by Peter Watson
“The end one is free,” said Reimer, pointing. “It is larger than the others. Why not take that?”
“Thank you,” I said, beaming. “We will.”
As we mounted the stairs and walked along the gallery, I noticed that all the rooms had their doors closed. Did that mean anything? I wondered. Were the doors hiding anything? My suspicions were interrupted, however, by a friendly shout from Reimer. “Water is warming. There will be baths in half an hour.”
“Thank you again,” I shouted down, following Allie through the only open doorway into the end room. I closed it firmly behind me and went instinctively to the window, looking out.
“That’s funny,” I murmured, mostly to myself.
“What is?” said Allie, lying on the bed, a high, wooden thing. She stretched her limbs.
“Two men walking toward the hut. They must have been gone at least twenty minutes … after all, we’ve been here that long. They must be the two men who Reimer says had gone to fetch kindling. Yet they are carrying no wood.”
“Darling,” said Allie, imitating the word and the intonation I had used before. “There’s half an hour before bath time …” I looked across. She was unbuttoning her shirt.
Afterward, with her kind of mind, Allie returned without preamble to the conversation we had been having before. “What was that about the two men outside?”
I had developed a sudden craving for a pipe, so I filled that first. “It just struck me as odd that the two men should have been gone for so long and to have returned empty-handed. It’s almost as if … they had left the hut to avoid us.”
“Why would they do that?” She tried my pipe, imitating the way I held it.
“I don’t know but it worries me because, if that’s what they did do, then they knew we were coming. Which means they have a lookout. And why would they need that?”
I don’t think Allie really took in what I was saying just then, for suddenly she was racked by a spasm of coughing brought on by the pipe, which she didn’t know how to handle. I laughed and took it from her. “Come on, let’s have our bath.”
When she had subsided we went downstairs. There was no one about, but I noticed that the fire had been built up with more logs and that the table was laid for seven.
Back in our room after the bath, while Allie spent time combing and recombing her hair, I stretched out on the bed and took from my knapsack the Worms newspaper I had found earlier in the day. On closer inspection I could see now that it was not a daily but one of those local weeklies in which the news consists entirely of parochial events—a new road being planned, repairs to the church, damaged in the war, local sports news, a big wedding in the offing. The fact that the paper was in these mountains in the first place meant that someone had close links with Worms. But that’s all it told me until I noticed that, near the back, in the classified advertisement section, a small notice had been ringed in pencil.
It was a curious ad. Most of those around it were straightforward: legal notices, a big section for secondhand clothes, this being just after the war, bicycles for sale, sewing machines, moneylenders. But the one that had been ringed said, as I recall:
“MOTHER. Missing you as always. Looking forward
to Sunday, at the usual place. No flowers. R.”
It made no obvious sense but it was the fact that it began with “Mother” and was signed “R” that drew my attention. Some newspapers, of course, make a feature of this kind of coded message—that’s what it seemed to be. But not a local paper. It must have been unusual, very unusual, in that context. Could it really be Rudolf von Zell keeping in touch with his mother? Or was it a coincidence? Worms was a big place, the war had forced many, many people to move around; perhaps it should come as no surprise that someone from the Worms area was here in the mountains. And the message could be code for all sorts of things. “Mother” itself might not mean what it said, or “Sunday,” or “flowers.”
I didn’t believe in coincidences. With luck the editor of the paper would remember who had placed such an unusual ad. I folded that page of the paper and tucked it into my knapsack. At the very least it was another lead if everything else came to nothing.
Allie finished combing her hair and put on the trousers and shirt she had brought for the evenings. They were both a dark, cobalt color and, though they had seen better days, managed exactly to release the dash of blue locked somewhere in her eyes. I was already dressed by then, with my pipe relit. We went down.
Everyone else was now assembled and the men fell silent as we appeared, then stood up. They were drinking beer and there was a jug of it on the table. So far as I could tell, von Zell was not among them.
Reimer came forward and made the introductions. “Good evening. May I welcome you more formally now. Mr. and Mrs. Wolff, I would like you to meet Gunther Kerschner.” Kerschner was a small, round, florid man with a high forehead, aged fifty to fifty-five. He shook hands and bowed slightly, saying he was from Innsbruck and a builder. Next came George Lammers, an engineer from Augsburg. He was in his mid-forties, I would have said, a blond man who had once been handsome but was now running to fat and, probably, hitting the bottle. He had a fine nose, deep-set blue eyes with a rather misty glaze to them which, for me, suggested that he was hardly the most intelligent of the group. The third man was called Joseph Muhlman. He had a rather English appearance, for his most telling characteristic was his posture, which was erect, aristocratic, self-possessed, arrogant even. Above all, elegant. He had lank brown hair, fine strands of which fell down across his forehead. His voice was a soft drawl with vowels as long as his hands, which had never, I was sure, done any manual work in their life. He was described as a farmer from the Tyrol. In that case, I thought, a gentleman farmer. Age forty-eight, slightly more maybe. And, finally, Oskar Handler, a ruddy-faced man with masses of hair—on his cheeks, the backs of his hands, in his ears even. He was in his fifties and had a vineyard on the Mosel, he said. In contrast to Muhlman, his hands were gnarled, coarse and crisscrossed with runnels of ingrained grime.
Introductions over, Reimer offered us beer. It was piercingly cold, making the glasses almost too frozen to hold. As on the previous day, when we had stopped the two skiers on the mountain, I was relieved but also disappointed that von Zell was not one of the five men standing around us. Even so, there was something odd—sinister almost—about them. I couldn’t place it yet, but it would come. Meanwhile, Allie was holding the fort.
She was explaining to the other four about our “wedding,” telling them we were on our “honeymoon.” The men were listening rather stiffly.
“But, my dear,” said Muhlman tartly, “you have no wedding ring.”
I caught my breath, but Allie took it in her stride.
“Oh, but I do. I have my mother’s, bless her. It’s being made smaller, at Laurin’s in Berchtesgaden.” She flashed Muhlman a firework of a smile. “In time for our return tomorrow.”
“That’s a short honeymoon,” said Handler. “When I was married my wife and I had two weeks in Italy.”
“You’re lucky,” said Allie easily. “But Walter has to get back to Vienna. He’s an architect and you can imagine how much rebuilding there is to do.”
I marveled at this invention of Allie’s. She had obviously forgotten what we agreed, but I had to admit that her improvisation was just as good as my idea, if not better. I was qualified in architecture, even if it was medieval architecture. And it was most certainly true about the rebuilding in Vienna.
Reimer had disappeared into the kitchen and Handler was playing host. He refilled my glass. “What kind of architecture do you specialize in, Herr Doktor?” he said, holding the jug of beer.
Now it was my turn to be convincing. “Renovation. I rescue old buildings—churches, monasteries, taverns. Anything that has been corroded by age or damaged by bombs. I’m an historical architect, if you like.” That seemed to satisfy Handler, but he asked another question, almost as aggressively.
�
��You don’t have an Austrain accent, Dr. Wolff. Where are you from?”
So Reimer had told them of our earlier conversation, as I thought he might. But I had seen this question coming and had my answer ready.
“I am Viennese, born and bred. But as a boy I had a governess from Heidelberg and later on I studied there. I picked up a lot of their intonations and rhythms. What you can hear is what the English call a ‘mongrel’ mixture of suburban Vienna and my governess’s German.”
This made them all smile and the atmosphere eased a little. Handler helped everyone to beer, but now Kerschner took up the interrogation.
“What did you do in the war, Herr Doktor?”
I noticed Allie’s smile take on a fixed, unfocused quality. She had described me as an architect and she was worried inside that she might have landed me in a spot, without a ready answer. But I had seen this coming too.
“Much the same. I worked for the Ministry of Buildings and Public Works. I surveyed bridges to see how strong they were; I designed air-raid shelters; I made surveys of what we should do if certain monuments were to be bombed—how we would have repaired them, and with what, after the war.”
“What about before the war? Were you never attached to any fighting forces?”
I had realized during this exchange what it was about the group that was odd, which made them sinister and, possibly, dangerous. It was their social mix. Handler was a coarse man, the more so when set beside the cool, elegant, aristocratic Muhlman. But Handler was just as much at ease with the aristocrat as he was with all the others. Everybody treated everybody else as an equal. That could mean only one thing, so far as I was concerned.
“I suffered from depression as a boy,” I said. Everyone in the room was now listening to me, so I raised my voice slightly. “As a result I was turned down by the Army.” My heart giddy inside my ribs, I added, “After Germany annexed Austria, my brother joined the Nazis, but my medical record was still against me.”
“And where is your brother now?”
“In an internment camp, in the British zone, I think. Near Hanover.”
“He is well?”
“Yes, I believe so. My mother hears from time to time.”
Reimer reappeared and announced dinner. Muhlman took command again and invited Allie to sit on his right, me on his left. The beer jug had been refilled and the company was beginning to relax.
“I’ll bet you can’t guess what we are having to eat.” Muhlman looked from Allie to me with a rather liverish luster in his eyes. Allie confessed that no, she didn’t know what to expect. I knew exactly what we were getting but pretended I didn’t. No point in letting on how clever I was. I never knew when I might want them to underestimate me.
“Venison?” said Allie when it was announced and brought in from the kitchen with a flourish. “But …” And I watched her face as she realized we were to eat the beast whose blood we had inspected earlier in the day, spread out on the snow. She stifled her revulsion. “… but how wonderful. How clever. And such a change from the pasta we had last night.”
The meat was of course a little young to be really good but it had been overcooked to take away the stringiness. The mood of the evening was loosening all the time but I still judged that, to keep us out of the danger we might have to face, some gesture on my part was called for. I waited until we were all midway through our meat and another round of beer had disappeared. Then, as he was the most aggressive man present, I addressed Handler.
“I hear they have a socialist government in England now. Serves them right.”
Handler looked at me hard, still chewing. Trying to work out what I was playing at. Allie stared at me, too, horrified at what I was doing. I smiled mischievously.
“Why do you say that, Dr. Wolff?” It was Muhlman who replied first, setting down his fork and drinking some beer.
I finished what I was chewing. “England, like other countries, responds to strong government. The British Labour Party cannot provide that—it is too divided against itself and Churchill is too strong an opposition. Hitler’s only mistake was to expand too fast. He should have consolidated, not opened up two fronts. Then he would have beaten England. He would have been invincible.”
There was silence around the table. “I hope you don’t mind me putting these views,” I added after a pause. “In Vienna it is fashionable now to disparage Hitler but, as an historian, even though I am only an historian of buildings, I like to think I can be more objective, more scholarly, than most. Hitler will be judged more kindly in the future than he is now.”
Muhlman turned in his seat to look at me. Then he glanced around the table. Then back at me.
“Reimer!” he barked. “Fill Dr. Wolff’s glass.” He waited while Reimer did as he was told. Then: “Dr. Wolff, you appear to be a clever man. The question is—are you also an honest one?”
A thin smile on his face, he looked from me to Allie, and then to Handler. “Oskar!”
Handler rose from the table. He made straight for a jacket hanging against the wall by the main door and, I was horrified to see, took from it a pistol. He turned and stood near the door, facing us. The message was unmistakable.
“Now,” said Muhlman, “how did you guess?”
“Guess what?” said Allie, mystified. I put my finger to my lips to quieten her. The less she said now the better.
“I didn’t guess,” I said, with what I hoped was a cocky smirk on my face. “I worked it out. We saw the deer trap this afternoon. That meant someone was up here for long enough to be able to trap food. Then, although we arrived late, there was only one person here—Reimer, who turns out to be the waiter, and is probably head cook and bottle washer as well. Two of you were supposed to be off collecting kindling but I saw you return empty-handed. So what did that mean? That two people had deliberately disappeared to avoid being seen by us, at least to begin with. And how could they have been warned about our arrival in advance unless you have a lookout? And why should you need a lookout? Why do you all keep your doors firmly shut? You have something to hide.
“Then I look at the five of you. Very different people, whether the stories you told us, about who you are and what you do, are true or not. It seems to me that, except for Herr Reimer here, or whatever his real name is, you are, all of you, German officers. There is no other way that you, Dr. Muhlman, and Dr. Handler here, could regard each other, and behave toward each other, as equals, as you so clearly do. Socially, you are poles apart but you must have spent years thrown together in the mess hall. Probably, you have been under fire together, in danger side by side. May have saved each other’s lives, for all I know. But enough, clearly, to make you absolute equals, men who enjoy mutual respect.
“In short, you are all Nazis—I will not call you ex-Nazis as others probably do, for my sympathies are with you. You are fugitives, exiles, on the run. Whatever. That explains why you have to be so careful when anyone approaches. You have been safe up here these past winter months but from now on the weather will improve, more and more people will come up here as the world settles down again. Earlier on, I tried to hint that I had worked out your secret. Maybe I can help. You can’t stay here forever, or indeed for much longer. As I say, my sympathies are with you, all the more so as my condition prevented me from fighting during the war.”
The others were silent, quite still, as I said all this. They scarcely breathed. This was the stage of maximum danger for Allie and me.
Muhlman smiled vaguely—it might have been friendly, it might have been menacing. After some time, he addressed Kerschner. “What do you think, Gunther? Is he telling the truth?”
Kerschner nodded. “I see no reason to disbelieve him. We do have a lookout.”
I relaxed. But not for long.
“I don’t believe a word.” It was Lammers. “He could be anyone. He may even have been sent up here to look for us. He doesn’t have a Viennese accent and the girl could be his cover. She doesn’t have a wedding ring, after all.”
“But she has already explained about her ring.” Kerschner was speaking again. “And if they were going to concoct a story like that, would they be so stupid as to turn up without a ring? That’s what real honeymooners do, not undercover agents. Don’t be so paranoid.”
“Hhmmmmnn,” said Muhlman, who seemed to be in the skeptical camp. He addressed Allie. “Where did you send the ring?”
“Laurin’s.” Allie said nothing more. It was a perfect answer, utterly convincing in its brevity.
“I have a thought.” Kerschner said, again facing me. “On the evenings we have fresh meat, we try to make it a bit of a party. We end our dinner with a few songs. We sing German songs, Prussian songs, Bavarian songs, Austrian songs. We sing Nazi songs they used to hum in the Vienna coffeehouses.” He turned to Muhlman. “If he is who he says he is, he’ll be able to join in.”
It was a vile idea but crafty. I saw a smirk of wicked satisfaction worm its way up Muhlman’s cheek.
No one exactly felt like singing, given the general mood at the table, but Kerschner, since it was his idea, eventually found his voice. He began with a German song, with words by Goethe, about a river sailor of the Rhine. By the third verse others were joining in, but I sat still and silent. The song finished. There was a short pause before, this time, Lammers started up. This was a Nazi song, of the most venomous kind, equating Jews with rodents. Everyone looked at me but I didn’t move. Allie—bless her—must have been terrified but, by some superhuman effort, she managed to look thoroughly calm, as if she knew I was just biding my time.
The second song ended. One or two of the men took nervous gulps of their beer, though Muhlman was not among them. He kept his gaze fixed on me but it was not easy to tell what he was thinking. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, then it was his turn to sing.
His was a vicious lyric, too, all about the glorious blond youth of Bavaria and how it had to remain pure and uncontaminated with hebraic sewer mongers and malcontents. Or some such ponderous rubbish which I have long since forgotten. As the second verse began, and even Allie’s smile was beginning to grow a little worn at the edges, I joined in. Tentatively at first, but that was because my voice was—has always been—so awful. But there was no problem with the words—I knew those only too well. Each verse of this song had to be delivered faster and louder and, as it progressed, the others joined in. Expressions around the table opened up, as they ignored the painful sounds that issued from my throat; they had ears only for the fact that my knowledge of the words was almost faultless. Allie looked at me, her expression much the same.
