‘This guy Sol Fiedler shot himself to death on Tuesday morning. Am I right?’
‘Yes, sir. That’s the way it looks.’
‘He left a note, right?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Explained to his poor wife that he had some problems with where all this work of his was headed? Words to that effect?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So he shoots himself. Not good. Not from Mrs Fiedler’s point of view. And certainly not from ours.’
‘I agree, sir.’
‘And now, according to Colonel Whyte here, we learn that poor Sol had another problem, maybe one that Mrs Fiedler never suspected, certainly one he never wanted to share with her.’
‘So I understand, sir.’
‘So you understand? What does that mean, soldier?’
Groves was eyeballing him. He’d heard from others on the Hill that this man ran the entire project from special suites on the railroad as he criss-crossed the country from meeting to meeting. Looking at the paleness of his face, Gómez could believe it.
‘Colonel Whyte’s wife told me what happened, sir. I’ve yet to check her account.’
‘Check her account? What in God’s name is there to check? She’s an attractive woman. Fiedler jumps her. A serious error on his part but you’re telling me that’s some kind of surprise?’
‘I’m telling you nothing, sir. In my line of work we check everything. That’s what you pay us for.’
‘Glad to hear it, soldier. Very noble. But let me tell you something else. Where I sit, we speak the language of priorities. Some things matter, some things matter less, and some things, believe it or not, don’t matter at all. What we have here is a sad little story about a guy who couldn’t get his pecker up. Not without a beautiful woman like Mrs Whyte to give him a hand. That was foolish on the part of Mr Fiedler, but you know something else? These guys aren’t normal. Clever? Yes. Brilliant? Many of them, sure. But not normal. And you want to know something else while we’re on the subject? They hate us. Why? Because we make life difficult for them. They dreamed this Gadget up. They did all the hard math, ran the calcs, played God with the physics, and now we’ve come along and taken this beautiful toy off them. They hate that. They hate that we’re the ones gonna decide what to do with it, how many bombs to make, where to drop them. These people, bright as they are, have finally understood what lies down the road. What lies down the road is exceedingly ugly, soldier. What lies down the road is death in six-figure numbers. Carnage. Charred flesh. Blood so hot it boils. Does that realisation make these people feel guilty? Of course it does. Does it make them get round tables like this and give us a hard time? Why, yes. But do we still need them? You bet your sweet ass we need them. Else half a million of our men are gonna wake up one morning on the beaches of Japan. More death. More carnage. You want that, soldier? You want our guys washing around in the surf, screaming for their mothers? Is that what you want to happen?’
Groves was bent forward, letting the question hang in the air. Everything about his body language – the jut of the jaw, the gleam in his eyes – demanded an answer but Gómez was lost. Spud Murphy, he thought, head down, thighs pumping, ball clasped tight.
‘I’m not sure I understand, sir,’ he said at last. ‘I’m an investigator. Like I say, I’m paid to try and figure out situations like these. It sure looks like a suicide. But maybe it’s not.’
‘It’s a suicide, soldier.’
‘Is that an order, sir? Or an opinion?’
Gómez saw Whyte close his eyes. Even Oppie winced. Expecting the general’s wrath, Gómez was pleasantly surprised to see a rare smile warm his face.
‘You got it, soldier. As it happens it’s both. But you can take your choice. All I’m telling you is this. The case, if there ever was a case, is now closed. The program rolls on because the program has to. Else we’re gonna be killing the enemy for the rest of our lives and that would be dull work as well as unnecessary. You’re going to walk out of here hating me but that doesn’t matter either. Being hated is what I get paid for and it happens I’m very good at it. Sol Fiedler is nothing, soldier. He’s not even a footnote in this story of ours. Sol Fiedler is history. Because Sol Fiedler is dead, a decision we believe he took for himself.’ He turned briefly to Oppenheimer. ‘You agree, Oppie?’
Oppenheimer said nothing. He’d been smoking since Gómez entered the room and an ashtray at his elbow was brimming with butts from an earlier session. Now he took his time to light another.
‘Colonel Whyte says you have leave owing.’ He picked a curl of tobacco off his lower lip. ‘At least a couple of weeks.’
Gómez did his best not to look surprised. First time he’d heard of it.
‘You want me off the Hill?’
‘We’re suggesting you take that leave. These are testing times, Lieutenant. It pays to stay fresh.’ He held Gómez’s eyes for a long moment, then permitted himself the ghost of a smile. ‘Do we hear a yes?’
*
It was nearly dark before Eva finally reappeared in Stefan’s room. She paused beside the door, checking that he was awake, then stepped inside. She was wearing a pair of rumpled trousers and a thick grey pullover. The bottoms of the trousers were wet and she brought with her the smell of the ocean.
Stefan smiled up at her. She asked him whether he needed to use the toilet. He shook his head.
‘Maybe later,’ he said. ‘If that’s OK.’
‘You’re hungry? I bring you food.’
Stefan shook his head. That, too, could wait. What he wanted – needed – was a chance to clear the air, an opportunity to break the gathering silence and prove that he wasn’t who she thought he was.
‘You still think I’m SS?’
She stared down at him a moment, not answering. Then she frowned.
‘You talked to Agustín?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘This morning. You found the wallet in my coat, yes?’
‘Sí.’
‘And that’s why you thought I was someone else?’
‘I thought you were Huber, sí.’
‘Say I was Huber. Say I was SS. Say I’d gone through this whole war in my black uniform, doing the things the SS do, would that have made a difference?’
‘To what?’
‘To this. To us. To me being here.’
‘There is no difference.’
‘Because I’m German?’
‘Yes. And because you come from the war.’
Stefan nodded. Whatever brand of German he was, whatever he’d done in the chaos of this war, he was still unwelcome. He found the distinction difficult to understand but if nothing else he sensed that he had this one chance to try and change things.
‘I’m a human being,’ he said. It sounded pathetic.
‘So is Huber.’
‘Huber is a bad man. Was.’
‘And you?’
‘I’m not a bad man. Not like Huber.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Because I haven’t shot people for the sake of it. Because I don’t believe I’m part of some master race. Because, if you want the truth, I don’t believe in anything any more.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No.’
‘And is that why you’re here? Are you hiding?’
‘Yes.’
She gazed down at him, her expression giving nothing away. Then she moved the cage that was his leg very gently and sat down on the bed.
‘This afternoon I was with the German again, the man from Coruña,’ she said. ‘His name is Otto. He’s an OK guy.’
‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he’s a German.’
The way he said it, the resignation in his voice, sparked a smile. Then, as quickly as it happened, the smile was gone.
‘You know what would happen if they found you here?’
‘I’ve no idea. I expect they’d take me awa
y and shoot me.’
‘For what?’
‘For desertion. For betraying the cause.’
‘What is the cause?’
‘Very good question. I used to think it was the Reich. Then that went sour. Then I thought it was the Heimat, the homeland, everything I’ve come from, everything I was, but that’s all gone, destroyed, finished. So the cause?’ He shrugged. ‘You tell me.’
‘Maybe the cause is more war.’
‘You mean killing more people?’
‘Sí. Because the killing never stops.’
‘Then I don’t want it.’
‘What do you want?’
This was the question that went to the heart of everything and Stefan knew it. What did he want? Here and now? Lying immobile in a stranger’s house on the furthest edge of Europe? No glass in the window and his prospects, his life, his very existence in the hands of a woman who loathed Germans?
‘I want to get well,’ he said at last. ‘And I want to feel normal again.’
She nodded, fingering the corner of the blanket. Then she lifted her head and swept the curtain of hair from her face.
‘I was on the beach with Otto,’ she said. ‘They found another body.’
‘Did they?’
‘Sí. And you know who it was?’
‘Tell me. I knew them all. Every single one of them. They were like my children. Even the older men.’
‘It was Huber.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Otto had photographs. It was the same man.’
‘What was he like? What state was he in?’ Stefan felt the first stirrings of alarm. Three days in the submarine, Huber’s body would still be intact.
Eva took her time answering the question.
‘He had been shot,’ she said at last.
‘How do you know?’
‘He had a bullet hole here …’ she touched her left eye, ‘… and there were more holes in his leather coat, just here.’ Her chest this time.
‘Did Otto see all this?’
‘It was Otto who told me. The Guardia have taken the body to Coruña. Otto insisted.’
‘For what?’
‘For examination. And afterwards for burial.’
Stefan lay back, trying to absorb the implications. If they ever found him, if they ever came for him, if they ever worked out what had happened, he’d be facing a murder charge, as well as desertion. Eva was right. The killing would never stop.
He eyed her from the pillow. The closeness wasn’t just physical. Some of her reticence, her apartness, had gone. She seemed to want to talk. He asked her about the submarine. What else had come ashore?
‘Many boxes. Many tins. Food. Oil. Ammunition.’
‘And wooden boxes? With padlocks on?’
‘Sí. The Guardia have a truck. The back of the truck is full.’
‘And did you mention me at all?’ It was a question he had to ask.
‘No.’
‘So they think I’m dead? Like the others?’
‘You’re missing. There are now forty-seven bodies. They think the other two have gone. That includes you.’
Stefan nodded. ‘Missing’ was an interesting word. That’s exactly what he felt. Dislocated. Lost. Missing.
He looked up at her again and then extended his hand.
‘My real name is Stefan,’ he said. ‘Stefan Portisch.’
‘I know. I asked that, too. Otto had a list. You were on it. Kapitän Stefan Portisch.’ She stared down at him. Stefan withdrew his hand, glad at the very least that she no longer believed he was SS.
‘I have a question, Kapitän Portisch. Do you mind?’
‘Of course not. Go ahead.’
‘Who shot Huber?’
Stefan held her gaze. Then, very slowly, he smiled and shook his head.
‘I need to use the pot,’ he said. ‘Can you help me?’
7
Sol Fiedler was buried two days later after a service at a synagogue in Albuquerque. Dozens of his colleagues from the Tech Area formed a modest cortège for the three-hour drive from Los Alamos, and Oppie arranged for a bus to take a couple of dozen of Marta’s friends, and for drinks and a buffet meal afterwards in a downtown hotel. After the fruit course, Oppie paid tribute to Fiedler’s many achievements in the field of metallurgical research, a graceful speech which won applause from Sol’s fellow scientists.
Before he sat down, Oppie acknowledged that the pressures on everyone on the Hill were many and various but that stress of the kind that must have led to Sol’s death was mercifully rare. Watching the faces around the table, Gómez was aware of the men exchanging glances. By now it was obvious that they, like him, had profound doubts about what had really led to Fiedler’s death. The guy was too strong-minded, they said. And aside from anything else, he loved his wife too much to be apart from her.
As for Marta herself, she weathered the flood of hugs and sympathy with some grace. Only once during the service, when the rabbi was approaching the end of the Hesped, did the sheer power of the eulogy appear to affect her. Sol Fiedler, the rabbi said, was a man of rare learning, of rare wisdom and of rare humanity. The memories he’d left would be as precious as his life. A man like Sol was like water in the desert. He’d brought flowers from dust, and hope from despair. The end of a thing, he said in echo of Ecclesiastes, is better than its beginning.
At this, Marta ducked her head and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. Later, after the meal in the hotel, she thanked Gómez for his kindness and patience. Among her many regrets was the fact that he’d never been able to get to know her husband for himself.
‘I did nothing,’ he told her, only too aware that it was true.
From Albuquerque, Fiedler’s body – with Marta in attendance – was taken by train for burial in Chicago. Oppie paid the costs. Gómez and Merricks climbed back into their Army Ford coupé for the drive back to Los Alamos. Minutes into the journey, Merricks questioned Gómez’s choice of route.
‘Why are we heading for the airport?’ he asked.
Gómez didn’t answer. Minutes later he pulled off the main road and drove into the development that housed Frank Donovan and his family. As he’d half expected, there was no sign of the red pick-up outside. Neither, when he parked and knocked at the door, was there any indication of life inside. No children. No radio. No conversation. Nothing.
Next door, the householder answered Gómez’s knock.
‘They went yesterday.’ He jerked a thumb at the wilderness of garden out back. ‘Good riddance.’
*
Two days later, mid-morning, the crew of U-2553 were laid to rest. Eva had warned Stefan about the funeral the previous evening. The bodies, she said, had been embalmed and were lying in coffins on the floor in the local school. The school was closed until after the funeral, and Otto had somehow found forty-seven Nazi flags to drape across the coffins.
The route from the school to the village church went down the street past Eva’s house and she asked Stefan whether he wanted to be discreetly at the window to pay his respects. Stefan said no. He’d already said his private farewells to these men and the last thing he wanted to take away from this village was the taint of forty-seven swastikas. They already belonged, he told himself, to another life.
Nonetheless there was no avoiding the funeral. The church bell began to toll at ten o’clock. Like the steady drip of water, it quickly became unbearable. It summoned too many memories, sparked hot waves of anguish and regret that felt – to Stefan – close to despair. Then came the sound of boots on the cobblestones beneath the window and he wondered how a village like this could muster enough men to carry all those coffins, all that collective weight. Maybe Coruña is full of Germans, he thought. Maybe they’ve been trucked in. Maybe there were dozens of his countrymen in the street below, immaculate in their uniforms, bidding auf Wiedersehen to the fallen.
Behind the procession of coffins, and hardest to bear of all, was some kind of choir. It sounded like chil
dren’s voices, maybe from the school. They were singing a psalm in Latin and Stefan recognised the words. The chant of their infant voices swelled and then died as they passed beneath the window, and afterwards – in the gathering silence – Stefan wept.
Support us, O Lord,
all the day long of this troublesome life,
until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes,
the busy world is hushed,
the fever of life is over
and our work is done.
Then, Lord, in your mercy grant us a safe lodging,
a holy rest, and peace at the last
through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Later, it must have been early afternoon, Stefan awoke to find Eva at his bedside. She was wearing a black dress with a rose pinned to her breast. When Stefan asked about the rose she loosened the pin and laid it on his pillow. It was the deepest red.
‘For you,’ she said, reaching for his hand. ‘I’m sorry.’
*
The following day, Gómez prepared to leave Los Alamos. Merricks was driving him to the station at Lamy, twenty miles south-east of Santa Fe. From here he would be taking the train north, like Sol Fiedler, to Chicago. There he had business to transact before moving on to Washington.
He’d phoned Agard Beaman a day or so ago, explaining about his sudden windfall vacation, and Beaman had insisted on him staying over. He had a really neat apartment in DC south of the river beyond the Navy Yard. It was up high, third floor, and there were glimpses of the Capitol from the main window. He had two bedrooms and Gómez’s name was on one of them. No arguments. Just say yes. Gómez, oddly touched, had obliged. Give it a week, he said. Then I’ll be with you.
Now, with Merricks eager to leave the Hill and hit the road, Gómez remembered the last check he had to make. The doctor who’d performed the autopsy on Sol Fiedler was based in the hospital, along from the Admin Building. His name was Bud Jackson and he came from a small lakeside town in Illinois that Gómez had known well as a kid.
Jackson, like Gómez, had been on the Hill from the start. Last time Gómez had seen him was months back at the height of summer when Gómez checked in with griping stomach pains Jackson blamed on algae in the water.
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