“I’ve got a couple of packer’s straps here somewhere,” he said to Sonya, as soon as he had screwed the lid on the casket. “You’ll have to help me get her down to the van. I’ll go first down the stairway, and you take the foot end. Let’s go. We haven’t got a lot of time.”
It was twenty minutes after nine. Outside there was a wind blowing, and the night air was stinging with ice. Christiansen swung open the rear door of the van, and they pushed the casket inside.
“I almost forgot. Give me your hand—no, the left one.”
He took a gold ring out of his trouser pocket and slipped it onto her finger. She looked a trifle surprised, which was probably natural. There was no point in making a big personal issue of the thing, however.
“We’re supposed to be married. It’s on your passport, and they look for mistakes like that. And try to remember this is your dead mother we’ve got back here. It would be nice if you were clutching a suitably damp handkerchief as we rolled up to the checkpoint.
The Russian Zone had its speed laws, of course, but the curfew had cut the normally thin traffic down to almost nothing. They made good time as they plunged along toward the Dresdner Strasse.
“We’ll cross at the Gürtelbrücke,” he said, shifting up with a grind that told him he was going to have to watch himself. For some reason he was unusually tense tonight, almost as if he hadn’t been doing things like this more or less regularly for years. “There’ll be less of a lineup, and it crosses straight into the American Zone.”
“Will she be able to breathe in that box?”
“Sure. It doesn’t show, but the lid is a little warped—enough to let in some air. Besides, right now she’s hardly breathing at all anyway.”
“But can she stay alive like that?”
“No.” He turned and grinned at her, feeling like a character in a Poe story. “That’s why there’s a bit of a rush on. If we don’t bring her around inside of two hours we might as well just leave her in that casket, because it’ll be all she needs.”
Within six minutes they had made it to the checkpoint. They joined a queue in which they were the eighth vehicle. Christiansen turned off his ignition and his lights and settled down to wait.
At twenty-seven minutes before ten, they were the seventh in line. The Russians seemed to be making a very thorough job of their searches tonight, which wasn’t particularly encouraging.
“Do you want a cigarette?” he asked, holding out the pack. There were only four left, hardly enough.
“No. thanks. They’re bad for the smile.”
She gave him a sample, with plenty of white, even teeth. The lady was clearly counting her assets. Christiansen struck a match, cupped his hands around it, and lit up, all the time watching how the checkpoint guards were crawling over the lead truck like ants.
“What’ll you do when we get out of here, Sonya? Will you be all right?” One had to say something—they couldn’t just wait in silence or they would be as jumpy as cats when the time came to look like an old married couple. It was nineteen minutes before ten.
“Don’t you worry about me,” she said, smiling all over again. But this time not quite so much like the lady in the Pepsodent ads. “Give me three weeks and I’ll have an American boyfriend. In five months I’ll be a housewife in Topeka, Kansas. I like the sound of it—’Top-EE-ka.’ Have you ever been to the American Midwest?”
“Never. They tell me it gets cold out there, though.”
“That shouldn’t bother a Norwegian.”
“You’re not a Norwegian.”
By the time the Russians had finished their search, it was eleven minutes to ten.
“Sixteen minutes. At that rate, by the time we’re through our passenger will have been dead for ten minutes.”
“But the others are all cars—perhaps they won’t take as long with them. Could we pull out of line and try again tomorrow?”
“No. They’ve already seen us. They’d be on us before we got two blocks.”
“Could I have that cigarette now?”
“Sure.”
She held it uncertainly between two rather bony fingers, taking short little drags now and again as if she were trying to remember how it was done. She was a brick, was Sonya. She wasn’t thinking about getting caught and spending the rest of her life in Mühlfeld—she was thinking about those ten minutes.
The next two cars were waved through—they hardly even had to roll down their windows. There was hope yet.
The lead car was now an ordinary enough sedan that looked brown under the harsh white light but could have been any dark color. When the driver opened the trunk, the guards started carrying suitcases over to the side of the checkpoint—there seemed to be half a dozen of them. The driver produced a ring of keys, and each suitcase in turn was carefully searched.
“They’ve got a live one.” Christiansen murmured. “We could be here all night.”
After twenty-three minutes, one of the guards climbed into the driver’s seat and wheeled the car back and out of view. The driver was nowhere to be seen, but it didn’t take a miracle of imagination to figure out what was probably happening to him.
“Let’s hope they’re happy now.”
It was fourteen minutes before eleven when the van was permitted to pull up under the klieg lights and Christiansen handed his and Sonya’s passports, the export license, and a death certificate made out in the name of Frieda Schratt to a guard who stared up at him with evident suspicion through spectacle lenses as thick as biscuits. The guard took these documents with him when he vanished into the station house. There was nothing to do but sit and wait. Christiansen rolled up his window. Esther Rosensaft had now been in her trance for slightly more than an hour and a half.
“Inar, do you see that man over there? The one with the shoulder boards on his greatcoat?”
Christiansen didn’t make an issue of looking. He just let his eyes drift by, the way a man does when he’s bored from waiting in line.
“He’s a lieutenant, and he’s got campaign ribbons from Leningrad and Brest-Litovsk. What about him?”
“I think he’s an old client of mine, from before I went inside.”
“Good Jesus, that’s all we need. Has he recognized you?”
“I don’t know.”
The lieutenant was obviously the officer in charge—he had that jaded look of someone who knows that he must be pleased. He was perhaps thirty-five and had the sort of wide, Slavic face that made you think it must have been molded in wax and then left in the hot sun just a few seconds too long. He wasn’t looking at the van—at least, not at that precise moment—and he didn’t give the impression be was thinking about women. Maybe it would be all right.
Nine to eleven. Nothing. How long did it take to read a few pages of forged official documents?
Six to eleven. The lieutenant had finally noticed Sonya. He was peering at her in a furtive sort of way—if Christiansen glanced up, he would drop his eyes—but he seemed to be trying to place her.
“Was he a good customer?”
“How should I know? What kind of a question is that, anyway? He came a couple of times. How the hell am I supposed to remember? In that business we don’t keep an appointment calendar.”
“Sorry. I was just wondering how likely he would be to remember.”
“All my boys remember me.”
Finally, the guard came back. He handed Christiansen the two passports and the export license. He kept the death certificate.
“I shall have to look at the body.” he said, in remarkably clear German. “A formality, you understand.”
And he smiled. It was Be Nice to Grieving Norwegians Week.
Christiansen climbed down from the cab and went around to the back. He unlocked the rear doors with his ignition key.
“I hope you won’t find it necessary to remove the casket from the van. My wife, you understand. . .”
“Yes, of course.”
The guard was carrying a flashlight. Th
ey got inside the van, one at a time, and then Christiansen took a screwdriver from his pocket and began unbolting the lid. It was two minutes after eleven.
Esther looked convincingly dead—she might even be dead by now. The guard threw his flashlight beam across her face, but he seemed to have no taste for such things and quickly shut it off.
“Yes. that’s fine,” he said, his voice just a trifle shaky—maybe he didn’t like being closed up in a black metal box with a corpse. “You may put the lid back on now.”
He hopped down and left Christiansen alone. Christiansen gave each screw about two turns, just enough to make it look right, and came out himself. It was six minutes after eleven.
The lieutenant was standing outside, waiting for him.
“How long have you been married, Mein Herr?” he asked. His German was almost unintelligible. He looked angry.
A couple of months.” Christiansen answered, trying to sound as if he were standing on his matrimonial dignity. He wondered how he should play it—would he be expected to know all about his wife’s shady past? It was a nice question. “Why?”
“Nothing, Mein Herr. My condolences to your wife. I wish you all the best.”
And then he grinned, the tasteless bastard. Yes, of course he remembered. What did he want, to compare notes?
Christiansen took the death certificate the guard was holding out to him and walked back to the cab in grim silence. He and Sonya waited, hardly able to breathe, until the barrier was raised and they were waved through. It was eight minutes after eleven.
She’s just a little thing, he kept thinking. What if I got the dosage wrong?
He raced down the empty street and went around the first corner he could find, pulling the van to a halt with screeching tires.
“I don’t want to know how it comes out,” Sonya murmured, her hand already on the door latch. Her eyes were full of dread. She looked older. “I’m sorry, Inar. I can’t. . . Goodbye.”
She was gone before he had a chance to answer. The street was dark, and in a few seconds all there was to hear was the tick-tick-tick of her high-heeled shoes against the sidewalk.
But Christiansen wasn’t thinking about Sonya. His hands were shaking as he unlocked the rear doors of the van and climbed inside. There was no time left, no time at all.
The hell with screwdrivers—he slid his fingers in under the casket lid, where there was a gap of perhaps half an inch, and pulled. With a scream, as the screws tore loose, it came away. Her hands folded together at her waist, Esther lay there, just as she had for the last two hours, just as she might for eternity if he hadn’t been fast enough. Christiansen took a small, flat leather case from its resting place between her shoulder blades, took out a syringe that was already loaded, and started to look for a vein. There was a nice big one just above the knee—hell, she’d never feel it. He drove the needle home.
Nothing—she was dead. He pressed his ear against her chest, but he couldn’t hear anything. He wasn’t sure. . .
He stared at the withered mask, hating it. He hated the whole stinking operation—he hated himself for consenting to do something like this. She wasn’t even twenty, and now she was dead.
He began to peel the mask away. He couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand seeing her look like that. He began pulling away the rubber in great pieces; the spirit gum that had been holding it in place stretched and snapped like taffy. He wanted to see her face.
And then he heard what might have been a soft moan—something must have hurt her. And if she could feel pain, she was alive. He put his face close to her lips to see if he could feel her breath.
Yes, there was something. Christiansen experienced a choking sensation in his throat. He peeled away the last of the mask, and waited.
After a moment, one of her hands moved. The tip of her tongue came out to moisten her lower lip. God damn it, she was alive.
An eye fluttered halfway open, and she moaned again. With the ends of his fingers he brushed a strand of hair away from her face. It was a long time before she was conscious enough to look up into his face and return the pressure of his hand as it held hers.
“Welcome back to earth, kid.”
11
Vienna, Austria: March 6, 1948
Mordecai Leivick stared out of his hotel room window at the dark pavement three stories below. There was nothing to see; not even the street lamps were lit. No one passed by on the sidewalk. There was no traffic. Life had come to a dead hush, and the moonlight caught nothing but the last flurries of snow, giving them an ashen luminescence as they drifted in damp clumps toward the ground.
“Itzikel, make some coffee like a good boy. They can’t be much longer now, and they’ll be cold.”
Itzhak, who was still wearing a piece of tape across his nose, was already measuring teaspoons into the pot, which was resting on their illegal hot plate like a memorial bust on its pedestal. He had been remarkably talkative and cheerful all night, as he always was when Hirsch and Fagiin weren’t around—they hadn’t a lot of patience with him, but they were out of the city, lying low in case the Russians should launch any inquiries. After all, he was merely a boy.
It was difficult sometimes to be sure of one’s own motives. Perhaps it would have been best if Leivick had yielded to his scruples and sent Itzhak home. There were a dozen ways he could justify his decision to himself—after all, everyone has to begin somewhere; every agent has to learn his trade—but he knew that the real reasons were more personal. Itzhak was the grandson of an uncle, one of the earliest Zionists, something of a scandal in that family of German-speaking assimilationists, and, beyond that, there was the fact that he was just the same age as Leivick’s own boy, who had disappeared into the gas chamber at Treblinka. There was no resemblance, but the parched heart of a man in his late middle age doesn’t require more than a hint. So if it meant so much to Itzhak that he be allowed to prove himself, then so be it.
The coffee had just begun to boil when there was a knock on the door. Not an ordinary knock—someone was kicking it with the point of his shoe. Leivick took his revolver from the dresser drawer.
“Let’s not be rude,” he said, aiming the pistol at the center of the door. “Let them in.”
But it was only Christiansen. Leivick felt a trifle foolish pointing a gun at him, especially since his arms were full of a young woman in a black dress, fast asleep, whom one assumed was Esther Rosensaft. She was cradled against his chest with one arm hooked around his neck like a child being taken upstairs for the night.
Itzhak was staring at the girl’s face, which was half hidden against Christiansen’s shoulder.
“Get some blankets. She’s been having fits of shivering all the way up the stairs.”
It was really true. They wrapped her up like an Indian papoose and laid her out on Leivick’s bed, and she buried her head in the pillow, trembling with cold. She seemed only half conscious. Christiansen sat beside her, his massive hand covering her eyes as if to shade them.
“Good God! Itzhak, get her some coffee—make it strong.”
“No.” Christiansen shook his head without turning around. His whole attention seemed absorbed by the girl’s fitful, troubled rest. “She’s been pumped full of junk for the past thirty-six hours. I think we should just let her sleep it off.”
But Itzhak brought the coffee anyway, if only to have an excuse for coming close to the bed. Leivick took the cup from his hands, without tasting it.
“How did you get her through the lobby?” he asked.
“She walked, right past the desk and up the stairs. The clerk might have suspected she was a little the worse for drink, but she did it fine. God alone knows where she found the strength—she collapsed as soon as we turned the first corner.”
Christiansen smoothed down the girl’s hair, his hand almost covering her head. It seemed to quiet her.
“The van is parked across the street. I think it would be a good idea to lose it somewhere.” He was looking straight at Itzhak,
and the expression on his face was almost angry. He held out the keys. “Take it into the International Zone. Walk back—no cabs. Don’t be seen.”
“You ought to be nicer to him,” Leivick said after the door had slammed shut. “He’s not a bad kid, and you can’t possibly hold a grudge over that business in Munich. Feuds are bad for efficiency.”
Christiansen looked at him as if he couldn’t imagine what he was talking about, and then his blue eyes seemed to cloud over with anguish.
“She hasn’t seen or heard from Hagemann since forty-five,” he said suddenly, in the voice of a man making his confession. “She doesn’t even know what was going on at Waldenburg, Mordecai. I don’t think she knows a goddamned thing.”
. . . . .
The next morning she was almost as good as new. She sat up in bed, breakfasting on sweetened tea and rolls with orange marmalade, reading with almost feverish excitement a two-day-old newspaper that had happened to be lying around. She seemed to be looking for articles on Palestine.
“Feeling better are we, dear?”
Leivick sat down on the edge of the bed and smiled. At first she seemed frightened and then she glanced up at Christiansen, who was standing in the doorway, and apparently found that reassuring.
“Are you one of the Jews?” she asked.
“Yes, God help us. I’m one of the Jews.” Leivick shrugged his shoulders, suggesting that he found it a questionable distinction.
“Were you in the camps?”
“Yes, dear. Treblinka. Like you, I lost everyone.”
For an instant she seemed frozen. Only her eyes seemed alive as they filled with tears, and then, on what was obviously a sudden impulse, she threw her arms around Leivick’s neck and kissed him on the face.
“That’s all right now,” he said after a few seconds. He took her wrists and gentry pulled her away. He looked up to Christiansen and showed his teeth in a rather sheepish grin, but there was no disguising the fact that this little incident had moved him. Christiansen might as well not have seen; he was actually turned a little to one side, as if trying not to be there at all.
The Linz Tattoo Page 18
