A Quiet Flame

by Philip Kerr

  Kassner sipped his drink and nodded thoughtfully.

  “So why that stupid pantomime in the clinic?”

  “I wanted to see a list of patients you were treating.”

  “Couldn’t you have asked to see it legitimately?”

  “Yes. But you wouldn’t have shown it to me.”

  “That’s quite right. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. It would have been unethical.” He smiled. “So what are you? A memory man? Did you hope to remember every name on the list?”

  “Something like that.” I shrugged.

  “But there were rather more names than you had bargained for. Which is why you’re back here now. And at my home rather than the clinic, because you hoped that this might make it easier for me to forget my doctor-patient duty of confidentiality.”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “My first duty, Commissar, is to my patients. Some of whom are very dangerously ill. Suppose for a moment that I did share information regarding their true identities with you. And suppose you chose to interview some of them. All of them. I don’t know. They might very well feel I’d betrayed their confidence. They might never again return to the clinic to complete their treatment. In which case they might very easily go and infect someone else. And so on, and so on.” He shrugged. “You do see what I mean? I regret the murder of anyone. However, I do have to be mindful of the bigger picture.”

  “Here’s my bigger picture, Dr. Kassner. The person who killed Anita Schwarz is a psychopath. She was horribly mutilated. The kind of person who kills like that usually does it again. I want to find this maniac before that happens. Are you prepared to have another murder on your conscience?”

  “You make a very fair point, Commissar. It’s quite a dilemma, isn’t it? Perhaps the best thing would be to put the matter before the Prussian Medical Ethics Committee and let them decide.”

  “How long would that take?”

  Kassner looked vague. “A week or two? Perhaps a month.”

  “And what do you think they would decide?”

  He sighed. “I would never like to second-guess a medical ethics committee. I’m sure it’s the same in the police. There are always proper procedures to be observed. Although they don’t really seem to have been observed here. I wonder what your superiors would make of your conduct toward me?” He shook his head. “But let us suppose that the committee turns down your request. That’s a realistic possibility, I think. What could you do then? I suppose you could try to interview everyone coming in and out of the clinic. Of course, it’s only a small percentage who are in the clinical trial. The vast majority of my patients—and I do mean a vast majority, Commissar—is still using neosalvarsan. And what would happen then? Why, you would frighten people away, of course. And we would have an epidemic of venereal disease in Berlin. As things stand now, we are barely controlling the disease. There are tens of thousands of people in this city suffering from jelly, as you call it. No, Commissar, my own suggestion to you would be to try to find a separate line of inquiry. Yes, sir, I do believe that would be the best thing for all concerned.”

  “You make some good points, Doctor,” I said.

  “I’m so glad you think so.”

  “However, when I was in your office, I couldn’t help noticing that one of the addresses on your list of patients using protonsil is this address. Perhaps you’d care to comment on that.”

  “I see. That was very sharp of you, Commissar. I suppose you think that might make me a suspect.”

  “It’s a possibility I can’t afford to ignore, sir.”

  “No, of course not.” Kassner finished his drink and got up to pour himself another. But I still wasn’t on his list of people he wanted to have a drink with. “Well, then, it’s like this. It’s not uncommon for doctors to infect themselves with a disease they’re trying to cure.” He sat down again, burped discreetly behind his glass, and then toasted me silently.

  “Is that what you’re saying, Doctor? That you deliberately infected yourself with a venereal disease to test protonsil on yourself?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Sometimes it’s not enough to test the side effects of a drug on other people. They are less able to describe the full effects of a drug on the human body. As I believe I stated when first we met, it’s rather difficult to keep tabs on patients in these cases. Sometimes the only patient one can really trust is oneself. I’m sorry if you think that makes me a suspect. But I can assure you that I’ve never murdered anyone. As it happens, though, I believe I can supply an alibi for the day and night of that poor girl’s death.”

  “I’m delighted to hear it.”

  “I was attending a urologists’ conference, in Hannover.”

  I nodded and took out my cigarettes. “Do you mind?”

  He shook his head and sipped some of his drink. The alcohol hit his stomach and made it start rumbling.

  “Here’s what I’d like to suggest, Doctor. Something that might help this inquiry. Something you might like to do voluntarily that wouldn’t offend your sense of ethics.”

  “If it’s within my power.”

  I lit my cigarette and leaned forward so I was in range of the scallop-edged ashtray.

  “Have you ever had any psychiatric training, sir?”

  “Some. As a matter of fact, I did my medical training in Vienna and went to several lectures on psychiatry. Once I even considered working in the field of psychotherapy.”

  “If you are agreeable, I’d like you to look over all your own patient notes. See if there’s any one of them who perhaps stands out as a possible murderer.”

  “And supposing there was? One patient who stood out. What then?”

  “Why, then we could discuss the matter. And perhaps discover some mutually acceptable way forward.”

  “Very well. I can assure you I’ve no desire to see this man kill again. I have a daughter myself.”

  I glanced around the apartment.

  “Oh, she lives with her mother, in Bavaria. We’re divorced.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “And the man who was here when I called earlier on today?”

  “Ah, you must mean Beppo. He’s a friend of my wife’s and came to collect some of her things in his car. He’s a student, in Munich.” Kassner yawned. “I’m sorry, Commissar, but it’s been a very long day. Is there anything else? Only I’d like to take a bath. You can’t imagine how much I look forward to taking a bath after a day in the clinic. Well, perhaps you can imagine.”

  “Yes, sir, I can imagine it quite well enough.”

  We parted, more or less cordially. But I wondered just how cordial Kassner would have been if I’d mentioned Josef Goebbels. There was nothing around the apartment to indicate Kassner was a Nazi. On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine Goebbels taking the risk of being treated by anyone other than a trusted Nazi Party member. Joey wasn’t the type to put much faith in things like ethics and professional confidence.

  Sadly, there was nothing to suggest that the Nazi Party leader in Berlin might actually be a psychopathic murderer, either. A dose of jelly was one thing. The murder and mutilation of a fifteen-year-old girl was quite another.

  9

  BUENOS AIRES, 1950

  I DID NOT OPEN the old KRIPO files that Colonel Montalbán had somehow obtained from Berlin. In spite of what I had told him, the details of the case were still quite familiar to me. I knew perfectly well why it was I had been unable to apprehend Anita Schwarz’s murderer. But I started work all the same.

  I was looking for a missing girl who just might be dead. And I was keeping an eye out for one of my old comrades who just might be a psychopath.

  Neither of the investigative questions I had been set by the hero-worshipping Argentine policeman seemed likely to get the answer he was looking for. Mostly, I was just looking out for myself. But I went along with his idea, of course. What other choice did I have?

  At first, I was nervous about playi
ng the part the colonel had written for me. For one thing, I wanted as little to do with other ex-SS men as possible; and, for another, I was convinced that, in spite of Montalbán’s assurances, they would be hostile to someone asking a lot of questions concerning events most of them probably wanted to forget. But, more often than not, the colonel turned out to be right. As soon as I mentioned the word “passport,” it seemed there was nothing that Europe’s most wanted war criminals were not prepared to talk to me about. Indeed, sometimes it seemed that many of these creatures actually welcomed the chance to unburden themselves—to talk about their crimes and even to justify them, as if they were meeting a psychiatrist or a priest.

  In the beginning, I went to their places of work. Most of the Nazis in Buenos Aires had good, well-paying jobs. They worked for a variety of companies, such as the Capri Construction Company, the Fuldner Bank, Vianord Travel, the local Mercedes-Benz plant, the Osram lightbulb company, Caffetti, Orbis Gas Appliances, the Wander Laboratory, and Sedalana Textiles. A few worked in slightly humbler occupations at the Dürer Haus bookshop in the city center, the Adam restaurant, and the ABC café. One or two worked for the secret police, although these remained—for the moment, at least—something of a mystery to me.

  A man at work, however, is often a very different person from the man he is at home. It was important that I encountered these men relaxed and off guard. And after a short while, I started turning up at their houses and their apartments in true Gestapo fashion, which is to say late at night, or early in the morning. I kept my eyes and ears open and, always, I kept my true opinion of these men a secret. It would hardly have done to give my honest impression of any of them. There were times, of course, when I wanted to unholster the Smith & Wesson given to me by Montalbán and put a bullet in an old comrade’s head. More commonly, I went away from their homes wondering what kind of country I was in that would give sanctuary to beasts like these. Of course, I already knew, only too well, what kind of country had produced them.

  Some were happy, or at least content with their new lives. Some had attractive new wives or mistresses, and sometimes both. One or two were rich. Only a few were filled with quiet regret. But mostly they were ruthlessly unrepentant.

  THE ONLY SORROW displayed by Dr. Carl Vaernet related to his no longer being able to experiment freely on homosexual prisoners at Buchenwald concentration camp. He was quite open about this, his life’s “most important work.”

  Vaernet was from Denmark but living with his wife and children at Calle Uriarte 2251, close to the Plaza Italia in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires. Dark, thick-set, with shadowy eyes and a mouth full of pessimism and bad breath, he was operating an endocrinology clinic offering expensive “cures” to the better-off parents of Argentine homosexuals. A very masculine country, Argentina regarded being joto, or pájaro, as a danger to the health of the nation.

  “When your Red Cross passport runs out,” I told Vaernet, “that is, if it hasn’t run out already, you will have to apply to the federal police for a special passport. To get this passport you will have to prove that while you have been resident in Argentina you’ve been a person of good conduct. Friends—if you have any—will have to oblige with testimonials as to your character and integrity. If this proves to be the case—as I’m sure it will—I myself will issue you with the good-conduct pass that you can then use to apply to a court of first instance for an Argentine passport. Naturally, the passport can be in a different name. The important thing is that you will be able to travel freely again in Europe, without fear of arrest. Like any normal Argentine citizen.”

  “Well, of course, we’d like to visit our eldest son, Kjeld, in Denmark,” confessed Vaernet. He smiled at the thought of it. “Much as we love it here in Buenos Aires, home is always home, eh, Herr Hausner?”

  We were sitting in the drawing room. There was a baby grand piano with a number of framed photographs on the lid. One of the photographs was of the Peróns and their poodles—Eva holding the black one, Juan holding the white—together looking like an advertisement for Scotch whiskey.

  Vaernet’s wife served tea and facturas, little sweet pastries that were very popular with the sweet-toothed porteños. She was tall, thin, and nervous. I took out a pad of paper and a pen and tried to appear properly bureaucratic.

  “Date and place of birth?” I asked.

  “April 28, 1893. Copenhagen.”

  “My own birthday is April 20,” I said. When he looked blank, I added, “The Führer’s birthday.” It wasn’t true, of course, but it was always a good way of making men like him think that I was some kind of die-hard Nazi and, therefore, someone to be trusted.

  “Of course. How silly of me not to remember.”

  “That’s all right. I’m from Munich.” Another lie. “Ever been to Munich?”

  “No.”

  “Lovely city. At least it was.”

  After a short series of anodyne questions, I said, “Many Germans have come to Argentina believing that the government is not interested in their backgrounds. That it doesn’t care what a man did in Europe before he arrived in this country. I’m afraid that just isn’t true. At least not anymore. The government doesn’t judge a man for what he did during the war. The past is past. And whatever you’ve done, it certainly won’t affect your being able to stay in this country. But I’m sure you’ll agree it does have some bearing on who you are now and what kind of citizen you might become. What I’m saying is this: The government doesn’t want to issue a passport to anyone who might do something to make himself an embarrassment to the government. So. You may speak to me in total confidence. Remember, I was an SS officer, like yourself. My honor is loyalty. But I do urge you to be candid, Doctor.”

  Dr. Vaernet nodded. “I’m certainly not ashamed of what I did,” he said.

  At this, his wife got up and left the room, as if the prospect of her husband’s speaking frankly about his work might be too much for her. The way the conversation turned out, I can’t say I blamed her.

  “Reichsführer Himmler regarded my attempts to surgically cure homosexuals as work of the greatest national importance to the ideal of German racial purity,” he said earnestly. “At Buchenwald, I implanted hormone briquettes into the groins of a number of the pink triangles. All of these men were cured of their homosexuality and released back into normal life.”

  There was a lot, lot more of this, and while Vaernet struck me as being a thoroughgoing bastard—I never yet met a queer who didn’t strike me as someone quite comfortable being that way—I wasn’t convinced he was a psychopath of the kind that could have eviscerated a fifteen-year-old just for the hell of it.

  On the piano, next to the picture of the Peróns, was a photograph of a girl about the same age as Fabienne von Bader. I picked it up. “Your daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “She goes to the same school as Fabienne von Bader, doesn’t she?”

  Vaernet nodded.

  “Naturally, you’d be aware she’s disappeared.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Were they friends?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Has she spoken about it?”

  “Yes. But nothing important, you understand. If it had been of any relevance, I’d have called the police.”

  “Of course.”

  He shrugged. “They asked a lot of questions about Fabienne.”

  “They were here?”

  “Yes. My wife and I formed the impression that they thought Fabienne had run away.”

  “It’s what children do, sometimes. Well.” I turned toward the door. “I had better be going. Thank you for your time. Oh, one more thing. We were talking about proving oneself to be a person of good character.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re a respectable man, Herr Doktor. Anyone can see that. I shouldn’t think that there will be any problems with issuing you a good-conduct pass. No problems at all. However.”

  “Yes?”

  “I hesit
ate to mention it. But you being a doctor . . . I’m sure you’ll understand why I have to ask this kind of thing. Is there anyone among our old comrades here in Argentina who you think might not be worthy of a good-conduct pass? Someone who might potentially bring real disrepute to Argentina?”

  “It’s an interesting question,” said the doctor.

  “I know and I hate asking it. We’re all of us in the same boat, after all. But sometimes these questions have to be asked. How else are we to judge a man, if we don’t listen to what other people say about him?” I shrugged. “It might be something that’s happened here. Or something that happened back in Europe. During the war, perhaps.”

  “No, no, you’re quite right to ask, Herr Hausner. And I appreciate your confidence. Well then, let me see.” He sipped some tea and thought for a moment. “Yes. There’s a fellow called Eisenstedt, Wilhelm von Eisenstedt, who was an SS captain at Buchenwald. He lives in a house on Calle Monasterio and calls himself Fernando Eifler. He’s let himself go a bit. Drinks too much. But at Buchenwald he was notoriously and sadistically homosexual.”

  I tried to suppress a smile. Eifler had been the man in the dressing gown with whom I’d shared the safe house on Monasterio when I first arrived in Argentina. So that was who and what he was.

  “Also, yes, also a man called Pedro Olmos. His real name is Walter Kutschmann, and he’s another ex-SS captain. Kutschmann was a murderer by anyone’s definition of the word. Someone who enjoyed killing for killing’s sake.”

  Vaernet described Kutchsmann’s wartime activities in detail.

  “I believe he now works for Osram. The lightbulb company. I can’t answer for what kind of man he is today. But his wife Geralda’s conduct is less than proper, in my opinion. She gasses stray dogs for a living. Can you imagine such a thing? What kind of a person could do that? What kind of a woman is it who gasses poor dumb animals for a living?”

  I could easily have answered him. Only he wouldn’t have understood. But I went to see Pedro Olmos anyway.

  He and his wife lived on the outskirts of the city, near the electrical factory where Pedro Olmos worked. He was younger than I’d imagined, no more than thirty-five, which meant he was in his mid-twenties when he’d been a Gestapo captain in Paris; and little more than a boy when he’d been a lieutenant murdering Jews in Poland as part of a special action group. He had been just eighteen when Anita Schwarz was murdered in 1932, and I thought he was probably too young to be the man I was looking for. But you never can tell.