Christopher's Ghosts

by Charles McCarry

  Rima was back on Miss Wetzel’s payroll. The coins she earned for walking Blümchen paid for the fruit she brought to Paul’s room. On the day after she returned from Rügen, Rima had called on Miss Wetzel to apologize for causing her to worry about the dog. Rima already knew that Blümchen was alive and well because she and Paul could hear the little dog barking excitedly in the apartment below. No doubt, at certain moments, it could hear them.

  Miss Wetzel had been afraid that something had happened to Rima. But the policeman who brought Blümchen home had explained everything—how poor Rima had witnessed a crime and was giving evidence, how she had asked that they bring Blümchen home so that her mistress would not worry about her. Such a thoughtful young lady! Blümchen missed her so! She barked her name, listen! Would Rima be interested in walking Blümchen again? At noon and in the evening, yes, but not in the early morning, Rima answered. She was studying a new subject and her mind was at its clearest when the day was new.

  And now Rima and Paul had oranges and tangerines and bananas in bed, sometimes even a mango. And each other, too. Wasn’t life wonderful? Rima whispered. Wasn’t it lovely?

  6

  On Saturday evening O. G. invited all three Christophers to dinner at Horcher’s, his favorite restaurant. It was also the favorite restaurant of the ruling class, and like O. G.’s dinner parties, it was thronged with women in fashionable gowns and military officers and civilian officials wearing what appeared to be the entire vast wardrobe of German uniforms. Several of the men greeted O. G. cordially. The Christophers were snubbed. Invisible.

  “This place has an interesting new clientèle,” Lori said. “Are we here to be poisoned?”

  O. G. ordered the prix fixe menu for all along with two bottles of wine, one German, one French. He ordered the waiter to let Paul do the tasting. O. G. watched, shrewd blue eyes behind round pince-nez, as the wines were poured and Paul tasted them, chewing a piece of bread between the white and the red. The bottles were wrapped in napkins, hiding the labels.

  “What’s the verdict?” O. G. asked.

  “I don’t like Gewürztraminer,” Paul said.

  “Why ever not?”

  “It tastes the way dried rose petals smell. But the red wine is delicious.”

  “Good palate,” O. G. said. “Nuits Saint-Georges 1929. Drink only wine made from the pinot grape, my boy, and you’ll live a happy life.”

  By the time the appetizer was served their table had ceased to be an object of curiosity. More important diners had more important things to think and talk about. Like all fashionable restaurants, Horcher’s had its own sound—pleased with itself rather than pleasurable—few arpeggios in the bedlam of its conversation, no diminuendos. It had made a different noise when Hubbard first knew it during the Weimar Republic. No doubt the sound changed with the regime, he remarked. What did the rest of them think?

  “Oh, Hubbard,” Lori said.

  “Strings in Wilhelmine days, saxophones during Weimar, drums and tubas now,” Hubbard said, undeterred.

  A rotund waiter approached. Under any regime he would have been a spy. Eavesdropping was his métier, along with taking orders and carrying plates. O. G. changed the subject as he drew near.

  He said, “You’re all coming to the Fourth of July party at the embassy, I take it?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Hubbard said.

  “I’m the official host this year,” O. G. said. “The ambassador is on sick leave.”

  He thanked the waiter, who had been fussing with the table setting and examining the Christophers, and he went away. Behind his lenses, one of O. G.’s eyes winked at Paul.

  Paul said, “I wonder if I can bring a guest on the Fourth.”

  “Of course you can,” O. G. said. “Everyone’s welcome on the anniversary of the greatest event in the history of civilization.”

  Lori said, “Paul, whom do you have in mind?”

  “Miss Alexa Kaltenbach,” Paul said, using Rima’s actual name.

  “You can’t be serious,” Lori said.

  “But I am,” Paul said.

  He was surprised by the look of bitter disapproval on his mother’s face.

  “Lovely child,” Hubbard said. “You’ll like her, O. G. Looks like Evangeline.”

  “Looks like who?” said O. G.

  “You know, Longfellow. ‘The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, standing like Druids of eld.’ ”

  “Oh, that Evangeline,” O. G. said. “Kaltenbach? Any relation to the famous surgeon?”

  “His daughter,” Paul said.

  “Ah. Poor fellow. He’s had a bad time of it. Bring her along, Paul. She’ll want a new hat. We’ll be in the garden as usual, weather permitting. Hope she likes fireworks.”

  “Believe me, she does,” Lori said.

  O. G. called for the bill and signed it. He exchanged pleasant words with the waiter. Was his son well? Extremely well. He was in the Luftwaffe, a parachutist corporal serving in Austria. Lori listened with a frozen expression. O. G. gave her a warning look. You never knew what she might say. The waiter noticed. He said, “A pleasure to see you, Baronesse, if I may be permitted to say so. It has been a long time since we have received you and your husband in Horcher’s.” His eyes swiveled to Hubbard, to whom he said nothing, then back to Lori as he backed away, bowing.

  O. G. had picked them up in an embassy car, an enormous sixteen-cylinder Packard sedan driven by a silent chauffeur. On the ride home O. G. chatted with Paul about baseball, a game Paul hardly knew.

  “You should take it up next time you’re home,” O. G. said. “It’s the most difficult of all games when it’s played the right way. In fact going out for baseball is the best reason for going to school in America. Your father was a pretty handy first baseman with those long arms and legs. Hit the ball hard and far. Struck out a lot, though.”

  When the Packard pulled up at the Christophers’ building, O. G. got out and walked them to the door. The males shook hands. O. G. kissed the air near Lori’s cheeks, his hands light on her shoulders.

  “Everything is falling into place,” he said into her ear. “Bring the boy’s toothbrush to the party.”

  To Paul, who was bringing up the rear, Lori said, “Run upstairs, dear, and get Schatzi. Poor dog must be miserable.”

  “Dear God, that’s three days from now,” Lori said, after the door closed behind Paul.

  “Yes,” O. G replied. “Chin up.”

  “But he doesn’t know.”

  “Keep it that way.”

  Hubbard said, “He may make a fuss.”

  “Paul?” O. G. said. “I don’t believe it.”

  “He’s in love.”

  “He’s in heat,” Lori said.

  Hubbard looked annoyed at his wife, something that happened every five years or so. He said, “Whatever you call it, Hannelore, he’s not going to want to leave this girl.”

  O. G. said, “This is the Kaltenbach girl?”

  Hubbard nodded. “She’s quite wonderful,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  “She’s also doomed,” Lori said. “He will be too unless he wakes up to reality.”

  “Excellent point,” Hubbard said. “We should all do that.”

  Lori said, “O. G., what exactly is the plan?”

  “It’s best you don’t know the details,” O. G. said. “You will leave the party, he will stay.”

  “Is that necessary?”

  “Yes,” O. G. said. “Everything has been worked out. Paul will be well taken care of, though I hadn’t counted on having to rip him from the arms of the girl he loves.”

  “He’ll be unhappy, but he’s young,” Lori said. “There will be other girls.”

  O. G. and Hubbard exchanged a glance. What hard hearts mothers had.

  “No doubt you’re right, my dear,” Hubbard said. “But after the first it’s never the same again.”

  7

  Even before she stepped through the kitchen door into the back stairway, Rima heard Bl
ümchen barking inside Miss Wetzel’s apartment. A moment later she understood why. Stutzer’s apprentices were waiting for Rima one flight below the Christopher’s back door. One took her by the right arm, the other by the left. They lifted her feet from the ground and ran her swiftly down the stairs and into the courtyard. Not a word was spoken. Coming out of the dark stairwell, Rima looked over her shoulder. Was Paul watching from his window? What if he decided to rescue her? She twisted her body, trying to look back at the building. Her captors, acting in perfect unison as if their brains had received the same instructions from some mother brain at the same moment, lifted her off her feet again and twisted her back into her former eyes-forward posture, then shook her, impatiently and hard, as if to snap the wrinkles from her own brain before putting her down again.

  At No. 8 Prinz-Albrechtstrasse, Stutzer waited. For once, Rima was taken directly to him. He was in uniform today. It fitted him perfectly, of course. His jacket did not bulge, his sleeves did not twist. His cap with its death’s head badge lay on a shelf behind him. This time he did not bother to pretend to read an important document. He was aware of Rima’s presence from the first second. He stared across his desk at her for a long time. She emptied her mind and met his gaze. It was Stutzer who broke eye contact. Waving his hand as if to fan away a disagreeable odor, he sniffed loudly, sniffed again, pulled a large white handkerchief out of his sleeve—Rima caught a whiff of cologne—and held it to his nose. He called out an order. The apprentices entered and opened a small window set high in the wall, one of them giving the other a boost.

  “You Jewesses never get enough, do you?” Stutzer said. “You smell like a bitch in heat.” He waited expectantly for Rima’s answer. She made none. She lowered her eyes, she blushed. “Hot but modest, how touching,” Stutzer said. One of the boys came in again with a small crystal glass and a bottle of Martell cognac. He filled the glass to the rim. Stutzer lifted it swiftly to his lips, not spilling a drop, and drained it.

  “Anti-gas measures,” he said to Rima. “Tell me, when you and your American citizen are taking a rest and whispering sweet nothings to each other in your smelly bed—oh, yes, we know you whisper—does he ever tell you about the liquidation of the redskins by the American army?”

  “No, Major.”

  “It’s an interesting story. The American cavalry commander in charge of this work, a man named Custer, believed that it was more important to kill the female Indians than the warriors. In Custer’s opinion Indian girls and women were far more dangerous than the braves because they were fertile, or would grow up to be fertile. They would breed and give birth to the enemies of the future. So when he and his troops attacked a redskin camp, they shot or sabered the women and girls first, then killed the warriors. Admirable logic, no? It teaches a lesson that we in the Reich should consider.”

  Rima, eyes still steady, revealed nothing.

  Stutzer said, “So what is your opinion of the Custer solution?”

  “I have no knowledge of such matters, Major.”

  “You don’t think it would be wise to eliminate Jewesses as a means of hastening the day when in the Reich the Jews cease to be? You Jewesses are such a temptation. Look at you yourself—you are as beautiful as Bathsheba, fit for a king. No wonder there are so many Jews.”

  Stutzer gave her a genial smile. “You know,” he said, “I sometimes think you’re afraid of me.” He searched her face as if looking for a sign that he was wrong. Rima remained silent. One wrong word, she thought, and I will never see the sun shine again.

  He said, “The fact is, I am not pleased with you. Your work hasn’t been good. You’ve been enjoying yourself with your American lover, but you have brought me nothing. No information whatsoever. Why?”

  “There is no information, Major. This family leads a perfectly normal life.”

  “Sometimes no information is valuable information,” Stutzer said. “Do you know why the S-boat was waiting for the Christopher’s sailboat that night?”

  “No, Major.”

  “Because we thought the entire family was aboard, trying to escape, that’s why. Do you understand what that means?”

  “No, Major.”

  Stutzer’s face turned red. He shouted, pounding on the desk and showering saliva, “It means that you failed us, that you put us to great trouble and expense, and that you could have prevented this by making a simple telephone call telling us that you and your joy boy were just sailing out to stink up the ocean with your dirty business!”

  Stutzer stared at Rima, eyes popping, face engorged, chin wet with spit. Then he wiped his face with his perfumed handkerchief and in the instant this took, returned to normal. He seemed to expect no answer or apology.

  In a perfectly calm voice he said, “Describe this perfectly normal life.”

  “The father gets up very early in the morning. He makes his own breakfast…”

  “The wife doesn’t get up at the same time and prepare his food?”

  “No. She sleeps longer, then usually goes riding.”

  “And the husband does what?”

  “He writes.”

  “That’s all? For the entire day?”

  “Herr Christopher is a novelist. That is his work.”

  “So he is writing this novel every morning while his wife goes—let us say—riding, and you ride their son in the boy’s bedroom?”

  “Yes.”

  “What exactly is this famous novelist writing?”

  “He doesn’t say.” This was the truth. Hubbard had never mentioned his work in Rima’s presence.

  “But there is a manuscript.”

  “I suppose there must be if he writes every day.”

  “Have you ever seen it?”

  “No.”

  “So it is a secret manuscript? Where is this secret manuscript kept?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  “In Herr Christopher’s study, perhaps.”

  “Brava! Under lock and key, perhaps?”

  “Quite possibly. He values it highly.”

  “Why? What’s so valuable about it? It’s just fiction, make-believe, is that not so?”

  Stutzer’s sudden affability frightened Rima. He was behaving like a friend of the family, teasing her gently, flirting with her, because she was such a pretty thing. But when she looked across the desk she did not see the genteel man who sat there motionless and smiling in his perfect uniform. She saw the screaming maniac she knew he really was. He was capable of anything. His talk of sex, his compliments about her looks, caused her to taste the contents of her own stomach. Stutzer’s methodology had achieved its purpose. Rima was in his interrogation room, in his power, and nowhere else in the world or in the imagination. Nothing existed outside the present moment. He stared at her—his pale eyes were as unreadable as glass. There was no hope.

  Shouting the question, Stutzer said, “Answer the question! Why does this American fool place such a high value on the useless stuff he writes?”

  The answer leaped from Rima’s mouth before she knew she had spoken. “I believe it is the story of their lives,” she said. “He writes down everything that happens to them or has ever happened. He calls it The Experiment.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it is the truth disguised as fiction.”

  Stutzer gave her an encouraging smile, as if he was her teacher and she had just won his favor, his gratitude, his affection with the right answer.

  “Then this novel is not what it seems to be. It is actually a record, a journal.”

  He flicked a hand, signaling that he needed no answer from Rima. She had already told him what he needed to know. He had deduced the rest. Then his face changed into a mask of fury and he shrieked at her, “Then get it for me! Get it for me tonight! Bring it to me tonight! Why have you waited to get it for me? Do you think you will not be punished?”

  Rima burst into tears. Like a small child she sobbed from the pit of her stomach. Stutzer was pleased by t
his. He was encouraged. He shouted more loudly, he pounded on the desk, he ran around the desk and seized Rima’s braid and pulled her off her chair and dragged her across the floor. He put his gleaming black boot on her breasts and pulled on the braid with all his strength.

  She was losing consciousness. She had not prayed since she was a child but she prayed now that he would break her neck. She knew that she had been tricked into the worst betrayal she could imagine. She could never be forgiven. She had become Stutzer’s possession.

  When Stutzer was done teaching Rima her lesson in obedience, he left her lying on the floor and strode from the interrogation room. The apprentices, who had been standing watch outside the door, immediately burst into the room and lifted her up, each one taking an arm. They rushed her down the hallway in the same choreographed way that they had danced her down the back stairway. A guard opened the back door. Without pause, without wasted motion, without losing a second, they threw her out. She fell on all fours on cobblestones, skinning her knees and the heels of her hands. Half a dozen chauffeurs, loitering beside parked cars, looked down on her without interest or expression. Her skirt flew upward when she was catapulted out the door. She covered herself, but she might as well have been dressed in a gorilla suit for all the sexual interest they took in her, or at least revealed to her or to one another. She was an object, not a human being.

  8

  As far as Rima could tell she was not followed to the Christophers’ apartment. She could not be sure. As usual, everyone walking behind her in the same direction—or the opposite one, for that matter—could have been sent by Stutzer. Perhaps the absence of surveillance, if absent it was, was a sign of Stutzer’s supreme confidence that she would now obey his orders without question. She entered from Gutenbergstrasse and climbed the front stairs to the second floor. The doorbell rang several times. When at last Hubbard opened the door, his thick eyebrows shot upward, and as he realized the condition she was in, his expression changed from delight to puzzlement to dismay. Rima had never seen the like in an adult. She put a finger to her lips before he could speak. Inside, she mimed writing with pen and paper.