Diego gave the man a kick, then jerked his thumb towards the door. Half crouching, covering himself with his hands, the guy reached for his shirt and scuttled away. Gómez heard him wrestling with his trousers at the foot of the stairs. Then he was gone.
Diego had turned his attention to the woman.
‘Gabriela?’
She nodded, on her feet now, wiping her thighs with a scrap of towel. Her Spanish was far too fast for Gómez to understand, a torrent of what sounded like oaths, but it was all too easy to guess where she was headed. A working girl needed a little privacy. People like her had a living to make. What the fuck was Diego doing in a place like this? And how come men always had to hide behind guns?
Diego handed the automatic to Gómez then took a step forward, bunched his fist and drove it hard into her face. Her head jerked back with the impact and she screamed in pain, holding her head in her hands. Gómez blinked at the force and suddenness of the violence. Not a hint of a warning. No attempt to frighten the woman first. When her hands came away, blood was spouting from her ruined nose. Diego studied her a moment, muttered something Gómez didn’t catch, then hit her again. This time she took the blow lower, just beneath her breasts, sinking to her knees, fighting for breath.
Diego wanted the gun. Gómez gave it to him. Diego pushed the woman back across the mattress then straddled her. He cocked the gun, held it inches in front of her face. He wanted to know about Francisca, about the gringo Donovan, about the car full of kids that had driven down from the States. When had they arrived? Where would he find them?
The woman shook her head. She didn’t know. Leave me alone. Just let me breathe. An address, Diego insisted. I need an address. Again the shake of the head.
Diego sat back, easing his weight lower, waiting for the woman to recover. She was wiping her face with her hand, then looking at the blood. Once, Gómez thought, she would have been as beautiful as her sister. He remembered Francisca in the chaos of Donovan’s house in Albuquerque. They had the same bone structure, the same sense of fullness, the same ease with themselves. Except this woman was running to fat and thanks to Diego she wouldn’t trust a mirror for a while.
‘It’s off the Avenida de la Republica,’ she muttered in Spanish. ‘Calle de la Cera.’
‘Number?’
‘Twelve. Yellow door.’
‘And your sister? Francisca?’
She stared up at Diego, exhausted by this sudden spasm of violence. One moment she’d been earning her living. Now this.
Diego asked again about Francisca. The gun was back in her face. She pushed it aside, a gesture of disgust.
‘Gone,’ she said. ‘Yesterday.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘With Donovan? With Frank?’
‘Sí.’
She said she hated this man. She said he was no good for her sister, no good for the rest of the family. When Diego wanted to know why, she said he was a puta, fucked everyone.
‘Like you?’
‘No. I fuck for a living. For pleasure men give me money. This man takes everything, from everyone. Men, women, everyone.’
‘You mean he’s a thief?’
‘Sí. A bad man. The worst. You find him …’ she nodded at the gun, ‘… you shoot him. The man is a rat. Kill him. Shoot him down. You don’t believe me? Ask my mother. Calle de la Cera. Yellow door.’
*
It took a while for Stefan to get his bearings. The journey from the village had seemed interminable. He’d lost count of the bends in the road, of the roar of the engine as the van climbed yet another hill, of the endless potholes that sent fresh spasms of pain through his ruined leg, of the sour reek of the exhaust fumes. Only hours ago, he’d felt himself reborn. Now, in ways too terrifying to contemplate, he was probably finished.
With dawn came a proper city. Through the single window at the back of the van, still wrapped in his blanket, Stefan glimpsed lampposts, trees, a wall of buildings on either side of the street, plants on balconies, billboards, advertisements, real life. The guards beside him were asleep, their bodies slumped against the sides of the van, their mouths open, their heads lolling as the driver slowed then picked up speed again. From the front of the van came occasional snatches of conversation. The German spoke fluent Spanish, and – from time to time – had the good manners to laugh at what might have been the other man’s joke.
The attaché from Coruña, Stefan thought, and it turned out he was right. When the van finally came to a halt, and the driver had shaken the guards awake, he got out of the van and stepped round to the back. When the driver opened the rear doors he leaned in as the guards pulled Stefan into a sitting position.
‘Von Klissburg.’ He extended a gloved hand. ‘Otto.’
Half expecting the obligatory Heil Hitler, Stefan didn’t move. Had he been captured by the British, he’d have been obliged to offer nothing but his name, rank and number. Was that what he was now? A prisoner of war?
Far from it. The guards helped him across the paving stones, heading for a heavy wooden door between two shops. It was daylight by now, though still early, and across the road a man with a cartful of loaves had stopped briefly to watch. This was a respectable area, probably the middle of the city. There were tramlines sunk into the cobblestones and a glimpse of the sea at the end of the street. Seagulls, too, wheeling above the rooftops.
Stefan paused beside the door, grateful for the support of the guards, while the German looked for keys. One of the shops was a florist. The other sold confectionery. Stefan lingered, gazing at the nests of truffles, each one separately wrapped, each a work of art. He could taste them, roll them slowly round his mouth, anticipate the moment when the chocolate shell surrendered to his probing tongue and he at last found the sweetness inside. Eva, he thought.
Otto was holding the door open. A light was already on inside and a flight of stairs led upwards. The guards were strong. They carried Stefan up, grunting with the effort. At a sharp word from Otto, they even apologised when they missed a step.
Finally, they made it to the first floor. Stefan found himself in a reception area. The ceilings were high, lovely mouldings, fitted carpet underfoot. Otto led the way into another room down the corridor. More carpet, blue rather than red, and a single bed tucked against the wall. The window in the room as tall as the ceiling, still curtained against the daylight, and the bed had been turned down as if in expectation of Stefan’s arrival. The guards settled him gently on the bed. Otto asked whether there was anything he wanted.
‘Coffee, perhaps? Something to eat?’
Stefan shook his head, said no to both. Nothing made sense any more. Expecting, at the very least, a beating, he found himself treated like an honoured guest. He asked Otto whether this was Coruña.
‘It is. You’ve been here before? Showing the flag maybe?’
‘Never.’
‘A pity. A handsome city. Wonderful beaches. The nicest people. Let’s hope you enjoy it here.’
Enjoy it here? Stefan gazed at him in wonderment. There was no point in keeping anything back. This man obviously knew the whole story.
‘How did you know where to find me? How did you know I was even alive?’
Otto shook his head. Later, he said. Once Stefan had rested a little. He dismissed the guards, then nodded down at the bed.
‘Someone will call you at noon. Schlafen Sie gut.’
Stefan watched him leave the room. The last thing he heard before he got into bed was the sound of the key turning in the lock.
He awoke hours later, deeply confused. He could hear music from the adjoining room. Brahms. The slow movement from the First Piano Concerto. He lay back, aware now of the growl of traffic from the street outside the window. The window was still curtained but he could make out the rumble of a tram, the clank of its bell, and the more distant mew of seagulls. Then came Brahms again.
Early in the war, back for a rare week of leave, his mother had taken him to hear
a live performance in the Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle. The piano concerto was one of her favourite pieces and he’d loved it ever since, especially the second movement. The tease. The slow build. The resolution. So deft. So passionate. So right. Exquisite.
Back in the village, up by himself in the narrow bed listening to Eva on the keyboard downstairs, he’d once thought of asking her if she knew this piece, and maybe if she could play the piano part. At that point in what he liked to think of as his convalescence he’d never been bold enough to broach the subject, and afterwards his thoughts had been elsewhere, but now he regretted not sharing this piece with her. He lay back, letting the music wash over him, wondering how many phonograph discs it took to record the entire concerto, then there came the scrape of a key in a lock and the door opened.
It was Otto and a woman who looked Spanish. She was carrying a tray. Otto gestured for her to put the tray on the bedside table. Stefan could see a pot of coffee, a curl of steam, a plate piled high with pastries. He might have been in a hotel.
The woman left without a word. Otto perched himself on the end of Stefan’s bed. He was wearing a suit now, beautifully tailored, and a red lapel pin with a tiny black swastika that Stefan recognised from one of the formal dinners he’d had to attend as a cadet in the naval training college at Flensburg. The guest of honour that night had been the Reich ambassador in London and he’d been wearing exactly the same pin. He’d come to tell the cadets about the mood in the Royal Navy. He’d attended a review at Spithead down on the Channel coast, miles of battleships and cruisers and other elements from the Home Fleet drawn up in perfect lines with thousands of officers and sailors lining the decks, saluting their king. He told the cadets he’d talked to some of these men. There was no appetite for war, he said. If the fighting came, the British would stand aside. How wrong he’d been.
‘Foreign Office?’ Stefan was still looking at the lapel pin.
‘I’m a diplomat, yes. A diplomat by temperament and a diplomat by choice. If you’re lucky in this war you find yourself far from Berlin. I was lucky. I am lucky. Drink the coffee. It gets cold so quickly.’
Stefan did his bidding. The coffee was delicious. He couldn’t remember coffee like it.
‘The beans come across from Brazil. We get them from the embassy in Lisbon. They’re kind enough not to forget us. Eat, please.’
Stefan helped himself to a pastry. The brioche was still warm from the oven. He wanted to know about the music next door.
‘Brahms … but you’ll know that. Claudio Arrau at the keyboard. Maestro Furtwängler on the podium.’
Stefan felt the first prickles of alarm. This man seemed to know everything about him. He might have been there in Hamburg, in the Laeiszhalle. He might have been up on his feet the moment the performance had swept to its finale, the conductor’s head bowed as the applause rolled over him. So how come his choice of music had been so perfect?
Asking him any kind of direct question would be far too crude. This man, he sensed, expected better. Instead, Stefan asked about the recording itself. By now, he expected a change of discs on the phonograph. They spun round at 78 rpm and barely lasted a single movement. They’d always taken a phonograph to sea and Stefan knew how irritating they could be. So why was the Brahms so seamless?
‘You don’t know?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘We call it a Magnetophon. The music comes on a reel of magnetic tape. The people at BASF developed it. The reproduction is faultless and you never have to bother with all those tiresome discs. I like to call it our secret weapon. If we take nothing else from this war then at least we take our Brahms.’
He seemed amused by the thought. Stefan nodded and helped himself to another pastry, a pain au raisin, better even than the version they served in the mess at Lorient. A silence had settled between them, peaceable, in no way threatening. Then Otto picked at a thread of wool from the foot of the blanket.
‘I imagine you’ll be wanting to know what we have in store for you.’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Word has gone to Berlin. That won’t surprise you.’
‘Word about what?’
‘About your escape. The fact that you survived. If I talk of mixed reactions, I’m sure you’ll understand. On the one hand your reputation is second to none. Even Doenitz sends his congratulations.’
Doenitz headed the German Navy. They called him Onkel Karl, ‘The Lion’. As far as Stefan was concerned, the Lion was God.
‘I’m honoured,’ he said.
‘Then have another pastry. Because the rest of the news is not so good.’
The SS, he said, had also been in touch. First in the matter of certain personnel and cargoes carried by the submarine. Second because the body of one of their senior officers had been recovered from the wreck.
‘I happened to be there, Herr Kapitän. Sometimes these people like to make things up. On this occasion they didn’t have to.’
Stefan sensed what was coming. He put his plate to one side.
‘And?’
‘We brought the dead officer here to Coruña. The Spanish are most accommodating in these situations. The doctor who performed the post-mortem confirmed that Brigadeführer Huber had been shot three times, once in the face and twice in the chest. His body must have spent some days inside the submarine before the wreck broke up. Only then did it come ashore.’ He paused. ‘To put it bluntly, Herr Kapitän, our friends from Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse think you may have a view about the good Brigadeführer’s fate.’
Stefan nodded. Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse housed the headquarters of the SS in Berlin. The torture chambers were in the basement.
‘Are these SS people here? In Coruña?’
‘Not yet.’
‘They’re coming?’
‘Of course. And soon. It might pay you to cast your mind back. They’re not as generous with pastries as I am.’
Stefan studied him, trying to gauge where this conversation was heading. Was his amiable host, with his faultless manners and impeccable taste in music, marking his card? Or was he after something more practical? Like a confession?
‘I’ll bear all that in mind,’ Stefan said. ‘I’m grateful.’
‘Don’t be. I ought to add something else. I think we can both anticipate two charges. One will be desertion, the other murder. If our friends believe you to be guilty of either, then the consequences will be fatal. The Spanish, as I’ve already said, can be deeply helpful in situations like these. They like to do these things out of the city. It’s a thirty-minute drive. They use a couple of men with rifles. It can be very quick.’ He smiled. ‘And very final.’
Stefan was looking at the crumbs on the plate. Eva, he thought. Her lover Juan pinned in the headlights of some car or other. His war coming to an abrupt and bloody end. Was there a house of death here in Coruña? Somewhere they’d store the bodies? Was that where he’d end up? Would Eva pay her last respects?
Otto was asking him whether there was anything else he needed. To the best of his knowledge the people from Berlin would be here this afternoon. They’d spent the night in the embassy in Madrid. They might even be in the air again by now.
‘How long have you known that I was alive?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you.’
‘But longer than …’ Stefan shrugged, ‘… yesterday?’
‘That would be a reasonable assumption.’
‘So how did you know? Did someone betray me?’
‘There are no secrets in this war, Herr Kapitän. If there were we might already be at peace.’
Stefan frowned. He had no idea what Otto meant but the shape of the next few hours was only too evident. Pastries first. Then the bill.
‘Can you help me across there?’ He was looking at the window.
‘Of course. My pleasure.’
Otto helped him out of bed, and supported his weight as Stefan limped towards the window.
‘You want me to open the curtains?’
> ‘Yes, please.’
‘Like the theatre, ja?’ Otto smiled, and then parted the curtains in the middle while Stefan clung to the back of a nearby chair.
Outside, as Stefan had expected, the street was busy. What little he’d seen of Spain had told him that these were poor people but the women drifting from shop to shop looked well fed, even affluent. Some of them lingered a while, gazing at the mannequins in the shop window. An old man had a stall across the road and Stefan told himself he could smell the sweetness of the roasting chestnuts. Further away, two girls were playing for the crowds of shoppers. One had a violin, the other a mouth organ. Stefan felt his eyes filling with tears. It looked so ordinary down there, so inviting, so removed from the war and all the killing. Eva, he thought again. She deserves some of this.
He let go of the chair. He wanted to get closer. His fingers touched the cold glass. Then he became aware of Otto’s presence behind him.
‘The window is locked, Herr Kapitän,’ he said softly, ‘if you were thinking otherwise.’
14
Francisca’s mother was a plump woman in her sixties with the face of a peasant and a biggish square of garden she clearly tended with fierce passion. The garden was at the back of the house. Diego and Gómez found her bent over a row of fat eggplants, digging out the weeds with her thick fingers. She had a scarf knotted tightly over a mass of greying hair and her hands were caked in soil when she turned round to inspect these two strangers who’d made their way round the side of the property.
Finisterre Page 20
