Twilight of Gutenberg

by Hitoshi Goto

  The conversation carried on with mostly the owner talking and me just listening. I couldn’t divulge to anyone that I was going to the Channel Islands, so I kept quiet. In the end he brought out a choice 1928 Château Latour.

  “1928 is the best year after 1921, isn’t it? Are you sure it’s okay to open it?” I said, hesitating over such a waste, but the owner had already opened the bottle and was noisily sniffing the cork, testing the aromatic fragrance.

  He poured some of the wine into two glasses, and after a careful degustation, we compared our impressions. Personally I was partial to the second class Mouton Rothschild, but this Latour was amazing. After rolling the wine around on my tongue, swallowing, and breathing out through my nose, a fairly strong kick returned to my mouth. It was still only fifteen years old, so it tasted rather rough and immature for a first class wine. If I were to compare it to something, it would be to a fast growing clump of green bamboo, each plant strongly asserting itself as it pointed skyward. In twenty years this wine would be mellowed to perfection. A matured wine was life itself!

  †

  Later I visited the German naval HQ located near the castle wall around the old town, giving my name to the sentry at the entrance, and following up with the name of Lieutenant Zweifel that I’d been given before leaving Berlin. I was made to wait two or three minutes before the sentry returned and I was cordially ushered inside. My story had apparently passed. I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand.

  The room I’d been shown into was drab. There was a desk and some chairs in it, but before I could take a seat an officer of middling height and build came in. He looked about the same age as myself, a man with a steely gaze and a faint scar on his left cheek, possibly left by a test of courage in his college days. I felt the punctiliousness of a typical German.

  When I bowed to him, he asked, “Verstehen Sie Deutsch?” When I shook my head, he said “Englisch?” then corrected his pronunciation to “English?” This time I nodded.

  “I am Lieutenant Zweifel. Since you are the brother of a Japanese naval officer, I have been ordered to afford you the maximum expediency.”

  I briefly introduced myself and expressed my thanks. Apparently he didn’t harbour any suspicions about me, for he said, “No need to be so guarded. If you look at me like that I’ll think you understand German,” he said enigmatically. He glanced at the documents I’d brought with me, then looked up. “You’re an artist living in Paris?”

  “Yes.”

  “Before I joined the navy, I was a schoolteacher. I taught English. I am extremely envious of you, being able to continue working as an artist,” he said evenly, not changing his expression.

  “For better or for worse, even if I were to be drafted I’m not able to go back to Japan.”

  “I suppose that’s so.” He nodded curtly, expressionless. “By the way, according to my orders, you are hoping to spend three days on Guernsey. Is that right?”

  The matter of Commander Yagyu—and Major Amemiya—was of course confidential, so I answered neutrally that I was on a sketching tour. He didn’t probe any further.

  “A regular scheduled boat loaded with supplies will be going to Jersey via Guernsey tomorrow. It’s not very big, but I would ask you to travel on that. In three days another boat will bring you back, to Cherbourg this time. It’s rather early, but please be on the pier with your luggage at seven o’clock.

  The short hop to the Channel Islands was completely unlike the ocean voyage from Japan to France. That time it had felt as though the ship was following a single course over the sea. This time, however, the ship was only one step up from a small fishing boat, with a crew of just ten. Told that I’d feel seasick inside, I went up onto the deck, but with the constant up-down movements of the ship over the waves my head started to spin and I felt nausea welling up.

  “If you get seasick on a calm day like today, what are you going to be like when it’s rough?” teased a sailor from the German navy in accented English, but I was in no condition to reply.

  “Look, there’s the island up ahead,” I heard someone tell me, and looked up to see land in the distance.

  The boat approached the island from the south. The coast was wilder than I’d imagined, with long, steep cliffs. Finally the boat turned right towards the port. The first I saw of it was the stone fortress, which gradually grew bigger and eventually I could also make out the pier. It was Saint Peter Port.

  The first thing I saw upon landing was a weatherbeaten naval officer with a long beard and wearing silver-rimmed glasses. I was unsteady on my feet, and the moment I stood on land my legs gave way and I sat down.

  “Mr. Hoshino, please stay where you are,” the officer said, coming over to me. “Don’t try to get up until you’re ready. I am Lieutenant Schmidt of the German navy, and have been instructed to look after you during your stay here. I hear you are a renowned artist from Paris,” he said in fluent French, yet pronouncing my name properly with an H, and held out his right hand.

  I was relieved that the conversation had started in French, and weakly shook his hand. From the smile on his face, I imagined that he must have been ordered to receive me warmly—or perhaps to keep an eye on me, but either way it was much the same. I clearly wasn’t going to be able to move around the island on my own on.

  Schmidt instructed a young sailor to take my luggage to the car, and once he’d briskly marched off carrying my belongings, Schmidt held my shoulders and slowly helped me to my feet.

  Lieutenant Schmidt took me to the Hotel Belvedere near the centre of Saint Peter Port, although it was currently being used by the higher ranked officers of the German military. I spent about an hour in my room sitting on the bed holding my head in pain, but at last the nausea gradually subsided.

  By the time I’d rinsed out my mouth, taken a shower, and put some fresh clothes on, I felt back to normal.

  When I went downstairs to the lobby, Lieutenant Schmidt had evidently been waiting for me and immediately rose to his feet.

  “How are you feeling? Have you recovered from your seasickness?”

  This time we exchanged a firm handshake.

  “Much better, thank you. I apologise for having made such a spectacle of myself.”

  Schmidt led me out of the hotel. I now realised that he was two heads taller than me, and I soon got a crick in my neck from having to look up at him.

  “Please don’t worry about it. I’d assumed you must be undercover, but you really are an artist, aren’t you?”

  I must have looked suspicious, for he quickly said, “I’m sorry, that was rude. I’ll explain in the car—we stand out too much here.”

  I also wanted to avoid being seen. Very few East Asians came to this island, and I felt the stares from employees and military personnel in the hotel lobby, scrutinizing me from head to toe with undisguised curiosity just as they had in Saint-Malo. It was like being an animal in a cage. It wasn’t like Paris here… If I had a Japanese flag in my hand perhaps they would realise I was from an allied country and the stares would soften a little. No, this island was British before the occupation. The islanders were British, and Japan was their enemy in the war.

  As I’d thought, when we left the hotel I felt the eyes of the local residents on me as we walked down the street. Unnerved, I was relieved to reach the car park and got into the car as quickly as I could.

  “Well, you see Mr. Hoshino,” Schmidt said as soon as we were both settled in the car. “I introduced myself as being from the navy, but actually what I do is not what you might expect.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t go into too much detail even to an ally, but broadly speaking my duty is to root out British spies in the Channel Islands. My organisation belongs directly to a special bureau in the Wehrmacht. I therefore need to understand what your mission is here, Mr. Hoshino. You’re not here as an artis
t, but in order to investigate the army officer that was found dead, are you not? I have also received orders from my boss in Berlin to fully cooperate with you.”

  “You also know all about me.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you knew that I was most comfortable with French.”

  “Yes. And that your brother-in-law is a naval attaché in Berlin. Which means that you are also connected to the navy, the same as me. But the dead officer was from the army, wasn’t he? There must be a good relationship between the Japanese navy and army if a someone representing the navy has come to investigate it. That is to be envied,” Schmidt said with feeling. “And then there’s that mysterious Japanese in the photo.”

  “So you know about that, too.”

  Schmidt nodded. “So I will make all the necessary arrangements for you during your stay, Mr. Hoshino.”

  “Much obliged. In any case I’m just an artist, and have never received any military training whatsoever. Without your guidance I can’t do anything.”

  Schmidt nodded, smiling, and started the car engine. Sitting side by side, the two heads’ difference in height was no longer evident.

  “My pleasure. I had imagined that there would be an elite military man behind the artist cover, but I was wrong.”

  “I really am just an artist. But how did you know?”

  Schmidt grinned. “Simple. A naval officer would never have been that seasick.”

  August 1943

  Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, Berlin

  Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Austrian-born like Hitler and now head of the RSHA, was in an excellent mood as he reclined in a leather chair with his legs outstretched. In his hand was a glass of Franconian wine, a rare pleasure.

  “So, what do you think, Klaus? One more push and we’ll be able to crush Canaris. He’s survived this far under Keitel’s protection, but there’s no doubt that the Abwehr is deeply implicated in a series of assassination attempts on the Führer and intelligence leaks to the Anglo Saxons.”

  Klaus Sonnenberger nodded emphatically, and slightly raised his wineglass. “I agree. We should root out the plotters in the Wehrmacht as soon as possible.”

  “No, not just the plotters. We need to completely cripple the Wehrmacht, especially the army, and bring it under the control of the SS. Our opportunity lies with the secret. If only that were safe…” Kaltenbrunner said, his face darkening.

  His sudden change of expression was not lost on Sonnenberger. “You mean Romulus?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re saying Canaris knows?”

  This question was from the other person in the room, the head of the Gestapo Heinrich Müller, also with a glass of white wine in his hand.

  “Of course he does. If Keitel knows, then he does too,” said Kaltenbrunner.

  “The existence of Romulus is the best bargaining chip Canaris could possible have,” said Sonnenberger.

  “But he doesn’t know the whole story,” Müller said, rousing himself. “That’s what worries me. I suppose it’s inevitable that Göbbels does, and now Ribbentrop too—although even Himmler, Göring, and Speer don’t know the whole truth.”

  “Well, that much can’t be helped. Ribbentrop is the only authority on the Brits. But our de facto boss is Bormann, and the depth of his foresight is astonishing, isn’t it? That’s why the Führer ordered that Romulus be placed under his exclusive control,” said Kaltenbrunner, who was dismissive of his own boss, Himmler, and effectively considered Bormann to be his superior.

  Automatically he glanced at the portrait of Hitler on the cold white wall staring down on them, “However, as expected, that really put the heat on Ribbentrop,” Sonnenberger said, staring at his glass.

  “It really was a dangerous moment.”

  “A narrow escape.”

  “I know there are problems with the plan, but it’s too late to go back now.”

  “I’m confident it can work. History proves that,” Sonnenberger said without hesitating.

  “History, history…” laughed Müller who was listening to their exchange.

  “By the time history proves it, we’ll have been executed for war crimes,” said Kaltenbrunner, reacting nervously to the word history.

  “Either that or living our lives out in South America,” said Müller.

  “Together with Romulus, eh?”

  Müller shrugged and went on, ignoring the sarcasm in Kaltenbrunner’s remark, “That isn’t a done deal yet.”

  “You mean your man Klein?”

  “Yes. He was the best. I can’t believe he was killed…”

  “It was probably unavoidable. He did a fantastic job. That island is dominated by Canaris, you know—the Abwehr got wind of him after he’d carried out his mission.”

  “But we don’t yet know who shot him.”

  “He wasn’t carrying anything that could identify him, was he?”

  “Of course not. You don’t think it would be written on his ID that he was in the Gestapo and specially trained in illegal assassination, do you? His gun was a British make too.”

  “I know. So I suppose he was also dealt with as an unidentified person in the investigation.”

  “Ostensibly yes. But of course, Canaris realised the truth. Actually, I tried to send two more men in after him, but they were prevented from leaving France,” Müller said, the loathing clear in his voice.

  “I suppose it can’t be helped. We can’t move around openly there, and he knows it.”

  “That reminds me, there was another disturbing report from Saint-Malo.”

  “Really? From France?” Sonnenberger asked.

  “Yes. A Japanese artist stayed in a hotel there, and then headed for Guernsey.”

  “Must be some mistake.”

  “No, an agent started tailing him after he arrived and was in the lobby when he checked in. There is no mistake.”

  “I don’t suppose his name is Hoshino, is it?” asked Sonnenberger, unable to hide his surprise.

  “Oh, do you know him?” It was Kaltenbrunner’s turn to be surprised.

  “I shared a carriage with him on the train to Berlin. He is a preeminent artist in Paris.”

  “Is that so? You also studied in Paris, didn’t you?”

  “His brother-in-law is a naval attaché stationed in Berlin.”

  “The navy! So he’s in the Canaris camp!” Kaltenbrunner broke in.

  “By that token, Reinhardt was also originally a naval officer,” said Müller, referring to Kaltenbrunner’s predecessor, Reinhardt Heydrich, who had been assassinated in Czechoslovakia. “But what was that artist doing in Guernsey?”

  “It’s just rumour, but alongside the Englishwoman that Klein killed, there was the body of a Japanese army officer who was apparently there conducting observations, and somehow got caught up in this. He’s probably here to investigate that,” Kaltenbrunner said.

  “Was that Klein’s work too?”

  “That is possible. He might have been seen disposing of the woman…”

  “Or maybe the Japanese officer got wind of Klein?”

  “Maybe. But there is no evidence linking him to the Gestapo,” Müller said.

  “That’s right, Klaus. As far as we’re concerned, as long as Klein’s death is not linked to Romulus, it’s not a problem.”

  Sonnenberger frowned again, and asked Kaltenbrunner, “What about Manteuffel?”

  “I’ll have to ask you to dispose of him,” he said, drinking the last of his wine.

  “But Ribbentrop won’t keep quiet, you know”

  “That’s up to you to consider, Klaus. If Manteuffel’s disappearance is unnatural, it would be bad, but if on the other hand he committed suicide, Ribbentrop would probably be satisfied,” Kaltenbrunner said with a wink.

  “Okay. Leave it up to me,” Sonnenberger said, n
odding.

  Memorandum

  We set off, with Lieutenant Schmidt driving.

  Gazing out of the car window, I was interested to note how French the town looked, while everything was in English and German. I was immersed in the sensation of being in a foreign land, when Schmidt interrupted my thoughts.

  “First I’ll introduce you to the detective in charge of the case. He has been instructed to tell you the results of his assessment without holding anything back. After that, I’ll take you to the beach where the body was found, and to meet the civilian who found it. I shall also take you to the place where it is thought the crime took place. As you know, the officer’s remains have already been sent off as per the request from the military office in Vichy. Does this sound acceptable?”

  “That’s fine. Incidentally, what were the conditions in which the body was found? Were any personal effects found?”

  “I’ll leave the details for the detective to fill you in on, but he was found early one stormy morning around twenty days ago on a small beach on the south coast. There weren’t any abrasions to speak of, but the cause of death was a single shot to the heart from a gun that is standard issue for the British army. As far as I’ve heard, he didn’t have many personal effects other than what he was carrying on him, and these have been returned with his remains. Oh, and the body of an Englishwoman was found with him.”

  He’d just finished telling me this when he said, “Here we are.”

  I looked up and saw we’d arrived at a police station.

  “This is Andrew Cleary, the English Detective in charge of this case.”

  He stood there in silence looking nervous as Schmidt introduced him in English. I noticed him bristle slightly at the words “English Detective,” but he quickly returned to being as expressionless as a Noh mask. He was a middle-aged man who looked much like any other, other than a tuft of hair standing up at the back of his head on the left.

  “Hoshino,” I said.

  As we shook hands, and our eyes met.