The Nazi's Wife

by Peter Watson

  “For instance, I remember one night, I was walking home late, after studying intelligence reports at the embassy. I had a leather overcoat, in those days, a long one, double-breasted, that I had bought in Italy years earlier. As I walked down South Audley Street, I passed a group of three or four girls, obviously prostitutes who had just finished working. They admired my coat as I went by and we stopped to talk. I had assumed they were on their way home, but no, they said they were just off to their club and would I like to come. They were attractive girls and I was a soldier and intrigued by the idea of a club. Along I went.

  “The club was amazing. It was in a basement just off Portman Square and it was beautifully decorated, with a small band, reasonable food, which was wonderful by wartime standards, and lots of drink. All the staff were men, and, I later learned, retired policemen. To be a member you had to be a prostitute; the club had been founded by a group of wealthy clients and given to the girls as a ‘thank you.’ Not even those men were allowed in except as guests of the members. Only the members could sign for things, as in any club, and it became a treat for the girls to repay some of their more favored clients. It was a masterstroke for it gave the girls, and their customers, a dignity they might otherwise not have possessed.

  “War does that, I think. It makes people conscious of their dignity, I mean. After D Day, I followed the main invasion force forty-eight hours later. By then I was attached to the outfit I’m in now—the art recovery unit. Our job was partly to recover looted art but, during the invasion itself, also to advise artillery officers on what not to bomb, if it could be avoided. The basic decision was always made on military grounds, of course, but if there was a particularly noteworthy building at risk from our shells, it was my job to draw it to the attention of the local commander. As you may imagine, some commanders were easier to deal with than others.

  “However, the particular episode I am thinking of took place in Mondoubleau, a small town near Orléans, in northern France. The unit I was with, a British company of grenadiers, was temporarily billeted there for two nights, regrouping ready for the race south, around Paris. I spent the nights foisted on a family of farmers. The sons were away—fighting in the resistance—and no one knew if they were dead or alive. The grandfather of the house, the only man of the family, was on his last legs, dying from one of those mysterious liver complaints that you hear about only in France. The old man had hung on for months apparently, knowing that the invasion must come. Now that it had happened and was coming—quite literally—through his house, he was, if not ready to go, at least reconciled to his death and pleased that he had lived so long. The family were Huguenots so there was no question of the last rights, but the old man was determined all the same to go with dignity and not a little style.

  “For months he had prepared for his last moment on earth. He was determined that it would not be just an exit but a proper farewell. So, whenever he felt his condition deteriorate, he would sink back and call the family, or whoever was at hand, including me, around him. Then, when a quorum was gathered, he would speak his final words. Or what were intended to be his closing lines. And the touching thing was that he had a whole anthology of last good-byes, a litany of final words, all worked out inside his head.

  “The trouble was that he never did actually die. It was, in its macabre way, hilarious. One time he might whisper, ‘Well, friends, it looks like the ship has slipped its moorings,’ or ‘Time to turn the page,’ or ‘My own D Day has come.’ And he would lie back, with his eyes closed.

  “The family would wait by the bed. But he would continue breathing. By the time I stayed there it had reached the point where some members of the family hoped he would die after one of these little speeches, since it would have given him so much satisfaction. Instead, after a while, the old man would pretend to be asleep and the family would creep out, embarrassed. Then, a few hours later, they would go through it all again. ‘Close the book, the story is ended,’ or ‘The last leaf has fallen, winter is here.’ Soon I had to move on, to Blois and Bourges, with the grenadiers, but the old man was still at it. Trying hard to go with some dignity but, for all that, still alive.”

  In what seemed like no time, it was ten o’clock. Not late but it felt as though it was. Allie and her father had listened to me attentively enough, but they were both fading. The Armagnac was finished and we went to bed.

  I awoke to find the sun in my room and the smack of freshly brewing coffee in my nostrils—it was barely 7:00 but Allie must already be about. Wrong: it was her father who was cooking breakfast, hot bread and fried sausage. She followed me down, dressed in a mustard-yellow ski overall and together we stepped outside to try the raw morning air. The house was in shadow but the scalloped white shoulders of the Hagen Gebirge were already soused in sunshine. It was going to be a spectacular day.

  “Father says you may borrow his skis and sticks,” said Allie, her breath forming little clouds in front of her face. “So all you need to get from the town is a suit, some gloves and boots. We have a knapsack for you and some snowglasses.”

  During breakfast I put a call through to Maurice and left word that I would not be able to phone again for a couple of days. I tried to do the same with Sammy but there was no reply from the office in Salzburg—too early. It took me half an hour in the town to find the right equipment but I also had to inform the military commander of the area that I was going out of uniform. Back at the house, I finally got through to Hartt, who listened to my change of plan without a word, then calmly informed me that my shares had dropped another five cents the previous day on account of a rumor that the president of the company was being recruited by President Truman to help organize the administration of postwar Germany. My “grand” was now worth $941.28. I was amazed that one man could have such effect but Sammy was beyond that, trying to find out what substance there was to the rumor before deciding whether to sell or not.

  I had to ask, of course. “And paper?”

  He sighed. “Up four—points, not dollars. But that still takes your friend to a thousand and twenty-two.”

  I was glad I had already been in touch with Maurice’s office that day. He could sweat in ignorance for a while.

  “How long will you be on this mountain jaunt?” Sammy asked.

  “Two nights.”

  “There’ll be no phones up where you are going, presumably?”

  “Correct, Sammy.”

  “Well, this thing will have cleared by then—so call me as soon as you can. You’ll have to trust me to do what I think is right.”

  “I know.” I did trust him, although my thousand dollars was now worth nine hundred and forty-one, give or take the change. “How’s Hobel?”

  “Caught up with something else, so you are not at the center of his thoughts for the moment. But don’t worry, he’ll plague you soon enough. Now remember, call me as soon as you can.”

  We set off. Earlier that morning I had bought chocolate and more tobacco from the American officer’s mess in Berchtesgaden and I left some for Allie’s father. He waved to us as we turned toward the mountains at the end of the street. He didn’t seem to mind his daughter going off with a total stranger. A track rose steadily for a mile or more and we followed this until another path turned off, leading to a ski lift. At that time of year it was quiet and there was no queue; the package tour was a thing of the future. The cable car, cold and primitive compared with what you get today, rose silently and the valley and Berchtesgaden began to stretch out below us, green and, in the distance, a fuzzy blue. After about six or seven minutes we reached the snow line and it grew very quiet. The cold closed around us, too, an intimate chill that drove us in on ourselves as we concentrated on keeping warm, blowing on our fingers, rubbing our ears, wriggling our toes. We were rising steeply now, past short, upright firs and the occasional small deer. Ski marks appeared in what seemed to me impossible locations. Silver-black burns slithered by, scratch marks in the snow, narrow and too fast to freeze.
>
  No matter how much we rubbed, wriggled or blew, by the time the cable car suddenly slowed, rounded a corner and arrived at a squat, red-gray shed, ugly as only human indifference can make something, we were solid blocks of cold. Beyond the shed we could see meadows of smooth deep powder, white but becoming buttery in the high sunshine. And, save for the trees, deliciously empty.

  We fixed our skis and inspected the map Allie had brought with her. We began to thaw. We double-checked that we had all the essentials we needed: coffee, chocolate, sleeping bags, tins of food, biscuits. Then we snapped on our glasses, I gave her a mock salute and we were off, down a slope and following the line of many ski tracks that had gone before but were now frozen over.

  In no time we were out of sight and earshot of the ski lift and a bright, shiny silence folded around us. Our breath floated out before us when we stopped to rest, though before long we were both glowing with sweat. Allie knew the mountains very well and led me with unerring speed. She knew which downward slopes could be used to pick up momentum, so we could coast up as many inclines as possible, and she appeared to know all the safe shortcuts through the trees. The deer were more plentiful up here and they seemed somehow in less of a hurry to escape. It was a glorious day and we were enjoying ourselves.

  I noticed that the ski marks grew scarcer as we went deeper into the mountains but that they never disappeared entirely. There was activity of some sort up here. Occasionally, we glimpsed villages far below, in the green valleys, still in shadow. Sometimes faraway rivers glinted in the sun. Before long I felt my skin beginning to itch in response to the sunshine.

  After an hour, perhaps more, we stopped for chocolate. I was fairly exhausted by now, having used muscles in a way I was unaccustomed to. “But,” said Allie mischievously, “we are not even halfway to the first hut. Shall we go more slowly?”

  The next hour, naturally, became a race. I didn’t do too badly since, to my relief, I found that I had gained my second wind. I was also learning how to relax on the downward runs so as to conserve energy for the hills. And on this sector we had to negotiate our way across, rather than down, a very steep precipice and that required a different kind of strength where Allie had to rely on me. By the time the first hut came into view, shortly before one o’clock, I was feeling very fit, my face roasting in the sunshine, and it was as much as Allie could do to keep in front of me. Indeed, my only complaint was that I was ravenously hungry.

  The hut was empty, but warm; someone had slept there the night before. There was fresh water outside, in a large canister, so we lit a fire and brewed coffee in no time. We ate biscuits, cheese, some fish paste Allie had brought and two apples I didn’t know she had. And we lay flat out on long benches to rest our aching bones.

  “What is our best strategy?” I asked. I had been doing some thinking. “Does it actually make sense to visit all the huts, or should we just stay in one place for a couple of days? If he is up here and he moves around, aren’t we more likely to catch him that way?”

  Allie shook her head. “The huts are strung out in a straight line, more or less. If we visit all the huts our paths must cross. If we wait in just one hut, it may take days before we see him. We can go back a different way, and take the train to Berchtesgaden.”

  We had a second coffee, then filled the canister again with melted snow, collected kindling from nearby, so it would dry for the next visitor, and moved on. Thankfully, the sun was on our backs that afternoon; I don’t think my face could have taken any more of its rays.

  I had not discussed it with Allie, but although I had changed out of uniform, I was armed still. I had a pistol and it occurred to me that von Zell, if we came across him, would almost certainly have a gun, too, conceivably a rifle. As the English would say, it might get very tricky. I resolved to approach the other huts with more care.

  No sooner had all this passed through my mind than I noticed that Allie, who was about fifty meters ahead of me, had stopped. About a mile away a figure was coming toward us. It was impossible, at that stage, to say whether it was a man or a woman, though surely, I thought, no woman would be up here by herself. A moment later and this query was answered: another figure appeared. I drew up alongside Allie and, without making any sudden moves, took off my right-hand glove and reached into my knapsack for the pistol. I hid it in my jacket pocket but not before Allie had seen it. She started to say something but I silenced her quickly, saying, “What did you expect? More chocolate?”

  The figures approached, closer together now. One was all in white, with red skis, the other in blue. When they were within earshot, I waved at them. They had not intended to stop but now they veered toward us.

  I was tense. What was I going to say? A horrible thought struck me: would I recognize von Zell if it were indeed him? Who on earth could he have with him?

  The two skiers slid to a halt about fifteen meters away and slightly below us. The smaller of the two immediately removed his snowglasses and I was relieved and disappointed at the same time. It was a boy of no more than eighteen. “Good afternoon,” he said, in German.

  Feeling overdramatic, and foolish, I nevertheless pulled out my gun. “I am sorry,” I said loudly. (We had been taught to talk loudly and slowly while pointing a gun at someone.) “I am a U.S. military officer and I am searching for a fugitive Nazi commander who is believed to be hiding out in these mountains.” I turned to the taller man. “Sir, please take off your snowglasses.”

  He refused. At least, for one horrible, agonizing, minute that’s what I thought had happened. I found myself wondering with dismay what I would do should the man make a dash for it. Would I shoot? No. I had spent the war in intelligence of one sort or another and had not fired a gun in anger once. I tried to remember von Zell’s description. Was this man in front of me too tall, too lean? Was he dark enough?

  Then, with an exaggerated slowness, to show his distaste for my “request,” the man lowered his glasses, and I pocketed my pistol. He was almost certainly German, probably an aristocrat, possibly an ex-Nazi, for he had a dueling scar ripped down his right cheek. But he also had a black eye patch over his right eye where the duel, no doubt, had left him blind. And I did remember that von Zell’s scar was on the left cheek.

  “Thank you. I’m sorry to have detained you,” I said, in as matter-of-fact tone as I could muster. “Please be on your way.”

  They turned down the slope and were gone. The one-eyed aristocrat had not spoken a word.

  Allie moved on without a word too. The sight of the gun had shocked her; until then our time together had been fun. But now I had brought the war back into her life, a war which had made life hard for so many years and killed her fiancé. I wouldn’t apologize for this “tidying up” that I was doing, but I knew how she felt. We saw a lot of it in our work. I let her ski on ahead for a while, so she could be alone.

  Around four, as the strength was beginning to go out of the sun, we stopped for more chocolate by a waterfall where we could also take a drink. We took off our skis and sat on some rocks where we could see across to the Hochkönig, the peak that overlooked Arthurhaus. Allie washed her face and hands in the waterfall, which was much too cold for me. I didn’t notice, but she must then have cupped her hands under the waterfall and crept up behind me. Before I grasped what was happening, she had tipped the raw-cold liquid down my neck.

  God, it was shocking. I exploded to my feet and Allie collapsed in laughter. It was more than just a joke, though. In part, she was paying me back for how horrid she thought I had been earlier on, when I had pulled out my gun. And in part the episode was, in its way, the beginning of physical contact between us. As I stood there, glaring at her, glacial rivulets chasing down my back, I was conscious that she had wanted to bring me up here, on the mountains, to be alone with me, away from her father. What had happened between Allie and von Zell up here? I wondered. We stepped into our skis and set off on the final sector of the day.

  During that last hour the light began to
go, and I, who had become perhaps overconfident after a day’s skiing, stumbled once or twice. So I was grateful when, around five, we topped a ridge and there, below us, was the second hut. It was somewhat larger than the one we had eaten lunch in, with a woodshed at the back and a large porch in front which, earlier in the day, would have been bathed in sunshine. I motioned to Allie to remain where she was and again rummaged for the pistol in my knapsack.

  There were no lights on in the hut, but then we had been chatting away as we approached and sound travels long distances over mountain snow. If there had been anyone there who wanted to avoid company, he would have heard us coming and would have had a chance to hide. I slid down the last slope and took off my skis some way from the front door. Quietly, carefully, I approached the hut from the side, and then went around to the back. There were no windows at the rear of the chalet, since it backed on to the mountain, but there was a red door that opened into a covered walkway connecting to the woodshed.

  Gingerly, I tried the door. It squeaked open. Inside, it was very dark and I had to allow time for my eyes to adjust. I wasn’t certain if, as I waited, I heard movement elsewhere or not. Houses have all sorts of sounds that they make by themselves.

  The bathrooms, I found, were at the rear of the building and I examined them first, one for men and another for women. Nothing. Next to the bathrooms was a large kitchen, also empty, and this gave on to the large living room, with chairs and a fireplace. That, too, was deserted. The staircase to the bedrooms led directly out of the living room, exactly as in Allie’s own house. I felt melodramatic again, climbing the stairs with my gun at the ready; this sort of thing had never happened to me while the war was in full swing. There were four bedrooms, each with enough beds to sleep four people. All were neat and tidy, ready as they should have been, for travelers such as we. But they, too, were empty.