The question was too direct. She could feel him closing off. “You must be a very smart man, Hans, to learn so quickly. Another month, maybe two and you’ll speak better than I do.”
He rubbed at her leg. The hand left a streak of sweat. “We shall see. Perhaps I will leave this country first.” His hand went higher.
She stood up. “Do you have water? I’m just a girl and this drink is too strong.”
“Yes, of course. In the bottle on the. . .zut! I know this word.”
“On the counter?”
“Yes, on the counter.”
She picked a larger glass, poured about half the whiskey into it and then filled this larger glass with water. She took another sip, remained standing.
The cages drew her attention. One of the snakes—a big, dark, ugly thing—was crawling up the side of the glass and nosing at the lid.
“You like my snakes, I see.”
“Are they poisonous?”
“No, but they are deadly all the same.” He walked over to the cage. “This one, he is rat snake, from Bulgaria. When he is not hungry he can be quite tame. When he is hungry, which is most of the time, he is very aggressive.”
“Is he hungry?”
“Yes, I suppose. Let us find out.”
Hoekman slid open the cupboard below the cages and removed a wooden box. Something was scratching around inside. He pulled out a white mouse by the tail and held it upside down while he worked with a latch on the snake cage. The mouse didn’t seem to be in any discomfort, but twisted around, tried to lift itself to see what held it captive.
Hoekman opened the lid opposite where the rat snake was climbing the glass and with a practiced motion, flicked the mouse into the cage. It landed on its feet and immediately began nosing around in the sawdust. All at once it came to the back end of the snake, draped across the bottom of the cage, and froze.
The snake continued nosing at the lid but suddenly grew still. Its tongue flicked out again and again and it turned its head first to one side and then the other. It lowered itself to the ground.
“It is a strange thing, do you not think?” Hoekman asked. “The mouse is smart, it knows it is in danger. The snake is very dumb. It smells something, but can not. . .how do you say? Cannot organize itself for the hunt. But the mouse is trapped. It searches for an escape that does not exist, while the snake wanders. Eventually the head of the one meets the head of the other.”
“Oh, please, take the mouse out. You can feed the snake later.”
“It is not smart to insert a hand between a snake and a mouse. Let us watch and learn. It is very interesting.”
She didn’t want to watch, but neither could she look away. The mouse edged around the corner of the cage, while the snake nosed in seemingly random directions. The mouse was coming inevitably around the front of the cage while the snake doubled back on itself to head in the same direction.
“Watch! Now we see.”
The snake caught sight of the mouse. It drew into a partial coil, its head perfectly still, except for its tongue, always flicking. The mouse twitched its way forward, closer and closer to the snake’s head.
The strike, when it came, was a blur. Nothing could move that fast. And yet, the mouse moved even quicker. It took a flying leap backwards, just as the snake’s open mouth brushed its fur. The snake missed.
Gabriela’s hand flew to her mouth to stifle a scream. Her heart was pounding. It was just a mouse, it didn’t matter.
“Yes!” Hoekman shouted. “Now we start again. Now we see. Now it is game.”
The mouse had lost its caution in favor of panic. It scrambled around the edges, tried to burrow in the sawdust, only to find the glass floor, and then scampered across the cage toward the other side. The snake had recoiled and waited. And a moment later they came face-to-face for a second time.
The mouse tried to jump out of the way again, but the snake moved too quickly. It grabbed the mouse and in an instant, embraced it in its coils. The mouse’s head bulged out the top; its back legs twitched and kicked.
“Oh,” Gabriela said. “That poor mouse.”
“This is strange,” Hoekman said, “but I always feel guilty at this point. I ask myself, is it natural for snake, which is low form of life, to eat mouse, which is higher form? And yet, this is nature. One is strong, the other is weak.”
The struggle was over. The snake loosened its coils. It nosed the mouse until it found the head, the eyes staring glassily skyward. The snake opened its jaws wide. She looked away.
“The snake is natural part of world, yes?” he asked. “It is just following its nature.”
“I suppose so.”
“Without snakes and other animals to eat them, mice would infest the earth. The earth would not be in a natural state, it would be ill.” He looked at her, as if waiting for her to come to some conclusion. She wasn’t getting it. “Isn’t that what happens now in Europe? It is not in a natural state.”
Natural state? There’s a swastika flying atop the Eiffel Tower, for god’s sake.
“Only when we return Europe to a natural state is there peace.” Hoekman strolled back to the couch. “Tell me, how is your work?”
“My work?”
“With Major Ostermann. What progress do you make?”
“I’m not so quick at languages as you. I don’t speak German. It makes it difficult to figure out what he’s doing.”
“Yes, but you talk to him. The major talks, talks, talks. It should be easy to get him to talk about the private.”
“I couldn’t get him to admit anything about the simple soldat.”
“No?” He looked disappointed. “And what else have you noted of his behavior? Tell me now. Tell me everything.”
She told him everything without telling him anything. She shared what Alfonse ate for breakfast, when he left for the day, when he returned, but when it came time to recollect phone calls, documents, visits, her memory grew confused, uncertain. Hoekman pressed for details, she furrowed her brow and said, “I can’t recall.”
“This is useless,” Hoekman said. He stood and paced over to the window, then whirled around. “Are you such stupid girl, who cannot notice important details?”
“I’m just so worried about my father. It makes it hard to concentrate. Perhaps if I could see him, just for a few minutes, see that he’s okay.”
His look hardened and she grew afraid that he’d seen through her scatter-brained act.
“Please,” she said.
“No, impossible.”
“Why is it impossible? If he’s really in good health, like you said, it should be easy enough.”
“He is in Germany. I cannot release him, not yet. And I cannot permit you to leave Paris.”
“Then bring him here. Surely the Reich has a house where he could be kept under arrest, given food and care, and his daughter could see him.”
“You do not want to help me? Is that it? You prefer the alternative?”
Gabriela went to his side, put her hand on his shoulder. “I am helping, I promise. But you have to give me something. We each promised to be reasonable. I’m trying to help you, but you have to do something.”
“You play dangerous game. I grow tired of this game and then you learn I can be not so nice to get what I need.”
She ran her fingernails along the nape of his neck. “I’m not political, Hans,” she said in a quiet voice. “It doesn’t matter to me what happens between the Germans and the French. I’ll help you in any way I can, I don’t care, but I love my father, I need to be sure he’s okay.”
“No. It is too soon, you do nothing.”
Her mind turned to the side, tried to find a way out of the stalemate. If she backed down now, she’d never get anything. “If you won’t help me with my father yet, could you tell me something else?”
“What?”
Gabriela glanced back at the snake’s cage. The tip of the tail was just now disappearing down the snake’s throat. A lump eased its way thro
ugh the snake’s body. “How about Roger Leblanc? Is he okay, too?”
“Roger Leblanc? Are you serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious. I’m worried, we’re all worried.”
“What do you care? I know he is not your boyfriend.”
“But he’s the son of my patron, who is in a terrible state. Maybe I could bring something back to Monsieur Leblanc, a bit of hope. If you could let me see him, it would be a way to show me that you really are important enough to help a prisoner.”
“Impossible.”
“So you can’t. You can’t help a prisoner.”
“It is impossible because he is a homosexual. We ship him to a camp in Germany for reeducation through hard labor. If he cannot be cured, we send him to an asylum. If he can be cured, we return him to France, but not until then. We do this for the good of France, you understand. These homosexuals, they are like a disease. They weaken your country.”
Except that she’d just seen Roger this morning, sitting on a boy’s lap, engaging in deviant, decadent behavior. He’d been arrested, then released? Why? And why would Hoekman lie about it?
#
The first thing Colonel Hoekman did when arriving at the office was order Alfonse’s secretary to shovel more coal into the pot-bellied stove in the corner. It was soon shimmering with heat. The room smelled like coal gas.
Two more Wehrmacht corporals brought in boxes of papers: requisition orders, manifests, packing lists, invoices, and the like. It was haphazardly arranged, but the Gestapo colonel’s own men—three sharp-eyed, green-eye-shade types—devoured the piles, furiously scribbling notes.
Meanwhile, Helmut and Alfonse sat in their chairs, sweating. Hoekman hadn’t so much as unbuttoned his jacket. Every few minutes, one of the men would hand the colonel a paper. He would scan it, take a few notes and then tuck the paper into a folder.
Helmut feigned disinterest in the process. Alfonse, on the other hand, craned forward with obvious intent to see whatever had drawn the attention of the green-eye-shade men.
After almost an hour, Alfonse burst out, “Are you almost done?”
“Of course not, we are just starting.”
“Well how long is it going to take?”
“It will take as long as it takes,” Hoekman said.
“You know, we’re awfully busy, isn’t that right, Helmut?”
“I’ve got time,” Helmut said. Alfonse gave him a hard look in response.
“Is there a problem, Major Ostermann?” Colonel Hoekman asked. “Something you would like to tell me? Perhaps you can save us all some time by telling me what to look for.”
“There’s a war going on, in case you haven’t noticed. Who’s going to explain to General Dorf what happened to his shipment of grain?”
“The general is well aware of my investigation.”
Helmut put a hand on Alfonse’s arm and shook his head. He wore the most serious expression he could muster. “The colonel is only doing his job, Major Ostermann. Let him work, it will save us all time.”
Alfonse fixed him with a frown. “Thank you, Herr von Cratz.” He turned back to the colonel. “You don’t understand. General Dorf may have sounded understanding, but he’s got a ruthless schedule, I tell you. And if he doesn’t get that grain. . .”
“I report to Heinrich Himmler,” Hoekman responded. “I say this not to boast, but so that there can be no misunderstanding. If General Dorf has problems with my methods, he may take it up with the Reichsführer-SS himself. Himmler might prove less than understanding of interference with my investigation.” Hoekman turned to Alfonse’s secretary. “Corporal, there’s a chill. I think the fire is dying down.”
“Yes, Polizeiführer.”
“Stoke it high.”
“Yes, Polizeiführer.”
It continued this way for another hour. Part of Alfonse’s problem, Helmut suspected, was that he ran his military affairs the same way he managed his personal life. There was style, there was a flair for the dramatic. He could organize spectacular operations one week, then drown under a sea of minutiae the next week. Behind the scenes, a platoon of bookkeepers scrambled after him, trying to clean up the mess. It couldn’t be easy.
Helmut, on the other hand, had much more to hide and therefore his paperwork appeared, superficially at least, more ordered. Colonel Hoekman’s green eye shades had spent fifteen minutes and proclaimed Helmut’s records impeccable.
One of Hoekman’s men loaded paper into a typewriter and began writing a memo. Periodically, he would glance at his notes or those of the other two. Some half hour later he hand-delivered the memo to the colonel.
Hoekman read the memo for several minutes, then took off his glasses and tucked them into the breast pocket of his uniform. “There would appear to be some gross irregularities.”
“What do you mean?” Alfonse said. “There are no irregularities.”
“Let me show you something.” He pulled out a piece of paper and showed it to the two men. “This is Helmut von Cratz’s document reporting a shipment of sixty thousand tons of coal through Méricourt in Pas-de-Calais on October 14th, 1942. Von Cratz reports that he sold forty-six thousand tons of coal to Todt Organization and fourteen thousand tons to the military. The requisitioning officer for the Wehrmacht is listed as Major Alfonse Ostermann.
“Now this is your record of the same transaction.” Hoekman smoothed out some folded and double-folded papers. “Quite a mess. Look at all these hand-scrawled figures. Barely legible, and look at these basic math errors, corrected later. It’s like a child did this. That would be your handwriting, wouldn’t it? You seem to have taken fourteen thousand tons, but then General Dorf only signs for twelve thousand. There are two thousand missing tons of coal.”
“I don’t recall the shipment in question,” Alfonse said, his voice sullen.
“Is that so? You purchased fourteen thousand tons of coal with state money. That is a non-trivial quantity. And this is your signature. Here, and here. And here, too.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”
Helmut remembered the shipment. He remembered the missing two thousand tons, too. Because he had stolen them. It was not the first time that he had taken advantage of Alfonse’s carelessness.
“I’ll look into it. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation,” Alfonse said.
“There had better be a lot of reasonable explanations.”
“It’s a war,” Alfonse said. “We’re getting bombed out there. The maquis target the tracks, raid our yards. Turn your back for five seconds and the workers will slip half a rail car into their pockets. Then we’ve got to cross into Belgium and those rats are even bigger thieves than the French. Every shipment we get to Germany is practically a miracle. Talk to General Dorf. He’ll vouch for my work. Helmut, tell him. I’m the best man in the whole damn army at what I do.”
“I’m afraid we are getting nowhere.” The colonel turned to the corporals and his own men. “Leave us, now.” The others obeyed at once.
As soon as Hoekman was alone with the two men, he stood, pulled on a pair of black leather gloves. He wore a predatory expression. Alfonse paled. Helmut thought about his gun in the car, wished he had it with him.
“There would appear to be something wrong in France.”
“There are a lot of wrong somethings,” Helmut said. “I’m not sure that Major Ostermann’s missteps necessitate a Gestapo investigation.”
“Do you really accept that this man is merely guilty of minor negligence?”
“I don’t think he’s corrupt, if that’s what you’re implying. But whatever his crimes, you replace him and the war effort will suffer. Even if you found someone better, it’d be months before the man knew what he was doing.”
“Thank you,” Alfonse said. “About time you defended me here.”
Colonel Hoekman looked surprised. “You are a serious businessman, Herr von Cratz. If one of your men produced these papers, would you let it pass without question?”
&nb
sp; “Well, no. There are some irregularities here, I’ll concede that. But. . .”
“But what?”
“Ostermann has friends. General Dorf, General Vogel in Berlin. If this is all you have, you’ll have a hard time getting them to sign off on the major’s arrest, or even demotion. I know what you said about Himmler, but I’ve dealt with the Wehrmacht enough to know they can be prickly bastards when someone steps onto their turf. In the end, wouldn’t it be better to avoid conflict between the regular army and the SS?”
“Exactly,” Alfonse said. “You see—”
“But if it makes you feel better,” Helmut continued, “I can send over some of my accountants, help them sort out this mess.” He gestured at the table, strewn with documents. “See if I can track down Major Ostermann’s errors. I’ll prepare a report.”
“Hmm. Perhaps.”
“You’ve done a good job here,” Helmut said. “The Wehrmacht requisitioning effort has grown sloppy in France. Cleaning up their books is the best thing that could be done. In fact, I can positively state that you’ve personally helped the war effort with your investigation.”
“That is not my job,” Hoekman said. “My job is to find the corrupt and the incompetent. Not to help, but to find people who would harm. To uncover defeatists, spies, communists, profiteering Jews, and other enemies of the Reich. And then, when I have found them, to utterly destroy them.”
Chapter Sixteen:
Helmut jerked hard on the wheel to pull the car to the side of the road. “Get out, now.”
Gabriela hesitated, confused. But Helmut had already thrown his door open and was racing around the other side. She was just opening the door on her side of the car when he grabbed her and dragged her from the car.
“What are you doing? Ow, let go.”
An airplane came whining in, fast. Helmut shoved her into the ditch and threw himself on top of her. The plane screamed overhead, no more than thirty feet off the ground. She caught a glimpse as it passed. A fighter plane with red, blue, and white circles painted on the undersides of its wings. British RAF. It disappeared.
Helmut got off and she was surprised to see he was shaking. It had all happened so fast, she hadn’t had time to be scared. She rose to her feet and brushed mud from her dress the best she could. It was a mess.
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