by Peter Watson
We located a couple of armchairs in an out-of-the-way corner but were unfortunate in settling ourselves into them only moments ahead of Harry and one of his cronies, who, unknown to us, had been heading directly for the same seats. As may be imagined, this provoked a fresh round of rudeness, so raw in fact that I was amazed Wolfert did not assault Harry. But good manners can work wonders.
Eventually the others moved off and we both gulped at our drinks and sought refuge in the elaborate ritual required to ignite large cigars. Even so, once I had mine lit, I felt it necessary to say, “I am sorry for all the embarrassment you are being made to feel this evening. Especially as we were supposed to be fighting anti-Semites.”
He looked at me fiercely and, for a moment, I thought he was going to reproach me for raising the subject. Then he leaned forward and hissed, in a quiet way so as not to be overheard, “Thank you, Walter. But I am not in the least embarrassed, not really. What I am is very, very, very angry. Angry with Colonel Rowe, angry with George Held, but most of all livid with myself.”
“Why? And what about that Harry character—aren’t you furious at him?”
Wolfert sipped his brandy, swirling the glass balloon in his hand. He shook his head. “Let me try this on you. When I refused to tell you what job I do, what did you conclude?”
“That you are in intelligence.”
He smiled again, but this time he nodded. “That’s what you were meant to think. And not just you, but this whole mess.”
“You mean it’s not true?”
“Not by a long way.”
“I don’t understand.” I stared at him, my cigar smoking diffidently between my fingers. “What’s going on?”
He downed a long swig of brandy before replying. “I shouldn’t really tell you but, since I don’t have a hide like a rhinoceros, and since you’re going away tomorrow, I’ll risk it. But, please, keep it to yourself. Everyone else will find out soon enough.” His cigar had gone out. He now held it to a flame, twirling it so that it would scorch evenly. “I am a military policeman. A sort of detective in uniform.”
I went very still inside. “And?”
“I came here today to arrest George Held.”
“What for?”
He drew on the cigar. “Murder.”
“What!” But it was a whisper, there was no breath in my voice, as if I had been punched in the chest.
Now that he had decided to tell his story, Wolfert was more relaxed. He leaned forward, keeping his voice down. “It happened a few months ago. During the push north last spring, Held’s unit was billeted for a short while in Florence. He visited a whore there, a girl called Regina Passetto, though her name is not really important. As I say, Held wasn’t in Florence for very long, but long enough to find out that Miss Passetto had given him a disease of one sort or another. Unfortunately, instead of going to the doctor straightaway, he paid her another visit—only this time he beat her and she fell down some stairs—you know how dark those Italian buildings can be, and how hard the stone staircases are. She hit her head and was killed. Held ran off, his unit pulled out hours later and it has taken me until now to find him.” He was enjoying his cigar more than the brandy and paused to tap away the stubble of ash that had built up. “All I had to go on was a description, a knowledge of the units in Florence at the time and a few years in this business, which proves to you that, in some things, people don’t change. The poor girl in Florence, the one who ‘fell’ down the stairs, was a … shall we say a ‘specialist.’ Uniforms, mainly. Nurses, schoolgirls, Nazis even. Comical in its way. In the last few weeks it has been my rather grubby duty to uncover these types of specialists in Munich, in Augsburg, Frankfurt, Vienna, Linz, and now Salzburg—yes, Salzburg,” he repeated quickly, as he saw the look of astonishment on my face. “You’d be surprised at how widespread these ‘services’ are. And Held hasn’t changed. Probably, he can’t. I only had to tell the girls why I wanted to find him and they fell over themselves to help. I was there when he arrived last night. Interrogated him in the bedroom, with all the uniforms hanging around.” He sank the last of his brandy. “He confessed after ten minutes. You will know the scenario. He was, I think, relieved someone had caught up with him.”
A mess waiter had seen that our glasses were empty and arrived with a decanter to refill them. Wolfert didn’t continue until the man was again out of earshot.
“When I turned up this afternoon, the colonel was horrified, of course. Moreover, he likes Held and wanted to avoid gossip, for the time being at least. He insisted Held attend mess the night before leaving since it would be out of character for him not to, and questions would be asked. It was the colonel’s idea that I come tonight, as Held’s ‘guest.’ I had to come of course; just in case he tried to make a run for it. It was the colonel’s idea also that I refuse to disclose what I do. Why I agreed to that I don’t know, except maybe that I was causing so much bother in the first place that I didn’t want to deny Held what will almost certainly be his last mess night. The colonel was cunning, that’s what makes me angry. No one has told any lies tonight, but we have managed to give the impression, which you picked up, that I have some important hush-hush job and that ‘old George’ here is involved in it with me. That’s why I have no mess uniform handy; we should have been halfway to Vienna by now, where my headquarters are located. But, having agreed to attend this dinner, I couldn’t really respond to all that aggression by telling the truth, could I? I should have overruled the colonel and insisted that Held and I leave immediately, this afternoon. That’s why I was so furious with myself.” He picked up his new brandy from the table and sat farther back in the armchair. “End of story.”
Amazing. It was an extraordinary story, but for me what was most astonishing was the calmness with which Wolfert had responded all evening to such nasty provocation. It wasn’t just his uniform, or lack of it. There was anti-Semitism in that hostility. He knew it as well as I did, but chose to ignore it.
I looked around the room. Held was part of a group listening to an army story—long, convoluted and probably wicked—and he was listening easily, as if he was not irked in the slightest by his conscience. I was not then what you would call a moral person particularly but I can remember finding Held’s arrogance distasteful. I found the behavior of Colonel Rowe difficult to stomach also. Still, it was none of my business. I looked back at Wolfert, who had followed my gaze, and raised my glass to him. He nodded. We changed the subject and the rest of the evening passed quietly. I didn’t see Sammy or Hobel again, and I avoided Rowe.
CHAPTER TWO
1
I set out early the next day for Worms in brilliant sunshine. The hotel breakfast of cheese, salami and fresh coffee, which had probably been stolen from somewhere, scraped the cobwebs from my brain after the two large brandies of the night before. Outside the city the foothills of the Alps were just beginning to be brushed with the powder of blue gentian and, with the top of the car down, the flowers and the smell of wet grass were galvanizing. I decided to pick up no one, but instead to try out the BMW, to push her as fast as she would go. On the autobahn I eased her over the 100 kmh mark (60 mph and dangerously fast in those days). I sailed past convoy after convoy and was rewarded by many an admiring hoot from envious army truck drivers.
The first thing I discovered in Worms was that the von Zell town house had been bombed and everyone had moved out. The address I had for Christina von Zell was Schlossgasse 2 and there was little left of that. It had been a smart neighborhood once, at the beginning of the war, but unfortunately it was too close to a factory making explosives. This time the RAF had made no mistake; even the trees lining the streets had been scorched dead by incendiary devices.
It took me an hour or so but, around lunchtime, I located the Einwohnermeldeamt, the local offices of the military governor, and from that I was able to establish that the elder Mrs. von Zell had moved to her country residence at Gut “Wiesenmühle” in Kriegsheim, near Monsheim, twenty kilo
meters to the west. I broke for a beer and sandwich at an inn on the road in between and was at Gut “Wiesenmühle” by midafternoon.
A large brown and black structure, the von Zell house was surrounded by three hundred acres of arable land—what looked like barley mainly. The sight of this economic activity reminded me to call Sammy later that day. If he was making any investments I wanted to be in on the act.
I had taken the precaution of bringing von Zell’s photograph with me and so I prowled the farm buildings and outhouses first. If he was hiding out there, von Zell would have less chance of being warned of my arrival than if I had announced myself straightaway at the big house. The farm appeared to employ about half a dozen people, most of them young, poorly educated laborers and they seemed genuine when they failed to respond to the photograph I showed them. Only one person recognized the face and that was the farm manager, a podgy man with ruddy cheeks called Johann Heine. And he said he had not seen “Herr Rudi” for years. I believed him.
And so I called at the main house. Mrs. von Zell was in, a sturdy woman of medium height with lush, pike-gray hair pulled straight back. Her dark velvet dress was high-necked and, it struck me, somewhat old-fashioned. I cannot say she was welcoming, but then neither was she cold. She had the grace to offer me some tea and I accepted. The cups, I remember, were of bone china with blue butterflies, and were brought in by a maid. Despite the warmth of the day and the welcome sun outside, the room where we drank the tea was dark and cool, with an open log fire in the grate.
With my experience of accomplished Nazi liars, I watched her carefully when I told her why I had come, but it was obvious to me that she had nothing, and no one, to hide. She seemed genuinely anxious for news.
“No, Lieutenant, I haven’t seen him,” she said quietly, “not for a year or more.” She leaned forward to refill my teacup. “Naturally, I wouldn’t tell you if he was hiding out here, but that’s silly; he is not. However, I will say this. It is not like Rudi to lose touch. He was always a good son, attentive, in fact a little too forceful in his attentions at times, inviting me to visit them when I knew that Konstanze would rather have been alone. Basically a very considerate and kind son. From what you tell me, it seems that he must be in some difficulty. Either that or he has been captured already and you don’t know about it.”
“Then he would surely have contacted his wife?”
“He would have tried, certainly. But would the Allies have allowed him to? Would the Russians? I must pray every night that he will return to us soon.”
At this remark I suddenly noticed what, stupidly, I had overlooked before. The room boasted several crucifixes and pictures of the Virgin.
“The von Zells are Catholics?”
“But of course.” Of course, it had been in the file.
“I, too, am a Catholic. From Waldangelloch, near Heidelberg.” I had lapsed, totally, at university, but I didn’t include that.
“And you left Germany?” Was there a hint of reproach in the way she framed her question?
“I left Hitler’s Germany, Mrs. von Zell. In 1936.”
“Yes …” She faltered. “You had great foresight … in 1936 Hitler seemed to promise so much. To make Germany … first, again. Rudi thought so; he was so … so patriotic. By the time all that racial business started … it was too late.” She looked down, into her cup, embarrassed.
I said nothing. I had noticed how, in Germany in the past months, memories had already begun to alter, as shame, guilt or embarrassment had distorted what had gone on. The “racial business,” as Christina von Zell put it, had started long before 1936, but now was not the time to contradict her. I wanted her cooperation. I looked back at the walls.
“Mrs. von Zell, I see you have many family photographs. Do you, by any chance, have a family album? And may I see it?”
She didn’t want to help me but her reflexes gave her away. She glanced across to a pair of double doors on the far side of the room. There was an album and it was through those doors.
I followed her gaze. “Shall I get it, or will you?”
She gave me a thin smile and got up.
She brought it from the next room, which, to judge from the books lining the walls, was a library. The album was a big brown, rather horrid and heavy book, ornate, with the word “Photographie” carved out of the leather. She sat next to me while I leafed through it. There were the usual school photos—sports day, prize giving, camp. There were pictures of von Zell’s father, with stiff collar and mustache, who had died quite young in 1929. There were wedding photos, von Zell in his first Nazi uniforms, Dieter being christened.
And there was what I had hoped there would be—pictures of von Zell at university, several of them; in academic gowns, with scarves and drinking mugs, in running shorts, on bicycles. And—my luck was holding one other face, apart from von Zell’s, kept cropping up. This was a blond young man, taller than Rudi, with a long, bony nose and a wide, curling, aristocratic mouth. A real lady killer.
“Who is that?”
Mrs. von Zell searched on the mantelshelf for her eyeglasses. Then she sat down next to me again. “Oh yes, a lovely boy, Rudi’s closest friend. A beautiful skier.”
“His name?”
She thought for a moment. “Was it Eric … or Ernst? I’m sure it was Eric. He was growing a mustache, a fine yellow mustache, the last time I saw him.”
“And his other name? Eric what?”
“Oh yes, I’m sorry. Von Haltern. He came from a good family, farmers, I think, or wine growers. He and Rudi met at university, in Berlin. They were very close and always kept in touch. They joined the Army together.”
“Where did the von Haltern’s live, Mrs. von Zell? Can you remember?” I was gentle but insistent.
She took off her eyeglasses. She seemed to find it easier to think that way. “Near Koblenz. The family had such a lovely castle a few kilometers outside—the Schlosshaltern. I was invited once, one Christmas—they were Catholics too. But Rudi went all the time—at least until 193—” Suddenly she stopped herself. “You don’t mean …? You think …? But … if he was there, hiding … surely he would have written … or sent word to me in some way?” She was upset at what she might have done. “Have I given him away?”
“He may have thought it too dangerous to contact you, ma’am.” I got up to leave. Now she had finally figured what I was after, more questions would be pointless. “But I promise you,” I added, feeling as I often did on these occasions, more than a little two-faced, “if he is there and I find him, I will make sure that you hear either from him or from me. So that you know he is alive and safe.”
“You will?” A minute before she had been resentful because she thought I had tricked her, as indeed I had; but now her son’s safety came first and she was ready to respond to any help I might offer. “Shall you go there immediately? When can you let me know?”
“Yes, I shall go now. It is about eighty or ninety kilometers. I can get there tonight, quite easily. You should hear very soon.”
She came to the door with me. As she shook my hand she said, “War changes people, Lieutenant. It makes small people big, and rich people poor. But do you think it makes honest people thieves? Rudi would not steal those coins.”
“Hitler was a thief. And Göring.”
“But they had no breeding, Lieutenant. That’s why they were so interested in genetics.”
An old woman’s logic, neat but little more. I bowed slightly and took my leave. She remained standing at the door as I drove off.
The sun had weakened by the time I crossed the Rhine and turned north. The light was beginning to go and the river, wide and slow to my right, was a muddy cream color, a cold sheet of liquid sand and concrete sluiced from a factory upstream. I couldn’t help but smile to myself as I nosed the car forward on the narrow river road. I had the top up now, for the March days didn’t hold the heat once the sun started to sink. The old album trick had worked again. It had never failed to amaze me, since
I had been taught it at the psychological warfare school in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. People were only too eager to show off their pictures and never considered your real reason for asking. Not until it was too late.
Von Zell might not be at Koblenz, of course. But the file showed that he had made use of von Haltern’s name when he had hid his family in Krimml. That surely told us that the name meant something to him. That could be relevant later.
Sadly, there were no art students, or girls of any kind, for me to pick up that evening. I had to make do with a catering corps corporal from Boston who was heading north to see his girlfriend in Dusseldorf. It was fully dark when I dropped him at the southern outskirts of Koblenz, at a large truck stop where he could get another lift. I then aimed for the center of the city. In most cities the railway station is well posted and there helpful people can always direct you to the main police station. Police stations generally have good maps, as did the one in Koblenz, so it didn’t take me more than forty minutes to find directions to the Schlosshaltern. As I moved around Koblenz I could see it was a not unattractive city, with fortifications overlooking the Rhine and some fine tree-lined boulevards on the opposite bank.
When I got there I found that the Schloss had been badly damaged by bombing. Two of its five white turrets were reduced to a rubble of stones and chunks of plaster. The castle was not so much at the top of the Rhine gorge as set into the side of it; the approach road sloped a couple of hundred feet upward, arriving at an imposing wooden gate studded with iron spikes. A thin long garden stretched beyond the Schloss but such was the dark that I could see no more. Lights came from some of the windows, but in general the building had the feel of somewhere abandoned. But that, I thought, might make it a better place for von Zell to hide.
I didn’t knock on the gate immediately. Instead, I just sat in the car for a while, listening. There was movement in the castle; I could see shadows and hear noises. But no one came to the door set into the gate, nor did I see anyone at the windows. My arrival, it seemed, had gone unobserved.
