mint tea from a silver teapot into tubular glasses while the two men continued to study Anubis.
When the teas were served, the elder of the two strangers took a sip of the steaming, pale green-coloured water; then surprised Anubis with his question, “What is the greatest lesson you have learnt since becoming a member of the Muslim Brotherhood?”
“That the Brotherhood symbolises the promise of an Egypt without red-faced British soldiers swarming our cities and sacred desert.” Anubis’ solemn tone earned him satisfied nods. “I believe that Adolf Hitler’s personal achievement gives us all a profound message of hope. That a former corporal in a defeated army could defy the rest of Europe to make his army and country great again proves that we can also defy the British and French who are the enemies of Egypt and Islam. The liars promised us our independence, but they went back on their word.” He leant in closer to the men, his confidence growing as their stares became friendly and attentive. “They carved up the Levant between them and tried to stifle our religion, our sacred laws and culture, but with the help of Allah, Adolf Hitler, and his German army, we can defeat them and finally take back what belongs to the Egyptian people.”
“You may call me Brother Sarraf,” the older man said, honouring Anubis. Then he gestured to Abu. “Brother Abu has spoken to us about your German associate. Tell us about him.”
Anubis threw Abu a filthy look. The boy was useless; he couldn’t even get his facts straight. The fool was out of his depth in this important meeting. He’d not uttered a word, nor was he expected to, judging by the way his two influential companions were ignoring him. Abu was exactly what he was in the Alexandria consular offices; a tea boy, a messenger, and certainly not the murderer Rolf Fischer was looking for.
“Abu has made a mistake,” Anubis apologised. “The man I spoke of is from Switzerland but lives near to the German border; however, he does speak German and supports the Führer.” Anubis paused, then, as though he were thinking about it, added, “From what I know of the man, I believe he must be a more ardent supporter of the Third Reich than the average German. I haven’t told him I am meeting with you tonight, but should you agree to hear what he has to say … what he can offer you, you will not be disappointed.”
Brother Sarraf conferred with his younger companion with a simple look, then asked, “And what does he have to offer us?”
Anubis sipped his tea slowly, savouring its sweetness on his dry tongue. He set the glass in its saucer, and his eyes flicked to the main part of the room. “He has guns and money – lots of money.”
“You trust him?” the younger man asked.
“Yes. I know hatred when I see it, and this man hates the British. He hasn’t agreed to a meeting yet. He worries about British intelligence agents being in your ranks. But should you and he decide to deal, he will give you what you need for a good price.”
Brother Sarraf threw Anubis a scathing look. “Hah, he thinks we might be infiltrated by British agents? No, no. It is the British who are careless. I assure you … their spies have already been dealt with in the strongest possible way.”
Butterflies swarming in Anubis’ stomach took flight. Had he just heard a confession to murder? Was Sarraf referring to John Bryant and Farid? If so, Fischer was one step closer to ending the investigation. “I hope you cut off their heads to send a message. Violence is what the British understand.”
Brother Sarraf gave Anubis a blank stare and silence ensued until the younger man asked, “What type of guns can this Swiss man
offer us? How and where does he acquire them?”
“He has stocks of infantry weapons: British Lee-Enfield No. 4 MK I rifles, American Colt 1911 handguns, Sten guns, and Bren light machine guns … and of course, he can also supply ammunition and grenades.”
Anubis surged on, despite the reticence that met his pause. If they didn’t believe him, his head would leave his shoulders before he’d reached the corner of the street. “As to how does he acquire them … well, he’s a wealthy but frustrated man who is against his country’s neutrality. He travels undercover as a common salesman but has already been successful in trafficking arms to Libyan and Iraqi anti-government factions. He partners with dissident groups who steal the weapons from supply depots and dead soldiers in the desert. He buys his merchandise cheaply and sells at lower than average prices. He does not tell me everything, of course. You will have to ask him yourselves for details.”
“Where did you meet him?” Brother Sarraf stroked his thick whitish beard.
“I was doing business in Tunis. Herr Fischer was smuggling weapons out of that country and offered to pay me British pounds for the use of my boat. I obliged, and we struck up an ongoing partnership – if you are thinking of following him, to test his sincerity, don’t bother. He comes and goes like a ghost, has a man working for him who delivers messages to me by hand but … you should know … I have my own suspicions about the Swiss…”
“Oh?”
Anubis waved his hand. “Not about his intentions to trade weapons. No, I think he might be a spy for the German army.” Anubis took an exaggerated long breath. “I thought you should know. I am your servant and will keep nothing from you.”
Anubis let the men digest all that he had said. His words had been rehearsed. Fischer had given him a written text and had warned him not to deviate from it. “Speak word for word without embellishments. You are an actor saying your lines; that is all. You do not think for yourself or make up stories because you like the sound of your own voice. You are my mouthpiece, nothing more.” Fischer had drummed into him. Mentioning that he thought Fischer might be a German spy seemed counterproductive, but … what do I care if Fischer gets himself killed? Good riddance.
