That was fine. That made perfect sense if you happened to be a soldier, or a politician, or any kind of official keeping this monstrous secret out of the laps of the Soviets. But the scientists, the techie guys, thought different. According to Mr Oppenheimer, their Director, the only guarantee of progress, of hitting the delivery date, was to keep everyone in the big picture. Hence the weekly meetings behind the barbed wire over in the Tech Area. Without the constant exchange of ideas, sparks of genius in the surrounding darkness, the Project would stall. It might even wither on the vine and tumble into oblivion, ground to dust on the desert floor. Oppenheimer didn’t want that to happen. Which was why his scientists – the people the military called ‘the children’ – refused to take their vows of silence.
Gómez had met Oppenheimer a couple of times. He didn’t much like the man, and he certainly didn’t trust him, but he had a sneaking regard for the six languages he spoke, and the ever-present cigarette, and the pork-pie hat, and the way the guy danced towards a handshake on the balls of his feet. Oppie, as he was known, also owned a Buick convertible, a beautiful car. It was black and lustrous and he tooled around the Hill driving himself from meeting to meeting, constantly on the move. That was stylish. That won Gómez’s gruff nod of approval.
His military counterpart, effectively his boss, was a big, husky bear of a man, obsessively vain, General Groves. Groves – known as ‘GG’ – worked out of DC. His track record in the Corps of Engineers included building the Pentagon and everyone – including Oppenheimer – agreed that was seriously big potatoes. Compartmentalisation was also Groves’ baby, another claim to the nation’s gratitude, and he appeared from time to time on the Hill to confer intensely with Oppie. None of these get-togethers – unwitnessed, unminuted – appeared to make the slightest difference to the way the scientists behaved, which – as far as Gómez was concerned – made Oppenheimer a negotiator of genius. No one on earth stood up to Groves. Except Oppie.
‘So Fiedler knew a lot. Like they all know a lot.’
‘I guess so.’ Merricks nodded.
‘OK. So two questions. Would he pass this stuff on? And if he did, would that be enough to get him killed?’
‘Or take his own life.’
‘Sure. That’s a possibility. He passes stuff on. He thinks he’s close to being caught, to being arrested.’
‘Or he just dies of shame. Like it says in the letter.’
‘Right.’ Gómez was frowning. ‘So he’s guilty as fuck. He gets a weapon from somewhere. He really does shoot himself to death. Is that the way it goes? No third party? Just him and his loyal wife and the pain inside he calls a conscience? Living with all that knowledge? Imagining all those deaths to come? Is that what you think happened?’
Merricks still had his finger anchored in Sol Fiedler’s file. He glanced down for a moment, then looked up again and shook his head.
‘No way,’ he said. ‘Not a chance.’
‘How come?’
‘Guy called Milos Schiff. I chased him down after you’d gone this morning.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘The guy takes a break in an hour or so. You need to meet him.’
4
Stefan Portisch lay on the bed, waiting for Agustín’s return, staring up at the ceiling. Agustín was the doctor. That much he’d gathered from Enrico. He didn’t have the language to find out whether he was the only doctor in the village but in a way it didn’t matter. He obviously won Enrico’s approval and that, for the time being, was good enough for Stefan.
He’d never been in a house like this – not in Germany, not in France. It was so small, so cramped, and yet so bare. Narrow stairs led up here, to the first floor. Enrico and his mate had wrestled Stefan from step to step, one in front, one pushing hard from behind, every lift, every shove, every chance collision with a doorknob or the edge of the hand rail a fresh jolt of pain.
Finally, they’d made it to the room at the end of the tiny corridor. The wooden floorboards seemed freshly polished. They gleamed in the wash of sunshine through the open window. The bed, mercifully, was high, the mattress perched on an iron frame. The straight bars at the head and the foot of the bed were topped with silver balls, a rare concession to something more frivolous than mere utility, and they jingled as footsteps criss-crossed the room. A black electric cable snaked across the wall and then ended in a brown Bakelite switch above the bed. Beside the bed was a tiny cupboard made of pine on which stood a light and a small plaster Madonna. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a table, also pine, pushed against the far wall. Above it, hung from a nail, was a black crucifix.
Agustín arrived within the hour. He was shorter than Stefan had expected. He wore black trousers that hadn’t seen an iron for weeks, and the same collarless white shirt, though the scrap of red at his throat had gone. His feet were bare in a pair of ancient sandals and he carried a battered leather case he deposited carefully on the pine table.
Enrico had managed to remove most of Stefan’s sodden clothing, taking it downstairs with a departing nod. Good luck, he seemed to be saying. Don’t get cold. Semi-naked under the thin blankets, Stefan waited for Agustín’s verdict. The doctor folded the blanket back and took a long look at his body. Then his hands were busy, mapping the livid bruising on both sides of his rib cage. Does this hurt? This? And this? Stefan greeted every question with a nod, then watched Agustín manoeuvre himself around the bed, bending to inspect the yawning wound in Stefan’s lower leg in the light from the window.
The gash was deep, the work of rocks probably, or a sharp edge of the reef as he’d plunged towards the foreshore. The surrounding flesh was swollen and bruised a deep purple, while the lips of the wound had opened outwards, revealing layers of muscle and tissue deep inside. The wound was still weeping, leaving thin, pink stains on the single sheet.
Agustín nodded to himself and then left the room. From somewhere downstairs, Stefan caught a muffled conversation. A woman’s voice, he thought. Then came the fall of water into a metal container and within moments Agustín was back with an enamel bowl and what looked like a length of cotton torn from someone’s shirt.
The water was hot. Steam curled towards the still-open door, carried by the draught through the window. Stefan could hear the clatter of hooves from the street below and the yelp of kids playing. Agustín produced a bottle of yellowish liquid from his case. He gave it a shake and then glanced in Stefan’s direction.
‘Iodine,’ he said. ‘You’re lucky I still have some.’
Stefan wondered whether he was angling for payment, whether word had gone round the village about the coins, then dismissed the thought. Lucky was probably right. He sensed these people would share their last everything.
‘We had iodine on the boat,’ he said in English. ‘It’s good.’
Agustín nodded, said nothing. He dipped a cup into the bowl of water and then added a slug of iodine, soaking the rag as he did so. The rag dripped hot water across Stefan’s flesh as he bent to the wound.
‘This will hurt,’ he said, ‘but we have to save the leg.’
‘Save it?’ Amputation had never occurred to Stefan.
‘Sí.’ He produced a cork from his pocket, blew on it, then slipped it into Stefan’s mouth.
‘Bite,’ he said. ‘Hard as you can.’
Stefan did his bidding. Liquid from the cup had transferred to Agustín’s fingers, and thus to the cork. Pain tasted of iodine.
Agustín was swabbing the wound, using lots of the mixture from the cup. Stefan didn’t know whether to look but decided not to. At last, with a grunt of satisfaction, the doctor finished.
‘See?’ he said. ‘Not so bad.’
‘The wound?’
‘The pain.’ He smiled down at Stefan and squeezed his hand. ‘The wound will settle. There’s no smell. I see no infection. It needs to be dry. Tomorrow I come back to close it.’ He mimed a line of stitches.
‘You have anaesthetic?’
‘No. But I have another cork.’ He g
ave his hand a pat and returned to the case for a roll of bandage which he wound lightly around Stefan’s leg.
Stefan asked him about the house. Who did it belong to? Who should he thank?
‘The man’s name is Tomaso. He is a patient also.’
‘Of yours?’
‘Sí.’ His hand made a brief flutter above Stefan’s chest. ‘He has the smoking disease. He can’t breathe properly. One day it will kill him.’
Stefan nodded. He’d heard a cough from downstairs earlier, heavy and viscous, the rattle of gravel in his lungs.
‘Tell me about my boat, my submarine.’
‘You mean your crew.’
‘Of course.’
‘You were the Captain?’
‘Yes.’
‘The last off the boat?’
‘Yes.’
Agustín nodded. He’d found a towel from somewhere to dry his hands. He tied a final knot in the bandage and laid the sheet carefully on top. Then came the blankets, one after the other. Stefan realised the wound had ceased to throb.
‘My crew?’ he asked again.
‘All dead that we know about. Drowned. It would have been quick.’
‘You think so?’
‘Maybe.’ He shrugged. ‘I hope so.’
‘How many bodies?’
‘Twenty-eight by this morning. How many men on board?’
‘Forty-four.’ Stefan paused. Wrong, he thought, remembering the passengers who’d embarked at Kiel. ‘Forty-nine.’
‘More will come ashore. The women are on the clifftops. The fishermen are back at sea. A storm like that could take a body anywhere.’
‘So maybe some survived.’
‘Like you?’ The smile again, with what felt like a hint of pride. ‘I think not.’
Stefan nodded, trying to absorb the news. Crews changed all the time. That was the nature of the service. Men came and went. Some, transferred to other boats, died. Others won promotion, made their name, became famous back home. But what all these men shared was the feeling of being part of something small and important and intensely personal. You said your farewells. You sailed away. You hunted the enemy, and laid your plans, and spent a tense hour or two lurking in the heart of a convoy, and, fifty days later, if you were lucky, you returned to flowers, and a band, and a hug from the uniformed Mädchen at the jetty. He stared up at the ceiling, swamped by the memories. The Happy Time, when they were sending dozens of Allied ships to the bottom. The moment in the bright Breton sunshine when you felt the Commandant’s fingertips pinning a medal to your chest. Your first step ashore after weeks at sea, and the days and nights that followed.
Deep down, he’d always accepted that there’d be a price to pay for memories like these but now that moment had arrived and he didn’t know how to cope. War was supposed to harden you. War was supposed to shield you from grief. But the only survivor? The only man alive? All those faces, all that laughter, all that courage? Gone? He shook his head. Impossible.
Agustín was standing at the bedside. He said there was a possibility the lower leg was broken. There was a big hospital in Coruña with X-rays. Soon, tomorrow or the next day, he’d arrange for Stefan to be taken there.
Stefan stared up at him. Then he shook his head.
‘No,’ he said.
‘No?’ Agustín looked briefly confused. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I want to stay here.’
‘Why?’
Stefan hadn’t thought this through, not properly. All he knew was that his crew was probably dead and that his role in the war was over. He’d had enough. He was of no use any more. The moment he made an appearance in public – at the hospital, for instance – he’d be arrested and interned. Spain was still a neutral country but the government’s sympathies were with the Reich. In theory, he’d spend the rest of the war in some prison camp. In practice, because he knew so much, because he’d done so much, he suspected he’d be quietly returned to the Heimat. The hero of U-2553. One of Admiral Doenitz’s top commanders. Safe back home.
‘I want to stay here,’ he said again.
‘That may be difficult.’ Agustín glanced towards the door.
‘Because of Tomaso?’
‘Not just Tomaso.’
‘There’s someone else lives here?’
‘Of course. Her name’s Eva. She’s Tomaso’s daughter. She looks after him. She’s been in England. She speaks the language. That’s why I brought you here.’
Stefan nodded. The face at the window. The fall of black hair.
‘And you think …?’
‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘She said OK for a couple of days. No longer.’
Stefan nodded. He thought he understood. His next question was all too obvious.
‘She doesn’t like Germans?’
‘She hates Germans.’
Stefan nodded. Just like the rest of the world, he thought. He gazed up at Agustín, struck by another thought.
‘Do you hate Germans? Tell me the truth.’
‘I’m a doctor. I treat everyone.’
‘That wasn’t my question.’
‘Then I can’t give you an answer.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t know you.’
There was a long silence. A woman in the street below was yelling at the kids.
‘I have money,’ Stefan said at last. ‘Gold.’
‘You mean for Eva?’
‘Yes.’
‘That will only make it worse. She’ll think you’re trying to buy her.’
‘She’s right. I am.’
‘Then don’t. She has beliefs. Strong beliefs.’
He was frowning now, looking down at the bed. Then he folded back the blanket and the single sheet and ran his fingers lightly down the length of Stefan’s swollen calf.
‘Does that hurt?’
‘No.’
He did the same on his shin. Again Stefan shook his head.
It was a lie and Stefan could tell by the smile on his face that Agustín knew it.
He replaced the sheet and the blankets. He said the best he could do was talk to a carpenter from the village. He’d splint the leg, immobilise it. If the shin bone was fractured, it would heal of its own accord. If it was broken, which Agustín thought unlikely, he’d need further treatment. Either way, Stefan would have to spend weeks, maybe longer, in bed.
‘That’s what you’ll tell Eva?’
‘That’s what I’ll suggest.’
‘But you think she’ll agree? You think she’ll say yes?’
Agustín fetched his bag from the table and returned to the bedside. Downstairs, Stefan could hear Tomaso coughing. Agustín smoothed a pleat on the top blanket. Then his eyes returned to Stefan.
‘I’ve no idea, my friend,’ he said. ‘This war is the father of many children. One of them is surprise.’
*
Most of the scientists on the Hill were in their late twenties. A handful were even younger, one of the reasons the place had the feel of some surreal university campus, a bunch of America’s brightest, heavily policed by the military. Milos Schiff, on the other hand, was old. Gómez judged him to be early fifties at least. Merricks had fetched him from the Tech Area. He was thin, almost cadaverous, with a gaunt smoker’s face and skin the colour of yellowing parchment. He wore a full beard, heavily threaded with grey, which was unusual at Los Alamos. With his heavy boots, badly patched dungarees and rumpled T-shirt, he looked like a jobbing gardener but his eyes were alive in the deadness of his face. They were huge, the softest brown, alert, mobile, brimming with something Gómez took to be amusement.
He wanted to know what was going on. He took all this attention to be a compliment. Did they have proper coffee, by any chance? Out of a percolator?
Gómez ignored the question. Merricks had briefed him already about the link to Fiedler. For a start, these two guys had been the same age.
‘He was a friend of yours? Sol?’
‘Sure. Terrible thing
to happen. Can’t figure it out.’
‘You know him before, at all? Before you came here?’
‘Never. I’m Hungarian. Magyar. Sol was a Kraut.’
‘Did that matter?’
‘Not at all. Guys like us, we’re Jewish first, German or whatever second. Helluva man to be with. A listener, you with me? A guy who cared.’
He said they used to play chess on Sundays, the one day you could more or less count on to find time of your own. Sol played a very aggressive game, took lots of handling.
‘Big surprise, if you’re asking. Way out of character. The guy was a pussy cat in the lab, had the nicest manners. Show him a chess board and you’re looking at a tiger.’
‘So who won?’
‘You really want to know? I did. Why? Because after a couple of games, if you’re good, you can start to work out where the guy’s coming from. Sol? He had lots of anger. Crazy moves sometimes. Mad.’
‘Anger about what?’
‘I never knew. We never discussed it. It was a chess thing. But I swear to God that man way down was fighting for his fucking life.’
‘That’s a big thing to say.’
‘So is killing yourself.’
‘You think that’s the way it happened?’
‘I dunno.’ He shrugged. ‘I’d never have made Sol for something like that. He was never a quitter. But who knows?’
He dug in the breast pocket of his dungarees and produced a tin of tobacco. From another pocket, a thin packet of papers. Gómez watched him rolling the cigarette. He had the hands of a musician – long fingers, perfectly formed, yellow with nicotine. Thirty seconds and the cigarette was done.
Merricks found some matches. He wanted to know about Mrs Fiedler.
‘Marta?’ Schiff sucked smoke deep into his lungs. ‘Wonderful woman. A Magyar like me. I love the lady. Always have. Nothing but kindness. Old-fashioned, knows how to look after a man. Sol was the living proof of that, no question.’
‘Except he’s dead.’
‘Sure.’
‘So how does that work? You think he was fighting devils. The word you used was tormented. So how come his wife knew nothing about that? How come all this is such a surprise to her?’
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