The City of Shadows

by Michael Russell

  In Weidengasse Stefan was put in a cell with seven other men. They included a newspaper editor whose paper had just been shut down for the third time since February, a fourteen-year-old boy who had put up an election poster outside the parliament building, and a pickpocket who claimed he was a Party member and didn’t see why he should be locked up with a bunch of degenerate politicos. After two hours, Stefan was taken up to an interview room. He stepped round an old woman cleaning blood off the wall and the stairs. Someone had been unlucky enough to trip and knock his head against the wall on the way down. They were very unlucky stairs.

  In a bare room that reminded him uncomfortably of Pearse Street Garda station the tour guide was joined by another Gestapo man. He announced himself as Kriminaloberassistent Rothe. The first thing they did was to tell Stefan what he wanted to know. They asked him why he was asking questions about Anna Harvey. What exactly was his relationship with her? Did he know where she was? They asked him if he knew where she was too many times. It didn’t tell him where she was, but he felt sure the police didn’t have her. And if she’d avoided the police, who else would be looking for her? The Gestapo men didn’t seem at all clear what else they wanted from him. They had been told to find out if he knew where the woman was and that was it. He could sense, as a professional among professionals, that they were now looking for questions to ask to justify a report that would say nothing.

  ‘So, who is she, Hannah Rosen or Anna Harvey?’

  ‘I know her as Anna Harvey, that’s all, Mrs Harvey. Maybe Rosen was her maiden name. I don’t think she’s been married very long. Look, we’re not old friends. I’m not up on her bloody family history.’

  ‘Did she change her first name too?’

  ‘I don’t know. My name’s Stefan, but most people call me Stevie.’

  The questions came almost exclusively from the crop-haired Rothe now.

  ‘Did you know she was Jewish?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. I hadn’t really thought about it.’

  ‘Did you know she’d been living in Palestine?’

  ‘That must be where she got her suntan.’

  The tour guide grinned. Rothe didn’t.

  ‘Why are you in Danzig, Herr Gillespie?’

  By now it was clear he wasn’t there for a Gestapo thrashing. He didn’t have the information they wanted. He knew when something mattered and when it didn’t. He was a policeman. This wasn’t important to them. He remembered the conversation with Arthur Greiser. He could take a chance.

  ‘Look, if I knew where the bitch was, I’d tell you. What’s she done?’

  ‘It’s not your business.’

  ‘It’s not her husband after her then?’

  He had their attention. They thought he was opening up. Maybe they’d get something out of him after all. The tour guide offered him a cigarette.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Rothe.

  ‘I had some business in Berlin. We arranged to meet up, you know. A bit of fun, no strings. I don’t know what she was doing in Danzig, but it seemed as good a place as any. I liked the sound of Zoppot too. And if you’re going to fuck a man’s wife, well, the further away the better.’

  ‘She was waiting for you here, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did she know anyone in Danzig?’

  ‘No idea. I’ve only been seeing her a couple of months. Mostly in England. It’s a night here, a night there. That’s how these things go.’

  ‘But it seems she didn’t wait.’ Rothe wasn’t entirely convinced yet.

  ‘Her husband’s been a bit suspicious. Maybe she changed her mind.’

  The tour guide grinned. The Kriminaloberassistent was less amused.

  ‘You fuck a lot of Jewesses?’

  ‘It’s not illegal, is it?’

  ‘It will be,’ he barked, looking at Stefan with disgust.

  ‘It’s just a fuck. What’s his problem?’ He winked at the tour guide. That was when the slap came. It was only a slap, but it was hard enough.

  ‘Jesus!’

  ‘Filthy bastard.’ Rothe was in the mood for more.

  ‘I don’t know what she did to you, but it looks like she’s dumped me now, the bitch.’ Stefan shrugged as if to say it was a pain in the arse but only a woman. ‘Doesn’t look like I’ll make it to Zoppot after all. Pity after what Herr Greiser told me on the plane.’ He laughed a sly-dog, boys-will-be-boys laugh that was a fair stab at the Senate President’s style. ‘What did he say? A place not to be missed or a great place to get pissed?’ He sniggered. And now he really had their attention. ‘We’d had a couple. You know Greiser!’

  He stopped. No need to overdo it.

  The tour guide chuckled. Rothe was frowning. He regretted the slap.

  ‘You know the Senatspräsident?’ he asked.

  ‘We were on the plane from Berlin. He dropped me at the hotel.’

  It wasn’t exactly an answer but it was the detail that mattered. The tour guide looked at the Kriminaloberassistent. He expected him to know more about the movements of senior Party officials than he did. As long as he didn’t step on anyone’s toes he couldn’t care less. He definitely didn’t want to tread on Greiser’s. The nod from Rothe was barely perceptible. Yes, he did know Greiser had been in Berlin. The silence was uneasy now. The tour guide lit a cigarette. It was all over as far as he was concerned. Klaus Rothe had decided it was over too, but he still had some face to save.

  ‘How much longer do you intend to stay in Danzig, Herr Gillespie?’

  ‘I might try the casino after all. A little bit of culture goes a long way.’

  ‘You think Frau Harvey, Fräulein Rosen, has left the city then?’

  ‘If her old man got the scent she wouldn’t want to cross him. Too much dough. Well, he’s a Jew. Still, if you can’t screw them one way, you can screw them another.’

  The tour guide liked the joke. Rothe didn’t. Sexual intercourse with a Jewess was the abomination of abominations. He couldn’t approve of what Stefan was doing, but at least he was doing it with the proper degree of contempt. If he’d been a local he would have taught him a lesson about racial purity he wouldn’t forget in a hurry. But this was a waste of time. He had better things to do. He looked at his watch. The rally would have started. Josef Goebbels, the Reich Propaganda Minister, had just flown in from Berlin to wind up the faithful for the election. He didn’t want to miss it.

  As the two Gestapo men walked to the front desk with Stefan, a door from an office opened ahead of them. He recognised Hugo Keller again. He was in the suit he’d been wearing in Merrion Square, but it hung on him like something from a second-hand clothes stall. He was thinner, greyer. His skin was pale. He wasn’t the same man now that Stefan was close to him. He laughed as he stepped into the corridor, calling back into the room, ‘I’m counting up those fucking drinks you owe me. Make sure you can afford it!’

  The moment he saw the Kriminaloberassistent his face was more serious.

  ‘Were you coming to see me, Hugo?’ asked the Gestapo officer.

  ‘I just needed some money, Herr Rothe.’ His voice was deferential.

  ‘Whatever you need, you ask me. I thought that was clear.’

  ‘You were busy, Kriminaloberassistent.’

  ‘Then you should have waited till I wasn’t. You only talk to me.’ There was irritation in his voice and behind that there was contempt.

  Hugo Keller may have been about to say more, but he wasn’t looking at the Gestapo man now, he was looking straight at Stefan Gillespie. The surprise on Keller’s face was entirely genuine. And he didn’t know what to do about it. Stefan could read the thought process in the abortionist’s eyes. He needed time. He needed to know what this was about. The two men looked at each other warily. Then, quite unexpectedly, Rothe laughed.

  ‘Perhaps you know our friend here, Hugo. He’s an Irishman.’

  Keller was recovering his composure. He smiled at Stefan.

  ‘I don’t think
so, Kriminaloberassistent.’

  Stefan’s eyes widened.

  ‘There were a few people I didn’t get round to meeting,’ continued Keller, his gaze fixed firmly on Stefan. The two Gestapo men were unaware of the intensity of that gaze, but Stefan understood what it was telling him: ‘Shut up!’ He couldn’t make any sense of it, yet he had no choice but to be grateful for the lifeline he had been thrown. Hugo Keller could have driven a coach and horses through the story he had just given to Klaus Rothe.

  ‘I lived in Dublin for several years, Mr –’ Keller spoke in English.

  ‘Gillespie. I’m in Dublin myself.’

  ‘Have we met then? I didn’t think –’

  ‘No.’ It seemed to be what Keller wanted him to say.

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘The Danziger Hof.’

  ‘He speaks good German, Hugo. Don’t give us all that English crap.’

  ‘We must have a drink, Mr Gillespie.’ Keller still spoke in English.

  ‘A word, Hugo, now please!’ The Kriminaloberassistent turned back along the corridor, walking slowly; the Austrian followed him obediently.

  The tour guide walked on with Stefan to the front desk. Moments later he was in Weidengasse, walking back to the river and the old town, wondering why Hugo Keller had saved him from the beating the Gestapo officers only needed an excuse to deliver. It was all the more odd because despite the fear that had risen in his throat when he saw the Austrian in the police station, he had sensed that Keller’s fear went deeper than his own. Yet even though he was obviously working for the Gestapo, he had lied to them.

  As Stefan turned into Langgarten, towards the Mottlau and the stone tower that Danzigers called the Milk Can, he heard his name being shouted.

  ‘Mr Gillespie!’ He stopped and waited as Keller hurried towards him.

  ‘Let’s have that drink.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘One reason would be that Kriminaloberassistent Rothe told me to.’

  ‘So that we could talk about old times in Dublin?’

  ‘So that I could tell him whether I think you’re lying about anything.’

  ‘But we’re both lying, aren’t we?’

  Stefan smiled. There was no answering smile.

  ‘You’ve got no idea what you’re sticking your nose into, Sergeant. But if you end up back in a Gestapo cell again, you just might not come out.’

  The bar was dark and full of smoke. There was the smell of tobacco and beer and somewhere the sourness of the cured sausages that hung behind the counter. Steps led down to the cellar from Mattenbuden, the street that ran along the edge of the New Mottlau, looking across at the warehouses and granaries of the Speicherinsel and beyond that to the city. Barges were moored at the water’s edge and the cellar bar belonged to the city’s old docks. As Stefan Gillespie and Hugo Keller entered, the languages of the Baltic were there along with German and Polish. Stefan didn’t need to recognise the snatches of Latvian, Lithuanian, Swedish and Estonian to know that this was a lot further from the police station in Weidengasse than the distance they had walked. It wasn’t German Danzig and most of the customers weren’t Danzigers. Keller had ordered in German, but oddly it was the fact that they were speaking in a language other than German that made them invisible. The waiter seemed to know the Austrian and as they talked he brought regular refills for the schnapps Keller was drinking with his beer. The abortionist hadn’t struck Stefan as a drinker in Dublin but that had changed. He was conscious again how drained the man was, how much older he looked. It was a very long way from the Shelbourne Hotel.

  Stefan was unsure what he could say and what he couldn’t. There were things he knew about Hannah now that he wouldn’t dream of telling Keller, yet it was pointless repeating the lies he had told in Weidengasse. He had to offer some reason for being in Danzig. It felt like anything they both knew already had to be safe, though this didn’t seem like the time to accuse the abortionist of telling Jimmy Lynch to kill Susan Field. He had to use as much of the truth as he could. Half truths worked better than lies.

  ‘Hannah’s father got wind she was coming to Danzig to find the priest, Father Byrne. She’s still got it in her head somebody has to pay for Susan Field’s death. Let’s not pretend you don’t know who Susan Field was, Hugo.’

  Keller shrugged. It didn’t really matter what Stefan knew about that, not here.

  ‘Byrne was the only candidate. In your absence. And as her old man didn’t want her in a Danzig gaol for attempted murder, he paid me to bring her back before she got into trouble. I haven’t done very well so far.’

  ‘No, it’s a pity you didn’t get here earlier, Sergeant.’

  Keller downed a schnapps.

  ‘What the hell did you set the Gestapo on her for?’ said Stefan.

  ‘I just wanted the police to put her on a train and get her out of Danzig.’ The abortionist’s lips tightened. Stefan sensed that it hadn’t worked out the way it was meant to. ‘She made trouble for me in Dublin. I wasn’t going to let her do it again. I didn’t know the Gestapo would get involved.’

  ‘Why not? I’m sure the Nazis are very particular about the reputations of Catholic priests, at least the ones they’re getting information out of.’

  ‘This isn’t the place to show how clever you are, Mr Gillespie. If you think you know what’s going on with Father Byrne, forget about it. You’d be better keeping your mouth shut. I am protecting you. Remember that.’

  Stefan nodded; for whatever reason it was true.

  ‘I want to know where Hannah is. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘They didn’t pick her up. They haven’t got her.’

  ‘And I suppose you’d know.’ He looked at Keller with distaste.

  ‘Yes, I’d know. I don’t know why she was using a false passport though. That’s why the Gestapo are looking for her. I gave the police one name, and when they went to the hotel the bitch was using another one.’

  ‘Does she know you’re blackmailing the priest?’

  ‘I don’t care what Hannah Rosen knows. I’ve got a job to do in Danzig. I can’t let anything get in the way. I didn’t ask to come here. They sent me. Because of the priest.’ The words were simple enough, but they sounded bleak.

  ‘The only thing that matters to me is Hannah.’

  ‘Look, I talked to the Schutzpolizei about her, that’s all. They don’t know anything about anything. All they had to do was deport her. But Kriminaloberassistent Rothe got hold of it, because of the passports. They found two fucking passports. Rothe’s the man I work for. The last thing I can afford is the priest going off the rails. Byrne’s not easy to control as it is. He’s a clever man, but underneath it he’s a coward. He’s weak. But he’s got a conscience and it’s not going to help me or him or anybody if he finds it. I can’t let that happen. I had to get Hannah Rosen away from him. He’s not far off a breakdown.’

  Stefan didn’t say how much closer to a breakdown Francis Byrne was now. He didn’t care. Hugo Keller was saying more than he intended to. The schnapps helped, but it was his own anxiety that was making him talk. There was never anyone to talk to in the job he did. There were always too many lies to remember to make it safe.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what you know about Hannah?’

  ‘They went to the hotel to pick her up. She didn’t go back there. They couldn’t find her.’

  ‘And that’s it?’ Stefan watched Keller’s face.

  ‘That’s it. If I were you I’d be pleased that’s it.’

  ‘And they’re still looking for her?’

  ‘So she must have got out, right? Maybe somebody helped her.’

  ‘Like who?’ Stefan asked.

  ‘Look, Sergeant, I don’t why Hannah Rosen had a false passport, but I’ve been doing this for a very long time. Tourists don’t have two passports in different names, even tourists with dead friends. I don’t know who she is, or what she is, but someone does. In fact, you wouldn’t want the Gestapo to q
uestion you about that for real, would you? They’re not exactly the Garda Síochána.’

  The Austrian was reminding him who was doing the favours.

  ‘All right. But where did she go? Could she have got out of Danzig?’

  ‘It’s not that hard if you know what to do. If they had her I would know. I’d know because they’d be questioning me too. They’d want to know what damage she’d done. It wouldn’t take much to send Klaus Rothe off the deep end. She’s made for it. You’ve got to understand these people believe all this stuff, about Jewish conspiracies and Jews trying to destroy Germany and take over the world. It’s not a game for them. One false passport and a Jewish woman from Palestine and there’s a Zionist spy. Not only that, she’s got some hold on a man who’s a valuable informant. It doesn’t have to make sense. When they doubt, they doubt everybody. And that means me too.’

  As Keller spoke the last words there was real fear in his eyes again.

  ‘So all this is about Francis Byrne?’

  ‘There are two ways to stay safe, Sergeant. Either you’ve got to know everything or nothing at all. You’ve managed to persuade the Gestapo the only thing you were doing with Hannah Rosen was screwing her. That’s no mean achievement. Go back to your hotel. Get the train out in the morning.’

  ‘And Hannah?’

  ‘I give you my word, she wasn’t arrested.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Stefan laughed, ‘did you just give me your word?’

  The Austrian smiled; he still had a sense of humour.

  ‘I’ve kept my mouth shut about who you are, and about the lies you’ve told the Gestapo. I might have my own reasons for that, but you need to know the shit you’d be in if I changed my mind. I don’t have to help you.’

  ‘Then why are you?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  Keller said nothing for a moment. He wasn’t looking at Stefan now. He was gazing into the mid distance, as if he was remembering something, or regretting something. The waiter brought another schnapps. He drank it.